“But now, in this century of ideologies, the Gods and Destiny have been given new life. ‘Miracles in the world are many,’ Sophocles wrote in the fifth century BC. ‘There is no greater miracle than man.’
Suddenly, at the end of the twentieth century, we discover that no, after all, it isn’t true. Historical inevitability is a greater miracle than man. As is the dialectic. As is the superiority of various groups according to blood type. As is the genius of an abstract mechanism called the market. As is the leadership of inanimate objects – called technology – which worker bees create and then, inevitably, are led by.
These inevitabilities are great leaps backward into the arms of the Gods and Destiny.”
John Ralston Saul
It’s funny but I remember translating that line above from Sophocles as an undergraduate in college. ‘Many are the wonders, but nothing more filled with wonders than man.’
We are much worse than ancient cultures with their superstitions. We are granted enormous amounts of data, with more knowledge of the workings of the universe and nature than any other generations, and we cannot see ‘the big picture’ as well as they might, substituting our own myths and legends of ourselves and our marvelous exceptionalism, while ignoring the greatest forces of God and Nature.
We dissipate, relentless in our doom, to glare at photons, gaping in the light.
Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow.
This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 04 DECEMBER 2014.
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