Pandora is Blameless

 

Pandora John William Waterhouse 1896

    It came to my attention today whilst reading about the asteroid Pandora and her mythology that the first Greek man has no name.  At least none that I have come across in my studies on the topic.  There is however the first woman, Pandora, sent as punishment to man for accepting the stolen divine fire gifted to us by Prometheus.  Zeus punishes Prometheus directly as well, but first he sends us Pandora, the spites, and for some strange reason hope.  Pandora is endowed with her personality by the Olympians, each giving her their own traits.  For instance Hephaestus made her idle, and Hermes placed lies into her mouth.  Pandora was sent to Epimetheus, who's name means hindsight, and this in contradistinction to his brother, Prometheus, who's name means foresight.  Epimetheus is forever looking backwards at events after they have occurred, while his wiser and more maverick brother has the ability to look forward into the future and to respond to what may happen, or to set up conditions for some possible future.  This seems to me to be indicative of strategy and therefore more in keeping with the goddess Athena who is known for her strategic mind.  In one telling we hear that Athena endows the first unnamed man with her breath and therefore bequeaths us with the thinking mind.  Athena gives us consciousness.  In other telling's it's Prometheus that not only creates us from clay and water but also gives us consciousness.  Yet it's Hephaestus who fashions Pandora, the first woman, and she has a name.  Why might the first woman have a name but not the first man?  

    We see this same myth in Genesis with Adam and Eve, and they play the same parts.  In that version Eve falls under the sway of the serpent who tricks her into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  She gives Adam the apple who unsuspectingly eats of it, and therefore mankind is damned to forever toil in the soil while women are relegated to the necessity of birthing human babies with a head size which could not be any larger and still be possible.  The human cranium must be bendable at birth to pass through the birth canal which is why we have fontanelles at birth.  It's only in the months after birth that our craniums become solid plated.  If our head were any larger at birth than the female hips would have to be too wide which would not allow for running, any smaller and we would be even more helpless than we already are at birth.  Already we are the most helpless of Earthly animals upon birth.  Most of the rest of the animal kingdom can damn near hit the ground running...literally.   What might the ancients be saying about the nature of woman?  Why did the Greeks not name the first man but they did name the first woman?  Our punishment needed a name.  What exactly is it that we needed to be punished for?  Existence?  Curiosity?  Are not those things given to us by God?  Zeus knew that the box would be opened, just as God knew that his creation would eat of that forbidden fruit.  Our banishment and punishment was meted out before we ever had the chance to make an informed decision on the matter.  We never had a chance.

    In We Who Wrestle With God Dr. Jordan Peterson goes into great detail about what all this might mean (at least the biblical account).  In this account Eve is mans "worthy adversary," our "helpmeet."  It looks like our punishment is because Adam reacted in the same spirit as I'm embodying here.  He says to God that it's God's fault for putting the perfidy in Eve's actions, that he is a victim in all of this, that the "helpmeet" that God gave to him was an evil sorceress who he's fallen pray to.  The idea of Lucifer is to want to know better than God.  It's counter to faith.  It's curiosity!  I want to know and is that the great sin?  We are to aim for the mark, and if we miss it than we are sinning because we have not put our best foot forward. We have not made proper sacrifice in the spirit of giving the best that we can to the most high.  I wrestle with intellect, and with curiosity, and with wanting to know my purpose.  How are we to know what to aim for?  

    After I wrote the previous blog I couldn't shake a feeling of foreboding and potentially something akin to embarrassment.  I worried if what I had written sounded arrogant and pretentious.  I worried that I had bashed Christianity with a sarcastic wit.  Nothing overtly insulting was said, but maybe it could be felt, and the reader would not be wrong to feel that way.  Western civilization in fact owes a debt to Christianity.  It's true that slavery was abolished due to Christianity making the individual soul sacred.  Dr. Peterson has talked about this a good bit as well.  This ethic is in contrast to the Communist impulse of "from each according to ability and to each according to need."  What could be wrong with that ethic?  It sounds pretty Christian actually.  Well the problem with that ethic seems to be human nature, and that problem has been called "the problem of the free rider."  That is, people will game that system.  Communism sets up a game whereby players are incentivized to do the least amount of work because their efforts will not change their reward.  The guy who does the absolute bare minimum will get paid just as much as the girl who goes leaps and bounds beyond expectations, even if she doesn't hand over that proverbial apple.  What is the answer to that dilemma?  Capitalism of course, because in Capitalism we are rewarded for our efforts, at least that's how it's supposed to work.  You can certainly find examples in the American capitalist heroes such as Andrew Carnegie who came to America and boot strapped his way into the richest American to ever live.  Yes, it is possible to become financially wealthy under capitalism, but it's more likely that you will slave away hoping to pay your bills and stay out of crushing debt.  If we are to pay attention to history than we would be wise to seek Capitalism over Communism.  The worst atrocities in recorded human history are due to the socialist and communist efforts.  Just ask any Chinese person who got to starve to death eating tree bark under Mao Zedong, or Cambodian floating and bloated in the killing fields of Pol Pot, or any Russian laboring in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin.  None of that was accidental.  

    The main reason I'm writing today is to put forth a statement of humility.  I do not know the secrets of the universe.  I am just a humble man looking for the secrets of the universe.  I go wherever my curiosity goes.  I lift every rock and look behind every curtain.  I'm especially drawn to any type of veil, because like Pandora I like to lift things and have a look.  What's inside?  Can I know?  Is wisdom inside?  Secret knowledge...is it in there?  Is there anything occult and hidden behind the moon?  What exactly is infinity and how can we know?  I do know that infinity fits inside of my conception of reality, and so in my mind is everything that can be found, and I want to find it.  This life is not for everybody, in fact it's not for most, but if it's for you than you will know.   We are not willing to just accept dogma because it's been written and passed down.  You can't "know thyself" by just blindly following the herd over the cliff.  I can tell you what's at the bottom of that cliff;  a soul death is at the bottom of that cliff.  I'm sure I'll open some lids and there will be some spites that come out.  I know that to be the case.  I've lifted many a lid and been stung by what flew out in consequence.  Some of those stings go on stinging and never stop.  Some wounds never heal because they are inflicted by raucous friendly fire on the accidental fringes in poisoned Hydra blood and released by trip wire.  There is no cure and you are just doomed to suffer from the consequence of your curiosity.  You are forced to limp on worried about what you have done and how you might fix it.  Can it be fixed?  Was it fated?  I didn't put those spites in the box.  I'm just the poor sucker who fell for another of Hermes god tricks at the cross road of my life.  

Achilles and Chiron by Puget 1746

    If you've bothered to read this far, you're likely not insulted by me.  It's not my intention to insult or belittle anyone.  I'm just a humble man who goes around lifting lids due to curiosity.  Somebodies got to let hope out.  The good news is that Hope sticks around, but you won't know about it if you don't lift the lid.  Or maybe you will know about it, but only because people like me go on lifting lids, pushing veils aside, and eating poisonous and forbidden fruits.  I'll suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune because I couldn't have done otherwise anyways!