>>20411876If you've ever read Hesiod, he talks about a mystical time in which man and god walked in common. This was the golden age, and all was in perfect harmony. Man lived very long lives and maintained youth until they were ready to die. Their spirits would live on after death. Plato called them "golden men" and said they were like "daemons," meaning knowing or wise. Then, during the silver age, men were slightly more combative and divided. They lived shorter lives and quarreled amongst themselves, refusing to worship the gods. Zeus cursed them to Hades. But it was still a good age. After that came the Bronze Age, an age in which men were penultimate warriors and war was their passion. Unlike the Silver Age, these men were not impious. This age saw the rise of great cities. This age left no ghosts because the men were so violent. After this, the flood of Deucalion (father of Hellen, father of the Hellenes) came and wiped them all out.
After this came the Heroic age, the only age which was better than the preceding one. This was when the battles of Thebes and Troy happened. The men who died in this age went to Elysium. Then came the iron age, an age characterized by toil, misery, and strife. Mother against son, son against father, father against daughter, daughter against mother.
The corollary here, what my point is, is that beyond all of this stimulating discussion, which of course I hope to continue, is that it took a flood to produce an age which saw real true heroes like Ajax and Theseus. It took massive calamity to see an improvement. Otherwise, once we settle, things slowly turn downhill over time, and if nothing arrives to upset the anthill, it will slowly rot from within.
That's what I think is going to happen. We will see a new heroic age spawn from the ashes of this civilization, entirely new conceptions that are familiar and organic, and perhaps new royal lines will spawn from these heroes. But it's all conjecture.
