Replies

[As far as the myth goes, importantly 'Prometheus' means forethought, and the myth is more honestly taken, not as fodder for Lewis primitivism, as much as artful commentary on the nature of a key capacity which distinguishes humans from animals.]

This has something in common with the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis. God forbids them from eating the apple but they partake anyway. They are now tainted with sin and God evicts them from paradise.

If one regards the apple as a metaphor for higher knowledge (which is lacking in mere animals) then when humanity acquires its superior intellect it now has the ability to determine right from wrong and good from evil (the ability to recognize sin).
The authors of both the Prometheus story and the Adam and Eve story are telling us that knowledge comes with a price, and that price is the responsibility to use knowledge wisely.

"If one regards the apple as a metaphor for higher knowledge (which is lacking in mere animals) then when humanity acquires its superior intellect it now has the ability to determine right from wrong and good from evil (the ability to recognize sin).

The authors of both the Prometheus story and the Adam and Eve story are telling us that knowledge comes with a price, and that price is the responsibility to use knowledge wisely."

Yes, I know this. (It is also related importantly to agriculture, and how the nature of forethought and knowledge lead people to economic activities that are immediately unpleasant compared to hunting and gathering, but more rewarding in the future. The Eden myth is also similar to the Sumerian myth.)

The way in which the author relates this theme of human knowledge to the themes of authority, power, evolution, and the causes of recent ideological and political systems of mass-murder is what got me into a tizzy.

Evolutionary theory is not the root of communism. The root of communism is utopianism with a self-sacrificial tint (Platonic Christian themes, filtered through Hegel and spun pseudo-scientific by Marx and Engels).

Evolutionary theory is not the root of people ignoring the fact that human beings have special import and value. Neither is that root turning away from god, unless you dishonestly redefine 'god' to mean 'reality'. The root of people ignoring the fact that human beings have special import and value is: (1) a history of pretending that special import is mystical, on the non-material side of a dualistic world, (rather than giving a reality-based account of the special import), combined with (2) subsequent people dropping mysticism after they had been indoctrinated by the first set that mysticism was the only possible basis for human value (for the record, people drop mysticism for the same reasons most people no longer do dances to the rain gods).

Totalitarianism is not caused by a desire to be godlike or some innate human opposition to god. It is caused by fools without complex or far-reaching foresight, acting on the most base, the most monkeyish of human instincts, in the ignorant belief that the trinkets and fast-fleeting neurotransmitter rushes acquired with such behavior will somehow grant them something real and non-fleeting.

If what the author were trying to say was "hey, you know what, humans have certain powerful faculties, maybe we should use those carefully and for good," she would not have produced an entire article. She's specifically trying to tie that patently obvious idea in to certain of Lewis' themes (many of which are dangerously close to noble-savage-utopic and anti-technology) and to various anti-evolutionary themes, and to obeying the dictates of religious authority.

For anyone who actually cares about human life and civilization (as opposed to mainly caring about protecting, from reality, the system of beliefs you happened to inherit), don't expect such regurgitory stunts to be particularly suited to preventing future ideologically-driven millions-mark death tolls.