© Eso Antons Benjamins, a.k.a. Jaņdžs

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR
77 Climbing Mt. Citheron (X)

"King Oedipus” is a tragedy, which as a play and a story has endured a misreading, the misreading leading to tragic developments for humankind as a whole. That we have come to read the story afresh and gain new meaning from the riddle it presents is the result of a confluence of occulted near and far historical events, a chronal moment and a confluence for the inner consciousness of a writer living in antiquity and our own.

The gyres of occultation, which have enabled us to see something so obviously before our eyes as to have escaped our notice for these many years, are partly related to such events as the death of innocents; bombs upending earth seconds and not many meters behind; the sight—mercifully from a distance—of cities burning; tortured bodies marching by imaged in the clouds; and not least, the stealing from the Latvian people, of whom I am one, the future. The latter is the end result of rule by a government with no ultimate sense of responsibility for the results of its deeds as government. The people, so commonly referred to as “populists” (why not equate populism with a form of “terrorism” then?), have been pushed to the periphery where government feeds on its livers without cost to itself.

The chronal moment of unriddling the riddle (likely related to the universe as a hologram) is driven by a necessity to acknowledge events we have been censured from noting to lasting effect, and, thus, have not been able to give the chorus of dissident voices “out there” an ear. Our necessity is the necessity for truth that comes to every dying entity on its deathbed—to live on through others. So, let it not be said that either Sophocles or myself have invented the story of King Oedipus, but that it has gone unrecognized for the lack in our civilization of self-sacrifice, which has brought us to a time when a majority of people on our planet, little Latvia including, have little more than their naked self.

The willful misinterpretation of the role of Oedipus in Sophocles’ “King Oedipus” is the result of a zerstoertes (disturbed) mind. The failure by the mind in our times to look beyond the immediate is as profound as looking over the ruins of Dresden and Hiroshima and not seeing them, and the inability to bring a Stalin, a Churchill, and a Truman even post mortem to court for war crimes. The ruinous events in what so many theatre goers have presumed to be an honest rendering of a tragedy (there was a Nuremberg trial, what else do you want?), turns out to have been Sophocles’ coded scream for help, but unnoticed for the presumption that what makes tragedy has no relation to government.

If “Tiresias’ Revenge” becomes a story of which the riddle went unsolved (for good reason some may claim) for two thousand years (Scaligeri’s chronology), it may contribute toward the removal of so-called “just war” from the bag of pardonable crimes and prosecute it from the perspective of past, present, and future self-sacrifices. Were this to happen, the onus will be on those who fail to acknowledge the equal signs between themselves and the victims as well as beneficiaries of their acts. At this time, the beneficiaries of the government have the power to ignore any call to responsibility. The payment in lives and life styles is still exacted from the weak for the benefit of the strong solely because the latter invented arms that kill at a distance. The mailed fist has for too long allowed a minority to remain in denial that it is the major cause of death of “others”.

The so-called ‘just wars’ are little more than those who are violent claiming for themselves a “more equal than other” status. As the killer drones in Afghanistan prove, the art of ‘just war’ has progressed to the point where the killer kills the victim as if the latter were a figure on a video game screen and the former no more responsible than a child for pushing the buttons in a gaming arcade at a shopping mall.

With death among the violent ones having been replaced by the doctrine of ‘resurrection of the dead’, death among educated “elites” occurs as if in secret still. Indeed, the violent ones have not only eliminated direct knowledge of the death of their victims, but knowledge of themselves as mortal beings. Sure, death remains a matter for tears among one’s immediate relatives, but the laws that tell that the body will upon death be taken to the refrigerator at the mortuary make sure that death remains invisible and will not trouble the dictatorship of positivism. No rulers of hegemonies where consumers are the core of ruling parties will acknowledge that they are the cause of death of millions of—let us call them ‘nakeds’. Such ignorance follows the same line of reasoning which during the current crisis causes governments to treat the most irresponsible banks institutions “too big to fail”, because failure means their fall from power as well.

The subject of violence and death presently discussed is not often met with in the discursive space of modern media. None of the “authorities” who have done and condoned violence has sworn an oath to die a conscious death, yet the same are said to be fully conscious and in alignment with the will of Allness when they send to their deaths millions. No “authority” in our day will extinguish his-her life through his-her own will—even if that is not expected from them sooner than old age—and will censor such a notion as suitable for public space.

The doctrine of self-sacrifice and the ability to extinguish one’s life comes from an imaginary that has expectations of a future in which a larger-than-life community creates an environment that enables it to recreate itself until forces beyond it—rather from within it—end it. It is from this itself that life beyond mere naked life community arises. It is from the larger-than-life community which is able to practice self-sacrifice that the potential of a continuum of self-consciousness arises.

If one wishes to create a hegemonic community, one has to be willing to help create the kind of charismatic bond that memory will not let go of. Death through natural causes may provide the original understanding for the desirability of such a charisma. Death as a result of a violent attack may confirm the power of death’s charisma. However, only self-sacrifice faces the charisma of death (some may wish to call it motivation) in full self-consciousness. This is why one must learn to project, then internalize an image that is powerful enough to displace the image of Jesus in the sky. Innocent as Jesus himself may be, his image was engraved into the vault of the sky by the physical violence of those who reject owing up to the notion that a fully human community can result only when its members have authority over their deaths. In the context of the neo-Christian secular order, which is founded on the high blown words vs the arch-Christian Johns seeking to live with the endura engraved as the grail on their minds, it is the former who die in their beds, while the latter if not dead by fasting, once managed to die on their feet. There are none like these in public space today, unless the space is not only subjective, but hidden, and if discovered is lied about. Hopefully, the solving of the riddle of “King Oedipus” will turn the tide and soon prevent the rule of lies.

Asterisk & Notes of Interest:
On material depravation in Latvia.
On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” George Orwell's Animal Farm. 
A recommended read: “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” by Emmanuel Goldstein (A book within a book from George Orwell's  "1984"). 
Of great interest to me is this and like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the growing of Johns Grass in Latvia.
These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.
Partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline + Forum Home + Open Forum –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/