Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Tombo's weblogs...	Log In to post a reply

173 messages	Topic View: Flat \| Threaded

TomBo

1629 posts

sense of self

Sep 25, 2003, 23:51

All hail the mighty Ragazoomingmumps, with his camel-drawn Sky Chariot!

You say the moment that the elf became the deity is also "the moment that man became Man. It is the moment that something became more important than *I*". Is the defining quality of being human altruism? Chimps behave altruistically, grooming each other.

"The joyous and unconscious act of erecting a standing stone in response to the jubilation of learning to farm may have been the single specifically inharmonious act which has become known biblically as the Fall. For it was at this moment that humans first peeled themselves away from the Mother Earth just long enough to feel a true Separation. And it was here that the first feelings of 'I' and 'we' exploded in human consciousness."

Interesting that in Clarke's/Kubrick's <i>2001</i> it is the appearance of a monolith (ie. standing stone) that marks the dawn of humanity, albeit one erected by aliens (symbols of the stellar component in our conscienceness?). Interesting also the way that our letter *I* resembles a monolith, and the number *1* (looking after number one, you know).

I'm much more convinced by the argument that we first became truly human when we first established our ego, our sense of self-as-separate-from-the-world, than I am by what you say about altruism. I've read somewhere that trying to communicate with the subconscious mind is like trying to talk to an animal (or a young child). It seems to me that it is ego that makes us human, that distinguishes us from the animals, most of which are driven entirely by instinct (though some, ravens and dolphins for instance, show emerging ego-consciousness). I think I take your point about the birth of the gods, though. If it takes a poet/storyteller/shaman to make a god then that would have to have happened after we became human (again, by this I mean different to an animal) - animals aren't poets. Perhaps the gods were born at the same moment as the stones were raised? The gods appeared with their temples?

I wonder when language was invented...

I guess that the cult of the human dead fits in with this, too. So many monuments are funerary - perhaps we only started to pay these respects to the dead after we began to think of us as a *we*, an *I*.

In reply to:
Re: when is an elf more than an elf? (FourWinds)

Replies:
ps (TomBo)
Re: sense of self (morfe)
Re: sense of self (FourWinds)

Topic Outline:

Tombo's weblogs... – nigelswift, Sep 22, 2003, 10:01


The Modern Antiquarian Forum Index