Discover more from Inheritance of a Thousand Generations
Introducing "Inheritance": From a spark, civilization
From Bobby Kennedy to Aeschylus and back again
Inheritance began two years ago today as I, overwhelmed by pervasive discord, polarization, and divisiveness, found myself alone at a bar on New Year’s Eve thinking of Robert F. Kennedy. In an era before the internet and cell phones made news instantly accessible, Bobby Kennedy found himself in Indianapolis before a crowd of 2,500 people who had not yet heard the news of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. In this awful moment, Kennedy solemnly informed the crowd. Amidst cries of anguish, while improvising a speech, he summoned the wisdom of Aeschylus, reciting from memory.
Even in our sleep, pain Which cannot forget falls Drop by drop upon the heart, Until in our own deep despair, Against our will, comes wisdom, Through the awful grace of God.
This passage written 2,500 years ago by a Greek playwright seeking, as all of his craft throughout time seek, to see past the incidental details of his own world and distill some meaningful aspect of the human experience. Whatever spark animated Aesychlus and his kin now animates us. Though millennia separate our eras, the human experience captured in this passage is just as comprehensible now as when it was written: precious wisdom is neither easily nor quickly won, it must be suffered for. It must be labored for. If we are lucky, wisdom will be our salve.
As the bartender passed around glasses of champagne in anticipation of notching one more year on humanity’s belt, I mulled the miracle that Aeschylus’ words survived two and a half-millennia, that one man had cherished those words and, acting as caretaker and midwife, revitalized them for yet another generation. In doing so, Kennedy reminded the people of Indianapolis two things: that tragedy is an opportunity for betterment, and that the common spark of humanity resides in the heart of all men.
Kennedy closed his speech by again calling upon Aeschylus. He beseeched the assembled crowd to dedicate themselves “to tame the savageness of man, and make gentle the life of this world.” On that night in 1968, as cities across America erupted in violence, Indianapolis stood nearly alone, choosing unity over despair.
As we begin 2024 AD, a year certain to be dominated by conflict, we too can choose to stand apart and pursue this noble end. We should celebrate the incredible riches of our age. Our kind has set foot on the moon, ventured to the depths of the ocean and every distant corner of the planet. We can read a text message typed seconds ago by a stranger thousands of miles apart and texts written millennia ago. More people live in stable democracies and fewer in destitution than at any point in history. Capitalism, globalism, and liberalism have launched mankind into modernity, even as the challenges that accompany them strain our social order. The mechanisms of global cooperation, of finance and trade regulation, of international dispute resolution enable unfathomable degrees of collaboration and integration.
This is our inheritance.
The world we inhabit today is the fruit of a thousand generation’s labor, of a thousand generations passing the torch from one to the next.
The civilization that feels as natural to us as oxygen, that takes thousands of years, thousands of nudges of progress, thousands of forgotten sacrifices and risks to build up to. -Bari Weiss
Like any inheritance, we are given to taking for granted what we have not made ourselves. While so many are willing to cast aside our history and civilization in a bout of revolutionary fervor, this project endeavors to understand our inheritance, how it came to us, and the people who labored to make it so.
Aeschylus and the “Prometheus” story
As Kennedy looked to Aeschylus for salve in his own time, Aeschylus trawled the earliest reaches of history for wisdom from the dawn of civilization. Written around 450 BC, the play Prometheus Bound likely draws upon earlier stories that are now lost to the historical record. Creative human cultural activity predates all record of it. Nonetheless, we are the same species today as we were tens of thousands of years ago, with lives just as rich and engaging, relationships just as fulfilling and complicated as they are now. Due to limitations of technology and the vicissitude of time, only a minuscule and relatively recent fraction of human activity has survived.
For our purpose, Prometheus Bound serves as our stand-in for mankind at the cusp of cultural activity. Heretofore, man had been as beast. Thereafter, we stood apart from beasts and gods alike; we were our own. This period, though real, now exists purely within the realm of mythology and in both cases the transformative spark of mankind was fire.
The primordial world of Prometheus Bound, beyond the extent of civilization, is in the craggy, desolate, windswept ravines of Scythia (likely modern day Caucuses or southern Russia). A new age has dawned. The titans, gods of old, are cast out and in their stead, the new gods reign. Zeus helms the pantheon and charges one of his sons, Hephaistos, with executing the banishment of Prometheus. Hephaistos, the god of fire begrudgingly forges the chains with which Prometheus’ splayed limbs are to be bound to the rocky face of a cliff. Prometheus, a titan, son of Earth and Sky, now his only companions, rages against his fate.
For the power, the glory I gave to human beings, I’m bound in irons. I tracked down fire, where it springs from. And stole it. I hid the spark in a fennel stalk, and brought it to human beings. Now it shines forth: a teacher showing all mankind the way to all the arts there are. That’s my crime. That’s why I’m hammered in chains under the open sky. - Prometheus
No longer is man merely subject to the whims of natural forces, undifferentiated from cattle. Man has agency and with it, he creates culture. Archeological evidence suggests that humans have regularly used fire for the past 300,000 years. This technology enabled us to cook food, rendering more nutrients available. Healthier, more nourishing food enabled us to become more intelligent and to inhabit colder environments. As we left the Stone Age and forged the Bronze Age, new applications were found for fire.
Prometheus, now bound by chains wrought from the same fire he pilfered for man proudly enumerates his gifts. “I gave them intelligence, master of their own thought.” From this followed numbers, navigation, medicine, metallurgy, and all human culture. In this, Aeschylus celebrates both the extraordinary accomplishments of his era (of which he is most certainly one), and honors those who suffered in order to pass the torch.
The “torch-passing” metaphor is useful in that it emphasizes the continuity and longevity of human endeavor. However, it evokes images of Olympic relay-runners, obscuring the conflict involved in each exchange. Often, the torch is passed despite rather than because of the efforts of the torch-bearer. Throughout the play, Prometheus hurls insults at Zeus, illustrating the tyranny of the insecure young ruler.
Every ruler who’s new is hard.
This Tyrant of the Gods so profited from my help. He paid me back in full, with evil. Because all tyranny is infected with this disease: it never trusts its friends.
He bares the spearpoint of his pride, over the Gods that used to be.
You’re all so young, newly in power, you dream you live in a tower too high for sorrow.
Many of us have workplaces, families, communities, or other institutions that are riven by cultural tension that seems to follow generational lines. It is often the young who, full of certitude, seem all too willing to sieze the reigns of power, confident they will be better stewards than their predecessors. Though they profit from the free and open society cultivated and protected by generations past, some denounce those liberties and would suspend them for their adversaries, not thinking of how those tools could be used against them, in turn. Likewise, those who are old now were young once, and doubtless were similarly hubristic. Our torch passing seems at times to be every bit tempestuous as that depicted by Aeschylus.
Even as the drama of Prometheus Bound is propelled by the inevitability of intergenerational conflict, it is also a testament to man’s relentless drive towards progress. A lone human, Io, makes a harrowing journey to beseech Prometheus for guidance for she is beset by the lustful attention of Zeus. Prometheus promises her that ten generations hence, Zeus will have a child with one of her line and “she’ll bear a child greater than its father.”
This is the story of civilization. Civilization is not linear. It advances and retreats, but over a timeline of many generations, it marches inexorably forward. We may now be in a period of retreat, but so long as we continue laboring diligently, the spark of humanity will continue to be passed throughout the generations.
Prometheus: Humans used to foresee their own deaths. I ended that.
Chorus: What cure did you find for such a disease?
Prometheus: Blind hopes. I sent blind hopes to settle their hearts.
Thank you very much for reading the inaugural issue of Inheritance. The next issue will explore pre-history and the agricultural revolution. It is scheduled for delivery 1/15/24. As we exchange one year for another, I’ll raise my glass and I hope you’ll raise yours. I’ll sign off with the words of Scottish poet, Robert Burns, whose handsome visage I’ve appropriated for my own profile picture.