Gods Don't Die

A 21C poet's perspective on the 'death of god'

A cold man or a frigid woman asserts that a god can turn their back on a person, but under the right condition the goddess of love will wholly embrace them again, and there is nothing they can do about it. But how often do gods die? Thinking over the modest amount of legends I've read, I would say not very often. The creation story sometimes has a death of a god, which I would purport memorializes a fundamental change to the human consciousness. What often dies instead of a god is the half-mortal son/daughter. Without the half-mortal, there is no example of a god manifesting in a man on which to model oneself. The half-mortal dies, but often there is a cultural replacement to him. So when philosophers wrote God is dead ... what were they referring to if gods don't die.

The first newspaper appeared in 17C. Suddenly men had access to reports of great, humble, respectable deeds a real-life man had done in the real world. These reports of half mortals are more real than any half-mortal born from legend could ever be, and so the hierarchy of achievement in any specific domain came to provide the half-mortal, to model oneself on.

Corruption and Broken Hierarchies

We need hierarchies to make quick judgments, as a hierarchy is supposed to do the complex job of comparing things for us.

Perhaps, to fix the hierarchy is to sure up society, as it entails ensuring the right people get to the top in the right way, and in doing so encourages and motivates others. The mutual adherence to rules is the definition of a game.

There seems to be far less lions walking around and far more bulls and angels making noise and mess. The age of enlightenment that encouraged each head of a household to be a lion is gone. Angels entice eagles or impostors to take up power for angels are helpless and idle.

There are a lot of attacks on the hierarchy system. I do not for a second believe there aren't bad actors actively facilitating such attacks for selfish, ill-logical or ideological means, perhaps ******* or *****. It is also in the interests of those outside the in-group to attack it, such as immigrants and proles. It is clear though, that there is a large grassroots distributed group, that wants to attack it, and that speaks volumes. Ignoring the reasons people give for attacking the hierarchy system; we people are irrational. Maybe, just maybe, the hierarchy system we use to measure success is being attacked because it needs to be destroyed, as it is no longer fit for purpose?

Bill Gates is near the top of the hierarchy, because of a morally corrupt business deal in the 80s, and rewarding positions in shares.

We live in an age where:

• Intelligence agencies write fake academic papers.
• Journalists in countries signed up to the human rights laws, suffer in solitary confinement.
• 'Philanthropists' donate large sums of money to media for motivation for silence or positive editorials, for their financial benefit.
• Money can be made from holding assets that central banks buy with the fake money they pretend to have.
• Past news articles get taken down or edited to fit changing views.

...ect.

Blockchain is the future, it will become expected like encryption, and will prevent the altering of narratives, acting to make the hierarchies more honest. But it will probably inadvertently facilitate more information fatigue than we have today. When there are 1000s of dishonest narratives crowding the one truthful narrative, only the dishonest ones will propagate.

There are looming events and technology, which, will further degrade the hierarchy system. As things become too complex for one organization to perfect, there will be a popularisation of opensource culture. 3D printing will make many business models unviable, and artificial intelligence (A.I.) will make many career paths dead ends.

The Gods must Choose Mortal Mothers

In a post-functional-hierarchical system, perhaps communities will revert to legends of half-mortals for their citizens to model themselves on, or, perhaps an A.I. could create a personalized half-mortal that will garner the optimal motivation and aspiration from an individual. Am I a villain for telling a fictional story of a great man, to inspire motivation in my son? No. Is there a greater good to the lie? Yes.