Can you step in the same river twice? Wittgenstein vs. Heraclitus
Imagine Heraclitus spending an afternoon down by the river...
12 January, 2021
Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash
'I am not a religious man,' the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said to a friend, 'but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.'
<p>These problems that he claims to see from a religious point of view tend to be technical matters of logic and language. Wittgenstein trained as an engineer before he turned to philosophy, and he draws on mundane metaphors of gears, levers and machinery. Where you find the word 'transcendent' in Wittgenstein's writings, you'll likely find 'misunderstanding' or 'nonsense' nearby.</p><p>When he does respond to philosophers who set their sights on higher mysteries, Wittgenstein can be stubbornly dismissive. Consider: 'The man who said one cannot step into the same river twice was wrong; one <em>can</em> step into the same river twice.' With such blunt statements, Wittgenstein seems less a religious thinker and more a stodgy literalist. But a close examination of this remark can show us not only what Wittgenstein means by a 'religious point of view' but also reveal Wittgenstein as a religious thinker of striking originality.</p><p>'The man' who made the remark about rivers is Heraclitus, a philosopher at once pre-Socratic and postmodern, misquoted on New Age websites and quoted out of context by everyone, since all we have of his corpus are isolated fragments. What is it that Heraclitus thinks we can't do? Obviously I <em>can</em> do a little in-and-out-and-back-in-again shuffle with my foot at a riverbank. But is it <em>the same</em> river from moment to moment – the water flowing over my foot spills toward the ocean while new waters join the river at its source – and am I the same person?</p>
<p>One reading of Heraclitus has him conveying a mystical message. We use this one word, <em>river</em>, to talk about something that's in constant flux, and that might dispose us to think that things are more fixed than they are – indeed, to think that there are stable <em>things</em> at all. Our noun-bound language can't capture the ceaseless flow of existence. Heraclitus is saying that language is an inadequate tool for the purpose of limning reality.</p><p>What Wittgenstein finds intriguing about so many of our philosophical pronouncements is that while they seem profoundly important, it's unclear what difference they make to anything. Imagine Heraclitus spending an afternoon down by the river (or the constantly changing flux of river-like moments, if you prefer) with his friend Parmenides, who says that change is impossible. They might have a heated argument about whether the so-called river is many or one, but afterwards they can both go for a swim, get a cool drink to refresh themselves, or slip into some waders for a bit of fly fishing. None of these activities is in the least bit altered by the metaphysical commitments of the disputants.</p><p>Wittgenstein thinks that we can get clearer about such disputes by likening the things that people say to moves in a game. Just as every move in a game of chess alters the state of play, so does every conversational move alter the state of play in what he calls the language-game. The point of talking, like the point of moving a chess piece, is to <em>do</em> something. But a move only counts as <em>that</em> move in <em>that</em> game provided a certain amount of stage-setting. To make sense of a chess game, you need to be able to distinguish knights from bishops, know how the different pieces move, and so on. Placing pieces on the board at the start of the game isn't a sequence of moves. It's something we do to make the game possible in the first place.</p>
<p>One way we get confused by language, Wittgenstein thinks, is that the rule-stating and place-setting activities happen in the same medium as the actual moves of the language-game – that is, in words. 'The river is overflowing its banks' and 'The word <em>river</em> is a noun' are both grammatically sound English sentences, but only the former is a move in a language-game. The latter states a rule for using language: it's like saying 'The bishop moves diagonally', and it's no more a move in a language-game than a demonstration of how the bishop moves is a move in chess.</p><p>What Heraclitus and Parmenides disagree about, Wittgenstein wants us to see, isn't a fact about the river but the rules for talking about the river. Heraclitus is recommending a new language-game: one in which the rule for using the word <em>river</em> prohibits us from saying that we stepped into the same one twice, just as the rules of our own language-game prohibit us from saying that the same <em>moment</em> occurred at two different times. There's nothing wrong with proposing alternative rules, provided you're clear that that's what you're doing. If you say: 'The king moves just like the queen,' you're either saying something false about our game of chess or you're proposing an alternative version of the game – which might or might not turn out to be any good. The trouble with Heraclitus is that he imagines he's talking about rivers and not rules – and, in that case, he's simply wrong. The mistake we so often make in philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, is that we think we're doing one thing when in fact we're doing another.</p><p>But if we dismiss the remark about rivers as a naive blunder, we learn nothing from it. 'In a certain sense one cannot take too much care in handling philosophical mistakes, they contain so much truth,' Wittgenstein cautions. Heraclitus and Parmenides might not <em>do</em> anything different as a result of their metaphysical differences, but those differences bespeak profoundly different <em>attitudes</em> toward <em>everything</em> they do. That attitude might be deep or shallow, bold or timorous, grateful or crabbed, but it isn't true or false. Similarly, the rules of a game aren't right or wrong – they're the measure by which we determine whether moves <em>within</em> the game are right or wrong – but which games you think are worth playing, and how you relate to the rules as you play them, says a lot about you.</p>
<p>What, then, inclines us – and Heraclitus – to regard this expression of an attitude as a metaphysical fact? Recall that Heraclitus wants to reform our language-games because he thinks they misrepresent the way things really are. But consider what you'd need to do in order to assess whether our language-games are more or less adequate to some ultimate reality. You'd need to compare two things: our language-game and the reality that it's meant to represent. In other words, you'd need to compare reality as we represent it to ourselves with reality free of all representation. But that makes no sense: how can you represent to yourself how things look free of all representation?</p><p>The fact that we might even be tempted to suppose we can do that bespeaks a deeply human longing to step outside our own skins. We can feel trapped by our bodily, time-bound existence. There's a kind of religious impulse that seeks liberation from these limits: it seeks to transcend our finite selves and make contact with the infinite. Wittgenstein's religious impulse pushes us in the opposite direction: he doesn't try to satisfy our aspiration for transcendence but to wean us from that aspiration altogether. The liberation he offers isn't liberation <em>from</em> our bounded selves but <em>for</em> our bounded selves.</p><p>Wittgenstein's remark about Heraclitus comes from a typescript from the early 1930s, when Wittgenstein was just beginning to work out the mature philosophy that would be published posthumously as <em>Philosophical Investigations</em> (1953). Part of what makes that late work special is the way in which the Wittgenstein who sees every problem from a religious point of view merges with the practical-minded engineer. Metaphysical speculations, for Wittgenstein, are like gears that have slipped free from the mechanism of language and are spinning wildly out of control. Wittgenstein the engineer wants to get the mechanism running smoothly. And this is precisely where the spiritual insight resides: our aim, properly understood, isn't transcendence but a fully invested immanence. In this respect, he offers a peculiarly technical approach to an aspiration that finds expression in mystics from Meister Eckhart to the Zen patriarchs: not to ascend to a state of perfection but to recognise that where you are, already, in this moment, is all the perfection you need.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/d897983e-d290-4f89-9be9-9972029adbd0.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>David Egan</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/can-you-step-in-the-same-river-twice-wittgenstein-v-heraclitus" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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How high did our ancestors get? We might soon be able to tell.
Traces of heroin and cocaine have been found in the tartar of 19th-century Dutch farmers.
11 January, 2021
Photo: Elena / Adobe Stock
- Archaeologists can now tell what drugs our ancestors used thanks to tooth tartar.
- For this study, they tested 10 cadavers and discovered 44 drugs and metabolites.
- This new method will offer us insights into the types of drugs our ancestors used.
<p>Archaeologists rejoiced last year when a team discovered that an Israeli shrine <a href="https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/cannabis-bible" target="_self">contained remnants of cannabis and frankincense</a>. Improved laboratory techniques allowed the researchers to test substances discovered on the altar, which dates back to 750-715 BCE. The team believes this is another indication that cannabis served a ritualistic purpose during biblical times. </p><p>Brian Muraresku, the author of "The Immortality Key," hopes religious scholars will <a href="https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/psychedelic-christianity" target="_self">take such techniques seriously</a>. For example, testing ancient vessels for hallucinogenic resins will allow us to form a more complete picture of early Christian rituals. </p><p>Every year, breakthroughs are made in the technologies we use to study the past. At this point, all we need is the will—and serious funding, of course.</p><p>Researchers from the Department of Forensic Medicine at Denmark's Aarhus University have utilized another means for tracing the past: tooth tartar. In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379073820305090?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new study</a>, published in Forensic Science International, the archaeologists utilize ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) to peer into the lives of our ancestors through their dental calculus. </p><p>And you've been letting your dentist scrape away valuable information. </p><p>This research began when Leiden University doctoral student Bjørn Peare Bartholdy was investigating the self-medication techniques of 19th-century Dutch farmers. He wanted to understand how they managed pain and disease. Tartar, which can survive more than one million years on fossils, has previously been used to study ancient diets. If it could reveal carbohydrate intake, it should offer insights into opioid use. </p><p>So he turned to the team at Aarhus, including forensic dentist Dorthe Bindslev, who mixed tartar minerals such as hydroxyapatite and fluorapatite with a variety of controlled substances to detect the molecules in the fossils. For this study, they tested 10 cadavers and discovered 44 drugs and metabolites.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQzMjIwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTgxMjY1N30.dXESAVsjEprL_0TVI1Ta9Ma4ltW2up5Uj3U51WGaIUY/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C114%2C0%2C114&height=700" id="f5241" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a19e0c3d83a0db8c6cd2f984cd3d2ac2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />
Credi: Сергей Кучугурный / Adobe Stock
<p>This is no easy method. Tartar levels vary from person to person. As they write, the variables include "the intake of fermentable carbohydrates, acidic foods and medicines; the salivary flow rate; the endogenous concentrations of inorganic ions in saliva; and salivary buffer systems, impact calculus formation."</p><p>They also have to factor in accidental consumption or inhalation of drugs, which also leaves a record. That said, the team is pleased with the results. Archaeology has long measured cultural drug use; now they can gain insights into exactly <em>who</em> did the inhaling, which might provide information about the identity and role of the skeletons they unearth.</p><p>The team found cocaine, heroin, and heroin metabolites in the remains of these Dutch farmers, which could help Bartholdy piece together their pain management protocols. More pedestrian consumption was also found: "The common consumption of caffeine containing drinks and the widespread use of tobacco products were reflected by the investigated samples."</p><p>There are a few barriers: this particular technology is expensive and hard to access—it's not a common laboratory machine. And while tartar is hardy, not every substance is going to survive for millennia, or even years. Amphetamines, MDMA, and codeine have "low logP and plasma-protein binding," while benzodiazepines and morphine exhibit "high plasma-protein binding." The team was surprised to discover cocaine and heroin in the samples given their chemical and enzymatic instability.</p><p>That said, this research empowers archaeologists with yet another tool in their research kit. While scholars like Muraresku might not convince the Vatican to give up their vessels, we may soon have another way of discovering early Christian psychedelic usage. We should also learn more about pain management—and maybe even the pleasure of our ancestors.</p><p><span></span>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. His most recent book is</em> "<em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KRVMP2M?pf_rd_r=MDJW43337675SZ0X00FH&pf_rd_p=edaba0ee-c2fe-4124-9f5d-b31d6b1bfbee" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy</a>."</em></p>
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Did early humans hibernate?
New anthropological research suggests our ancestors enjoyed long slumbers.
30 December, 2020
Credit: Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock
- Neanderthal bone fragments discovered in northern Spain mimic hibernating animals like cave bears.
- Thousands of bone fragments, dating back 400,000 years, were discovered in this "pit of bones" 30 years ago.
- The researchers speculate that this physiological function, if true, could prepare us for extended space travel.
<p>Humans have a terrible sense of time. We think in moments, not eons, which accounts for a number of people that still don't believe in evolutionary theory: we simply can't imagine ourselves any differently than we are today. </p><p>Thankfully, scientists and researchers have vast imaginations. Their findings often depend on creative problem-solving. Anthropologists are especially adept at this skill, as their job entails imagining a prehistoric world in which humans and our forebears were very different creatures. </p><p>A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003552120300832" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new paper</a>, published in the journal L'Anthropologie, takes a hard look at ancient bone health and arrives at a surprising conclusion: Neanderthals (and possibly early humans) might have endured long, harsh winters by hibernating. </p><p>Adaptability is the key to survival. Certain endotherms evolved the ability to depress their metabolism for months at a time; their body temperature and metabolic rate lowered while their breathing and heart rate dropped to nearly imperceptible levels. This handy technique solved a serious resource management problem, as food supplies were notoriously scarce during the frozen months. </p><p>While today the wellness industry eschews fat, it has long had an essential evolutionary function: it keeps us alive during times of food scarcity. As autumn months pass, large mammals become hyperphagic (experiencing intense hunger followed by overeating) and store nutrients in fat deposits; smaller animals <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/367950" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bury food nearby</a> for when they need a snack. This strategy is critical as hibernating animals can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3105343/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lose over a quarter of their body weight</a> during winter. </p><p>For this paper, Antonis Bartsiokas and Juan-Luis Arsuaga, both in the Department of History and Ethnology at Democritus University of Thrace, scoured through remains of a "pit of bones" in northern Spain. In 1976, archaeologists found a 50-foot shaft leading down into a cave in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Atapuerca" target="_blank">Atapuerca</a>, where thousands of bone fragments have since been discovered. Dating back 400,000 years—some of the fragments may be as old as 600,000 years—researchers believe the bodies were intentionally buried in this cave.</p>
Evidence of ancient human hibernation / human hibernation for space travel | Dr Antonis Bartsiokas
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c18723ed15c9b3ed88a24552f681711e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ba72UrBWsc4?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>While the fragments have been well studied in the intervening decades, Arsuaga (who led an early excavation in Atapuerca) and Bartsiokas noticed something odd about the bones: they displayed signs of seasonal variations. These proto-humans appear to have experienced annual bone growth disruption, which is indicative of hibernating species.</p><p>In fact, the remains of cave bears were also found in this pit, increasing the likelihood that the burial site was reserved for species that shared common features. This could be the result of a dearth of food for bears and Neanderthals alike. The researchers write that modern northerners don't need to sleep for months at a time; an abundance of fish and reindeer didn't exist in Spain, as they do in the Arctic. They write, </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The aridification of Iberia then could not have provided enough fat-rich food for the people of Sima during the harsh winter—making them resort to cave hibernation."</p><p>The notion of hibernating humans is appealing, especially to those in cold climates, but some experts <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/20/early-humans-may-have-survived-the-harsh-winters-by-hibernating" target="_blank">don't want to put the cart before the horse</a>. Large mammals don't engage in textbook hibernation; their deep sleep is known as a "torpor." Even then, the demands of human-sized brains could have been too large for extended periods of slumber.</p><p>Still, as we continually discover our animalistic origins to better understand how we evolved, the researchers note the potential value of this research.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The present work provides an innovative approach to the physiological mechanisms of metabolism in early humans that could help determine the life cycle and physiology of extinct human species."</p><p>Bartsiokas <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba72UrBWsc4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">speculates</a> that this ancient mechanism could be coopted for space travel in the future. If the notion of hibernating humans sounds far-fetched, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/01/human-hibernation-real-possibility/605071/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">idea has been contemplated for years</a>, as NASA began funding research on this topic in 2014. As the saying goes, everything old is new again. </p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a>. His new book is</em> "<em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KRVMP2M?pf_rd_r=MDJW43337675SZ0X00FH&pf_rd_p=edaba0ee-c2fe-4124-9f5d-b31d6b1bfbee" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy</a>."</em></p>
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An ancient migration across the ocean was no accident
A new study shows that at least one long-ago journey would have required deliberate navigation.
08 December, 2020
Credit: Yosuke Kaifu/University of Tokyo
- Historians have wondered whether ancient mariners drifted from Taiwan to Japan or navigated there on purpose.
- The passage between Taiwan and the Ryukyu islands contains one of the world's strongest currents.
- Thousands of buoys suggests that the journey was anything but an accident.
<p>It's something experts are still piecing together, but there's a growing body of evidence that as humans left Africa and scattered across the globe, they often did so by traversing land bridges that are now underwater, and, in other cases, by crossing oceans.</p><p>There was really no other way they might have gotten to <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/the-spread-of-people-to-australia/" target="_blank">Australia</a>, for example, even linked as it was for a time with New Guinea as the Sahul landmass. There was always ocean between the continent and Asia, from which its early inhabitants apparently came. It may well have been a less daunting passage at times of lower sea levels, however.</p><p>What, if anything, guided ancient mariners to the places they reached remains an intriguing riddle. Did they just drift on currents hoping to bump into somewhere to land, or was their navigation more intentional?</p><p>A new study from researchers at the University of Tokyo suggests the latter, at least in the case of the ancient migration from Taiwan to the Ryukyu Islands in southwestern Japan—Okinawa is one of the those islands—some 30,000 to 35,000 years ago.</p><p>The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-76831-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scientific Reports</a>.</p>
Not an easy trip
<p><span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/people/k0001_03383.html" target="_blank">Yosuke Kaifu</a></span> of the University Museum at the University of Tokyo and his colleagues sought to answer the longstanding riddle. "There have been many studies on Paleolithic migrations to Australia and its neighboring landmasses," said Kaifu in a <a href="https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00149.html" target="_blank">press release</a>, "often discussing whether these journeys were accidental or intentional."</p><p>"Our study looks specifically at the migration to the Ryukyu Islands because it is not just historically significant, but is also very difficult to get there." </p><p>The ancient sailors would have known of the islands because they were visible from the top of a mountain on the coast of Taiwan, although not down along the coast itself.</p><p>The waters between Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands represented an opportunity for the researchers since they are dominated by the Kuirishio current, one of the strongest currents in the world. The researchers' hypothesis was that sailors were unlikely to have crossed it accidentally. Says Kaifu, "If they crossed this sea deliberately, it must have been a bold act of exploration."</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDkzMTczNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDE5MzY3Mn0.bwWV2NA1Dh_b0cfYKtJ6wmsBMiEvWOPMQHgHQdtCOS0/img.jpg?width=980" id="03baf" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e298d9ae8b5e41ce6b1f1fd2f39a7716" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="810" />Okinawa shoreline
Credit: w.aoki/Adobe Stock
Buoys will be buoys
<p>Kaifu had long been interested in devising some kind of experiment to better understand those who made the journey but, "had no idea how to demonstrate the intentionality of the sea crossings." Upon meeting the study's Taiwanese co-authors, experts in the Kuirishio, the outlines of a plan because clear.</p><p>To test the possibility of an accidental arrival at the Ryukyu Islands, Kaifu and his team set 138 satellite-tracked buoys adrift and tracked how many of them managed to float over to the islands.</p><p>"Only four of the buoys came within 20 kilometers of any of the Ryukyu Islands, and all of these were due to adverse weather conditions," explains Kaifu. This was an unlikely factor in the human travelers' voyage because, "If you were an ancient mariner, it's very unlikely you would have set out on any kind of journey with such a storm on the horizon."</p><p>The results reveal that the current was more likely to take ancient sailors anywhere <em>but</em> the islands. "What this tells us is that the Kuroshio directs drifters away from, rather than towards, the Ryukyu Islands; in other words, that region must have been actively navigated."</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDkzMTc2NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDA3MzIyMH0.S3kwkamV4-AkzOeC_J5RDPFKptV1G9lYPVmJU-nnBV8/img.jpg?width=980" id="8a663" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4a38c1086300eb13308ef3a17204d44e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2331" data-height="2532" />Where the buoys traveled
Credit: Tien-Hsia Kuo/University of Tokyo
An old current
<p>Supporting the researchers findings are geologic records from the area that suggests the Kuirishio hasn't changed since the mariners' journey so long ago — it's been present in its current form for about 100,000 years.</p><p>The research appears to answer the riddle of at least this one ancient migration, says Kaifu: "Now, our results suggest the drift hypothesis for Paleolithic migration in this region is almost impossible. I believe we succeeded in making a strong argument that the ancient populations in question were not passengers of chance, but explorers."</p>
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What the Greek classics tell us about grief and the importance of mourning the dead
The rites we give to the dead help us understand what it takes to go on living.
29 November, 2020
Photo by Stavrialena Gontzou on Unsplash
As the coronavirus pandemic hit New York in March, the death toll quickly went up with few chances for families and communities to perform traditional rites for their loved ones.
<p>A reporter for <a href="https://time.com/5839056/new-york-city-burials-coronavirus/" target="_blank">Time magazine described</a> how bodies were put on a ramp, then onto a loading dock and stacked on wooden racks. Emergency morgues were set up to handle the large number of dead. By official count, New York City alone had <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/28/863710050/reckoning-with-the-dead-journalist-goes-inside-an-nyc-covid-19-disaster-morgue" target="_blank">20,000 dead</a> over a period of two months. </p><p>Months later, our ability to mourn and process death remains disrupted due to the ever-present fear of the threat of the coronavirus and the need to observe social distancing.</p><p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=1be7ee967d45605afddf7da9ad4ca2c049a26c0b" target="_blank">scholar of classical studies</a>, I tend to look to the past to help understand the present. Ancient literature, especially ancient Greek epics, explore what it means to be human and part of a community. </p><p>In the Greek classic “The Iliad," Homer specifies few universal rights, but one that emerges clearly is the expectation of proper lamentation, burial and memorial. </p>
<h2>Valuing life in death</h2><p>Homer's "Iliad" explores the themes of 10 years of war – the Trojan War – over a narrative that lasts around 50 days. It shows the internal strife and the struggles of the Greeks as they try to defend themselves against the Trojans.</p><p>It humanizes the city of Troy by emphasizing the scale of loss and suffering and not just the boastful nature of its kings and warlords.</p><p>The epic <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">begins with the recognition</a> that the rage of its main character, Achilles, on account of a slight to his honor, "created myriad griefs" for the Greeks and "sent many strong heroes to the underworld."</p><p>The epic's conflict <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+1.100&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">starts</a> when king Agamemnon, leader of the Greek army, deprives the semi-divine hero Achilles of Briseis, an enslaved woman he was awarded as a prize earlier in the war.</p><p>Briseis is said to be Achilles' "geras," a physical token indicating the esteem his fellow Greeks have for him. The meaning of the word "geras" develops as the poem progresses. But as readers learn alongside Achilles, physical objects are essentially meaningless when one is going to die anyway.</p><p>By the end of the epic, physical tokens of honor are replaced in importance by burial rites. Zeus accepts that his mortal son Sarpedon can at best receive "the geras of the dead" when he is <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D16%3Acard%3D394" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">buried and mourned</a>. Achilles too insists that mourning is "the geras of the dead" when he gathers the Greeks to <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D23%3Acard%3D1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">honor his fallen comrade, Patroklos</a>.</p><p>The epic ends with a justification for the burial of Achilles' opponent, Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors and another victim of Achilles' rage.</p><p>For Hector's funerary rites, the Greeks and the Trojans agree to an armistice. The Trojans gather and clean Hector's body, cremate him, and bury his remains below a monumental tomb. The women of the city tell the story of the brave hero <a href="https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6668" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in their laments</a>.</p><p>This is its foundational narrative – that burial rites are essential to the collective work of communities. Failure to observe burial provokes crisis. In the Iliad, the gods meet to resolve <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D24%3Acard%3D22" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the problem of Hector's unburied body</a>: Achilles must quit his rage and give Hector's body back to his family.</p>
<h2>A divine right</h2><p>This narrative is repeated in other ancient Greek myths. Best known, perhaps, is Sophocles' "Antigone," a Greek tragedy dating from the 440s B.C. In this play, two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, are killed in their fight for control of the city.</p><p>Creon, their uncle, who takes over the city, <a href="http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/ewatkins/Phil107S13/Sophocles-Antigone.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forbids burial of one</a>. The play's conflict centers around their sister Antigone, who buries her brother against the new king's wishes, consigning herself to death.</p><p>In opposing this basic right, Creon is shown to suffer in turn, losing his wife and son to suicide in the process. In response to the capital punishment of Antigone for performing the rites due to her brother, his son Haemon takes his life and his mother Eurydice follows him.</p><p>Properly honoring the dead – especially those who have died serving their people – is from this perspective a divinely sanctioned right. Furthermore, mistreatment of the dead brings infamy on the city and pollution. Plague often curses cities and peoples who fail to honor their fallen.</p><p>This is central to the plot of "<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/suppliants.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Suppliants</a>," another Greek play telling us the story of the conflict between the sons of Oedipus, king of the Greek city of Thebes. In this play by Euripides, the Thebans refuse to bury any of the warriors who fought against their city. The crisis is resolved only when the Athenian hero Theseus leads an army to force them to honor the dead.</p><p>One of the most famous examples of classical rhetoric shares in the tradition of honoring the dead as a public duty. Greek historian Thucydides writes about the funeral oration of Pericles, who was a popular leader in Athens during the 430s B.C.</p><p>On the occasion of offering the "<a href="https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-2461" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">epitaphios</a>," a speech over the fallen war dead, Pericles articulates his vision of the Athenians as standing against foreign threats in the past.</p><p>Memories of the past were an important guide to the future. This is in part why the funeral oration became so important in Athenian life: It provided an opportunity to explain why those lives were sacrificed in service of a shared civic mission and identity.</p>
<h2>Communities of memory</h2><p>Even today, memories are shaped by stories. From local communities to nations, the stories we tell will shape what we will remember about the past.</p><p>Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predict that an estimated 200,000 people in the U.S. will have died from the coronavirus <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-united-states-coronavirus-deaths-projection-400000-by-end-of-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">by Sept. 26</a> and some 400,000 by the year-end.</p><p>Many people who see loved ones die will deal with unresolved loss, or "<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complicated-grief/symptoms-causes/syc-20360374" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">complicated grief</a>" – grief that results from not knowing what happened to one's loved ones or without having the social structures to process their loss. That grief has been compounded by the current isolation. It has prevented many from carrying out those very rites that help us learn to live with our grief.</p><p>Just recently, I lost my 91-year-old grandmother, <a href="https://www.rivertowns.net/obituaries/obits/6665780-Beverly-Jean-Mjolsness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Beverly Mjolsness</a>, to a non-coronavirus death. My family made the hard decision not to travel across the country to bury her. Instead, we gathered for a video memorial of a celebration of a life well-lived. As we did so, I could see my family struggling to know how to proceed without the rituals and the comfort of being together.</p><p>Such grief that does not allow for collective in-person memorialization can turn into <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/04/grief-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">debilitating trauma</a>. Our public discourse, however, when it has not tried to minimize the number of the dead or the continuing threat, has not sought to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/national-mourning-coronavirus/2020/05/15/b47fc670-9577-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">provide any plan for memorials</a>, now or in the future.</p><p>What Homer and Sophocles demonstrate is that the rites we give to the dead help us understand what it takes to go on living. I believe we need to start honoring those we have lost to this epidemic. It will not just bring comfort to the living, but remind us that we share a community in which our lives – and deaths – have meaning.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145827/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joel-christensen-965979" target="_blank">Joel Christensen</a>, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/brandeis-university-1308" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brandeis University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-greek-classics-tell-us-about-grief-and-the-importance-of-mourning-the-dead-145827" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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