K. Scott Forman
One of the benefits of working a couple of jobs, doing a second graduate degree, and being an adjunct faculty member at a local university, means one gets all kinds of opportunities to speak, lecture, and otherwise look smart (it also means an A-Type personality, early death, and an inability to say no).
Notes from a lecture given on October 31, 2006, at Weber State University in Ogden Utah, coinciding with the performance of the play Macbeth: Fate and Fate in Literature (part 1 presented here, part 2 next issue).
Fate and Fate in Literature (Part 1 - Fate)
Fate - so what is Fate? One could say Fate brought us together today, or that Fate brought my current significant other and I together (like star-crossed lovers), or more realistically, Fate brought about the grades I will be receiving at the end of the semester. The one I like is that Fate makes a great device in literature to create tragic heroes and tragedies. Could all of these be true? Do you believe in Fate?
To examine Fate, let's take a step back through time and talk to the Greeks who personified Fate as the Fates, three women, not unlike the three witches in Macbeth, that in large part determine what happens to man and god alike.
Some may point to the Greco-Roman mythology, the white-robed Moirae or Moerae, or the apportioner, often called the Fates, or personifications of Destiny. If you remember the Disney cartoon Hercules - the Fates controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death. Even the gods feared the Fates, which kind of doesn't make sense - how could one kill an immortal - but then again, Greek mythology doesn't always make sense, does it?
So, Clotho or Nona the Ninth (spinner), Lachesis or Decima the Tenth (allotter), and Atropos or Morta the destiner (cutter), would follow every living being from birth until death, the latter being something they determined. Kind of sounds like three witches and a Scottish nobleman, doesn't it? But these Fates, which some speculate included a fourth sister - Aphrodite - held a lot in their hands. The word Moerae mean a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny. On the surface, the Fates held a timeline at life and ending at death, which they could alter to their liking, to some degree. Some say they appeared three days after the birth of a child and determined the child's life or destiny. Others infer that originally the Moerae were birth goddesses, and that women marrying would offer locks of hair and other objects to win favor in marriage and childbearing. It's interesting how they went from goddesses that were good to hags that were evil - agents of destiny - is unknown to my knowledge, but based on an understanding of human nature and history, it would make sense that a few dozen bad marriages and a few bad experiences in childbirth could drive people to think the wonderful birth goddesses were actually evil. In fact, a word we use today, Spinster, comes from the Moerae and is a term of derision - The Moirae were usually described as cold, remorseless and unfeeling, and depicted as old crones or hags. The independent spinster has inspired fear rather than matrimony. "This sinister connotation we inherit from the spinning goddess,"
Interestingly, the Indo-Eurpoeans had the same sisters, just dressed a little differently probably in some kind of Viking wear - The Norns of Norse mythology are three disir by the names of Urd (the past), Verdandi (the being) and Skuld (what is to come), which sounds a lot like Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.
So why did our ancestors need the Fates, and for that matter, why three women? The simple answer is when people observed unexplainable phenomenon, say like an eclipse of the sun, a volcano or earthquake, a mother and child dying in childbirth, what explanation did they have? They get on the Internet and learn about astronomy or geology, or even basic medicine, so they came up with supernatural powers beyond the comprehension of man, to explain these instances. And what usually happens next? A literary term - personification - isn't much easier to identify something bad and unexplainable with something that is known - men, women, and animals - hence, the polytheistic religions of the past; but why three women? I would speculate that, as stated earlier - it's a man's world - certainly men couldn't be the villains - only women, and why not make them old, ugly, and scary - something humans can relate to - the scary is easier to hate, distrust, dislike.
So, to summarize, early man needed something he could identify with to explain the supernatural - gods - and gods, from his point of view, could do anything they wanted - good or evil - which eventually led to the three sisters in all their varieties throughout all cultures, at least until man became enlightened. I can't help naming a few:
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch hosted three cheerleaders who determined people's destinies.
- Xena: Warrior Princess, had the Fates comprising the Maiden, Mother and Crone, who weave the threads of life.
- Disney's Hercules: Hades wishes to know the future and consults the Fates, who share a single eye between them, a feature of the Graeae of Greek mythology.
- In Stephen King's 1994 Insomnia, the Moirae are depicted as three doctors who visit people at the end of their life to cut their thread.
So, what do you think came next to explain the supernatural, to explain Fate? For something a little more current we only have to look at the Catholic Church - Fate -This word is almost redundant in the vocabulary of a Catholic as such, for its meaning as the prime cause of events is better expressed by the term Divine Providence, while, as a constant force at work in the physical universe, it is nothing more nor less than natural law. So when St. Augustine said (De Civit. Dei, c. i): "If anyone calls the influence or the power of God by the name of Fate, let him keep his opinion, but mend his speech." What do you think he meant? Probably that man could no longer use the Fates, but God, or Divine Providence.
Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is the sovereignty, superintendence, or agency of God over events in people's lives. I guess we could say this is where man made the transition from polytheistic thinking to monotheistic thinking. The current meaning of the word (Divine Providence) derives from the sense "knowledge of the future", which was the privilege of gods. The initial meaning of providere remains in 'to provide' or "to take precautionary measures."
This term is an integral part of John Calvin's theological framework known as Calvinism, which emphasizes the depravity of man and the complete sovereignty of God. God's plan for the world and every soul that He has created is guided by His will, or providence. The idea that man has a free will and is able to make choices independently of what God has already determined is based on our limited understanding of God's perfection and the illusion (created by Satan) that we are able to reject God's plan for us. In this mode of thought, providence is related to predestination.
The idea of providence was used by many of Calvin's contemporary followers, such as the Puritans, or in modern times, the Protestants, such as Baptists and Presbyterians.
Many Christian evangelists have attempted to interpret Biblical passages in the light of current events and even to use the Bible to predict future events. This interpretation may be seen as an attempt to discern divine providence or, in their view, God's plan for the world by understanding the inerrant word of God.
Catholic theology views Providence, as care exercised by the Supreme Being over the universe; God's foresight and care for its future is extensively developed and explained by Thomas Aquinas and modern thomists. In a nutshell, everything is meant to happen as it happens and we, man, can do nothing to change the Divine Plan - we have no freewill - which leads me to ask why confess sin if it's meant to happen?
Jewish Thought concerning Divine providence equates to supervision of the individual and brings into consideration the Jewish understanding of nature, and its reciprocal, the miraculous. This analysis thus underpins much of Orthodox Judaism's worldview, particularly as regards questions of interaction with the natural world.
If we continue to look at religion, we find many early churchmen and philosophers just couldn't swallow predestination or lack of freewill - Protestantism, which most of us here today are products of, jumped in some circumstances to the belief that Fate, or Divine Providence, just wasn't real, and that man has freewill and determines his future. We may have heard terms like Foreordination, meaning that God exists and has empowered man to shape his own destiny - that man has the potential to become what God wishes, but God does not interfere.
To take a short tangent in this thinking, we have all heard the term Manifest Destiny - in a sense, the United States, as well as other countries, became what they are due to Manifest Destiny - a mixture of Fate - it was meant to happen - and the realization that it was the next expected step due to what the government or people or power had decided to do previously.
So, we've gone from early anthropological and cultural reasons for the existence of Fate, to science and reason, which today we would call mythology, on to religion, which many would call mythology as well, and now we are approaching our time and real science and logic - which will probably also be viewed as mythology in a few hundred years.
We haven't mentioned any sex yet. Are we at the point of the lecture where I need to get your attention? Sex is always a good attention getter, so let's move on to Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and Sex.
Many would say that Freud was the father of psychoanalysis. What is psychoanalysis and how can it have anything to do with Fate? Well, psychoanalysis in general seeks to discover connections among the unconscious components of patients' mental processes. The analyst's goal is to help liberate the patient from unexamined or unconscious barriers of transference and resistance, that is, past patterns of relating that are no longer serviceable or that inhibit freedom. Freud, however, believed that human nature is deterministic - in other words, our behavior is determined by irrational forces, unconscious motivations, biological and instinctual drives, and certain psychosexual events during the first six years of life - Can anyone say Oedipus? - So, I guess that means Fate, and Freud was determined to understand the hand Fate dealt to his patients, as well as himself.
Are you finding that man is the same and always seeks to explain the unexplainable? Are there answers to everything, we just haven't discovered them yet, or does Fate really exist and we struggle to disbelieve in it?
So, Freud went his merry way explaining mental illness and poor mental health on Fate, on Destiny, on the environment that Divine Providence placed a child in at birth, and the experiences to the age of six that Divine Providence allowed to happen. The only way to change this hand dealt by Fate was to understand it, which implies freewill in a sense. Freud's approach to therapy would be an anonymous stance, with very little self-disclosure, and maintenance of neutrality. The patient, alone, provides "projections," or dialogue of unfinished or repressed situations brought on during the first six years of life, and eventually discovers what Fate has done. This, in turn, gives patients insight into their problems, increases their awareness of ways to change, and gives them more rational control over their lives.
As you can guess, Freud's students and psychoanalysts that followed were unwilling to credit Fate - by irrational forces, unconscious motivations, biological and instinctual drives, and certain psychosexual events during the first six years of life - but, like many of the thinkers and philosophers of the past, couldn't rid themselves of freewill, of self-determination, etc.
To discuss all of these psychoanalytical approaches would not be appropriate, so let me just say that they all fall somewhere between Freud and Existential Theory - Have you heard the term existentialist before - a term commonly used in philosophy - but how does it relate to Freud and Fate?
Freedom is restricted by unconscious forces, irrational drives, and past events - yes - but these and future acts are not determined by Fate. We are the author, or architect, of our life, and therefore we are more than a victim of circumstances. Mush of this thought comes from non-psychoanalysts - some examples include writers and philosophers -
- Dosotoyevski said people are determined in their actions by what they believe will yield the most pleasure - our human capacity to act on whim or impulse is far more precious to us than mere pleasure. We can decide to act for or against or own best advantage. Consciousness may be painful, and it may not make us decisive, but at least it gives us the freedom in the conduct of our lives.
- Kierkegaard was concerned with angst, a German word that, loosely translated, lies somewhere between dread and anxiety - without these we become sleepwalkers, or zombies in honor of Halloween. Life is one contingency after another, with no guarantees beyond the certainty of death. This is by no means a comfortable state, but is necessary to our becoming human - a project.
- Nietzsche - set out to prove that the ancient definition of humans as rational was misleading. We are far more creatures of will than we are impersonal intellects, cut society has ways of making us impotent by surrounding us with moral, political, and religious injunctions - Fate - but if we release ourselves by giving free rein to our will to power, we will thereby tap our potentiality for creativity and originality - on a side note, Nietzche was German and he was about leaders, the way of the leaders, the supermen.
- Heidegger - we exist in the world and should not try to think of ourselves as beings apart from the world into which we are thrown. Our moods and feelings (including anxiety about death) are a form of understanding whether we are living authentically or whether we are in-authentically constructing our life around the expectations of others.
- Sartre - humans are even more free than earlier existentialists had believed. We are free to choose what we will, but this freedom is hard to face up to, so we like to invent excuses: "I'm this way because I was born on the wrong side of the tracks," or, "I can't change now because of my past conditioning."
So, we've delved a little into history, religion, and science. Now what? Literature? What can I say about literature other than good literature, writing and poetry that draw us in, that we like to read, clearly portrays the human condition, clearly portrays us, we see ourselves in the poetry and literature we like.
I know that I was supposed to give a brief overview of Fate in literature, but because of time and in honor of Halloween, let's just look at a few pieces - Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I think what we must admit to is Fate is basically Irony in literature. What makes Fate a crucial role is it gives us tragedy, irony, the tragic hero or heroine, because as the audience we can see clearly the protagonist's opportunity to not give in to Fate or Destiny. (Comments on these works and Fate will appear in the next issue of Fear Knocks)
Fate - so what is Fate? One could say Fate brought us together today, or that Fate brought my current significant other and I together (like star-crossed lovers), or more realistically, Fate brought about the grades I will be receiving at the end of the semester. The one I like is that Fate makes a great device in literature to create tragic heroes and tragedies. Could all of these be true? Do you believe in Fate?
To examine Fate, let's take a step back through time and talk to the Greeks who personified Fate as the Fates, three women, not unlike the three witches in Macbeth, that in large part determine what happens to man and god alike.
Some may point to the Greco-Roman mythology, the white-robed Moirae or Moerae, or the apportioner, often called the Fates, or personifications of Destiny. If you remember the Disney cartoon Hercules - the Fates controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death. Even the gods feared the Fates, which kind of doesn't make sense - how could one kill an immortal - but then again, Greek mythology doesn't always make sense, does it?
So, Clotho or Nona the Ninth (spinner), Lachesis or Decima the Tenth (allotter), and Atropos or Morta the destiner (cutter), would follow every living being from birth until death, the latter being something they determined. Kind of sounds like three witches and a Scottish nobleman, doesn't it? But these Fates, which some speculate included a fourth sister - Aphrodite - held a lot in their hands. The word Moerae mean a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny. On the surface, the Fates held a timeline at life and ending at death, which they could alter to their liking, to some degree. Some say they appeared three days after the birth of a child and determined the child's life or destiny. Others infer that originally the Moerae were birth goddesses, and that women marrying would offer locks of hair and other objects to win favor in marriage and childbearing. It's interesting how they went from goddesses that were good to hags that were evil - agents of destiny - is unknown to my knowledge, but based on an understanding of human nature and history, it would make sense that a few dozen bad marriages and a few bad experiences in childbirth could drive people to think the wonderful birth goddesses were actually evil. In fact, a word we use today, Spinster, comes from the Moerae and is a term of derision - The Moirae were usually described as cold, remorseless and unfeeling, and depicted as old crones or hags. The independent spinster has inspired fear rather than matrimony. "This sinister connotation we inherit from the spinning goddess,"
Interestingly, the Indo-Eurpoeans had the same sisters, just dressed a little differently probably in some kind of Viking wear - The Norns of Norse mythology are three disir by the names of Urd (the past), Verdandi (the being) and Skuld (what is to come), which sounds a lot like Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.
So why did our ancestors need the Fates, and for that matter, why three women? The simple answer is when people observed unexplainable phenomenon, say like an eclipse of the sun, a volcano or earthquake, a mother and child dying in childbirth, what explanation did they have? They get on the Internet and learn about astronomy or geology, or even basic medicine, so they came up with supernatural powers beyond the comprehension of man, to explain these instances. And what usually happens next? A literary term - personification - isn't much easier to identify something bad and unexplainable with something that is known - men, women, and animals - hence, the polytheistic religions of the past; but why three women? I would speculate that, as stated earlier - it's a man's world - certainly men couldn't be the villains - only women, and why not make them old, ugly, and scary - something humans can relate to - the scary is easier to hate, distrust, dislike.
So, to summarize, early man needed something he could identify with to explain the supernatural - gods - and gods, from his point of view, could do anything they wanted - good or evil - which eventually led to the three sisters in all their varieties throughout all cultures, at least until man became enlightened. I can't help naming a few:
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch hosted three cheerleaders who determined people's destinies.
- Xena: Warrior Princess, had the Fates comprising the Maiden, Mother and Crone, who weave the threads of life.
- Disney's Hercules: Hades wishes to know the future and consults the Fates, who share a single eye between them, a feature of the Graeae of Greek mythology.
- In Stephen King's 1994 Insomnia, the Moirae are depicted as three doctors who visit people at the end of their life to cut their thread.
So, what do you think came next to explain the supernatural, to explain Fate? For something a little more current we only have to look at the Catholic Church - Fate -This word is almost redundant in the vocabulary of a Catholic as such, for its meaning as the prime cause of events is better expressed by the term Divine Providence, while, as a constant force at work in the physical universe, it is nothing more nor less than natural law. So when St. Augustine said (De Civit. Dei, c. i): "If anyone calls the influence or the power of God by the name of Fate, let him keep his opinion, but mend his speech." What do you think he meant? Probably that man could no longer use the Fates, but God, or Divine Providence.
Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is the sovereignty, superintendence, or agency of God over events in people's lives. I guess we could say this is where man made the transition from polytheistic thinking to monotheistic thinking. The current meaning of the word (Divine Providence) derives from the sense "knowledge of the future", which was the privilege of gods. The initial meaning of providere remains in 'to provide' or "to take precautionary measures."
This term is an integral part of John Calvin's theological framework known as Calvinism, which emphasizes the depravity of man and the complete sovereignty of God. God's plan for the world and every soul that He has created is guided by His will, or providence. The idea that man has a free will and is able to make choices independently of what God has already determined is based on our limited understanding of God's perfection and the illusion (created by Satan) that we are able to reject God's plan for us. In this mode of thought, providence is related to predestination.
The idea of providence was used by many of Calvin's contemporary followers, such as the Puritans, or in modern times, the Protestants, such as Baptists and Presbyterians.
Many Christian evangelists have attempted to interpret Biblical passages in the light of current events and even to use the Bible to predict future events. This interpretation may be seen as an attempt to discern divine providence or, in their view, God's plan for the world by understanding the inerrant word of God.
Catholic theology views Providence, as care exercised by the Supreme Being over the universe; God's foresight and care for its future is extensively developed and explained by Thomas Aquinas and modern thomists. In a nutshell, everything is meant to happen as it happens and we, man, can do nothing to change the Divine Plan - we have no freewill - which leads me to ask why confess sin if it's meant to happen?
Jewish Thought concerning Divine providence equates to supervision of the individual and brings into consideration the Jewish understanding of nature, and its reciprocal, the miraculous. This analysis thus underpins much of Orthodox Judaism's worldview, particularly as regards questions of interaction with the natural world.
If we continue to look at religion, we find many early churchmen and philosophers just couldn't swallow predestination or lack of freewill - Protestantism, which most of us here today are products of, jumped in some circumstances to the belief that Fate, or Divine Providence, just wasn't real, and that man has freewill and determines his future. We may have heard terms like Foreordination, meaning that God exists and has empowered man to shape his own destiny - that man has the potential to become what God wishes, but God does not interfere.
To take a short tangent in this thinking, we have all heard the term Manifest Destiny - in a sense, the United States, as well as other countries, became what they are due to Manifest Destiny - a mixture of Fate - it was meant to happen - and the realization that it was the next expected step due to what the government or people or power had decided to do previously.
So, we've gone from early anthropological and cultural reasons for the existence of Fate, to science and reason, which today we would call mythology, on to religion, which many would call mythology as well, and now we are approaching our time and real science and logic - which will probably also be viewed as mythology in a few hundred years.
We haven't mentioned any sex yet. Are we at the point of the lecture where I need to get your attention? Sex is always a good attention getter, so let's move on to Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and Sex.
Many would say that Freud was the father of psychoanalysis. What is psychoanalysis and how can it have anything to do with Fate? Well, psychoanalysis in general seeks to discover connections among the unconscious components of patients' mental processes. The analyst's goal is to help liberate the patient from unexamined or unconscious barriers of transference and resistance, that is, past patterns of relating that are no longer serviceable or that inhibit freedom. Freud, however, believed that human nature is deterministic - in other words, our behavior is determined by irrational forces, unconscious motivations, biological and instinctual drives, and certain psychosexual events during the first six years of life - Can anyone say Oedipus? - So, I guess that means Fate, and Freud was determined to understand the hand Fate dealt to his patients, as well as himself.
Are you finding that man is the same and always seeks to explain the unexplainable? Are there answers to everything, we just haven't discovered them yet, or does Fate really exist and we struggle to disbelieve in it?
So, Freud went his merry way explaining mental illness and poor mental health on Fate, on Destiny, on the environment that Divine Providence placed a child in at birth, and the experiences to the age of six that Divine Providence allowed to happen. The only way to change this hand dealt by Fate was to understand it, which implies freewill in a sense. Freud's approach to therapy would be an anonymous stance, with very little self-disclosure, and maintenance of neutrality. The patient, alone, provides "projections," or dialogue of unfinished or repressed situations brought on during the first six years of life, and eventually discovers what Fate has done. This, in turn, gives patients insight into their problems, increases their awareness of ways to change, and gives them more rational control over their lives.
As you can guess, Freud's students and psychoanalysts that followed were unwilling to credit Fate - by irrational forces, unconscious motivations, biological and instinctual drives, and certain psychosexual events during the first six years of life - but, like many of the thinkers and philosophers of the past, couldn't rid themselves of freewill, of self-determination, etc.
To discuss all of these psychoanalytical approaches would not be appropriate, so let me just say that they all fall somewhere between Freud and Existential Theory - Have you heard the term existentialist before - a term commonly used in philosophy - but how does it relate to Freud and Fate?
Freedom is restricted by unconscious forces, irrational drives, and past events - yes - but these and future acts are not determined by Fate. We are the author, or architect, of our life, and therefore we are more than a victim of circumstances. Mush of this thought comes from non-psychoanalysts - some examples include writers and philosophers -
- Dosotoyevski said people are determined in their actions by what they believe will yield the most pleasure - our human capacity to act on whim or impulse is far more precious to us than mere pleasure. We can decide to act for or against or own best advantage. Consciousness may be painful, and it may not make us decisive, but at least it gives us the freedom in the conduct of our lives.
- Kierkegaard was concerned with angst, a German word that, loosely translated, lies somewhere between dread and anxiety - without these we become sleepwalkers, or zombies in honor of Halloween. Life is one contingency after another, with no guarantees beyond the certainty of death. This is by no means a comfortable state, but is necessary to our becoming human - a project.
- Nietzsche - set out to prove that the ancient definition of humans as rational was misleading. We are far more creatures of will than we are impersonal intellects, cut society has ways of making us impotent by surrounding us with moral, political, and religious injunctions - Fate - but if we release ourselves by giving free rein to our will to power, we will thereby tap our potentiality for creativity and originality - on a side note, Nietzche was German and he was about leaders, the way of the leaders, the supermen.
- Heidegger - we exist in the world and should not try to think of ourselves as beings apart from the world into which we are thrown. Our moods and feelings (including anxiety about death) are a form of understanding whether we are living authentically or whether we are in-authentically constructing our life around the expectations of others.
- Sartre - humans are even more free than earlier existentialists had believed. We are free to choose what we will, but this freedom is hard to face up to, so we like to invent excuses: "I'm this way because I was born on the wrong side of the tracks," or, "I can't change now because of my past conditioning."
So, we've delved a little into history, religion, and science. Now what? Literature? What can I say about literature other than good literature, writing and poetry that draw us in, that we like to read, clearly portrays the human condition, clearly portrays us, we see ourselves in the poetry and literature we like.
I know that I was supposed to give a brief overview of Fate in literature, but because of time and in honor of Halloween, let's just look at a few pieces - Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I think what we must admit to is Fate is basically Irony in literature. What makes Fate a crucial role is it gives us tragedy, irony, the tragic hero or heroine, because as the audience we can see clearly the protagonist's opportunity to not give in to Fate or Destiny. (Comments on these works and Fate will appear in the next issue of Fear Knocks)
copyright 2006 Fear Knocks