4/10/2024 0 Comments Original story of icarusUsing it too recklessly meant sure death. Using it correctly and moderately - flying at just the right altitude - meant survival. While the technology that Daedalus employed differed in its way from devices we readily pack into our homes and trustingly place in the small hands of increasingly younger offspring, it came equipped with the same hazards. Daedalus, of all people, perhaps should have known better than others of the dangers of his inventions - his original prison, after all, was a labyrinth that he himself had created on commission.Īs to the technology, is technology in and of itself something neutral and potentially trustworthy, and only our uses of it render it good or bad? Or is it something that we should trust less than we do? These are questions to which the story of Daedalus and Icarus readily suggests alarming answers. In parenting, of course, we should never expect things to go smoothly or perfectly - this is especially the case when we entrust children, these unformed beings with a level of wisdom at best commensurate with their young age, with technology. Alas, the heat from the sun promptly melted the wax holding the fragile wings together, and Icarus plummeted to his death in the merciless sea below. Soaring in his joy too close to the sun, he relished the incredible feeling of flight. While the father was wise enough to know how to carefully employ the device he had created, the son had no such constraints. For to abuse it would lead to certain death - literal, in this tale, rather than figurative. One had to be cautious when using this technology. Yet freedom obtained with this invention came with a cost. Defying human nature, these wings empowered the father and son to transform into something other than mere human - something more powerful, and most important, free. He and Icarus fled - flew! - from captivity on their wings. Niobe turned into weeping stone, Daphne a laurel tree, Acteon a stag that was promptly hunted to death.īut at least Daedalus seemed to defy these odds. Transformation into something else in Greek myths is usually the result of a curse, not a blessing: the result of punishment or persecution by the jealous and petty pagan gods. Wouldn’t it be great to break out of the human body that is bound to die and be turned into something more powerful? Except for the fact that, in mythology, such dreams of escaping the frail human body always result in tragedy. But then, Greek mythology is filled with such transhumanist dreams - the desires of people who knew they were physically weak, susceptible to illness and death, and living in an environment that seemed unpredictable and at times downright cruel. This allowed each one to transform for a time from a creature of land into a creature of the air - oh, the wonders of defying nature through human genius!ĭaedalus’ invention of wings is in some ways a strangely transhumanist technology. At last, on the appointed day, each of them put on his own device and activated it. He carefully, painstakingly trained his son in using this device, a set of wondrous wings, modeled on those of birds, but capable of carrying the much heavier humans. Trapped in a remote prison on an island with his young son, he devised a revolutionary technological device that would allow them to escape to freedom. A legendary inventor and tinkerer, he found himself in a seemingly inescapable situation. Maybe it is worth taking a step back and re-telling the familiar story in full. And so the tragic story of Daedalus, one of the greatest inventors in all of Greek mythology, and his son Icarus reflects well the challenges of modern parenting, especially when it comes to the use of ever new and advancing technology. We must remember that some of the powerful inventions that we think will save us can destroy us, too. Yet we know, as did the Greeks, that inventions and technological advancements always carry risks, too. In the “Ode to Man” in Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone, the chorus of city elders marveled over everything people have accomplished and invented over the ages, all to make their lives a bit better. Perhaps the entire history of humanity is, first and foremost, the history of technological inventions and advancements, as the Greeks thought. And it is, no less than that, a cautionary tale about parenting and the use of technology. The story is, rather, about the relationship of a father and a son. But it seems that whenever we focus on the tragic death of the one who flew too close to the sun, we forget that the story is not just about him, the child. We have all heard this advice and, likely, the tale of hubris that inspired it.
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