The Primal Sin: Modern Egypt, Ancient Greece, and the Madness of the Mob

Mask of a Maenad - icon of unconsciousness

Plato believed the source of evil lay in ignorance. The worst sort of evil arises from the blindest ignorance, what Carl Jung called "the primal sin"--the sin of unconsciousness. "Wherever unconsciousness reigns," he wrote, "there is bondage and possession." And in no place does it reign with greater sway than in a mob.

My novel, Night of the Furies, was constructed on this premise. While cruising the islands of Greece, two Americans encounter a secret Dionysian cult of maenads. A chaotic orgy ensues. They surrender themselves to unconscious impulse and experience an exhilarating freedom. But it's a false freedom, a slavery to the flesh, a "bondage and possession" that ends in violence.

True freedom comes only in a state of full awareness, when motives are examined, and choices consciously made. We call it "free will."

Such freedom is a burden as well as a gift, as the ancient Greeks discovered. Much like the modern Egyptians, they had long lived in a conformist society based on a restrictive religion, where the longing for freedom was routinely suppressed and decisions were left to tradition. All that changed with the dawning of democracy and the birth of individual freedom. As the scholar E.R. Dodds explains, "Individual freedom brought the terrifying burden of daily responsibility and the irresistible urge to abandon it." And so the Dionysian cults flourished.

I thought of this today when I read the terrible news about the "60 Minutes" reporter, Lara Logan.

On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a "60 Minutes" story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.

Ms. Logan returned to the United States the following morning and is currently in the hospital recovering. Our thoughts and prayers are with her. May she regain her admirable spirit and courage, and return to the struggle of all free people, battling the primal sin.

Myth of the Sole

It was an "instantly mythic moment" according to the NY Times. Indeed the thrown shoe flies far back into the past. Posting for National Geographic's Pop Omnivore, Marc Silver writes on the history of Thrown Shoes and Other Hurled Insults. "Your feet walk on dirt. [...To] show the sole of your foot in Middle Eastern countries, in Thailand, and in a few other places—it’s a terrible insult. People get into huge fights when they think someone has purposely shown the bottom of their foot, barefoot or in shoes. If you cross [your] legs and let the sole of your shoe face someone, that can be a terrible, terrible insult. People have been killed for that." He traces the gesture back as far as ancient Egypt, where people "sometimes drew a pictograph of their enemy on the bottom of their sandals and walked on them symbolically."

This reminded me that the ancient Greeks also used shoes to express contempt. In my novel, Night of the Furies, the young trio of archeological sleuths contemplate a 1st Century BC statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty:

Eros, the winged cherub, fluttered just over her shoulder, while standing beside her was the goat-god Pan, doing his best to seduce her.

It's difficult to tell whether Eros is trying to defend Aphrodite or encourage Pan. But there's little doubt of the goddess' intent, flashing the sole of her sandal.

Later in the novel the trio investigate the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries. Initiates to the annual religious rite--which included both women and slaves--joined together in a boisterous 14-mile procession from Athens to the seaside city of Eleusis.

At one point, crossing a bridge over the river Kephisos, "Men with heads covered to conceal their identity sat on the bridge and hurled ribald insults at distinguished persons in the procession" (H.W. Parke). Whether it was done to "forestall any ill luck" or was simply an opportunity for merriment, we have to ask ourselves: What ancient culture other than the Greeks would have allowed such freedoms to its citizens? How many cultures even allow them today?

We have much to thank the ancient Greeks for, just as the Iraqi people--despite legitimate complaints and terrible costs--have much to thank our soldiers for. According to the brother of the Iraqi reporter who "spontaneously" threw his shoes at President Bush, he had been planning his "protest" for nearly a year. There was a time, not too long ago in Iraq, when he wouldn't have been free to even imagine such a thing.

Isocrates blogs on Greek riots

The AP reports: ...the unprecedented scale of destruction has horrified Greeks. The conservative daily, Eleftheros Typos, lamented that the very foundation of the country's democracy was at risk. The paper's front page bore a single quote from the ancient Greek rhetorician Isocrates:

"Our democracy is self-destructing, because it abused the right to freedom and equality, because it taught people to consider impudence as a right, illegality as freedom, rudeness as equality and anarchy as happiness."