Look at the parts of the world that don’t have empires, don’t have kings. The Native Americans have Coyote. The aboriginal australians have the Rainbow Serpent. The Polynesians have Maui. Not tyrants.
Now look at the parts of the world that do have human tyrants. The Greeks have Zeus. The Egyptians have Ramses. The Mayans had Kukulkan. People worship gods that resemble their own leaders and their own natural environment.
The only exception to drag’s theory is Asia. China had huge empires, but Buddha isn’t a tyrant. Maybe the Jade Emperor is; drag doesn’t know as much about Tao as drag would like. Anyone got reading suggestions for getting into Taoist mythology? (Other than Journey To The West. Already love that story)
The Egyptians have Ramses
Uh? Ramesses was human - all 11 of them were. Egypt has the likes of Ra, Osiris, Anubis and so on, who I don’t think are particularly tyranical in their stories.
For China, the actual mythology stuff is a lot of creation myth, but they do have a few stories about a divine emperor crushing an army of demons, and it turns out a lot of that is actually about conquering less developed, more nomadic cultures to unify China (Japan pretty much did the same, creation myth then crushing foreign demons that are actually literally foreigners not under their rule). And then there’s the whole mandate of Heaven that they used to justify dynasties rising and falling, mixing up history into myth, that began when a government that started well ended up being seen as tyranical after a few centuries (the Shang, ending with Zhou and Daji).
Older, more primordial mythologies just start at world creation myth, and then talk about humans figuring out how to settle the land, and how the universe works. Mesopotamian cultures mostly focus on defeating the forces of nature, which does involve standing up to violent gods or monsters, but that comes from trying to build up a civilization that can survive disasters, and is actually not tied to tyranical human rulers. Any civilization needs to start with things like water control, that’s why everyone from China to Greece also have that. Sumerians specifically have cities that go to war with each other because “the chief god of their city told them to”, which is obviously manipulation to secure resources, but isn’t particularly tyranical against their own people. And then the Bronze Age Collapse happens, after which the myth of Ishbi and Erra shows a war god who gets petty and kills everyone because people didn’t pay attention to him. So again, the stories of tyranical gods come from people trying to survive and explain destruction events, from nature or from outside forces. When the Assyrians go around killing everyone, Sennacherib destroys Babylon out of anger and frustration - he tries to write a story about the god of Babylon ordering him to do that, and another story of his own god putting the same god of Babylon on trial for some crime, but that doesn’t stick and Sennacherib gets murdered.
At some point it’s not easy to distinguish mythology and simply literature. For China specifically, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods talk a lot about the bureaucracy and hierarchy of the Heavens, the oppression of gods and demons - but they’re 16th century novels, are they really mythology? Those stories clearly became popular because people felt oppressed by tyrants, so the myths about tyranical gods can of course be a reaction to the people experiencing tyranical rule. Sun Wukong’s story famously starts because the various systems of the Heavens can’t contain him (and mankind), only Buddha can - but then that’s still a 16 c. novel that showed up long after the creation of Buddhist “mythology”, its spiritual structure and divine figures.
So there’s multiple reasons for stories to pop up about gods becoming tyrants, either because the people get upset at actual tyrant kings, or because one country tries to justify the destruction of another country. But there’s a distinction to be made about stories written as piece of literature and when they become actual civilization building myths that is a fundamental part of its culture. The older a civilization develops and gets centralized, the more opportunities you get for anyone to write more stories that become myth a few hundred years later. If that civilization has ups and downs, the stories about gods are more likely to reflect that. (I think Egypt got out of that because it actually collapsed 3 times, and kept starting over with new gods doing the same things, none of the unified kingdoms lasted more that 500 years)
Don’t forget that the pharaohs were explicitly believed to be incarnations of Ra or Amun or whoever was on top of the pile that millenium, or that divine heirarchies and rights often deliberately mirror the base attitudes of the society that created them in the first place, and how could they not? They’re a product of the culture, same as anything else.
I don’t think OP expressed the idea well but there’s definitely a grain of truth in there.
The aztec had Quetzalcoatl. The maya had Kukulkan.
Thank you. Drag always struggles with those two. If you’d like to share any more knowledge, drag would eagerly listen.
They always downvote people like us. Hug.
Both represent the feathered serpent god, which is usually depicted as a dragon-like figure.
So it’s a difference of language? Or are there other distinctions?
Kind of like Zeus and Jupiter refer to the same god, just through a Greek versus Roman lens
Exactly, it’s even predated by an olmec bird-snake/dragon god, but we don’t know how it was called then.
Buddha was Indian. And 6th century BC. It did spread to Asia, but it was not theirs originally. They did tend to adopt more philosophical things, like Confucianism and Taoism around that time.
But there’s also older stuff. Myths, gods, yokai, Djinn, etc. throughout Asia. With plenty probably fitting what your definition wants, but idk. I would start looking for stuff older than Buddhism, Taoism (or legalism), or Confucianism.
I have a Taoist reading suggestion for you.
The Tao of Pooh
Turns out, Winnie the Pooh (from the original literature) embodies a lot of Taoist principles, and this book explains the parallels. My brother read it a long time ago and passed it on to me, because he said it reminded him of me. Turns out I’ve unknowingly been a Taoist my whole life. I just didn’t know it until I read the Tao of Pooh.
I do NOT recommend the Tao de Jing. Although it is essentially considered the “Tao Bible”, it’s all over the place and doesn’t really spell out what Taoism is all about.
The Tao of Pooh is awesome. I had a similar experience to you when reading it, where I realized that it was already pretty close to my philosophy.
The Te of Piglet is also there if you want some more reading through a western lens, but really the Tao of Pooh is all you need to get yourself thinking
Thank you!
Dawg did you just lump all the tribes into one group and all of Asia into China
The mad lad surely did.
Few are as brave.
Do you like this one better?
Not particularly, no. Coyote isn’t a mono-divinity like they are being characterized here. It’s ok to simply recognize a lack of knowledge about Indigenous cultures. But the fact that the characterizations that are used here clearly come from a western conceptualization of divinity while posturing like it’s criticism of western divinity is fairly ironic.
Would you like to explain what mono-divinity is and how Coyote is different? Drag will listen.
The indiginous mayans had tyrants that came to power through warfare. They dominated other cities and required tribute.
Maya polities engaged in violent warfare for political control of people and resources. Among the most critical resources were water and agricultural land. Economic control of resources such as obsidian also increased competition among polities.[2] As polities became more successful, they also became more complex. This led to improved efficiency in acquiring and holding valued resources, especially through military force. Population growth increased the competition between polities, resulting in increased levels of violence.
(1).
The Mayans and Aztecs were imperialist prior to contact. They regularly practiced oppressive, military expansion and colonialism. True story.
That’s probably why the Mayans did human sacrifice
find me one single culture that is free of tyrants
Haudenosaunee.
they are subject to the tyranny of the US federal government, and I’m sure there are people within their territory that would not consider their tribal governments to be representative of their needs
I think it’s an interesting coincidence that you chose that group because I used to live in an area where several different haudenosaunee nations had reservations. there are many hardships that they endure because of the federal government but also because of poor management or corruption in their own governments.
edit to add: if we include their pre colonial history, the haudensaunee were like any other culture. they had conflict with their neighbors. they had conflict with each other. they engaged in warfare against other groups for reasons including feuds, control of land, the capture of slaves.
If you’re considering the US federal government (excluding the newly elected carrot…) ‘tyrannical’, what civilisations are you considering not tyrannical? The list has to be very, very small.
that’s my point exactly. there does not exist a governmental system (and never has at least as long as nation states have existed) that is not tyrannical in some sense.
Oh, I mixed up your post. Sorry.
all good
Oh, you’re including when a culture is oppressed by others? Sorry, drag misunderstood.
Sentinelese.
There was rampant cannibalism in Polynesia along with all kinds of infighting. Maori gods have plenty of murder and war in the mythology.
War in Asia goes far wider than just one empire. Imperial Japan were thoroughly tyrannical during WW2, as well as many other conflicts.
Any civilisation that could spare, mobilise, and feed enough people to form an army basically did so, sooner or later. It’s a supply lines and population problem. Small populations can’t raise large armies and send them long distances.
You know, given that information, it would have made a lot of sense for drag to specify “tyranny” rather than general badness, put the Mayans in the “oppressive gods, oppressive society” category, and point out that Asia is home to plenty of tyranny despite the presence of Buddhism. It sure is a lucky thing that drag did all three of those things. Thanks for looking out.
None of the definitions of tyranny I see have a restriction on scale. You can be a tyrant ruling a hundred people or a billion. It’s technology (transport, food storage, writing/communication) and geography that limit the size of a tyranny. I’d argue lots of small tribal societies wander into tyranny; it’s just hard to rule over multiple islands when you don’t have writing or metals.
There’s religions in Asia other than Buddhism.
Given that information, it would have been good for drag to mention Taoism.
Two religions is not more statistically significant than one.
Referring to yourself in the third person and acting like this comes off as extremely condescending.
