The Gods as Media Forms

Notes on the Media Ecological Implications of Greek Mythology

Abstract

In this essay I present four distinct representations of Greek mythology and discussed their implications for the study of media ecology. I examined Vulcan’s invisible snare from Homer’s Odyssey, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Apollonian-Dionysian dialectical archetypes, the onset of juridical democracy in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and the Cadmus myth as articulated in Euripides’ The Bacchantes. The mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome served as the pasture for which the founders of modern psychology, particularly Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, tilled their burgeoning analyses. To suggest that the gods embody media forms is to assert their role as a middle-ground, a nexus, between the chaotic anarchy of pre-history and what we might call modern politeness forms. The archetypal element of the mythological implies a kind of evolutionary permanence that feeds the human condition. As such, we might look to the gods for, if not solutions to modern problems, then negotiations that may allay our instinctual aggressions and lusts – tried and true methods that worked for our ancient ancestors several millennia ago – narratives that appease fear and expiate guilt in a form we used to call heroic.