Presuppositions and Their Discontent

In a recent conversation with a friend, he remarked that he has not yet come to a policy on who to give to gifts to at year end. We talked about how a single policy tries to simplify the context to an unchanging background. However, the context is dynamic. One policy does not do justice to all the variations that are present - more organic is to respond to the complexity by adjusting the action to the situation.

Tragedy and its discontent

These ideas arose from the context of reading the tragedy Antigone in French by Jean Anouilh.

The gist of the tragic structure is that Creon the king has a niece Antigone. Antigone's brother Polynice revolts against the king and is killed. Creon orders that Polynice is not to be buried. And hence in the mythology of the times his soul can not find any rest. Antigone feels duty bound to bury her brother so he can find rest. She disobeys Creon's edict and is caught. Creon is duty bound to uphold the law and kill her no matter who she is as she refuses to hide the fact that she was burying Polynice and will continue that attempt. Hence the tragedy - as long as Creon and Antigone follow their perceived duty, Creon will have to kill Antigone.

The structure of this tragedy is a frequent occurence in human affairs. As long as people, within the structure of their culture and society, follow the norms of their context, tragedy may result.