To Be or Not to Be a Monster

The archetypal Destructive Monster (Skadhe) is extremely common in world mythology, notably of the cosmogonic myths. It must be killed, or fettered, or perhaps held under rule by a stronger power. But rarely tamed, I think-- that's a later version.

Humans are the Destructive Monster (World-Skadhe). We are an alien species-- we are very different to the other animals-- we are a freak of Nature. We once were like them, integrated into the Earth's Ecosystem, but we are no longer shaped-to-fit by natural selection to remain a coordinated element in a relatively stable equilibrium state. We have evolved beyond that, so that we are naturally destructive of the Biosphere, and we are increasingly so-- we are out of bounds, out of control, destroying our very home, our Life-world (Hame).

However we became the Skadhe of Edhli, and that is still under discussion, it is principally by changes in culture that we have become more dangerous and damaging. And it is culture which can tame and train the human monster to relative harmlessness. If we can engineer a heroic shift of world culture into ecological sustainability-- and there's no doubt it would be extremely difficult, the most difficult thing we've ever tried to do-- then perhaps our species has a future, and the Biosphere as well. Considering the alternative we have been engineering, how can we not make the heroic effort?

We may always be a freak of Nature, not really naturally a coordinated part of the dynamic Ecosystem, but we can give ourselves a special role in the balance of Nature-- we can engineer ourselves, culturally, and perhaps out of necessity, otherwise, to become something better, more, than human-- become the guardian of the Biosphere, call it what you will-- the Overman, the Oekomensch, whatever. And a crucial part of this, along, of course, with the actual effective defense of the Biosphere from the Monster, is to forge and keep a true ecological culture-civilization, which I call the Edhli-menning.