Adam at An und für sich has obliquely sketched out an alternative interpretation of the Biblical Fall in Eden, transforming it into a story about early humanity’s first experience with private ownership.
The fall occurred when someone got it into his head to rule over and own everyone else, that is, had a desire for possession that goes beyond the simple needs of survival and acted on it.
By this reading I infer that Adam — appropriately named for perpetrating this mythic inversion — would make Yahweh the original sinner for having staked proprietary rights to to the Garden and especially to the forbidden Tree. This treatment of the Fall reminded me of my very earliest childhood memory.
I was in my backyard playing with my best friend Jeff Heydecker — the officials at Ellis Island probably changed the family surname from Heidegger to make it sound more American. Jeff and I were fighting over a toy metal firetruck. I was convinced the truck was mine; Jeff insisted it belonged to him. And then Jeff conked me over the head with it.
I had not thought of that connection.
Comment by Adam — 19 June 2008 @ 9:53 pm
The Eden Myth as the original ‘enforcing evidence’ for property rights? Now that’s an interesting suggestion for the myth being useful for legitimizing something other than the subjugation of women!
Comment by samlcarr — 19 June 2008 @ 10:50 pm
I thought you might like this approach Sam, in light of your exploratory explorations of Gen. 2-3 on the True Myth discussion. You saw Adam and Eve as conscripted laborers brought in from the wilderness and assigned the task of tending Yahweh’s garden.
I can’t remember if we’ve discussed this before… John Locke’s 2nd Treatise on Government justifies private property based on God’s curse on Adam that “by the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread.” So if you sweat over a piece of land you get to own it and hand it down to your descendants in perpetuity. Locke doesn’t say so, but can we infer that Yahweh earned ownership of the Garden by virtue of having worked it before Adam and Eve showed up?
Comment by ktismatics — 20 June 2008 @ 10:19 am
I see that WordPress has automatically generated a short list of posts that might be related to this one, the first of which is entitled “Fuck.” It turns out to be an angsty poem incorporating the phrase “loss of innocence” in one of its lines. I haven’t checked on “The Well That Is My Being” yet.
Comment by ktismatics — 20 June 2008 @ 10:25 am
Oh, but now that I submitted my last comment the list of related posts has changed. Are these new ones closer to my authorial intent than the prior batch, I wonder?
Comment by ktismatics — 20 June 2008 @ 10:26 am
If we followed through with extrapolating on Locke, the laborers would end up inheriting the farms – and that would make being a farm laborer really worthwhile! Could we extend this thinking to factories and businesses? Not quite what Locke had in mind, I’m sure.
Comment by Sam L. Carr — 20 June 2008 @ 2:10 pm
No: Locke worked for the Earl of Shaftesbury, who I’m sure wanted to hang onto the family estate. Locke contended that, if once you’ve done the requisite work to acquire ownership of the land, that land stays yours to do with what you please: keep it, sell it, hand it down to your children. So Locke justified both private property and inheritance rights in his treatise. I don’t recall whether Locke made a principled argument for the inheritance bit of the argument.
Comment by ktismatics — 20 June 2008 @ 4:04 pm