05-13-2016, 06:45 PM
(05-13-2016, 07:39 AM)Odin Wrote: IIRC the original Mesopotamian flood myth, going by the Sumerian king list, seems to correspond to no flood obvious in the archeological record. The king list starts with a series of mythical kings, followed by "then The Flood passed over", and then is followed by actual historical rulers, the start of the list of actual historical rulers starts around 3100 BC, which seems to correspond archeologically not to a natural disaster, but to a major shift in Sumerian society in which dominance by Uruk is replaced by feuding city-states and rule by the priests is replaced by military strongmen.
It makes sense -- a legend typically encompassing a collection of events instead of one when the several are bigger than the one.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.