Eve Battles the Bullies
On creepy origin myths, the importance of self-knowledge, and the revenge of the power ties
(This is a partial transcript of Episode 50 of my podcast, Be True, available here on Substack as well as on most major podcast platforms. Kamala Harris’s candidacy was announced after this episode was written and recorded, and her ascension has added an extra layer of meaning, so I share it here in the hope that you find it of particular interest now.)
I often say that my most recent chapbook, The Dark Ways Mysterious, is about the creative, erotic, and forbidden energies that make us human.
One of the forbidden energies that most interests me comes from…self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge is dangerous. Self-knowledge is rebellion.
Self-knowledge is a shield.
Churches, governments, and corporations have been impeding self-knowledge for centuries.
A person with deep self-knowledge is not easily manipulated by advertising or the media, and is therefore a more discerning consumer…which is terrible for capitalism.
A person with deep self-knowledge is not easily manipulated by politicians and institutions that operate on the trickle down theory that what’s good for them is good for everyone else…which is terrible for political parties, and lobbyists, and power brokers.
And a person with deep self-knowledge is not as easily manipulated by the clergy and priesthoods of the world’s faiths, and not as easily convinced of their own fallen or unredeemable state…simply because they’re human and do human things and make human mistakes.
A person with deep self-knowledge is less susceptible to envy, subservience, and guilt—and these are the qualities that power preys on.
So that’s a dangerous person. And always has been.
This is why Zeus punished Prometheus for eternity—because he gave humans knowledge. And, more to the point today, it’s why God punished Eve, because she accepted fruit from the tree of knowledge.
The alternative, in both cases, was an eternal ignorance, an ignorance of self most of all, and a childish dependency—which is what power, and bullies, always crave.
In that sense, Eve was not only the first woman, but the first adult.
For this crime, God said to Eve (and here I’m quoting Genesis), “I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband and he shall be your master.”
That’s right. God tells Eve she is compelled to desire Adam sexually, and also to suffer the painful consequences…to be his servant, sexually above all. This is the fucked up origin story of our culture. The first adult is damned to a life of endless pain and childbearing, according to the whim and will of a man too childish to ask a question.
That’s some cold shit. So in this poem, I imagined her adult response.
Whatever you have given I have repaid twice over. How can I be blamed for my wonder? How can we, in our private gratitude, worship so far but no further? The favorite entitled will always fail to see the possibilities and you, my love, were blind. You needed me to say that something was missing. You needed me to tie you to the tree. Such a deadly waste...unappreciated beauty. Such a crime against nature and humanity in all its messy variety. I wanted the knowledge of your body, your arms and neck, the gently sloping muscle of your back. I wanted to know and feel myself deeply. How can I be blamed for my wonder? How can I be blamed for experience? I created us.
“The favorite entitled will always fail to see the possibilities and you my love were blind.”
Here, Eve is telling Adam, the “favorite entitled,” that because he was so comfortable in his childishness, he did not see what was all around him.
And yet it is because of this blindness that God appointed Adam the master of Eve. There are a lot of ways to read that judgment, but they’re all based on blind obedience and infantilism. You know, long-standing Daddy issues.
So where are we now?
The fragile bullies we’ve been fretting over for years…the “favorite entitled” who fail to see the possibilities beyond their own comforts…they continue to expect mastery in America, precisely because their world views are so simple, so arbitrary, based on force…and so fucking incurious.
In that sense, they really are God’s children, with an emphasis on “children.”
And Eve, the curious, the wise, the appreciative…Eve the self-actualized…Eve the adult…Eve remains the outsider.
Given the choice, I would stand with Eve a hundred times out of a hundred.
At least she knew what was “good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” At least she understood discomfort and sacrifice. At least she knew herself.
Luna speaks…
Dang, we can't edit comments.
I might comment a bunch if thoughts come to me.
One difference between the tree in the Quran vs Bible is that the tree (afaik) has no association with knowledge. The Quran only speaks to it being forbidden to eat from. And Satan's whisper to them was that God didn't want them to become angels or immortal (i.e. forever staying in heaven), and if they did they would essentially stay in heaven forevermore (7:20).
So God forbidding the tree is not because He didn't want Adam and Eve to have knowledge. Everywhere in the Quran, knowledge is emphasized and prioritized, and many times God speaks to how He granted knowledge to humans that they didn't have.
If you build on that, then a person of God is someone who has deep self-knowledge and who isn't gullible and easily preyed on. And yes, of course, religion is always weaponized and twisted to keep the masses ignorant and in fear, but that's not the fault of the belief system; the fault lies with the abusers of the belief system for ulterior motives. Hence it's crucially important to engage with the Quran (I'm Muslim so I speak from my experience and pov) directly, in its language, and not just through translations and works of tafseer and what your local scholars say, while realizing the value of all of these secondary and tertiary and whatever-ary sources. All the good stuff about not re-inventing the wheel and the fact that you can't disregard thousands of years of knowledge production.
Anyways, thanks for reading haha, I've said a lot.
Interesting read, and I disagree. Well, I'd need to give it a few more reads to detail exactly what arguments I disagree with. I do agree with everything about a person having self-knowledge being very dangerous to capitalism.
As for what I disagree with, it would be the broad narrative of Even and Adam. I have not read the Bible so I cannot refute any arguments you've made quoting the Biblical story of Eve. But I have read the Quran and the Quranic narrative for what happened with Adam and Eve is very different, and would result in a very different direction for this discussion of self knowledge.
I will come back to say more (very intriguing post afterall) but for now I will just say that in the Quran, God gives Adam knowledge. "And He taught Adam the names—all of them..." (2:31) I highly recommend reading up on the tafseer of that verse. But point being, Adam was not ignorant, and God didn't want ignorance for humanity. It's the exact opposite, where God gave knowledge to humanity, knowledge that even the angels weren't given. All that is to just say that if you consider the Quran, then you might gain an entirely different perspective on God, Adam, and Eve.