The Lion Beaten By The ManA picture once was shown,
In which one man, alone,
On the ground had thrown
A lion fully grown.
Much gloried at the sight the rabble.
A lion thus rebuked their babble:
"That you have got the victory there,
There is no contradiction.
But, gentles, possibly you are
The dupes of easy fiction:
Had we the art of making pictures,
Perhaps our champion had beat yours!"
-Jean La Fontaine
http://oaks.nvg.org/fontaine.html
Such is Man, above all: futily sly. It is as widely known as ignored that victors write history. In this way, apparent losers, rather than losers are sagacious and extra-temporal. The Lion, worried neither by the pomposity of Man's victory nor by the gossip of the jungle does not contradict Man, but simply exalts the humble fact that Lions do not have the art of making pictures, hence cannot draw previous events. Man thinks himself as constant victor, as ruler of endless dominions, but to what extent is this true? Might it not be better to be beautiful losers than vile winners?
I do not want to desperately charge against the winner like a bull in its last steps across the sand, but I want to note that history is an oblivious fiction. Beautiful and consuming as it is, it is a fiction. This particular picture that La Fontaine refers to, perhaps we might assume that is Hercules the man who beat the lion, for he was always depicted triumphing over full grown lions. Philosophy, literature and history have fantastic displays of archetypes. Hercules, representing unfathomable strength, beats the lion. He represents victory itself and that is what calls my attention. Might it be possible that we've had a misconception of victory since the beginning of humanity? Would it be too harsh to come to the realization that we have been chasing a mirage, a false goal, the end of the rainbow, an empty treasure chest?
We openly deny our animalistic side. We proclaim that we are more, that we have reason and civilization. Yet our current Plus Ultra civilization is built upon the pillars of such an animalistic concept as competition. This is fair, but let us be honest, it is also animalistic and base.
If we do ever decide to move to the realm of reason, to use the intellect as some sort of tool to transcend gore and chaos, we arrive at a terrifying realization. It seems as is we have overestimated the value of victory and underestimated the constructing value of defeat, as if we have overestimated pleasure and underestimated pain. This is because for Man, the eye is the ultimate judge. What we see is what we can all agree on, put a price tag to it and sit back with the satisfaction that we are not mad and that something is actually objective and "real". This though makes us extremely superficial. Therefore we place the highest value on the most shining armor, rather than on something perhaps more invisible and less "useful". If we were to come to the grim realization that we have been wrong all along, that humiliation is better than glory, that loss is better than victory, for higher learning purposes off course, perhaps there would be a dramatic shift in our perception of competition, perhaps we could arrive at a more human capitalism and a less naive socialism, or even just at a more humble existence where altruism is a plausible, active verb, rather than a distant goal than few attempt.
By no means should this be taken too seriously. Please be aware that I could never be as ambitious as to propose an antidote to an incurable disease, but I like to imagine sometimes that Virgil was onto something and there might be an age of heroes. I make myself grin when I write this, but sadly we have gotten to a point where if there was a fight between a Man and Lion, I would take the side of the Lion, who is just like Man, just like Sisyphus, but has one difference: no presumptions.
