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In normal development love modifies cruelty; in order to perpetuate cruelty, steps have to be taken to prevent human love from operating. My contention is that in order to maintain the practice of cruelty, a singular narrowmindedness of purpose is put into operation. This has the function of squeezing out humanity and preventing human understanding from modifying the cruelty. The consequence of this process produces a cruelty which is ‘inhuman’.
If we consider the Oedipus myth from the angle of the role played by the gods, we can follow this process. The god Apollo had ordained that Oedipus would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. No mortal, that is, human, intervention could be proof against the gods’ prediction. Here we see the omnipotent narrowminded persistence: nothing can stand in the way of the omnipotent gods’ determination.
Laius’ only hope was that Oedipus would not survive. Here we see counter-cruelty presented as the only solution. Oedipus was delivered to a shepherd with orders to abandon him on a mountain; but human compassion, the antidote to cruelty, intervened, as the shepherd had not the heart to do this and entrusted the child to a Corinthian shepherd. But this humanity was of no avail.
As a result of cruel destiny, Oedipus killed his father on his journey to escape patricide, emphasizing again the impotence of human understanding. After marrying Jocasta, Oedipus had to root out his father’s murderer, and pursued this course with persistent vigour, excluding all human counsel. The tragic revelation led to his plucking out his eyes, and his abandonment to cruel exile.
What this myth shows, over and above the accepted interpretation, is that the powerful omnipotent gods are determined to triumph over human
compassion and understanding, and this in itself prompts counter-cruelty. The revelation of guilt likewise leads to the relentless cruel judgement of loveless exile, with the deprivation of human comfort; equivalent to the cruelty o