Does the Myth of Sisyphus Communicate a Moral Productive or Counter-Productive for our Society?

The myths and stories told by any culture each have morals, broader implications that apply to more than the specific circumstances of the stories they are found in. These morals can give insight into what a particular culture or society values. In the case of the myth of Sisyphus from Ancient Greek mythology - the story of a man, punished by the gods to toil forever on a task he knows will not end - depending on your interpretation can be read either as a warning not to disrupt the natural world and environment, or a story promoting submission to cultural authority.

I myself am not sure which interpretation is more valid, for reasons I will expand upon in this blog. My goal is to communicate these two perspectives and explore if there is any overlap, then the Minds.com community and I can discuss which interpretation is more true to both the story and cultural values of the time the myth was perpetuated.

In Ancient Greek mythology as with most mythologies, the gods are stand-ins for natural phenomena that the Greeks couldn't fully explain or understand. For example, the story of Apollo riding his flaming chariot across the sky was the mythic explanation for the suns path across the sky before there was a scientific explanation. Lightning is mythically explained by Zeus raining down thunderbolts, another cultural explanation for a natural phenomenon. Based on this interpretation, the Greek gods represent some intrinsic aspect of the natural world, and this symbolism can help us understand the first potential meaning of the Myth of Sisyphus.

During his life, Sisyphus committed actions that went directly against the natural order, and therefore against the nature of the gods. He was responsible for chaining up Thanatos, the angel of death when he came for Sisyphus' soul. As a direct result of his actions, nothing could die until  Thanatos was freed which is a clear violation of natural law. So in this interpretation, his willing violation of natural law and therefore the gods themselves is what landed Sisyphus in his eternal punishment. This moral communicates the importance of looking to nature and the outside world to inform our own behaviour and values.

The second method of interpretation stems from the gods representing societal authority as opposed to natural law. This view of the gods can be seen clearest in the tale of Arachne, a talented mortal weaver who challenged Athena to a weaving competition. Athena spun a tapestry showing all the good the gods have done, and Arachne spun one showing all the times the gods have toyed with humans like dolls. This could be seen as a critique of the god's position of absolute authority, but this is thrown out when Athena turns Arachne into a spider and wins the competition by default. This perpetuates subservience to the gods in myth, and submission to societal expectations and authority as a part of Ancient Greek society.

Under this lens, the story of Sisyphus becomes not a message about respect for nature, but instead for cultural authority. I feel this is still a valid interpretation because part of Sisyphus cheating death was denying himself the proper burial Greek culture expects, so he could haunt the living world instead of passing on. So in this second interpretation, the moral clearly teaches a mindset of not questioning cultural taboos and following societal expectations.     

When I brought this question up with a friend, he said it could be both of these interpretations at the same time, that Ancient Greek culture could have held up natural law and natural phenomena as godlike, and used nature to inform the societal incentives and taboos. I really like this idea because it shows why the Greeks were able to develop science and academia as effectively as they did. Because they based their societal values on the natural world any progression of their society necessarily reflected natural laws.

Our current society has many myths and taboos, but we must ask what the messages behind these myths are, and whether we are living as a reflection of nature and natural laws, or a perversion of them. Living out of sync with nature as we do now is a massive detriment to our entire planet as, and we need to reorganise our societal values and goals to live harmoniously with our reality.