CSotD: 24 Hours from Ithaca
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With today's Strange Brew, John Deering may be closer to the truth than he intended.
I mean, this is a funny joke, and one must never dismiss the role humor plays in cartooning.
But then, too, one shouldn't dismiss the role truth plays in humor.
Let's overthink this together!
The Odyssey goes back about 2800 years. The thing about men refusing to ask for directions goes back about 21 years, to Deborah Tannen's best-seller, "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation."
As with most important theories, one aspect was isolated and trivialized and the rest largely forgotten.
In a 2010 article, Tannen herself noted how her observation had morphed: It appeared on cocktail napkins (“Real men don’t ask directions”) and became a staple of stand-up comics as well as jokes that made the rounds: “Why did Moses wander in the desert for 40 years?” and “Why does it take so many sperm to find just one egg?”
Behind the specific issue of men asking for directions is her overarching observation that women see conversation as a chance to share and bond, while men see it as an exchange of information.
If a woman says, "This situation at work is a hassle … " she is likely just telling you what she's going through and not seeking specific advice. She's sharing her day.
But a man, living in a more heirarchal world where conversation is for exchanging information, won't say that something is bugging him until he has given up on solving the problem himself and honestly wants some help.
While what she wants to hear is "I know how you feel," he hears, "I've come to the end of my rope and need some advice." So he responds with, "This is what I think you should do about it." She wanted sympathy but, instead, feels she's being given orders.
However, as much as she resents being ordered around by her husband, a woman, typically, doesn't see anything challenging or humbling in asking someone for directions. It's a strange neighborhood and you can't be expected to know your way around, but this nice person probably knows exactly where you need to go.
But a man left home with an idea of how to get where he needs to be. He probably still has a vague sense of where he is and a feeling that, if he makes a few adjustments, he'll find he wasn't so far off the mark. And so, to him, asking someone for help would sound like this: "I am stupid and unable to figure out what the hell I'm doing. Although we've never met, I'm quite sure that you must be more intelligent and resourceful than I am. Please help me."
To a man, finding your way on your own is being resourceful. To a woman, trying to find your way on your own is being bull-headed. And, of course, in male-dominated Greek mythology, Odysseus is the ultimate in resourceful thinking, while the bull-headed Minotaur is a monster from the gynocentric Minoan religion of antediluvian Crete.
Which brings us back to the Odyssey, wherein Deering has hit on a brilliant parallel. Odysseus has a problem finding his way home for one reason: He has angered the gods and is being punished. You can't really get much closer to the bottom of the heirarchal pile than this wretched man.
Ask for directions? Sure. Asking for directions is no big deal in that world. All Menelaus had to do was capture the Old Man of the Sea, wrestle him to the ground and hold him while he turned into a succession of frightening and powerful monsters, until he had overwhelmed him with his superior strength. For Jason, it was as simple as bringing along a couple of flying warriors to defeat the Harpies, after which it was easy to find out where he should be headed.
And for Odysseus, it required only a descent into the depths of Hades to pick up a little information from the dead.
It should be noted, of course, that Odysseus was gifted with a wife who had well-above average faith in his ability, and his intentions, to eventually find his way home and who did a fair amount of ignoring advice herself.
It should also be noted that the times he really got in trouble — not just with Polyphemus the Cyclops but with Circe (whom he eventually left because he realized being with her was likely to turn him into a real pig) and Calypso (whom he left because, gorgeous and sexy and fun as she was, he genuinely loved and missed his wife) — he hadn't been asking for directions but, rather, asking where he could get something to eat.
Sort of like this guy. There's a lesson in this.
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