Euphoria

by Lily King

There was a pale violet light in the sky when Fen read the last pages, Helen’s final push toward the understanding that every culture has its own unique goals and orients its society in the direction of those goals. She described the whole set of human potentialities as a great arc, and each culture a selection of traits from that arc. These last pages reminded me of the finale of a fireworks show, many flares sent up at once, exploding one after the other. She claimed that because of the emphasis in the West on private property, our freedom was restricted much more than in many primitive societies. She said that it was often taboo in a culture to have a real discussion of the dominant traits; in our culture, for example, a real discussion of capitalism or war was not permitted, suggesting that these dominant traits had become compulsive and overgrown. Homosexuality and trance were considered abnormalities now, while in the Middle Ages people had been made saints for their trances, which were considered the highest state of being, and in Ancient Greece, as Plato makes clear, homosexuality was ‘a major means to the good life.’ She claimed that conformity created maladjustment and tradition could turn psychopathic. Her last sentences urged acceptance of cultural relativism and tolerance of differences.