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Arts & Communication The riddle of the sphinx revisited

death but no jokes, mind!’… She received the wonted Greek hero. As Rose 12(p24) explains in The Staff of Oedipus,
caress of her companion, showing with much purring in antiquity, the staff served as the primary symbol of
how happy it made her.” 10(p26-7, italics added) disability, much like the wheelchair today. Oedipus, or
During his stay in the oasis, the soldier experiences “Swollen Foot,” was named after his disability, and this
moments of rapture, a mystical sense of oneness with the may have given him an advantage in solving the sphinx’s
non-human beauties of the desert, which he summarizes riddle. The oldest depiction of the encounter hints at this
as “God without humans.” 10(p35) However, tragedy is interpretation. Near the sphinx’s head, the last words of
inevitable. When the panther suddenly appears to attack her riddle are inscribed: [Κ]ΑΙ ΤΡΙ[ΠΟΥΝ]—“and three-
the soldier, he reacts instinctively and fatally stabs her, only footed.” 1(p16) Indeed, on the floor, in between Oedipus’
to realize that her gesture had been one of affection and feet, we see his staff – as a third foot. Oedipus appears as
that his reaction had been uncalled for. Balzac’s brilliance an organic-technological hybrid – an early cyborg. His
lies in illustrating that intimacy with the other always brilliance lay in recognizing his hybridity while solving the
contains an element of weirdness and non-understanding. sphinx’s riddle. However, his downfall came when, after his
While experiencing a mystical sense of oneness may be victory, he forgot his hybridity and claimed to have solved
1(p16)
spectacular, an ecological morality must account for the the riddle solely by the power of his mind. In doing so,
complexities of actual interaction – dynamic, dissonant, his staff, as seen in Caresses, was replaced by a royal scepter:
and sometimes tragic. A symbol of “Oedipus, whom all men call the Great,” 13(p[93]])
rather than a humble symbol of his inescapable hybridity.
Similarly, the Earth’s critical zone – the thin layer of life
in between an unlivable inner Earth and unlivable outer Before encountering the sphinx, Oedipus’ staff had
space – is extraordinarily complex, and our understanding already functioned as an extension of his arm, especially
of its internal dynamics remains surprisingly limited. 11(p14) when he used it to kill Laius at the crossroads. 13(p[138]])
It is, in a sense, one huge sphinx’s riddle. Fittingly, Bruno Laius, riding in his chariot, was a cyborg too. In antiquity,
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Latour 11(p19) described the truncated knowledge generated chariot technology carried immense prestige, and as
by critical zone observatories as “a leopard skin of data, the driver of such a prestigious vehicle, Laius apparently
separated by large spans of ignorance, in the midst of could not resist the temptation to act disdainfully towards
fierce battles that thwart any simple dream of domination.” a disabled pedestrian blocking his way at the crossroads.
Had Caresses been interpreted through this lens, it could Unfortunately for chariot-cyborg Laius, this arrogance
have served as a catalyst for the development of a more provoked the ire of staff-cyborg Oedipus to such an extent
ecologically attuned Anthropocene morality. Yet, the that he could not resist the temptation of using his own
history of modern Western morality moved in other cyborg potential to kill a man with a single blow from his
directions. In the following sections, I discuss three staff. In the Oedipal crossroads scene, the forces driving the
contemporaneous obstacles that hindered the development event were fundamentally human-technological hybridsi.
of such a morality, each represented by a distinct element In the same year Caresses was painted, Belgium witnessed
within Caresses: Oedipus’ staff, the post-Freudian reception the advent of a modern successor to the chariot cyborg:
of the painting, and the depiction of cultural ruins scattered the automobile driver. In 1896, the Belgian Automobile
across the painting’s landscape. Club organized a highly prestigious automobile festival in
the city of Spa, just 1 year after the inaugural automobile
3. Cyborg Tyrannus, a tragedy festival in Paris. At the time, Belgium was the most
The plural in “Caresses” is not to be ignored. While the industrialized country on the European continent, and the
cheek-to-cheek posture of Oedipus and the sphinx may be event marked the beginning of a rapid transformation that
the most conspicuous caress, there is also a caress between Weber terms “automobilism:” A system that reshaped the
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Oedipus’ firmly stretched right arm and his staff, which world to facilitate the spread of automobiles. Contrary to
visually counterbalances the impressive sphinx’s body. what we might think, automobiles were not thought of in
The role of Oedipus’ staff in the ancient myth is subtle the first place as tools for facilitating the transportation of
but significant. In Ingres’ neoclassical version, Oedipus’ people and commodities. Rather, automobilism introduced
staff is transformed into two spears, aligning with the a distinct morality – a new cyborg ethos – that Weber
period’s idealized portrayal of male heroes as muscular, discusses in four aspects.
handsome, and combat-ready. However, in Sophocles’ The first aspect is the mastery of the human mind
play Oedipus Tyrannus, as well as in the oldest remnant over matter. 15(p[134]]) The automobile, as a powerful and
depiction (Figure 2), the staff is simply a walking stick. potentially dangerous machine, was to be controlled by the
Oedipus needs it, because he is a rare case of a disabled rational drivers, whose intellect would direct the vehicle

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 4 doi: 10.36922/ac.5868