Oedipus and self-fulfilling prophecy
example · Greek myth / Sophocles ·
retold in 3 talks
Oedipus's parents, trying to avert the oracle, send him away, which sets in motion the very events predicted. Had they ignored the prophecy, there would have been no Oedipus complex.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“If the parents of Oedipus were to say: Okay, if it happens, it happens, who cares about the prophecy, nothing would happen. There would have been no Oedipus complex.”
“if things will turn out bad, it they will turn out in Oedipus' way.”1:36:39 Hegel's 250th Anniversary: Too late? // Slavoj Žižek & Sven-Olov Wallenstein2020-09-09 · 1:42:05
“it's through their attempt to avoid it that it happened if there would have been no prediction... nothing would have happened”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
self-fulfilling prophecy
×2
fate that realizes itself through being known
×1
Der Geist ist ein Virus
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Oedipus's parents, trying to avert the oracle, send him away, which sets in motion the very events predicted. Had they ignored the prophecy, there would have been no Oedipus complex., illustrating fate that realizes itself through being known,self-fulfilling prophecy
1:36:39 Hegel's 250th Anniversary: Too late? // Slavoj Žižek & Sven-Olov Wallenstein2020-09-09 · 1:42:05
Žižek argues that predictions (like Oedipus's) cause the events they predict, and similarly, climate change predictions may cause the disasters they aim to prevent., illustrating Geist is a virus,Oedipal pessimist,Hegelian uncertainty
The Oedipus myth as Hegelian paradox: without the prophecy and the parents' attempt to avoid it, nothing would have happened. Knowing the future doesn't prevent it but may be constitutive of how it comes to pass., illustrating self-fulfilling prophecy / Oedipus paradox,radical contingency,owl of Minerva