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Jiang interprets Gilgamesh as a kingship story: a king becomes immortal not by living forever but by serving the people so they remember and celebrate him.
Topic brief
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Kingship
Jiang interprets Gilgamesh as a kingship story: a king becomes immortal not by living forever but by serving the people so they remember and celebrate him.
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Key Notes
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Hero stories begin as local legends that legitimate local kings by making their rule depend on descent from or performance of heroic acts.
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Polytheistic gods are authority, but not benevolent expert authority; they are proud, vengeful, arbitrary forces that can favor and abandon rulers.
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The idea that rulers are benevolent authority figures is described as a new modern concept; older kings rule because the gods favor them, not because they are good.
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Intermarriage is a political technology: kings and princes use marriages to form alliances, but marriage can also require religious conversion.
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definition
He defines an apology as the writing kings sponsor after violent or nefarious accessions to explain that their rule was divinely willed, necessary, and not ambitious.
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Jiang says every king must solve three political-literary problems: legitimacy, identity, and differentiation from former cultures.
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In Jiang's simplified Egyptian creation account, Ra creates life, Osiris gives people civilization, and Horus gives Egypt the institution of kingship.
Timestamped Evidence
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"What happens is that Gilgamesh is a king but he's a tyrant. So he takes the men to war and he sleeps with all..."
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"...told? And one theory is that this is a concept of kingship."
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"Being a king means not doing whatever you want. Being a king means to serve the people so the people will celebrate you and..."
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"Okay? And that's how you justify your kingship through these acts of heroism that's related to you in stories. Okay? That's the first step...."
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"I want to ask, like, in scenario one, rule number one, would God also be an authority? God will also be an authority."
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"king is a king why because he's favored by the gods it's not because he's a good person it's not because he's a just..."
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"That's actually a great question, okay? God is authority. Okay. That's actually a great question. Thank you so much. So I have to spend..."
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"Why? Because he's favored by the gods. It's not because he's a good person. It's not because he's a just ruler. It's just because..."
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"Right? Because he's also fighting against the other Vikings in the area. Okay? Does that make sense? And that's the idea of intermarriage. To..."
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"...brother kills the older brother to usurp the throne. Okay? Usually kingship requires ruthlessness. But the problem is, when you're ruthless, you have a..."
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"Okay? So remember, back at this point, the very idea of writing, it is new. It's a new technology. But it's also a very..."
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"Any questions so far before I continue? Alright. So the last thing I want to talk about today is the apology of David which..."
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Relevant Lectures And Readings
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A source-grounded reading of Jiang's lecture on civilization as temple economy, writing as hierarchy machine, Enuma Elish as sky-god propaganda, Gilgamesh as bureaucratic literature, and grain as the crop kings prefer because free pastoralists...
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The first Secret History class begins with Kant and ends with alchemy.
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The first Secret History class starts with Kant and ends with alchemy.
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The Bible begins, in this lecture's argument, as political spin for David: a library of collective imagination that turns usurpation, murder, and fear of rivals into legitimacy, identity, and eventually literature.
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Mesopotamia turns geography into mythology: where Egypt imagines divine generosity and pyramidal immortality, the land between two uncooperative rivers learns struggle, creative destruction, and the more fragile immortality of being remembered by the people...
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Rome does not hand Octavian power because he is the best general, the most charismatic speaker, or the obvious heir.
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Julius Caesar was not only a general or politician.
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