Tragedy of the OresteiaThe human will desires transcendence. Instead of recognizing the physical and mental limitations of our species, we strive to work around them. The desire for immanent fulfillment, transcendence, and supremacy becomes especially apparent whenever man attempts to intervene against nature: in medicine, we try to ensure immortality through antibiotics and surgery; in contemporary moral culture, we try to justify and defend the bloody acts of the past and present through constant objectification and qualification; and in psychology we simultaneously attempt to separate and unite the brain and mind through psychoneurological principles. The mysteries of the natural universe are not hidden by the scientist; conventional societal customs are no match for the renegade individual. The ideal of transcendence is further glorified in myth and reinforced in social culture: firefighters, who can control the uncontrollable, are considered heroes and survivors of the death camps, who triumphed against the worst obstacles, are described as heroic. The desire for transcendence is no longer different from the desire for progress or anything a society might deem desirable. The transcendent ideals themselves – including being stronger and smarter, going higher and faster, living longer and happier – have become desired ends in social culture. As such, when we desire progress and improvement, we truly desire transcendence. Aeschylus' Oresteia is a tragedy that reflects progress in itself. The first evidence of this modern transhumanist and deeply romantic human will, that is, an idealistic, intuitive and independently critical will, dates back to ancient Greece. Cleisthenes' establishment of a stable Athenian democracy in the early 6th century BCE marked a gradual revolution in political organization. The Ancient Greeks therefore recognized the novelty and importance of a political system which placed sovereignty in the hands of the collective individual. Athenian citizens felt comfortable in a democratic regime: with comfort came confidence, and with confidence came arrogance, insolence, and overflowing hope. Thus were the seeds of the Western will sown. Greek tragedy, which Aristotle believed evolved from hymn-like dithyrambs performed at festivals honoring the god Dionysus, denied the supremacy of the individual and denied man's freedom from fate. The establishment of democracy provides strong evidence of the transcendental capacities of human will, but the tragic drama has revealed several potential problems. Certain vague commonalities seemed to govern every man, and if man could not escape his own limitations, especially those imposed by emotion, family, and duty, how could the individual be truly supreme ??