Doubles Game: Orko & Macić V Golem & Homunculus

The tennis analogy serves as a framework for theoretical elaboration. Orko and macić – the two imaginary beings from Croatian (and Mediterranean) oral tradition – do share many resemblances and mutual differences with golem and homunculus. The latter two originate from kabbalah and alchemy, and thus – according to enlightened modernist classifications – inevitably belong to literary fiction. Nowadays, the literary net is fading under the postmodern pressure of interdisciplinary globalization and its height cannot be measured: the pairs are blending into common mythical playground. The idea of free market aspires to become the new materialist deity, and it renounces the very existence of spirituality – even within human brain. Religion, mythology, art and literature are oversimplified to ideology. The imaginary beings (both in literature and in belief narratives) cease to be the relevant subject in Humanities, and they have to make room for real humans – narrators and their social context. On the other hand, the arrogant anthropologization of our studies bears no proportion to the spontaneous remythologization in society. Who are the real, pure humans, is still an open question. The otherness is still within us, and the deprived imaginary beings can strike back. They can use the anthropocentric hubris of neoliberalism and return as superior “man-made humans”. A “new singularity” (Kurzweil 2005) might transcend human biology by combining the three important technologies of the 21st century: genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (including artificial intelligence).