Wijsgerig Perspectief

This article illustrates that metamorphosis functions not only as a literary motif but also as a narrative technique: thematic metamorphoses within a narrative often require corresponding textual transformations that alter the narrative’s presentation. Although ancient Greek literature features numerous examples of (bodily) transformations, the Greek term ‘metamorphosis’ is notably absent, appearing only in Hellenistic and Roman texts, with Ovid’s Metamorphoses being the most prominent example. In Ovid’s work, metamorphosis functions as both a cosmological principle and a poetic device: divine intervention alters the characters' bodies within the narrative, while playful word order ambiguously transforms the storytelling itself. The article challenges the inclination to view Ovid’s Metamorphoses as the definitive model for literary metamorphoses, arguing instead that no single, unequivocal model exists. Various other models are available, two of which will be further discussed here. In Sophocles’ Oidípous Túrannos, metamorphosis assumes a tragic dimension: Oidipous’ status shifts through reversal and recognition, with wordplay involving oĩda (I know) and pous (foot) undermining his supposed superior knowledge. In Melville’s Moby-Dick, hermeneutic metamorphosis highlights interpretative transformations, where meaning expands through subjective interpretations, culminating in the multifaceted understandings of the white whale Moby Dick. Together these three models demonstrate metamorphosis as a narrative technique that reshapes both the story and its telling.

This essay explores camouflage as a form of strategic metamorphosis that reshapes behaviour, identity and agency rather than merely concealing them. Starting from the myth of Proteus, the sea god who survives by constantly changing shape, it shows how disguise can slip out of control and turn against those who employ it. In Homer, Plato and ancient zoology, metamorphosis is not the expression or transformation of an inner essence but a technique for producing unsettling effects: evading capture, undermining authority, staging playful illusion. This protean logic reappears in animal camouflage, such as that of the octopus, and in early modern courtly dissimulation. It also manifests in contemporary phenomena, including extremist hooligans acting in anonymizing uniforms and the psychological Proteus-effect, where avatars in virtual environments reshape users’ attitudes and behaviour. This essay argues that camouflage is a fundamentally relational and situational force: once set in motion, it generates actions that no single agent fully controls. By combining insights from myth, philosophy, animal behaviour and psychology, this essay offers a framework for rethinking culture not as a linear march towards greater civilisation, but as an intensification of a nature already marked by deception, excess and unstable forms.

This article suggests that drugs offer a prime vantage point through which to view the history of Capitalist Modernity and its effects on our subjectivity in materialist terms. Contrary to the view that the socioecological pathologies of Modernity stem from its purportedly scientific and consumerist materialism, it argues that its driving force is in fact of a spiritual nature – namely, the capitalist law of abstract value. Coming from above in the form of God’s command to subdue and improve the earth, this law draws matter into global economic circuits that metamorphose it to fit its immaterial imperatives. This transformation finds expression in the abstract view of psychoactive plants as mere chemicals and in their use to alter our bodies and align our consciousness to capital. Fortunately, drugs’ alchemical capacity to transform experience and identity can also be deployed to challenge capitalist norms regarding who is properly human. Realizing this queer potential of drugs passes by a revaluation of drugs, modes of consumption, and users that are excluded as “Other” to licit drug regimes, for it is there that we can find inspiration to recreate the world under the guiding value of care, rather than profit.