Human institutions operate under the recurring illusion that absolute harmony can be engineered and permanently preserved. Ancient myth builders understood better. By personifying discord as a goddess whose exclusion from a banquet led to the ashes of an ancient civilization, they warned that ignored tensions inevitably demand an accounting.
Eris remains a mirror for human frailty. Her golden apple yielded no magical poison; it carried only a single ambiguous phrase that allowed mortal and divine egos to finish the destruction on their own. Recognizing that discord is an inescapable facet of human nature remains the surest defense against letting it burn the city down.
