The Tyranny of the Literal: How We Forgot to Read the World
by Beezone
“The map is not the territory.”
Alfred Korzybski
“The sense of this work is not simple.”
Dante, in his letter to Can Grande
We used to know how to read. Today we live in an age of singular meaning—where all four layers of interpretation have been flattened into one: the literal. Literalism is not clarity. It is simplifed deduced pablum. Its easily digestable and can be quickly told highlighting telling points beyond itself; it the dog barking at the moon. Literalism forgets that the name is not the thing, the map is not the territory, and the word is not the world. History is no longer mythic, religion is only doctrine, news is either fact or fake, and the mystical, the mystery; anagogical? That’s been edited out.
Dante opens his Divine Comedy with a confession we all recognize: “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood.” It is not his life—it is our life. And the dark wood is not just a forest. It is the moment of disorientation, the collapse of old maps, the beginning of awakening.
Michael Knowles points out that for Dante, salvation happens through history, not apart from it. We are not lifted out of time—we walk through it. Our transformation does not happen in abstraction but in particular places, with particular people, and through particular deeds.
That is why Dante speaks of exile, and why he draws from the ancient story of Exodus. He quotes Psalm 113—“When Israel went out of Egypt…”—to show that the journey is the same: from bondage to freedom, from illusion to vision, from the Egypt of literalism to the Jerusalem of revelation.
But if we take these stories only as historical records, we sever ourselves from their power. The Exodus was not just then (if then)—it is now. We are all, always, being called to leave the known, to walk through the desert, and to be tested, challenged, and changed; for better or for worse.
The Illusion of Singularity
In De Monarchia, Dante outlines his vision of a universal monarchy—an ideal political order aligned with divine will and cosmic harmony. He invokes the legacies of Rome and Troy as mythic precedents, suggesting that from the ashes of Troy, through the founding of Rome, a sacred lineage of order and purpose was meant to unfold.
But here lies a tension—perhaps even an error—not in Dante’s poetic imagination, but in how that imagination has been historically and politically appropriated. For while Dante spoke in the language of empire, what he envisioned was not imperial dominance but metaphysical coherence. Rome and Troy are not blueprints; they are symbols—containers of mythic memory, signposts pointing toward the possibility of earthly harmony mirroring celestial order.
To take Dante’s vision literally—as some did and still do—is to miss the soul of it entirely. The idea of a single, worldly monarchy reflecting divine unity becomes not a path to peace but a pretext for domination. Dante’s own exile, his alienation from the political order he longed to sacralize, reveals this contradiction: the very powers that claimed the mantle of Rome cast out its greatest visionary.
News headlines, partisan soundbites, and even historical narratives are flattened into binary judgments
And yet, what passes for politics today—and not only today, but in ages past—is often a childlike simplification of the complexities of life. News headlines, partisan soundbites, and even historical narratives are flattened into binary judgments: good or bad, right or wrong, us or them. This is not an evolution of human understanding, but a regression. It is the treatment of profound existential and social processes as if they were a playground dispute.
To interpret the notion of a “universal monarchy” literally—whether as a historical blueprint or as an authoritarian ideal—is to miss the depth of Dante’s mythic vision. He speaks symbolically, cosmically. He is not outlining a geopolitical program; he is articulating a longing for order, for a higher harmony in which justice and peace might reflect divine truth.
When we fail to read symbolically, we fall into this dangerous simplicity. We take myth for policy, symbol for fact, and in doing so, lose the very soul of the message.
Today, when we speak of politics, we do so like children who have forgotten how to read. We treat news stories and partisan battles as if they are final, as if they are all there is. We have no mythic depth, no symbolic context, no moral or anagogical reading.
We say: “He won. She lost. This is good. That is evil.” As if the kingdom of heaven were a final exam. This is not wisdom. It is not even knowledge. It is simplification masquerading as clarity. And that is dangerous.
But there is a deeper risk still—the spiritual danger of mistaking the sign for the source, the map for the sacred mountain. Modern linguist Alfred Korzybski warned us: “The map is not the territory.” But long before that, mystics and prophets warned of a deeper temptation: to replace the Living Presence with the written word, to idolize the symbol and forget what it points to.
As contemporary spiritual teacher Adi Da writes, “My Word is not a ‘substitute’ for Me… My Word is Me.” Here lies a sacred paradox. His Word is inseparable from the Reality it points to—but only if read with the heart, relationally, not literally. To freeze the Word into fixed meaning is to lose the very transmission the Word carries.
This, too, is Dante’s wisdom. His poem is a map—but not the territory. A dark wood, a path, a guide—but not the Destination.
Dante calls us not to study his map like scholars dissecting a diagram—but to walk the path, to read the signs, and be changed by them.
Every true teaching, every sacred text, lives in this tension. The letter is not the life. The sign is not the Source. But both are necessary—when read with depth, devotion, and the willingness to be led beyond them. This is why Adi Da warns not to mistake his Word for his Presence. Because the moment we treat a sign as a final destination, the journey stops. Literalism is not just a misreading. It is spiritual stagnation. It is Egypt.
But the journey is still underway.
The Comedy is still unfolding.
The Exodus is still happening.
Every true story is a bridge to the mystical. Its function is not to report reality, but to reveal it. To read rightly is to recover the world as sign and symbol, to once again walk the road of exile with open eyes and open heart—knowing that what is seen is never all that is. That is the turn we must make again—not just as readers of Dante, but as readers of our lives.