In some stories, when things begin to fail, someone is called to explain what is happening. In many cases, they call for Tiresias.
He does not fix the situation. He does not resolve it. He names it. Even when what he says is resisted, it is not ignored. There is at least a recognition that something is wrong and that it requires interpretation.
That recognition matters.
It marks a limit, a point at which what is happening can no longer proceed without being made legible, comprehensible, seen.
There are other ways truth is authorized. At Delphi, they turn to Pythia. The Oracle speaks, and meaning is taken up through established forms. Interpretation is expected. It is built into the structure.
In both cases, something is acknowledged: what is happening cannot simply continue without being made meaningful.
Oftentimes, though, that moment does not occur. Things continue as they are. Decisions are made. Explanations are accepted. What is happening is taken as sufficient to itself. No one pauses to ask what it means.
The moment is not ruled by disbelief. It is not Cassandra, speaking and not being believed. It is something a bit different. The conditions for asking do not materialize. Interpretation is not refused. It is rendered unnecessary.
In Greek myth, the call for Tiresias marks a threshold. Something has gone far enough that it can no longer proceed without being named. Here, the threshold does not hold. Or it holds, but is not recognized as such. What would ordinarily interrupt is absorbed. What would call for explanation is routed around. This is not a failure of perception. It is a feature of the structure. What counts as a problem is already constrained. What requires interpretation is already decided.
Not everything that strains the system is allowed to register as strain. And where recognition would create obligation, it is easier not to recognize at all. This is how asymmetry is maintained. Not only through what is denied, but through what is never taken up. To name what is happening would be to enter into relation with it, to become accountable to what has been seen. Where that relation would demand too much,
interpretation itself becomes excessive.
Tiresias is not missing. The role remains available. A figure who can be called when recognition becomes unavoidable. What is absent is the decision to call at all.
And so what is happening continues, not because it has been understood, but because understanding would require a different relation than the one the system is able to sustain.
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