affects all human beings, and hishubris makes him err time and time again. His arrogance reminds us that leaders are often blind to their faults and that no one is immune from tragedy. This reality as is true now as it was in ancient Greek times. 

The above answer is excellent, so I will offer another take:

Oedipus is the noblest of tragic heroes.  Even today, we can learn from his suffering and stubborn pursuit of truth.  Whereas lesser tragic heroes might have committed suicide (like Antigone, Othello, and his wife-mother Jocasta), Oedipus blinds himself for not knowing the truth.  In this act, he both punishes and purges himself, in effect taking responsibility for his crimes and lack of self-knowledge (as he promised from the beginning of the play).  Later, in Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus becomes a kind of Tiresias, a blind prophet, and the townspeople welcome him as an emblem of dignity in suffering.

Also, Oedipus Rex teaches us that all of our families have skeletons in the closet.  How well do we know our mothers and fathers?  What secrets have they hidden from us?  More, are we destined to make those same mistakes with our children?  Will we inevitably end up like our parents no matter how hard we try to avoid it?  These are eternal questions which Oedipus Rex poses to its readers in every century.  Just ask Hamlet, Orestes, the Loman brothers (Death of s Salesman), and Luke Skywalker.

While the aspect of marrying your mother and accidentally killing your father might not be very relevant to our modern age, but the underlying message of Oedipus Rex certainly is.

The chief problem of Oedipus was what the Greeks called hubris, namely his pride. Oedipus thought that the he could solve anything and do anything. He was pretty sure of himself. This was part of his downfall. From this perspective, we can say that this mentality is very much with us today. Think of human pride in technology. Think of the disasters of 2011, such as the BP spill.

Oedipus also had another flaw. He lacked self-knowledge. All along he was the one who was causing the problems. However, he had no clue. Likewise, we can make a case that people today lack self-knowledge. Connected to the first point, perhaps we can say that pride blinds us.

The answer already given is excellent, but I will take this in another direction: Oedipus Rex has a special place in our society particularly because it has given us, via Sigmund Freud, the term Oedipal complex and thus has become one of the most famous examples of a psychoanalytic reading of a play.

People before Freud understood that human beings have an unconscious along with their conscious mind, but Freud was the first to posit that everyone's unconscious (at least those of the same gender) followed the same pattern. A chief example was his idea that young boys universally want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers, but suppress this desire so that it resides only in the unconscious. Art gives form to unconscious desires, Freud argued, and he noted that Sophocles' play was and is so popular because it expresses the primal unconscious desire to murder the father and marry the mother. This does not mean that Sophocles consciously knew that he was articulating what would later be called the Oedipal complex: all of this occurred unconsciously. The play, however, so strikingly and persuasively aligns with Freud's theory that it has become Exhibit A of psychoanalytic criticism and it has helped legitimize studying literature as a way to explore unconscious motivations that can not be expressed in other ways. 

Though this play was written ages ago, it still holds important messages that people can learn from today. One important lesson that the tragic hero, Oedipus, learns is that a person cannot escape his or her fate no matter how hard they try. Prior to the events of the play, Oedipus’s parents learn of a disturbing prophecy regarding Oedipus’s future. They take action to avoid that prophecy, but their action actually puts the prophecy into motion. Later, Oedipus tries to get to the truth of a murder that he is unaware he committed. Tiresias, the blind prophet, tells Oedipus that he is the murderer (as the prophecy predicted). When Oedipus refuses to believe this, Tiresias says:

"There is a multitude of other horrors which you do not even suspect, and they will equate you to yourself and to your own children… there is no man alive whose ruin will be more pitiful than yours."

People reading this play today can take a couple different lessons from this. First, it’s a lesson that we are not always in control. Oedipus refuses to believe it, but his fate is already sealed. This may be more important now than ever. As our science and technology advance, we tend to think that we can control everything, from our lifespans to diseases to the climate. Oedipus Rex is an important reminder that sometimes we just have to let things go and realize that things will happen as they will. Not only does Oedipus refuse to believe the prophecy, but he won’t stop until he finds out the “truth.” His discovery of the truth is part of what seals his downfall. If he had just left things alone, he might not have discovered that he was indeed living the prophecy he so desperately wanted to avoid. This, again, is an important lesson to society: it may not be to our benefit to know everything there is to know about everything. Like Oedipus, our pride can sometimes get us into trouble and lead us to discoveries we may not want to make. It takes a lot for Oedipus to finally learn some humility, and when he does, it’s too late.

Sophocles is often regarded as one of the greatest playwrights who ever lived. He wrote well over a hundred plays, only seven of which survive. Oedipus Rex is one of them and is arguably his most perfect play. This makes Oedipus Rex an important cultural artifact from the civilization which shaped the development of the Western hemisphere, and it is also simply a great work of literature. It is difficult to overstate the cultural significance of the play which has inspired creative artists as diverse as Stravinsky and Gabriel García Márquez—not to mention providing Freud with his best-known theory.

Aside from this cultural importance, Oedipus Rex is a remarkable work of poetry and drama. The poetry is best appreciated in Greek, though it has been translated many times, but the drama retains its force in any language. The perfect structure of making Oedipus the forensic investigator who painfully pieces together the evidence to deduce that he himself is the criminal is unique in the genre of Greek tragedy. The play is also a matchless expression of what the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno called "the tragic sense of life." It shows a noble character caught up in the workings of fate, reminding the audience that tragedy is a fundamental aspect of human existence.

Oedipus Rex grapples with the concept of determinism, the philosophy that "all events, including moral choices," are predetermined by "previously existing causes" (Britannica.com). It also implicitly supports the theory of the self-fulfilling prophecy. A prophecy is considered "self-fulfilling" when it comes true only because it was predicted to.

The conflict centers around the prophecy that Oedipus's parents, Jocasta and Creon, receive. Hearing that their son will kill his father and marry his mother, the king and queen send their child away to a far-off kingdom. As things turn out, however, their very action serves to fulfill the prophecy. Oedipus kills his father on the road, and takes his mother to wife. Despite Creon and Jocasta's efforts to avert the prediction, it comes true.

Or, is it because Creon and Jocasta try to avert the prophecy that it comes true? Would the foretelling have proven true if the couple had left it alone? If so, perhaps the event was, indeed, predetermined. Perhaps the parents had no power to protect themselves from their son. On the other hand, if Jocasta and Creon did ensure the prophecy's fulfillment, this raises the question of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

What would have happened if the king and queen never heard the prediction? Would it still have come to pass?

Both determinism and self-fulfilling prophecies are pertinent philosophies, nowadays. While the two aren't mutually exclusive beliefs, they are each relevant considerations in today's day and age. Consider the implications of determinism. Do you think all events are predetermined? If so, what are the implications of determinism in the world? In terms of the self-fulfilling prophecy, how can negative predictions affect the hearer? Such considerations display the timelessness of Sophocles's themes in Oedipus Rex.

If we look at some of the central moral interests and thematic interests of Oedipus Rex, we can pull out a number of relevant ideas:

• Ignoring or hiding problems doesn't fix anything. You can't just hide your head in the sand...
• Guilt stems from one's regret, not necessarily from one's actions. Context defines justice and injustice, crime and legality.
• Secrets can do harm and so can the truth.

Each of these ideas can be applied in various ways to today's world and tomorrow's.

Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is a complex piece of literature and there are many themes that are applicable to our modern world. The theme that is most applicable is human pride or what the Greeks call "hubris." Oedipus all throughout the play believed that he could solve the problem of the plague of Thebes. He failed to realize that he was the problem. In short, he overestimated himself and did not know himself at the same time.

The financial crisis is an example. All the "experts" out there believe that they could solve the problem, but they fail to realize that many of them are part of the problem. For example, if it is bad that the banks are too big to fail, then why did they make the banks bigger? If overspending is the problem, why do they want consumers to spend even more?

The dynamics here are a universal formula for disaster. People overreach and hence they are the problem. The message of Oedipus Rex will always resonate with humanity, because there is a tragic flaw in all of us.

From a thematic point of view, Sophocles' work still holds some powerful and compelling ideas.  The idea of choice is a highly relevant one as it seeks to strike  at the heart of all human interaction.  The issue of choice and, in particular, when it is in abundance and when it is not is of vital importance to Oedipus Rex, as well as all human beings.  Seeking to understand freedom and choice as well as its parameters will always hold relevance to individuals.  Along these lines, another thematic element that resonates to the modern setting is the notion of fate.  The play does a stellar job in articulating the conflict between fate and freedom of will.  In a world that stresses so much of the former, the latter seems to be equally present.  This makes it completely acceptable and understandable by any student.

The play is relevant from a literary, historical, and human standpoint.  First, it is--according to Aristotle--the perfect tragedy in terms of plot structure and character development.  Its use of dramatic irony and sudden movement from "peripeteia" to "anagnorisis" to "catastrophe" are all exemplified in Elizabethan and modern tragedy, from Hamlet to Death of a Salesman. 

From a humanistic standpoint, the play deals with eternal themes and flaws that plague great men and women today: spiritual/moral blindness, hubris, stubborn pursuit of one's goals.  The play raises questions that transcend time: do we really know our past?  Our own families?  Do we control our lives, or does fate?  Is it better to know the truth or to live in ignorant bliss?  These questions lead us to look inward--at our greatest fears--and outward--at those we love most.  Great men and women in our time would do well to read Oedipus and investigate their lives accordingly: a few senators come to mind.

Freud used Oedipus as a building block for his psychoanalysis.  With its riddles and reversals, it is perhaps the most psychological play ever written.  It helped spawn an entirely new way of reading texts: the psychoanalytic school of criticism, which focuses on the riddles of our childhoods, our dreams, our competition with same-sex parents, and our secret desires to, heaven forbid, repeat the mistakes from one generation to the next.  To be sure, the play still haunts us; it is, according to Jung, part of our collective unconscious.

Oedipus the King (also called Oedipus Rex) is relevant to the world today in two main ways. First, it is a perfect illustration of Freud's theory of the Oedipal conflict, which states that a young boy desires to kill his father and marry his mother, but represses these desires into his unconscious mind so that he can join the social order. Oedipus enacts this exact scenario, and engages in an act of repression when, knowing the prophecy, it never once crosses his mind that the man he killed on the road might be his father, and the older woman he marries his mother, until he begins to investigate the causes of the plague. The play, therefore, becomes food for thought about the unconscious impulses that drive us, a theme that fascinates the modern world.

Second, while the ideas of Greek gods controlling our destinies may seem quaint, there is a great deal of relevance to the idea that we must accommodate ourselves to large forces in the universe. While the wealthy and powerful, for example, might want to control the destiny of the planet and deny (as Oedipus and Jocasta do) the power of larger forces, in the end, forces (such as climate change) will bring a "plague" to the Earth—just as Oedipus' defiance of the gods brings a plague to Thebes. The play warns that the powerful ignore or defy these forces at their peril, and that the peril first shows itself in the fate of the little people. The play also shows us that if leaders gain true wisdom, they can save their people.