When we’re faced with a question of a broad and general character, one that touches many facets of the world or of society, our go-to reflective response tends to take place on the mythical level.
Yes, we benefit to see myths as past explanations of processes of society. Same with true science, where past beliefs are acknowledged in order to understand how we got this far. Too bad capitalism turned it into a pyramid scheme lol.
Oh and language is indeed a big factor. But it's becoming less so as it was in the past. I guess you could say we are at the phase where the tower of Babel fell... Why? Because there was no longer "one" language of the empire.
"I believe humanity's foray into fiction began with the breakdown of the bicameral mind, and the insertion of meaningless symbols in between the subject and the seer. In short, back when people used pictographic alphabets, we were limited to discussing things we could actually see in the real world. The invention of phonemic alphabets like this one, which are comprised not of representative pictures but of meaningless letters, provides the opportunity to invent an endless stream of non-sense, the greatest of these being spelled with just a single capital letter."
I've been thinking a lot about the nature of error in that very sense. How abstractions seem to enable us to produce lies, false theories, and nonsense, and what this really means and how it can come about.
But it seems like any hypothetical, however it's communicated, can be in error. Every expression of some proposition that's not about the immediately present reality can in some sense be erroneous.
Yeah, and language, as you say, is a key factor behind the current political and cultural situation. There's a loss of a common language as well as common cultural touchstones, narratives and themes. And the result is an erosion of shared values and of any common direction for the culture at large.
For someone like me, who I fear is hopelessly consumed by this process, it is difficult to understand much from this essay. What makes "Planting trees is good for the environment." a myth? It seems to me to be a succient part of a much broader possible ideal, where we might have space to eventually describe deep ecology or somesuch. We could furthermore admit that, "Ecological stability in the oceans is critical for life on earth." without invalidating the first so-called myth. Anyway, it seems to me a similar pattern to chirping, "Even the disciples did not understand who Jesus was." when indeed one might wish rather to discuss the whole gospel of Mark. The context-free bit does not imply the absence of a coherent (or at least more coherent) whole.
Is the point that our modern ability to engage in such tapestarial myths as in ancient times is lacking, and that we rather operate _only_ on the level of 'one liners' such as "Electric cars are good."?
I understand what the problem of being unaware that myth is myth. I guess I just can't wrap my head around what a modern "myth" really might look like. The examples I've used seem to me better described as unqualified assertions, though perhaps this is how my modern mind can understand a myth? I contend that "Electric cars are good with respect to <values and assumptions>." would be my preferred starting point, but myths are perhaps by nature unqualified. 'The centurion said "Truly this man was the son of God."' does not need qualification, given the surrounding interpretive framework that traditional culture would provide?
Sorry for the late replies, I've been in the process of moving abroad -
Myths here refer to these robust building blocks that form the foundation of our sense of reality, and which cannot easily be reduced to a set of propositions that we may clearly distinguish. So an example of a myth from the 20th century US would be this deep, relational experience of being part of a chosen nation on the cusp of infinite progress, anchored in emotionally significant symbolic events such as the Moon landings or the WW2 narratives or the holy cold war against Soviet communism, connected to everything from drive-in hamburger joints, rock music or dating at a travelling carnival during late summer before high school starts again.
So your first example sentence would not be a myth in and of itself, but I'd say it quite obviously actualizes or recalls a set of myths (or maybe "mythical constructs" as a smaller or less comprehensive unit) that are connected to the green movement or contemporary environmentalism.
"Is the point that our modern ability to engage in such tapestarial myths as in ancient times is lacking, and that we rather operate _only_ on the level of 'one liners' such as 'Electric cars are good.'?"
This is a good question. My initial point was that we do seem to increasingly lack the ability to understand our own "mythical thinking" and to properly address it as such, so what happens is that we very much still think and operate on the foundation of myth, but we believe that we're rather at the level of the rational analysis of the truth of propositions.
So while we're actually making the decision to move in a certain direction because it resonates well with our cotton-candy flavoured love of the conifer forests of our hometown, we tend to think that this is a conclusion on the much narrower rational level of the assessment of disjointed facts and propositions.
This doesn't mean that such a decision would be irrational - it may well be connected to a whole lot more evidence and wisdom than could be had at the narrower level of the analysis of specific facts, but since we lack the ability to acknowledge myths and critically reflect on them, such a decision just might as well be irrational. We're in a sense being trapped by the myths we cannot see or think clearly about, since they're still going to be an inescapable aspect of human cognition.
But the question about whether we're now only dealing with one-liners akin to advertising slogans I have to think about. I guess this could be a way to describe our weakening ability to deal with the myths we are surrounded by, so that instead of Greek drama, we have one-liners from electric vehicle ads that do not really allow much internal space for reflection or criticism.
Thank you for the engagement, please do not worry about taking your time.
Your description of the 'mythical substrate' of the 20th century US was very helpful and I think I now have a better grasp on the idea. I will try and think carefully about my own relational experience to my society and culture and see if I can tease out anything interesting. I have many more questions, but this will do for now!
Yes, we benefit to see myths as past explanations of processes of society. Same with true science, where past beliefs are acknowledged in order to understand how we got this far. Too bad capitalism turned it into a pyramid scheme lol.
Oh and language is indeed a big factor. But it's becoming less so as it was in the past. I guess you could say we are at the phase where the tower of Babel fell... Why? Because there was no longer "one" language of the empire.
"I believe humanity's foray into fiction began with the breakdown of the bicameral mind, and the insertion of meaningless symbols in between the subject and the seer. In short, back when people used pictographic alphabets, we were limited to discussing things we could actually see in the real world. The invention of phonemic alphabets like this one, which are comprised not of representative pictures but of meaningless letters, provides the opportunity to invent an endless stream of non-sense, the greatest of these being spelled with just a single capital letter."
Alphabet vs the goddess lecture by Leonard Shlain
https://robc137.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess
I've been thinking a lot about the nature of error in that very sense. How abstractions seem to enable us to produce lies, false theories, and nonsense, and what this really means and how it can come about.
But it seems like any hypothetical, however it's communicated, can be in error. Every expression of some proposition that's not about the immediately present reality can in some sense be erroneous.
Yeah, and language, as you say, is a key factor behind the current political and cultural situation. There's a loss of a common language as well as common cultural touchstones, narratives and themes. And the result is an erosion of shared values and of any common direction for the culture at large.
For someone like me, who I fear is hopelessly consumed by this process, it is difficult to understand much from this essay. What makes "Planting trees is good for the environment." a myth? It seems to me to be a succient part of a much broader possible ideal, where we might have space to eventually describe deep ecology or somesuch. We could furthermore admit that, "Ecological stability in the oceans is critical for life on earth." without invalidating the first so-called myth. Anyway, it seems to me a similar pattern to chirping, "Even the disciples did not understand who Jesus was." when indeed one might wish rather to discuss the whole gospel of Mark. The context-free bit does not imply the absence of a coherent (or at least more coherent) whole.
Is the point that our modern ability to engage in such tapestarial myths as in ancient times is lacking, and that we rather operate _only_ on the level of 'one liners' such as "Electric cars are good."?
I understand what the problem of being unaware that myth is myth. I guess I just can't wrap my head around what a modern "myth" really might look like. The examples I've used seem to me better described as unqualified assertions, though perhaps this is how my modern mind can understand a myth? I contend that "Electric cars are good with respect to <values and assumptions>." would be my preferred starting point, but myths are perhaps by nature unqualified. 'The centurion said "Truly this man was the son of God."' does not need qualification, given the surrounding interpretive framework that traditional culture would provide?
Summarily, I'm confused and requesting pedagogy.
Sorry for the late replies, I've been in the process of moving abroad -
Myths here refer to these robust building blocks that form the foundation of our sense of reality, and which cannot easily be reduced to a set of propositions that we may clearly distinguish. So an example of a myth from the 20th century US would be this deep, relational experience of being part of a chosen nation on the cusp of infinite progress, anchored in emotionally significant symbolic events such as the Moon landings or the WW2 narratives or the holy cold war against Soviet communism, connected to everything from drive-in hamburger joints, rock music or dating at a travelling carnival during late summer before high school starts again.
So your first example sentence would not be a myth in and of itself, but I'd say it quite obviously actualizes or recalls a set of myths (or maybe "mythical constructs" as a smaller or less comprehensive unit) that are connected to the green movement or contemporary environmentalism.
"Is the point that our modern ability to engage in such tapestarial myths as in ancient times is lacking, and that we rather operate _only_ on the level of 'one liners' such as 'Electric cars are good.'?"
This is a good question. My initial point was that we do seem to increasingly lack the ability to understand our own "mythical thinking" and to properly address it as such, so what happens is that we very much still think and operate on the foundation of myth, but we believe that we're rather at the level of the rational analysis of the truth of propositions.
So while we're actually making the decision to move in a certain direction because it resonates well with our cotton-candy flavoured love of the conifer forests of our hometown, we tend to think that this is a conclusion on the much narrower rational level of the assessment of disjointed facts and propositions.
This doesn't mean that such a decision would be irrational - it may well be connected to a whole lot more evidence and wisdom than could be had at the narrower level of the analysis of specific facts, but since we lack the ability to acknowledge myths and critically reflect on them, such a decision just might as well be irrational. We're in a sense being trapped by the myths we cannot see or think clearly about, since they're still going to be an inescapable aspect of human cognition.
But the question about whether we're now only dealing with one-liners akin to advertising slogans I have to think about. I guess this could be a way to describe our weakening ability to deal with the myths we are surrounded by, so that instead of Greek drama, we have one-liners from electric vehicle ads that do not really allow much internal space for reflection or criticism.
Thank you for the engagement, please do not worry about taking your time.
Your description of the 'mythical substrate' of the 20th century US was very helpful and I think I now have a better grasp on the idea. I will try and think carefully about my own relational experience to my society and culture and see if I can tease out anything interesting. I have many more questions, but this will do for now!