Lies. Humanities tool to gain what we desire, at the expense
of inconvenient truths. According to Dr. Michael Sexson this is what a myth is,
a lie. If a myth is a lie then what is humanity trying to gain, and what truth
is it denying?
What truth does a myth deny? A simple answer would be all of
them. Myths are created to answer the most desirable questions we as humans inquire.
Where does the sun go at night? Why is that volcano erupting? What happened, ‘in
the beginning?’ As our knowledge advances we find that all of the old myths are
nothing but stories; the remnants of our ancestors grasping at straws. We learn
the sun doesn’t go anywhere we just move out of its sight, that pressure causes
an upheaval of magma, and space began to expand.
What does humanity desire? Truth. We cower in the face of
the unknown, when truth is hidden we desperately try to uncover it. Even if we
must settle on mere fractions of the truth, we would rather believe we have
found the truth, though it’s just a guess, than continue living in darkness.
This is why we create myths; they are small candles that light up a painfully
dark room. Until we find the light switch and realize that our candles could
barely show us what was right in front of our eyes, let alone the beauty of the
entire room.
Isn’t this a contradiction? The single, solitary goal of a
myth is to create an answer, to try to find truth. We may now be able to look
back on myths and say with certainty that they are false, but they never
intended to deny any truth. Given the limited capabilities of their time they tried
to find truth in any way they could. We cannot say that a myth tires to deny
truth for some other goal, when that other goal is truth. At best we can only say that a myth is; A misinformed
guess.
This is a fantastic post. I think this is the perfect place to start— not by asking what the myths are trying to say, but by trying to uncover what humanity was trying to find out in creating them. I think that question takes you straight back to the 'original stories', the bones of the myths, the recurring themes that have followed at humanity's heels like dogs throughout our whole history.
ReplyDeleteI think your final conclusion only captures part of it, however. It's true that myths are fabrications, and if they are fabrications meant to provide explanation then yes, they are misinformed. But are the explanations we have today any better? Humanity has always used What It Has to explain What It Wants To Know. To think of future generations looking back on all that we take for truth, but what they, knowing more than we, would call 'lies', is to look at ourselves calling myths 'misinformed'. Our modern day mathematics, physics, philosophy, etc, may one day be as laughable as the myths of old. Therefore, I'd say that myths are not misinformed guesses. They were real and concrete truths, just as today so much of what we think we know today in medicine and science and art is real and concrete truth. The concept of concrete truth, therefore, may prove to be just as insubstantial as that of lies...