Myths

Myth literally means "story" In common usage the term connotes stories of supernatural beings and events, telling of primordial times and the origins of significant realities [e.g., heavenly bodies, earth, life, humans]. Yet there is no compelling reason to suppose that a muth must necessarily involve supernatural elements. For a story to qualify as a myth it is sufficient that it unity natural elements. For a story to qualify as a myth it is sufficient that it unify and clarify the principal domains of human interest in a narrative of universal scope and significance. .... Page 204

....... Myth wants to say further that the cosmos is hospitable to the human project, that humans have a proper niche in the natural order. Thus myth employs images from the historical experience of a culture, from its economic and political life, to clarify and legitimate its way of life within the universal scheme of things. In doing so myth gathers the hedonic hopes and dreams of individuals and dispels their fears that the cosmos is a realm of hostility. But the cosmic order is not indifferent to the actions of humans. Myth therefore asserts moral imperatives in the form of law and/or virtues that give direction to human lives together with resources for attributions of praise or blame. ~ Page 204

The power of myth to compel human imagination lies in its assertion of united order of being. It bundles together facts, values, and attitudes in a narrative account of nature, self, and society. It condenses the full range of human interest and experience by the integrative power of a few resonant metaphors. In the Judeo-Christian myth, for example, the metaphor of God as person functions as a root metaphor or integrate the domains of human interest. The creative power of God is the ultimate explanation of the origins of all that exists. God created and ordered the cosmos through the power of his word. Furthermore, this same God made a covenant with humans, wherein he promised to provide for their hedonic needs. And to this end, God issued laws to guide his people on the path of righteousness. In a single narrative flourish the Judeo Christian myth provides resources to address human needs for intelligibility, pleasure, and sense of self worth. This myth has endured several major reinterpretations throughout its long history, but the essential elements have remained unaltered. One of the more substantive modifications involved the Christian rejection of Jewish legalistic morality in favor of more plastic ethic of virtue.. ~ Page 205

The single most important regulating force within a social ecology is its myth. In general, the myth of a culture will function as the ultimate judge of whether or not new meanings will be received. If a new meme is commensurate with the myth, then it may well be received, but it is perceived to contradict the myth, pressure will be strong to select it out of the machinery of cultural transmission. Ideas, techniques, and values that do not fit are pronounced unfit. And those that are deemed fit will have an internal consistency about them for having been scrutinized in accordance with a common standard of meaning. The regulatory function of myth is formalized in the religion of a culture. Religion is essentially the institutionalization of myth. It is the custodian of myty, presiding over its official interpretation, managing its selective applications, and seeing it that the myth continues to be transmitted in its pure form to the next generation. Religion, then, is a centralized selective agency whose mission is to inject the influence of myth into elvery domain of human interest -- cosmos, pathos, ethos, -- for it is in these domains that new memes emerge. To a pluralistic and secularized audience this regulatory function of myth has a totalitarian ring of oppression and tyranny about it. Nevertheless, it is precisely this function that enables cultures to achieve and maintain their distinctiveness. Without his function a culture would lose its unity of purpose to an onslaught of diffuse meaning and thus begin its descent into social chaos. ~ Page 207
Nothing, of course, is forever -- a truism that applies no less to cultural myths than to biological species. Species go extinct when circumstances in their environment render it impossible for them to pass their genes along to the next generation. And myths, too, lose their viability when they fail to transmit their memes within a cultural tradition. Many circumstances may result in such failure, but in general we may say this: Myths fail to transmit their memes when they no longer compel the imagination of their audience, and they fail to do so when they become implausible, and they become implausible when more satisfying memes appear. And why do new meanings appear? Because human beings are self-transcending creatures, and because they always live in changing environments. The combination of these factors is ultimately deadly for any worldview that claims final authority. ~ Page 209