Mythos and Logos. AND. Not "OR". Important distinction, that.
In the not so distant past, and in the very real present for perhaps most people, folks guided and ruled their lives according to mythical explanations of the world. The sky gods, eventually logrolled up into a single all-powerful and jealous deity for most existing religions, were/are a real and powerful force in people's lives.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the power of logos, of rationality, started gaining momentum -- not just in the Christian world, but the Muslims had some activity here too (though European meddling in their culture and government seems to have put a bit of a pox on their explorations, so now they are very much in reaction to us, rather than exploring their own territory; but hey, Arabs and Persians are mostly still a mystery to me so I don't know).
In the 19th century, in fact, some philosophers were decrying the death of God entirely, and predicting that humanity will be ruled solely along rational lines in the near future.
Hah! See how well THAT worked out!
Well, World War I happened, and the joys of science turned out to have a very ugly side as well (not even going to MENTION WWII, it only got worse), plus there were a huge array of people not so enthralled by having their entire life map declared null and void.
That brought us, apparently, the current sets of conservative religious movements -- ugly ugly things that they are.
What we see today is a reaction by the bearers of the old mythos against the encroachments of logos -- if the world sees logic and reason as primary, and those immersed in mythos KNOW in their HEARTS that their religion is true and valuable, then therefore their myth must also be valid when viewed under logic and reason. Truth is truth, right?
This leads directly to literal readings of the bible, the creationists, and so forth. For those of us heavily steeped in logos, we see these attempts as ludicrous -- so bad as to not even be wrong. What can they be thinking? But for the people endorsing their mythos as a true answer to how the world works, misapplying science to it, they are fighting for their very existence, to preserve the meaning behind their life.
There's a key problem here: mythos and logos do not address the same aspects of our world, and applying the rules of one to the context of the other is a recipe for embarrassment at least, and social and political disaster at worst.
You just CAN NOT read mythical works, that are written to address the heart and soul, as logical treatises. And you CAN NOT expect the world of science and reason to be able to address matters of the spirit. When you try, you are missing the point quite badly.
Your baby dies and science tells you exactly WHY. Does this help your grieving? No.
Your spiritual text talks about floods and mankind being reborn. Does this make your study of geology or meteorology better? No.
Humans are amazing in our ability to rationalize (in fact, another treatise is about how we only act on reflex and rationalize every action after the fact, truth!); this is probably the thing that really does set us apart from the other animals. Our ability to predict the future, to explain our actions in terms of the past, to apply abstract systems of thought onto the world and to invent symbols to represent things that don't actually exist, to communicate ALL of this across both space and time... OH. MY. GOD. It's a huge thing. Our rational abilities, our power of logos, are unbelievable when compared to ... everything else.
But that's just part of who we are as humans.
We have a very real need for myth as well; how many of the enduring stories in the world are simple explanations? None? A few? Think about perhaps the oldest stories you know... I bet they have roots in the Grimm Fairy tales! Myths.
Neal Gaimen's stories? That guy does good mythos.
The stories that really resonate (no, not those pink romance novels, "tingle" is different than "resonate") with us, I would be willing to guess, are all mythically endowed; they reflect an unspoken, unspeakable aspect of our human nature, our condition, our place in the world.
With a good mythos, we can really feel in our heart how we fit into the world, how our life and actions can mesh with the lives of others around us, how we work as part of an overarching _story_ to achieve a greater goal.
Mythos gives us purpose; it helps us identify ourselves, to know who we are and how we fit in.
The hat-wearing shit-kicking cowboy went from reality to myth; how many cowboys do you see on 6th street in Austin? How many of them actually walk through cowshit during the day? They are identifying themselves with the cowboy storyline; the attitude; the myth.
The Goth. The Punk. The Geek. The Jock. These are each a reality and they are also each a mythical archetype, a template that can be held up to a life and used as a measure of it.
How well am I doing in life? Well, me, personally -- it depends on which archetype you compare it to!
I don't have a big savings account. I don't wield an political power. I have a million tools. I have a million skills. I work well with people, for the most part. I like to read. I like to WRITE.
So, for the template of BUSINESSMAN or POLITICIAN or even SPORTSMAN, I suck, my life is a failure, and I should just go kill myself. But for the role that I've selected for myself, the ROGUE_TECHNOLOGIST (which is a variation on the MAD_SCIENTIST), with a touch of ARTIST and INTELLECTUAL, but with a dash of MYSTIC as well -- well, my problem is that I don't have a good archetype. I had to mostly invent myself. And my my measure, I'm doing damned well, thank you.
I need to write the story that tells my myth.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU is living a story, and in that story you are the hero. Absolutely. Even if you are a villain, and you know that you are abusing those around you and that you cheat the medical system and fuck over your friends... you are still doing the best you can, and you are still the hero of your story. There is no other way to justify a life otherwise; the mental contortions to GET there may make a Chinese acrobat cringe in pain, but it's there.
The problem, the BIG PROBLEM at the CORE of so many problems both in our personal lives and in the world at large, is one of balance.
We try to live as all Mythos, denying our rational side, denying our need to invent and reinvent the world around us. We try to live as all Logos, denying the fact that our lives are stories and not equations, denying our spiritual need and our need to incorporate myth into our lives.
We need both. To be able to think and be logical, as well as to be able to have ritual and myth.
People like to be true, to be ABSOLUTELY TRUE; which feels like it should mean that MY TRUTH should be the same as YOUR TRUTH. Truth is truth, right?
For some truths, the logos truths, yes; Gravity will probably turn out to have some absolute mechanism and structure that is universally true. For now, we know down to a very fine measure, exactly how physical and energetic objects react with regards to gravity, and this is the same _everywhere_. Truth is truth.
For other truths, though, this is not even a little bit true. Your personal truth as a human being living on this vast and complex planet, interacting with your local and even global societies... our personal truth is just that. Yours. Personal. You may share it with your community, your church, your city even; sometimes even to some extent with your country. But that does not mean this is a universal truth! A billion Christians can be wrong, just as two billion Buddhists can be wrong. And at the same time, they can be right, in a local sense.
Spiritual truth is tied to the land, to the society, to the individual temperament.
For me, mythos is best represented in ritual (in action), but also in art and literature; it provides a coloring and resonance (that word again) to an otherwise black-and-white scientific world.
For some, the study and exploration of science IS their mythos; they find their spiritual fulfillment by living their life down to their very core as a scientist, teasing apart the mysteries of the universe. This is no weirder than those who find their spirit in the arcane disassembly of their sacred text, until there is no hiccup or flyspeck left unanalyzed.
God does not need to enter into the mythos as all; there are plenty of excellent myths that don't need a prime deity, or even a pantheon.
Fighting and killing because other people don't believe in your precise flavor of mythos is the stupidest, most damaging, RIDICULOUS things humanity has EVER come up with. Catholics and Protestants? Come on people, you are killing each other over... what? Yeah, for a long time the Protestant US felt the Catholics were the anti-Christ, and for all I know some still do. But that's applying your mythos inappropriately.
We need, as a race, as a SPECIES, to learn to live our lives according to myth, while at the same time exercising rational control over ourselves and our environment; and even more importantly, we need to stop acting like babies, expecting our religion or government to take care of our every need, and to GROW UP and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for our lives. Dammit.
Yes. Bad things happen. Random death and destruction occurs. But we still have choices, as long as you breath and can move and think, you have choices. Make them wisely.
The first choice, taken carefully and with much thought, should be -- what mythos makes sense for my life and my future? Once you find that, things should become easier.
But remember, just because your mythos is the perfect thing for you, your neighbor may dance to a completely different drummer. Don't fuck up his music, okay?
Try not to confuse mythos and logos. Bad things happen when that happens; really tragically and epically bad things happen. History can be our guide on that front.
Try to pick a mythos that doesn't include too much ancillary damage; we still do need to live together as a species. Somehow.
Remember, my mythical avatar may just have a big damned hammer to smite yours with. But he won't because, frankly, that would be antisocial.
Posted by Edwin at June 5, 2008 04:16 PM