Myth

Myth, within a religious framework, is a typically anonymous counter-narrative that enables humans to come to terms with the enigmas and abstruse occurrences of life, especially death. It places our lives in a larger setting, offers explanations to bizarre phenomena, tries to reveal invariants of the world and gives us a sense (against all the evidence to the contrary) that life has meaning and value. The importance of the myth lies in the way in which it encapsulates and expresses beliefs and values shared by, and definitive of, a particular cultural group.

Modern scholars view myths not only as primitive attempts at science but as discourses steeped in psychological functions, sociological applications and even philosophical speculations. Myth, thus, is not about opting out of this world but about living more intensely within it. Motif of death, fear of extinction, rebirth, resurrection, explanations of our origins, genealogy, inseparability from ritual, plane that transcends human experience, normativeness, invisible parallel world, reinforcement of ancient educative values, heterogeneity and plasticity are the defining traits of most myths. Mythology often springs from profound anxiety about essentially practical problems that cannot be assuaged by purely logical arguments. Naturally, it fails if it speaks of a reality that is too transcendent or concentrates exclusively on the supernatural; it remains vital only if it is primarily concerned with humanity.

In secular and educated circles, myths can be snippets of conventional wisdom, popular concepts, dominant images, pervasive symbols and political narratives. There are hundreds of hardly religious figures which more heavily impact on and mould collective psyche. Myths, whether religious or secular, can logically be regarded variously as an active social force and as attempts to resolve philosophical dialectics between being and nonbeing. They are often ways through which individuals learn how to adjust to social roles and subject positions. Mythological materials can be seedbeds of new metaphors for comprehending and changing societies. They provide perspectival ways of possible realizations of communal, artistic, and individual growth and fulfillment.

Mythologies are like the lenses in our variously tinted spectacles of sensory and cognitive perception. We code our universe with mythic figures and stories. In popular culture, ideological implications arise when myths are reified in such ways as to reinforce political or religious values, or when certain sets of mythological figures are considered a society’s primary models for gender or power relations. They repeatedly surface because of the long history they trail as representing important sociocultural values. Though myths do not directly and explicitly figure in popular culture expressions, they are often lodged beneath the glitz and glamour of mainstreams movies, soap operas, television shows and of course advertisements.