I've been reading Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By. Actually, that's a lie. It was one of the books I checked out from the library a couple weeks ago, but haven't even read past the introduction yet. However, I do have a few thoughts about myths, which may or may not come out in a cohesive manner right now. None of the ideas I'm about to relate are terribly original; I understand that a lot of these general concepts were pioneered by Campbell, but I've sort of picked them up through osmosis from various others who were influenced by his work. (Thus my desire to seek out the original source and read what Campbell himself wrote. But I may or may not actually even get around that, and I want to cover this topic now anyway.)

I guess what prompts me to write this is the recent thread debating the implications of Peak Oil, and the collapse -- or continuance -- of American civilization as well as civilization in general.

Our lives are ruled by the myths we believe. The word "myth" in this context doesn't necessarily mean fiction. Briefly, a myth is a story we tell ourselves to connect the mountains of raw data gleaned from day to day events; it frames our lives into a meaningful context. (See also: some of the ideas Tim has been developing in his Story Systems blog.)

My intent here is to examine the conflicting myths that have caused points of contention, with the ambitious goal of synthesizing them (or aspects of them) into a greater myth, to be used as a philosophical map with which to navigate Baudrillard's infamous "desert of the real" (or Morpheus's desert, if you prefer that one). The latter is a longer term goal though. Tonight, I'd like to just start by identifying a few myths of the recent past and present that might be pertinent to our discussion.

Note that the point here is not to assign truth or falseness to any particular myth or set of myths, but to discover and understand the stories that drive people's assumptions. With that in mind, I'm going to toss together several and attempt to summarize them. If anyone can think of other myths that they'd like to add, or point out parts of these myths that I may have left out, feel free to leave comments. (And yes, it is on my to-do list to alter the comment system to allow visitors without logins to comment, but until then, it's pretty easy to make accounts, and I promise I won't spam or share your email address with anyone.)

Myth: The Cornucopian Society.

Myth: Manifest Destiny. Since this one is pretty much in the past, I'm mentioning it only because several of the other myths derive so much of their outlook from it. According to the Wikipedia entry, manifest destiny was the belief that the United States had "a divinely-inspired mission to expand itself and its system of government from ocean to ocean and to the western frontier." It was the myth that drove the wild west.

Myth: Space Expansion and Colonization. Essentially, this myth is an extension of the myth of Manifest Destiny into the third dimension. It assumes that human beings will explore and colonize space, and that doing so represents the ultimate apex of humanity's evolution in the cosmos. Space travel brings enlightenment. The moon was only the beginning. We will go to mars. We will go beyond the solar system. We will find other habitable planets to live on, or if there aren't any, we'll make them habitable. (The Spaceman Celebrity Tarot card portrays this myth quite succinctly.) Though somewhat less prevelant than it was a few decades ago, the Space Expansion myth still holds quite a lot of sway among the geek crowd.

Myth: The "New Economy". We all remember the late 90's. The myth of the New Economy proclaimed that hard times were a thing of the past. Technological wizardry combined with newfound economic efficiency would allow everyone to prosper in the Internet age. The web would provide the means to undermine and make obsolete totalitarian governments all around the world. Soon, everyone would own stock, and therefore everyone would get rich. I remember when this myth seemed as obvious and inevitable as the sun rising. It wasn't that long ago.

Myth: Technological Progress. This myth is closely associated with both of the two previous myths. It is the belief that the advancement of human tools follows a linear (or at least "always up") pattern. What we created this year is better than what we made last year, and what we do next year will be better than anything that has been done before. This myth is currently so prevelant in our culture than even mentioning it will likely draw odd looks from most people, as they will wonder why you are describing the obvious. But not quite everyone subscribes to this myth, as we will see in a few moments.

Myth: The Eternal Cornucopia. Heavily interlinked with the Technological Progress Myth and the New Economy Myth. The Eternal Cornucopia myth is based on the premise that there will always be resources of one form or another that will allow Americans to continue in their present lifestyle mostly unabated. There will even be enough for the rest of the world to join us. If petroleum becomes unavailable as an energy source, something else will take its place. If the population grows beyond the capacity of farmland to feed, people will somehow build machines to synthesize food from raw dirt. There will be no end to the plenty, and the population will not need to sacrifice anything. This myth is widespread.

Myth: Peak Oil as The End of Cornucopia. This myth directly contradicts the Eternal Cornucopia. It states that after oil production peaks, what follows will be the end of pretty much everything as we know it, because our lifestyles are dependent on petroleum in more ways than any of us realize. This myth has been percolating among various groups that would generally be classified as "fringe" for the past several years. Recently, it has made inroads toward more general audiences. Anyone who believes this sees the affluent culture to which we have become accustomed as coming to a close. Therefore, their outlook on life takes a significant departure from those who believe the Eternal Cornucopia myth.

Myth: Hierarchy As Ultimate Source of Evil. This myth holds that most, if not all evil in the world comes about as a result of hierarchical social structures. Authoritarian systems, even if they have an ostensibly helpful purpose, are inherently corrupt, unjust, and coercive. Therefore, the way create an ideal world is to rid human interaction of all such relationships. Gnostic archons are a personification of this concept.

Myth: America as World Bully. Through economic as well as military tyranny abroad, at least since the Second World War, America has been a trouble maker to the rest of the world. When this is combined with the Hierarchy=Evil myth, America takes the role of oppressor at the top of the pyramid. In addition to the wars of aggression, America is seen as a supporter of sweatshops, environmental destruction, and corporatization. The genocide that occurred as a result of Manifest Destiny also plays into this myth. Many Americans as well as non-Americans who are aligned with the political left see this myth as evident truth.

Myth: The Inevitable Crash of Civilization as a Whole. Though Peak Oil is often seen as the tipping point by those who believe in this myth, it is not integral to it. This story extends back to the earliest written history, and theorizes that humanity has been on a slow collision course with natural law ever since the agricultural revolution, which itself was a giant mistake. For more on the why's and wherefore's of this myth, see here and here.

There are many more, but that's all for tonight, because I'm getting tired. These myths, many of them formed in combination with one another, become the invisible lenses through which we see the world. If we wear only one lense for our entire lives, or even just a long enough period of time that we forget ever seeing anything else, we will not perceive the lense as existing at all, and mistake our skewed, myth-slanted vision for reality. By explicating these myths, I hope the lenses can be recognized for what they are, and a greater understanding forged.