{"id":3884,"date":"2021-09-01T17:32:24","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T17:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=3884"},"modified":"2021-09-01T17:32:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T17:32:53","slug":"the-modern-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/01\/the-modern-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"The Modern Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Birth of a Myth<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Taking the framework for a modern myth proposed by Philip Ball\u2019s new book, the reviewer proposes another candidate for his pantheon.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Sara Holston
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Fables and folk tales, novels and epic poems; though we only have one word for \u201cstory,\u201d it encompasses an eclectic myriad of narrative forms, all with different purposes. There are parables for teaching, legends for passing on our heritage, and campfire tales for spooking. In all their shapes and sizes, we seem to consistently find stories a valuable\u2014nigh irreplaceable\u2014tool for conveying meaning, but why they have such a unique impact on us remains something of a mystery.<\/p>

Philip Ball addresses this question in the case of myths, specifically, in his aptly named The Modern Myths: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination<\/em>. To Ball, \u201cmyth\u201d doesn\u2019t just mean a set of ancient stories\u2014Greek mythology as one canon, Norse another, etc. Instead, it refers to a mode of story-making that still exists today. In fact, it seems to be a way of telling stories that we can\u2019t help but enact; Ball believes these modern myths are coming into being almost without our realizing it, and that, by recognizing their existence and being more alert to their power, we might better understand ourselves.<\/p>

To Ball, myths must \u201chelp us to frame and come to terms with the conditions of our existence.\u201d These are stories that \u201crelate something deemed culturally important and in an important sense \u2018true\u2019\u2014but not as a documentary account of events.\u201d The story of Oedipus does not exist to warn us that incest is bad. We already know that. The Oedipal myth exists, Ball says, because we are deeply afraid it will happen anyway. Myths provide us the opportunity to examine our deepest anxieties.<\/p>

Ball also claims that mythic narratives must be retold and reimagined in countless different iterations as we attempt to work through these deep-rooted cultural fears. In their truest form, \u201cmyths have no authors, although they must have an origin.\u201d From there,<\/p>

a myth is typically not a story but an evolving web of many stories\u2014interweaving, interacting, contradicting each other. Boil it down and the story falls away: there are no characters (which is to say, individuals with histories and psychologies), no location, no denouement\u2014and no unique \u201cmeaning.\u201d You\u2019re left with a rugged, elemental, irreducible kernel charged with the magical power of <\/em>generating versions of the story.<\/em><\/p>

Though they may alter character names, endings, or even core themes, those subsequent versions of the story always remain, somehow, recognizable at heart.<\/p>

One of the best parts of Ball\u2019s book is his almost conversational tone. As if he were merely addressing the reader in a fireside chat, Ball admits that there are likely other contenders he may have overlooked, and he invites the reader into the discussion, hoping \u201cothers will argue the case for candidates [he\u2019s] neglected… It should be fun, and hopefully interesting, but… it is also important, and overdue.\u201d It would seem remiss, in a review of Ball\u2019s book, not to engage him in the conversation he seeks, so I will put forward a nominee, though\u2014as in the case of the zombie apocalypse narrative Ball believes is still evolving towards a mythic form\u2014I suspect it is one that has not quite yet crystallized into a true myth.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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A genre is not quite a myth, and this one still has some evolving to do as it crystallizes around that irreducible kernel.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I won\u2019t make a definitive claim as to a progenitor narrative, but I propose as some options George Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em>, Alduous Huxley\u2019s Brave New World, <\/em>and Franz Kafka\u2019s The Trial.<\/em> To use Ball\u2019s terms, the irreducible kernel is a union of what may have previously been two distinct categories of narrative: dystopia and revolution. Dystopian stories are, of course, those that depict a society or civilization that may seem to be perfect, but is revealed have pernicious flaws under the surface. Revolution stories are those which pit a small band of dissidents against a large, seemingly all-powerful institution\u2014usually the government.<\/p>

Either of these alone is unlikely to qualify, under Ball\u2019s criteria, as a modern myth; Ball claims as a requirement that these stories \u201ccould not have been told <\/em>in earlier times, because their themes did not yet exist. Modern myths explore dilemmas, obsessions, and anxieties specific to the conditions of modernity.\u201d Both dystopian and revolution narratives can\u2014and have\u2014been told before. Star Wars <\/em>presents one of the most iconic examples of a band of rebels taking on the big bad Empire, while Les Miserables <\/em>offers a very different tale of revolution. Stories like Lord of the Flies <\/em>or Animal Farm <\/em>have their dystopian elements born out of the fear that human nature might be wilder and more animalistic than we hoped, but they are still arguably examples of the genre. Increasingly, however, dystopia and revolution seem to go hand-in-hand. Nowadays dystopian narratives almost always find a fascist government at fault (except when it\u2019s a corrupt and all-powerful corporation), and the plot focuses on the attempts of a band of underdogs to overthrow it. At this intersection between the two genres, the narrative begins to take on new, possibly mythic, qualities.<\/p>

A cursory glance at 20th<\/sup>-century literary trends seems to support this mythic turn. In this period, the number of dystopian narratives exploded, many of them with features of revolution, as well. The cultural fears from this period aren\u2019t too hard to spot; as the Information Age has come ushered in by rapidly expanding technology, the kind of fascist governments and police states described in these stories seem more likely and, at times, nearer to home. Across news stories and entertainment media we hear speculation of governments or corporations tracking our online presence, or using our phones to monitor us. The relative strength of military forces seems insurmountable by average citizens, and confrontations at political protests have eroded our confidence that such force would never be turned against our own communities. If we\u2019re looking for modern anxieties that give rise to narrative spaces where we can safely grapple with our fears, this seems to fit the bill.\u00a0<\/p>

But Ball also claims that an important criterion for a myth is that it must not moralize\u2014the story needs to be able to be interpreted as having any number of meanings\u2014and at first glance this seems to be a weakness of the case for our proposed modern myth. After all, in most of the obvious examples\u2014those mentioned above, as well as popular entries like The Hunger Games<\/em>\u2014the meaning is fairly transparent: the oppressive institution is bad and the rebels are right to fight back. But as the burgeoning genre settles in to its place in the narrative landscape, a more nuanced perspective might be emerging. Urinetown <\/em>is a dystopian musical in which water has become scarce and the all-powerful but corrupt Urine Good Company has teamed up with the police state to force citizens to pay to relieve themselves. At the end of the show the citizens overthrow UGC and free themselves from its oppressive policies, only to find that they have squandered the limited water supply, and many are dying of thirst. The show closes with a dour, and potentially controversial, message; while UGC\u2019s oppressive acts were wrong, they were also keeping the environmental crisis in check. The rebels never institute their own solution to the precipitating problem, egalitarian or otherwise, and thus their victory is ultimately hollow. It may not be inviting the diversity of interpretations Ball expects from a myth\u2014or merely a retelling of one\u2014just yet, but it is a step in the right direction.<\/p>

I\u2019ll certainly be interested to see how this narrative develops, if it does. A genre is not quite a myth, and this one still has some evolving to do as it crystallizes around that irreducible kernel. But even just considering it as a possible candidate has challenged me to examine a new perspective into some of the concerns of our cultural subconscious, and especially into how we are thinking about them. Like Ball, I hope others will chime in to further a discussion that is both fruitful and long overdue.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sara Holston<\/strong> is a<\/em>n editor on an interactive story game in San Francisco, CA. <\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Modern Myths: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination<\/strong> was published by The University of Chicago Press on May 21, 2021. <\/em>Fare Forward appreciates their provision of an advance reader copy for our reviewer. You can purchase your own copy on their website here<\/a>. <\/em>
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Taking the framework for a modern myth proposed by Philip Ball\u2019s new book, the reviewer proposes another candidate for his pantheon. 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