the role of truth in myth—myth As metaphor

Consider the term mythos:

A mythos is the underlying system of beliefs, especially those dealing with supernatural forces, characteristic of a particular cultural group. Mythos is also a synonym for myth and a synonym for mythology.

The term mythos originates with the Greek word for story, or word, and for good reason: ancient Greek people understood themselves by telling stories.

Little has changed since these ancient times. Stories are one important means by which ancient cultures (and also modern ones) capture their belief systems for themselves and their posterity. Their mythos lives in and is documented by such stories. A corpus of them is the core expression of the beliefs of a culture; it can serve as a vehicle by which a culture influences successive generations and passes itself on to its descendents.

A mythos has momentum; once established, it is handed down from generation to generation; its hard to stop. Why question handed-down wisdom? This stance is taken in many contemporary societies just as it was by ancient ones.

Many of the creatures whose stories are told in a mythos are supernatural; they're fabled—they don't exist in real life and never did. Have you ever conversed with a centaur? Many of the feats of these fabled creatures are clearly beyond the capabilities of real men and women. Does Atlas really hold up the world? Does a turtle?

Why, then, do people believe in myths? In part, superstitious people accept fabulous tales as literal truth because they portray mythic characters and events that are supernatural. By definition, supernatural beings can accomplish virtually anything. Even if illusionary, such tales offer the hope that a person can gain control over his life, that it is possible to find a safe haven. Such tales also simplify life and reduce it to fundamentals.

Frightened, superstitious, uneducated or undereducated people can't be faulted for taking fantasy as literal truth. They possess little accurate, scientific information and live uneasy, dangerous lives. For them, the world is an ominous place and myth is a crutch that can explain the unexplainable.

Myths play a vital role in society; they help prop it up. Social norms dictate that ethical and legal systems be rationalized so that order can be maintained. Myths can overlay society with an appealing veneer of rationality. A mythos can convert a society's perception of reality from that which is utterly mysterious, confusing, chaotic, and uncontrollable to that which seems orderly, sane, and purposeful.

Never mind whether a mythos is true. Truth is not always absolute; truth can be relative. Sometimes truth is only an accepted point of view, a convention, a habit, or a societal norm. Truth can vary with the observer.

Even enlightened audiences in modern societies—people who think that they know the difference between fact and fantasy—are capable of enjoying and benefiting from mythical tales. Why?

Modern audiences read about mythical heroes in books and magazines and see them in movies or on television. They expect to voluntarily and temporarily suspend disbelief, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge would have it, and empathize with the improbable exploits of mythic personages, just as did past mythic audiences and just as do present-day audiences rooted in other cultural groups. They witness heroes exercising control over their surroundings and are gratified thereby. Heroic exploits comfort and entertain them; they offer modern audiences the possibility of catharsis and temporary escape from the pressures of reality. They confirm the modern audience's mythos and world view.

Even though 21st century mythical tales are based on modern-style heroes, a modern mythos, and a modern view of reality, they make enlightened hearts beat faster, just as they do in other cultures, past and present. Fundamentally, when it comes to myth, there is little difference between a 21st century mythic audience and a mythic audience from ancient Greece in the 5th century B.C.E., whose heroes, mythos, and view of reality were radically different. Myths bring insights to contemporary men and women that help them better understand themselves and their world.

myth as metaphor

Myths are stories that are true and false at the same time. When can a story be true and false? When it's a metaphor.

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in a sea of troubles or in Hamlet's line, All the world's a stage. In a metaphor, one thing is conceived as representing another; one thing is used to mean something else. A metaphor is an emblem, a symbol of something else that's not meant to be taken literally.

A myth is like that. A myth is a metaphor, an invented story or theme whose characters and events not only represent themselves; they also represent something else.

As with any invented story, a myth may contain elements that are both true and false. A myth might be based on:

• An idea or concept about an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
• An idea or concept about a real thing or person.
• An unproved, false, or mistaken collective belief
• A collective belief thought to be proven and valid.

In other words, a myth is part fact, part fiction, and part metaphor. A mythic audience may have faith and believe in its literal truth, or it may not. If not, apparent fact or fiction can legitimately be asserted to be truth even though the author or the audience knows or suspects one or both actually to be false. Truth can be manhandled in this way because the apparent fact and fiction in a myth are vehicles whose objective is expression of the metaphor.

A myth is a single story that tells two stories at once. One story consists of what the words say and mean when they are taken at face value; the other story consists of what's said between the lines, or as contemporary writers like to phrase this idea, what's said in the subtext.

To elaborate on this notion:

One of these stories is obvious and explicit:

• It contains clearly drawn characters, plot, and action, as would any good story.
• It depicts ancestors, supernatural beings, hero-gods, demigods, or other godlike creatures who perform impossible feats or possess superhuman abilities.
• It is fictional, although it may contain elements that are based on truth.
• It reflects and projects the distinguishing characteristics, beliefs, and points of view of the cultural group that gave it birth.
• It treats an idea, theme, or story that is important to that cultural group.
• It deals with beliefs about supernatural and mysterious forces or with experiences that take place in the realm of the supernatural, mysterious, or impossible.
• The storyteller and his audience believe this story, whether or not it is provable.
• Audiences living outside the culture that originated the story may not believe it.

The explicit tale in most myths makes a good story; it entertains, amuses, or captivates. It may be sweet or ominous, wholesome or nasty, but no matter what, it grabs your attention. A well-told mythical story is like a page-turner, a book that makes you want to ask for more and regret that it has ended.

One of these stories is not obvious or explicit:

• It is not meant to be fiction.
• It underlies the prima facie story.
• It may be strongly oriented toward the characteristics of a specific culture...or, it may apply equally to all cultures, or more precisely, to what is common to mankind regardless of culture.
• It may confirm, entrench, or expand the storyteller's audience's established, preconceived cultural viewpoints and beliefs.
• It may treat ordinary subjects...or, it may treat subjects that are inexpressible, inexplicable, supernatural, or mysterious.
• It may instill a sense of awe or fear analogous to what one experiences in combat or upon seeing a nuclear explosion...or, it may instill a sense of awe, fear, or delight analogous to what one feels upon on a clear, starry night while watching the Northern Lights dance.
• It may evoke concepts and emotions that are not directly expressible in words.
• It may inculcate an intuitive grasp of abstract objects of thought that are beyond the self or beyond ordinary, daily life. Although intangible and unworldly, these objects may be perceived as real, immutable, undifferentiated, and perhaps infinite.
• It may impel the audience toward a personal life-transformation or toward a transcendental experience. It may awaken sacred or profane insights, realizations, states of consciousness, or modes of thought.
• It may produce a catharsis.

In its power, modes of expression, and in the way it can affect an audience, the inexplicit tale can be as mundane as mud or as powerful, transformative, and supranatural, as an exotic piece of music.

These two kinds of stories are intertwined:

• The story that is obvious is a metaphor for the story that is not obvious.
• The obvious story tells the underlying story indirectly, perhaps subtly, by implication. It does not acknowledge that the underlying story exists.
• The obvious story gets all the attention and has much more cultural content than the underlying story.
• The story that is not obvious receives less attention but can have much more personal impact.
• The myth which is expressed through the metaphor always carries a truth that is deeper than the obvious story, a truth that may be transcendent.
• Ideas, principles, morals, ethical beliefs, and facts expressed by the two stories may sometimes conflict with one another, but that doesn't matter when it happens because each story has its own purpose and each is true to itself.