Myths&Maps&Moar

In the beginning, there is Chaos. Always. Everywhere.

The world “as it is” - presuming for the sake of the argument that there indeed is something like that - presents itself to the human being as an big mess of unrelated tiny details. In order for human beings to interact, especially, to interact conscously, we need to establish some kind of order. We need to distinguish things, we need to group things, and we need some kind of connection between these things. And in order to be able to do so, first, we need to decide what is relevant.

If we adopt Chiara Botticis notion of myth as a narrative that answers a need for significance, as developed in her book “A philosophy of political myth”, creation myths can be understood as a depiction of this first attempt of defining a crucial, basic order. It is not to be regarded as the account of some kind of real event, but as some kind of map that helps the ones that consider it a myth to orient themselves in this world, to make sense of their actions: past, present, future; uniting and separating human beings, forming and separating communities.

I will not go into a detailed analysis or interpretetion of creation myths, though I think it might be very interesting to look at the similarities and differences in detail. I will even refrain from referring to concrete examples. Instead, I will focus on what I consider to be the first step in creating an order, and sketch some general thoughts on the implications and the consequences.

As I said: In the beginning, there is chaos. Then, for what reason ever, the first division is made: above and below, sky and earth. It is only logical that at the same time that one comes to existence, at the same time, its opposition comes into being, too. Because something can only exist, if there is nothing, too. There are many ways in which two things can form an opposition of some kind, but I think it is safe to assume that in order to have an opposition we need to define the dimension to which it applies. In this very simplified notion of a creation myth we can observe several oppositions coming into being at once: a spatial one (above-below), a temporal one (first-then), the one between temporal and spatial, and the one between chaos and order. One could thus argue, that the very basic order that can established is thus the one relying on time and space, and furthermore, that these notions are so closely intertwined that the one can't be without the other.

Additionally, there must some kind of reference point from which this division can be made, that, itself, can only be created in opposition to some kind of background. So somehow this twofold division does not really seem complete without the other, without the third.

This is of particular interest considering that a myth has to be a narrative, because a narrative always has to have a temporal dimension in order to be one. Even though it is meant to make sense of circumstances that happen all simulataneously – if it wasn't something that had it's impact in the here and now it wouldn't be relevant – it puts them into a temporal order. And as such part of it can be situated in the past, and part of it in the future, or from another angle: it puts the circumstances of the here and now into the context of what has happened before and what will subsequently happen , giving our actions a reason and a consequence (even though the narrative itself can limit itself to retell events solely in the past).

I do like to think that the spatial and temporal dimension came into notion the very precise moment that this need for significance awakened – some kind of first sign of consciousness of the human mind. I also think that humankind noted very, very early that putting together one and one – one of this, and one of that: different in some aspects, yet basically the same – makes three. If we have three, all sorts of things begin to happen. If we have three, we have anything. We can start combining and then combine, what has been combined, on so many levels, without even really having to resort to any other kind of dimension, just out of this very first twofold division and the subsequent combination. Patterns start to emerge, and they begin to repeat themselves with an astonishing regularity, to an astonishing diversity, like an egg that has been fertilized and thus in no time starts to divide at a virtually explosive rate, somehow in itself containing all the specific information it needs to form their own particular shape, different for each species, but in itself woundrously consistent, mirroring the whole process of evolution in the womb of a female. The Miracle of life itself.

But even though I think there are really nice pictures, I don't want to dwell on this level of , but keep focusing on the structure – or maybe logic? - of this process of establishing an order. The fact that a simple system of establishing order can be applied to almost anything, the inherent consistency of a systems carries great persuasive power. If it explains everything, it must be true – mustn't it? That is the danger, the trap – this is why consistency should be regarded as inherently suspiocious, especially when this power is transferred to individuals or groups.

We tend to forget that the starting point, the very first dimension that is considered important enough to positively dissiociate it from the chaos, is by every means motivated, yet still arbitrary. It is a system that has been shaped by creating relevance of some kind. As soon as there is a shift in what we consider relevant, the system itself becomes inapplicable. But because we need significance we might be able to reject this or that system, but not really abandon all of them completely. Every attempt to think outside the box is nothing but a change in the shape of the box. But if relevance is arbitrary, and each system has it's own combinatory system, absolutely foolprof in itself – if, thus to speak, no system can legitimally be abrogated, neither from the outside, nor from the inside, rendering every map a mere piece of paper with some scribbles on it – how can we even act, or think, even be conscious? What else can we rely on?

On a sidenote, I think the contradiction between the need for significance, and the opposing wish to escape significance, is something that has given rise to many religions, too – be it because it is close to my very own map of relevance, I do find that buddhism provides one or two very interesting thoughts on how to not only escape significanse, but also how to overcome the contradiction between the need for and the whish to escape it. Maybe the ability to see without relevance, to see the chaos itself as it is is enlightenment, and maybe it is indeed possible to achieve it through one of the many practices proclaimed. In any case, it is noteworthy that this seems to be a contradiction that has been dealt with in many ways.

In the more mundaine realm of our daily lives we have to change our focus. We need to live and more importantly: to act in the society, in the world we live in. We need to make decisions, and we need relevance in order to be able to make them, because that defines what we want to achieve and how we want to achieve it. And action is always inter-action of some kind, and because we share a place and a time with other humans, we need to have some common relevances, and thus sharing a myth is an important factor in forming a community and shaping the rules of coexistence. And here the theoretical approach that stresses the equivalence and the arbitrarity of systems proves itself practically fruitless, because in order to act, we need to commit. Of course, we can commit to more than one system, dividing our lives into spheres that prefer the one or the other. It could be funny game: “Oh, for this purpose I think I'll commit to system X”, if there wasn't so much a stake: all around the world there are people suffering. I can't but see every individual action in the context of our world wide community. Even knowing that I have no right, no basis, no authority to elevate my own map of relevance to the point that every one else adheres to it, I can't but wish for that what I consider suffering to decrease in a way I consider good. I need to put my own relevance first, neglecting the total arbitrarity of it, because if escaping is not in it, I will at least play my game as virtuously as I can, and at least in myself be the change I want to see, shaping the world and myself accordingly.

In order to be able to reshape we need a shape. Even though everything is a process, we need to freeze it again and again in order to be able to really grasp it. The moment we freeze it, it has already become a distortion of what actually is, and we have to start reworking it. This also corresponds to the fact that on the one hand, our map of relevance has a great influence on our perception, and our perception has on the other was round an influence on our relevance. Again, we cannot ecape this cycle totally – we can try to stay open and be ready to accept perceptions outside of our map of relevance, but we cannot set aside our map of relevance. The moment a certain systems is able to explain every detail of our world, every perception, every action, every consequence, the moment it becomes obsolete. But it is a necessary step to develop our system to the point that it indeed is able to make sense of everything we perceive, otherwise our perception stays limited, too. The real Art of it is to find the proper rhythm of shaping and reshaping, of dwelling, insisting, and of discarding – fuelling the ongoing process and making it visible, tangible, changeable.

Not all maps of relevance take the form of a narrative, not all narratives function as a means of structuring our world of perception and action. The fact that it not only has a temporal, but also a dramatic structure sets it apart from other similar notions, such as ideology, for example. That is a point that should not be forgotten when going into more detailed analysis on how myth exactly is able to function as such, I think besides closure, the plot is an important factor on why and how a myth gains it’s persuasive power, enabling us to compare it to other devices of mapping the world. Above all, I think it would be important to analyze similarities and differences of myth and science – not only theoretical schemata of science, but in how “scientific narratives” work for people that are not directly involved in the academic world. What exactly sets “believing in evolution theory” aside from “believing in creationism”? Personally, I think that for some reason science has gained that sort of persuasive power that makes it unnecessary to really understand how it works. Scientific knowledge is handled as truth by people that have no idea how that knowledge actually is structured and how it came into existence, somehow rendering it intrinsically contradictive. This is why I think that the concept of myth is a very helpful one in order to gain insights on how and why something is considered as true and how systems gain their persuasive power.