Birthing
A New
Cultural Myth
by
Richard Heinberg
 Myths
make sense in (and of) a cultural context.
When the context changes, the old myths stop
making sense. That's what happened to the
Greek myths over twenty-five hundred years
ago, when philosophers like Xenophanes began
to question the reality of the traditional
gods and goddesses. In a similar spirit, our
own philosophers have been chipping away at
the Judeo-Christian mythos for the past couple
of centuries, attempting to replace it with a
secular substitute.
In
Myth and Philosophy: A Contest of Truths,
philosopher Lawrence J. Hatab of Dominion
University has argued that myth cannot and
should not be reduced to other modes of
expression (such as rational explanation in
philosophy, mathematics, or science), and that
in its own way myth offers truths as real and
important as those of rational discourse.
Moreover, according to Hatab, when philosophy
tries to break completely with myth, it loses
its way; and it is this attempt on the part of
modern science and philosophy to demythologize
human consciousness that has weakened our ties
with the deepest truths of our cultural
heritage.
The
materialist philosophers that Hatab opposes
say that we should get rid of myths
altogether, become more rational, and wean
ourselves from superstition. Myth, they say,
should retire in favor of science. But
science, though it is formulated in a way
quite different from traditional myths, still
serves a mythic function: It tells us how the
Universe began, where the first people came
from, and how the world came to be the way it
is. This suggestion that we do away with
mythology is based on a fundamental
misunderstanding of myth and of the human
psyche. Myth in some form is inevitable and
necessary. Our knowledge is always finite, and
is always overlapped by our need for meaning.
Our thoughts and aspirations seek some
symbolic language through which we can talk
about, and participate in, what we otherwise
cannot see, touch, or taste. What is our goal,
our meaning, our purpose as human beings?
These are the questions a myth can answer.
Virtually
every thinking person sees the need for
dramatic global renewal if our world is to
survive; and, as the greatest politicians,
artists, spiritual leaders, and even
scientists know in their bones, only a new
myth can inspire creative cultural change. But
where will this bolt of inspiration come from?
Ironically,
while many scientists have sought to undo myth
altogether, it is science itself that seems to
me to be serving as a primary source for a new
myth. Science's great strengths are its
continual checking of theory with experience
and its ability to generate new theories in
response to new discoveries. While it is still
a very young enterprise, and capable of
generating its own irrational dogmas, science
is in principle malleable and self-correcting.
Currently, it appears that elements of a new
myth are emerging through quantum and
relativity physics, though more directly and
powerfully through the findings of
anthropology (which is "discovering"
the wisdom of native peoples), psychology
(which is only beginning to develop a
comprehensive understanding of human
consciousness), sociology (which offers a
comparative view of human economies and
lifestyles), and ecology -- as well as through
the profound, nearly universal human response
to the view of planet Earth from space, an
image that owes more to technology than to
theoretical science.
Each
of these sources is, I believe, contributing
to the formulation of a myth whose general
features are becoming clear enough that it can
be articulated in simple story form. We could
call it the myth of healing and humility. It
starts out somewhat like the old myth, but
diverges rather quickly.
THE
NEW STORY
Tens
of thousands of years ago, human beings
subsisted by gathering wild plants. These
ancestors of ours were nomadic and lived in a
magical interdependence with their
surroundings. The animals and trees were their
friends and spoke to them. To be sure, they
faced challenges -- sickness and accidents,
for example -- but generally enjoyed good
health and a stable and rich communal life.
While
other creatures' adaptations to their
environment were physical and instinctual,
human beings had developed large brains that
allowed them to adapt and develop socially,
spiritually, and linguistically in ways that
were unique. This capacity for inner
development and thus for cultural invention
allowed people to respond quickly to
environmental changes. And the environment did
change -- ice ages following warm periods;
floods following droughts -- sometimes over
the course of millennia, other times in the
space of hours or days.
The
most dramatic climate shifts were brought
about by occasional massive comet or asteroid
impacts. On at least one occasion, still tens
of millennia ago, the planet's atmosphere was
darkened for years by dust raised from such a
collision. So many plants died out during
those years that humans resorted to hunting
animals for food. Later, they retained the
habit.
Then,
between ten thousand and twelve thousand years
ago, another series of catastrophes inspired
more human adaptations. Up to this time, wild
game had been plentiful -- so much so, that
the human population had burgeoned. But now
many of the big game animals were being hunted
to extinction. In addition, climates
everywhere were fluctuating rapidly and sea
levels were rising, drowning densely populated
coastal areas. Suddenly the world had changed,
and people would have to change too in order
to survive.
The
tribes that had been most deeply traumatized
by these events tended to live in a perpetual
state of emergency, to blame themselves for
provoking the gods, and to pass their felt
trauma on to their children in the form of
abusive discipline. Whereas before human
groups had been egalitarian, this new crisis
seemed to call for stern leadership. Men --
especially the strongest and most driven ones
-- became dominant. Tribes began to fear and
fight one another, and to fear the sky and the
elements.
One
further social adaptation to catastrophe had
to do with the basic ways in which people
related to their environment. Every creature,
and every culture, must survive both by
adapting to its environment, and by altering
its environment to suit itself. But there are
relative degrees of compromise between these
two courses of action. In the case of our
crisis-ridden Paleolithic ancestors, some
apparently chose the former, deciding to learn
more about the natural world so that they
could accommodate themselves better to it.
They dreamed myths that encoded meanings
having to do with protecting populations of
wild animals, with keeping the numbers of
humans within bounds, and with honoring the
diversity and interconnectivity of the web of
life.
Other
people, however, decided to concentrate on
adapting the environment to themselves. They
domesticated plants and animals; they cleared
and plowed the land. They chose the best
places and built permanent settlements. The
populations of these groups continued to grow
unchecked. As settlements increased in size,
social arrangements became more stratified and
classes developed. A few individuals became
wealthy and powerful; the rest tried to make
themselves useful. As their territory
expanded, they came into conflict with other
settled groups, with whom they fought or
formed alliances; or with food gatherers and
hunters, whom they killed or enslaved.
Wherever
they settled, they exhausted the land. After a
few generations, famine would strike and they
would move on. Eventually, however, their
populations and territories grew so large that
there was nowhere else to go. Meanwhile,
virtually all of the peoples who had taken the
first option were now absorbed within the
lands of the planters and herders. Huge cities
sprang up, and devices were invented for every
imaginable purpose -- for communication,
transportation, manufacture, cooking,
cleaning, personal hygiene, and mass killing.
The feeding of the masses in the cities and
the production of all these new devices
required increasingly intensive farming and
mining, and the ruthless regimentation of
human labor.
As
the whole Earth began to cry out in fatigue,
as cities began to disintegrate in factional
warfare, and as hunger gripped the poorer
classes of the planting-and-herding groups,
the youth of the latter began to seek out the
few remaining peoples who had learned to adapt
themselves to the land. The planters, who had
been so arrogant, began to humble themselves
before their cousins, from whom they had
departed so long ago and whom they had
butchered and enslaved at every opportunity.
They began to humble themselves before the
wild things and the wild places of the Earth.
They vowed to heal and renew the land and to
forge sacred ties of mutual respect and aid
between species and cultures. And they vowed
to remember, so that they would not make the
same mistakes again.
All
together, gradually, they came to understand
and release their ancient fears. They began to
use the wisdom and knowledge they had
accumulated and preserved through the previous
millennia to begin to build a new way of life,
different both from their primordial
food-gathering ways and from their later
planting-and-herding ways. Realizing now that
they were all deeply wounded, they together
resolved to heal the deep effects of trauma,
and to renounce violence. They learned to
limit their population, and to satisfy their
basic needs by ever-simpler means. Their
social groupings became smaller and more
democratic. The crisis they had just been
through had deeply impressed them with a new
sense of morality: Whereas before they had
celebrated unbridled consumption and
accumulation, now they knew the perils of
excess size, speed, and sophistication. They
had learned that it was only by respecting all
life that they could live again in magical
interdependence with their natural
surroundings. Now, as long ago, they began to
see the land as sacred, and to hear the voices
of the trees and animals. Once again, life was
good.
 This
article was excerpted from Richard
Heinberg's book "A
New Covenant with Nature" ?1996.
Reprinted with permission from the publisher,
Quest Books, http://www.theosophical.org.
Info/Order
book.
Another
article by this author.
This article was
excerpted from
"A New Covenant with Nature"
by Richard Heinberg.
Info/Order
book.
About The
Author Richard
Heinberg has lectured widely, appeared on radio and television, and
written numerous essays. His alternative monthly broadside, MuseLetter,
was included in Utne Reader's annual list of Best Alternative
Newsletters. He is also the author of Celebrate
the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and
Ceremony.
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