Myths about humans weaken their subjects?
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Let’s say you have a piece of wood, a nail, and a hammer. Pretend the wood is a person, and the nail is a myth and this famed belief about that person. If you hammer in the nail, you’re obviously hurting him or her.
Let’s try to remember that we are talking about myths about humans and how its weakens them in power, resolve and emotional strength and not in the physical aspects.
So firstly, myths weaken the subject’s resolve do certain actions.
In 2009, Spears’ twitter account was hacked and reports were perpetuated that the pop star had died. Recent mental breakdowns and bizarre behaviour from the star made the rumours seem less surprising, as it seemed plausible that she may have met some sort of self-destructive end. Turned out that she WAS going through a rough patch but “it was nothing a good movie or popcorn couldn’t heal”. She tweeted that she was devastated that her fans felt like she had a “destructive-end” and that even if she did do something like that, it would have been nice to have positive or at least motivating response from her fans. After this she took a break from her career to escape the frenzied paparazzi and angry fans and her album was postponed.
According to New York Times, MYTHS used to be about ancient Greeks. They taught us about greed (King Midas and gold) or hubris (Icarus flying too close to the sun). But when authors write about myths today, they mean something more prosaic: a misconception, a statement that almost everyone thinks is true but really isn’t.
Secondly, myths are a side effect of the reaction of the followers.
Myths are reasonable statements that just happen to be untrue, really. In 2001, actor Sean Penn filed a $10 million defamation suit against Lee Daniels, co-creator of the Fox series “Empire.” Lee reportedly had compared Penn to “Empire” star Terrence Howard, who has been accused of assaulting his ex-wife. This assumedly happened because of a myth going around about an “inappropriate Instagram image of his wife which led to the assault. In this case it wasn’t even a statement or a story or an event that turned into a myth, it was a picture! You post a picture, people interpret, people assume, they share, they respond.
Even when a myth is shown to be untrue, it doesn’t stop us from being worried about the issue it addresses. Consciously or unconsciously we participate in that myths by either believing in it, spreading it or even giving it a mere ‘like’ on social media. And in this process, even if people don’t believe in that myth, the myths gets encouraged. Which is exactly how myths about humans weaken their subjects.
Now that I have given my view-points, I’d love to know if there have been any myths surrounding you? Did they weaken you or strengthen you? To what extent do you think these myths affect the society?
