Modern Myths in our Era
Storytelling and why human rights needs it
I’ve always liked Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Particularly more than other holidays that aren't the major ones like Christmas or Thanksgiving. I like the story of MLK day compared to Valentines Day or St. Patrick's Day.
Maybe it’s because MLK day is in the same month as my birthday. Maybe it’s because I like the MLK themed NBA games today. Maybe it’s because I used to play in a MLK day basketball tournament in middle school.
On Valentines Day, we buy Hallmark cards and chocolates. On St. Patrick’s Day, we wear green and drink/parade.
On MLK day, we think.
The most powerful story ever told
Our biology hasn’t changed for about 200,000 years. We could bring a man who would constantly forage for food and he would understand agriculture and domestication which was only invented 12,000 years ago. We could bring him to Ancient Egypt and we would understand the cooperation behind the Great Pyramids. We could bring him to the present and he could run a football play after some practice and language learning.
He would be shocked, but atleast he could fathom it and learn.
What changes from era to era are the collective myths we believe in. It’s what allows us to settle into nations and create borders, and what allows the uranium miner and nuclear chemist to work together to build a nuclear bomb.
A story is what allows humans to believe in things other than our biology.
Human rights is the story that has made Homo Sapiens care for each other.
Our Modern Myths
Romanticism tells us to go have new experiences.
Consumerism tells us that we need something to improve our life.
Theism tells us to follow a social code and believe in one another. It’s how governments and currency are built. The US dollar has “In god we trust” printed on it. The Code of Hammurabi came from the gods. The Declaration of Independence states,
“all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights’ — Thomas Jefferson
Stories and their meanings change. We no longer believe the tit for tat justice system Hammurabi enforced. Your daughter doesn’t die if you kill someone else’s daughter. Everyone now gets a full vote in US elections.
More powerful myths take down weaker myths
During the French Revolution, the myth of a republic dismantled the myth of a monarchy. A Brahmin in British-ruled India would be socially restricted by Protestant Englishmen. Today, the powerful myth of borders can change how we treat each other.
Dr. King tells us that everyone is god’s child.
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
The powerful myth of racism was demolished and replaced by the myth of Civil Rights. I don’t consider myself very religious, but I still believe the message.
Stories we choose to believe
Many people have to believe a story for it to become a myth. With enough people, it becomes a law.
If it seems like the people who yell and constantly shout their story are more right, they are. The collective story sadly becomes truth. Knowing this, we can choose to ignore the myth of bigotry and hate. Mass media and other myths makes this difficult, but awareness allows us to ignore its story.
