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I don't know, people, perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that most of you have a different idea of what constitutes a "myth" than I do. I acknowledge, to avoid irritating Baxtor, that a secondary use of the word 'myth' fits some of the examples given, as is illustrated by a recent article in Discover about some "medical myths". I think, though, that whatever is contained in a "Modern American Mythology", it will be much more fundamental than many of our examples here. How I would categorize many of our examples would be either “propaganda”, “old wives tales” (as the Discover examples were), or “self-deceptions”.

Would you deign to give us an example of what you DO consider to be a modeen myth , Search ?

One modern myth that is taught as fact in many schools is that Columbus proved the world was round; every Philosopher knows better, lol...

What is the purpose of a culture’s myths? Myths, I believe, are stories a culture uses to make sense of human experience, to provide meaning for its existence, and to serve as a foundation for its practices. It is within a culture’s mythology that we will find its views of human nature and of what counts as a meaningful life. Myths is this sense are not something for which one can ask evidence, since they form the background of one’s view of the world, and hence condition the very concept of evidence. In addition, not only can they not be falsified, they are not falsifiable, because anything that is cited as falsifying can and will be reinterpreted according to the myth. Myths are not disproven, they simply fade away when they can no longer make sense of the world. When someone like Carl Jung claims that we in the West need a new mythology, it is this sense of myth he is using.

So, what stories do we Americans tell that are supposed to make sense of reality and are to provide us with guidelines on how to live? Off the top of my head, I can think of four.

The first has to do with the value of the individual. This manifests itself in several ways: in the ideal of the rugged individual, in the idea of the “rebel” who refuses to submit to the “rat-race”, who will to be “bent by society’s pliers” or be “just another brick in the wall”, who “marches to the sound of a different drummer” and takes “the road less traveled”. (I have often said that if all those who are said, either by themselves or by others, to have taken “the road less traveled”, it would no longer be the road less traveled.) We see it in children being told that they are “special”, “unique”, deserving of the good life, that the fact that they exist makes them deserving of respect, even though they do nothing to deserve it.

The second is the belief that if one has ambition and works hard, one will be successful. I call this a myth because it not only give hope, but provides an explanation for failure and a justification for poverty. In addition, how would you go about falsifying it? Any evidence against it will be explained away by citing it. (The poor are lazy, and hence deserve to be poor. Read anything by Ayn Randers.)

I think that a third element of American Mythology is that Capitalism is the best system. Again, any attempt to falsify it will be dismissed as an example of Capitalism hindered by regulations, etc.

A fourth element of contemporary American Mythology is a survival of an older American Mythology, that of “Manifest Destiny”, the idea that Americans and America are in some way or other “special”, “superior” or better than others, that the “American Way of Life” is the best way of life, and if the rest of the world would just “get with the program”, the world would just be so much better. (Remember all the condemnation of France when it would not support our invasion of Iraq?)

BTW: Although a myth cannot be disproven when a person no longer accepts that myth, s/he believes it to be false (which is what generates the derivative meaning of the word 'myth' that equates it with falsity). There are two elements of the mythology of American Christians to which I simply cannot give assent and believe to be false: (1) “All things work for the good of them that love the Lord” and (2) God never sends us more troubles than we can handle. (Several years ago, there was a “Ziggy” cartoon that I wish I had cut out and saved. Ziggy is standing on a cliff, looking up, and talking to God, saying, “I know you do not sent us more trouble than you believe we can handle. But this year, could you please not have so much confidence in me?” Amen, brother.)

BTW, lest any of you think that it is my understanding of what a myth is that is idiosyncratic, I refer you to almost any work in Cultural Anthropology, Comparitive Religion. or Mythology.

american myth the shoe shine boy works hard has good values always suceeds.

I think that thee will be a myth about the hippy period being all flowers and love.

there will be a lot of political mythology about the president Saint ronald reagan, slayer of communism

I think in schools today christopher columnus is reviled as a killer and cause of genocide.

Am I deserving of respect simply because I exist? Yes.

Am I superior or inferior because of the country I happened to be born in? No.

I second that amen searching.

Do we not also mythologize the godliness of the medical profession and Western medicine?