I need help preparring for an interview

[wolf_nd_shadows]

I've been asked to be interviewed for an upcoming documentary, based of an article I wrote for last year's Green Word (the periodical for the Beneficient Order of the Greenman). Because the newsletter is usually small, I intentionally kept the article brief and the ideas generalized. to prepare, I not only need to hash out the ideas, but do so in a

Comments

[wolf_nd_shadows]

First of all, this is where the distinction of the mythic comes into play. the stories alluded to aren't myths in the classic sense: they aren't mythic. They are only considered myths in a semantic sense, one that equates myth with any fictitious story; not the mythic sense. 9/11 conspiracy theories are in no way as near as compelling as the Illiad or the Odyssey. The slanders against the Jews lacked the vividness and universality of the exploits of Samson or David. The exploits of Kim Jong-Ill lack the power granted to Hercules, Perseus, or Theseus. The justifications of slavery lack the attractive Humanity of the stories of robin hood. they are stories, but they are not the Mythic stories that I have referred to.

Secondly, the stories alluded to were only able to propagate because of a concerted to create a mythic vaccuum that these stories were then introduced to fill. Nazis burned their books and attacked their intelectuals, the slave owning South was prone to lynching those who opposed slavery, Kim Jong-Ill, and similar communist movements were fundamentalist athiests who oppressed the religious traditions of their citizenry. These stories relied on outward efforts to propagate. Mythic stories, and mythic dreams, however, are self propagating, passed on not through compulsion, but through an innate human identification.

From a psychological stand point, the differences between these stories are found in the the thought processes used in their creation/retelling, and the brain areas activated in their processing. stories of fear, anger, hatred, and lust utilize different thought processes and activate different brain areas than stories of struggle, justice, virtue, and love. the former deals with very concrete concepts: you fear specific things, you are angry at people, you hate specific things, etc. Then these emotions are experienced, they activate a the brain stem and amygdala, also known as "the reptilian brain" because it is the most primitive of brain structures and is shared by reptiles. The latter, however, deals with abstract concepts, and when experienced and processed, activated the higher portions of the brain. It is here, that the value of mythic stories can be given greater appreciation, because the ability to think abstractly is actually a skill that needs to develop, because unlike the reptilian brain, which is largely present at birth, the higher brain structures do not finish developing until the mid 20's. As such, the ability to think abstractly is a skill that isn't simply present, but must be learned, practiced and developed over a large portion of a person's life, and rarely does one fully develop it in their lifetime. One of the more tangible powers of the Mythic comes from its ability to act as a tutorial in abstract thinking. In the case Dr. King and his dream, when the people were torn by the immature and primitive experience of prejudice and hate, and the more mature abstract concepts of humanity and justice, acted as a guide to help people navigate to the higher, but more complex and difficult, value of justice and humanity. This is also why those groups you mentioned before, the ones with the less complex stories pushed on them, access to other stories and views had to be removed 9or in the case of fundamentalists, why they view religious stories as histories only, with no other interpretive value) because to allow for stories with a mythic component would lead them away from the immature stories of hate they wish to propagate.