The Importance Of Myths In Society

Myths are the creative answers to questions humans fail to answer any other way. Modern humans are as superstitious today as they were in the cave. Humans want to know who they are, where they came from, and why they are here so badly they will invent their own answers. Humans are also clever enough to figure out that veiling their myth as fact can give their human recipients the illusion of knowing without the struggle of study. Humans are inherently skilled at developing detailed narratives. Our ancestors attempted to quell their insatiable curiosity with stories that matched their philosophical notions. Each culture and age develops the myths and stories passed on to them by the preceding generation. The first myths centered on the natural world, including the sun, moon, stars and whatever materials provided sustenance to humans, including rain, fire, vegetation and animals. As entirely oral traditions, these myths underwent constant revision and were sometimes short lived. The stories shared by a community were among the most precious information held by the community after where to hunt and gather food or find shelter. These myths were the core of a community’s identity and were often the first knowledge to be preserved by the written word. For millennia, myths permeated knowledge bases so thoroughly that carving them out of farming, trade, astronomy, biology or other texts would leave little remaining. Reading and writing were very specialized skills limited to a select few. Not surprisingly, it was not long before a society’s most trusted members, such as monks, shaman and priests, were entrusted with the myths. In many cases, these trusties were the only people in a community with the ability to read, let alone interpret a...

... middle of paper ...

...ce divorced itself from providing answers to humanity’s greatest questions to aseptically derive fact from the world we once worshiped with stories and songs. After millennia of opportunities to find answers, humans are still making up stories to explain their world and answer their most sincere questions. Any sufficiently developed future scholar will look back on today’s science with skepticism and label it no better than a myth. Every time humans believe they have found a truth they are telling a story that is indistinguishable from myth. Myth serves humanity as well today as it did in ancient times. It paves our roads, flies our jets, fills our baths and transmits our data. Myth sustains humans when they are weak or fearful and motivates us to persist through adversity. It distinguishes us from our animal predecessors, and humans will likely never escape from it.