There is the erroneous belief, often portrayed as (incorrect) knowledge that a myth is simply a made-up story. Not every fictional story is a myth. Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick, or Lonesome No More is not a myth, it is a novel. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is not a myth, it is also a novel. Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is not a myth, it's a novella. And Earnest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea, is a long short-story, but it is not a myth. I have chosen to use American examples because for any number of reasons, Americans are more prone to myth-making and myth-believing that other folks. What is more, the size of the tale has nothing to do with whether a story is a myth, or even mythical, hence my inclusion of varying sized works.
For my purposes here, let me tell you what I mean when I use the word "myth". It is this: a myth is most often, but not necessarily always) a story whose design and intent is to point to something bigger than itself. The elements of the story may, or may not, be true; that is, they may, or may not, correspond and conform to the reality of actual events that once took place. They may simply be stories based on certain events that occurred or alleged to have occurred. But it doesn't matter. Most importantly, however, all myths start out well-intentioned to impress, inspire, or perhaps explain; most myths are harmless (because they have become ineffective ... they are no longer "believed"); but, in the end, all myths become destructive, especially when they are believed after having been exposed as untrue stories that point to no reality greater than themselves.
One of the worst, if not the worst, myths ever perpetrated is the Myth of Progress. This is the story that tells us that things, and by that the teller always means "the world in which we live" is getting better. It implies that there is a utopian, paradisiacal end to human (primarily, technological) development, but it's never had it's own story, rather it has always been presented as an obvious truth enclothed in a different set of "facts" each time it is told. A lot depends on who is telling the story and which point the teller is trying to make. It's such a shoddy myth, though, because it was never really true. Oh, don't get me wrong, we have things today that we never had before and some of them can be used for the betterment of all: things like soap and water-pumps and flush toilets, but most people in the world don't have these things and the people that have them aren't ready to share them with those who don't, so while they have made the world a better place for some, they haven't made the world a better place, so I have trouble seeing where the "progress" part comes in. But that's a whole other story.
No, my focus here are myths as we generally understand them: those stories that point to things greater than themselves and which we then believe to be true, even though they aren't. In fact, we tend to believe these stories all the more, the more we find out they're really "just myths"; that is, well-intentioned, made-up stories that simply shouldn't be believed anymore, because they have become, as all myths eventually do, destructive. They end up making things worse instead of better.
The reason this whole idea of myths and untruth and destructiveness are on my mind is because this is Memorial-Day weekend in the United States, and having originally hailed from there, I still have a connection to the place even though I left there so long ago. What is more, over this weekend, I will be, literally, bombarded by social-media memes all expressing the same mythical sappiness that every American who ever donned a uniform is a hero (or heroine) who did his (or her) part to ensure that all those meme-spreaders have the freedom to annoy the rest of the world with their own rather limited and, too often, self-serving worldview that they are somehow role models for the rest of us. Yes, what I hear so often from my fellow countrypeople, either directly or indirectly, implicitly or explicitly, is that if the rest of the world would just be like America and acknowledge that America is the greatest country in the world, well, the world would be a much better place. I know my fellow countrypeople are for the most part lovingly well-intentioned, but with loving well-intentionedness, cluelessness often goes hand in hand. Yeah, ya gotta love 'em, even if they are so annoying. Yet there's a dark side to this apparent harmlessness that needs to be acknowledged as well.
Don't get me wrong, I would be the last person to maintain that what Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan started in the middle of the last century was a good thing. There was, as they say, a mass of evil afoot. Even as much against war that I am, it's hard for me to think that "issue" could have been resolved peacefully. Still, it was a prime opportunity for myth-building, and that we did.
We Americans like to think we won that war, and some nasty tongues maintain that we haven't won a war since. Truth be told, like it's predecessor, World War I (the war to make the world safe for democracy, which also didn't work apparently), the Americans were extremely reluctant to even join in. There was a lot of mental calisthenics being performed and a lot of whining about "Europe" and "their problems" and all, but in the end, there were severe economic downturns that just weren't turning around, so it seemed like a good idea at the time to find a reason to get involved. If it weren't for the Japanese attacking its Pacific fleet -- which was stationed somewhere the Americans claimed belonged to them (though they really couldn't prove that they did) – we may not have gotten involved at all. But we got in right as things started going bad for the bad guys, and by 1945 we were on the winning side, so even thought primarily the Soviets (which we called the Russians and their ilk in those days) kicked Hitler's butt, with some help from the Brits (who had been kicked off the continent) and the French (who though already defeated organized some significant resistance). Of course, the Soviets, whom we generally didn't like then, liked even less later, and continue to dislike in the guise of Russians today, really took a beating in beating the Germans, so we, who suffered the least, who contributed more supplies and money than actual troops, and who had far fewer dead than anybody else, proudly stepped forward to accept the awards and accolades for victory. Americans have never been shy about accepting awards, even if they don't really deserve them.
But, be that all as it may, it was good that evil was stopped. Of course, given the fact that other than Hawaii, which not everybody thinks counts, nobody was invading America or fighting in its streets, or razing its cities to the ground with artillery and bombs, or setting fire to it with incendiaries, or starving its citizens to death in obscene and insane sieges. It was really not suffering all that much at all compared to everybody else, so when it was finally all over, the only country which had much infrastructure and production facilities in tact was, well, the United States. They also had an intact military and one that really wasn't weary of fighting yet. After all, they only got involved at the tail end of the whole affair. They were still fresh and idealistic and, if needed be, raring to go. The last man standing, so to speak, the one who had just showed up, declared himself the world's first superpower and all anybody else had to say was a tired and mumbled "whatever". And that's when America really did what it has always done best: it stepped in and showed everyone else just how easy it is to make money out of misery. We were now going to show the world how things really get done.
No, this isn't the version we read about in our history books, and it's not the version our parents or grandparents told us. It's a jaundiced recounting, however, of the real story. All the other stories we were told were, well you guessed it myths. The stories we were told about this were designed and intended to (a) make Americans feel good about themselves, even if they had not made the biggest contribution, (b) let everyone else know that it was America's duty – if not right – to take charge on the world stage, and (c) keep the door open for other, future, most likely unexpected opportunities to stay in charge.
No, I'm not saying that any of this was evil, or nefarious, or even bad. Americans tend to be a naïve breed, and I really think that more than anything else the United States simply wanted a relatively peaceful world in which to hawk their wares and make oodles of money. They stepped right in and organized the world monetary system, set up institutions to ensure these would endure (like the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund – and notice two of three deal with money), and made a sound effort to make the rules of the game such that everybody would get something in the deal, all properly allocated, of course, in terms conducive to the rule-makers.
But, things didn't stay that way. The next thing you know, America found itself embroiled in one armed conflict after the other. First there was Korea, which was such a mess that to this day everyone wants to forget about it. Then there was Southeast Asia, which the Brits had mucked up, then the French had mucked up (but what can you expect, really, look at how they ended up in WW2 before we "saved their bacon", as we like to say), so now it was our turn ... and we mucked up. History, unkind or not, makes the use of the words "lost" and "war" in the same sentence unavoidable. And, I have to admit, my fellow countrypeople, on the whole, have been having a bit of crisis of confidence since.
But, they push on in spite of themselves: the bloody suppression of so-called "revolutions" in South and Central America, the overthrow of democratically elected governments that were somehow deemed "unworthy", as it Iran, Chile, and even Greece, the over-the-top interventions in the Middle East – Gulf I, II, and Iraq – and now the so-called global war on terror (GWOT) which, as we all know, creates far more terrorists than it ever has or ever will ever eliminate. And each and every time we perpetuated an outdated myth or recast an old one in new garb or turned up the marketing of those elaborate and pompous stories we created about our good will, our humanitarian goals, our fervent desire to bring liberty and freedom to oppressed peoples, our moral obligation to a higher purpose. And each and every time we sent – no, we sacrificed, on the altar of power and profit – our best and brightest and bravest and – truth be told, poorest – so that the few could have even more than they already do and the rest of us could be left holding the bag (of death and misery and destruction and war crimes).
We all know, in the meantime, that some few people were getting filthy rich of all these schemes, that more often than not natural resources were the real motivators for our involvement (since we were willing to put into place and maintain in power some of the most oppressive and ruthless dictators known to the 20th century in order to ensure our "interests" were well represented), that yellow and then brown people were simply not fit for all that liberty, freedom and self-governance that we held in such high esteem and so more guns and more bullets and more bombs and more death and more destruction and more overt, physical intervention would be necessary to make the world safe for ... and here is where most of the non-American world simply draws a blank: just what is it that they were (and apparently are) so bent on doing. I wish I knew. When I look at it all, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What am I missing?
But, the myth machine is still running full blast, cranking out stories to make all those sacrifices look like heroic deeds done for heroic purposes to achieve heroic ends. No one wants to think that all those young American men (and more recently, women) died in vain. I don't want to think it, I can assure you, but they can only not die in vain if the myth is true. We know in the meantime that the myth is not true, and the frenetic rushing about and patting of vets on the back and thanking them for their service is, I know, well-intended, but it's nothing more than the doomed-to-failure attempt to appease one's own deceived conscience.
This weekend, we should take time and make every effort to embrace all of those, living and dead, who were misused and abused by the myths. We should tell them all just how sorry we are that we allowed them to suffer for false honor and false glory. We should locate every single living vet who has been made homeless and see that s/he gets a home. We should find every vet who is suffering from whatever service-induced or even remotely-related physical or mental ailments and see that s/he gets proper treatment. We should stand up and let them, and every current service member know that we're no longer putting up with this crap: of allowing young people to be utterly destroyed for no other reason than silly stories that aren't even true. That means, of course, that we all have to take a stand for truth and actually do something. My bet is the silly stories will be retold as the barbeques get fired up and the beer chills on ice.
Happy Memorial Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment