Face to Face with Mythology (video)
Mythology is a word usually used to designate fantastic ideas that come from an ancient culture. Does the 21st Century also have its own mythology? There has been a trend for centuries to gradually remove superstitious thinking from our modern view of the world. But each era has its own “Myths” about who we are as the Human Race and where we should be going. Just as we now snicker about what people believed and practiced 1000 years ago, so will the people of the future look back at our conceptions. What will those of the future think of our excesses and myopias? Perhaps they won’t be snickering.
Our modern perspective of the world is no way free from its own foibles. We should take in the fact that we have no understanding at all about some basic human realities and at the same time, the natural world around us is being polluted and despoiled at an alarming rate. Can a culture which cannot control its greed and waste really lay claim to some kind of grand knowledge? Perhaps, in our eagerness to demystify, objectivize and quantify everything we have lost something in the process. It could be argued that past leaders were also uncontrolled maniacs, but with our modern tools of science, that same greed that has driven humans in the past becomes capable of levels of wholesale destruction unavailable before.
The word “Mythology” means more than just ancient beliefs, it also signifies the basic self-view of a time and culture. A Zeitgeist. The most pernicious Myth of our modern culture is that humans have the right to decide the purpose of everything. And they can do so arbitrarily without considering the entire human race or ecology. Science has put incredible tools in our hands. Unfortunately, these tools are really only at the disposal of those who have great wealth, and the motivations of those with wealth are not for the welfare of environment or of people in general. Science without God, Knowledge without responsibility, Purpose without forethought, Enterprise without ethics and Ethics as only a convenience are putting the entire planet into jeopardy. This is our 21st Century Mythology. These are the stories we are telling ourselves. We imagine that if we mess up the Earth, we will all just move to Mars.
Watch it here: https://bit.ly/40eJ8sj