I've read and listened to David for MANY years. He's beyond a doubt a good and thoughtful man. But for his talents, I've never read or heard a man so far out of reality when it comes to real world of extremist right wing politics that are now the republican party. Period. He NEVER gets real about this madness that's been in the dark side of the party for decades and now with trump owns it completely. Get REAL David. Please!
20
Our society is less "coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around," and more to resemble the isolated, self-centered model of the "greed is good" Republican ideals of the likes of Paul Cruz. Mitch McConnel and the swamp things currently inhabiting the White House sphere. It is the sustained and persistent ugliness of Palin, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly , etal. Trump is but a symptom of their years of destructive rhetoric. Our plight has has nothing to do with myth, but with base, calculated propaganda. These are two different things. Myths provide a guiding light for us to be our best selves, whether this be in noble competition or compassionate cooperation. Propaganda provides cover for evil intent and turns us into unthinking reactionaries.
9
I think religion, compassion is way more powerful than myth. Myth has given us Donald Trump, God help us all now. Afterall, didn't the city state myth loving Athens finally go completely war crazy, becoming democracry turned wild mob, and utterly ruin itself invading much larger and much, much more powerful Sicily?
1
Myth and parable share one thing in common and that thing is personal sacrifice. Myth to save a people and parable to save oneself.
13
If there's a connection between us reveling in the mythic values of combat and competition and our declining civility (civility, owing as it apparently does to religious parable specifically), why does the most combative and least civil lout we've ever had serve as President enjoying the support of folks who spend arguably the most time spouting parable?
7
Apparently, the Fourth Great Awakening comes to us courtesy of Marvel, Nintendo, and FIFA. However, as Brooks notes, these various corporate products, with their emphasis on competition, “tend to give short shrift to relationships, which depend on the fragile, intimate bonds of vulnerability, trust, compassion and selfless love.” So much for the Great Awakening.
Back on June 7, Brooks wrote, “The Problem With Wokeness,” but between these two columns, we see that the real problem is with Brooksness. We are living a moment in which the Trump administration eagerly and viciously separated thousands of children from their parents as an act of state. Such a moment does not require a bunch of superheroes to wield magical powers. Instead, it calls on every one of us to repeatedly remind the administration that the relationship between parent and child depends on “the fragile, intimate bonds of vulnerability, trust, compassion and selfless love.” Such bonds should never be casually severed at the whim of a single man. Brooks muses about the next Great Awakening. My advice for him and all of us: stay woke.
26
I think the Asians would call this Yin and Yang. Thousands of years older than Judea and Athens, and unmentioned in this article. The world is big and wonderful place.
Confucius:
"I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge."
14
I guess it takes an American conservative to write this - especially shocking to see the number watching the gaming climax - 360 million - and then complaining at the end about intense competition, rooted in Athens. But failing to mention The Market, Capitalism, Wall Street...Von Hayek, Ayn Rand, and the classical economists who justified what Karl Polanyi has described as the most comprehensive effort in history to plan the market economy in Great Britain, 1800-1840.
Really, can you get away with this intellectually with being censored? Well, if all the censors are brainwashed on competition, I guess so. And no mention of Weber's classic on the marriage of capitalism and Protestantism - "The Protestant Ethic," which can perhaps also be seen as the origin of "Austerity."
And David, what do you think of the popular cable series, the Walking Dead, Black Sails, Game of Thrones, which documented the collapse of social capital, no worse, a Hobbesian breakdown of societal institutions...coming at the peak of Neoliberalism...which you didn't mention either as the competitive - hyper so - response to slow growth rates in the West.
I'd like you to meet Yanis Varoufakis some day, to give you a much needed reboot in Western Economic history.
Ironically, it was the surreptitious world of derivatives, promoted by the large banks, which caused them to lose "trust" in one another, due to their lack of transparency. It nearly caused another 1929.
3
A very interesting and original piece. Although it may not be highly appreciated or understood by some commenters, it is certainly much better than many of the write-ups that mindlessly repeat all the usual tiresome trope just to meet a press deadline. We need more of these that have some "thinking" behind them. Congrats!
27
Gee, I didn't know Joshua was a Greek and Aesop was a Jew! When I think of Athens, I think of Socrates, Pericles and Sophocles. When I think of ancient Jerusalem, I think of Herod and Pilate. Well, all the views that fit....
This column is sort of the jocks versus the thespians, in a new key. There seems to be the perception that jock values are on the rise and thespian values are falling, But can't we point to the opposite trend? All the progress for GLBT and feminism, even though it's never enough?
When I was a kid, the alternatives for male identity were John Wayne, John Wayne, or John Wayne. What has changed is that now there are countercultures, not uniformity.
TV in the '50s was one parable after another. Look at any old episode of Lassie. Advice became corny. Comic books didn't expect to be taken seriously.
When I was a kid, horror movies scared me. They made my kids laugh, and millennials see them as social commentary. Comic books have always been social commentary. Comics and cartoons. The myth is the setup for the punch line.
If you actually spend time with gamers, you find as many nerds as jocks. I also think vets can separate Afghanistan from Lords Mobile and Ragnarok.
Here's my new totalizing narrative: Blue is the new pink. Back when I was growing up being a red meant being a communist, and liberals were pinkos. But now the pinkos are in the blue states. But if blue is the new pink, how do you dress your baby? In rainbows, I guess.
10
"I’d say our politics and our society are coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around."
The above summation means we're into social darwinism, survival of the fittest. In our USA today 'fittest' means richest which only includes the top 5%, if that many. The top 3 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 160M citizens.
For the other 95% of us that means we live in a YOYO world where 'You're On Your Own.' Heaven help you because our GOP-controlled government won't. Our GOP will throw you under the bus and take away your healthcare, your school lunch, your reproductive rights, your school safety and whatever else doesn't jive with ideologies of the Koch brothers, evangelicals or NRA.
The competitive mythic ethos was unleashed by the Citizens United ruling with cash being the weapon of choice to clobber the life and rights of those less "fit" to survive.
9
Greeks liked their myths and embraced them fully in their normal lives but they were always aware that these were fantastic creations of their own innovative thinking.
On the other hand, Jerusalem myths or revelations are ridiculous and crude and those who believe in them are unaware of their own ignorance. That is today's GOP. Taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich is a favorite myth which is no different from the unreality of virgin birth, parting of oceans, or a talking serpent.
7
“There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.”
Schopenhauer
10
For David Brooks's turn of mind lately, please see Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818).
1
"Athens — think of Achilles — stands for the competitive virtues: strength, toughness, prowess, righteous indignation, the capacity to smite your foes and win eternal fame."
LOL. I honestly laughed out loud at that one.
Mr Brooks, Achilles died at Troy thousands of years before Athens was even built.
If you want to talk about myths and legends then you could at least get your basic mythic facts right.
6
According to David's definition war is a myth.
Of course you write about this instead of the moral failings of the Republican party and what's going on at the border.
10
Grade school teachers often throw around clunky oversized ideas like "myth" and "parable" and ask their pupils to compare and contrast them in order to teach one way to BEGIN the process of inquiry and analysis.
Gee willikers, the lame and inaccurate distinctions Brooks draws here for our examination are frustratingly undeveloped. Not unike "philosophy" in The Stone column.
This column was an idea scribbled -- not even sketched. To make a point, go back to the drawing board please and linger (with an editor).
3
After reading his commentary, my mind is totally confused. I don't know what the point he wants to make. Please enlighten me.
9
What a strange analogy. Athens brings to mind Plato, Socrates, the great plays; Jerusalem the intolerant violent "smites" of the Old Testament.
17
"Jerusalem — think of Moses or Jesus — stands for the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response."
Moses waged genocide against Caanaites. One Jewish general slew all men in a Canaanite village/city, then reported back to headquarters. Upon admitting that his force had not slain all Canaanite women and children, he was ordered to return and finish the job. The general did.
Read "A History of God," Karen Armstrong.
10
So how thousands of years of failed replacements did it take to get us right back to the exact same spot? Doesn’t matter, that’s what keeps bookbinders happy. After you realize that all stars look alike, staring at different ones becomes one of life’s great pleasures. No reason to stop an otherwise useful hobby. What else are we here for to do? Mountains build themselves, the wind blows even when no one is there. It’s nice to know.
The pleasure of living in the modern world is being able to experience both of these modes of thinking in tension within a single creative work.
Actually, although I wasn't the biggest fan of the Avengers movie, I'd have to say it tackled this tension pretty frequently and forthrightly, consistently swerving between the need to defeat Thanos and the various bonds between the "hero" characters that could hold them back, but might also be essential to their eventual (presumed) victory.
Also, in The Last Jedi, the central insight presented as wisdom is that failure and success are intertwined, and that no one really owns power.
I really don't agree that these cultural totems fall strictly, or even mostly, into the Athenian Myth mode of thinking. If anything, they cloak their parables in myths to make them more palatable to a secular audience.
And League of Legends is just a competitive game. Not all games are like that. Some are more introspective and have subtler messages.
1
The competitive vs. the compassionate virtues Mr. Brooks discussed are western cultural melodies. However, there are other cultural melodies wafting through the world. How about the virtue of obedience that has supported the authoritarian rules of Chinese emperors, including Mao and now Xi, over the past two thousand years? Are relationships structured by the rule of unconditional obedience to elders and superiors stronger than those formed through compassion? With the rise of China, we are about to find out how the western and eastern cultural melodies will interact - will there be dissonances or a new symphony?
4
Myth is based on nostalgia, the desire for what once was. The trouble is, going backwards is very, very expensive because it requires undoing all of the advances and improvements of the subsequent eras.
Think about it; would we be better transforming our existences so there are more coders or coal miners? More geneticists or more fork lift drivers?
Parable, OTOH, is based on hope for the future. Follow the parable and you will enjoy a more purposeful, fulfilling life.
Hope costs nothing. Hope can motivate and incentivize personal and societal improvement that can be leveraged for all.
Hope is what all conservative fear. That is why Donald Trump is president.
4
Thank you, David, for another thoughtful and graceful piece of writing.
4
While this is an interesting comparison, there is something eerie about describing Jerusalem as standing for "the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response." While Brooks refers to ancient Jerusalem, given the recent shooting of the people of Gaza even near the border of Israel, not mentioning that this is a historical reference is tantamount to giving Israel a pass.
It also could be used to justify Trump's actions with refugees. I have stopped saying, "It can't happen here," given the actions of Trump, and the enthusiastic responses of his supporters. If we start shooting brown people approaching our borders I will no longer be surprised.
7
I honestly have no idea what Brooks is talking about. The Jerusalem in Brooks' memory died years ago---today's Jerusalem is the center of a fight to the death between two tribes that both claim this city is necessary for their tribe to survive (for emotional reasons, but nothing based in pragmatic reality), and the sibling war is enabled and encouraged by our recent move of the US Embassy in support of one tribe at the expense of the other. The spiritual creatures that Brooks describes are not visible in the Jerusalem I have visited and known.
4
You don't mention complexity and imperfection, which parables also contain. We are imperfect creatures; parables help us weather that. Myths are fantasies of perfection, hence the appeal of the populist who will save us.
5
It's an interesting metaphor, but I'm not sure it works all that well, Mr. Brooks. Parable seems more a subset of myth rather than a distinct category. Not all myths are superheros and grand fight scenes. Narcissus, Icarus and Daedalus, and Pandora are examples of morality tales. Moses parts the sea, turns a stick in to snake and Jesus raises people from the dead and has magical discussions with Satan. I sort of see your point, but not really. Jerusalem and Athens are too complex to use as an archetypical dichotomy.
That being said, I enjoyed your playing with the metaphor. Keep it up.
4
While Brooks exposition of myth and parable is useful and interesting, it essentially ignores the fundamental question: it is not what is occurring these days but why is it occurring. In order to improve things, we must deal with the less-than definitive realities of what is human nature, how people behave in groups, and what may be essentially genetically coded "values." Too much of the energy objecting to the degeneration of our sociopolitical reality, to the mythologizing of daily life (to paraphrase, I think, Brooks) is spent documenting what is occurring, as well as the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. For the most part this only leads to bumpersticker "analyses" and "solutions."
If we really want to make progress, to make useful change where parable becomes more common than myth, we need to spend less energy engaging in moral posturing and more in figuring out why "the others" profess and act the way they do. Minds need to be changed, and we will only develop the understanding and credibility necessary to change "their minds" if we listen to what "they" have to say, thus giving "them" an opportunity to believe they might change "our minds."
It is far too easy to simply dismiss others. Essentially, it is the lazy way out, allowing one to feel smugly superior without having to get down and dirty, fighting in the trenches as it were, to make things incrementally better. After all, it is so much easier to fail at perfection than to succeed at improvement.
2
A confusing essay touches on something when it concludes that our politics and society more closely resemble the competitive mythic ethos. But this is hardly a great spiritual awakening; it is nothing more than a mass self-delusion.
The competitive mythic ethos that Brooks describes has grown more pronounced in mass culture, such as movies, tv shows, advertising, and athletic, military, and political entertainment, as the actual competitive virtues of our civilization have declined. A robustly competitive culture would not likely devote the resources that we do to promoting the symbols of competitiveness. Nor would it prove its mettle by conducting war on its vulnerable immigrants or the weakest of its citizens who are disabled by drug addiction, depression or poverty. An authentically competitive culture would not elect a con man, casting himself as a tough guy, who would sullenly withdraw the US from the world in a series of cellphone messages typed from his bed, as we alientate our longtime friends, encourage our longtime enemies, and do lasting damage to our national interests.
Yes, we have succumbed to a competitive mythic ethos, but the real problems are that this is a symptom of a society that has lost its real competitiveness, and we are led by a man whose only solution is, hourly, to brand himself the solution.
2
If superhero movies and videogames are modern-day myths, then the Real Housewives shows and other reality tv are modern day parables.
3
I think the main reason that professional sports never appealed to me much is because I never bought into the fantasy that it REALLY mattered who scored. I now enjoy soccer more than I ever enjoyed our home-grown sports, probably because I don't have to choose sides and get crazy about who wins. Nobody cares that much where I am, or rather they care about dozens of different teams, so I can watch and simply enjoy the beautiful game.
3
There is a deep spiritual need within every human individual, despite the scoffs of the athiests. Yet many are leary of religion because they see a politicized Christian Evangelism that doesn't resonate with every believer in Christ or seeker of some spiritual path.
Yet there are many major religions with groups all over the United States. There is still freedom of religion under our Constitution and there's supposed to be separation of religion from government, though the latter is tested at times. I hope that in time, a more compassionate spirituality will attract people's hearts, for as much fun and thrilling the mythic world of Marvel and DC is, it won't fill our deepest needs for connection.
5
I know I'm about to reap the whirlwind but the purpose of myth, be them Abrahamic or otherwise, is for the "hero," the main actor, to gain self-knowledge and a better understanding of the world in which the "hero" lives.
The adventure movies, games, stories that provide nothing but chills and thrills are just part of road to self-actualization. It's the unfulfilled called to self-knowledge.
They know not why they do what they do. Self discovery interrupted.
4
Great comment.
Perhaps instead consider the tension between the Athenian and Roman aspects of our current culture. What aspects of America’s culture today reflect the excesses of the Roman empire? And who today reflects the thoughtful civilization of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates? When I think of Athenian civilization, I think of a golden age of discovery in science, democracy and poetry, which seeded the modern age, and not so much their mythology.
7
CC, I agree with much of your comment. However, it’s good to acknowledge Alexander and several of his generals studied with Aristotle.
2
The difference between myth and parable that David Brooks describes reminds me of something that a Catholic Priest once told me when I was a kid asking about why there were so many different Christian religions. He said there are really only two kinds of Christians. One kind is constantly trying to protect themselves from the devil getting in. They see the devil as an outside corrupting force that is attempting to bring their downfall. The other kind of Christian is the one trying to keep the devil from coming out. They see it as an internal struggle to remain on the right path and to do nothing that would be displeasing to God. The heroes in myth seem to be the former and the heroes in parables seem to be the latter. I think it also captures the differences in American Society right now as well.
10
Mr. Brooks:
So many of your sayings have lodged in my head and guided me over the years. Thank you for that!
I’m a big SF fan. I agree that too many currently popular works lean towards grandiose, violent mythic battles, but there are multiple fantastic movies/books/shows that do ask their viewers to reflect critically on their own moral choices. I’ll name just one here: Doctor Who. So many of the episodes are beautiful, meaningful parables well worth your viewing! I still feel hope for the future when I ponder that millions of people worldwide enjoy watching the adventures of a hero who carries a screwdriver instead of a gun.
The videos of crying immigrant children are haunting and painful, and remind me of a quotation from the last series episode “Thin Ice”: “Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It is measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is your value. That’s what defines an age. That’s what defines a species.”
3
I think the idea of another Great Awakening is very apt, but Brooks is framing it wrong. With the death or unavailability of the monotheistic God there is a widespread reversion to Shamanism, an earlier form of religion. Without agreement on a single God there is no agreement on morality, so life becomes a contest between the light side and the dark side of human nature.
The Shamanist Renewal dates back at least to the appearance of Wilding thirty years ago. Sometimes this involved unmotivated attacks, but basically it consisted of throwing off the veneer of civilization by imitating totem animals.
When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 the triumphant Profit Systemwas able to admit to the darkness at its heart, and our politics has become a conflict between fully realized darkness and darkness disguised. Since there is a clear absence of morality near the top it disappears from the lower social strata as well, and our social cohesion is fading fast. Many Americans seem to have consciously aligned themselves with Satan and will vote for the most evil candidate they can find. So our politics also is given the appearance of an epic battle between Heros and Monsters.
To the extent that our politics is genuine it truly *is* a battle between good and evil. Between climate change and nuclear war our species may actually be on the verge of making itself extinct, so actually the grandeur of the Mythic Vision may be more realistic than the prosaic vision of Christian parables.
1
I am increasingly disappointed by Brooks's remove to a chair at a thinking table, far away from the important issues of the day. Forgive me, but these are musings at a dinner party with your friends who like to traffic in deep thoughts and nifty historical parallels. In view of the events since January 20, 2017, it may be time to head back into the office and discuss how, for example, the GOP can find its moral compass, how it can find three branches of government working the way the framers intended, and how Americans might someday reach some consensus on almost anything again.
15
Read about the rise of Christianity to power in the Roman empire, Catherine Nixey's "The Darkening Age" for example, or the works of Charles Freeman, and see how Christianity brought a winner-take-all myth of good vs. evil into power--with devastating moral and intellectual consequences. That story is not one of the triumph of "parables" versus "myths" as Brooks describes it. If anything, accepting his definitions of those terms, it was quite the opposite.
3
Perhaps due to an artistic mindset, I never feel fully satisfied with the presentation of dualities. I believe this framework for understanding our world is often the root cause of dysfunctional hero worship and myth making. Of course this not obtainable but I wish more would consider a framework beyond two dimensions, a more creative, dynamic framework enabling humanity to more fully and positively express itself.
I am reminded of Ernest Becker and his book Denial of Death. I will have to use Wikipedia here but two sections seem to have captured his perspective well. One on mental illness and the other on creativity, both having to do with managing our own "immortality project":
Becker describes schizophrenia as being when someone becomes so obsessed with their personal immortality project that they altogether deny the nature of all other realities. The schizophrenic creates their own internal, mental reality in which they define and control all purposes, truths, and meanings. This makes them pure heroes, living in a mental reality that is taken as superior to both physical and cultural realities.
Like the schizophrenic, creative and artistic individuals deny both physical reality and culturally-endorsed immortality projects, expressing a need to create their own reality. The primary difference is that creative individuals have talents that allow them to create and express a reality that others may appreciate, rather than simply constructing an internal, mental reality.
Then there's social media which increasingly seems like a giant, sprawling high school.
However, the Greeks had a sense of "city state" and "citizenship" which wasn't present in Jerusalem, no? Their deal with the Romans was that Rome stays out of religion and Jerusalem stays out of politics.
It is not possible to keep the two separate. Is it blasphemy to say the "second coming" is myth?
2
It was prematurely expected, some 20 odd year ago, but it will come:
"They will go forth and and appreciate and build on, the land that their fathers and mothers have built for them".
When is "community spirit" something more than "Volksgmeindshaft"?
It requires more than ISIS to bring us together. It requires US!
Kind of wonder what mythic construct Stephen Miller is caught up in.
4
With each of Mr Brooks column I am getting more and more lost. They are all abstract. It’s ok for him to write these columns as a blog outside of NYT columns.
NYT or any other news paper daily columns are primarily meant for current events and not for some abstract unrelated subjects. May be Sunday Magazine would be the right place.
With tumultuous events going on in the nation this column has no value
8
Interesting column David, but I wouldn't call adventure movies and video games The Fourth Great Awakening. It's escapism, pure and simple. Just like the goofball comedies of the 1930's. People want to escape their present reality.
2
PAGANS VERSUS CHRISTIANS
Please be kinder to Athens. It stands mainly for excellence. The “strength, toughness, prowess, righteous indignation, and capacity to smite your foes” are not thematic but tactical—and it could just as easily be argued that they are projections of the Christian psyche as they are vices of the pagan psyche. The last two thousand years of western history are the proof. Crusades anyone? Witch trials anyone? Book burnings anyone? Body burnings anyone? Torquemada anyone? The celebration of ignorance over knowledge anyone? Because the pagan psyche values THIS world rather than the NEXT world it safeguards this world over the next one. Climate change anyone? Projection comes much easier to monotheism than to polytheism, because where there is One there will always be Other, but when there are Many than can always be More.
The pagan psyche is guilty of much, but that is because paganism is advanced psychology and human beings are rarely capable of rising up to it. The myths that you so disparage are actually X-rays into these failures more than facile celebrations of heroes triumphing over villains, which belong more to the Christian paradigm. Heroic messiahs anyone? God against Satan anyone?
The Christian psyche by contrast is simplistic psychology that creates mindless followers rather than thoughtful citizens. Donald Trump anyone?
And please remember where democracy was born. It wasn’t Jerusalem, was it?
It was Athens.
4
This piece has Jordan Peterson's fingerprints all over it.
To engage with all of this column's clichés, ridiculous generalizations, half-truths, distortions, confusions and outright errors would be a waste of time.
3
Be sure to thank: Jacob Shapiro, (Quintus Septimius Florens) Tertullianus, Pierre Manent, Leo Strauss (1899–1973), Gary Sauer-Thompson maybe even Steven Nemes
David,
What is compassionate about the book of Joshua?
(It's about wholesale slaughter of the then-present population on the orders of God).
3
The founding myths preparatory to Jerusalem include mass murder by the invading Hebrews and by their deity when they didn't do exactly what they wanted.
2
This is a bizarre article that fits with Mr. Brooks' ongoing lament about the decline of American civilization due to secularization. Where to begin?
Athens vs. Jerusalem? Do you mean the Jerusalem of David, who won renown by killing a giant? Or Samson and his Herculean feats? You mention Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, but overlook Joshua conquering Canaan. Certainly no myths in the Old Testament, or subsequent Christian thought (King Arthur and the grail legend anyone?). And we're talking about the Athens of Achilles, definitely not that of Socrates or Aristotle and their allegories, or Aesop's fables, which certainly hew closer to Mr. Brooks' definition of parable than myth.
All of a sudden we are surrounded by myth, evidence through popular film? Certainly that wasn't the case in the '00s, when the most popular films were Avatar, the Dark Knight, Spiderman. Definitely not in the '90s, with the rebirth of Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Independence Day leading the way. Perhaps in the heady days of Reagan, when E.T., Star Wars ep. 5 and 6, and Batman were the most popular films. The '70s maybe? The original Star Wars, Superman, and Rocky make the list. The '60s brought Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, and a spate of westerns. Go back further and you encounter the actual golden age of comic books, and the dime store novel before that.
The overarching premise of this article is so deeply flawed it's hard to fathom how it got published.
4
The “Fourth Great Awakening”, David? How about the ‘Great Glazing Over Of Our Minds’ instead, because that is a picture closer to reality.
3
David Brooks is far, far away on this one, like attempting an essay on Time, he describes the workings of a watch.
If he wishes to know about Myth, its history, purpose, and power, I suggest that he reads Joseph Campbell and Karen Armstrong.
3
Mr Brooks, I have given up on you. This is YOUR GOP.
7
An interesting cultural comparison; but small children are crying uncomforted in cages, ripped from their parents.
3
Brooks needs to understand that this is a war on the working class by the landed gentry--that is, those who inhereted wealth. They want to reduce the middle and lower class to penury. Anything else is pure sophestry. Which is what Brooks trys to do. He needs to be honest.
4
Brilliant insight. The metaphor still stands despite the lack of mention of those eastern others...wow. As if they don't have epics in Asia and India that bring these exact two themes together in the exact same way. Talk about ignorance.
This is a clash between yin and yang, male and female, violence and compassion, lizard brain and frontal cortex, republican and democrat. It's always the same two themes because there are only two themes (let's leave Third Way for another day). And now the aggressive male is in charge, and all that it entails.
It should surprise no one that the aggressive male had to use Fear as the tool of choice to get where he is (metaphorically and literally). Fear as displayed in fake news and conspiracy theory. Without the Legion of Liars making things up out of thin air we wouldn't be here today. Eg., denying Sandy Hook ever happened ("It was all fake!") in order to motivate gun buyers and "prove a left wing conspiracy." It's mind-boggling how ignorant lizard brains are. They would rather die of heart disease than succumb to the "far left wing conspiracy of veganism."
The split between these two sides is larger than ever and if left unchecked will destroy this country.
There is a reason humans evolved away from rule by aggression, it can end the species. And so "intellectualism" is attacked along with "soy boys." The name calling is endless, but really only proves one thing. The frontal cortex is more intelligent than the lizard brain. Still.
1
The image I get from your words is of pending Civil War brought about by tribal differences and lack of empathy.
2
The rise of escapism is indeed a troubling indicator of where we are as a country. What I take issue with is the implication that the culprit is, as David puts it, that "parable-based religion has receded from the public square." Never in my 61 years can I recall a time when we have been more bombarded by groups claiming to represent "parable-based religions." And never in my 61 years can I recall those religions straying so far from the lessons offered by the parables their chosen Messiah offered. The fault is not the absence of these "religions" from the public square - the fault is that they offer nothing of the uplifting alternative David claims for them. They have evolved into tribes, not religions. They have sought to fill, and to a great extent succeeded in filling the public square - with false teachings, with hatred, with division - in short, with the antithesis of what Jesus seems to have taught during his short ministry. Do not blame those who choose secular religions - blame the sectarian religions for failing to offer an uplifting alternative.
3
How might the resurgence of the appeal of mythology overlap with what has been described so urgently by Warren Farrell, John Gray, and many other psychologists as “the boy crisis?"
The heroic story of the callow youth identifying a goal, struggling against “the odds and the gods” to achieve the Golden Ring (or not) and discovering that the real treasure was the struggle itself and its forging of a Hero, is the primal story of how we finding meaning in our difficult lives. In modern days, it's often a matter of finding this meaning in the struggle to build a family, business, or reach a political goal.
Yet, for a couple of decades now we have we’ve been putting our children in helmets and elbow pads just to ride their tricycles, intervening at the slightest distress, giving prizes for mere participation, sending them the message that if they encounter difficulties something has gone wrong. Rather than preparing our little heroes to cut a path through the jungle, we do our best to clear the path for them.
We combine this with our current popular message to boys that there is something intrinsically “toxic” about their masculinity, aggressiveness, wild energies, competitiveness and risk taking. Ironically, we have demanded they become more "girlish": cooperative, sensitive and so-on, while we’ve finally, rightfully, begun to send girls and women on their own Hero’s Journey.
Does the new appeal to young men of mythological struggle exist somewhere in this tangle?
"They tend to see the line between good and evil as running between groups, not, as in parable, down the middle of every human heart."
When religions, especially the monotheistic ones trade in their parables for myth to gain power, they must be curtailed.
I somewhat disagree.
Wouldn't we need Leadership to be fully in Myth mode?
Heroic Leadership?
There is a dearth of Leadership everywhere I look, except the MSD Parkland kids.
David, when will you be able to write an article like that of Mr.Bettle? Direct, objective, alive, practical and of a true humanity. The pretense of hiding his conservatism behind a thin and fragile film of erudition is surely stimulating for his Ego, but the only thing he transmits is the image of weakness. It gives the impression of being reading a cloistered monk who has taken a vow of silence to hide from himself and from others. Is your voice refusing to the greeting: Ave María Purísima. We must respond to the greeting: Without consevida sin?
David Brooks wanders off further and further into his dream land, avoiding the one topic he used to spout off about all the time, and frankly, for which he is paid to spout off --- American politics of the present moment. It's painfully obvious to me, and I suspect, to a majority of NYT readers what's going on here. Poor David is simply not willing to look very hard at what's going on with his own Republican Party and "conservative movement," because it's just too painful for him. So he swaft himself into dreamy pseudo-philosophizing about how much better off we'd all be if we somehow changed our philosophical-mythic worldview in some way that he can't quite conceptualize himself, or articulate in a way comprehensible to educated New York Times readers.
Why can't David do this? I have a theory. It's because what is happening right now to the country under Trump is the foreseeable result of 50 years of decline in the Republican Party itself, from its once proud position as the Party of Lincoln--conservative and mercantilist on economic policy, but sane and reasonable, and generally liberal on civil and political rights for all people. The change started with the election of Richard Nixon in November 1968, exactly 50 years ago this next election day, and picked up speed under Reagan and his acolytes. It has led to Trump. And David can't admit that until now he has always been a supporter of this process on these pages. It hurts too much to do so.
7
Couldn't read any further than the gross characterization of Athens and Jerusalem. The culture which included God telling Joshua to kill every man, women, child, and animal in a city he was invading is hardly the poster culture for tolerance and mercy. And the entire tragedy of The Iliad is Akhilleus learning that the competitive virtues get you nothing but dead friends and the endgame of destroying a great culture in the name of highly-compromised values. David Brooks needs a lot more ancient cultural literacy, among other things.
The competitive myth David Brooks describes is more rooted in Sparta than Athens. Apart from that, Brooks provides a reasonable commentary.
2
Parables, like their cousin pipe-dreams, are a dime a dozen. Being honest with ourselves is a lot more expensive and valuable.
To endorse the parable paradigm is to aid and abet the enemy – Donald Trump – who also uses parables (Make America Great Again) as statements of moral mission. Endorsing parables normalizes and gives credence to the tactic.
We need action, not words.
1
Ancient Greece stands for democracy (of sorts). Jerusalem stands for superstition, not "morality". Superstition is not a valid basis for running one's own life or telling others how to lead theirs.
2
Hopefully the Fourth Great Awakening will happen this November.
4
I know Mr. Brooks is trying real hard to get to the essence of life but he keeps discovering mineral veins of pyrite and try to present them to us as veins of gold.
It is hard to become wise on the fly.
3
Brooks seems to get lost in his own circular arguments and narratives that he has been championing for decades (mainly the GOP myths) . But please do not compare soccer with super heroes and other myths. Soccer and the World Cup are much more important than that.
I disagree. At the most fundamental level, the function of myth is to give you directions for experiencing life. Most people don't want to give 'meaning' to life. They want the experience of being alive. Think about the times you felt most alive. Now think about what makes you feel dead.
See what I mean?
At another level, if your basic myth involves a god who creates a garden and with it a snake, and then forbids you to eat of a certain fruit, knowing that you will eat thereof, and thereafter expels you from the garden, your everyday world will operate on the assumption that nature (the snake) is evil, and that every natural impulse is evil, unless sanctified by religion.
God against man, man against nature, nature against man: very funny religion!
Life becomes a battle between good and evil, and one has to choose. That is how it shows up in our movies:
"One of the many ways in which the Western has become old-fashioned is that the characters have values, and act on them. Modern action movies have replaced values with team loyalty; the characters do what they do because they want to win and they want the other side to lose. Underlying most modern action movies is Vince Lombardi's dictum: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." Underlying most classic Westerns is the Biblical text: "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?"' --- film critic Roger Ebert, reviewing the Western "Open Range" (2003)
“I’d say our politics and our society are coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around.” What about political myth? What’s the political myth of our time? Manifest Destiny, Clash of Civilizations, etc. The American people definitely don’t fit the bill anymore for their special virtues and institutions. But, The Clash of Civilizations, now this is quite a myth; that racial, cultural and religious identities are the primary source of our conflict in this all too frigid post–Cold War world; well, now that makes quite a myth. Its saga, its heroes and protagonists are all those fighting the “ignorance” of the past; the raison d’être for their existence. They see themselves in a war with all previous generations; clarifying and cleaning up the crudeness of all such nonsense gone by. Moreover, this “end of history,” as they aptly name it, will bring an end to all such crude inventions; they, being the new world order and great saviors of our time and all future generations to come. NOT!—what a bunch of hokum. I guess that’s why they call it myth, a fable even; because it will always be a story of some great but unknown age, personified in all; but existing only forever in our imaginations.
Did Moses (via YHWH) really answer the Egyptians with a "gentle response" when the Red Sea parted and the Pharaoh's soldiers all drowned? Also Jael who drove a nail into the head of Sisera? That was the gentlest nail murder ever! And Ehud stabbing Eglon--a very gentle (and left-handed) stabbing!
1
Trying to avoid talking about the humanitarian disaster at the border and the feckless Trump government that created it?
Nice try. The Republicans can run but they can't hide on this one.
1
Might today's NFL with its grand popularity be our myth of one tribe's strength versus another. Think of the brave minutemen, the NE Patriots up against the fearless Eagles of Philadelphia with both team's mythic symbols born of America overthrowing the mighty British. We are all Athenians during football season.
Today' s NFL warriors however also have a parable to share led by Colin Koepernick with a strong message of Jerusalem . Lay down your weapons and care for those who need compassion.
Sadly the owners of the NFL teams profit greatly by our myth and feel threatened financially by this parable.
Heavens, what a unexpected piece of repositioning Mr. Brooks has attempted here.
In the modern era, which is said to begin around the year 1500, Athens has generally been considered the great champion of virtue that is achieved through reason, Socrates being the incarnation of this humanist tradition. Achilles, as Homer portrayed him in The Odyssey, is consigned to an unpleasant underworld.
Jerusalem, on the other hand, has been seen as prone to embrace unthinking prejudice based on presumably spiritual values.
These evaluations are of course oversimplifications, but they were needful during the Enlightenment, when the greatest intellects of the West were attempting to escape the limitations of the medieval worldview. Nevertheless, there is at least a wee bit more truth in them than what Mr. Brooks has concocted here.
5
It seems very strange to me how our president, and many of our people, look at Winning as the supreme virtue, when it is quite obvious to me, and surely almost unarguably true, that without Co-operation, we would all be living in caves or trees, if we were living at all.
We often think of humans, homo-sapiens, as being unique and powerful because of our supreme intelligence. And we may indeed be the most intelligent creatures on the planet (we should perhaps wonder about some others, like whales and elephants, with whom communication issues complicate such judgements).
But what is clear to me, as an agnostic scientist, rather committed to a humanistic, rationalist view of human life, is that the _COMBINATION_ of intelligence with social co-operation together is what makes us the most dangerously...) powerful and successful species on Earth.
The miracle that makes all this possible, is Love. There is no winning without love. Love is what makes "Winning!" possible, and meaningful.
I think somehow we need to make this argument more clear to the committed "Winners", narcissists, Libertarians, Ann Rand folks, etc. Its simple, rationalist truth seems to me to be decisive.
Whoever Jesus was, his teachings about loving our neighbors as ourselves, seems to me to overwhelm all other considerations, and leads to life, while ignoring the common good leads to Death, for us and likely for the planet.
2
This excellent premise feels truncated. I want more! It seems that most of the the American history we cherish is myth-like. Not just Paul Bunyan, Betsy Ross, and Johnny Appleseed, but Washington at Valley Forge, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Are Americans just a myth-loving people? Am I overlooking equally well-known American parables? Are there any contemporary parables?
"sport requires a great suspension of disbelief. The viewer has to pretend that it really matters which group of men puts a ball in a net." What does it say about us that it does seem to matter?
David, I sometimes think that you, like George Will, spend too much energy avoiding the important issues and focusing on minutia, but today's piece "sparked" like a good graduate seminar session.
1
This was an interesting read. I would like to point out that, while Mr. Brooks is correct about the myth involved in the video games he cites, that the world of video games is in fact broader, and parables can be found there as well; although they are certainly outnumbered by those that fit more squarely in the role of myth. I would argue that games like Papers Please fit more into the mold of parables (and if you've never heard of it, then you may do well to learn more about the variety of games today).
.
I am hoping this Awakening can be more philosophical and less religious in nature. I'm a believer, but don't necessarily exercise that belief with a specific deity, text, priesthood or ritual. First the inner journey (self-reflection); then the outer journey (association and relationships).
When has the history of Western civilization not been one of power and conquest, human foibles, and Icarus imbued schemes. Trump has taken the false thesis of myth as heroic to a Faustian level, but it's still true that many have utilized the ethic of selfless heroism to achieve noble goals in the service of others. The millions that Brooks mentioned here enthralled by video games and super hero movies does not condemn the idea of myth as a vehicle to accomplish great things, but rather that the absence of the ability to achieve great things in a society that is no longer dedicated to achieving great things has created a huge void.
Parables always bring a dose of humanity and reality to the superhero myths, but the poison now is due to Trump and his minions, desperate for some sort of power and purpose, though it basically means trampling human rights and ethics.
We need both myth and parables, of course. The lack of balance in the world created by Trump is due to a narcissistic, megalomania personality. That doesn't mean that the balance can't be re-established, once reasonable leaders come back into favor.
When I think of Athens, I mostly think of Aristotle and Socrates and the first democracy
the world had ever known.
The Athenian academy and the insight that the earth is not the center of the universe, we are but a small instance in time and place.
The injunction that the highest ethical value is to make the best of our time on earth.
The classical Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
No so much Achilles.
1
And so we see the problem of myths - people like to live through myths, rather than actually engage with the daily world around them.
There is no "spiritual awakening" going on. There is only deeper and deeper dissociation from what is real, ever-expanding dystopia, and increasingly pervasive escapism.
That's what myths and religion are for ... so that people can have misplaced "hope" in stuff that will never be real so they don't really have to look at themselves, their lives, the suffering around them, the cruelties of their governments.
I've quit believing Melania Trump has a decent bone in her body, and now I've quite believing David Brooks is worth reading.
1
Many people might be drawn into Mr. Brook's world of literary analysis and ancient history discussions. It must be nice to live in a world that provides such luxury. To me this column is yet another in a long line of his feeble attempts to ignore and distract from current events.
With his columns, Mr Brooks appears to play the same role as the musicians that played while the Titanic sank.
Does Mr. Brooks not bother to read the headlines of the publication for which he writes ?
Wake up Mr. Brooks ! Rome is burning and your GOP party provided the tinder and the spark. You are complicit unless you speak out.
8
Really? Kids being ripped from their parents, a Republican House that votes to take food out of the mouths that our most vulnerable people need and you write a dumb column about myths and parables? What's the matter...still can't find your backbone?
5
As usual, I learned more in five minutes reading Brooks than I would in a 100 minute school lecture.
1
Problem is his facts are incorrect and his conclusions ludicrous.
2
When are you going to come back to the present Mr. Brooks? Lately, all of your columns have been efforts to use philosophy, allegories, and now Athens and Jerusalem to explain the mess we are in now. Get your head out of the clouds. Get on a plane or in your car and come visit us. Come visit me, a liberal in conservative eastern Washington state. Go visit a conservative in San Francisco. Get out there and talk to real people. Come see how we live.
2
Another random Theory of Everything Du Jour from David Brooks.
8
What are you talking about David? This column should be retired.
5
Really David, what in the world? sigh
7
Children are being caged in internment camps and you're writing about Marvel comics?!
7
Interesting article but it seems more and more like you are hiding. Where did your voice go?
1
Maybe people who find all this extravagant meaning in movies and video games are just lonely losers who have no lives and need to come up out of basement.
2
Blah?
Melania Trump wears a jacket reading “I really don’t care” when checking out the US-Mexican border where children are separated from their parents and this is the best you can do, Mr. Brooks?
Are you really that far out of touch? One must wonder.
3
Can you say "ivory tower"?
5
I wonder if ancient Hebrews would recognize themselves in the little-home-on-the-prairie Sunday-school teachers David Brooks makes them out to be. Maybe they soured on martial bravery after they got subjugated by the Romans, and decided to bless the world with Christianity, taking a page out of Plotinus and the late-Hellenic Stoa. Or maybe Brooks is just misusing overheard nuggets of second-hand wisdom to score some doubtful polemical points, as usual. Who needs a classicist or Talmudic scholar anyway when we have an op-ed pundit from the New York Times? Talk about the post-truth era....
2
Brooks's Republican Party is currently subverting fundamental American values, implementing unimaginably cruel and vindictive policies that reek of shameless racist nationalism and plutocratic tyranny, and he's offering Comparative Mythology and Parable 101? If it weren't such flagrant evasion and so intellectually puerile this column would be merely pathetic.
1
Yet another quasi book report, while Children are truly suffering. Have you just given up, or think that WE have ??? Seriously.
3
So, is Melania's jacket graffiti channeling David Brooks' columns for the last I don't know how long, or vice versa? Do remember, one shouldn't attribute to malice that which can be accounted for by shallowness. To be fair. That said...Ask me.. if care.
Once Mr. Brooks has neatly categorized every facet of the human experience, and metaphorically placed them into neat little intellectual boxes what on earth will he write about?
2
So did you finally read Chris Hedges? Empire of Illusion?
1
No need to go back to Jerusalem and Athens to explain Trump and the Trumpsters.
Just look at Big Time Wrestling with its mythical trash-talking, revenge motif, and willing suspension of belief.
I'm not sure Brooks has actually seen Infinity Way. Spoiler Alert.
Infinity War, at its heart, is about the madness of a hypercompetitive, zero sum mind set. There is a good reason Thanos, the villain, is referred to as "The Mad Titan." It is because he got the idea into his head that rather than finding a cooperative means of harnessing the technology and resources of a high-tech galaxy to solve societal problems, the best course of action was to arbitrarily purge half the population of the known universe. Perhaps most illustrative of his insanity was the way Thanos constantly said he had "no choice" but to engage in unspeakable cruelties even though he had gained literal and total discretion over space, time, souls, power, minds and even reality itself. A literal snap of his fingers killed half the universe, but it never occurred to his feeble mind to use that same power to find a non-destructive solution. Instead, he despised the "weakness" of past leaders who failed to slaughter everyone sooner.
And not to speak ill of the "dead," but it was the delays in cooperation, organization and self-discipline that allowed this unhinged being to gather an army of sycophants to his cause and successfully complete his patently absurd plan.
I would note that in the Infinity War comic, Thanos doesn't hide behind some laughable greater good rationalization. He was simply a death-worshipping, power-mongering, sadistic, nihilistic jerk.
Once again, David writes a column that has nothing to do with the real world, and certainly nothing to do with the chaos and misery his Republican Party has caused around the world. He wastes ink and precious Times real estate. In the name of god, go!
3
I have always wondered how David Brooks got his reputation as a thinker.
It's interesting to see a clear simple example of the act that got him where he is today.
2
Why is this on the Opinion Page? What's Brooks goals here? I find it all very "so what". The fact is that stories can get people to do good or evil. Tell us some good ones that will make us do some good.
Really? Does Brooks have nothing to say about his party's failure to act to stop the government from forcibly removing children from their parents? Thanks again, NYT.
1
Read it all the way through. Meh.
2
Why give Athens such a bad name? Achilles was a Myrmidon, joining an expedition by Peloponnesian powers (Argives, Achaeans, Danaeans). Nothing to do with Athens. Solon, Thucydides, Pericles, Aristotle, are more like it. Likewise, why idealize Jerusalem? Moses never made it into Cannan (only saw it from Har Nevoh). Jesus lived during the final decline. And the Temple, from Solomon & David onward, represented a repressive establishment, both religious & imperial, which Jesus preached against. Get your analogies straight, David. TG
Mr. Brooks, for the love of God, what are you talking about? Did you miss the memo this week about our "administration" sending infants to internment camps? And this is the subject matter you write about this week? You felt this topic was so much more important?
Trump's actions have posed an existential threat to this nation. His tirades have set off a level of hate not seen in this country for decades. Any brown skinned citizen is now considered a "fair target" by Trump voters. And you are off in your virtual world.....
So while you are continuing to remove yourself from reality, how about imagining this scenario? Thousands of blond haired, blue eyed children and infants in cages, as our president has ordered. And the public outcry resulting from that would be deafening.
But unlike you, we who are brown skinned citizens have to live in this real world nightmare, you know, the one where Trump says the KKK and neo-Nazis are some very fine people? The one where nearly half of our citizens think internment camps are fine?
There is no "reaching out" to evil. And there definitely should not be willful avoidance of it. I will not give you or any other Republican a pass for your willful turning away from a situation you had a hand in creating. With your incredibly powerful national platform, you sang Trump's praises last year. Now you are off in fantasy land. Just like Melania, you "really don't care".
2
I'm sorry, but this seems like a poor topic for a column at the same time that the party Mr. Brooks has cheered and advocated for decades is separating kids from their parents and putting them in cages. Please address that.
3
Jerusalem virtues of humility, love, faithfulness, etc. This must be the fake news trump talks about. Israeli's have none of these traits. Displacing palestinians without compensation, then bombing their homes, murdering people outright, all in the pretense of protecting their people is more like it. Jewish people throughout history have done great things for humanity, granted however their sadistic immoral, unethical treatment of the Palestinians is a worldwide disgrace. To these people inexplicably tied to violence and aggression abetted by our country virtue has been nonexistent for years.
Think of Jerusalem? Really? Well, if you insist: persecution, suppression, enslavement of a minority group, Megiddo, the place where Christians hope armageddon will occur (sooner than later), graft, corruption, intolerance, bigotry. What happens when myths clash with reality? There arose in Palestine a country who knew not Moses or Jesus.
1
Nero fiddles while Rome burns ...
Does Mr. Brooks have Athens confused with Sparta?
2
In many respects, it is easier to be heroic in a tribe than to be an individual as part of a relationship based community, which requires tolerance and understanding of personal and cultural differences. Being tribal appeals instead to our basic animal natures that stem from a time when anything different from the homogeneous group represented a potentially dangerous threat that had to be fled from or be violently opposed. Psychology, and our new understanding of economic behavior, pioneered by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s theories of behavioral economics, have shown that because it takes less energy to respond to a situation emotionally than it does to respond to it rationally, our emotional responses usually trump (sorry!) the better angels of our reason.
But if what is true for us is only what we feel ought to be true, then we have become trapped in magical thinking, and we are surely headed for a Wile E. Coyote moment when we discover our pursuit of the Road Runner of heroic happiness and emotional well being has taken us well past the edge of reality’s cliff, and that we are now running on thin air out over a nihilistic abyss.
1
As usual Mr. Brooks simplifies things and ignores the facts. Our leadership is responsible for this but we are responsible for who is leading the country (to ruin at this point). We elected a man who is incompetent. He has put a white supremacist in charge of justice. His other appointees live in varying states of denial. One thing they all have in common is a complete lack of compassion for all but their rich compatriots.
Real leadership is not found in myths, parables, or various legends. It's something that occurs in real life just as cowardice and betrayal occurs in real life. If people prefer fantasies it's because our leaders are failing to do their jobs by us.
1
David, thank you so much for reaching for such heights and depths of insight. While people may prefer different ways of slicing or spicing what you offer, it's food for the hungry mind and soul.
1
The Republican libertarian myth is that "Everyman" and Everywoman can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps". Factors such as education, opportunity, discrimination, birthright, parental economic and social status and child health care have nothing to do with a successful life.
Take a look around.......it isn't working!
4
Star Trek - Yes, Star Wars - No (conceptually).
Achilles had nothing to do with Athens, just as the State of Israel has nothing to do with compassion.
1
Is there a parable to explain the myths coming from the White House we are forced to hear each day?
1
not myths, JimB-- lies. Reagan's morning in America" was a myth we could sorta live with, as was Obama's "hope and change." Trump and his administration's LIES, and congressional enablement of same-- not survivable.
Somebody nudge Brooks. He's muttering in his sleep again.
This might have been worth the space if the author had gone on to suggest an effective approach to improving public discourse. As it is, the piece merely characterizes.
Is this, then, just the latest in The Times's continuing analysis of the Trumpian mind? If so, isn't it about time to acknowledge we know quite enough and that the search needs to be not for cause, but for remedy?
3
Ah, but if philosophy is what can be done from an armchair, Brooks is the consummate philosopher.
Do you suppose David that children are concerned about why their parents are missing,why they are surrounded by other
Children ,of all ages,crying frightened, hoping their Mom or Dad
Will come get them?
Do you believe David, that any of these children will ever find Mom or Dad again?
I don’t believe that what I want for Trump or the Republican Party as it exists in this minute would be printed by the NYTimes.The drive to hold power has created not a tribe but a
Group of old ,hateful ,unfeeling, syncophants ,willing to cause
Any psychological harm to children of another color and country
To satisfy the sick emotions of a human not worthy of another
Day on earth.
1
Sometimes we readjust our myths when forced by reality, and sometimes we desparately cling to the past. In our current situation in the US, we have clingers thrashing about as they lose power, causing extreme damage, even using children as hostages.
Maybe the clingers will get old and die off and the young will take over but we may or may not recover. Sic transit gloria mundi.
2
As I read about a "compassionate" Jerusalem I gasped aloud: Tell that to the Palestinians! It immediately exposes the contradictions, and limitations, of Brooks' dualistic analysis.
2
Why are we surrounded by myth? Because as the world hurtles into an uncertain future and the eternal verities seem unable to give us a comprehensible view of life's meaning, human beings are desperate for stories (or in the contemporary cliche 'narratives') that can explain, give comfort, and palliate our anxiety. But movies and literature are unfortunately not the only place people turn for meaning. Take the most potent, widespread myth in our society today: the myth of America as victim, exploited and taken advantage of by the rest of the world. This myth, promulgated by a paranoid psychopathic con artist elected president of the United States by a minority of the electorate, is the most virulent and potentially evil myth of all, because it not only seems to explain our malaise but justifies all manner of evil actions against those we imagine are oppressing and exploiting us. Thus the fantasies of a deluded potentate (explored elsewhere in today's Times) grip the imagination of an anxious nation and threaten to turn us into the classic enablers of a fascist regime. Democracy and freedom are hard; you have to fight for them every minute because evil is always on the move. But fascism is easy; you turn off critical thinking and simply agree and comply. Is this where the great American experiment in self government is going? We each have a responsibility to play our part in the destiny of this great land, once we get our eyes off the bright screen and onto the hard truth.
2
Brooks splits hairs to suggest a distinction between myth and parable. Myths are fiction; parables are fiction. The more important point he misses is our American proclivity to run on fiction rather than reality.
America was founded on a fiction. The Puritans landed in the New World claiming it was the Promised Land and they were the chosen people. The same mythical energy continued through Manifest Destiny, the American reliance on religion, the fable of capitalism as a function of nature, white supremacy, the parable of benevolence in trickle-down economics, and now in Make America Great Again – all parables/myths, all based in fiction as opposed to reality.
The parables Brooks touts are part of a larger mythical narrative of patriarchal social engineering called Christianity – a fantastical myth delineated in the biggest selling work of fiction in history, the Bible.
As Brooks inhales the vapors of transcendentalism (“we are spiritual creatures”) he urges us to believe in fiction over reality. This is a dangerous plea in a time of our addiction to fiction, of alternative reality and alternative facts. Look where fiction has landed us. Brooks is offering as salvation something strikingly similar to the false prophet in the White House who claims mythical powers and who wants to return America to the landscape of an imagined, idealized past.
We need encouragement to engage with reality and to hammer out practical solutions to our challenges – not fairy tales.
2
Sounds/feels like the title of your next book - go for it!!
Here’s my new reality based on a parable that some might recall. I’m currently cleaning and fixing up my attic, so that when (not “if” ) the time comes that I need to conceal and protect as many Hispanic families as it can hold, I’ll be able to welcome them in at the risk of mine and my family’s safety and security. Believe it or not, just like in the past, some of us “really do care. Do u?”....
1
"Jerusalem — think of Moses or Jesus — stands for the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response."
The brutal U.S.-Israeli occupation of the West Bank hardly strikes me as having anything to do with love, grace, mercy or answering harshness with gentleness.
The Bible seems to also be full of brutality, such as when the god character asks that everything in a city be "utterly destroyed" ... "everything in the city—man and woman, young and old."
Mr. Brooks' characterization of "Jerusalem" presents a hush puppy-clad, hero-free, and supernatural-free Judaism and Christianity that has no relation to reality. Judaism and Christianity are filled with heroes and supernatural acts -- Moses freeing the Israelites from Egypt; Rahab hiding the spies; Sampson and the Philistines; God saving the Israelites from overwhelming military odds time and again; David and Goliath; Jonah and the whale; Judah Maccabee and Antiochus; Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead and rising from the dead himself; Jesus' disciples healing the sick and raising the dead; the triumph of Martin Luther King -- to name a few. For additional examples, I would direct Mr. Brooks to Hebrews 11 which lists the heroes of Biblical history.
We all, like Mr. Brooks, sometimes forget these real heroes who engaged in real spiritual and sometimes physical combat, and participated in real supernatural acts in the real world. We do not need Athens, or Marvel. Jerusalem has all the heroes and supernatural acts humankind needs to satiate its soul.
David, I seek your help and wisdom. On what distant planet's swamp is OUR Yoda holding up awaiting the proper time for the Jedi to rise up, destroy the dark side of the Force, and return the the universe to it's proper balance? Help me Obi-Wan-Kenobi.....
Compassionate Virtues: 1 Samuel 15:3
A myth is a story. It was/is usually conjured to explain otherwise inexplicable natural phenomena, the horribleness of death [especially of one's own tribe], inconvenient facts, and other things that just stump some people or who refuse to face clear truth.
Religion purports to give us relief from the horror of death by promising to give us everlasting life somewhere in the cloud, only if we are good little boys and girls and give a lot of money to the preachers and other church con artists.
A "mythic world view" would be viewing the world through the lens of somebody else's blather, a photo shopped "reality", dream cum nightmare, a con.
David Brooks should try on a little heroism himself. Stop giving credence to the myth that Trump's mesmerized base, especially middle-aged white men, are justified in their hatred of all things/people not them, in their ignorance of history, geography, politics, and current events not shown on Fox. Though most of them are far from unemployed, most of them appear to be uneducated and therefore hate education so they are ripe for myths, cons and 24/7 sports and gaming.
Video games are not myths and neither are sports. They are big businesses. Myths are the lies that the GOP feeds itself and tries to feed us every day. Myth is the idea that Trump is sane, smart, competent and slim and only he can fix it. That's baloney, but so is myth.
1
There are certain melodies that waft through every David Brooks column. One is the contrast between ABC and XYZ. ABCers are like this, where XYZers are a little more that. One can understand why ABCers do what they do. One can understand, but personally, I, David Brooks, New York Times Columnist, prefer XYZ, because [insert virtue] is more conducive to achieving [insert personal, communal, or political goal]. Therefore, XYZ, and be merry.
4
Fourth Estate, I think you just explained to we Brooks readers that he did not successfully matriculate through his college logic class. Well said, and thanks.
@Fourth estate. Brilliant. Thank you.
Our left: secular Jerusalem sanctifying Athenian narcissism.
Our right: unphilosophical Athens sanctifying theocratic authoritarianism.
Anybody else want to go see a superhero movie?
Has David Brooks finally gone senile because he can't seem to remember his own life, let alone the history he was taught.
The Cold War wasn't billed as a mythic battle between good and evil? Hasn't that been how World War 2 was taught since it was fought? Didn't George W. Bush divide the world between those who were for us and those who were against us- regardless of their complicity in any attacks upon us?
Didn't Joseph Campbell go on about the Mythic Heroes quest that Lucas took up intentionally for Star Wars? Isn't this the myth of the Good guy cowboys vs. the Bad Guy Indians?
I'm sorry.... None of this is new. None of this is any different than what Mr Brooks grew up on. There is no turning age here in the way you describe.
There is a range of Brooksian Pretentiousness and this is up near the high water mark.
3
Excellent stuff. Thanks-
How about, Athens gave us reason and philosophy, and Jerusalem gave us a single, angry God.
Anyway, Achilles was from Thessaly, not Athens.
5
One day; the gods grew bored and created humans. Then, the humans grew bored and created gods. Every god imaginable. A god of war. A god of love. A god of hate. A god of...and so on. This; as the population grew en masse, increased, this boredom that is; until, they conceived of an ultimate God. Then, the mass grew discontent with that God, bored again; seeing in this one God an eternal ennui; they couldn’t stand it anymore. So, they threw Him out, conceiving once again of the many gods; creating one god after another; fame, fortune, hordes of gods; so many it became quite confusing. Then...a few, that is a very few; realized this idea in itself as boring; this perpetual merry–go–round of confusion and discontent; and of how the very idea of recurrent experience and indulgence is just too silly; of how that is, apathy, tedium, indifference and monotony is all so foolish; all so—“Absurd!”
Surely you know from your Chicago education that Achilles wasn't an Athenian, that Homer doesn't really admire Achilles, and that Moses was the architect of the genocidal conquest of Canaan? What good is it to read the great books if you can't remember what's in them?
4
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
Corinthians 13:11
Then there were numbers. My profession was engineering. If I didn't get my numbers exactly correct, planes would fall from the sky and pacemakers would stop working.
Harry Truman was a numbers man. The last year of WWII my father was stationed somewhere near San Diego. He was in charge of a DUKW. Everyday he had to take it off a ship, land it on a beach, take it apart, reassemble it and take it back to the ship. He was told he would be in the first wave of the Invasion of Japan. Of course he did not know the specific details but he was not expected to live.
Estimates made to Truman were that 200,000 to 1,000,000 American servicemen would die. The Japanese would lose several million troops and they trained their civilians to attack Americans with anything they could find for the honor of the emperor, their God on Earth. A million civilians were expected to die.
The Americans fire bombed Tokyo to no avail. Truman dropped the bomb. First Hiroshima,(80,000 dead) then Nagasaki,(55,000 dead).
I would never have been born. Probably millions of other Americans and Japanese could say the same.
Is life a choice between fantasies and numbers????
5
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
2
As one of the great moral crises of our times unfolds, the forced division of desperate children and parents (justified by a reference to none other than the Bible), Brooks once again proves his irrelevance, taking us for a tour of the la-la land of his mind. Any commentator who does not devote himself to regularly writing about the moral bankruptcy of the dictator wannabe Trump, his children and minions, and their destruction of democracy, is committing an equally grave moral error as Trump's concentration camp style immigration policy.
1
This is not a spiritual awakening!!! Even the so-called Christian Right thinks that Jesus was some kind of a superhero who came here to win football games and defeat the evil Liberal. No, what you’re really talking about is the spiritual sickness of selfishness and competition. These movies and games that you call awakening are just mindless action and violence. This is primitive stuff, tribalism and survival of the fittest. Humanity awakens when we work together for good. Wake Up!!!
1
This essay was not even full of sound and fury but it signified nothing.
1
David - Silliness and Nonsense. Absolute Silliness and Nonsense
I apologize for being in such a rush but the CWS is on.
What Bible do you go to for your mythology? Moses was hardly compassionate. There are several examples for your edification. In the interest of time (Gators vs the Red Raiders are in progress) I offer the anger at the Golden Calf and the murders ordered by Moses of all the non-Levites. As for as for Jesus, there is the anger at the Temple and the anger toward the Pharisees.
The most nonsensical and silliness that you write has to do with calling Greek stories myths and Jewish stories parables. As I said -- I’ve a ball game to get back to but the first thing you should know is that the very word “parable” is a Greek word. Aesop – need I say more? Shall I fill your basket with fables from Islam? Native America, Nose mythology?
No one - no culture can compete in any remote way with the Greek contributions to and influence on Western Civilization. NO ONE. NOT IN ANY REMOTE WAY. Have a nice weekend. Let me know if I can be of further help.
BTW The Gators defeated the Red Raiders and will meet the Razorbacks (I think). I'm nonplussed (over the CWS result).
1
Myths are not confined to Greece or Rome or Egypt. The tribal myths of Hebrews are no less myths: Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty....”, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made...”, “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever...”
Samson, Joshua, Moses are all super heroes with super human powers.
Joseph Campbell explored the need for myths and the dearth of myths in the 1980s. Today we have Marvel and DC with Superman a difficult portrayal of a Sun god and all the usual vulnerabilities. The Marvel pantheon is comical and DC often morose.
Most disturbing are the “Zombie” films and TV shows which provide justification for dehumanizing groups and dispatching them. That meme is essential for the xenophobia we witness each day. The “Vampire” craze was an anti-elitist-oligarch meme.
The GOP has used the “Zombie” myth to terrify Whites and has elected the “Vampire” Trump who can “shoot someone in the face” without consequence.
Funny column....and
Like the jacket pointed out " I don't really care". Religion is myth.
Mr. Brooks, I urge you to widen your horizons and look to Hindu mythology, particularly the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. It is a combination of the competitive and compassionate - Rama's incarnation is not just the prowess to slay Ravana, but also His humility and character in all circumstances. Krishna amidst the great battle of Mahabharata recites the eternal truths of Bhagavadgita and preaches selfless action.
2
David Brooks highlights a critical fault line in our cultural heritage between Christianity and ancient Greece. But what he's characterizing as "Athens" more closely resembles Homeric Greece. Of course, Athens was built upon Homeric Greek culture. But they are not the same. It was Homeric culture that was heroic and which honored but also questioned the virtues of warriors. The sort of heroic values packaged in entertainment media today are a pale imitation of Homer. For one thing, unlike Homer, they present moral conflict in simple black and white terms. For another, the "good" that modern heroes are fighting for is a Christian conception of what is good, not an Homeric one. Homeric virtue functions only as a means to achieve the Christian Good not as an end in itself. In spite of the decline of religious affiliation in American society, we remain a profoundly Christian culture. This holds true whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.
1
The word for what Mr. Brooks is maundering about here is escapism. We are trapped in a waking nightmare and fantasizing about a world where Heroes will save us is understandable - if counterproductive.
Since Mr. Brooks has chosen to use pop culture to fashion a bright shiny object for use in his own personal flight from reality, an excerpt from "Life During Wartime" by the Talking Heads seems an appropriate counter:
"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
This ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now
Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
Somebody see you up there"
The mythos we're dealing with now is no spiritual awakening - it is one that crushes the spirit. Competing 'virtues' is not a game, unless you're referencing "Game of Thrones."
There is a war on the very idea of America, who we are, what we are. We are ruled by the monsters that have spawned in the darkness we have ignored for too long. They've bred through talk radio and FOX News. They've been fed by the dark money of the super wealthy who have bought the current government, aided and abetted by their fellow sociopaths around the world.
You can't get up and walk out of this movie if you don't like it Mr. Brooks.
No need to go back to Athens and Jerusalem.
Trump and his Trumpsters are caught in the mythos of Big Time Wrestling with its exaggerated slights, narratives of grievance, self-righteous revenge, and triumphal return. Emotional catharsis gives their lives meaning as they watch their hero confront the world to resurrect the Grail.
2
Ironically, Trump has had a transformative effect on Brooks. He used to be a dull and somewhat predictable pundit. He is now a great American philosopher. I hope you put some of your recent insights into book form, so they can be preserved.
1
The White House is groud zero in this country for the dark side of the mythic word view - giving short shrift to relationships, seeing life as an eternal competition between warring tribes etc. - and Donald Trump is the reigning Myth America.
For a deeper reflection on these themes I recommend Yeats, specifically "The Circus Animals Desertion," one of the last poems he composed before his death. He reflects on his career and the use he made of Irish myth and legend to illuminate modernity. In the end he no can longer find a ladder to raise him up to the worlds of myth, so
Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
I was expecting Jonathan Edwards, 19th century tent revivals, and a disquisition on this nation's profoundly riven spiritual psyche. We are exhorted to "Come to Jesus!", but Jesus has been morphed into one more superhero--the warrior He was not, rather than the minister He was. Thus Jeff Sessions exploits a decontextualized line from an Epistle to justify a policy Christ would abhor.
1
David, I call unsportsmanlike conduct -- 15 yards! Why are you picking on Jets fans? They already know that sports are a "Perilous Realm" and that following the team "requires a great suspension of disbelief".
What is the evolutionary advantage that allows humans to sit atop the food chain. No sharp teeth, speed or strength. Even intelligence by itself will be of little advantage against a predator. No, our big brains developed to enable cooperation and culture. It is only strenght in numbers.
How is our evolutionary advantage expressed in religion. It is original sin. Brooks is confusing myth with origional sin. It occurs when we say "I am" instead of "We are". God is the only "I am" and to usurp God's place, to say "I am" the only one who matters; this leads to isolation and death, both in evolution and in religious. Greed is not a new way of looking at things; a new awakening. It is as old as Adam and Eve. It is denying our evolutionary advantage by ignoring who we really are. This is the core sin of Donald Trump and the Libertarians.
See: https://medium.com/@HowardJ_phd/this-morning-nytimes-columnist-david-bro...
Interesting.
One way to characterize the difference between these two world views is that what David calls the "compassionate" side offers the help and love of God, here and more importantly in an afterlife, while the "competitive" side says "do your best in this world, there is no god to help you and no afterlife."
But to follow David's thinking, the transformation of hero (one who does their best with the cards dealt them) to superhero sort of evens things up: in this world the heroes also have supernatural help. Maybe not love, but they are not limited by the laws of physics.
So maybe today's heroic world has gotten even softer than the compassionate world? Is everybody a wimp and nobody a mensch who simply stands on their own two feet and deals with life?
What does this have to do with the First and Second Great Awakenings? And when precisely did the third one occur?
Don't know?
Neither does Mr. Brooks.
1
Religion and gaming are both pure escapism. Dependence on a ‘higher power’ or a super-natural ability has always struck me as the height of laziness, at best. If it helps some people get through the day, good for them, but belief in miracles or extra-normal beings is a debasing of your ability to think critically. I thought the best part of the “Black Panther” movie was Stan Lee’s cameo, and find this whole super hero genre boring with the lame jokes and fantasy worlds. Neither of these para-normal realms does anything to help us in times when there is so much hate in charge of our daily lives, and in many ways make it worse through the reactions of the true believers.
David loves to pretend to be a thinker-scholar, today rambling on about parables and myths.
What he should be writing about is the myth that we have a sort-of system of checks and balances but it has been totally corrupted by - surprise! - corrupt politicians of David's party who can't wait to cut taxes still further to benefit their rich paymasters and starve the rest of us.
But David prefers to write dreamy essays - the ugly truth of the Republican party is beneath him.
1
David Brooks used to be a good, interesting columnist. His perspective was broader than other political columnists, viewing current events through a sociological prism.
He had a set of foundational beliefs, which appeared in all of his columns to one degree or another: the federal government is less important than community organizations; abstract ideas impact society more than physical / technological progress (i.e. the Enlightenment was more important than the Industrial Revolution); and the 1950's and 60's were a Golden Age of stability, reason, prosperity, and, yes, local community organizations.
Alas, these beliefs, upon which he had founded his professional identity, proved, over the course of many years, culminating in the perversion of his beloved GOP, to be invalid. He could see this. It was clear to a fair-minded intelligent person, and he was such a person.
But this wound, this crushing of his cherished beliefs, was too painful. He had to keep the truth away from his consciousness. And so as the crisis of civilization grew, Brooks drew further into himself, and his columns became less and less relevant - halfheartedly trying to explain current events, but only on the surface, without ever touching the heart of the matter or deeper truths.
We were sad when the NYT let David go, but it was time. Though a good man, he was trapped in an obsolete self-deception. Later, his column space was utilized well by other "centrists" who, nonetheless, still had open minds.
2
David definitely lives in mythical world rationalized by parable. The rest of the time he reads conservatives think tank periodicals and apparently hangs out with adult male gamers. No wonder he is so lost.
"We’re spiritual creatures; our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb."
Now lets head on down to the border and separate children and parents escaping from the malevolence we shared in crating.
The essential mix of myth and parable is Jacob. A man of goofy awareness of the world (didn't realize that his new wife was the wrong sister until morning !). But he wrestled with God's Angel - which I take to mean he wrestled with God, the ultimate match, and the essential combination of parable and myth. He came out of that struggle as a hero, but with a bad hip to remind himself of the dichotomy forever. But then he backs into his flawed humanity, becoming fearful that his brother Esau is going to do him in. Esau here becomes the hero, forgiving all the hurt.
1
Parable religion (meaning christianity - I presume) "has receded from the public square" ??? What?
Observed need to live in a fantasy realm is a fascinating trend, but the distinction made in the piece is awkward
If David Brooks was a stoned college freshman writing an intro to humanities term paper he might get a D on this piece! Utter nonsense from the first paragraph on!
4
I've always read the Bible as myth. It doesn't make sense to me that people don't see this. When Barbara of DC says that myth has been monetized, I think the same can be said of Christianity for centuries. Most Christian denominations are worth a lot of money with lots of folks lining their pockets with the spoils.
Myth in America?
People have various definitions of myth. It might be best today to just equate myth with falsity. Here is actuality: Probably only in sports in America do we have reality, clear meritocracy and attempt to record and surpass previous performance, a line clearly demonstrating growth in capacity. Music probably over the 20th century in America followed the same pattern.
But in all other areas of society things are much more nebulous, we have little accounting of actual merit in this and that field and we all are under the suspicion of being imposters, fraudulent, not deserving of our position in life. True in so many fields it's more difficult to determine performance as in sports, but we seem to not even try. We actually try to forget the past, to bury even geniuses of the past and replace them with our quite forgettable selves.
We seem on one hand to feel the weight of history and to want to act out, become more than we are to overcome our feelings of inadequacy (the reign of the actor, film in society), and on the other hand we try to bury history itself so as not to feel the weight or we distract ourselves or drug or drink ourselves into incomprehension. We live the myth that we are really important. We don't have the heart to elevate the truly deserving in this and that field in society.
We are just a crowd of people with too many pretending to be better than the rest of us. And the actually better often unrecognized. We live a myth of progress.
Myth in America?
People have various definitions of myth. It might be best today to just equate myth with falsity. Here is actuality: Probably only in sports in America do we have reality, clear meritocracy and attempt to record and surpass previous performance, a line clearly demonstrating growth in capacity. Music probably over the 20th century in America followed the same pattern.
But in all other areas of society things are much more nebulous, we have little accounting of actual merit in this and that field and we all are under the suspicion of being imposters, fraudulent, not deserving of our position in life. True in so many fields it's more difficult to determine performance as in sports, but we seem to not even try. We actually try to forget the past, to bury even geniuses of the past and replace them with our quite forgettable selves.
We seem on one hand to feel the weight of history and to want to act out, become more than we are to overcome our feelings of inadequacy (the reign of the actor, film in society), and on the other hand we try to bury history itself so as not to feel the weight or we distract ourselves or drug or drink ourselves into incomprehension. We live the myth that we are really important. We don't have the heart to elevate the truly deserving in this and that field in society.
We are just a crowd of people with too many pretending to be better than the rest of us. And the actually better often unrecognized. We live a myth of progress.
Well Mr. Brooks this sounds like a bit more apologist grist for conservatives. Whereas myth and parables are different, the arch right vein of the Republican party has been selling myths for a very long time. If you look at Pat Buchanan's mythology based platform in 1990, it's very similar to DJT's platform of today. Of course it was Reagan who made the deal to gain the fundamentalists vote that even Goldwater would not make. Actors. When you give power to a large block who favor belief over reason, their beliefs become paramount to those who don't share them. If politics is the art of the possible, it has to be based upon practicality, which usually has little to do with myth, and more with doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Minorities, of any flavor, should never be discriminated against, but also should not dictate life for those who aren't in their defined group. Add copious anonymous money to this mythology and you have national dysfunction, not a graphic novel.
1
What Brooks refers to as "Myth" and the "Perilous Realm" is really just the hero's journey. The hero's journey is a form of story-telling that predates written history. Your hero is called to action to perform some specific task. He or she descends into a supernatural world. He or she meets friends and guides along the way. Eventually, the conflict is resolved. There begins a long journey back to the world of the natural. However, the lessons of the supernatural remain with the hero even when confronted with the ordinary.
I think Brooks misses the point here. A story can be both mythic and parabolic. The two themes are not mutually exclusive. Consider the supernatural as an affectation of hyperbole. Just as often the unbelievable becomes an expression of wit. Take for example Odysseus. He escapes the cyclops by using a Greek play on words. "No one is here."
However, the story isn't about the cyclops or the trick Odysseus used to escape. Ultimately, Odysseus is simply trying to return home to his wife and son. His trials and difficulties are therefore parables relating to a natural human condition despite the supernatural.
Much the same could be said for the Bible. Is not Moses' journey one epic hero's journey with plenty of super realism? Is not Jesus even more epic than Moses? Save Lazarus, no one else in christian religion has ever descended to the realm of the dead and returned. Lazarus was Jesus' miracle as well. You should be careful when making the distinction.
“They tend to see the line between good and evil as running between groups, not, as in parable, down the middle of every human heart.”
This is the fatal flaw in heroic thinking: the underlying assumption that conquering evil is a matter of domination and destruction of the wicked other.
History does not support this fiction. The worst atrocities have grown from a failure to recognize both the inherent worth of people who have behaved very badly, and the potential for evil in those we believe to be good. Including ourselves.
3
David Brook in recent years has returned to analyze the nurturing side of his personality as he ages. Compassion and Love, maybe David is rejecting the greedy side of recent republican politics since the trump election and the de-stabilizing of America.
Maybe David has come to accept the inclusive society of the Democratic party.
Two things Mr. Brooks misses here (and quite big misses too):
-- The mythic worlds describe are overwhelmingly male -- female leads in three Star Wars movies does not change that overwhelming percentage, gaming is quite male, as are ALL the players and most of the audience for the world cup.
-- And, tied to that, the Jerusalem virtues, as described, sound very female. Where is the female mythic world? Where is the counterbalance that represents 51% of the human population?
In his search for overarching metaphor, Mr. Brooks once again falls into a trap of a world view limited to man, and mostly white men at that.
1
Several comments have characterized the comparison between Athens and Jerusalem as unfounded and illegitimate, especially citing the common portrayal of the Biblical God (or at least the Old Testament God) as a bloodthirsty, vengeful deity who calls his people to follow suit. This is an understandable, but regrettably superficial, reading. Mr. Brooks is entirely justified in his analogy, and in fact has excellent historical and philosophical precedent for it.
The great atheist philosopher Frederick Nietzsche was no friend of religion. But one of his most persistent themes was the difference between Greco-Roman morality (strength, pride, domination, conquering your enemy) and Judeo-Christian morality (humility, charity, compassion, caring for the weak and the poor). In fact, he never tired of taking his secular, liberal, humanistic contemporaries to task for their insistence on retaining the values of the Judeo-Christian ethic while rejecting the worldview that made it possible. There is no shortage of contemporary philosophers who have made the same observation (e.g. Foucault, Habermas).
Our society rightly continues to hold these liberal values in the highest esteem. It remains to be seen how long our late-modern age can cling to this moral vision while remaining untethered from its source. If Mr. Brooks is correct about the ascendancy of the mythic ethos, it is a chilling hint toward the answer.
3
An apt description of the cultural tenor of our times. We tend to view movies and video games as an expression of "escapism." The response of powerless masses to a life in which the forces that move the world (the economy and foreign relations) are beyond their reach and manipulated by elite others who care little for those beneath them in the power structure. Movies and games give the viewer or player the impression of power, either vicariously through heroic characters in the films, or as a participant, shooting down hordes of opponents using fantastic skills and powerful weapons in the video games. But these venues provide a framework in which we learn values about the world. Power is better than compassion; might—not right—wins the day. We absorb the mentality of Spartans. Our sports have evolved from "it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" to our sports heroes like Lebron James and Kevin Durant being expected to switch teams because if they don't have a "ring" their careers will never be labeled a success. Sportsmanship is falling by the wayside and winning is everything. Yes, we are turning away from the parable and toward the myth. If we weren't, why would such hard-heartedness toward immigrants, the poor, the LBGTQ community be embraced by so many religious people? We want to be great and powerful, not compassionate, understanding or generous.
1
The reason that Mr. Brooks says that you MIGHT say that America's Great 4th Awakening has come in the form of mythic revival, is because it's not true. It's fodder for meaningless thought. There's entertainment and there's real life. Lots of people haven't seen the movies and played the computer games but they still experience reality in some form. Brooks follows this somewhat when what he really needs to do is to take a bus to some random destination, leave his phone at home, not stay at the 4 Seasons and talk to some people who live in America.He's living in a cloistered environment under the illusion that comic book culture reveals deep truths. Maybe. But if he doesn't get out there, how could he know?
I read Athens vs Jerusalem, as portrayed in Acts, differently. I see it as intellectual pursuits vs. faith. And today, in the public sphere, Jerusalem is winning as our current government seems to have little interest in science, and is pushing an evangelical agenda.
1
As a bommer two points strike me about your article. The first is the unquestioned cultural miophia of western - aka "world" - history as THE defining cultural paradigm. The second are your unsarisifactory characterizations of both Atheans and Jerusalem. They are both gross over generalizations.
There is a third existential point. In many ways my dominant cultural co-religionists and their Christian allies, the evangelicals, contradict and reject what you describe as "...the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response." The deafing silence or pro-forma response to the separation of the children of the "others" from their parents is merely the latest example of the falsity of your characterization.
Although I need note with a smile that your line about pretending "...that it really matters which group of men puts a ball in a net" is priceless as it is many ways the nexus between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
1
I found David Brook's distinction between those who see good and evil as running between groups, rather than down the middle of every human heart to be his most prescient observation. To believe society's problems are always caused by others (usually those who think or look different than I) has enormous consequences for how we actually begin to solve those problems. We have lost the language of sin, in part because religious institutions misused it to instill fear, guilt, and shame for their own purposes. We have to find new ways (or ancient ways) to see redemptive power in recognizing our own faults and complicity in broken systems. This, and the humility it engenders, combined with the mythic qualities of courage and conviction, achieve the necessary balance for us to advance as a society.
3
The great awakening that best defined our present culture came in the amazingly prescient writing of the dystopian novelists and essayists of the 1930s and 40s. Among the phenomena they anticipated was the assignment of the arts to the role of providing adolescent forms of self-gratification adequate to pacify and distract otherwise deeply troubled minds. Though this is true of all the arts, the article is correct in focusing on film in particular. Film is one of our greatest propaganda vehicles. One fascinating event in the battle once fiercely fought between reason and superstition was the citing, in 1995, by the Vatican of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as "one of the best films ever made." Coming from a director who was a favorite of the left, 2001 nevertheless initiated yet another great awakening when it opened the floodgates fifty years ago to the full spectrum of everything from levitating space ships with our thoughts to talking cars in the country where seventy-two percent of the population believe in angels.
If you want to know why we are such a violent society, look at the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, they are saturated with violence. Our movies, TV, music, literature are all about domination, winning at any cost, simple violent solutions to complex problems. We sit our kids in front of this for hours on end and then are surprised when they act out what they have seen and heard.
Someone here will undoubtedly comment that these stories are not real and should not be taken seriously. I would point out that some of the savviest media people on the planet are willing to pay $5 million for a 30 sec. ad on the Super Bowl. They do this for one reason only - It Works!
4
"If you want to know why we are such a violent society, look at the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, they are saturated with violence. "
And to top it off US citizens own ~300 million guns. So what could go wrong ? Well there have been 1 million US citizens killed by guns in the last 31 years not to mention the wounded and lives ruined.
America the Exceptional _________.
David - It's way past time for all of us to rewatch the Bill Moyers interview series with mythologist/psychologist Joseph Campbell (from the late 80s) - The Power of Myth. It's up on Netflix as of this month. The first two episodes perfectly, clearly, powerfully explain why we need a New modern myth for the new world we now inhabit - not one reflecting the tiny middle eastern world of 2000 years ago. Mandatory viewing for anyone who aspires to critical thinking and worldwide humaneness.
3
I often wonder what living in the 19th century was like when there were no visual or aural media, when all mass communication was text. Writers often comment on what the duration of the Lincoln vs. Douglas debates, for example, say about our attention spans. Are there limits to what can be illustrated in a graphic novel? How detailed can a character's internal dialogue be?
1
Politics is not suddenly about myth; they are kin, both changing the world through action that requires self-actualization of the hero. Parable is about preserving the world through self-correction.
For evidence now of parable, consider the blossom of suicide and depression, as quiet as the mythic turn is loud. The difference is that myths are produced by the few to manipulate others, and suicide is the inability of many to self-correct. Which evidence is more telling?
The myth/parable distinction is more pernicious in hiding the problem that drives people to movies and suicide.
Both myth and parable illuminate virtue and the key role of self-knowledge, the need for self-correction to align with the task at hand. That is, they are stories that put individual consciousness and effort at the center of history.
That's what people doubt today. Today there are no bounds to the competitive forums that replaced moral authority. Business and politics select not merit but power: every winner is a cheater and every game is rigged, by the legions of experts and organizations serving up winners. Participating means losing the game or losing your soul. So either die or hide in a myth.
Citizens find their business and political leaders morally bankrupt, and they find their own participation self-destructive -- hence the rise of hate, which is really what Mr. Brooks is pointing at when he says our politics is coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos.
2
America, though nominally a Christian society, in reality lives and aspires to the ancient pagan values: dominance, wealth, strength and prowess, bodily vanity and pleasure, status, display, luxury and personal success.
By contrast, the Christian mores--love thy neighbor as thyself, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, the golden rule (do unto others as you would have others do unto you)--are in scarce evidence. Who even takes these seriously?
Just look around.
In the ancient world, the excess of brutal competition and cruelty stoked a spiritual hunger for the good, fairness, human dignity and mercy, and ultimately primed receptivity to the Christian message. We may have to suffer more before we are looking for that again.
9
David, I did not want this article to end. I wanted you to expound more on parable. It wrapped up way too quickly--I'd love to read a book you'd write on this thesis. Thank you as always for your insight.
1
Exploring mythology, Trump is a Trickster. Tricksters are always male, take many forms, are low characters who outwits the high and might and often overreach & outwit themselves. They are always on the move. Are loners and loyal to no one. Motivated by the appetites, especially food and sex. They live on the boundaries of society, stand outside of laws and rules, break taboos, and teach that no social order is absolute or objective. They are not necessarily malevolent, they just lack a moral compass.
2
The landscape of the conservative mind is filled with glimmering dreams from horizon to horizon. But we don’t need dreams or parables; we need to wake up and deal with reality. Parables are the tools of snake oil salesmen, used car dealers, priests, false prophets, and real estate developers. There’s no magic here, just the will to be honest with ourselves, and to fight for practical, socially beneficial solutions.
3
Dear Mr Brooks
Fantasy worlds. Pure piffle. Building real relationships and infrastructure while co-operating, compromising, alternately succeeding and failing, apologizing for selfishness and ultimately believing in a tolerant world above and beyond each competition. These are the down to earth human goals and virtues. Enough with the cosplay and positing an afterlife or a universe with superheroes. These can remain in the tales we tell around the dinner table if we can wean ourselves off the video hype !
1
David, if I may. Could you, with your knowledge and access to resources take a step into real time myths, parables , fantasies and fairytales? Go to a Trump Rally and film the whole production. Focus on the facial expressions, the non-verbal body language and the “call/response” reactions of both the crowd and Trump. Pay special attention to the teenagers and young adults. Then read today’s column again and move this ball forward. Thanks in advance.
2
These dopey action films aren't about "myth" they are about escapism. Furthermore, at least to me, they are boring. I know I'm in the minority judging by conversations at work, etc, but I want to see movies are at least somewhat grounded in reality and character, and compelling drama, not a film version of a cartoon. Special effects and pretty people have completed taken over and the villains are also predictable. Yeah I'm a cranky old guy who grew up in the golden age of movies, and a film snob with a membership at Film Forum. Still, I think it's objectively weird that today's TV dramas and characters are more interesting than the blockbuster movies that are formulaic and just plain goofy. Not to mention going to the theater has become an expensive torture wherein you must sit through 30 minutes of obnoxious commercials that you paid for the pleasure of enduring.
2
There exists a common ground between myth and parable, to borrow your categories. It is that of always doing the right thing. It is the courage that it takes alongside the confidence that your honor is always at stake. It is common as the parent who rises each morning to make a better life for their child and the commitment of a Navy Seal to always complete the mission, no matter the self-sacrifice. We need each to stare down the face of evil and remove it from our midst. Right now, we must focus on how we remove Donald J. Trump via the Courts and the ballot box. Do Republicans have the courage I note above?
2
Very astute analysis. Athens as representing the virile competitive values, while Jerusalem represents the feminine values.
The problem though is that Brooks ignores or fails to recognize that historically Jerusalem always crawls under the protective embrace of Athens.
Ergo, the Pharisees of Jesus' day were happy to show obsequy to Herod and Pilate, Rome's lackies.
Today's evangelicals are replicating the same craven pattern vis a vis Trump.
The compassion of Jerusalem is offered largely to the virile protectors of Athens. And to no one else.
3
We may add to the discussion the historical tie of our president to the mythical world of professional wrestling. Many of his over-the-top exchanges with perceived rivals and enemies seem to be ripped from the playbook of the World Wrestling Federation.
Why the supremacy of the competitive myth? That's easy......capitalism. Every moment of our lives we're soaked in it, to the point of toxicity, to the point where it has drowned all other values, including democracy. The end game of hyper-capitalism will destroy all cooperative relationships, governance and the environment, and become what it is at heart....dog eat dog. The last round has already started, and could wipe our species off the face of the earth.
What can you do? Don't play the game. Defend virtues inimicable to hyper-capitalism. Drain its power.
4
Mr. Brooks, It is time for you to read the work of the great historian George L. Mosse. Many of your columns would be greatly enhanced by his views on myth and history, the origins of inazi deology in popular culture, right wing populism, fascism, gender and sexuality. If you have read him, do mention him. He was the most prescient historian of his generation determining how mass politics and culture work.
If Mr. Brooks had merely replaced the biblical (christian) word "parable" with the classical term "fable", he would have a better grip on his theme; as in:
How can the myth of supreme presidential power compete with the fables of Fake News?
This gets to the larger point that Mr. Brooks delights in analyzing the world through semantics. Cultural phenomena are simply this categorical label pitted against that categorical label. Societal flaws are simply insufficiencies of label, for example the lack of "virtue" or "self reliance" or "community" or "shared values" or (wait for it) "intimate bonds of vulnerability, trust, compassion and selfless love" (that's a fourfer, folks!).
Does anyone else smell out here a former movie critic, and the movie critic trope of evaluation through labeling?
"We're spiritual creatures"? No, Mr. Brooks: speaking as a social scientist, people are first of all creatures of biology, then of physical circumstances, then of historical circumstances, then of culture, then of social roles, and only last of individuality. Put free will where it belongs: firmly on the side of both myth and fable.
4
The difference between Athens and Jerusalem was not about contrasting the values of the Iliad with Torah/Jesus. It was about systems of Greek philosophy contrasted with Jewish scriptures and ways of life.
The Fourth Great Awakening, or The Fourth Turning? Strauss-Howe offer a more substantial analysis.
certainly a good time for the retelling of the good Samaritan!
Nice column!
1
"...our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb." If true then we are in deep trouble. American history is one continuous event marked by the white man's immoral behavior. Slavery. The disease-infected blankets given to the natives in Massachusetts. The trail of tears from the Carolinas to the West. Chinese rail workers. The ship of fools. And now, the separated children. Tomorrow, the Republican melding of Education and Labor, setting the scene for the dismemberment of major programs for the poor. What universe do you, Mr. Brooks, inhabit?
5
The modern Republican myth started with the publication of Atlas Shrugged. It's message of selfishness, greed and elitism is orthodoxy among the Paul Ryan generation..
8
It's been a long time since my English degree, but Aesop was Greek, right?
3
Interesting discussion of the mythic. But to disassociate Jerusalem from a view of life as "as an eternal competition between warring tribes" is laughable.
3
I take it David has nothing to say about children being separated from their desperate parents; or a tax cut that has increased the deficit to $1 trillion; or environmental policies that reflect the anti-science proclivities of conservatives; or foreign policies that undermine our alliances and reward authoritarians; or anything else relevant in America today. I find myths interesting, too, but I read the newspaper to get a handle on today's news.
1
Joseph Csmbell taught us about gilgamesh and gnostic resurrection. Brooks talks sbout comic books. As Heine said: People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.
1
"....think of Achilles — stands for the competitive virtues: strength, toughness, prowess, righteous indignation, the capacity to smite your foes and win eternal fame."
Ahhh, No , he's remembered for hubris. The kind that of hubris that may make a columnist whose entire life was promulgating a philosophy, think the Republican Party starting with Reagan, the has lead the Nation to the brink of a moral abyss - think children ripped from their parents arms and placed is cells or cages if you will, and said columnists writes about Platonic and Christian ideals of goodness.
But alas, like Achilles in the Illiad :
"Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans."
-Homer, The Iliad
You may run from your past - but its always right behind you. If you truly wish to atone - stop telling us how to behave and address the Party you supported for so long and take them to task for their actions.
2
Brooks writes:
"But history does offer some sobering lessons about societies that relied too heavily on the competitive virtues. They tend to give short shrift to relationships, which depend on the fragile, intimate bonds of vulnerability, trust, compassion and selfless love. They tend to see life as an eternal competition between warring tribes. They tend to see the line between good and evil as running between groups, not, as in parable, down the middle of every human heart."
Once again, I find Brooks utterly confusing. At times he extols precisely the moral principles and social values that we Liberals have been espousing all along. Then he'll turn around and write column after column that takes gratuitous potshots at us dreaded Liberals.
Perhaps he has become personally conflicted? Perhaps Trumpism has made him realize the flaws and dangers of the political and worldview which he has been trumpeting over the course of his career?
Or is he just spewing hypocritical platitudes (which is a common modu operandi of Conservatives)?
C'mon David, it's time to put up or shut up. If you honestly believe things like this that you've started writing over the past year, you need to man up, and own up to you misjudgments of the past.
Without admitting to and clarifying your contradictions, all we can conclude is that you're no better than your hypocritical Conservative colleagues, which makes you complicit in the destruction of our political discourse and our country.
3
An interesting comparison, but to reduce myth to competitive virtues strikes me as narrow and simplistic. Time to re-read Joseph Campbell, perhaps?
2
Hogwash. The GOP has become financially corrupt top to bottom. This is not myth. This is not parable. This is not allegory. This is reality.
2
I used to read your columns, as it was interesting to get a conservatives view of the current political situation, but recently you seem to be avoiding politics. I think I understand the dilemma you are facing in not adding a voice to the madness that is going on in our country, but I think you should man up and be counted. Silence is acquiescence on your part.
1
Captain Obvious strikes again. The perception that we live in mythic times of grand invention started at least with Reagan and his simple stories of grand heroes and evil welfare queens. I can’t think of any national leader since then who has the gift of stating the simple lessons and deep truths of honest human relationships. Which ARE the stones of any society
1
Clearly, the White House is ground zero in this country for the mythic worldview - giving “short shrift to relationships,” seeing “life as an eternal competition between warring tribes,” seeing “the line between good and evil as running between groups” celebrating grandeur and [imagined] superiority etc. And Donald Trump is the reigning Myth America.
3
These forays of yours into the realm of fancy and inch-deep synthesis remind me once again that you should have gone to seminary.
As for myths being moral narratives, that all depends on how those myths are interpreted.
1
Mr Brooks writes: “Athens — think of Achilles — stands for the competitive virtues: strength, toughness, prowess, righteous indignation, the capacity to smite your foes and win eternal fame.”
Achilles’ ancestors came from Thessaly and he lived on the island of Skyros before dying in distant Troy. He lived before and had no connection to ancient Athens which in western thought represents a “Golden Age” of philosophy, art, science and democratic governance, a celebration of humanity over superstitious myths. “Ruthless competition and righteous indignation” belong to another capital closer to home.
1
Yeah, if I were a Republican columnist I'd be writing about anything but Trump and that mess of a GOP too.
9
Yet another reason to vote for more women to hold office this fall.
2
Guess I wasn't the first to notice this, although David Brooks knows exactly how to express it. So true!
2
Cause and effect can some times be confused. Which reflects which?
Maybe its because I'm not a movie-goer myself....but I dont know a single person that has actually admitted to watching the movie "Black Panther". Everyone comments on it....We've all read the reviews....we all know the plot lines, the famous scenes.....but nobody has actually watched the movie.
I have. And so did the packed audience I saw it with. What are you trying to say?
Access to David Brooks' columns is the main reason that I subscribe to the NYT. Find myself frequently wanting to share his insights with others.
1
I suspect that David Brooks has seen such fine "parable" films such as "The Kings Speech" "A Beautiful Mind" and more recently perhaps "Dunkirk" or "Three Billboards...Ebbing Missouri" but I strongly suspect he viewed them privately sans Coming Attractions..Since the New Millennium at least 80% have been of the mythic , sci-fi and dystopian variety. for males between the ages of 16 and 30 are predominant movie goers both here and abroad.This clearly is not a new phenomenon.
First, simple enough for an American to understand. Not.
The US is the competitive realm, has always been and motivated to ‘win’, genocide, slavery, high capitalism.
The Parable: not so much as that would mean adhering to love thy neighbor and we all know doing that is being a sucker in America. Ask your President!
Once upon a time... when I was young, when I was a teenager, I might have said I really don't care. Do you? Then came a time to put away childish, churlish things. That is my tale, and I'm sticking to it.
A plea...one prior comment to this opinion piece seems to summarize the jest of the topic. Trump is about strength and weakness not about right and wrong.
I implore our prior President to come out of retirement ( anyone for Captain America’s non death or Superman’s return?) and be the voice of reason, compassion and caring to lead us and help us save ourselves from this evil.
Sorry Mr. Obama, even with those eight years of trying and being obstructed by the Republicans is not enough. Sorry that you can’t spend the remainder of your life in the comfort of your family and privacy. Time to don that cape of your eloquence, words and actions. Oh you’ll be vilified for this attempt, words too despicable to mention by those who hate, fear and have nothing in their hearts, but we need you sir to reappear and save the day.
Avenger Assemble !
I couldn't follow this column. Maybe some paragraphs are missing. I get the part about video games and soccer. But what is "America's Fourth Great Spiritual Awakening"? Was America asleep? When were the other three awakenings? What does it have to do with Trump (doesn't everything?) I hate to miss anything important. Someone - please advise!
To Stefan: Brooks is referring to religious revivals, the first of which occurred in the 1700s. Check out Jonathan Edwards' speech, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." It was a white Protestant attempt to woo more followers with fire and brimstone fear-mongering. The second revival occurred in the late 1800s. Check Wikipedia for more info but generally awakening is a term embraced primarily by evangelical Christians.
I think Brooks is trying to find a reason we are now in the Reign of Trump and to figure out what has brought us to this point. I am not clear that either myth or parable explains much.
I am assuming he means this latest iteration of an "Awakening" has lost its moral compass. Awakenings were always about inducing guilt as a means to personal salvation so I am not in agreement with the analogy or analysis.
2
Okay so conservatives prefer myths and liberals lean more towards parables, got it.
3
I hope this doesn't mean we are about to go to war.
1
An amusing sidelight to this article, or perhaps it is more central than that. Those in the lede picture used to illustrate "myths" are all actors. Judging from recent film industry pronouncements, they would personally reject mythical values in favor of those embodied in parables.
In present cultural dialogues, is it possible to identify who is actually doing the posing?
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, as so often for raising larger ideas than we usually encounter in newspapers. Your essay holds up a mirror to the violence/cruelty/barbarism in our society today and identifies one of the causes. I'd only say, in defense of the Greeks, that they had other myths too--they had Plato's beautiful myths of ascent from caves and souls sprouting wings on their way to visions of the Good. For me, the happiest location in the western history of myth is when the Platonic and biblical myths illumine each other and even merge, so that Jerusalem and Athens, instead of mutually opposing, join hands.
4
David Brooks is the kind of conservative that every progressive should want in the room when decisions about policy get made. Whether I end up agreeing with him or not, my thinking is only made better by his thoughts and challenges.
4
I don't know as I've ever thought of Myth and Parable as being oppositional, and on its face, it seems it would be difficult to operationalize that bifurcation. It might be more profitable to think of Parables as a component of the Mythology, because absent the Mythology, I think Parables lose some of their meaning. Norththrup Frye said the Mythos draws a circle around us, and teaches us things about ourselves which we otherwise would not know. I think of Parables existing in service of that task.
1
You've obviously never played sport. Sport is more full of parable than myth. The stories of team work. The star player who under-appreciates his team mates. Hard work and practice. Achievement beyond your natural abilities through determination. We try to mythologize sport, LaBron James carrying his team on his nightly shoulders, but those stories always get slapped down with reality and an applicable parable. Just look at Brazil's performances in the World Cup in 2014 and again this year. Fertile ground for parable and an exploded myth.
Yet the practice of mindfulness undergirded by an ethic of compassion is also ubiquitous these days. Enjoying myth as entertainment need not dull or negate the capacity for friendship, trust, or introspection.
2
What odd categorical labels--"Athens" vs. "Jerusalem" Brooks assigns to the contrast between two basic impulses in contemporary America that he posits. In this system, Athens is supposed to represent "myth" and the "competitive virtues" and Jerusalem "parable" and the "compassionate virtues". Historically "Athens"--see, for example, the great Victorian critic Matthew Arnold's essay "Hebraism and Hellenism" --was associated with the desire to know the real nature of things (Aristotle and Plato) and Jerusalem with faith (Jesus, Moses, Mohammed). And what about the fact that in contemporary America those who identify as social liberals/Democrats are proportionally more secular than conservative/Republicans who are proportionally more religious. There is some validity in a split focused on competitive versus compassionate but I would prefer completing the analogy with conservative evangelicals versus compassionate humanists.
8
I consulted dictionary.com. In light of what I found (see following), it would seem that, while this President, his administration, and his supporters draw on myth a lot, they are an allegory unfolding. I'm no scholar, but isn't the myth of Narcissus allegorical? If so, David has overstated the distinction. Maybe what's really going on is this: in even thinking that an autocratic strongman can and will "make America great again," we're flying way too close to the sun.
myth
noun
1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2. stories or matter of this kind:
realm of myth.
3. any invented story, idea, or concept:
His account of the event is pure myth.
parable
noun
1. a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.
2. a statement or comment that conveys a meaning indirectly by the use of comparison, analogy, or the like.
allegory
noun
1. a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.
2. a symbolical narrative:
the allegory of
Piers Plowman.
I find that hero stories are very much matters of the heart and soul. The hero isn't simply acting outside him/herself, but is constantly engaged in a struggle of personal identity, the morality of using his/her powers, their sense of belonging and isolation, and even wrestling with the meaning of justice. I see so much spiritual, and even religious application in their stories that I write about that very thing on a regular basis. I have a book coming out about it in August, and I use Biblical stories right alongside hero stories to illustrate Christian teachings. They are natural friends. They use the same language, share the same values, express truths about who we are and who we can be, and inspire us to look deeper into the human condition. To me, hero stories aren't simply myths; they are parables if you look at them with an lens of faith.
I often ruminate on the myth of the great, fearless warrior, as exemplified by John Wayne and other film stars for my generation; and the reality of war, as seen in the Vietnam conflict 1961-75. The clash between myth and reality, with its concomitant moral corruption, I witnessed destroy a generation of young men and women, Vietnamese and American. Films, video games, and sports pale before the utter reality of war and what it does to one's soul.
2
What Mr. Brooks calls the "competitive mythic ethos" is nothing new and is not "suddenly around." Every war this nation has ever fought was turned into myth before the fighting ever commenced by framing those battles as conflicts between good and evil. The so-called "dime novels" of the 19th century, as well as such classic literature as James Fennimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, touted a romanticized myth of the American West. The branding of historic figures such as Washington and Jefferson as our "Founding Fathers" created mythic Olympian heroes whose visages were carved into a mountain. There is nothing sudden about the rise of myth in the U.S.
1
Some terrific distinctions here, but I lost the thread. I was expecting a 4th 'Great Awakening" to be revealed and none appeared. What gives?
1
We are in the midst of the continuing Fourth Great Awakening, begun in the 60's with the conservative Christian revival, the ascendancy of the fundamentalists, and concurrent decline of mainstream Protestantism.
1
I don't buy it. The myths that are all around us are a reflection of our politics, not vice versa.
2
Authoritarians, conservatives believe in rule governed behavior. Libertarians, progressives, believe in principle governed behavior (values based). When our authoritarian rules and administrative policies, like separating immigrant families,violates our values and principles is when we have conflicts.
Should principles or laws govern our individual and collective behavior. Perhaps we should reconsider all of our laws and administrative policies to determine if they really do reflect our national values or were they written simply to achieve an expedient political objective?
1
I'm perplexed as to why David Brooks may have written this strange, out of place column. But I'd rather he had weighed in on more important issues that happened this week.
There is this:
“They (societal mythic world view) tend to give short shrift to relationships, which depend on the fragile, intimate bonds of vulnerability, trust, compassion and selfless love. They tend to see life as an eternal competition between warring tribes. They tend to see the line between good and evil as running between groups, not, as in parable, down the middle of every human heart.”
This describes perfectly Trump and HIS Republican cult.
4
"We’re spiritual creatures....."
It's said that we humans are spiritual beings having a human experience. So, fundamentally, many myths and parables reflect the essential inner struggle that being human creates. A struggle between good and evil; unity consciousness/separation consciousness; Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader; Jesus/the devil. A pulling apart/a coming together or transcendence.
And because we've mostly strayed from deep and simple in favor of shallow and complex, as Mr. Rogers observed and because "When people can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with what's (momentarily) pleasurable." as Viktor Frankl observed, most of us are living lives either filled with distraction (as described in this piece) or in a state of quiet desperation.
8
One genre you missed David in this essay comparing myth to parable, Athens to Jerusalem, is mystery, 221B Baker Street, London, England, United Kingdom. It has been noted mystery writing arose in Western Democracies because they are concerned with law and justice. My wife and I enjoyed the 20 seasons of Midsomer Murders on Netflix and Acorn. It features two detectives who live among the people and they solve the Gordian Knot of murder mysteries. We watch other mysteries from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Scotland, Norway, and the Netherlands. Mysteries cross boundaries between myth and parable; ordinary people work hard and steadfast to solve the seemingly unsolvable crimes of murder and heroically bring the criminals to justice. In the process many a parable is told about protecting the weak and vulnerable for instance.
2
Yes!! These stories are wonderful! 221b Baker Street has a tidy place in the library of my mind :) Favorite quotes: “Once the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains no matter how improbable must be the truth!” and “It is a capital mistake to theorize ahead of the facts!”
1
Many of your articles, beautifully written and I believe sincere, ask readers to suspend reality and accept a false choice — a mythical dichotomy employed to bring about your main point. That is a literary tool. But the truth about wisdom is we can find it many places, and many stories. It is the heart that sees and seeks wisdom. But contemporary art is a mirror - an expression of the culture. The heroic goal of art is to transcend that culture.
2
For years, David Brooks advocated for right wing political ascendency. Now that his dreams have come to fruition and the subsequent debacle erodes the foundations of American life, he retreats into intellectual fantasy in some form of dissociative amnesia.
Athens stands on the proud achievements of Pericles and the first functional democracy. However it did not last. As Franklin and others have observed, democracy is fragile.
While Washington burns, Brooks is lost in abstract reverie.
68
"While Washington burns, Brooks is lost in abstract reverie."
Ain't it the truth!
1
Mr. Brooks does injustice by equating Athens with myth and Jerusalem with parables. Athens represents Hellenism with cultural diversity represented by its philosophies and literature, and Jerusalem represents monotheism, a competitive myth that brought human kind countless strife in the real world- e.g. the Crusades, the Inquisition, Thirty Years' War, etc. Look at the current world- at least the "competition" of superheroes (or sports) are either imaginary or rule-bound, but the battles of monotheists (Sunnis vs. Shiites vs. Isis vs. Evangelicals, even Buddhists vs. Rohynga, etc) shed real blood and brought real destruction of humanity! Worst of all, monotheisms, with their top down theology, suppress free human inquiry and, indeed, individual competition while viciously competing with other (and therefore evil- there is only one God) gods.
2
Babel is a parable and a myth. Either way the end is the same; hopelessness, destruction and above all else reality. Words can't get around it.
1
What grosses in the box office world should be a reflection of the everyday world, but it's the other way round. Cruelty and violence are spread more and more through movies and video games.
There's the blooming of atheism based on (unprovable) science, which is used to justify disrupting precepts of morality anciently taught by religion. There's an ethos of greed is good, sex sells, and what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine if you don't fight me for it.
Yes, we are creating a perilous realm instead of an (achievable) peaceful world.
1
When you have a country as divided as we are at this moment.
When you see Religious Leaders not insisting on the Golden Rule.
When you hear the Trump Administration taking away our Freedoms behind closed doors.
When you have Racism encouraged by the President.
When you see said President defend the taking of innocent children and caging them like dogs about to be put down.
And when the Supreme Court continually make decisions like Hobby Lobby, Citizens United, Eminent Domain and Masterpiece you have no choice but to believe that a crisis of conscience has taken place.
The only way away from this is to start appealing to the virtues of love and kindness
Who is going to do this. What person or persons in leadership right now are capable of appealing to our collective angels.
I for one, can no longer name anyone. And I used to be an optimist.
1
David, Genesis 6:4 mentions these myths long before Athens.
Wish that Jerusalem were just as compassionate today. Your point is equally depicted in 'Make America Great Again' vs 'Make America Healthy Again'. Great is what you get with masculine ethos and profits. Healthy is what you get with feminine compassion, community, and diversity.
Another way to look at this is that there is a "spiritual human" and an "animal human" within each person. The animal human is impulsive. It seeks to satisfy its needs: food, sex, pleasure. The spiritual human exists in thought and reflection. The spiritual human is often ashamed or embarrassed by the crude behavior of the animal. "Can't I just quit this body?" the spiritual human may find itself thinking, with some weariness.
Nevertheless, it is joined with the animal. And so the spiritual, being reflective, seeks to embrace or "live with" the animal (compassion being an attribute of the spiritual). That is, until the animal again does something too unseemly. Sex, for example, can be spiritual. Or it can be pretty disgusting.
Sometimes the animal gets out of hand: It wants victory for victory's sake, money, power, sex without love or obligation, luxuries. Its appetites dominate.
We see this in society as a whole. We've entered a period in history in which the animal has taken charge (Trump is more animal than spiritual). The spiritual human has retreated to the background. We will live in this period until the spiritual again becomes so disgusted with the animal (think Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Jesus), it once again becomes our governing force.
I don't know about Jerusalem and Athens but I know what drives America. It's dog-eat-dog capitalism. He with the most toys wins. If you came of age and went into business in the 60's as I did you saw everywhere the Vince Lombardi ethos being sold. "Winning isn't the most important thing. It is the only thing" . America is mainly about economic winners and losers. Reagan updated it with greed is good. Trump pushes that mentality 24/7.
You don't need myth. Just look at our American society for what it is.
2
Does this mean a country led by a man without principle and a reasonable percentage of support can rob us of our humanity? Rob means by stealth and reduction not humanity willfully given up.
And then out of nowhere the Mongols conquered the world, steppe warriors from a harsh environment, barbarians, who carried their meat under their saddles to soften it and used the composite bow and nicked the veins in their pony's to eat its blood for sustenance. Hardly a myth, the mobile armies of Ghenghis Khan, the result of the mobilization of the entire Mongol nation, conquered territory after territory, defeating army after army with tactics and strategy not seen again till the twentieth century. It's great history and great learning about.
3
Ghenghis Khan also had a remarkably compassionate sense of child care, and employed techniques to incorporate the conquered into the scope of his nation. Rather look to the here and now for true barbarians.
And so what happened in Athens? After a century or more of heroic accomplishment and empire building, they got caught up in scheme for conquest in Sicily. So off they sent a fleet and army to attack Sicily around 416 BCE. It ended badly, with fleet destroyed and several thousand Athenian soldiers worked to death as prisoners of war in the great quarries you can still see in the city. Parallels abound in the histories of other top-dog nations ever since with Vietnam and Iraq easily coming to mind. It is the messy aftermath that Mr Brooks might want to consider.
1
Our politics and our society are not coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos. It's not "both sides". Our politics has been poisoned by the hatred, intolerance and anti-democratic (small d) ideology that has been created, promoted and nurtured by multi-billion dollar right wing TV/radio/print media empires, and ignored, excused and rationalized by influential pundits, like you Mr. Brooks.
1
Herakles was an ubiquitous demigod throughout the Mediterranean. He had no special connection to Athens. The the Trojan War, in which Achilles fought and died, happened several centuries, at least, before Athens was anything more than a village.
"Athens and Jerusalem" is, by the way, the title of Lev Shestov's great work that insists that freedom and reason are not compatible.
More simply put, it's good versus evil. Our country, while having made plenty of mistakes, has generally prevailed on the side of good. Now we seem to be battling evil forces that are taking over our government. How much more evil can we take? This week has been particularly traumatic, watching young children and babies ripped away from their parents knowing that the odds of them all being reunited is slim since their parents have already been deported. If we were at war, it would be a war crime. What's being done in our name is immoral. I am so ashamed and incredibly sad. I've had a lump in my throat all week and feeling that the tears are going to start flowing any moment.
3
The myth attribute "life as an eternal competition between warring tribes" immediately makes me think about three big religions.
1
My favorite line: “The viewer has to pretend that it really matters which group of men puts a ball in a net.“
1
It makes a great deal of difference to millions of people.
That should be obvious to any sentient being.
Nobody is pretending. Sports are for many people
something to care about in an other wise meaningless existence.It is a totally human assessment of reality,
And of course, it does really matter which group puts the ball in the net, whether the players are men or women.
Myth is just magical thinking written down...it suspends logic and wisdom and elevates emotion and self-righteousness...it is the path to hubris. Capitalism is a myth that puts a winner-take-all attitude over a sense of community...it produces war and is ultimately self destructive...George Carlin was right..."This species is just circling the drain of history."
1
Here is where I disagree. I believe the excerpt below from the column is itself a myth... to me the ultimate narcissistic self aggrandizing myth possible for our species. When we inhabit these various spiritual and cultural myths... and they vary greatly... we forget that we are just another species that needs to share the planet and learn to productively co-exist with other creatures and other humans, many of whom live under different and often competing myths. The myths, many of them religious, are the source of most of the world's major intractable issues. Also of late the myth of personality is rearing it's ugly head again in the form of Trumpism. Bottom line: the myths themselves are the problem. The myths are fake.
"We’re spiritual creatures; our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb."
We all do this "compare and contrast" bit to make sense of the world. Maybe the pedagogy of our youth or the need for some psychological degree of certainty compels us to do so. But comparing the virtues of Athens to Jerusalem is maybe a step too far here. Picky point, but Achilles was not Athenian and his time was separate from the period of Athenian "greatness" by 5-600 years maybe? It is probably more instructive to ponder the persistence of the Homeric tales even in Athenian times and the themes of honor and personal glory that might have appealed to Athens even as they entered into the Melian Dialogue with a small state that they would destroy rather than risk appearing weak. Of course, the Homeric hero did not always keep their word. Having gotten Dolon, a captured Trojan spy, to talk, Diomedes and Odysseus kill him rather than take him prisoner.
And the Boss, Agamemnon? Remember that the Iliad is about the appropriation from Achilles by Agamemnon of a captive Trojan girl (We might call this an overweening sense of entitlement today...), to which Achilles responds by "withdrawal of services." Let's not kid ourselves:
The Iliad is more or less a cattle raid dressed up as story of heroism. Or think of it as a "narco corrido" fabout guys fighting over control of a "plaza", in this case the choke point for the movement of grain from the Black Sea. A great story nonetheless.
1
The movies today are essentially celebrations of the conviction that violence and explosions are all that the public wants to see.
Myth has nothing to do with it. Violence is the solution to any problem. This is what the school shootings are all about. This is what the situation in Palestine is all about. Myth is just an excuse. Don’t over think it.
How can anyone waste the time it takes to read a column that starts out by proposing Achilles as the symbol of Athenian philosophy and democracy?
4
You offer an insight into our current struggles. It is telling that you have to reach so far back in thought history to get to your point. It seem that the Greek philosophers examined all manner of human behavior in a vitally robust way as did the Jewish bible, as did Buddha, and Mohammad.
As you point out there is a constant struggle between base instincts like war and conquest and humanistic impulses like honor, respect and compassion. We human beings keep learning the lessons then forgetting them and then relearning them. Greece taught Rome to be Republic and when Rome collapsed the Christians influenced Europe until it came to fruition in the Renaissance and Enlightenment and Reformation. But conquest continued in the Crusades and exploration. Then we fell into mercantilism and slavery but eventually democracy and emancipation but then war and reconciliation, then Jim Crow and then civil rights. At the same time we had the South Africa experiment. But then chaos reigned again in Yugoslavia. But then also the EU was established but then anti-refugee sentiment is threatening it. In the US we have had slow reduction in racism but now a resurgence of bigotry as white supremacy. Each time we have a challenge, we seem to reform and possibly improve our world. I await the next enlightenment.
I hope your analogy doesn't mean we have fallen all the way back to early Greek and Hebrew ethics. I avoid that fear by not watching MAGA rallies.
1
I understand the point Mr. Brooks is trying to make. Yet, I think he oversimplifies myth. Myths are not just about competitive values. For instance, consider the myths of Orpheus, Sisyphus and Narcissus, to name but a few of the well known myths that don’t conform to Mr. Brook’s analysis. Also, there are narratives that defy easy categorization. Is “The Little Prince” myth? Is it parable? Is it some combination of the two? What about the wildly popular “Harry Potter”? Or “The Lord of the Rings”? Or even “Game of Thrones”?
1
Athens? Ever heard of Sparta?
1
Putting our current history in this context is not constructive or enlightening as our sense of the world is completely skewed. Right wing media (and Trump) has presented a world where there are invading, infesting hordes of rapists, murderers, and terrorists running roughshod over the countryside, "they" are out to destroy Christmas and Christian values, and foreign countries are raping us and mistreating the love and generosity we have given them and laughing at us all the while. "We must fight back and vanquish this evil", they say. This righteous and heroic narrative is on display constantly creating the us and them and is not rising naturally out of our culture - it is fabricated.
Conversely, when truth and science and facts and societal values and laws are regularly trashed and abused, there is a desire to defend them at all cost - again spurring on the heroic narrative.
But again if we as a society could come to some agreement on a truth and disallow the propagation of obvious lies and manipulations, much of this narrative would not exist. Before the main stream media was labeled and designated "liberal" there was a closer understanding of truth. Most people are not out to destroy this country and anyone spreading that lie should be relegated to the periphery.
David keeps writing about our current times with grandiose metaphors that only elite academics have the time to endlessly debate in remote bubbles of irrelevance. So, for the rest of us,he might want to provide a single Cliff Note: Dems are the Party of Parable, Republicans are the Party of Myth. Please vote accordingly this November and save this country.
1
Thank you Professor Brooks. This let's me skip Philosophy 101 and really helps me understand how my last relationship broke up. Looking forward to your TED talk about how simple things mean a lot.
1
I’d say Revelations is mythical. And Achilles was a competitive Greek, but also a Thessalonian, who I believe got a bunch of letters from the apostle Paul. So put down the Marvel comics and get out of the movie theater. The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!
1
Athens has been an icon of cultural refinement, avant-guard art and political sophistication for 2500 years. Jerusalem has been won and lost by a series of brutal warlords through genocide, ethnic cleansing and war over the same timeframe.
I have no idea what Brooks is talking about.
In the end he concludes that we have entered a brutal new phase of our national existence. Stipulated. But somehow he fails to place the blame clearly on his party.
6
A better comparison would be between Eastern/Indic thoughts and philosophies and the Western/Abrahamic faiths and tribal beliefs.
Eastern philosophies are self learning with experiments and life experiences. Hinduism and Buddhism teaches that evil is within every human being and good and bad runs right within a single family. It’s a fight between values of good and evil that every person/family has a choice to pick.
But Western religions(Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are fights between tribes in which your tribe is good and the other tribe is evil. In Abrahamic faiths there are no choices to be made about which values to pick and no acceptance that evil could run within your own family or tribe. This makes it easy to “otherize” and hence there is no empathy for those that are not in their own tribe. No wonder there is so much violence in the name of religion among the three Abrahamic faiths throughout their history right from the very beginning. Jews murdered Christians at the beginning, then Christians murdered Jews and Muslims and vice versa. And Christians fought among each other driving Europe into the dark ages.
So the original sin of “heathens” and “infidels” is the reason for never ending series of revenge going on for centuries. It used to be religious but it doesn’t take too long and actually easy to get extended to racism. But the problem is that the need to “otherize” will continue to find differences within the same groups. And that’s why EU fails.
2
Mr. Brooks seems to be confusing Athens and Sparta, and it is far from clear what connection there is between Achilles and Athens? I must have missed that classics lecture.
Looks a lot like indifference to making an effort to get anything right. Maybe Melania can lend him her jacket.
4
David I think you should focus on the grim reality that our country is close to totally unraveling because of Donald Trump. It appears that Trump wants to be a “Tough” person who will do the unthinkable of separating babies, toddlers and kid from their parents. These kids are being thrown into chaos where their parents may never find some of them.
The Russians appear to be heavily involved with this administration and each day seems to bring more evidence of Russian involvement. Trump praises Putin, Kim, Duterte and he’s viciously attacking and alienating our allies like Canada and just about everyone else.
David I wish you could use your analysis and writing skills to help people to understand what’s happening to our country.
1
Seems to me "The Mythic Realm" is where a whole lotta men are living now. Not women mostly. Men who feel in their bones they're not top of the food chain material anymore, or soon will not be. Okay with me if they're off the street playing video games. Gives the non-mythic realm folks a little more breathing room.
1
Man's constants need to justify, understand, control, distinguish combat evil.
In column after column, Mr. Brooks asserts that there are only two sides to everything. Whether it’s culture, or history, or religion, or politics, or... only two choices; on good, one bad. In his piece today about a vague generalization on the state of American life, it’s either competition or cooperation; Athens or Jerusalem. There seems to be no middle ground, no gray area for Mr. Brooks. This seems to be a problem that effects all “conservatives” and Republicans. It’s either open borders or locking up children in cages, is the current example of this thinking. And lastly, there is a whole lot more wisdom and insight to the human condition than just sources from the Mediterranean area 2000 years ago. Brooks and others of his ilk should spend some time studying sources from Asia, Africa, the Americas, etc. maybe they’d learn something.
1
You should read the Bible more, David; you seem to have no idea what is says. Which puts you in the company of all the "PCers" out there (pretend Christians).
For example, many parables have no human characters at all (e.g. the parable of the mustard seed). And Moses had no connection of any kind to Jerusalem. And when you link Moses and Jesus by saying that they both "stand for the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response," you seem to be forgetting that Moses urges his people to complete ethnic cleansing in Canaan. I hope genocide is not how you understand "grace, mercy, and gentle response." I hate to think about what counts for you as a non-gentle response.
2
Umm, so a magic omnipotent being creates us out of mud and then later sends us a son who turns water in to wine and walks on water and heals the sick with his touch is "parable" because it is "set in reality"? Sorry Mr. Brooks, it too is myth. It just happens to be a magic world that you have bought into.
Athens was the center of the enlightened world and one of the cradles of science, philosophy, the arts, and mathematics. Jerusalem spent it's time's worshiping a medieval god and then fighting over which version of the myth was "true". No thanks.
1
This is funny:
"Athens — think of Achilles — stands for the competitive virtues: strength, toughness, prowess, righteous indignation, the capacity to smite your foes and win eternal fame. Jerusalem — think of Moses or Jesus — stands for the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response."
Seems Mr. Brooks missed the first 5 books of the Bible - more wrath than grace; more revenge than love.
1
"The first is mythic movies: “Avengers,” “X-Men,” “Star Wars,” “Transformers,” “Justice League” and the rest. "
Maybe. When I think of "competitive virtues" in movies I think "Hunger Games", where the conflict is contrived by the repressive government as a distraction, and one of the key lines is "Remember who the real enemy is".
1
Myths vs. Parable, as told by Brooks, represents conflict vs. cooperation. It is no wonder that Myth is more popular in a country where others are portrayed as the enemy by the vast propaganda machine.
The right always has an enemy that must be conquered. Decades ago it was the communist menace of the Soviets and China. Now it those lazy people who don't look like us and who don't work and take our tax money. Most recently it is those brown skinned hoards invading from the south. All atrocities are necessary to win the war against the other. This is the message from the White House / Fox lie generation machine.
I enjoyed reading this provocative comparison. My knowledge of both of these traditions is admittedly limited. However, when I've thought of Athens and its contributions to the world, the first thing I always think of is democracy, not Achilles. We used to celebrate the virtues of democracy in popular culture in films such as "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "All the President's Men" (I'm sure there are other fine examples--those are the two I can think of offhand). I'd like to see a revival of that theme.
1
While you make a few good points, David, I don't think Carl Jung would agree with you.
Myth, in the Jungian Worldview, is a guide. A deep look at human behavior and its manifestation in human relationships.
The Myth of Parsifal is clearly not one of competition but of quest and redemption.
1
Insightful. This clarifies a lot about today's popular culture and the gloss it spreads over our political culture. I'd substitute Sparta for Athens, however.
1
We are spiritual/mythical creatures, those terms overlap. Spinning stories to connect our experiences is being human, unfortunately it seems we are all too ready to accept and live someone else's story that seems more interesting than the one we are living, like commercials.
1
The Marvel movies appeal because they're "mythical" ? I don't think so. I went to one of the X-Men movies because I liked Sophie Turner in "Game of Thrones". Big disappointment: the writers only gave her one memorable line in the whole movie, and other than that she was, well, an animated comic book character.
"Suddenly all around"?
Isn't the mythic entertainment realm just a confirmation of what has been happening the lives of ordinary people since the 1980s?
My father lived under the parable of learn a skill, practice with craft, and you would be rewarded with fair compensation. My children live with the ultimate mythical hero of the Shark Tank Entrepreneur--it doesn't matter what you do as long as you can pitch it, win investors in the blood sport arena of reality TV, and cash out.
For us in that transition generation, we live uncomfortably in the 'perilous realm'. Help your young adult with a college essay? You are competing against candidates with professional coaches and writers--pay the price or be eliminated. Practice a skill? You are being bought and sold on bid platform in the gig economy. Health insurance and benefits? Another battle where the snares are many and winning means only surviving.
Suddenly? It seems to be the logical end.
7
Doesn't sport act as a bridge between your dichotomous descriptions of myth and parable. Competitive sport enhances the skill level of participants through competition often leading to compassion and camaraderie between participants. I will always remember the 1960 winter Olympics when the U.S. upset the soviet union in the semi's. The soviets responded by sharing oxygen canisters with the the U.S team prior to the finals. A moment of camaraderie brought out by spirited but good nature d competition. Perhaps a small innocuous moment in the heat of the cold war but also a moment of shared humanitarian instincts that perhaps could be built on to overcome national prejudices.
Maybe these movies are just innocent, wish-fulfilling stories about obtaining power and love, but their plot is always centered on a following a set of demanding rules leading to attainment of a glorious outcome. So why are these fantasies so prevalent when the prescription for how to actually live a happy life and attain a glorious present and future are readily available in the Bible (whether or not one has yet received the gift of faith)?
In Biblical terms, “In the beginning was the myth, and the myth was with God, and the myth was God.” And this god of the Old Testament “tends to give short shrift to… trust, compassion and selfless love.” The Old Testament “tends to see life as an eternal competition between warring tribes… between good and evil as running between groups…” Then along comes Jesus and he turns this myth into a parable where we are supposed to “express charity, faithfulness, forgiveness, commitment and love.” All well and good. The problem comes in with the suspension of disbelief. It is one thing to momentarily suspend disbelief so that we can vicariously enjoy destroying our enemy on the ball field rather than the battlefield. It is another thing to suspend disbelief by turning religious myths and parables into an undeniable reality that must be defended to the death. It is this attempt at alchemy that leads Brooks to say with absolute confidence we are “spiritual creatures.” The fact is we are simply creatures trying our best not to become extinct. And the irony is the sooner we realize we are just another creature that depends on the preservation of the environment and our fellow creatures, the longer our tenure on this earth will be. The idea that we are somehow spiritual and therefore separate and superior is the most dangerous myth of all.
4
Oh please! We've only been w/o our best-ever "better angel" for 17 months; why the urgent need to mandate myths if ours is to somehow "belong to the ages?" It didn't work w/ Andrew Johnson's Achilles heel after our last best-ever in Lincoln -- as we're STILL working on Reconstruction -- and it certainly won't work now if Trump's 15 minutes is merely a temporary tap to an otherwise dormant and holed-up race of "Mole Men" for whom NO Superman can meet the twain 'tween their "you live YOUR life and we'll live ours" mutual exclusivity.
This column hijacks and distorts the concept of Athens vs. Jerusalem, cheapens the historical events known as Great Awakenings, and flattens beyond recognition the character of Achilles.
'Athens vs. Jerusalem' is a term used to contrast rationality and revelation. It has nothing to do with competition or compassion.
The Great Awakenings were not entertainment based on spectacle and special effects. The Second Great Awakening, for example, was a widespread religious revival that fostered emotional, personal attachment to Jesus and God and laid the foundations for today's prominent Baptist and Methodist denominations.
Achilles is not competitive. He's part of the greatest war story in the world, with scenes depicting Hector and Andromache and their baby in book 6; Achilles' holding war and peace on his shield in book 18; and Priam's visit to Achilles in book 24. If Americans had to go back to high school for a semester at age 50, I would assign us all the Iliad.
Someone else can comment on competition in the Old Testament and the compassion in the plays of Sophocles.
6
"Achilles is not competitive": I meant "Achilles is not just a competitive warrior in a vacuum."
the comparison of the Trump administration and the Obama administration are muth vs. parable.
Trump pretends to be a super being. a better negotiator, smarter ( I went to a really good school and have then best memory), I never admit to a mistake etc. Claims he deserves Noble Peace prize
Obama , non confronting, person to person dialogue to settle dispute(have a beer with dissenter), Wins Noble Peace prize by actions not words.
For me I'll take Moses, Jesus , and Obama.
14
It is important to remember that the Greeks also invented the Olympic games and that striving for an ideal of physical beauty and excellence.
And they were not just mythologists - the least of all thinkers, Thucydides, was a Greek, as was Aristotle. It is a great disservice to reduce the Greeks to Homer.
6
That's right! But for the Greeks, America is still a British colony. But for Aristotle, the world would still be mired in the middle ages. We're not a Christian nation; we're Greek! The Founding Fathers read Greek and Latin. Our roots are in Greece and Rome - not Jerusalem.
1
And if you want to talk about parables, let's not forget Aesop, perhaps the inventor of the genre.
Homer is the genesiś of all.subsequent Greco-Roman thought.
While we are talking of ancient Athens let us consider a real person who saved Athens and is not nearly as famous as the subjects of myth, philosophy or science.
When Athens was undergoing its Trump moment Solon the poet was made leader.
Athens was stagnant its people served only the economy. Athen's best and most creative minds became slaves to the rich and powerful. Indentured servitude became the order of the day as wealth and power concentrated in the hands of plutocrats and investors. The philosophers, scientists , writers , thinkers and visionaries could not survive in a society devoted only to wealth accumulation and became slaves. Athens started to disintegrate.
Solon did the exact opposite of what the USA did in 2009 it forgave all debt. Free from debt the indebted servants took their new found freedom and rebuilt the crumbling society and returned Athens to its glory days.
The USA has the resources to nurture and protect its creative resources yet has chosen to serve only Mammon. You are led by the unSolon; it is the land of Trump where the only thing that matters is wealth and power.
4
I wouldn't call these examples myth as much as fantasy or escapism, even infantilism. Hollywood's core story is of the ordinary person who, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, rises to the challenge and becomes heroic. This is certainly true of the comic book character movies; each of them is "ordinary" at some point in the narrative, allowing us into the fantasy that we, too, when confronting a serious threat, will respond by punishing the aggressor. Both video games and sports give us vicarious thrills in a world in which real life is mostly predictable and safe.
1
Another of Brooks' nostalgic, yet myopic, longing for the good old days (that never existed). Not sure what his conclusion is based on that "we're spiritual creatures." Certainly not his premise about parables. They certainly do exist in some "spiritual" writings, but the were always overshadowed by the mythical images of god. That is no more true now. This undermines the seeming and false claim that we are embarking on some new path leading us to revere myth when that has consistently been true throughout history. The risk about blind reverence for such spirituality, however, is that it has been used to cause real harm.
4
I strongly suspect Mr. Brooks did not actually see Wonder Woman. It completely undercuts the "myth vs. parable, competition vs. compassion, external vs. internal" dichotomies. I'm tempted to quip -- there are two kinds of people: those who think there are two kinds of people and those who think "no there aren't, it's much more complicated than that!"
3
It’s nice to have the luxury to write a column like this. My visceral reaction is to point out the difference between a photo and a drawing - one is past, one is potential.
Blockbuster cinema industry today is an exercise in visual self-pleasure, and by it’s transnational marketing logic that it must transcend language barriers, it must generically speak to the world with as few words that require translation as possible.
I agree we seem to be losing our self-awareness in public and in private, and are all in need if a serious forced period of silence and reflexion on our mental and emotional hygiene. The pervasiveness of escapist culture is showing signs of subverting citizen’s ability to discern reality in ways that literally challenge civil society.
So I concur in principle, but quibble on the details. Well done.
2
There are no heroes in this mythic world, nor does great hubris seem to be leading to downfall. At least not at the moment. One of the problems is that we all expect a hero to appear and to reset our political universe; we believe deeply that we will snap out of this crisis and things will be better. Meanwhile, the world we all live in transforms to Mordor. Where is the hero -- the journalist, the statesman, the judge, the citizen that will marshal the forces of good and lead us. We all believe they must be on the way... The story demands it.
Maybe. Maybe not.
2
"Athens — think of Achilles". Brooks lost me right there. Achilles is the main character of the Iliad, but he has nothing to do with Athens except that they are both in Greece. When ancient writers contrasted Jerusalem and Athens they were talking about religion vs philosophy.
10
Perhaps both myths and parables are not the stuff of awakenings at all, but things that distract us from the reality we confront from moment to moment. Maybe a true awakening would be to set aside all the narratives and begin to deeply sense what's actually happening with patience and kindness. Like crying children on our border. Or dead bodies on our streets. Or lies on our smart phones. Or ...
10
Once again, David Brooks gives us clear categories, but presented with zero argumentation – just stated, to be accepted as fact.
Sports and comic book movies have, in reality, very little to do with each other. It is possible for normal human beings to become excellent soccer players, wonderful baseball players, superb golfers. It is not possible for normal human beings to become superheroes. Thus, sports are an invitation to challenge oneself, while superhero movies are escapist fantasy.
To my mind, sports have much more in common with the parables Mr. Brooks talks about – they ask us to see both accomplishment and failure in ourselves. Comic book movies, on the other hand, resemble the warmongering of someone like Dick Cheney – who refused to fight for his country, but was happy to sit in an armchair fantasizing about war and sending other people into it.
A world where sports are a model can be consistent with morality and virtue. A world where superhero movies are the ideal – not so much.
4
Most myths offer a glimpse of a oneness or an atonement (at-one-ment) of all mankind together. All the great religious myths do this.
Brooks says we have a "competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around."
That is no myth to live by. That is the total absence of myth.
As a Sarah Lawrence professor said, "Myth is supports and validates a certain social order. "
The competitive, dog-eat-dog, alternative facts society of Trump and the GOP are chaos and disorder, not social order.
Those who believe in a Darwinian, totally free-market concept and business solutions for everything have no faith in the meliorative power government, nor the ability of the University to discover and promulgate the truth.
They have an ersatz myth based on money. All of life to them is a transaction or a pecuniary fix or a deal. And their credo be, "He who has the gold, makes the rules."
That is no myth.
5
Race is a myth that puts more significance of identity on complexion and nationality instead of the shared nature of being human. Promoting the myth of race has proven useful in competition and has played a major role in the development of capitalism. Not only does the myth encourage "groups" to ban together in common cause like a team, as teamwork is essential to getting anything of significance done, but the lies of myth also provides a comforting false narrative that allows the "winners" to overlook real violations of humanity.
The myth of race in America is so strong and affirmatively white, that many identify this way more so than human. It really is this disturbing and at the base of why our government is separating families at the border and labeling desperate parents as criminals. The truth is that the vast majority of these border crossing human beings adopt the noble parts of American values and freedom to become vital members of our society. To reject this with such an evil policy of family separation is to believe that our strength comes more from the myth of national sovereignty than our respect for the nature of humanity.
7
You've taken the mythic ethos to heart and decided, heroically, to give it its own 'age', the Fourth Great Enlightenment. Readers of American history will know this would be the latest in a series of religious revivals--though the Third was long ago now in the early 19th century. Donald Trump is a hero in his own epic. His believers--for how else to describe them?--are willing to suspend their disbelief and follow his errant lies and hypocritical nonsense on his epic heroic journey. Only we don't live in special times. We are in ordinary time, something Christians--at least some--recognize from Church. Trump is the parable of the deceitful one. Nothing good comes from him--except perhaps, hopefully, in the end he will be defeated and our institutional strength, our sense of justice and mercy shall prevail.
2
Right now we're witnessing the breakdown of a myth. Americans have always told themselves that this is the greatest country on earth where anyone is free to be whoever and whatever they want as long as they are willing to work for it. In the last decade reality has crept in and we're starting to see the decay and the rot.
Our current president exploited those fears. He gave us an enemy and promises that he alone can end our suffering if only those pesky whoever he's currently blaming would get out of the way.
Hopefully we'll rediscover the myth and the hope that made our country achieve past successes. We just need a leader who reminds us to model our better selves.
1
Thanks for this intellectually ambitious, big idea of a column, David.
However, the clarity of the of your description of the political conflict that surrounds us becomes muddy with scrutiny.
The battle between Trumpians and the rest of us may not be a war between good and evil, but it also is not a war between equally flawed and positive visions- one side actually lives more in your parable world while the other in the land of heroic and villainous myth. Believers in tribal myths can be very dangerous when they assume political power.
German fascists of the 1930's believed in the heroic myth of the Teutonic tribe- your philosophical ruminations don't seem to grasp the potential threat facing our own country and world now.
This is another one of your false-equivalencies- trying to make peace between sides through appeasement to the cult of Trump that has taken over your former political party.
10
The USA now has two and a half major political parties: Trumpian, Democtratic and (MIA)Republicans
I'm not fond of the Superhero genre. It worked well enough for 8-year-old me, but now a want more stories about everyday heroes whose struggles are not about saving the entire world every time they act.
Why are all these new myths around? While I cannot posit an answer for the rest of the world, where they may simply be entertainment, something else is at work in the US. I'd argue we live in what Viktor Frankl called "the existential vacuum" and have been in the nearly five decades since general affluence stopped rising, as it did from about 1945 to 1970.
Now you can work all the time, at multiple jobs and even with a college degree and one illness means the end of you. Don't know how to network and don't even go to college? Get ill once or run afoul of the law? Get evicted from that rental? Welcome to poverty you will most likely never escape.
You want the super villain who created this vacuum? No, it's not some heartless white guy in the Oval Office and it's not something a superhero or protagonist of a video game ever fights. It's our rotten political system and ossified economic castes.
That apparently does not make good films or games. And it increasingly looks like it will take a revolution by ordinary people, not folks in tights, to fix it.
9
And when famous conservative pundits are confronted with the reality of their lifelong folly they turn to fantasy as a form of escape. Why bother to engage with or analyze reality when the reality you've helped create is a dystopian nightmare?
15
“I’d say our politics and society are coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around.” No, superheroes are simply this half-decade’s zombie apocalypse. Some trope surprises the corporate tools in the entertainment industry and they then ride that horse until it collapses. This may look like something fundamental is going on, but it’s not.
What is fundamental is the fact that US society is actually coming to resemble a Victorian caste system, where the bottom 90% — in the US more than any other developed nation — has little chance of receiving the education and health-care that the upper 10% enjoys. And despite their wealth, most of that upper decile lives in terror, waiting for the top 1% to say “You’re Fired!” This mix of terror and resentment has us self-soothing with whatever is the latest fashion in entertainment. I would say to our most excellent Mr. Brooks, that what’s interesting is not the superheroe, but the anti-heroes, those ones we let run our government and economy.
2
Homo Sapiens has been on this earth for a very short time. It would be difficult to find any other creature less suited for long term survival.
9
Mr. Murray is 'Spot On" with his observation. Despite our many technological advances we are still subject to the laws of nature. A species that overpopulates and despoils it's habitat is doomed. It may take longer when compared to other less intelligent creatures, but it is an inevitable outcome. We will become victims of our own success just as with any species that inhabits this beautiful planet.
1
Alternative facts and the absence of reality does not make myth or parable, however. The willingness to acend into fantasy is nothing more complicated that the utter powerlessness of ordinary humans unable to control the inevitability of dull lives and futures. Goodness nor evil symbolism comes about when fascism is emerging as Trump makes everyone crazy. Even his supports are over the line and left reality far behind. It is time to exhume Alvin Toffler and publish the eventuality of Future Shock.
We are overdosing on mythic reality. Myth serves youth who can also be very dangerous. Myth motivates, but it has to be tempered with wisdom. I am old and I have let go of mythic realities.
Perhaps this is my dilemma. I am a parable person stuck in a mythical world. If we consider Joseph Campbell's adage (Dreams are private myths. Myths are public dreams), we might be moved to ask what if the public dream you are living in becomes a nightmare?
6
Nuts! The mythic turn toward explicitly mythic casts of heroes and villains in the Hollywood big budget film in bigger a film gross audience phenomena than the earlier action spectacle turn from narrative logic to astounding large scale and unrealistic car chases, gun fights gore and explosion. Brooks' mythic turn is no more a spiritual awakening than the the shopping mall apotheosis of Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwartzenegger or the more recent the Zombie craze.
1
The only reason for sitting through any of those movies was only ever for the visual & auditory effects.
Visual art became utterly obsolete to anyone seeking the awesome, compelling imagery of pre-postmodern art. All the real talent went to fashion, advertising & Industrial Light & Magic.
What they achieved on screen is stupendous.
The stories, the violence, the ever-more realistically-wrought explosions, titanic combat between indestructible godlike superbeings, absurdity of actually making Thor into an alien superhero, etc, it's all a bit of a joke for anyone over the age of, say, 11. Tedious to tolerate.
The idea that kids would be actually infected with this kind of Homerian, Wagnerian tale, or that adults in this day would seek some fantasy of epic adversarial power-dynamics for the evolutionarily obsolete head-rush of dominance & control, etc would be really a bit deranged.
If in fact people really are internalizing these ridiculous plotlines as a modern mythos they imagine they crave, then society really has failed, people really are stupid, and hope for intelligent, sentient humanity is lost.
Myths are tempered now by the fact that we have unprecedented access to information.
All of history, science, everything that's ever happened anywhere is suddenly at the tip of everyone's fingertips.
Beyond the evangelicals who really seem to take myth seriously (while abandoning moral parables & virtuousness completely), this can't be the dawning of the age of Yggdrasil.
4
Yes. Our culture seems driven by youth, movies, fashion, games. One wonders if adults have tagged along as a refusal to grow up. Or are we being fed opium for the masses.
1
"As parable-based religion has receded from the public square, heroic myth, and the competitive virtues it celebrates, has rushed in to fill the space."
If by parable-based religion you mean Christianity, I don't believe it has receded from the public square. If anything, in the name of perceived religious persecution, Christianity is in full bloom. We must say "Merry Christmas" even if we are not Christians. We will not bake a cake for a same-sex couple because it violates our religious freedom. Hospitals can refuse to give a woman birth control options because it violates their religious beliefs.
In this context, to say that "a parable-based religion has receded from the public square" is laughable and speaks to Brooks' blindness.
8
Our country certainly needs another Great Awakening, which refers to a period of religious revival which has occurred at least 3 times in the last 200 years. It disturbs me when highly educated people put the things of God and the teaching of the Bible into the myth category when, if the truth were known, they have never read and studied in depth what the Bible has to say. In past centuries people did evil things, as they do today, but then they knew they were evil, as most had a general knowledge of what was right and what was wrong as presented in the Bible.
1
Beyond the inspiring myth, Athens is also known for its intellectual tradition, quest for knowledge, justice and order- the foundations of civilisation and humannity; Jerusalem is known as the holy place of revealed wisdom, crucial to harmony, order, and justice. There is no basic conflict between the competitive spirit and the one of compassion.
4
Growing up in the forties and fifties, my heroes were Abraham Lincoln, H.L. Mencken, Willie Mays and the American soldiers who fought in World War and made it possible for my family to live in this wonderful country.
Lincoln and Mencken occasionally disappointed me, but Willie and the soldiers never did.
The paucity of real-life moral heroes on the current American scene is driving the demand for movie superheroes to heights of greater and greater absurdity.
The movies are nearly unwatchable, but in the age of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Kellyanne Conway and Scott Pruitt, they are better than nothing.
15
"We’re spiritual creatures; our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb."
I think what Jerusalem points to (and Athens does not) is that our highest ideal and virtue is to go beyond the "moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb" into a hearing/obeying relationship with God, and thus bear His image. This is a heroic, inward quest for and then championing of truth, which Jesus substantiates in his avowal before Pilate. The Greek heros had no such standard of truth.
The virtues of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23) are the fruits of the spirit. In themselves, they aren't the goal, the end aim, but rather are entailed in receiving the Spirit. Christianity is not virtue-based but rather is Spirit-based in its authentic, primitive, apostolic form.
2
There's another myth -- that Mr. Brooks is an asset to The New York Times. When will there be any awakening that has TPTB replace him?
Gemli - fantastic post!
5
We are focused by our entertainment industry into buying this myth mode. Other than reruns and old movies, what option do we have? And the viewer polls only confirm a trend that we are eating what we are being fed.
Maybe you are reading too much into this.
It's escapism pure and simple, like video games heroism.
With libraries full of rich, complex classics we find ourselves continually affronted by comic book movies, comic book heroics, comic book simplicity.
Some of us wish we were spiritual creatures, while our organisms age and fail. We duck into any shelter while the storm rages outside.
But the parable does not stand up and decry, disparage or denounce.
Like you say here, good and evil are in every human heart, but we must create a space for ourselves somewhere in between the two extremes and live within it.
And that is not a myth.
1
As you say, parable, based religion has receded from the public square.
This has left a void (I am guessing here) mainly in western societies of Judeo-Christian influence.
I think of my children and grandchildren and shudder for their future. What can fill that void?
I think David would garner a new appreciation of myth and its importance in human societal development by reading Joseph Campbell. He was a true authority on myth and comparative religion far beyond DB's current heroes.
Mr. Brooks spiritual search recently, reminds me of a college kid seeking truth and purpose in philosophy. In other words he is all over the map and starting this process well into his adult years, long after most do. I do applaud his search, but one requires bread crumbs to find a way through his myriad of writings.
In my view Ancient Athens, with all it's foibles and injustices, was still closer to a true democracy and perfect society then Jerusalem now embodies. They also had the wisdom to exile leaders exhibiting hubris, something that would come in handy today!
12
If my high school world history course is correctly recalled, the Athens you seem to long for was a rigidly hierarchical society with prosperous elites (the ancient 1%) and an underclass of ordinary citizens and slaves - lots and lots of slaves. Neither ancient Athens nor Jerusalem - then (think Romans) or now (think Zionists) - is a place, a 'perfect society' and 'true democracy', where justice, perfect equality, gentle peace and equitable prosperity blossoms.
While there is certainly a profane wisdom and psycho-logic in the ancient myths' representations of human attitudes and behaviors (as, likewise, with Wagner's operatic, Nazi-endorsed depictions) there is little of the self-sacrifice, radical love, kind civility, and universal justice that some of us yearn for in our civic lives. I'd like to think humankind might have learned enough of fear, violence and tribal repression to have moved on to a safe, respectful, harmonious, and communal world view ... unfortunately, our religious 'spirits' are based on myth - including Biblical 'history' and 'science' as well as American exceptionalism - and not on the gentle teaching of parables.
Brooks presents the polarities of myth, which celebrates heroic superiority and competitive virtues, and parable, which celebrates humility and service to others. He laments that "we are surrounded by myth" and with a prioritization on competitive virtues, we have evolved into "warring tribes."
In Brooks' book, The Road to Character, he refers to Adam I who seeks success in the world as opposed to Adam II, who is more deeply connected to character and the inner life.
I believe what Brooks is referring to here is the prevalence of a me-first ethos in a capitalistic society in which acquisition of material goods, greed, success and looking-out-for-number-one transcends a commitment to enriching one's inner life and practicing the virtues of self-restraint, self-sacrifice and a moral goal of working towards a more humane world. Erich Fromm said, "It is a noteworthy phenomenon that in the development of capitalism and its ethics, compassion (or mercy) ceases to be a virtue." And now we have Melanie Trump, on her way to a shelter for migrant children donning a coat that proclaims to the world, "I really don't care. Do U?" Fromm believed the main condition for the achievement of love was "overcoming our narcissism."
There can be no commitment to a rich inner life and time set aside for quiet contemplation to achieve wisdom and insight when we are constantly chained to our screens waiting for the next text or tweet. Are we Adam I or Adam II?
I would have liked to hear Mr. Brooks explain how he connects his myth v. parable theory to the Fourth Great Awakening, generally understood as the rise of evangelical, generally conservative, and generally less denominational Christianity through the mid-late 1960s into the 1980s.
Perhaps his definition is different. But if they are connected, it seems to me they are both symptoms of the same underlying human isolation, disconnection, anomie, and modern purposelessness. We desperately need causes bigger than ourselves where we can connect with each other in service.
Trump, mythic videogames and movies, Facebook, and megachurches have all been attempts to fill that gigantic black hole, which has been expanding since the Enlightenment and Nietzsche.
Megachurches at their best filled a bit of it, but have rarely been at their best. The Trump "I alone/Make America Great Again" movement is the apotheosis to date of modern American hollowness. I agree with the commenter who called this Deadening, not Awakening.
3
Mircea Eliade writes in The Myth of the Eternal Return that humankind is mythopoeic, or myth making. Given the facts of history such as they exist to a particular generation, humans, and especially tribal systems seem always to mythologize a narrative that exalts "our side." Ken Wilber and other developmental psychologists delineate stages of human development, individually, culturally, politically, and broadly in societies, in which humanity is more or less bound to the heroic or increasingly freed to pursue self-giving love and presence. Agonistic societies in which honor derives from competition, exclusion, and a strict hierarchy are found in earlier stages of human development. Service, self-sacrifice, and self-giving love seeking relationship and presence are only found occasionally in later stages of human development. The contemporary emphasis on agonistic virtues that corresponds with MAGA, BREXIT, and growing populist and nationalist movements represents a regression in the development of western civilization to a much earlier stage and bodes ill for our collective future.
10
Unfortunately, self-understanding must precede self-sacrifice and self-giving, and such understanding is in increasingly short supply it seems.
Bien-dit: & so sadly true. Was Fermi right? Is intelligence lethal?
Grand myths make good TV and movies. But for an alternative, don't look to parables, look to fables. They may not be cinematic, but the lion and the mouse, the boy who cried "wolf", the tortoise and the hare, and the goose that laid the golden egg, still have lessons, spiritual and otherwise, for everyone.
5
It's all about the spirit, really. To frame the mythic virtues of heuristics, apologetics or polemics as the supreme binding force of civilization will only do a disservice to compassion, empathy and normative humanistic relationships. Trust and humanism are two virtues we need a refresher on in this day and age... Natural philosophy as well.
1
Where exactly is the express charity, faithfulness, forgiveness, commitment and love in the Emperor has no clothes?
Why do the heroes take the action they take (i.e. Achilles avenges his love)?
Once again, you seem to have it backwards. The reason heroes are heroes and not villains are because they act from love or a noble purpose of sacrifice (hero's journey).
4
This is an insightful article, and the contrasting of Athens and Jerusalem is quite suggestive.
However, what is missing in the identification of a society's driving principle as either myth or parable is a sense of historical sequence.
Brooks' myth-focused culture is what is identified in survey Literature courses as the "Heroic Age" of this or that tradition. Thus, Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, Norse mythology, the Lay of the Host of Igor, the Baghavad Gita, respectively Anglo-Saxon, French, Scandinavian, Old Russian (Rus'), Aryan, are all about an age of heroes, "whose like we shan't see again".
It is a time whose supreme virtues are honor, courage, loyalty, and trust.
His parable-focused culture is what Lionel Trilling found in the novel: the pivot of the genre is manners. It is the world of cooperation, the seemly, the polite, and all the other social virtues exalted in Western civilization, among others. The time of parable or manners expresses itself in "Classical" literature.
The missing historical dimension in Brooks' piece is this: the heroic age is the last stage of barbarism in the passage to civilization, whilst the classical age is the first stage of the latter.
Homer wrote about both ages. The Iliad is a saga of barbarian individual heroes. The Odyssey is the story of a civilized man, desperate for his wife, family, community, and role.
Nietzsche posed the same antithesis in his contrasting of Dionysian and Apollonian Man.
15
When Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha, was born, his father was told the son would become either a great ruler (which would make him "mythic") or a great spiritual teacher (who would be teaching "compassion"). The rest, as they say, is history. Today American voters make their own choices about who is to represent them. The rest is contemporary history.
6
Mr Brooks. I agree totally with your analysis, and have a strong empathy towards a world guided by parable, not heroic myth. But you do mock the importance of grown men putting a ball in a net at your own grave peril (both intellectual credibility and possibly physical safety ha-ha). I was once overheard saying "It's just a game", and was quickly and unceremoniously escorted from a venue!
1
Hmmm - So, Athens had a dearth of mathematicians, logicians, and legal theorists grounded in reality, whilst Jerusalem had cornered the market on all those traits ?
Um, yeah.
62
So Kaepernick then, has become the parable that has forced himself into our mythical time, literally onto our arena, reminding us of our moral, compassionate selves. Many say 'How dare he' but this is resonant of the same people who condemned Jesus for 'turning the tables' in their own sanctified place in their time.
15
"We’re spiritual creatures; our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb. I’d say our politics and our society are coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around." I could not agree more with your summary and I suggest that the Times and other serious journalistic organizations reflect on this insight as they report and interpret news. The moral challenge inherent in parable is regularly compromised by reporting that simplifies or reduces the complexity of our life together into materialism, power dynamics, and mythic triumphalism. Fox News is one of the most grievous offenders, but none are exempt.
11
I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Brooks' big picture analysis of this trend, but thanks to the vacuousness of our society that's so well described here, ninety percent of Americans would glaze over before you finished reading the title to them.
A suggestion for a follow-up article would be to analyze how many Americans seem to want to believe they're living in a movie....one in which they'll someday get to play the mythical hero and shed themselves of their miserable lives with no future.
17
Count me in the 90%.
Going off on a tangent, I think we all would do well to remind ourselves that evil does exist, and it is alive and well in the White House and its cronies, and to a certain extent in its dupes and enablers, who ignore the very real dangers of collaborating with evil. Time has passed, and memories of Hitler are fading. Racism is on the rise, and hatred is not politically correct. Compassion is not PC, though.
Milton, Virgil, Goethe and I'm sure a host of others. Trump's motto could be "evil, be thou my good" and he has the luck of the devil.
"Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven"
Sound familiar? Don't think it can't happen here, because it most certainly is happening.
60
'Evil' is an adverb and only sometimes a noun. It is not a living thing. It exists only because humans choose to do intentional actions that results in terrible consequences.
Trump is not evil but he often chooses an evil course of action and he does so because he pleasures in it.
Thanks, Susanna Allanic, in general I would agree with you. But I was prompted to this conclusion by an old favorite, "The Tiger in the Smoke", a thought provoking study of evil in the form of a murder mystery by Margery Allingham (a good read). The villain meets a saintly old cleric who explains the process and refers to Virgil:
Fascilis Descensus Averno (the road to death is easy, loose translation)
This led me also to Milton which I quoted above twice, and other classic stories.
I think it is important to recognize that rare as it is, evil does exist, not as "satan" but in people who dismiss goodness and take advantage, and how life at first can seem to collaborate with them in the form of "success" at the expense of their "soul". I use quotes as I personally don't think we need god to see the problem. The villain calls it the "science of luck".
Evil is a noun but in this form we can hope it is rare. While in general I recommend criticizing the sin rather than the sinner, the accumulation of malign forces around Trump brings us to the point of needing to name rather than look away from the result of 100% selfishness and the love of hurting people. We have given power to a man who is wholly corrupted, not just outwardly but inwardly.
Thank you (and Brooks, with his ruminations on our escapism and heroic stories) for provoking these further reflections. We humans are in real trouble, as planetary dynamics move towards providing consequences to its apex predator.
1
Alright, I understand your point and can accept it.
My problem is people stating that 'evil does exist', only because I've heard so many excuses given for the evil done, and then the person expecting to be reinstated into the culture because they were just 'tempted by the devil' sort of excuse. It is tiring after awhile.
Thanks for the book to read also.
Just happened to have watched The Jospeph Campbell Interviews w Bill Moyer. His definition of myth is different then Brooks'. To him they were symbolic stories about facing lifes challenges, dealing with changes in ones consciousness and life, and living fully. The fact of their cross-cultural similarities shows how similar we all are. Equating competition v compassion with parables is comparing apples to oranges.
23
Machiavelli theorized the idea of "virtu," which correlates to the competitive virtues David Brooks mentions in contrast to the compassionate virtues arising out of the Judeo-Christian tradition. An ethos of "virtu" describes a warrior society, one of tribalism. A virtuous society is a Good Society in which citizens are capable of practicing the principles and values of democracy, which Cicero labelled "civitas." The USA has entered a Machiavellian era, described by Alasdair MacIntyre as "After Virtue."
6
Why are we surrounded by myth? Because the majority of movies fail at the box office. We currently have over 500 scripted TV shows available to the streaming consumer in production. The overwhelming majority of there aren't mythic, but family dramas and sitcoms.
What people want aren't myths they want escapism and blockbusters. They aren't going to pay $25 for a luxury seat at an iPic for a moderately interesting romcom, there are hundreds of new ones available on Netflix released every year, they want to be visually amazed.
2
Add religion to that list of myths. The world already has a long history of caring which believers in magical deities prevail over others, usually with disastrous consequences for humanity.
So I'm keeping my disbelief (why is that even a thing?) intact. If I want magical realism I'll read Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
37
I agree with Mr. Brooks point, although I think he spends too much effort describing the “I alone” syndrome as mythic and compassion and community, parables. We do need to look beyond our tribes and see the humanity in those that are unknown or different.
5
"Then there are video games, which are myths you can enter into through technology. The video game industry is two or three times bigger than the movie industry. Gamers don’t only play; they gather to watch others play."
I think this is just sad, Mr. Brooks.
There is no great awakening going on.
Video games are built to be addictive. In fact, just this week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) added “gaming disorder” to the 11th version of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).
But, unlike other forms of culture and entertainment, one can't have a conversation about video games.
They are about as superficial as you get. Go ahead and try to have a conversation with a kid when they're playing a video game, that is try and get the kid to stop playing so you can try and have a conversation.
It reminds me of going into a casino and watching people mindlessly full levers.
Then there is the overwhelming, depressing violence in games like Call of Duty.
Have you played that game, Mr. Brooks?
We are entering a strange new dystopian world, and you seem oblivious to what's right in front of you.
16
Does Brooks even appreciate the significance of the Great Awakenings in American History? How can he possibly place the Mythic trends that he cites in the same category as the previous Great Awakenings? These new phenomena have nothing religious or even vaguely spiritual about them and should more appropriately be called, "the Great Deadening. And I am not even a Christian, but rather an agnostic.
15
"We’re spiritual creatures; our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb. "
Mr Brooks, how and why do you connect 'moral' and 'spiritual'? Many admirable people I know say they're not remotely spiritual but they are also among the most moral people I know. We may intrinsically be moral creatures, but I doubt that we are intrinsically spiritual.
15
This is a wonderful article but in some respects too simplistic, too general, too brittle. The same person can be as cool on the playing field as he or she is warm off. Furthermore, in both arenas, among many concerns, the rules of fair play must apply.
2
Seems to me one can find fault here and there with this polarity, as one can with almost all broad conceptualizations and generalizations. But Brooks seems to have hit a lot of nails on the head here. Very illuminating column. Thanks.
8
David Brooks writes for hungry minds, and we are starved for answers to, "What in the world is happening?"
I think we also have a growing appetite for some heroism to return us to a more persistent pursuit of truth and morality. As the Republic crumbles around us, many potential heroes are reluctant to lead revolutionary acts that would further erode our much loved Republic. Perhaps the Fall elections will be the revolutionary act of many many many everyday heroes.
10
In our western-centric view, we cannot understand how this could be happening. Look to the east, tho, and we find that their world has gone thru myriad cycles of right/left, virtue/myth. You say you are starved to understand 'what in the world is happening'. Look to the east, and you will find that the evolution of consciousness continues, and that we are now in a time much like a pubescent teenager - rebellious, angry, unable to comprehend anything beyond our own selfish desires. Look outside your western-centric box, and all the wisdom and understanding you could want is all there.
Myths do not come from the air; they are created and promoted by people who favor the values they express. Stories like Avengers are about war and combat. They idealize both the leaders and the warriors of their struggles. They give war a glamour and glory which no veteran believes. If we are becoming less spiritual and more competitive, I lay part of the blame on the people who fund movies like Avengers. They either like the fact that such movies promote war and competition (think Tri-Star Productions), or they are more than willing to sacrifice whatever values they say they have for the huge profits of block-busters. If we want to see stories with other values, we need to restore funding to the NEA and NEH so that other stories get told, even if they audiences are smaller.
9
I too think Jerusalem spawned its own myths. As a college student I took a class in myths and boy did it blow my mind. The Indians in America had a thriving mythology, some of it grounded in the reality around them, and some it with very definite links to our own Christian creation story. Life doesn't need to be seen as an eternal competition between warring tribes. Dig a little and we surprisingly find rich areas of agreement!
3
Most people spend their lives toiling in obscurity. It doesn't exactly make for compelling entertainment.
Maybe our entertainment preferences have bled over to affect our preferences in the real world. Seems a bit cynical to call an embrace of the dreamlike an awakening.
Ever since fiction was invented people have had to both suspend their disbelief and reinstate it at story's end. "What's the matter with kids today?"
Sports do involve actual people performing non-super human feats. The conflict and injury are intentionally limited to let all sides live and learn and shake hands at the end. Everyone who's wrestled knows the WWE is a soap opera.
When your nation seems to have collectively lost its mind, it does seem attractive to turn to fantastical explanations.
5
Interesting. I think many “westerns” of the late 50s and early 60s managed to combine myth and parable as you define them. Shows such as “The Rifleman” and “Have Gun, Will Travel” often contained both a conflict settled by a violent contest and a morality play. The implicit idea seemed to be that determining and standing up for what’s right is central to building a civilization.
I’ve read reviews of the film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” that say it’s our most political movie. Law, violence, love, hate, politics, self-reliance, interdependence, communications, and transportation all seem mighty important. The most famous line in the movie is near the end: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” But the last line in the movie contains the title and it’s the line that gives me chills: “Nothing’s too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance.” There’s a plot twist. The complex story behind the myth turns out to be more interesting.
Westerns were usually set during or right before the time of railroads and telegraphs. The Civil War was over and most of the damage to Native American civilization had already been done.
Determining and standing up for what’s right, as with civil rights and equal rights for women, still seems like a good idea. One can usually do that using civilization’s peaceful mechanisms. Hopefully one can be prepared for violence without provoking it.
5
I'd say there is ample evidence that "life as an eternal competition between warring tribes." Of course within tribes, there are plenty of loving relationships, and "intimate bonds of vulnerability, trust and compassion." So it isn't either/or in my view.
A fair number of people are genuinely interested in, and empathetic towards, tribes that aren't their own. But those people seldom aspire to grasp the levers of power. By my reading of history, 'twas ever thus.
4
Good column, David. It's thought-provoking. You may be right that the rise of these super-hero stories right now deserves the label "a fourth Great Awakening."
I'm inclined to think Jerusalem has spawned its own myths. A religious studies professor I know says all of the great religions entail myths and these myths are more true than what we take as normal reality.
1
Maybe this rise of the myth (competitive) at the expense of the parable (relationships) explains why so many young people are depressed and angry. Superheroes are rare; most of us are ordinary humans, longing for more and better relationships.
6
This is interesting and thought-provoking. I am reminded of HBO's Westworld where now one of the main characters actually thinks he can choose a different (artificial, mythic) reality to be his true reality. But he is challenged on a very deep level.
2
Republicans have been the party of myth for some time now. The Silent Majority, awakening after years of abuse by the elites, was mythic. The South has always been a region of myth (the happy darkies, the glorious lost cause) and when Democrats abandoned these myths, Republicans pounced.
Reagan was a mythmaker. All we had to do was believe, believe in voodoo economics, believe that what we needed was to believe in and reaffirm our traditional ideals rather than carefully examine why they had failed and how to fix them.
Democrats used to have the myth of the common man, standing up to the bosses and forming unions. It was a watered-down and defanged version of the class struggle myth that was Communism's main selling pitch.
The Civil Rights movement was much less mythic; defeating racism was much more an inner struggle. The counterculture was at heart a rejection of the truth or worth of traditional American myths; it too was an inner struggle.
Democrats do not have mythic struggles. Their enemies are racism, sexism, and so on, and the people who embody these bad things are to be cleansed and made right in thought and practice, not defeated.
Unfortunately, we are in a mythic age. The parable for our time is the Emperor's New Clothes, and the little boy who speaks the truth has all the efficacy of Cassandra, and is undoubtedly taken out behind the woodshed to have some manners beaten into him. The vandals have taken the handles, and everything is broken.
52
"Jerusalem — think of Moses or Jesus — stands for the cooperative virtues: humility, love, faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, answering a harsh word with a gentle response."
Jesus may stand for these things, but I'm not sure you can say that Moses does. For example, until I started going to synagogue to say kaddish for my father, I didn't know that after the incident with the golden calf, Moses had all of those who participated in worshiping it killed. There is also a portion of the bible where David is compared favorably to Saul with the line: "Saul slew thousands, David tens of thousands."
So this comparison does not hold water. Had you contrasted Athens with India, however, you would have been right on target. And that tradition of non-violence has continued into recent times with figures such as Gandhi and Krishnamurti, the former of course being perhaps the primary inspiration for Martin Luther King.
15
My first thought was about the extent to which David’s clickbait title was intended to conjure images of the five mass extinction events affecting life on Earth it is said the planet has experienced. Turns out it’s in part about Jerusalem, about which I think not so much of humility and love but about division and war; and Athens, about which I think less of strength and toughness and more of violent public-sector union strikes.
About one-thousand words into this column we discover that “The Fourth Great Awakening” is a mythic one. I constantly complain that Trump has zero skills at presenting context for his decisions and even for his convictions, but David presents us with the opposite: King John was said to have died from a surfeit of peaches, but those of us who follow David might be said to die regularly from a surfeit of context.
I have no burning need to better understand this yearning today for mythos as incarnated by a Thor, an Iron Man or a hyper-hot Scarlett Johansson. I think I already have a pretty good bead on it: the problems we face today, just about everywhere on Earth, are so basic and seemingly so insoluble by mere mortal art or brute capacity that we yearn for the super-powers truly necessary to bring order to Life, the Universe and Everything. It doesn’t seem that mysterious to me.
18
"King John was said to have died from a surfeit of peaches, but those of us who follow David might be said to die regularly from a surfeit of context."
Perfect.
1
"It doesn’t seem that mysterious to me."
If you don't recognize and live in the mystery of Being -- Life, the Universe and Everything -- then you are, like Donald Trump, a case of arrested development, stuck at a stage where you belive everything you think and lack, despite all the words, imagination, living in a world of only mirrors.
Condolences on that defect.
TS:
Condolences on Fort Lauderdale. Talk about arrested development!
Self-awareness--specifically, the awareness of our own mortality--has made humans a very nervous bunch. Religion once provided reassurance and ritual fed our need for solace in the face of cruel reality. Along came critical thinking and democratic ideas and religion lost its sway. But we still need our Promethean myths to stir the soul and let us pretend if even for only a little while that we can be heroic and defy the odds, too. We turn (or return) to heroic myths when we feel powerless in the face of intractable, relentless, unwelcome challenges. It's no coincidence that super hero comic book sales increased markedly during World War II. We're not "competing" with evil, Mr. Brooks, we're trying to vanquish it.
6
This is the story of Donald the Scorpion who was bored and wanted to entertain himself.
It seemed like a good idea to cross the river and see what was on the other side. But, since Donald the Scorpion couldn’t swim, he spotted a dumb frog he could con out of his life.
Donald the Scorpion approach him and offered him a dumb deal:
“Frog, you look incredible today … can I ask you a favor? ”
“Thank you, Scorpion. What do you want? ”
“I’m dying of boredom here. I want to go to the other side of the river. It looks like fun, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about the people over there....incredible people.”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Mr. Scorpion? How do I know you’re not going to sting me?"
“What?" said the Scorpion."I’m not stupid? If I sting you, we’ll both drown !!”
Convinced by the Art of the Con, the frog decided to carry the scorpion across the river on his back.
The Scorpion jumped on the back of the frog, off to the other side of the river.
Just to reassure, the friendly frog insisted: “You promise not to sting me, right?”
“We’ll both die, I told you,” replied the Scorpion.
Their little ferry ride was going fine until, right in the middle, the frog suddenly felt a pain and began to feel weak and felt himself begin to sink to the bottom – the scorpion had stung him and injected his venom.
While he was drowning, the frog cried: “But why? ”
“It’s my nature,” replied the Donald the Scorpion.
The Scorpion-In-Chief is enjoying himself as he destroys America.
351
@Socrates -- it's not the trusting but clueless frog that the scorpion-in-chief deceived, it's the Republican Party who believed him when he said that the grass was greener on the other side of the river. He literally took the GOP for a ride and now they're drowning in the scorpion's venom.
3
You’ve captured the essence of the man!
"They tend to see the line between good and evil as running between groups, not, as in parable, down the middle of every human heart." This is really the operative language in the piece. I do not agree threat the two models are cyclical. I think the parable model represents the next great forward lurch of the human race. Jesus saw it coming, as did many others. In his day, the idea that evil runs down the middle of every human heart was a dangerous thought to express (although it's as Jewish as it can be, and Jesus was born, raised, and died a Jewish man). Eventually we will reach critical mass and the "parable" paradigm will be the norm. Trump is a bump in the road...but what a nasty bump.
7
Recent studies have shown that the US has the WORST upward mobility. If you are born poor now in the US, you will be -- poor as an adult. $2,000,000,000,000 to the ultra rich, and now plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid by Brook's party. "Look, I can fly!", and "We're so diverse!" Its a great feeling that we're all broke now. I wan to sing kumbaya.
14
Sports, Marvel movies and video games? Those are pretty male-oriented mythologies (MCU less than the other two for sure, but still). Why are the conclusions drawn here then so universal - as reflective of our society's orientation as a whole? It's not to say that there isn't something interesting to be said about the popularity of all three, but doing so without more than a passing reference to gender tells a very incomplete story.
30
"...but doing so without more than a passing reference to gender tells a very incomplete story."
Actually, I think that lack IS the story of our times. Men are losing their dominance in society, their ability to exert absolute control over others, specifically women and their generally more cooperative ways.
I don't think it's that big a mystery that in the rising age of female-style cooperation as the new model for society, male-oriented mythologies are dominating the entertainment sphere, especially since the ultimate male-oriented mythology, Christianity, is finally losing its stranglehold over society. Men, white heterosexual men especially, have lost absolute control over the narrative. Once control of the narrative was lost, it was only a matter of time before control was lost over women, people of color they've always used as labor and scapegoats, and gays that for some unfathomable reason really freak them out.
No wonder they're escaping into male-oriented superhero fantasy worlds where they can once again dominate. Their collective obsession, as well as their real world temper tantrum in embracing Trump and his burn-it-all-down ways, is near impossible to escape while it currently dominates and saturates the landscape. It's a good example of Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message": the media dominance of male-oriented mythology in the rising age of female-oriented society.
Well observed, Alice. No surprise that he finds mostly men immersing themselves in comparative superhero discourse. And the avatars of Brooks' parable ethos (Jesus, Moses) are also male.
Brooks' look-back to Athens/Jerusalem antiquity leaves out Jerusalem's penchant for foe-smiting, and under special rules, no less. Along with Athens' penchant for exploring interior moral struggle in drama, comedy and oracular form, from playwrights whose everyman-writ-large characters still inspire.
Oversimplification. False dichotomy. Maybe it's a guy thing.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Earlier this American was hoping to find a message to your readership delivered on the swift feet of Hermes. One has to be careful these days what one wishes of the ancient gods hiding in our forests, while only the Fates know of the outcome of Life within, and without.
Your essay brought to mind the writings of Joseph Campbell and his interview with Bill Moyers on the importance of heroes and myths in our cultures. True, I left the two gentlemen early last evening, to debate their favorite clips of Star Wars; one in a bar brawl; the other in a large expanse of trash cans.
We may be spiritual creatures but have developed feet of clay in trying to keep up with the pace of the times we are living. With the furor of Mother Nature and modern technology, our hearing is coarser, and fewer of us remember that it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye, as relayed by a fox to a young visitor.
It is the quiet heroism of some forgotten authors that remain timeless and inspirational for this reader. They are detached voyagers on this life journey and curious business of living; and their extraordinary sense of perception and subtlety make their political views and observations reach beyond the heart, and touch the soul.
Our social fabric has been torn; Hercules is on fire, unable to remove his poisoned shirt; and the Argonauts among us are becoming rarer by the day.
May the Force be with you.
11
A lot of centuries have passed since the question of Athens vs. Jerusalem was first broached by the church fathers.
We have learned a great deal since then.
Instead of making superficial (and in this case, incorrect) dichotomies, why can't we ask what Athens has to offer to Jerusalem and what Jerusalem has to offer to Athens?
Honestly, the writers of the Homeric poems and the biblical writings saw both more clearly and more deeply than we do. Why can't we learn from them?
6
It appears to us that the epic writers of the Iron Age "saw both more clear and more deeply than we do." But that's simply because they came before us and shaped our expectations, vocabulary and images. Had you grown up reading "The Dream of the Red Chamber," you probably would think Homer clumsy and most of the Bible as nothing but religiously chauvinistic nonsense.
1
Another thoroughly enjoyable piece in the NYT. Thank you Mr Brooks. I must admit though, that the representation of Athens as the baddie in this dichotomy surprised me. In my classic early education, back in Italy, Athens was represented much more positively as the rational, enlightened, creative nature (think Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Euripides), while Sparta represented austere, regimented, militaristic force. As we know it was Athens that prevailed in the end and bequeathed humanity a rich legacy. That narrative gives one hope in these confusing times.
33
Have you read the Old Testament? It is about war, revenge, and ultimate obedience and worship of a single god or risk death, enslavement, plagues. The Mosaic god is not merciful. Brooks you are too superficial to work for the NYT.
290
I don't understand the relevance of your question, nor how you came to your conclusion.
Brooks is making a comment on moral narrative structures and the impact they have on our societies. He uses useful and well-chosen examples to illustrate his points. Parts of the Old and New Testaments contain mythic narrative, but essential parts of both are parables about compassion and mercy and faith exactly as described in the op-ed. It's not all-or-nothing...
3
It might help you to read the New Testament, more particularly the four Gospels, and quite specifically The Sermon on the Mount. In the book of John we find the sentiment "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," this in OPPOSITION to the dark strictures of the Old Testament, particularly Leviticus. And in the Sermon on the Mount, we find the beatitudes (blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, etc.) and the admonition to "judge not lest you also be judged."
That would be why it is called the New Testament, and the Gospel the Good News. The fact that some calling themselves Christians ignore this distinction in their fear and anger does not mean that there is not such a distinction.
Whatever you may or may not believe about the divinity of the man Jesus, the record of his life on earth suggests that he spoke in parables that were mostly about reconciliation and forgiveness, and ultimately, about community.
As a long-time reader of David Brooks, I am quite sure he has read the Old Testament in toto. Might I ask if you have read the New?
Your closing sentence suggesting that David Brooks is superficial is a casual insult, worthy of someone like Donald Trump. Whether Brooks gets it right all the time is its own question, but I have never, ever, once doubted the depth or sincerity of this thinking. Could you demonstrate at the least some respect for his effort and intentions? Or are you more concerned with scoring points on your personal leaderboard?
Sometimes NYT readers are too hard on David Brooks. As a progressive, I found this column thoughtful and insightful. It provided a new way of looking at our world, something all progressives should appreciate
1
If "our politics and our society are coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around," Donald Trump can surely take much of the credit, especially since he interprets the struggles in society only in terms of strenghth and weakness and never in terms of right and wrong. His conduct mediates none of "the compassionate virtues" or any of the virtues that have made America great until he began residing in the White House.
23
Correction: ...or any of the virtues that have made America great WHEN he began residing in the White House.
Tell it to your fundamentalist cousins who think earth has only 6,000 years of history.
Fundamentalism doesn't confine to one religion of course. Lorena Enebral Perez, a physiotherapist working for the Red Cross in Afghanistan, was killed by a polio patient. The man could recite the Koran but did nothing of its meaning.
The Bible has a lot of parables. A lot of meaning to behold. Eric Hoffer was able to distill and decipher its meaning. So was Martin Buber.
Yet, the fundamentalists of all faiths, like The Constitution literalists, could not grasp the essential meanings. They did not understand the twilight language is more an internal struggle. The Jihad, the crusade, the pilgrimage. Instead of internalizing them, they blindly follow the rituals.
The late Joseph Campbell wrote of the hero of a thousand faces. Many decades later, we have people who literally want to bring about the end of the world.
This is scary stuff when you know you learn better by reading comic books than by allowing the fundamentalists to dominate the school committees or Betsy DeVos being the Sec of Education
154
Religion is superstitious foolishness. It is an emotional crutch. It is for people who are afraid to live and are afraid to die. Keeping the masses scared is a great way to control them. It is a great way to start wars and to enrich the military industrial complex.
@Rick
you are confusing religion and cult. True, there is a lot of cultishness in organized religion; but it can also be sublime.
People like Pascal, Merton and Pierre Chardin are many times smarter than an average individual but yet they ended up surrendering their ego to the greater spirit.
Sadly, there are also many smart people ending up with cults like Nxivm.
Not sure what you have in mind when you say religion aligning with the military-industrial complex because this seems to be muddled thinking. I certainly don't consider saber rattling or prosperity preaching outfits genuine religion. Waging wars in the name of Allah or Jesus is not genuine religion to me
I'm thinking about the fictional characters of my 70s and 80s youth. It seems like back then we sat in front of the tube watching ordinary people living regular lives, having improbable situations and blurting out funny lines. If there were a socio-political angle to it, there was nothing that suggested an apocalyptic battle of good and evil. Neither Ozzie & Harriet nor Mary Tyler Moore seemed to be engaged in a final battle of light against darkness, whatever lifestyle they were promoting.
Even when the supernatural was involved, spreading goodness wasn't about vanquishing evil before it engulfed the planet. Most of the time, Superman and Wonder Woman were stopping common criminals and helping people in distress, not thwarting the zombie Apocalypse. So too were the cops. They were looking for murderers and robbers, rarely serial killers, terror cells, and agents with H-bombs in the middle of a city.
And yet, there was plenty of talk about good and evil, moral dilemmas and choices, and people who had to decide how to do what was right. Something was different when it was a cop against a robber or a sitcom character facing a personal moral dilemma. Something was more personal but less exciting compared with today when it's cops versus terrorists about to destroy the whole country or supernatural characters saving light from darkness. It's more exciting, more inspiring, but less a part of the real world. And yes, less a metaphor for politics and real, everyday decisions.
5
You've forgotten the daring political commentary of "All in the Family"?
1
Soccer is a team sport; the clause that describes Messi and Ronaldo is a myth and the truth is a lot more complicated.
7
I have read Mr Brooks' column for some time, and it almost appears as though he is vainly trying to construct a rationale for why so many good trends are perceived by so many to be the opposite.
Over the last 50 years in America, and the rest of the western world, the liberal democratic model of government has seen progress in so many areas. From civil rights to women's rights to gay and lesbian rights, the laws reflecting society's long term attitudinal change have become far more enlightened.
And this social progress has not come at the expense of the economy. Rather it has enhanced economic growth. Since the 1970s the world economy, of which America is the primary architect, has proved remarkably resilient against periodic downturns. During Obama's term in office both the US and Europe and Asia-Pacific rebounded quite strongly from the 2008 financial crisis.
Globalisation has lifted millions out of poverty, made previously unattainable goods affordable, increased our general standard of living.
How can the response to all of these encouraging trends be Trump ? That does take some figuring out.
86
If you haven't visited the U.S., please come and see for yourself. We are in the midst of ignorance you wouldn't believe unless you saw it with your own eyes. We live it everyday and it is sobering to say the least. The love for fantasy (marvel movies, gamers, fox news, comic con conventions, Disneyland and like theme parks) has it's enthralled grip on a dumbed down and discontented screen addicted society. It is a society in the epidemy of decline and I am sorry to say it is all around us.
It leads to Trump because people in economically advanced nations once had almost all the resources and advantages and now see that, comparatively, they have fewer, and they resent that transfer, aiming their anger at those they perceive have gotten some of those resources at their expense.
There's both an international and a national element to this; those who have comparatively lost the most are the most resentful, and they resent not only people in other countries rising from poverty and desiring more than a subsistence life, but those in their own countries who were successful at resources hoarding.
The average working/middle class person in a "rich" nation has done worse over the last 50 years; channel the anger at that loss towards those who you think are doing "better", and you get xenophobia, racism . . .and Trump. (And Orban. And Putin. And La Pen.)
1
Athens: the cradle of reason, science and mathematics. Jerusalem: Frozen by a succession of magical belief systems. The great divide now is more the difference between Las Vegas and Princeton. Alas, we are not spiritual animals but befuddled and superstitious down to our DNA.
140
It's true that the line between good and evil runs down the middle of every human heart. We have befuddlement and superstitiousness within us, and much worse, but we also have the better qualities. The choice is ours.
9
Richard Swanson in 43 words got to the heart of what divides the nation better than many long op-eds. He pared down Richard Hofstadter's essays on the authoritarian far right paranoid anti-intellectual component in American history and Kurt Anderson's book that expands upon Hofstadter, Fantasyland, in a most incisive, concise manner. (even if Mr. Swanson has not read those earlier writings) Bravo, sir!
6
Richard,
You wrote, "...we are not spiritual animals but befuddled and superstitious..."
I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that those two states are not one and the same. There are many questions for which there is no answer, yet we need something to fill in the gaps left by our 'higher powers'. So because of our intelligence we become spiritual. Animals don't need spirituality because it would never occur to a cow or crow to wonder about the things that humans wonder about.
You guys thaw out yet up there?
We’ve been living in a mythical world for a long time.
Currently, a tawny-headed beast occupies the seat of power. He’s a dinosaur from an earlier time, a Terribleus Backsideus, or, in popular parlance, T-Rump. He was spawned by an unholy marriage of Ignorance and Greed, and slouched toward Washington, D.C. to be born, where he was incubated by a host of Deplorables, confused beings who fed him their souls in return for empty promises.
His vacant expression and says much about what is going on inside his skull: it is cavernous and unfurnished. Something drips. There’s an echo.
He feels neither joy, pleasure, nor remorse. His days are spent looking in a mirror that reflects his ego and magnifies it to monumental proportions. There is no room in the mirror for anything else.
He is surrounded by minions who do his bidding. Dredged from the swamp of his birth, they must please him, or they are banished forever. Some are shriveled, wizened imps who enforce the Laws; some, of the smoky-eyed kind, explain his edicts, which are unintelligible to human ears, and make no more sense explained than unexplained.
Even though his power is great, it is ephemeral. He is held up only by the belief of the Deplorables. One day soon that belief may be overwhelmed by the Dems, an unruly tribe who, if they can work together, may break the spell that keeps him aloft.
They’re a fickle and testy bunch. But the stakes are high, and they are the only glimmer of hope.
629
The Dems are not the only glimmer of hope. There also lurks in the shadows a valiant knight known as Mueller.
1
Gemli, you may think that the election of Trump was the worst thing to ever happen to you. But really I think his departure from office would be the worst thing to ever happen to you.
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Made my day.
2
“...life as a competition between warring tribes.” Mr. Brooks, we have arrived at that juncture. It’s not pretty. We witnessed it with Brexit and “the competition between warring tribes” has brought America to a standstill.
The United States, under Donald Trump, is a decadent relic of Athens. Under Barack Obama, we were leaning toward Jerusalem with his affinity for the contemplative and humility, for relationships built upon trust; a faith-based society without the phony trappings of the empty moralism that informs the evangelical “Christian” militia—truly an army that competes with the hard secularism of our present state of affairs.
Where, now, is the heroic quest? It always results in epic failure in spite of the nobility of its intended purpose. At the last, Frodo could not renounce that which he bore for so long. King Arthur unknowingly (upon his half-sister Morgawse) fathered Mordred, who would usher in the final days of Camelot.
We have, in America, a would-be Achilles who thirsts to drag his opponents’ corpses before the walls of Troy, taunting his enemies. But Donald Trump is no Achilles. The home we now have is leagues upon leagues beyond our national reach.
We used first Moses and, later, Jesus, to fill the spaces in our national mythology, even when the purpose was evil (slavery). We then turned, half-heartedly to civility until it contradicted the myth upon which our national narrative is constructed.
We have become “the warring tribe.”
71
Perhaps I can offer a little dose of reality.
If one is walking down the street and sees someone in dire need of help, then almost all of us would offer a helping hand. In fact it is required by law to do so. (at least call 911) This is our core nature and it is not a myth. We have ingrained it into law.
Now (and this is where it gets tricky), what do we do when the above is in slow motion ? What do we do if the distress is obvious (like a child separated from their mother that is wailing to be reunited), but not life threatening ? There is no 911 to call.
Now what if the government is doing it...
251
Nope, the requirement to help someone is a law in only 10 states. So, while it may be a law where you live, it's just not the American way. Unlike the rest of the developed world, sadly.
"In the United States, as of 2009 ten states had laws on the books requiring that people at least notify law enforcement of and/or seek aid for strangers in peril under certain conditions: California, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin."
"Many civil law systems, which are common in Continental Europe, Latin America and much of Africa, impose a far more extensive duty to rescue.[3] The duty is usually limited to doing what is “reasonable”. In particular, a helper must not endanger their own life or that of others...This can mean that anyone who finds someone in need of medical help must take all reasonable steps to seek medical care and render best-effort first aid."
Aren't we "exceptional"?
2
Your "dose of reality" is ironically a thought experiment.
Yes, it is human nature to help.
No, the law does not require it.
No one thinks 6 billion people can live the American dream. No American would choose to live in a village run by teenaged drug lords.
We obsess about these children because it's something we can grasp emotionally and pin on Trump. But in reality we kill more children every day as a result of any number of recent policy changes.
So exactly what good are thought experiments?
@Wes
I suppose we could just do away with the 1st Amendment and not allow free speech next. How about doing away with the pesky 4th estate as well ?
I can play the little game as well friend.
Mr. Brooks' provides an interesting historical/cultural comparison, and in the gradual and oft times stately march of progress, the optimists alway believed that the human race was infinitely perfectible, and that we, especially those of us fortunate to be living in America, would set the pace, lead the way, provide a helping hand for those less fortunate, not only in other countries, but especially here at home. So how did it happen that with all of our cultural and historical knowledge, background, and sensitivity that the barbarians have taken control, and they are marching us to a new dark age at such an important cultural inflection point in our history and at such a rapid pace?
287
@James
I can offer a simple answer, if I may. Whenever Democrats have control of the government (even if it is vast majorities) then republicans bring it to a standstill through the filibuster or even shutting down the government altogether.
Whenever republicans are in control of the government (especially all three branches) and they have achieved so by 50%+1 (or 77k votes over 3 states in the electoral college) then, they govern by dictate, fiat or a take it or leave it approach. There are no checks and balances.
Now we have the government actually taking babies and kids as hostages to further an agenda of that take it or leave it stance in relation to immigration. (even breaking international law in the process in regards to refugees)
So here we are in between the 2 years prescribed by the Constitution (to be the electorate's check on government) and at the mercy of this President/administration
Time to get up off our duffs and do something about it.
366
Barbarians is an apt word. We all know about the horizontal barbarians. They crossed the Rhine or the Alps, the Atlantic or Pacific to pillage and destroy. In the 20th century they went at it with a scale and ferocity unequaled in history. They didn't call themselves barbarians, of course. They were called Fascists or Communists or Nazis, but whatever their name was, their nature was barbarous.
These modern barbarians whose horizontal invasions we remember were armed, not only with tanks and guns, but with philosophies of race or history or economics, what Karl Barth described as "disguised religions". These disguised religions attach society and culture by lazy thinking, indifference to values, by spiritual and political lethargy. The freedoms men and women fought and died to preserve are handed away with no appreciation of their worth or care for their preservation.
The Spanish philosopher, Ortega Y Gasset, recognized the nature of this attack on culture and civilization. In a wonderful sentence he speaks of the invasion of the vertical barbarians. Their attack does not cross over, but comes down or rises up. It doesn't come from without, but comes from within. We've always had this element in our society. What alarms us today is this attack on our culture and values is being made by those who have been the traditional defenders of it, a White House and administration callous of the values we as a nation hold dear.
5
How did it happen that there are so many willing followers? And not just those who feel slighted or forgotten?
2
If people did not feel utterly powerless, these films would not have such an appeal or be so endemic. All I see though are hordes spending their lives in movie theaters, living vicariously through marketing devices cleverly disguised as heroes and then squinting back into the sunlight absolutely untransformed - except now they're also hungry. These ersatz experiences do not translate at all into action or inspiration, in fact, their purpose is to rob people of their agency for positive action in the world and exhaust them uselessly on their onscreen avatars. Marvel, et al, is the opium of the people and the powers that be could not have asked for a more useful or artful ally.
242
How do these movies differ fundamentally from 1930s westerns?
The Marvel films, especially Avengers Infinity War is based very closely upon a 45 year old comic book. Did our society suddenly change in such a short period?
No, our technology changed, permitting us to more vividly depict the comic book now, and we had a ten year story arc bringing it together.
These movies are endemic because they are profitable, in an era where we have a vast and almost endless variety of entertainment options.
Capitalism at work.
I find these movies do keep my dreams alive; my actual compatriots are the real de-motivators. And I find it heartening that so many movie-goers want to see honor and fraternity trump power and organizations.
Do you have an alternative way to inspire a few million people this weekend?
One profound way in which these movies differ from 1930's westerns is that the heroes back then were ordinary men and women who were able to triumph based only on personal bravery, knowing their cause was just, and by their wits, not super powers or a limitless fortune . Anyone watching today's heroes would feel crippled by their own lack of super-abilities and assume that without them, they are incapable of effecting change.
interesting comparison of Athens and Jerusalem. Far from the accepted versions, of course.
Usually Athens is reason and Jerusalem is revelation. Good for Judaism and Christianity
This is a far cry from Achilles on one hand and parables on the other. In fact, biblical parables have deep roots in the wisdom literature of the ancient Near east and especially Egypt (e.g. Proverbs and Egyptian wisdom literature).
As for: "We’re spiritual creatures; our lives are shaped by the moral landscapes and ideals we inherit and absorb. I’d say our politics and our society are coming to resemble the competitive mythic ethos that is suddenly all around."
What this has to do with Athens and Jerusalem is beyond me (but then I have seen none of those movies, don't play video games and participate in some sports to stay healthy, but don't really follow them). Not my Athens and certainly not my Jerusalem.
123
all history is athenian no matter where you look.
Athens is characterized by its eponymous deity, Athena -- the Goddess of Wisdom. In its literature and philosophy Athens stands for a culture which embraces the idea of the Whole person and the cultivation of mind, body, and soul. It's interesting to note that both cities suffered utter defeat several times, most notably, in the end, by the Romans. They sacked Athens, but did not destroy it. Jerusalem, of course, they razed to the ground.
Very astute analysis. Athens as representing the virile competitive values, while Jerusalem represents the feminine values.
The problem though is that Brooks ignores or fails to recognize that historically Jerusalem always crawls under the protective embrace of Athens.
Ergo, the Pharisees of Jesus' day were happy to show obsequy to Herod and Pilate, Rome's lackies.
The Jewish Talmud praises Alexander the Great and to this day Alexander is one of the few non-Hebrew names used by Orthodox Jews to name their sons!
Today's evangelicals are replicating the same craven pattern vis a vis Trump.
The compassion of Jerusalem is offered largely to the virile protectors of Athens. And to no one else.
Why do so many men have such a desire to live in a fantasy world is what I'd like to know. As young boys we all wanted to be the superhero, the conqueror of enemies, the maker of gaming winning heroics. I would hope that would end at late adolescence or young adulthood, but here we are obsessed with myths and possessing a questionable ability to recognize truth from fiction and being lead by an unscrupulous individual who is living his fantasy dream. When will he wake up? I feel we are the ones who have eaten the poisonous apple or had a spell cast on us, be we are the ones who are awake. No you have me talking in fairy tales.
59
Mr. Kunz,
I suggest that we live in a fantasy world and we are not awake because we cannot bear to look directly at what we, as a species, are doing to our world. So instead of having a realistic future to look forward to, we are manufacturing a dream in order to avoid a vision of the terrible times that are inexorably unfolding for us all.
1
Testosterone, maybe?
Only at the end of this otherwise insightful essay does Mr. Brooks suggest one of the key differences between these two outlooks. Heroic myths, he notes, conceive of life as a struggle between good and evil, with each represented by different groups or tribes. Jerusalem, with its emphasis on the cooperative virtues, envisions life as a battle between the same forces, but both reside in each of us. We strive to conquer our own selfishness and indifference to the welfare of others.
In the great myths, the hero's adversary generally lacks any redeeming qualities, as one would expect of a creature embodying evil. (Although sometimes the hero, himself, provides a poor model for virtue; think of Jason of Argonaut fame.) Thus, the hero must destroy the adversary, because one cannot compromise with evil.
The alternative worldview does not present us with such a stark choice, because the 'enemy' we seek to master lives within us. This recognition of our own shortcomings encourages us to understand the complex nature of other people, to see them as individuals worthy of our friendship and help.
A democracy can thrive only in an environment in which the Jerusalem outlook predominates. If we imagine political contests as a struggle between good and evil, then we will spurn the need for compromise. We will prefer total defeat to the kind of partial victory possible in a free society.
Democrats, as well as Republicans, would do well to remember this.
99
I take issue with this assertion:
"In the great myths, the hero's adversary generally lacks any redeeming qualities."
In fact, in the Iliad, Homer at length portrays noble aspect of the Trojans, and less than admirable traits of the Achaeans, the victors and the ostensible heroes of the story. This is part of what makes the Iliad so enduring--it is not just a super-hero tale.
I guess it is hard to simplify great complexities to a 750 word op-ed or even shorter comments on them.
"[T]he 'enemy' we seek to master lives within us."
Excellent point to ponder.
While Brooks exposition of myth and parable is useful and interesting, it essentially ignores the fundamental question: it is not what is occurring these days but why is it occurring. In order to improve things, we must deal with the less-than definitive realities of what is human nature, how people behave in groups, and what may be essentially genetically coded "values." Too much of the energy objecting to the degeneration of our sociopolitical reality, to the mythologizing of daily life (to paraphrase, I think, Brooks) is spent documenting what is occurring, as well as the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. For the most part this only leads to bumpersticker "analyses" and "solutions."
If we really want to make progress, to make useful change where parable becomes more common than myth, we need to spend less energy engaging in moral posturing and more in figuring out why "the others" profess and act the way they do. Minds need to be changed, and we will only develop the understanding and credibility necessary to change "their minds" if we listen to what "they" have to say, thus giving "them" an opportunity to believe they might change "our minds."
It is far too easy to simply dismiss others. Essentially, it is the lazy way out, allowing one to feel smugly superior without having to get down and dirty, fighting in the trenches as it were, to make things incrementally better. After all, it is so much easier to fail at perfection than to succeed at improvement.
58
I agree with the frustration of too much identifying of the problems and not enough struggling with the "why" and "how to fix it." But, I've spent over two years trying hard to listen to those on the Right and reading a lot of books and articles about and by them, and I am still where I was two years ago. Actually, where I was 30 years ago when I looked around and decided the way to distinguish a Democrat from a Republican was to ask the answer to the biblical question "Am I my brother's keeper?" Most liberals say "of course" and most conservatives say "of course not." I do not know how to change someone's core sense of whether or not we have a larger responsibility to one another. You believe it or you don't.
2
Well said and something we need to hear.
After trying to understand my husband's family-all staunch Trump supporters and members of a fundamental religion, this is what I believe is the core of our differences.
They believe hard work is the most virtuous behavior. They all work hard, but seem a little wary of having fun just for the joy of it. There is love for the family, church and those in the community like them. Incidentally, wealth is viewed as virtuous because you worked hard. Being poor is associated with shame for not working hard enough,now or in the past. Their religion is based on Thou Shall and Shall nots" It is about judging "bad" behavior so you can be good. In order to be a good person you must identify a bad one. Leaders of the church help in identifying where bad behavior is often found. Empathy seems associated with leading to squishy morals.
In contrast, I went to religious schools during a very open 60s and 70s. Our particular teachers at that time, taught through parable. The Good Samaritan, "Judge not lest ye be judged", "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me," were explained as the core beliefs to live your life by.
How we view those without healthcare, immigrants and so much more seems to be based on these core value differences taught to us when young.
Do we need both? When, where, how?
2
To Mbhebert and Ms, thanks very much for adding to the conversation.
Mbhebert, I have found that the best way to understand the "why" is to travel around the country at ground level, hitching,driving, Amtrak, whatever, talking to people at first about anything but politics, especially not about national politics. A little conversation after telling the clerk in Walmart to catch her breath as she's not paid enough to rush, talking with train attendants about the absurdity of making passenger trains wait for coal trains, asking truck drivers who rescue you from hanging your thumb in the sun about their lives on the road not only gives me a sense of what people out there actually feel and think but also establishes a bit of credibility to then speak with them about political issues.
Ms, I very much appreciate your recognition of nuance, your resistance to reducing people to simplistic stereotypes. You have framed things less abstractly and, thus, more usefully, than I did. Therein lies the only way to change minds and make progress, though it is necessary at times to draw lines and accept that some people really are beyond the pale.
You fail to mention the most obvious contrast. Myths of heroism and moral absolutes are an easier sell. They can be reduced easily to entertainment. Comparing videogames & professional sports to myth is a bit like comparing fast food to food, or Google to knowledge. What defines America today is that the meanings & morality that were questioned and complicated in literature are eliminated, and the remaining manipulation sold as entertainment.
102
I don't fully buy this distinction between myth and parable. Many Sufi and mystical Christian stories sound more like myths as Brooks describes than parables, and both forms are more essentially about virtues and truth-seeking.
I think Joseph Campbell nailed it when he said one of the fundamental problems with the monotheistic religions is that the myths have not been updated to keep with the times. If parables are meant to be relatable, then they need to be alive in a narrative tradition that keeps them current with language and culture. With too many monotheistic literal readings of the Bible, the Bible becomes meaningless.
The attraction to myth has always been there, but it's now been monetized by capitalism. When there is not a lot of virtue in human relating, we'll turn to whatever gives it to us... these days, stripped down cartoon versions of myths that appeal to our fantasy lives more than our true selves.
196
Mr. Brooks is only referencing the hero myth, when he speaks of myths. The Christ myth is a perfect example of the hero myth, as Joseph Campbell describes it.
The greatest problem with monotheistic religions is that they don't treat their myths as myths--many believers act as though revelation is not mediated. They treat their myths as literally 'true'.
When truth is given a capital "T", we hold it not only closely, but tightly, and fight to the death to defend it. What is meant to be descriptive of our experience of life becomes prescriptive. Without nuance and context, it becomes fuel for tyranny.
1
Christian parables are timeless, as are moral fables such as Aesop and Hans Christian Anderson. The details are superficial and don't even need to be realistic to get the message across. I sincerely hope that kids and adults are not so dumbed down today that they can't see through the superficials to understand the essense.
This assumes that there is a fight for equilibrium between myth and parable. I may be in some small minority of those inspired, but to me and I believe most people, myths are about conflict and parables are about conflict avoidance. I enjoy Marvelesque entertainment and mythic heroes such as Achilles because I need to believe, as the group Steppenwolf put it in their song "None of Your Doing," that "all is well, they always catch the thief." Parables are not about heroes and villains; they're more about the wisdom of not being a thief.
55
"myths are about conflict and parables are about conflict avoidance"
I think both forms are about conflict resolution; internal as well as external conflict, and the two very different paths of each one. Wisdom could be said to know which path to take when, and to be skilled at traveling both.
As usual David Brooks fails to acknowledge a world beyond Athens and Jerusalem. He looks at the world with one eye closed. He thinks the entirely world is the west and that east never existed not informed the west. He thrives in ignorance because ignorance is bliss. He tries to inform his readers with half baked knowledge and experience, viewed through a very narrow prism. Thank goodness phew our children today are more global and better informed than David Brooks. Every 6th or 7th human being on the planet is either Chinese or Indian none of whom descends from Athens or Jerusalem. We are all so grateful for that, the universities of higher education are flush and overflowing with these brilliant students of Asian eastern descent, in every field of knowledge.
104
You fail to recognize that the fundamental archetypes Mr. Brooks, being a Westerner, has found in "Western" mythologies and parables are universal and found in every culture throughout the millennia. His column would resonate quite well with people in Beijing or Mumbai.
1
I'm glad I grew up in Hawaii in the 60s--and received an education in WORLD civilization instead of Western civilization. Living in Hawaii doubled global awareness decades prior to the internet and made me a better, more enlightened individual.
1
And will someone please tell David that Achilles has no association with Athens. Achilles was born in Thlia, raised on the island of Skyros and died at Troy. So says Homer. Never set foot in Athens.
2
David needs to review his Greek. The word myth simply means story. What Brooks describes as vengeance/competition narratives are fantasy, a form of myth. Parable is also myth in that it is a novel story. The whole point of myth is to serve as a transferable pattern that carries a moral implication for the hearer that leads to a change in either his behavior or thinking, or both.
The difference Brooks is trying to make is between the competitive and the unifying myths. One separates based on tribalism, while the other unifies based on shared humanity. For the last 40-years, beginning with Reagan, the Republican myth has been all about tribalism and tends to competitive separation. The Democratic myth is about connection and inclusion, i.e., a government of, by, and for the people. The Republican narrative has to do with the accumulation of capital, hence power. The Democratic narrative is about human compassion and opportunity. One tends to schism. One tends to nurturing connection. Take your pick.
260
Yes, everything...absolutely everything....must begin and end with partisan politics. Got it.
I think this analysis hits the target. The so called Liberals and so called conservatives would have been labels for this dichotomy as close to myths and parables.
As individuals we are a mix and mix up between and among these stories. Sometimes more one than the other.
What is David Brooks actually trying to do here?
He’s implying that ancient Greeks (Aristotle? Sophocles?) would have loved loved loved video games because they believed in nonsensical monstrous myths. Christianity, on the other hand, is grounded in parables, stories of the real world.
Such as: Virgin births? Angels? Adam and Eve and big serpents that talk? That sort of real stuff?
He tells us that’s better stuff than Greek stuff.
Right.
David Brooks is getting desperate. He likes religion, obviously, and believes it generates a sense of community. That’s one of his favorite themes ... the loss of community and faith in “modern times.”
OK, so it’s time for him to go on a retreat, look hard at his own Republican Party, at evangelical politics, and look hard at his own history as an apologist and propagandist.
Enough of this malarkey.
256
I couldn't agree more. Brooks said nothing much in 2004, when his party tried to gin up religious opposition to marriage equality. The goal was to get more conservatives to the polls and re-elect an unpopular GOP president. Brooks has no problem with religion being used to create hatred and to demonize certain groups if the result is to elect people he agrees with. But using religion in this way is shameful and people who agree with it, including Brooks, are shameful people.
1
i,m glad you wrote this post because i fell asleep during the lecture and couldn,t find anyone with the notes, wheeew.
Some people see everything in terms of partisan politics. That is the worst kind of malarkey.
2