Story Lab, Week 4: Crash Course Myth Videos
The World Mythology Crash Course is a series by the Youtube channel CrashCourse, taught by Mike Rangetta. (Web source: Still photo for the cover of the first video, "What is Myth?")
Myths can be found in the history of almost every field. It's important that I remember that mythology is shaped by all of the people that were involved in the cultivation of a story from its origin to where it has been presented to me now. To say something is a myth, does not mean you are saying it is false. It just means that you are not specifically worried about the truth. You are more concerned about the plot, the characters. the story behind the myth, or something else that you find is important and resonates with you. Myths stick to those that that hear them and the stories in them remain timeless for that reason. Myth has staying power and can be reproduced over time, shaped by the context of when and where the myth was retold.
One thing that I have learned to love about mythology is that, like Mike Ragnetta says, you can enjoy the stories apart from the religion, values, beliefs, and culture from the person that is writing it if you want to. From the second video about the theories of myth, you learn how myth evolves over time. When mythology collided with anthropology, mythologists found that myth isn’t symbolic. It is a real life codification of the beliefs and the reality of the people who create them. It exemplifies common morals and values for those people, common regulations and norms of how people live, and they can put their beliefs of how the universe works into permanent words. Myths allow people to express their inner thoughts and put it into the public sphere, and these myths remain in collective consciousness because the archetypes in them are relatable and maybe even universal. While we may see aspects of a story that may be timeless, Wendy Doniger, a famous contemporary mythologist, suggests that we don’t completely ignore the context of a myth and instead compare the differences between the myth and reality. I would have to agree with Doniger because this gap between my view of the world and the view presented in the myth gives me space to appreciate the difference between our worlds and also find human connection through the similarities.
The third video focuses on the story of the hero and Joseph Campbell’s study of the recurring pattern in stories about “the hero’s journey”, also known as the monomyth. Campbell believes that humans love heroes because we want to see ourselves in them, as Campbell believes that in most myths when heroes go through struggles in relationships and encounter obstacles, we psychologically parallel their experiences with what we go through in our own lives.
The monomyth isn't meant to encompass every hero story, but it provides a framework to stories that have been told since the beginning of time. Campbell says that the monomyth starts with a hero separating himself from the world to answer some kind of call to take action, where he goes on a journey that usually brings danger in some way. Then the trials that the hero encounters may start to change his mentality into the person he is destined to be. This hero will find some kind of enlightenment after tackling his challenges and then he has to return home and reintegrate into society.
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