Mythical thinking is still within us

 

 

Paolo Cugini

Although many centuries have passed since the Greeks developed a philosophical thought based on reason and sustained by logos, it is possible to affirm that we still have a mythical approach to reality. It seems like an absurd statement, but it is not so absurd.

But what exactly is mythical thought? We think mythically whenever we resort to a narrative that abandons reasoning to rely on a sacred type of discourse foundation.

It is also important to point out that in the ancient mindset, myth is not identified with something false. The philosopher of religion Mircea Eliade reflected extensively on the mythical structure of ancient thought and arrived at conclusions worth highlighting. Unlike the modern view of "myth" as something false, Eliade argues that, for the people of traditional (or "archaic") societies, myth is absolutely true and sacred. In the origin narrative, myth always refers to a "creation," recounting how something, whether the entire cosmos or just a human behavior, came into existence. For Eliade, knowing the origin myth of an object or animal grants the individual a kind of dominion over it, allowing its ritual manipulation.

One of Eliade's most famous concepts is that of Eternal Return, which describes the religious man's desire to return to the time of origins. Through rites, man not only "remembers" the myth, but re-actualizes it, becoming contemporary with the gods or heroes in "primordial time." By living the myth, the individual leaves linear (profane) time and enters circular (sacred) time, recovering the fullness of being. Eliade uses the term hierophany to describe the act of manifestation of the sacred in the profane world. For Eliade, the sacred is the "reality par excellence," saturated with being and power. Even in desacralized and modern societies, Eliade notes that myth survives in a camouflaged form in behaviors such as cinema, literature, and certain political ideologies, which offer temporary escapes from linear history. If at the time of the birth of philosophy mythical thought had a heuristic basis, today we can clearly say that resorting to myth is a form of mental laziness, which manifests a lack of knowledge of reality.

For Paul Ricoeur, myth is not a false scientific explanation, but a symbolic narrative that reveals profound truths about the human condition, especially about fallibility and the origin of evil. He argues that philosophy must take a detour through the hermeneutics (interpretation) of myths to understand what pure, abstract reflection cannot grasp on its own. 

Ricoeur defines myth as a "symbol developed in narrative form." While a symbol is a unit of double meaning (a literal meaning that points to a latent meaning), myth sets these symbols in motion through a story. By losing its claim to physically explain the world, myth gains a function of exploring human reality, manifesting what Ricoeur calls the "language of confession" (experiences of guilt, stain, and sin). The philosopher argues that we do not have direct access to the "self" or to being; we need the mediation of cultural works, such as myths, to understand ourselves.

Taking into account the reflections of Eliade and Ricoeur, we can affirm that mythical thought still lingers in culture, not only in the West. Furthermore, the thought that develops in Christianity is not mythical, but philosophical. It is not a coincidence that the Church Fathers of the first centuries, in trying to resolve the problems that the identity of Jesus brought to the daily reflection of the first communities, used many concepts from Greek philosophy. Following Jesus demands a rational, logical choice, more than a mythical one. It is not a coincidence that the first community of John identifies Jesus not with myth, but with the logos. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1).

Jesus gave a definitive rational answer to our human questions. Despite this, even today, most Catholics enter the religious sphere not driven by reason, but by feeling; not through rational and philosophical reflection, but through mythical thought—not in the sense that Eliade and Ricoeur pointed out, but as an irrational approach, bringing unsustainable arguments into the debate. When mythical thought identifies with our irrational side, religion becomes a space of intolerance, because one no longer adheres to the divine through a path that involves the totality of the person, but adheres to a religious form, identifying with it and defending it tooth and nail, not participating with love and tenderness. When religion becomes a space of intolerance,  of opposition to science, God disappears from the map, and elements that only psychiatry can resolve come into play.