Myth America

From a painting by Magritte

People who are passionate about UFOs tend to get really testy about the 'm' word.

OK, I get that it's way more fun to talk about aliens and spacecraft and parallel dimensions and Nbiru and Reptilian takeovers and expanded states of awareness and--well, you get the idea.

But myth is important and it can also be really fun.

Myth is the key to J.K. Rowling's stupendous Harry Potter success. (That, and writing talent.)

Myth is what we in the United States wave around on the 4th of July, be it red, white, and blue, or sparkly and combustible.

Most of us know very well that America has some serious problems right now. Statistically speaking, we are not the greatest nation of all time on any number of quantiifiable parameters--from infant mortality rates to social mobility to the number of people we throw into prison for long periods of time.

But the myth of America is sacred to many people, even liberals. Even cynics. The myth of America is a map of where we'd like to be--and how can we ever get there without a map?

Every culture has a central myth, called a 'founding myth', that maps out the values, hopes, and dreams of the culture. Modern culture claims not to have a founding myth, but that's not true. The myth of the Hero, the man who sets out and explores and conquers, coming back with new information and new discoveries--that's the modern world's founding myth (according to myriad scholars and philosophers).

Isn't the myth of the Hero the template for scientific knowledge as well?

Sure it is.

Science "boldly goes where no man has gone before" and we applaud.

So, getting back to UFOs and to ufology's distaste for myth and other smushy concepts as applied to unidentified aerial stuff, ask yourself this question:

If you were an alien intelligence (not to say extraterrestrial but just 'not us'), and you wanted to influence the direction of human evolution without detection, what would you do?

Would you plop down on the White House lawn and say, "See here now, we'd like for you to start thinking about and doing things a bit differently!"

Or would you tinker with the universal template for human consciousness? Myth.

Yes, I have some ideas about this topic.

More later.