I believe that those who discredit myths entirely are letting themselves be ignorant to the fact that all history is myth. No event can ever be recorded in a purely "objective reality," and to hold this as the standard is dangerous. In regards to religion, take for example, the creation story in Genesis. It was seen as truth ages before Darwin's theory of evolution took over. In American history there are many mythologized events. The war in Iraq is just one example. The portrayal of all Iraqi citizens welcoming U.S soldiers bombards the media. It is the dominant image given to the American public and thus, being considered history. However, this does not take into account the citizens who resent that their innocent loved ones were killed. We see one side of history.
Myths are important to growing up and learning because they chronicle personal experiences and viewpoints giving insight to the context and culture of the time.
Literature of the Black Atlantic
Required Texts
- Danticat, The Farming of Bones (1999)
- James, The Black Jacobins (1937)
- Johnson, Middle Passage (1990)
- Moore, The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry: Fifth Edition (2007)
- Perez, Geographies of Home (1998)
- Temple, Literary Pan-Africanism (2005)
- Vera, Opening Spaces: An Anthology of Contemporary African Women's Writing (1999)
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1 comment:
Yes! I completely agree with your notion that "all history is myth." While we can all agree on certain concrete facts related to history (i.e. George Washington was the first president of the U.S., JFK was assassinated in 1963, etc.), other issues such as cause-effect relationships and the way certain events took place are highly debateable. Sometimes this is due to the fact that there is little recorded history or physical evidence left to reveal the way in which an event took place (This occurs a lot in ancient history. Take, for example, the way the pyramids were constructed. There is little evidence to show exactly how this feat was accomplished without the use of the wheel, and is still debated today.). Other times, it is more an issue of the way history gets recorded. This is where the debate over the "ownership" of history really tends to heat up, since whoever writes history (especially from the victorious or well-off side) tends to put their own spin on how events unfolded, thus mythicizing their country or group's role in the event. From somone writing from an American perspective, the Germans were the aggresive enemy during WWI. However, someone writing from a German perspective may illustrate the Germans soldiers as young men who went off to war patriotically to defend their country. In the end, it's really up to the individual to sift through various accounts of history to come to the best (and most unbiased) conclusion.
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