Commentary on “the Western Mythos”

Unlike some terms that are easily definable, a truly satisfactory definition of myth or mythos does not actually exist. A myth (mythos) “is a sacred story concerning the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to have their present form. The active beings in myths are generally gods and heroes. Myths often are said to take place before recorded history begins. In saying that a myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that a myth is believed to be true by people who attach religious or spiritual significance to it. Use of the term by scholars does not imply that the narrative is either true or false.”[1] Myths are sometimes “stories shared by a group that are a part of their cultural identity”,[2] or “legendary narrative[s], usually of gods and heroes, or a theme that expresses the ideology of a culture”.[3] A myth may be a “narrative in which some characters are superhuman beings who do things that ‘happen only in stories’; hence, a conventionalized or stylized narrative not fully adapted to plausibility or ’realism’."[4] Myths may be “stories that explain the origins of current phenomena. They may be believed literally or figuratively, or as metaphorically moral truths about the workings of the world.”[5] For the purposes of this examination, the best definition may be "stories drawn from a society's history that have acquired through persistent usage the power of symbolizing that society's ideology and of dramatizing its moral consciousness--with all the complexities and contradictions that consciousness may contain."[6]

The western myth in America has a number of cultural characteristics; “Manifest destiny; rugged individualism; a pre-modern Eden of moral simplicity; a future built on the harmonious union of man and nature -- all four cornerstones of the American psyche, each with their locus on that single moment of expansion and creation. No other period in American history has so frequently been called upon to define and solidify national identity. For this reason alone, the migration West is the single most important event in American history -- an event that is replayed over and over in an affirmation of all that is American, all that is good, bad, and ugly.”[7]

Manifest Destiny was originally a Jacksonian Democratic slogan in the decade between 1845 and 1855 to describe the idea that western expansion was not only good, but inevitable. The phrase was rejected by the Whigs and the Republicans, who preferred to advocate a more mercantilist expansion of the infrastructure of the existing territory already held by the United States, rather than the Jeffersonian-farmer based expansion into the Oregon Territory, the push to allow the voluntary annexation of the Republic of Texas which had achieved its independence from Mexico in 1837, and the Mexican Cession of the territory comprising California, Nevada, Utah, and portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, “in exchange for ending the Mexican-American war and payment of $15 million dollars.”[8]

Most objectionable to those today who refer to the western as not mythic but “merely a myth” in the sense of an incorrect or spurious belief, are the values of rugged individualism, moral simplicity (especially when it comes to the idea of solving a moral issue with a gun, an object which the intellectual elite currently regards as evil and wishes to characterize as capable of initiating evil action on its own,) and a harmonious union of man and nature (especially as this conflicts with the currently dominant theme that man in an alien intruder in nature, intent on perverting and killing all that is good.) An quality of the mythic Western as seen through thoroughly modern eyes is the honor-based culture that it portrays, which is at odds with today’s culture which seems at risk of losing the concept altogether.[9] The western portrayed the "independent man ... who owed allegiance to a universal and ethical standard."[10] He was a "chivalrous man who assuredly stood up for his principles. In this man the West had found it's most developed "honor code."…[11]

James Bowman, author of Honor: A History believes that over the last 30 years, this old notion of honor has even become "shameful." The influence of the "media and celebrity culture" has reversed that notion to almost the "complete opposite" of what it once meant. Displays of "weakness," such as "admittance of doubt and outpourings of emotion" have now become far more honorable, especially in the public arena.[12] Ultimately, Bowman argues, “Western honor was always different from that found in other parts of the world. Its idiosyncratic qualities derive partly from the Classical tradition but mainly from the Judeo-Christian heritage whose emphasis on individual morality and, more recently, sincerity and authenticity in private and personal life, has acted as a continual challenge to the traditional concept of honor as it is still understood in other parts of the world.”[13] The discarding of our concept of honor, which stood in historic contrast to the much different Eastern concept of “avoidance of losing face” is making it difficult, if not impossible, to understand, or to counter, the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism that thrives on violently reacting to the tiniest imagined slight.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth

[2] http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/a/027495.htm

[3] http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/gloss.htm

[4] http:// www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities/litcrit/gloss.htm

[5] www.lpb.org/programs/swappingstories/glossary.html

[6] web.nwe.ufl.edu/~gulmer/s03/zwhalen2/definitions.html

[7] http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue06/infocus/silentwesterns.htm

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession

[9] http://www.nysun.com/article/34278

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bowman200604190610.asp (book exerpt)

[13] http://www.eppc.org/publications/bookID.60/book_detail.asp