Since the beginning of the 20th century, Western man has become increasingly aware of the importance of what is called ‘myth’. But myth is not confined to the legends of antiquity. More recent people, places, and events have assumed the status of myth – the ‘Wild West’ for America, Napoleon in France, John F. Kennedy and the unanswered questions pertaining to his death, and Diana, Princess of Wales.
    The creation of myths is a spontaneous activity of the human psyche – as spontaneous as the generation of dreams. By means of myths, man not only seeks to understand his past, but also to shape his present and his future.
    Ancient peoples did not devise myths to entertain and amuse their children. On the contrary, their myths were evolved to explain things – to account for reality. Myth was synonymous with science, philosophy, religion and history. Myth can be defined as any systematic attempt to explain or account for reality.
    By such a definition, any system of beliefs can be described as a myth. All history, as we order it, is a form of myth. Christianity is a myth, Darwinism is a myth, psychology is a myth, atomic theory is a myth, the entire edifice of modern science is a myth. All these things attempt to explain reality.
    We cannot escape the myth-making process. It is a necessary characteristic of the human mind. Given this fact, it is all the more important that we recognise the myths we embrace – and recognise, too, their mythic nature. We live by myths, and we are responsible for them. We must therefore choose our myths wisely.
    A myth will often supplant its prototype. It will then assume a greater reality for subsequent generations than the historical actuality which generated it. Thus, for example, the mythic figures of Richard III and Henry V, as depicted by Shakespeare, have a more vivid existence in our consciousness than the 15th century individuals who spawned them. The mythologised image of John F. Kennedy has eclipsed the man himself. The mythologised image of Diana, has eclipsed the more complex, and rather less saintly, woman.
    Myths can be personal, or collective, or both. Each of us possesses a personal mythology – people, places, phases of our lives, other aspects of experience endowed by distance with a mythic status.
    Personal myths may depend on the individual for perpetuation. Collective myths do not. Neither do they die. They reincarnate from age to age, re-enact themselves in a succession of new guises. The Lone Ranger – the solitary heroic individual who ‘makes a difference’ -- reflects the medieval knight errant, or the Japanese Samurai, or the protagonist of countless archaic sagas. The ‘noble outlaw’, exemplified by Bonnie and Clyde, is an avatar of Jesse James, who, in turn, in an avatar of Robin Hood.
    In film and television, the modern guarantor of ‘law and order’ no longer rides a horse. He drives a car. But the basic pattern of his activities is essentially the same as it was centuries ago. The modern city is now the dangerous frontier between the known and the unknown, the perilous enchanted forest, where menace stalks every dark corner. Having destroyed the frontiers and forests of the past, man has proceeded to create new ones in the heart of urban existence.
    If myths are constantly being re-enacted, they are also constantly being re-appraised, and either renewed or temporarily deflated. The native American Indian, once regarded as a terrifying savage, is now recognised as a tragically noble figure – the protagonist of an heroically lost cause, fighting to retain his land and his heritage. Conversely, Custer’s ‘Last Stand’, once deemed a gallant martyrdom in a worthy cause, is now seen as a triumph of poetic justice – appropriate retribution visited upon a cruel man of foolhardy arrogance.
    The process of re-appraisal, in whatever direction it occurs, reflects some degree of growth in the collective psyche. When myths are allowed to stagnate, however, it is symptomatic of cultural retardation. Such was the case in the American South prior to the 1960s. Such has been the case in Northern Ireland. Such has been the case in the Balkans.

Tribal and Archetypal Myths

Any myth possesses both tribal and archetypal aspects. Either of these can be emphasised at the expense of the other; and the myth itself will then become primarily tribal, or primarily archetypal.
    An archetypal myth embodies universal constants of human experience and the human condition. Whatever its origins in a specific time or place, an archetypal myth will transcend such limitations and refer to something shared by humanity as a whole. Birth, coming of age, death, the traumas of war, the relationship with nature, the quest for meaning, the journey towards self-discovery – these are some of the themes that characterise archetypal myths.
    They are themes that men share in all times and places. They offer a basis for mutual understanding and reconciliation. They point towards integration and wholeness.
    Tribal myths, in contrast, emphasise not what men have in common, but what divides them. Tribal myths pertain to the vested interests of a specific group. They serve to exalt a specific tribe, culture or nation – at the expense of other tribes, cultures, or nations. Instead of pointing inwards towards self-confrontation and self-recognition, tribal myths point outwards, towards self-glorification and self-aggrandisement.
    Such myths derive their energy from insecurity, from prejudice – and from the wilful creation of a scapegoat. Because they lack an internal core, they must fabricate an external adversary. Tribal myths reflect an uncertainty about inner identity. In compensation, they define an external identity by means of contrast and negation. White thus becomes identified as everything that is not black, and vice versa. Everything that the enemy is, one is not. Everything that the enemy is not, one is.
    It is myth of this kind, with all the attendant oversimplifications, that has operated in such contexts as Northern Ireland and the Balkans. It is myth of this kind that has generated and perpetuated antipathies there.
    Tribal myths must be exposed in all their hollowness – must be stripped of their romantic aura and made to divulge the petty prejudice, self-aggrandisement, and self-deception at their core.
    Each side must seek to correct something of its own respective mythic imbalances by learning something of each other’s mythic mentality. In this manner, the mythic orientation that divides people can be shifted from a tribal to an archetypal basis – from the myths that separate men, to the myths that unify them, from what men extol at the expense of other men to what mankind as a whole shares.

This is an exerpt from a longer essay addressing the role of myth on Northern Ireland.

Richard Leigh is a novelist, antinomian Hermetic numinist, and co-author of a number of books including The Temple and the Lodge. He is a co-founder and Trustee of The Pushkin Prizes, an educational awards programme in Ireland.