How Does Globalization Influence Modern Mythology?

[Ivan Seeking]

...“Myths are rarely logical, yet they seem to say a great deal about the way our minds work. And when we cannot come up with fact or scientific laws to explain a person, an event, or why we do things in a certain way, our imaginations take over and create an answer for us. . . . Our minds desperately want to make sense of what we see and what we experience, but when logic, science, and fact fall short or simply aren’t available, the mind goes to work and invents an appreciable alternative. That is what mythology is: information which fills the vacuum of fact.” [continued]

http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~rwoldfor/papers/globalization/talk.pdf

 

[polyb]

so what are you really posting about, mythology in general or the corporate con job that we call US government?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I post anything interesting that comes along. The paper is so convoluted that I almost ignored it, but...why not? Rip it apart!

 

[polyb]

I post anything interesting that comes along. The paper is so convoluted that I almost ignored it, but...why not? Rip it apart!

Ya, it was pretty convoluted, but I think there was a good premise in it. It just seems that the author was trying to pack too much disparging info into one place.

For example, the author should have named it something like: "The Mythology of Globalization". That would have been better and perhaps allowed the author some focus on his points. It seems like it was a political paper written by a liberal arts student.

Besides, 8 pages was far too short to pack those topics into one cohesive framework. Other than that, interesting prospect.

Whatch'ya think about it?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I agree. The subject was more appropriate for eight hundred pages, not eight. Beyond that I liked a number of points made. First, I liked the quote chosen for the original post in this thread, esp this part: "That is what mythology is: information which fills the vacuum of fact". Nice.

On the geopoliticalcorporate front:

Similarly, the clamour for corporate deregulation can be seen as adjusting the instructional mythology so as to be geared more toward corporate interests. Reducing taxes and deregulation reduce the power of the government and consequently increase the relative power of the corporations. The public interest seems to lie outside the framework for discussion, somewhere at the margin of power.

Corporations are now sometimes larger [wealthier, greater GDP] than some countries. In effect these corporations become rogue nations in terms of budget and influence. They contain members of real governments, and they operate irrespective of borders and legitimate nations. I think the author is trying to get across the fact that accepted mythologies once used to further political agendas are now used against us to further corporate economic agendas. Our interests, that is to say the interests of people in any nation, are not contained within the charter of these rogue, corporate nations. They have no allegiance to any legitimate nation or people. They operate entirely in their own interest. In effect, we are being tricked.

I was initially more interested on the mythological slant to the paper. Still, the effort to weave mythology with the corporate global agenda was interesting.

 

[polyb]

I was also interested in that synopsis of mythology. Having been exposed to some of Joseph Campbells work:transformation of myth through time lectures, myth and man, the jung companion, hero with a 1000 faces, etc., I have taken to heart what he reiterated by a philosopher(whose name evades me at the moment) about myth: What does it mean to live by a myth, what myth are you living by, and what does it mean to live without a myth. I figure this very important when it comes to the study of one's self.

Given the 'time' we live in(this is a little mythological in it's conjecture, isn't it) I find that it is important to understand the mythos that is propagated by corporations. Ironically the church used to be the major purveyor of mythos in our culture but now that corporations have the power that they do, they seem to have taken over. I might add that they seem to be co-opting the religious mythos as of lately in the US.