3 ms·

Do you believe one of the uses of mythology and epic cultural sagas in earlier ages wasn't "a kind of escapism"?

• toyg 9y ago
  Yes, but when you look at the ratio of escapist material to material that was used to directly make sense of the world around the audience, older material seems to have a smaller amount of fluff. However, this is probably just a function of historical preservation; we only know of the masterpieces that were passed down because of them being key to philosophical research, while tons of "lighter" material has simply been lost (and keeps being lost every day).
  • ubernostrum 9y ago
    A lot of those epics weren't to "make sense of the world". They were to transmit cultural values, and let the audience feel they were part of something bigger. For example, if you're an ordinary Roman hearing the Aeneid, what you're hearing is not a story to explain why there's thunder or how the world got made -- what you're hearing is a story that says, no matter how low you may be in the system of Roman civilization, you and all Romans share in a greater destiny.
  • ehnto 9y ago
    I wonder if how completely we have attempted to understand our world has led only to greater cynicism, and there followed increased escapism. When there is no low hanging fruit left to ponder the pondering gets done by specialists. Likewise there is less need for light practical advice books because industrialization has made the individual crafstman less common, and again specialists take center stage in their silos of information. It's also unlikely to be in a book.