4 ms·

Definitely worded for clicks, but remember that "myth" doesn't mean "false story", it just means "story".

• lazide 11mo ago
  Myth absolutely implies false (or at least exaggerated) story elements. If it wasn’t, we’d call it history. And you can tell - ‘the history of penicillin’ implies a very different thing than ‘the myth of penicillin’ eh?
  • quesera 11mo ago
    That's an incorrect conclusion to draw, though. A mythology is just a system of stories and beliefs. Nationalism, religion, fandom, etc. All mythologies based on a shared set of stories. Some are more true (and/or complete) than others, but that's not the important part of being a mythology. Note also that we do call mythology "history". It's just a matter of where you inhabit on the contextual spectrum. I'm sure you can think of several trivially-refuted examples, and I'm also sure that you realize that your preferred narrative is equally refuted by others. You're correct of course, and they are not. But also the converse.
    • lazide 11mo ago
      It’s literally in the definition of the word. Mythology is also separated from history in the study of it, at least in the west, because history is required to be based on independently verified facts. Mythology clearly is not.
      • quesera 11mo ago
        You are putting way too much faith in the knowability of a historical thing, at the level of detail required to construct and cohere a narrative. That's convenient, if your preferred mythology matches up to your culture's mainstream accepted view of history. But it is not definitionally more correct. This is the cognitive bias/belief side of Gell-Mann amnesia, as held by a culture. I am not discounting the possibility that some mythologies are more true, or more supported, or more plausible, than others. Just that it's not a requirement or a disqualification.
        • lazide 11mo ago
          Are there gaps filled? Sure. Is it perfect? No. Is there still a fundamental difference between what we ‘know’ about Zeus and Caesar? You bet. If for no other reason than one begs to be challenged with evidence (and has mechanisms to vet/change, etc!) and the other is the opposite.
          • quesera 11mo ago
            > Is there still a fundamental difference between what we ‘know’ about Zeus and Caesar? Yes! But both narratives are mythologies. This is an interesting example. What we think we know about Caesar has lots of documentation (much of it written by himself), and the correspondence to truth for a great deal of it, is absolutely unknown. I'd agree that the Caesar mythology is clearly more truthy than the Zeus mythology. But that doesn't make it any more of less of a mythology.
            • lazide 11mo ago
              It absolutely does make it less of a mythology. Because one meets the definition of a mythology, and the other one doesn’t.
              • quesera 11mo ago
                As soon as simple, non-interpretable, facts get fleshed out into a story, you have a mythology. All story writers are fallible and often have an agenda. Caesar was born to a wealthy family, did lots of things, led armies, wrote lots of words, crossed a river, challenged some ideas, offended some people, got killed by a mob. Add any more detail to that, and you're building a mythology. It doesn't matter if it's true. Every single one of those "facts" has a mythology attached to it, and the whole system of stories is the Caesar mythology. You picked Caesar, which I think is an interesting but easily-debunked choice. Any historian of the era would agree that there's an enormous mythology built around Caesar's life. Something simpler and more recent? Would you say there's no mythology around the Kennedys or the Clintons? (There is so much mythology around those people it's hard to imagine an argument otherwise). Anywhere there's a collective interpretation of a narrative, there's a mythology. (It might be important that "collective interpretation of narrative" is also a reasonable definition of "history", and that any interpretation is a likely introduction of error or at least lossy compression -- which is the same thing.)
• IAmBroom 11mo ago
  myth /miTH/ noun 1. a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. 2. a widely held but false belief or idea. You can redefine words if you want, but don't pretend your definitions are useful for clear communication with others.
  • quesera 11mo ago
    You can find definitions that suit your needs if you like, but it does not change the meaning of the word. A mythology is not necessarily untrue, although they do have a tendency toward expansiveness, which has a coincident trend toward favored interpretations. But the ultimate truthiness (if it can be measured at all) is neither requirement nor disqualification, vis a vis being a mythology.
    • 1718627440 10mo ago
      A myth != mythology. Other people were discussing myth, you started talking about mythology. The words of course have a common origin.