The
Myth of the Kingdom and the Kingdom of Myth
Prof. Stephen Palmquist,
D.Phil. (Oxon)
Department of Religion and Philosophy
Hong Kong Baptist University
"Amor
fati"—"Love your fate!"
"Say 'yes' to life and recognize that you are a 'destiny'." "Languagefalsifiesreality.""Transcendyourmerely human nature and become superman!"
These are just a few of the epoch-making ideas expressed in Friedrich
Nietzsche's philosophical writings.[1] Nietzsche, who died in the first year of this
century after spending the last decade of his life in a state of insanity, has
had a great influence on Western thought and culture over the past 100 years.Indeed,hisinfluencehasbeensofar-reaching, and yet at the same time so subtle, that
it would not be exaggerating to say that his philosophical point of view forms
one of the most basic myths of our time.
When the word "myth" is used in
this way, it does not refer merely to an old story about gods and heroes that
people used to tell each other at night as they sat around the fire. It also
does not refer to a false assumption that someone
wrongly holds to be true. These are two very common ways in which this word is
used in ordinary English conversation. But "myth" has another, quite
distinct meaning for some people, especially scholars who have an interest in
both philosophical and anthropological studies.
In order to clarify this "third
way" of understanding what a myth is, we can look briefly at the ideas
of one of this century's most influential anthropologists, Mircea
Eliade.[2] In Myth
and Reality, he makes several important points about how myths function in
primitive societies. First, he defines a myth as an old story about the origin
of the world or the things in the world, which in some way explains why human
existence is the way it is, or why one's own cultural norms have developed the
way they have. The actors in these myths are usually either supernatural
beings, such as gods, or heroes with superhuman powers. Unfortunately, this
tends to obscure for the modern reader the fact that these stories functioned
primarily as models for human behavior.
Nevertheless, in this century there have
been numerous attempts to show that even the ancient myths tell the story, so
to speak, of everyman. One of the best known examples of this way of
treating myths comes in Sigmund Freud's psychological use of the myth of
Oedipus. Freud argues that Oedipus, the man whose fate it was to kill his
father and marry his mother, actually tells the story of the childhood
experience of every little boy, not just those who lived in ancient
Greece. Likewise, whenever we read an ancient myth, it is helpful to regard all
the characters as, in one sense or another, telling the story of who we
are. If I read a myth as a story of myself, then what once seemed aloof
and irrelevant suddenly takes on a new meaning.
One of the most important characteristics
of a mythical attitude, Eliade goes on to tell us, is
the conviction that the myth is the truest of all true stories.
Primitive tribesmen, for instance, repeatedly confirm the truth of their
myths by reenacting them in the form of rituals. Such acting-out of a
myth gives the people power over nature. At the same time, the ritual
repetition of the story keeps the myth alive in the hearts and minds of the
participants.
AlthoughEliade'sdescriptionofmythsrelates
mainly to the first of the three above-mentioned uses of
"myth" (i.e., myth as found in primitive cultures), I would
like to suggest that, with some slight revisions, we can also use it to clarify
the thirdmeaning(accordingtowhichmythsareactive
in any and every human culture). First, instead of limiting this
term to old stories, we can regard as a myth any belief, story, or
proposition which functions in the same way the old stories function for
primitive peoples. In other words, anything we use to explain why things are
the way they are, or anything we use as a model for our behavior, might be
regarded as a myth. This eliminates the requirement that the characters in a
myth be so far removed from us that the story is intrinsically unbelievable to
modern scientific ears.
Of course, not every explanation of
reality is a mythical one, so it is important to recall Eliade's criterion concerning the truth value of a myth.
However, I think we should reject his claim that a myth represents the truest
of all true truths. Instead, we can say the defining feature of a mythical
belief, as far as its truth value is concerned, is that it is beyond
question. That is, for the person who is "living in a myth", the
question as to whether the story or belief or idea is true or false is
meaningless. The myth just is. In other words, it is accepted at such a
deep level that we never even think about questioning it. This does not prevent
people who live in a myth from asking questions about the meaning of
their myth. On the contrary, discussion of such questions usually plays an
important role in societies governed by a myth. The only question which cannot
be asked is the basic question of whether or not the myth itself is true.
People who live in a myth typically
respond with confused amazement when someone questions their belief. Eliade's claim that a myth is believed to be the truest
of all true stories rests on a misunderstanding of this response. For as the primitive tribesman instinctively knows, the notion of
"truth" is not really appropriate when referring to myths.
To ask about the "truth" of a myth is to misunderstand what it means
to say it is a myth. Claims such as Eliade's result more from anthropologists reading their own
preconceived ideas into their data than from the actual intentions of the
primitive peoples. For our purposes, therefore, a myth will be
something whose reality is so certain that it is inconceivable to ask the
question "Is it true or false?"
Keeping in mind this third way of
understanding what a "myth" is, let us now
examine a few of the most basic myths that govern the Western world. What is
the given and unquestionable starting point for all our inquiries? Like any
genuine presupposition, there will be no way of defending this starting point
with incontrovertible proofs; the best we can do is to choose to believe
or disbelieve in its truth and value, and then explore its various
implications.
Before Nietzsche's myth began to take
hold of the Western mind, the myth of one of ancient Greece's greatest
philosophers, Socrates (470-399 B.C.) formed the primary philosophical foundation
for Western thought. In a nutshell, Socrates' myth had two aspects: first, that
all the important questions we have in life can be answered by appealing to
our reasoning power; and second, that the so-called "wisdom"
that we get from answering such questions is really worth "nothing at
all" unless it impels us from mere intellectual game-playing into a
way of life characterized by virtue.[3]
The two-sided myth of the virtue of
rationality and the rationality of virtue came to rule so completely over the
minds of philosophers and even ordinary thinking people in the Western world
that we can rightly refer to it as a "kingdom". This designation is
particularly appropriate if we consider the other person whose
influence has functioned as a governing myth for most Westerners in the past
two thousand years: the Hebrew religious reformer named Jesus. Born
approximately four centuries after Socrates died, Jesus preached a new Gospel
("good news"), proclaiming that "the kingdom of heaven
is at hand" (see e.g., Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7). In other words—to use
the third meaning of "myth" discussed above—he introduced
a new myth by means of which people could come to a new understanding of God's
presence in the world.
The religion of Jesus, known by most
people as "Christianity", has of course influenced the Western world
even more than the "religion" of Socrates, commonly known as philosophy.
But in fact these two myths were quickly combined by the earliest Christian
scholars into one complex myth, including ideas such as that to be virtuous is
to sacrifice one's own happiness for the happiness of another, just as Jesus
did.
Myth, in both its ancient and its modern
senses, functions much like a "kingdom". That is why it feels so
natural to use words like "govern", "rule", and
"dominate" when we speak of the influence of myths on the way people
think and cultures function. But the governing myth of the Western world is a
"myth of the kingdom" in at least two other senses as well. We have
already seen that the spiritual side of life is believed by many to be
encapsulated in Jesus' teachings about the kingdom of heaven: virtue comes only
from our willingness to conform to the laws of this kingdom. In the same way we
could refer to the material side of life as being constituted by the
kingdom of science: knowledge comes only from our willingness to conform
to the laws of this very different kingdom.
To call these two kingdoms
"myths" does not imply anything about their truth or falsity.
As long as we are using the third sense of "myth", such claims
refer only to the way these kingdoms "rule" over us to make life
meaningful. Good scientists will treat seriously any question about the
details of the scientific knowledge of their day, just as good Christians will
treat seriously any question about how their faith ought to be interpreted.
But just try asking these same scientists "Issciencetrue?"orthesesameChristians"IsGod good?"
and watch the expression on their faces! Thenatureoftheirexpressionislikelytobedetermined
by whether or not they "live in the myth" of the kingdoms of science
and religion, respectively, as first proposed by Socrates and Jesus.
Nietzsche recognized the newness of his
ideas so clearly that he predicted it would take two hundred years for
people to understand fully what he was talking about. If he was right, then we
who live on the borderline between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are
only half way to the point where Nietzsche's alternative myth, which we can
call the "myth of myths" or the "kingdom of myth", will
come fully into focus. And this means we should expect to experience in our cultures
(insofar as they are Western) the ambivalence of a struggle between two
opposing myths.
This struggle is indeed very apparent
when we look at life as it has been lived in the twentieth century. For
example, many scholars in this century have failed to distinguish between the
second and third uses of "myth". Some theologians, following Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), have argued that the proper response
to the fact that all religions contain numerous myths is to try our best to take
away the mythical elements in our beliefs. His
"demythologization" of the Bible was an attempt to present a
scientifically accurate picture of Jesus' life and teachings.
This kind of naive rejection of all myths
is itself based on the myth that had its first seed in Socrates: the myth that
only scientific knowledge is worth believing. The problem is that those
who see science as the model for all truth inevitably treat myth in the second
sense, as necessarily false, thereby failing to recognize the important sense
in which their own absolute faith in science isitselfamyth(inthethirdsense).Sayingscience
is a myth does not mean it is false, but only that it requires
wholehearted commitment in order to produce its results; and that commitment
is itself a matter of faith, not of factual knowledge.
Myth is a powerful source of meaning in
human life. Indeed, we must commit ourselves to some myth(s) in order to
live a meaningful life at all. One of the problems of modern (post-Nietzschian) culture is that people have tried to take the
myth out of culture, without realizing that in so doing they destroy its living
fabric. So also, anyone who, like Bultmann, tries to
take the myth out of religion, will inadvertently end up taking the meaning
out as well—just as if we were to try to have a science without any truth.
Nietzsche's ideas can be interpreted in a
way that is very much opposed to religion and philosophy in general,
and to Christian religion and philosophy in particular. For his new myth
does indeed look very much like a myth of ultimate meaninglessness and
irrationality. Yet there is another way of understanding Nietzsche, and it is a
way that I believe does more justice to his true intentions. His radical
rejection of the twofold myth of rationality and virtue is based not on a
desire to promote evil and irrationality, but on the conviction that the
division, the alienation, between the two sides of the Western
myth—i.e., between mankind's kingdom of science and God's kingdom of heaven—had
become so great that it was doing us more harm than good. In effect, exclaimed
Nietzsche, "We have killed God—you and I! We all are His
murderers"![4]
Nietzsche's new myth is a call to reject
the destructive forces of alienation that result from a false division between
scientific facts and religious values. He hopes to usher in a new kingdom:
the rule of the superman comes when people begin to affirm life by relearning
the passion of the dance, when they live with their hearts tuned to the earth
rather than lost in the clouds of heaven. In a word, we approach Nietzsche's
ideal when we learn to recognize and affirm the myth we are living.
For Christians like myself,
the key question in response to Nietzsche must be: Is this kingdom of myth
compatible with the myth of the kingdom revealed in the life and teachings of
Jesus? I believe it is, though in this short essay it will not be possible to
explore Nietzsche's ideas in enough depth to explain how. Of course, the
religion many people have chosen to associate with Jesus, Christianity as a set
of doctrines revealing the absolute truth about God and requiring mere
intellectual assent, is not compatible with Nietzsche's vision
of the ideal "man of the future". Some of Nietzsche's harshest words
are directed against this kind of religion. But there are other places where
Nietzsche reveals the highest respect for Jesus—to the extent that it
could be argued that Jesus is himself the prototype of the "superman"
of Nietzsche's dreams.
In the end, each of us must choose for ourself the myth(s) that will govern our life. The importance
of this choice cannot be overestimated. The choice will not be easy, especially
for those who attempt to choose both the myth of the kingdom and
the kingdom of myth. But in any case, the failure to choose can
lead only to meaninglessness anddespair.Alongtheselines,IwouldliketoconcludebyquotingDagHammarskjöld,who,asSecretary
General of the United Nations, was one of this century's great peacemakers. For
he expressed the core of Nietzsche's myth in a form that can be acceptable to
both Christians and philosophers when he wrote these few simple words: "Yes
to God: yes to fate: yes to yourself. This reality can wound the soul, but has
the power to heal her."[5]
Notes
[1]The sentences in quotes are
not taken directly from any particular text, but merely represent ideas that
Nietzsche repeats over and over. Nietzsche developed his philosophical ideas
in an intentionally unsystematic way, which makes them rather difficult for
the beginner. The best place to start is with his autobiography, Ecce
Homo. Readers who want to explore his ideas further could then turn to one
of his most influential books, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
[2]See Mircea
Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York: Harper and
Row, 1963), Chapter I, "The Structure of Myths", pp.1-21. For a more thorough discussion of myth
and its relation to philosophy, see my book, The Tree of Philosophy
(Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 1993). The discussion
here of Eliade's
views is a condensed version of part of Chapter Two ("Philosophy as Myth")
of this book.
[3]The quotation is from Plato's Apology, which is the story of the trial
of Socrates. As far as we know, Socrates himself never wrote any books.
[4]See Nietzsche's The Joyful Wisdom, section 125.
[5]Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, tr. Leif Sjöberg and W.H. Auden (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1964), p.136. For a living example of
how it is possible to accept Nietzsche's myth
and yet be religious, see Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Pocket Books,
1963), especially Part One, originally published in 1959 under the title From
Death Camp to Existentialism (tr. Ilse Lasch).
This etext is based on a prepublication draft of the published
version of this essay.
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