A review by morgan_blackledge
Classical Mythology, by Elizabeth Vandiver
5.0
Humans are naked apes, that came from the brink of extinction, and without fangs, claws and fur, somehow found a way to the top of the food chain, and are now successful as a species to the extent that we may kill everything else and ourselves along with that.
There are several commonly held ideas about precisely which trait(s) conferred humans with this ridiculous advantage.
But all of them seem to boil down to the human ability to collaborate and think and communicate in language.
Other animals clearly collaborate, but not to the extent that people can. Insects are commonly cited as examples of animal collaboration (e.g. ant colonies).
But insects typically only collaborate with other members of closely related others (e.g. ants in a colony only collaborate with other ants that have the same mother queen, and are therefore closely genetically related).
People collaborate with distantly related others, at an enormous scale (e.g. billions of individuals participate in the global economy).
Other animals communicate in a variety of ways that are admittedly, not completely understood. So more will likely be revealed by future research.
But animal research to date hasn't found satisfactory evidence for instances of truly abstract, symbolic, generative and recursive language (acquisition or use) in other animals.
Other animals can even use human language. For instance, language trained primates can know and use hundreds of words.
Kanzi (a 29-year-old bonobo) is believed to understand around 450 words – 30 to 40 of which he uses on a daily basis.
but apparently not to that same level of abstraction, generativity and recursion as humans.
In a sense, humans evolved to occupy the 'cognitive niche'. And it turned out to be a pretty effective evolutionary strategy.
Im not claiming that humans are better than other animals. Just somewhat unique in this particular way, which (for now, and certainly arguably) makes us (for better or worse) the dominant species on the planet.
So any way.
People use symbolic language.
We use metaphors in nearly all of our communications.
Most of which we are largely aware of.
In their classic 1980 book: Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson identify 'structural metaphors' that are foundational to our thought, language and meaning making.
In fact, that last sentence included a structural metaphor that could be refered to as 'theories are like buildings' and I utilized it in the phrase metaphors are FOUNDATIONAL to our thought.
Another example of this type of 'theories are like buildings' metaphor occurs when we refer to an argument as SHAKY.
Lakeoff and Johnson assert that these types of metaphors are so commonplace that we almost think of them as literal and concrete.
For instance, the phrase things are looking UP incorporates the 'orientational' metaphor; happy is up; sad is down.
We assume happy feelings and good moods are 'up' as a literal matter of course. But theses ways of thinking are metaphorical.
I could go on, but I won't do that to you, I would instead just urge you to read Metaphors We Live By as it is a mind blowing, life changing, really important book.
But that's not the book I'm reviewing, and I only refer to it to make a larger point.
Namely that, similar to structural metaphor, myth and the mythic imagination deeply informs our ordinary world view, in ways that we are typically largely unaware of.
An easy example is the common assumption that articles of human production are 'apart from nature' and things that grow or occur outside of human influence are 'natural'.
Along the same lines, we assume that natural = good and pure, and synthetic = corrupt or impure.
This assumption is represented in the myth of castigation from the garden for eating from the tree of knowledge.
This mythic theme occurs in a variety of forms, including Icarus flying too close to the sun, and Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.
This mythic theme illustrates the impulse of aversion to hubris and it's a common structure across cultures and mythological systems.
At any rate. It is clear that mythology and the mythic imagination, and more broadly, the symbolic layer of human thought and meaning making is enormously important, and essential to our larger understanding of human behavior and motivation.
Mythic systems bind groups together, and motivate collaboration in pursuit of shared meaningful outcomes. For better of (frequently) for worse.
Take for example the recent Charlottesville demonstrations. They were materially awful in so far as many people were injured, and at least one person was killed. But symbolically, they were significant and wounding far beyond the strictly materiel losses of life and property damage.
And part of the reason the demonstrations were so potent, is that they were mythically charged.
The alt-right-ers brandished weaponized emblems of Norse culture and mythology that harkened to a mythic (not actual) time and place of white racial purity.
The liberal counter-protesters stood in defense of the neo-clasical Athenian values as represented in the iconography embedded in the western enlightenment era Jeffersonian architecture of UVA.
I am ill equipped to properly deconstruct those events, and this is definitely not the forum to do so even if I were capable.
But the important point is, that mythological literacy is essential to a thorough understanding of the human experience.
This course helped me dive a little deeper into my understanding of classical western mythology.
The lecturer Elizabeth Vandiver is superb, however pedantic, so don't expect new age fluff.
Five Stars ✨
There are several commonly held ideas about precisely which trait(s) conferred humans with this ridiculous advantage.
But all of them seem to boil down to the human ability to collaborate and think and communicate in language.
Other animals clearly collaborate, but not to the extent that people can. Insects are commonly cited as examples of animal collaboration (e.g. ant colonies).
But insects typically only collaborate with other members of closely related others (e.g. ants in a colony only collaborate with other ants that have the same mother queen, and are therefore closely genetically related).
People collaborate with distantly related others, at an enormous scale (e.g. billions of individuals participate in the global economy).
Other animals communicate in a variety of ways that are admittedly, not completely understood. So more will likely be revealed by future research.
But animal research to date hasn't found satisfactory evidence for instances of truly abstract, symbolic, generative and recursive language (acquisition or use) in other animals.
Other animals can even use human language. For instance, language trained primates can know and use hundreds of words.
Kanzi (a 29-year-old bonobo) is believed to understand around 450 words – 30 to 40 of which he uses on a daily basis.
but apparently not to that same level of abstraction, generativity and recursion as humans.
In a sense, humans evolved to occupy the 'cognitive niche'. And it turned out to be a pretty effective evolutionary strategy.
Im not claiming that humans are better than other animals. Just somewhat unique in this particular way, which (for now, and certainly arguably) makes us (for better or worse) the dominant species on the planet.
So any way.
People use symbolic language.
We use metaphors in nearly all of our communications.
Most of which we are largely aware of.
In their classic 1980 book: Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson identify 'structural metaphors' that are foundational to our thought, language and meaning making.
In fact, that last sentence included a structural metaphor that could be refered to as 'theories are like buildings' and I utilized it in the phrase metaphors are FOUNDATIONAL to our thought.
Another example of this type of 'theories are like buildings' metaphor occurs when we refer to an argument as SHAKY.
Lakeoff and Johnson assert that these types of metaphors are so commonplace that we almost think of them as literal and concrete.
For instance, the phrase things are looking UP incorporates the 'orientational' metaphor; happy is up; sad is down.
We assume happy feelings and good moods are 'up' as a literal matter of course. But theses ways of thinking are metaphorical.
I could go on, but I won't do that to you, I would instead just urge you to read Metaphors We Live By as it is a mind blowing, life changing, really important book.
But that's not the book I'm reviewing, and I only refer to it to make a larger point.
Namely that, similar to structural metaphor, myth and the mythic imagination deeply informs our ordinary world view, in ways that we are typically largely unaware of.
An easy example is the common assumption that articles of human production are 'apart from nature' and things that grow or occur outside of human influence are 'natural'.
Along the same lines, we assume that natural = good and pure, and synthetic = corrupt or impure.
This assumption is represented in the myth of castigation from the garden for eating from the tree of knowledge.
This mythic theme occurs in a variety of forms, including Icarus flying too close to the sun, and Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.
This mythic theme illustrates the impulse of aversion to hubris and it's a common structure across cultures and mythological systems.
At any rate. It is clear that mythology and the mythic imagination, and more broadly, the symbolic layer of human thought and meaning making is enormously important, and essential to our larger understanding of human behavior and motivation.
Mythic systems bind groups together, and motivate collaboration in pursuit of shared meaningful outcomes. For better of (frequently) for worse.
Take for example the recent Charlottesville demonstrations. They were materially awful in so far as many people were injured, and at least one person was killed. But symbolically, they were significant and wounding far beyond the strictly materiel losses of life and property damage.
And part of the reason the demonstrations were so potent, is that they were mythically charged.
The alt-right-ers brandished weaponized emblems of Norse culture and mythology that harkened to a mythic (not actual) time and place of white racial purity.
The liberal counter-protesters stood in defense of the neo-clasical Athenian values as represented in the iconography embedded in the western enlightenment era Jeffersonian architecture of UVA.
I am ill equipped to properly deconstruct those events, and this is definitely not the forum to do so even if I were capable.
But the important point is, that mythological literacy is essential to a thorough understanding of the human experience.
This course helped me dive a little deeper into my understanding of classical western mythology.
The lecturer Elizabeth Vandiver is superb, however pedantic, so don't expect new age fluff.
Five Stars ✨