THE AMERICAN MYTH
The American myth begins with the Puritans and independence from Great Britain. It has relatively stable features, such as the importance of its political system, individual freedom, and unique geographical location. Yet it too undergoes periodic revision through the reinterpretation of the ideas of the founding fathers and through accommodation to social and ideological change.10 At times, change is so rapid that successive generations grow up with generation-specific versions of the myth. For example, a century ago, many Caucasian Americans believed that African Americans lacked sufficient intelligence to justify their status as equal members of society. For those who believed this way, there was no divide. That has largely changed. A century ago, women were considered too politically naive to vote. Again, for many, there was no divide. That too has changed. A century and a half ago, it was assumed that there were literally no limits to America’s natural resources. A century and a half of environmental exploitation followed. This may have started to change. For many, the divide has widened.
The American version of mythologizing its past and engaging in myth and belief revision is no different than what the Irish, British, and Russians have been doing and do. Changes in myths and beliefs occur. Yet the process is usually slow. Moreover, believing a myth doesn’t mean that one is necessarily conversant with the details of the myth. For example, while most Americans probably ascribe to the American myth, only 28 percent of adults know from which country the United States gained its independence or the number of original American colonies. The 28 percent rises to 40 percent among those who are between eighteen and twenty-two years old. And how many have read the Federalist papers?
MIDDLE AGES, SATAN, AND WITCHES
Religious myths-beliefs often differ from their cultural counterparts in that they extend across cultural boundaries. In its rapid early spread, Hinduism did just that.11 It has been so for Christianity for two millennia and more recently for Islam.12
Technically, myth and belief differ in their meanings. In its usual use, myth refers to a traditional story of ostensible historical events that serves to unfold part of the worldview of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.13 Belief refers to a state or a habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing.14 Yet, in daily life, the two words often intermingle in their use.
Consider the symbolic underpinning of Satan, the devil, and hell as examples of how religious myths often merge with belief. During the High Middle Ages, the presence of Satan and the devil were most marked in the then predominantly Catholic Europe, which was composed of countries with very different cultural myths. Nonetheless, believers across much of Europe struggled with their concerns about these very lifelike symbols of evil and worked to devise ways to escape their wrath.15
There is little that is surprising in this history. A significant number of humans have always sensed that the world is demon haunted.16 Demons can lurk anywhere, and they assume many forms, such as representatives of the supernatural, next-door neighbors, spouses, politicians, members of ethnic groups, and agents of the Internal Revenue Service. Symbols are attached to people, animals, events, and imaginings. In the process, they acquire a special meaning and often assume the status of belief. In effect, there is a symbolism of evil that is part of human nature, and it is as much intertwined with the broad scope of everyday events as it is with religion.17
The story continues. In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, nineteen people were hanged because a handful of local citizens and authorities viewed them as patrons of the devil. Their crimes were witchcraft and the exercise of supernatural powers for evil. Black magic, sorcery, enchantment, Satanism, and related occult arts were the tools of their trade.18 Yet the events of 1692 were hardly novel to Massachusetts. The origins of witchcraft in Europe can be traced to pre-Christian pagan cults, Roman religion, and the writings and teachings of the Gnostics.19 Nor did Satan or the devil rapidly exit from the Christian psyche. They remained prominent features well into the eighteenth century, and there are reports of the practice of witchcraft in small enclaves of the Basque Country during the closing years of the twentieth century.20
While divides were narrow among believers through much of this history, a more important issue for this book is this: beliefs about evil forces devoted to tempting humans to sin and that lead to the disruption of their lives raise obvious questions about the pleasure and reward of such beliefs. Where’s the pleasure and where’s the reward? Avoiding Satan’s temptations or the devil’s wrath may reduce a believer’s anxiety for an hour or two. Yet short-term avoidance is hardly the optimal strategy for achieving a melodious and reparative life.
An alternative explanation is needed for the centuries-long persistence of such beliefs. Possibly it is this. Views associated with the end of the world, such as doomsday dates, life in purgatory as punishment for earthly behavior or belief, and the presence of evil forces like Satan are recurring products of the human brain. Each generation creates its own versions of such views.21 Some versions find their way into a culture’s psyche. If they are created in the absence of evidence and are partially counterfactual, which they usually are, they are exceedingly difficult to disconfirm; although, paradoxically, their partially counterfactual nature may make them easy to remember.22 Nonetheless, over time and with the absence of evidence, they gradually disappear because of the brain’s biases favoring pleasure and reward over punishment, fear, and deprivation. Divides gradually widen and attain recognition.23 But again, the process can be centuries long.
NEUROMARKETING
Insights into why cultural myths and beliefs develop, vary in their attractiveness, change, and sometimes disappear are suggested by findings from the field of neuromarketing.
It works this way. A group of research subjects is presented with a prospective commercial product in several different forms. Product label, container design, or taste (if a product is consumable) might be tested. During the presentation, functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) technology, which identifies the rate of blood flow in areas of the brain, is used to identify areas of increased flow in response to different forms of the prospective product. The test product that is most likely to find its way to the marketplace is the one that initiates the greatest flow in the brain’s pleasure and reward areas. Such evaluations are possible because external information, such as a bottle of Pepsi-Cola, reliably activates specific brain areas. In turn, increased flow in pleasure and reward areas signals the likelihood that a product will be purchased when shopping.24
Of course, it’s not quite so simple. There are differences among people in their brain capacities, and already-present age- and sex-related consumer preferences need to be considered. The cost of the product and the features of earlier package design may constrain the degree to which products undergo change without losing their market share—the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes label is altered only slightly from year to year. Still, the principle holds: people long for pleasure and reward, and the presence of pleasure and reward predicts behavior.
Is there a fundamental difference between the neuromarketing of products for the marketplace and the creation and revision of cultural myths? The answer would seem to be no. Both aim to identify and initiate responses of pleasure and reward for those who create them and those who embrace them—who covets a cultural myth or a store-bought product in which pleasure and reward are absent? A key point, however, is this: activation of the brain areas associated with reward and pleasure appears to initiate significant divide-reduction. This may explain, in part, the willingness of people to adopt and defend myths irrespective of justifying evidence.
How do the preceding points add up? Myths and their beliefs insinuate themselves into the detailed fabric of daily life and social conduct, perhaps close to all of it. They are embedded in customs and daily behavior.25 They provide a framework with which to interpret and respond to both old and new information. That is, they serve as interpr
eters of familiar symbols, feeling, and action and, as they do so, they alter the structure and activity of the brain.26 At times, they seem impervious to change, as is the case among groups that are committed unwaveringly to religious beliefs or individuals who refuse to part with their distorted self-evaluations. Yet beliefs do change. The length of time they endure provides a rough measure of the extent to which they serve critical roles for the emotional-cognitive lives of individuals and groups.
None of this is to suggest that people are aware of events taking place in their brains while they are absorbing and living myths. We are no more aware of many of the brain’s activities than we are of those of the pancreas. However, at times, we gain hints about the brain’s workings. For example, one may experience satisfaction in viewing a cultural symbol, such as one’s national flag or a picture of a favorite hero. Conversely, a flag or a picture of a hero of another culture may be dissatisfying, even irritating—pictures of Hitler and Stalin had this effect on many Western Europeans during the decades following World War II. Similar points apply to beliefs whether they’re political, religious, or those of a next-door neighbor.
Details about dealing with our lack of awareness of the brain’s activities remain to be discussed. But already some points seem clear. The brain’s unperceived information-processing systems actively create, confirm, and disconfirm beliefs. In doing so, they may or may not take evidence into account. They narrow divides for beliefs that please and widen them for those that displease.
COLUMBUS
At times, religious and cultural myths constrain the interpretation but not the dissemination of new evidence. New evidence receives relatively rapid public acceptance but requires years if not centuries for full cultural and religious digestion and accommodation. Columbus’s voyages to the Americas provide a striking example of how news of his travels fared when introduced into fifteenth-century Europe, which was dominated by strongly held religious myths and convictions.
Prior to 1492, the majority of Europeans had no idea of the Americas. Nonetheless, despite the absence of evidence, a few individuals believed that it would be possible to reach land by sailing west from Europe. The possibility was “in the air”—John Cabot, for example, attempted to acquire funding for a trip west from Europe before Columbus set sail. Others also entertained the possibility. Martin Behaim’s globe of the world and Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli’s world chart were compatible with land existing to the west.27 And it turns out that the believers were correct: land would be found to the west despite the fact that for many the divide separating the belief that there is land to the west and supporting evidence was wide.
When the news of Columbus’s voyage first arrived, many Europeans quickly accepted it as fact. There were exceptions, of course. Confronted with novel and unanticipated findings of such magnitude, it’s not unexpected that there would be skeptics and naysayers. They were few in number, however, and largely without political or intellectual influence. Thus, in a matter of a few years, much of Europe had learned of Columbus’s discoveries (and those of Amerigo Vespucci and others) and had accepted that there was another world that they hadn’t known of previously.28 A wide divide had narrowed.
Despite the acceptance of evidence, the discoveries took on a tedious cadence in altering the then dominant Christian view of humanity and the European conception of history and historical process. New World Indians were not mentioned in the scriptures. Infelicitous questions about the authenticity of the Bible followed. Subsequent voyages further complicated matters. It became clear that the people inhabiting the Americas had developed complex cultures that included gods, worship, rituals, kings, administrative hierarchies, diplomats, sophisticated astronomy, calendars, writing, beliefs, and myths.29 These discoveries undercut the European belief that theirs was the only sophisticated civilization. Centuries passed before the New World was incorporated into a revised European view of history. A similar point applies to navigation charts. Prior to 1586, charts didn’t correctly account for the fact that the earth is a sphere.30
Myths and beliefs change over time. Most people now accept that the earth is a sphere, not a flat plain, and that the sun, not the earth, is the center of our local universe. Nonetheless, many entrenched views—habits of the brain, so to speak—tend to disappear slowly largely because they interweave with other beliefs and are immersed in the feeling, thought, and conduct of daily life. Darwin’s ideas can serve as a case in point.
DARWIN AND DISBELIEF
The history of Charles Darwin’s writings—“a dangerous idea,” as the philosopher Daniel Dennett once noted—confers an example of beliefs that are resistant to change, at least among many.31
In On the Origin of Species (1856), Darwin’s principal book, he writes:
For natural selection acts by either now adapting the varying parts of each being to its organic and inorganic conditions of life; or by having adapted them during long-past periods of time.32 [p. 581]
Not only did the Origin turn nineteenth-century biology upside down but it also created what historian Thomas Kuhn called a “paradigm shift,” that is, a theory that leads to the reinterpretation of familiar evidence and also initiates the search for new evidence.33
As is often the case with such shifts, responses to the Origin were divided. Readers separated themselves into two opposing groups: those who believed that the theory made sense and those who believed it was false and a form of heresy. Overnight people who had understood the biological world one way were presented with a dramatically different and novel view: for example, organisms evolve parts that are elegantly fit to deal with the requirement of their lifestyles, such as grazing teeth, sharp predatory claws, and hooves for rapid escape over plains. Previously unrecognized processes in nature were active in shaping animal anatomy and behavior. For many, this made sense. Suddenly there was a theory that accounted to the facts. For those opposing the theory, one of its main faults lay in the implication that natural selection had been taking place for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. If so, how then was one to read the story of the creation of humankind and other species found in Genesis in the Old Testament?
These concerns, however, were only part of the tidings that were to come. But first, a clarification: it is not axiomatic that strongly held beliefs are coupled with intense disbelief or the rejection of alternative beliefs. For example, a gardener may be convinced that the odor of gardenias is more pleasing than that of any other flower but still appreciate the fragrance of roses as well as acknowledge that other gardeners may believe differently. This wasn’t to happen with the Origin, however. In one part of town, many of those who believed the theory also rejected the story of creation in the Bible. In another part of town, rejection of the Origin was the rule among those who took the Bible as the principal and infallible source of truth. Straddling the fence wasn’t possible.
It is now a century and a half since the Origin arrived at the bookstores in London. Recent studies show that anywhere from 24 to 85 percent of adults in different cultures believe in evolution and its primary mechanism of change, natural selection. Iceland has the highest percentage, which is greater than 80 percent, while Turkey has the lowest with 24 percent.34
For the United States, the percentage is 41.35 Moreover, for those who reject the theory, their activities are far from quiescent. In 2008, Louisiana passed an antievolution bill despite protests from state and national scientific and education organizations.36 In 2009, no fewer than a dozen antievolution bills were active in nine states—Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In 2010, five more bills surfaced in Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Carolina.37 As for classrooms in United States public schools, 28 percent of all teachers are advocates of evolutionary theory, 13 percent are advocates of creationism, and 60 percent advocate neither view.38 The cultural trial of Darwin is ongoing with no obvious presentiments despite a progressively narrowing of evolution’s
scientific divide.39
PSEUDOSCIENCE
And what of pseudoscience? On first pass, it is tempting to view it as little more than creative examples of the human imagination without evidence—grab bags of crackpot beliefs and activities invented by charlatans and the mentally deranged, as they might be described.
A sampling of their ideas and efforts would seem to confirm this view: Teleportation is the movement of something, often a human, through solid objects or from one place to another through paranormal means. Vampires are bloodsucking creatures that leave their burial places or coffins seeking to drink blood from the living. Giants are beings with human form but of superhuman size and strength (prominent in Siamese, Hindu, Persian, Mongol, and American myths). Ghosts are the souls of dead people that appear to the living in bodily form. Animal psi describes a form of psychic understanding between animals and human beings. Reincarnation is, for those who die, rebirth as some other person or being, such as an animal. Stigmata are spontaneous developments of bruises and wounds, usually bleeding, in places corresponding to the wounds of the crucified Christ. Perpetual-motion machines are machines that run on their own energy. Carnivorous trees are trees or other large plants capable of consuming animal tissue. Exorcism is the action of expelling evil spirits by adjuring them to abandon the person, place, or object that has come under their control. Tarot cards are said to predict the future through analyzing the relationship of the cards to each other. Levitation is the raising of the human body or any object into the air without mechanical aids and thereby defying gravity. Spiritualism is the belief that there is a continuity of life after death and that the dead can communicate with the living through the use of mediums. Astrology is the divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects.40
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