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The world of today is basically demythologized, still quite a few people are interested in myths because the myths have a message for them. As a matter of fact they are stories about rules of living. What we learn in our schools today are not words of wisdom. We learn technology, we get information. Our world seems to have been drained of spiritual values. People feel powerless. That is precisely what I believe is modern society's curse, this powerlessness, the weariness people feel, the alienation from the world that they live in. A social stagnation with artificial life and false life span, which has taken over. Maybe we need a hero that will give expression to our deepest yearnings .
Does society need heroes? Yes, I think so. Because needs images that will keep all the disrupted tendencies together and gather them into a purpose. The myths help us to realize that there is a possibility to achieve completion, to be able to use all our strength and to bring joy into the world. To kill the monsters and the fire-spitting dragons is to defeat darkness .
What happens then, if society does not have any powerfull mythology anymore? Our teenagers loose faith in the religions in which they have been raised and turn inward. They often do this with the sopport of drugs. Society has not assigned any rituals that will make them members of the tribe and the community. This is the essential meaning of the initiation ceremonies. In primitive societies they strike out teeth, inscribe scars on their bodies and practise circumcision etc .
In modern cities like New York for example teenagers create their own rites. That is why there is graffitti all over the city. They have their own gangs, their own initiation rites, and their own laws. But they are dangerous, because their laws are not the laws of the city. They have not een taken up in the society .
Is modern society so devoid of hope then? I do not think it has to be that way. In our technological society where most of our dreams and fantasies are represented in films and videogames, there is a growing tendency to create new factasies of our own. People are getting tired of having everything served on a silver plate. We need to create new myths and at the same time to look back in search for old lost ones .
In the myth, there is no argument against industry and science. When you plunge into a totally unknown adventure and make a path, Wheater it is some sort of technological breakthrough or simply a new way of living, you run the risk of getting too enthusiastic or to neglect certain mechanical aspects then you will most certainly fail. When assenting to one's longings, enthusiasm, and feelings you have to keep your head cool, so that it will not lead you straight into calamity. I cannot recognize any opposition between science and mythology. Science itself is now drawing nearer the dimensions of mystery, soon it will have reached the border. The border between that which can be understood and that which will never be clear, because it is a mystery that is beyond the reach of human reseach. For instance; we do not even know what a nucleus is, if it is a wave or a particle - maybe it is both .
What kind of myths will incorporate the machine into our new world? The cars are already there in mythology that is. They are in our dreams. Airplanes too, play an important role in the service of imagination. The voyage of the airplane represents the liberation from earth, in a way pretty much like birds symbolizing freedom. And now it is also time for the computor to introduce itself in the world of fantasy. The computor that many people regard as omnipotent god, with its software going in and out of it, as if they were angels bringing information from earth .
Not only do I believe that there is a place for imagination in our technological society, but furthermore I am quite convinced that it is neccesary for us and future generations to keep on dreaming. Really one of the most important differences between machines and humans, is that humans are capable of imagining things, while a machine is directed by certain signals and commands. In order to be master and inventor of our technological devices, we must continue doing what humans have done for several thousands of years - that of dreaming and imagining .
