Mythology as Communication

Hello, Congressman Volstead?  Dionysus calling…

In any culture, ancient or modern, mythology serves a number of purposes.  Most obviously, it is a fanciful way to “answer” questions and “explain” events that cannot be truly understood in light of knowledge available at the time.  Mythology is a way of examining, illustrating, and propagating common beliefs and values, thus offering an accessible platform for promoting morality and social stability.  It is a means to establish and justify custom and tradition, emphasizing a commonality of human need and aspiration, thus serving as an emotional magnet binding society’s diverse members around core ideals.

Yet there is more to mythology than these direct and immediate functions.  Through the media of literature and art, mythology also opens a channel to communicate its society’s beliefs and taboos, hopes and fears, values and worldview, to those outside who may be separated by otherwise impenetrable barriers of culture, distance, and time.  In showing our similarities, mythology emphasizes the commonality of all human beings—past, present, and future—whose lives form the individual threads of a grand fabric.  In showing our differences, it illustrates the whole of humanity as a living, growing, evolving diversity, and reveals the value of individual thought and creativity.  Moreover, in contrasting both similarities and differences, the mythologies of other cultures lend valuable perspective to our own customs and beliefs, which are all too often taken for granted.  And lest we dismiss such concerns as esoteric and of no particular interest to anyone save stodgy academics, we should remember that our own democratic form of government, which has cast down kings, liberated slaves, elevated common men and women, and revolutionized the way each and every one of us in the modern world lives, works, and thinks.  Such innovation has made possible the wonders of modern technology and medicine, and was itself a product of such communication between the humanists of old and those of the dawn of our current era.

There are countless examples to illustrate this point, some heroic, some sublime, some tragic.  I have chosen a relatively light-hearted example of the connections and contrasts between ancient culture and our own, as reflected in the antics of the ancient god of wine and revelry, called Bacchus by the Romans and Dionysus by the Greeks.  Through this mythological character we can examine how the ancients celebrated celebration itself, how drink could be used for good or folly, and thereby compare our own attitudes and practices with those of another time and place.  Likely, we will discover both similarities and differences, and while we would expect most of these changes to be positive (at least from our own perspective), we might be surprised to discover that supposedly modern society has regressed in some respects.

Dionysus was a son of Zeus.  Worship of him was characterized by intoxicated revelry and orgies, and failure to observe such rites might be punished by the affliction of madness.  Described thus, such a spirit might seem more appropriate to taverns and brothels than to pious religion.  Yet impartial observation of the wildly animated practices of some popular religious sects of our day reveals similarities to intoxicated revelry that some might find either amusing or disturbing.

In one form or another, “altered states of consciousness” have played a significant role in various religions and mystical rites through the centuries.  Early emperors of China sought enhanced consciousness and wisdom in the hallucinations brought on by consumption of mercury.  The Oracle of Delphi made her cryptic pronouncements while breathing the sulfurous fumes of a volcanic vent.  Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad used the altered body chemistry produced by prolonged fasting and exposure to achieve enlightenment, spiritual communion, or divine revelation.  Even today, some Native American cultures use drugs to attune themselves to their spirit world.  The condition of intoxication—whether from drink, drugs, or deprivation, or from hormonal highs resulting from the emotional intensity of religious revival and faith-healing rites—has been a prominent aspect of human religious belief and practice for millennia.

Still, in our modern culture we tend to think of intoxication as a form of indulgent vice rather than worship, and certainly the Greeks and Romans also accepted this as an inescapable aspect of strong drink, apart from its application to spiritual wholeness.  One major difference in our own time has been that we have begun to acquire concrete evidence, both of the chemical nature of our own senses and consciousness, and of the effects—both desirable and undesirable—of alcohol and other substances upon the delicate chemistry that governs these functions.  We are thus finally able to understand why it produces the effects it does, to contemplate the consequences, and to adjust our behavior accordingly, with a more realistic appreciation of the relative delights and dangers of euphoric submission to dubious “altered consciousness” versus resolutely maintaining control.

The drunkard fancies himself wit and sage:  In vino veritas!

Yet to the sober, truth proclaims, the sot is but an ass.

Through the eyes of Dionysus, however, we see intoxication in a purely non-clinical context, and also in a less moralistically absolutist light than that to which we are accustomed.  Certainly use of alcohol in excess produces both psychological and physical ailments of deadly proportions, as preached by sternly religious abolitionists since the Middle Ages.  Yet in moderation drink can be beneficial, as medical science is beginning to affirm.  For—perhaps to the horror of strict religionists of our time—it turns out that moderate drink can actually improve health and increase lifespan, by relieving stress and modestly enhancing cardiovascular function.  Thus, since ancient religion and modern science so often seem to be at odds, such occasional convergences of certain elements of both disciplines is especially intriguing, for it reminds us that our own era, culture, and beliefs do not hold a monopoly on truth and wisdom.  We stand to learn more than a cupful from the ancients, perhaps especially from the Greeks, these earliest of humanists, most earnest of scholars, authors of democracy, and—yes—unabashed party animals, provided we apply a little critical observation and reason to separate the vintage from the dregs.

 

 

 

References

While no direct quotes are used in this work, the following information sources were helpful.

 

Bulfinch, Thomas. Mythology. New York. Random House, ca. 1940.

Hendricks, Rhoda A. Mythologies of the World: a Concise Encyclopedia. New York. McGraw Hill, 1981.

Morford, Mark P. O., and Lenardon, Robert J. Classical Mythology, 7^th ed. New York. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes & Variations, 5^th ed. Wadsworth, 2002.

 

This undergraduate paper was submitted on 2 December 2004 for academic credit in Classical Mythology, the objective being to present thoughts about one of the classical deities.  As the reader will note, I took a rather novel approach in relating ancient beliefs to the modern era.  The paper is written in a somewhat loose MLA format using Microsoft Word®.