Demythologization

I had  the idea last night, that in some sense, development of the sphere of human thought (and its subsets, including society), could be viewed as progressive demythologization of the Universe.

In primitive tribes, Nature, including men, women and their social organization, is mythological as a whole and there are no distinctions between ways of Universe and ways of tribes, Nature is an anthropomorphized whole (animism is it called, I belive).

With the development of agriculture, mythologization of nature starts to decrease – the world of bear-people and nature spirits becomes something we can learn to control. But the mythologization of human social organization does not disappear, it even seems to increase. We begin to believe, that social hierarchy is something natural and eternal.

Advent of capitalism brings the demythologization of social hierarchy. In democratic republics, social status is something which is not pre-ordained and can be obtained through individual activity. Which means that another layer of mytholgization has fallen away.

So is the Myth gone now, in our age? I think not. The religion of our culture is the mythologization of Individual, of Self, its Desires and preordained Destiny.

I sense here some kind of tendency which is somewhat hard to describe. Demythologization of the world does not seem to be an ongoing linear progress, instead it shoots up whenever a transformation in humanity’s… “Noosphere” is about to occur. Its like increasing mythologization is the final defece line of the old order against the new. What I mean is, that it is shortly before the transformation from feudalism to capitalism where the mythologization of feudal hierarchy becomes the main theme in culture in the form of Monarchy.

Also, it is in our current epoch where worship of mythologized Individual Self becomes the central theme of the culture, more than it was in any earlier period of capitalism. (And a similar increase in the mythologization of Nature could probably be found before transition from tribal life to warrior caste-protected agricultural lifestyle).

If this theory is correct, then as the result of the next social transformation, we’ll see the final  demythologization, the demythologization of Self. This does not mean disappearance of Self, only disappearance of mythical, Heroic Self, who has a preordained Destiny that arrives independent of their personal actions. Perhaps in next level of social formation, individual learns not to lie to him- or herself *about* him- or herself and Mystical Me becomes a self-aware individual, aware both of shortcomings in its existential situation as well as seeing realizable ways for circumventing these.

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