Myth definitions

This post is a rolling inventory of definitions and descriptions of myth – mine, and those of others. The date on which an item is added to the list is given in italics, in parentheses. I’ll move it to the top of the blog every time I update it.

Myths: widely known framing stories

Here’s my latest stab at a definition of myth: Myths are widely known stories that frame how groups of people think about, and act in, the world. 

I want myths to include contemporary narratives and not just ancient tales, and this description does that. I’ll unpack the new definition and then give a list of stories that qualify as myths.

Wild West ogregores

John Anderson's WSJ review of ‘Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War’ on Netflix highlights the collective/corporate considerations behind the individualist mythologizing of the Old West.

Who’s in Charge?

In a profile of swing-state Wisconsin where affordable housing is a growing concern with voters, the Wall Street Journal quotes Kayla Lange, who’s struggling to make ends meet, saying, “It’s gotten out of control, and I blame the people in charge.” The story notes that voters ranked housing as their second biggest concern when it comes to high prices—behind only groceries—in a July WSJ poll. The trouble is that the people in charge don’t have much influence on the problem. Ogregores may be a better body to blame and try to affect.

Monsters Literal and Uncanny

Charles Fréger’s Yokainoshima: Island of Monsters and Phyllis Galembo’s Mexico Masks Rituals got me thinking about how people in different cultures represent the monstrous. Since Moderns don’t believe in ghosts and demons, so we demonize people. Non-humanoid monsters are relatively rare and examples, especially dire serpents, often live in the uncanny valley avoided by robot designers. 

Party ogregores: Biden and the Democratic Party elite

There has been non-stop coverage of President Biden’s frailties since the debate fiasco, examining the motives, actions, and opinions of Biden, people in his inner circle, party operatives, and donors. I’ve started trying to understand, instead, what the Democratic Party elite is up to. Collective agents are largely ignored in our obsession with individuals.

Koinospace: Where the Org Things Are

In Demons: Mediators between gods and humans, Egyptian mythology inspired me to think about entities that liaised between people and ogregores. But where do ogregores live? 

Polymorphic Myths

There are often several versions of the same myth or legend. Although the characters are the same, their attributes and motives can vary. Sometimes a character is a hero, other times a villain. The plots can differ, too. It’s a reminder that stories, and perhaps the reality they reflect, depends on who’s telling the story.

Demons: Mediators between gods and humans

The demons of ancient Egypt, I learned today, were liminal figures that mediated between gods and humans. It got me wondering about entities that liaised between people and ogregores.

Ogregore taxonomy and ethology

A question from Matt Nesselrodt got me thinking again about the natural history of ogregores. Assuming that the central goal of the Big Five tech companies is profit, Matt wondered what their secondary goals might be. And are such goals unique to each company? 

Tiny touches, collectively colossal

I've long puzzled over why powerful organizations aren’t more salient to me as threats or blessings (e.g., Significant but hard to discern). In part it’s because their impact is individually light, but collectively vast; being conduits for content may also play a role.

Myth’s anthropomorphic heel

My post Heroes not ogregores lamented that a top-tier newspaper’s coverage of Detroit focused on celebrities rather than systems—aka individuals not ogregores. However, a mythological approach also veers perilously close to personalization.

Heroes not ogregores: WSJ coverage of Detroit Beats the Doom Loop

I had hoped that Ben Cohen’s recent WSJ story on the revitalization of Detroit would help me think about whether a city is an ogregore. Instead, as usual, it focused on people rather than institutions, and one person in particular. I imagine it’s easier to write a newspaper piece on deadline if you only have to interview a couple of people rather than digging into the subtle dynamics and complicated history of a complex system.

Not seeing gods

My inability to perceive big tech companies (and other ogregores) as potent presences worries me. They have godlike powers, and yet I don’t experience them as such. To understand the consequences, I asked GPT-4 and Gemini-1.5 Pro for examples from mythology and folklore of people who didn't see supernatural beings, to their detriment. The pickings were rather slim.

Evangelion mechaphors

I watched the first Evangelion movie over the weekend. It tells of humans using giant robots (aka mechas; they’re called Evangelions, or Evas for short) to battle mysterious giant alien entities called Angels. Teenage children are needed to pilot the mechas. This symbiosis reminded me of being old, and corporations.