…where the hero’s journey might soon come to an unexpected end
We live in a heroic society. Marvel heroes and heroines rule the small and not so small glowing screens, political and war heroes shape our societies future. Or at least, that’s what they think they do.
Inmy earlier posts, written on the subject of the catastrophic Failure of Imagination (Part 1 and Part 2) I have addressed some of the psychological and mythological factors behind the fall of our modern high-tech / high energy civilization. But, as they say: every story and narrative — no matter how false it is — needs a hero or heroine. I originally wanted to include this aspect in my previous article, but the subject proved to be such a rich target, that I decided it deserves a dedicated post. So, here we go!
A modern religion
First, let’s recap the story. In Part 2 I’ve talked about a new belief system — one that has incrementally replaced older religions and gods, and provided the same benefits by easing the believers’ fear of uncertainty and loss.
It did so via the myth of progress — an otherwise false narrative about human history — which states that everything both in social and in technological terms gets better over time, and will continue to get better in the future. According to it, despite various setbacks (wars, crises, fall of empires) the only way to go is up and up.
In contrast, it talks about earlier times as if it were all about being dirty, foul smelling, brutish and ruthless. The story uses the same narrative terms to scare people from misbehaving. It does so by presenting them an unwanted future (aka a dystopia), where dirty and foul smelling people commit brutish and ruthless acts…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
