Notification of prejudices

[sigurd at eclipse.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 191500

Dear Steve

But at that you have reached a tautology. Let's flesh out this a little. What is the definition of "mythology." From what I hear you say it is very close, if not identical to what I call "basic assumptions." That is, things that you believe just "are." Basic assumptions are things that you believe in a-priori to all things such as "God exists" or "Human nature is basically evil" or "There is absolute truth" or any of a hundred, nay thousands of beliefs we have. One of the most generally known statements of basic assumptions (and mythology) is "We hold these truths to be self evident- that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among which are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

What this says is, if you parse it bit by bit is.

There are truths.
These truths can be known.
These truths are obvious.
All men are created
All men are created equal.
There is a creator.
He has given all people rights.
Among these rights (but not necessarily limited to these are...


All of these are basic assumptions, articles of faith which you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of A-PRIORI TO THEM. That is you do not make a statement which makes them contingent. Such a statement would be "There are truths because the universe has ordained them. Then the Universe would be a basic assumption.  All the proofs people elicit for these are a-poteriri- that is they are observed or believed EFFECTS of the action of the truths. Thus, attempts to prove the existence of God by miracles or "If there is no god then how do you account for...." are really failures for they violate causality?

Are we talking about the same thing when you say "mythology?"

If so the problem with your statement is that by saying that one has to get beyond ones mythology implies that ones mythology is flawed and hence why should you believe it. No one believes in his heart that which is false to him, regardless of the lip service he may give it. Thus to do what you would be saying is to say either that NOTHING can believed in, or worse, nothing can be known.

Continuing on. There is nothing wrong with having a specific mythology except.

1. Where something contradicts and cannot be explained in "the mythology" or...

2.Where the mythology is inconsistent with itself. For example, if it says in one part that X is true and in another that it is false. (Note I did not say good or bad! That's an entirely different matter).  The simple fact is that people MUST have a mythology to live because we all have to have our day-to-day actions informed by over-arching principles and beliefs. Thus each person determines, or receives from authority (that is accepts a statement of belief from someone else which they WILLINGLY accept) a view of the universe as to what is the truth, what is good, bad, the one, the beautiful, the ideal. For the most part these all work well and work well enough.

But the problem what you are talking about is WITHIN the mythology of Tolerance of other mythologies. This too must be a part of the mythology (that tolerance of the beliefs of others is a good thing) but is balanced by the problem of a competing mythology which is INTOLERANT of others beliefs, or more commonly, when a competing mythology while tolerant of others beliefs contains moral precepts or states as elements of the "honorable" things that are abhorrent to us.  Let us assume here a fifth house in Hogwarts called Sunuvabitches who were not only super-Slytherinic in beliefs but believed it was good, just, and honorable to hurt, harm, betray and cause pain and misery to the other houses.  As non canonical as that hypothesis may seem to us, for the sake of argument assume it, and then ask the other houses to "transcend their mythology" to embrace the idea that the mythology of the Sunuvabitches is valid, or that it should not be resisted, or that it should be applauded as equally valid with ones own.

At that point, ANY sort of mythology or set of virtues or vices collapses into mere phenomenalism.

Otto