What Mythology Tells Us About People

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What Mythology Tells Us About People

• Mythology is very important in under-standing
  society as a whole.

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I. Mythology and Society

• Emile Durkheim believed that every society
  establishes certain social institutions and
  values, which are reflected in the societys
  religion.
• Therefore, most of societys gods, heroes, and
  myths are really representations of the
  institutions and values of that society. By
  examining a societys myths, we can discover its
  social institutions and values.

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• D. Georges Dumezil believed that gods were
  collective representations of the caste (class)
  system common to several ancient groups. The
  relations between the gods revealed what the
  people considered proper behavior among the
  different caste levels.

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II. Mythology and the Individual

• D. Carl Jung developed a theory about how myths
  reflect the attitudes and behavior of people. He
  believed that everyone has a personal and shared
  unconscious.

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• E. The personal unconscious is formed by his
  experiences in the world as filtered through his
  senses.

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• The shared unconscious is inherited and shared,
  just like genetics. The shared unconscious is
  organized into patterns and symbols which are
  called archetypes. Jung felt this theory could
  be proven because mythologies from different
  groups have certain features in commonsometimes,
  these groups had no contact with each other.
• So how did they get the same ideas?