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We Do Not Ever Escape From Myth
On Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty’s book ‘Other Peoples’ Myths’
Plato distinguished the falsehoods of myth from the truth of history. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that some truths can only be expressed through story, which is why he proposed his own myth of the cave. We don’t really ever escape from myth.
Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty’s 1988 book Other Peoples’ Myths: The Cave of Echoes is about “metamyths”: what we say we learn from myths. Our metamyth is a struggle with the “other.” Assuming the reader’s own “Western, human, mortal, adult nature,” the “other” may include the stranger (this especially refers to Westerners with the non-Western “stranger”), animals, gods, and children. Sometimes, also, insane people are considered “other.” In any case, the metamyth is an effort to get inside someone else’s subjectivity.
Other People
There is a spectrum between a myth’s meaning for “the people who created it” and “the person who encounters it.” The middle of that spectrum is full of unknowns. Do we understand a myth better if we like it or dislike it, assess it to be true or false, or judge it to be good or evil…
