Thanks,
Encaitare, for your example of a symbol with radically different, if not opposite meanings. The swastika has indeed a long tradition of postive worth among many cultures, not only the Hopi, but the Hindu and Buddhist as well. Here is a
link to the Wikipedia entry on the swastika . I discovered this myself with surprise one day as I walked by a Buddhist meeting hall (not a temple), where the sign was worked into the features on the door and window.
Quote:
davem wrote:
The difference for me between Tolkien's myth & Lucas' is that Tolkien's comes across to me as having its roots in the living earth, while Lucas' hovers in dead space. For me Lucas myth is not a conflict between good & evil so much as between machine & machine. It is a 'myth' for the machine age, where both sides use machines & 'machine' thinking, & so, not a 'true' myth at all. I know some will throw in the 'Force' as an example of the story's 'mythic' aspect, but for me it was simply a cop-out, a deus ex machina of the most blatant & unconvincing kind, or at best a clever trick which the hero performs to outsmart the baddies.
Or maybe I'm just a backward looking inhabitant of the Old World with an aversion to technology & its promise of 'salvation'.
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There are two ways in which I think this argument is misguided. First, I don't think Lucas did produce a conflict between machine and machine. And, second, I don't think that cultures stop producing myths.
There is indeed a great deal of emphasis on technology and dashing light sabres and cool X-wing fighters in Star Wars. However, there is also a very strong element which rejects totalising, militaristic power and its machine-dependence. The end of the 'first' Star Wars movie, now called "A New Hope' (I think), is a case in point. All the imagery there of the scene where Luke and Han are awarded their honours by Leia suggests grandiose displays of power and propaganda. (To be honest, I am reminded of 'Triumph of the Will'.) Yet as I also recall the scene, there are shadows which call into question the Alliance's manner here. It is similar, to me, to the scene in the first Indiana Jones movie where Indy is ready to walk into the bar where he meets his ex-girlfriend in a drinking match: he looks at his shadow on the wall before he walks in. I don't think the suggestion in A New Hope is as strong as that, but I think it is there to suggest that the Alliance has not understood how much it is in thrall itself to false forms of power, and that includes a worship of machine. This movie ends with, to me, a pyrrhic victory. (To be honest here, I am indebted to Professor Anne Lancashire for this reading of ST:ANH. I cannot find any online articles by her, only
this link to her course outline on SF and Fantasy films.
But secondly and more significantly, I don't think one can limit 'myth' to elements of the good green earth. (AndI don't think one need to class oneself as an inhabitant of the Old World to make this point.
) Cultures produce myths, as
Fordim has argued, and there is no logical reason why cultures which are more divorced from their ancient roots will stop creating myths. It is true that one definition of 'mythology' is "a religion or religious explanation of the world which is no longer actively believed in", but that definition strikes me as severely limiting the role of myth in the cultural imagination. One need only think of 'urban legends' to be aware that the story-making faculty is a defining element of human beings.