Bataille's view on myth makes more sense to me than that of the Frankfurt school. Along with Bataille, I regard much of the west as suffering from an impoverishment of an envitalising myth.
Perhaps this is because I am not a westerner to start with. Something which is reflected in my autobiography -- although no doubt opaquely to all but a few, and perhaps as yet only to myself -- is the idea that life stopped in a sense upon migration to the west. And not in a few senses either, for I encountered an almost total denial of the value of creative spontaneity, (which was almost always misunderstood as bad behaviour, needing to be quelched). I discovered people who appeared to be genuinely incurious about where I had come from or even why. I encountered a solemn ticking off. And there were teachers who rejoiced in such a "perfect lesson" when all they had succeeded in doing was damp'ning down the vitality of the students. Perhaps what was occurring was suppression of that which appeared as "sin", although rather monochromatically. In all number of ways, I have constantly been surprised by the robotic qualities of some of my contemporaries. Their limbs seem almost too heavy to respond effectively to the immediacy of most spontaneous encounters. At the same time, their complaining voices are often and always at the ready -- and immediately shrill. This is, I believe the means of vocalisating their understanding of "democracy" -- a free for all , from which no message can be garnered.
Emotional dampness seems to be the modern mode of enlightenment which has its flip-side in social darwinism. (Social darwinism is the expression of those animals who have "broken free" from the behaviouristic mechanisms of endampening -- and yet who really haven't broken free at all, and remain socially conditioned to be animalistic -- responding to brute need.)
Contemporary understanding of the buzzword, democracy, is incredibly mythological, that is unfounded in genuine democratic relations. A person who was not brought up with it will simply not believe that what is taking place, in its name, has any relation to social or psychological vitality. If only the salient contemporary myths had some rejuvenating effect on the psyche. The patriarchal myth that women are the cause of all social ills is another dimension to modernity that only brings us down.
Perhaps this is because I am not a westerner to start with. Something which is reflected in my autobiography -- although no doubt opaquely to all but a few, and perhaps as yet only to myself -- is the idea that life stopped in a sense upon migration to the west. And not in a few senses either, for I encountered an almost total denial of the value of creative spontaneity, (which was almost always misunderstood as bad behaviour, needing to be quelched). I discovered people who appeared to be genuinely incurious about where I had come from or even why. I encountered a solemn ticking off. And there were teachers who rejoiced in such a "perfect lesson" when all they had succeeded in doing was damp'ning down the vitality of the students. Perhaps what was occurring was suppression of that which appeared as "sin", although rather monochromatically. In all number of ways, I have constantly been surprised by the robotic qualities of some of my contemporaries. Their limbs seem almost too heavy to respond effectively to the immediacy of most spontaneous encounters. At the same time, their complaining voices are often and always at the ready -- and immediately shrill. This is, I believe the means of vocalisating their understanding of "democracy" -- a free for all , from which no message can be garnered.
Emotional dampness seems to be the modern mode of enlightenment which has its flip-side in social darwinism. (Social darwinism is the expression of those animals who have "broken free" from the behaviouristic mechanisms of endampening -- and yet who really haven't broken free at all, and remain socially conditioned to be animalistic -- responding to brute need.)
Contemporary understanding of the buzzword, democracy, is incredibly mythological, that is unfounded in genuine democratic relations. A person who was not brought up with it will simply not believe that what is taking place, in its name, has any relation to social or psychological vitality. If only the salient contemporary myths had some rejuvenating effect on the psyche. The patriarchal myth that women are the cause of all social ills is another dimension to modernity that only brings us down.
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