History versus myths: are myths really something inherently bad?

 For the past weeks I have taught a course on the uses of history. What has struck me is that the literature often portray myths as something inherently bad, even though myths according to their own descriptions could be neutral. So let’s start with the definition:

Myths are often in this perspective based around the human need to explain our existence. In contemporary society few would believe that humans would be descendents from ash and elm, even though this was common in the Viking era. But this does however not mean that myths have played out their parts, since we for instance sometimes need to explain were groups such as ”the swedes” and ”the Dane’s” came from. In my perspective myths can however also turn to much smaller communities, since we all for instance have that colleague that worked at our workplace fifteen years ago that nobody met but still discusses their behaviour on an after work.

The last aspect highlights another part of myths: they are close to our own life-world. For a myth to serve the need to explain our existence it also have to be related to our own life’s. In this perspective, myths also blends fiction with fact and making them possible to believe in.

Many scholars have written about the idea of origin myths of the state. Often it is highlighted that such myths are used for social exclusion or other parts of national chauvinism. This is all correct and deeply sympathetic way of viewing myths, but I wonder what would happened if we approached myths from a less judgemental standpoint. Let’s say that we instead of studying the myth studies its history of being told and retold, would we still end up with a myth that originated for social exclusion? Or something entirely different? Of course we would probably end up in the first category when investigating fascism, but what if we would trace the myth beyond the dark beer-chambers of fascism? Maybe it is time to let go of taken for granted assumptions.

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