Embrace the good myth
Mal Reynolds : It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
One of the better episodes of Firefly is when Mal Reynolds and his crew land on a Third World-style planet run by a warlord with an incel son. While looking to do business they’re stunned to find Jayne has become a local folk hero, complete with his own statue and folk song.
The myth: Jayne stole money from the warlord and dumped it out over the town in a Robin Hood-esque manner.
The truth: Jayne stole money from the warlord, betrayed his partner in crime, and then had to dump the money out to lighten the ship’s load.
The town eventually finds out their selfless hero was really just a self-serving scoundrel, and rather than turn on him one of the locals takes a bullet for him. Consumed with shame, he tears down his own statue and they leave the planet presuming the town will just put it back up.
How you interpret that depends on your perspective. In a hellhole with no hope of ever improving your life, it’s not hard to see why the people would put the statue back up. On the other hand, the danger is creating false Serenity and self-deceit.
However, false Serenity involves choice. For the “mudders” who live on that planet, there is no finding Serenity. Hope is ultimately the difference between expectations and reality. The residents knew their lives would never get better, at least not through their own action, so they created a folk hero. The myth is rooted in the hope for a better future, but their deliverance must come from somewhere else other than among their own.
This is where the good myth has value. What difference did it make for them to believe in a hero they know never existed? It gives them something to lighten their spirits. It doesn’t make them any less poorer, just less miserable.
The importance of myths is underestimated. As historian and translator Quintus Curtius wrote years ago, man needs his myths. The myth is the last thing to die. It’s not a coincidence that when Thomas Malory was imprisoned, he used that time to write and compile the Arthurian tales, known today as “L’Morte D’Arthur.”
The downside to myths is that, as I mentioned, toxic ones can keep people docile or deluded about their circumstances. If I were a warlord with a populace of slaves and had a Machiavellian mindset, that’s precisely what I would do. Give them something to keep them from hopelessness, because there’s nothing more dangerous than a person who believes they have nothing to lose and their spirit isn’t yet broken.
In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel First Circle, a prisoner in the gulag lashes out at one of his guards, then mocks him when threatened because the State has effectively destroyed or taken away anything they could use to control him.
“You are strong only as long as you don't deprive people of everything. For a person you've taken everything from us no longer in your power. He's free all again!”
Finding Serenity involves embracing the good myths and rejecting the bad ones. If you’re wondering which is which, simply look at who created them and who wants to destroy them. A good myth lifts the spirit as much as it provides hope. It inspires meaningful action. A bad myth deceives someone as to maintain passivity and does not lift the spirit, but demoralizes.
At its core, the difference between a good myth and a toxic one is its perspective on the future.