In the days when I was privileged to teach, I often taught a course entitled “Myth and Culture,” which was essentially a world mythology course.
We’d always start with the basics: the definition of myth. In casual usage, the word myth is taken to mean something that is false, but the more scholarly definition is a story, often about gods and heroes, which is believed to be true and sacred. Indeed, one of the textbooks we used was entitled, Sacred Stories. When I call something a myth then, I know that many people believed or believe it to be true, regardless of what I may personally believe.
When we study myths of the ancient Greek and Romans today, for example, we do not take them all that seriously; they are not our myths. Could there really have been that many gods and goddesses and did they really act like spoiled children? Did the Greeks and Romans really believe these stories literally or was there an underlying truth that the stories were meant to convey? What do the stories tell us about the meaning of life? Big questions; tough questions for 18-year-olds to grapple with in a college class!
One of my favorite myths to study was always the Myths of the Golden Age. In those stories, the Golden Age was one of plenty: There was no hunger, human beings (well, men) were just, and there was no war.
Later generations looked upon these stories with a bit of cynicism. Could life have ever been that good? They composed exaggerated stories of a time when fish jumped out of the river into nets, and then jumped into the frying pan. Rivers of soup and sausages flowed freely. Jewels are strewn along streets, apples fly off trees. Clearly no one is hungry or poor! This was a way of poking fun at the idealized vision of a Golden Age. It is also a way to suggest that one’s current era may not be quite so awful as people think.
When my students challenged the intelligence of those that might have believed in a Golden Age, I asked them to define what “Good Old Days” meant in their world or that of their parents and grandparents. They talked about days when life was simpler. I was able to share my fondness for writing letters, and that my uncle the machinist retired when his job became more about looking at a screen and less about actually working with the machines that kept the plant producing. Those Good Old Days are just another version of a Golden Age mythology.
When the students looked back with a more critical eye, however, they also noted that racism and sexism were more tolerated, and mental health was not seen as a health issue but as a character flaw. Those good old days were not good for everyone.
The other side of the equation is how a belief in the Golden Age or Good Old Days is also a way of commenting on the present. However, the best way of dealing with our dissatisfaction with the present is to build the future. Looking back can only get us so far in a world that is constantly changing. Doing what we have always done only gets us to the same end point.
When we consider the current age, with COVID, climate change, and Internet trolling, among other challenges, it is hard to imagine that anyone will consider this the “Good Old Days.” Yet I like to think that how we deal with the myriad challenges we face can create a future in which people will look back with pride rather than envy.
The challenge of building the future is one of the things I like most about working in education. We need to learn from the past, yet we need not repeat it. We get to imagine what is coming so that we can help our students prepare for that world. I hope that future generations will look at the world around them and be grateful rather than dissatisfied with the world we have prepared them to build.
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.
