Why the modern man NEEDS myths

Rollo May was an existential psychotherapist. In his book A Cry For Myth, he explores the place of mythology in modern life. Here are some great insights on how humans need more than mere reason to thrive, why mythology is connected to the drug crisis, and more:

The modern man is psychologically dazed without myths. Nietzsche: "Here we have our present age … bent on the extermination of myth. Man today, stripped of myth, stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for roots, be it among the most remote antiquities."

Freud and Einstein were contemporaries and exchanged letters. Freud: "It may perhaps seem to you as though our theories are a kind of mythology…. But does not every science come in the end to a kind of mythology like this? Cannot the same be said today of your own Physics?"

Rollo May argued that myths are needed to make sense of a "senseless world." He wrote: "Myths are like the beams in a house: not exposed to outside view, they are the structure which holds the house together so people can live in it."

Rollo May writes that when the myths of Ancient Greece were "vital and strong," the people had life-affirming values like "beauty, truth, goodness, and courage." But when the myths "broke down," the culture became pessimistic. Achievements were replaced by "aching hearts."

When people have no myths to orient them in life, they turn to narcotics. Rollo May: "If we cannot make sense of our lives, we can at least temporarily check out of our boring routine by “out-of-the-body” experiences with cocaine or heroin or crack or some other."

When we depend too much on scientific theories, we develop an impoverished worldview that backfires. Linguist Gregory Bateson: "Mere purposive rationality unaided by such phenomena as art, religion, dream, and the like, is necessarily pathogenic and destructive of life."

Myths give us what we most need to live well: heroes. Exemplary figures we can mimic. Rollo May: "We hunger for heroes as role models, as standards of action, as ethics in flesh and bones like our own. A hero is a myth in action." Heroes are north stars orienting our action.

Duality of myths: "The myth brings into awareness the repressed, unconscious, archaic urges, longings, dreads. This is the regressive function of myths. But also, the myth reveals new goals, new ethical insights and possibilities. This is the progressive function of myths."

Bottom line. Humans cannot live on pure data alone. To make sense of life, we need more than spreadsheets - we need stories. Myths are exactly such sense-making stories. Via myths we can understand our relationship with the universe and how to best act. Myths are life-affirming.