Ideology is necessary to systematically dealing with a set of issues. Ideas frame issues, frame life, and give us guidelines for application of principle to life so we can live in a consistent manner. People with defined ideologies often live more successfully than people without a concept of how to live. For that reason ideology is necessary to life.
That is why the slippery slope between ideology and being an "Ideologue" exists. What are the properties that make an ideology negative?
Mythology is necessary to provide models for life; wisdom about issues of how to live a just, caring, virtuous, and civil life. The stories, when told well, encapsulate the pure wisdom of previous and present generations. Mythology presents ideas in a powerful easy to understand form.
Yet, like the issue of Christians dealing with Santa Claus, Shiites dealing with the return of "Ali", or Jews waiting on the Messiah or Eliyahu Hanavi, myths seem to present society with problems. Some people so strongly believe in a mythological version of the world that this real world can never measure up. They are quite willing to destroy the present world in order to bring about their envisioned ideal one. They cannot accept that "Santa Claus" or their other attached myths dwell in the realm of spirit and mind-stuff, and that they aren't going to run into a literal Saint Nick walking down the street. In short these are people who have kept themselves in a permanent state of adolescence.
What are the properties that make myths into something negative?.
Mike writes:
(see SokagakkaiInternational group post 71886)
"In Abhidharma or Buddhist psychology there is a classification of
people by six general types: faithful and greedy (who are
characterized by wholesome and unwholesome attachment), intellectual
and angry (who are characterized by wholesome or unwholesome
criticism), and the speculative and distracted (who are
characterized by false views and inability to concentrate). I always
found it interesting that in this system it is pointed out that
attachment can function either positively (as faith) or negatively
(as greed) and aversion either motivate healthy analysis or hatred.
The trick is to find a way to steer that tendency in a more positive
direction, instead of just negating it."
He notes that each tendancy is neither good or ill. Attachment can be wholesome (faithful) or unwholesome (greedy or fanatic). Criticism can be "wholesome" or "unwholesome". We can either concentrate or lose concentration, etceteras.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with most mythology -- treated as mythology -- it is in the hands of the user of that mythology as to whether or not it is "wholesome" or not. likewise with ideology. The key is to believe in "wholesome things" an that takes a certain discipline and;
"Untangling the Mishmash"
Seek the origins of each story or belief in Context
So how do we apply this to Legends and Myths? First, when examining a story, look to see the origins of the story. If it is a universal story one will find numerous variants of it with the same message. For example the story of the "Childrens Crusade" is based on two similar incidents, one in Germany, one in France, around the same time. The message, however, is pretty near universal. The story of Robin Hood is told in nearly identical tales from Chicago to the Ozarks and from there to England and in other parts of the world. It is a legend which has the substance of a pure archetypical myth. If we are a bit challenging of such stories we can sometimes find they are made up -- such as Reagan's tale of Welfare mothers driving Cadillacs.
Deconstructing myths and lies
Dealing with ideology we first have to examine the myths underlying each ideology. For example the "invisible hand myth" that is based on some observations of Adam Smith, but that in the hands of ideologues becomes the basis for economic belief and self-justification. Deconstructing such myths are more difficult than dealing with pure legends because they are often presented as scientific facts. Sometimes a myth is simply based on lies.
Applying a theory in context
Sometimes a theory works under some circumstances but breaks down under others. Other times a theory is applied outside of its realm of legitimate observation and theory. Abusive mythologizing is where ideas that make sense in one context are turned into myths used in another context. The classical example of this is the notion of "scientific racism." Which is a mishmash of half baked ideas that drew from Social Darwinism, popular misconceptions, and pure prejudice. But scientific myths are often more difficult to tease out. For example which is a scientific myth; "Global warming" or "Global Warming is a myth." Global warming is a demonstrated trend. Whether it is a disaster or not is a subject of debate.
Don't valorate by Attachment
Mythologizers tend to valorate by attachment. That is they tend to look at a goal and turn it into an unbending principle. If a principle is held at the expense of other competing or offsetting principles, it may be being used in a mythical fashion. For example some people so value liberty that they deny equality, the "commons", or any need for government to enforce equality or justice. These people are mythologizing something. In this case it is usually the "invisible" hand teachings of Adam Smith combined with a mishmash of other ideas.
No silver bullet
The hardest part in developing a coherent ideology is to untangle the mishmashed ideas. The more simplistic an ideology the more attractive it is, and the more decisive its believers can be. So it is dangerous to seek a single silver bullet for issues, or to rely on one for solving every problem.
An example of this was Milton Friedman's ideas about using a steady money supply to control inflation. Friedman realized that as a benchmark this system worked, but he soon realized that as theory it wasn't a complete solution and moved on to some pretty good modifications of his original ideas. Some of his disciples, many people in fact, however, have taken this as a silver bullet to solve all problems.
Likewise there is still considerable "Keynesian" theory misuse going on. People who "hate" Keynesian ideas for their critique of the invisible hand use them all the time to stimulate spending and avoid having to confront the implications of the Keynesian critique. The result, since they do this in a military spending, is that they distort and poison the economy instead of creating a sustained system.
Multiple POVs
If folks would look at the political economy, politics and religion, from multiple points of view and apply this conceptual framework to their lives, they would find that eventually rather than the competing ideas opposing one another, they start to describe the same animal from multiple perspectives. We need to examine how we relate to each other, how things actually function, and recognize that at varying times and places things function differently and yet according to similar principles.
Growing up
Part of the problem is that people are entering adolescence earlier and earlier, and staying in that way of looking at things longer and longer. People need to be at one and the same time open to new ideas (like an adolescent) and cautious about attaching to things simply because they are new or seem to give a simple solution. When a person "grows up" he/she realizes "there is no literal Santa Claus" but learns that inside of our hearts the things that each myth represents are very important and that the "realities" in our heads are as important as the ones in the material world around us. It is time to set aside abusive mythologizing, psuedo science, and convenient explanations for reality. It is also time to reconnect with family, duty, honor, and society.
-- That is to grow up.
Becoming Conceptual Architects.
I hope one day that we will have a society in which religious and political-economy teachers are wise enough to embrace progressive ideas. That is only going to happen when those who have the power to lay out concepts have the self control and wisdom to do some of the things, and employ some of the ideas, I'm laying out here. Each day is a miracle.
Happy Channukah and Seasons Greetings!
Chris :-)
In my previous post I refer to the power of strategy and the use (misuse actually) of mythology as a strategy. That use is perfectly valid when done honestly and wisely. But of course, here I'm combatting the misuse of the powerful methods of religious interpretation and myth; the misuse of the Garden, the PaRDeS. To do that I'm using the power of story telling and interpretation myself. But in a way that I think is honest and hopefully inspiring.
If we are going to combat the strategy of abusive mythologizing, it has to start with getting a clear understanding of the myths and tales we already have. And to me the issues start and finish (nearly literally) with Daniel. I've heard a lot of good sermons about this subject, and a lot of claptrap. There are of course many levels to any good story and even more to how to interpret it. A good sermon can take a story and put it in modern terms and still carry its sense. A bad sermon turns a good story into mush or worse turns it inside out.
Storytellers invented the myth of the "Golden Man" long ago. In a sense the epic of Gilgamesh is a tale about one mans candidacy for the role. This myth, that of the divine king dates back at least to the first Pharoah of Egypt, Ramses, but it was developed probably before the Greeks developed civilization by other thinkers now lost, because they used it to build the myth of the divine King, and later the divine King of Kings. The divine King is part of the story of King David, part of the narrative that drove the Egyptians, then the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, the Mongols, and their successor states. It also is the controlling image of the story of Hercules, son of "God", and Apollo. Somehow we in the West are still half Roman and more than a little Greek in our "Western" Souls. Even as we claim to worship a Bible authored by Jews. Because of that Bible, before I joined the Jewish Community I arrogantly presumed I already understood them. I didn't.
In the megillah or story of Daniel where he talks about this very same image, in open allegory. I consider this story, placed nearly at the beginning of the Book of Daniel, as the controlling revelation of Daniel, and the controlling story for further related revelations penned into the predictions of Daniel, of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezequiel and later prophets such as Zechariah. This controlling metaphor also plays into the prophesies of the Christian Bible.
I believe that at the hear of the story of Daniel is a buried allegory about the "Man God" myth. Like most such allegories it is an "on the one hand, on the other hand" type of analysis. In Daniel Nebuchadnesser dreams of a Golden Man. Daniel explains this dream. Like Joseph he is a master at dream interpretation. The ancient Rabbis who wrote down the Bible often intentionally separated linked stories, but this story is linked later to an incident in which Nebuchadnesser erects a Golden Head in the desert outside of Babylon. Most Biblical scholars since those documents were first written down at a later time, when the Greeks were an enemy not the Persians. Even decoupled from the backdated elements, the dream that Daniel interprets and that gets incorporated into works up until Revelations is spookily "on target" to such a degree that even the crudest sermonizer usually gets that part of the message.
In the dream of the Golden man, Daniel is asked to interpret the dream of a Golden Man and he explains that the head of Gold refers to Nebuchadnesser himself, the upper body of silver to the "kingdom to follow" [A direct reference to Persia], the Mid-body of Bronze refers to the Greeks. The Kingdom of Iron to the Romans, and finally the feet of clay and iron to the successor to the Romans. The authors knew about the Gold Silver and Bronze states, but they could not have known what would succeed those states. Looked at as a strait allegory we live in the time of "mixed clay and iron" that follows. Finally a ball of stone is made by "no human hand" and thrown at this Golden man, and he is broken up into dust which reforms the "world." Obviously not a literal story, though many abusive mythologizers interpret it such. When they make the link to revelations they often liberally interpret the part about the feet of clay. It refers to "us" and that is why it makes us uncomfortable. This is because most of them use it to supplement Revelations, where they treat it as a supplemental revelation and Revelations as if it were the primary revelation. However, revelations is explicitly tied to Daniel. The authors of Revelations were interpreting the dream or vision of Daniel (Actually Nebuchadnessar himself) through their own meditation/dream power, maybe modified by redactors but essentially a vision based on another vision.
They treat the Megillah as supplemental because to do otherwise wouldn't allow them to shift the context of the vision from a Jewish one to a Christian or even anti-semitic one. It seems pretty obvious to me that the "part of iron" is the Roman part, and the "part of clay" is the Judeo-Christian part. [Of course for the authors they may have been thinking of Alexander, and his Generals. Which shows the value of putting things in context, but doesn't detract from the value of my own interpretation which pretty much makes the interpretation of Revelations nearly facile]. When revelations and later passages in Daniel talk about successor kingdoms and patterns they are talking about patterns of anti-semitism and "realpolitik" that continue into our own time. If those patterns resemble the behavior of the Greek Kings and the Maccabees, that shouldn't be surprising. As long as people don't take history series, the same stupidities keep repeating time after time after time.
The Golden man vision is related to fundamental beliefs. Jewish religion forbade the carving of images for the worship of such carvings. A Golden man is the ultimate of violations of Jewish Law. And Daniel explains allegorically the why of why that is such an evil sin. Christians (and many Jews Moslems and others) get caught up on little things, but big things often excape them (us). Gods commandments include "thou shalt not worship any God but me,...and thou shalt not worship engraved images." Where Jews and others have gotten in trouble is what it means to worship God, what or who God is, and what that commandment is talking about.
The dream of the Golden man reflects Nebuchadnessars fundamental confusion about religion. To dream of a Golden man is appropriate. To carve an image of him to worship is not. Nebuchadnessar carves that image after Daniel explains that the "Golden head" was the Great king himself. So what does he do, carves an image of his own head and orders people to worship it. Fundamental confusion, fundamental mistake. To try to carve him as an image, as Nebuchadnessar did, was, in the story of Daniel the reason for his fall. Naturally, this mistake also was the pretext for a persecution of his Jewish servants. The famous story of them in the furnace follows his carving the head. His next dream was about his head reaching up into the sky and him being punished by insanity for the trouble. Nebuchadnessar was brought down because his head had reached into the heavens, and he was starting to believe his own myth. Not because of his persecution of Jews. His "hubris" as the Greeks called it brought him down.
But the myth, and controlling myth is bigger than one man. After Nebuchadnessars son (actually more like his grandson or great grandson historically) was defeated by the Persians, Daniel serves the Persians, Darius son of Ahasuerus (same name as the King in the megillah of Esther) comes to rule the entire land, the Jews return to Israel, and continue to dream of a restored monarchy -- the "branch" of King David. The bible gets written down (all but the "New Testament") and the temple is rebuilt.
But then things go wrong again. There is the story of Hannukah, and the Maccabees fight to keep Israel pure and then succumb to Helenizing influences. The Maccabees enlist the Romans who betray them and install the "Idumean" King Herod. Herod is thoroughly corrupt and thoroughly Helenized, and he presides over a Temple that is goverened by patronage. The various members of Davidic Royalty finally find themselves being crucified by the hundreds as they seek to resist the Romans. Finally one of them presents himself as a spiritual and allegorical Jewish King and is martyred for it.
Yet History continues, the "branch" never returns to real power, and along comes revelations and the conversion of the Roman Empire to the cult of one of those martyred candidates. Well the reason is that the "Golden Man" myth is still standing. Unlike the Colossus of Rhodes, we don't even marvel at his broken body, but still see him mounted up on walls and Churches all over the world.
In our present age how many of us have seen people (usually with feet of clay) portrayed as if they were hero-kings, "Hercules" child of the Sun God, or "Apollo" child of the Father God. Or Jesus,... portrayed as men with heads made of Gold. The Babylonians followed this abusive myth, but then the Persians chased after it as well. Following them came the Greeks, who were in turn corrupted by it. And following them were the Romans. And now? Are we ready to end the creation of "golden men" or are we ready to accept a new compelling vision? Forget all the stories about dragons, and monsters, and Kings of the East, North, South and West. The controlling myth here is the image of the Golden Man; of Man as God. Of "worship me I'm an Emperor."
But Daniel tells how this will end. In the vision God finally makes a ball of stone carved by "no man" and throws this at the man, who is destroyed and the Stone becomes a "great mountain" that fills the entire Earth.
How about this final interpretation?
The ball of stone is Earth. Seeing that earth is a ball of Stone made by "no mans hands" is a humbling experience. It is time to do away with the myths of Golden men and to accept that we are all just human beings after all. If these metals are all melted together and reformed into crystals of pure beauty then the metal is first turned into clay and then into precious and semi-precious stone. We live on a jewel of Lapis Azula, agate and jade. That is what Daniel was trying to show us. Revelations is about the eternal effort to build golden men. And how all that needs to fall away and we need to live a vision in which we recognize and accept what we've already been offered. If we but developed an enlightened viewpoint we'd see that the "new earth" and "new Jerusalem" are already potential in our hearts. Which is what I think Augustine was talking about when he wasn't trying to explain why Rome had fallen to barbarians.
At the same time, in the hands of the confused people of Rome and its dominions, the "Golden Man" myth was turned on its head and people actually equated it with Jesus, the founder of Christianity itself. Hence, the Romans picked up the tradition of persecuting Jews where they had left it off, and coupled it with replacement theology. Revelations may be a Christian Book, but it was written about Jewish concerns. And Daniel's own dream, later and referring to the controlling dream, was about how long those persecutions would last. Hence when they talk about Revelations and those prophesies come true, they are referring to their own behavior. All those things are about the anti-Jewish behavior of Christians. When Human beings awaken to the figurative nature of the Jesus character Kingship, and stop following the Golden man myth, they will be destroying the Golden man. When they follow people who turn the Messiah/kingship of the "Branch" (descendents of David) on its head, they are acting as the Anti-Messiah. And this has been pretty explicit, especially in the Catholic Churches.
And of course the "great mountain" is Zion, but is also the seat of all learning and wisdom. Which means it is "Sumeru." It is Gridrakutra. It is Mt. T'ien-t'ai, and it is Mt. Hiei and Eagle Peak. So Daniel tells us all we really need to know about Revelations. The repeating miseries of the Jewish people, the persecutions and stupid wars, will all end, when Humans see the Golden man for what he really is; an Illusion. And when they see the Great Mountain of Peace in their hearts, with the eternal "Golden Image" in its place.
This is my opinion and my vision. Just food for thought.
Chris
If we want to win the long-term battle for a better world. We have to start by understanding and using strategy. Anyone who analyzes what is happening in politics, religion and even most work places soon becomes aware that what is at fault is often policy, poor conceptualization of what needs to be done, and a failure of what Senior Bush called the "vision thing." As a result people fall prey to false, misleading, or twisted "visions" that lead to bad outcomes. This is not a matter of tactics, this is a matter of bad strategy. Good tactics follow good strategy. This is not a matter of winning battles, but of how to win wars in such a way that the "enemy" has become a friend and thinks he/she won.
Tactics is an old game for humans. Anthropologists and biologists are finding out that tactical games are old hat dating back millions of years. The ability to use short term strategies to win goals is built into our genes. I'm not sure how well good strategy is built into our genes. Sometimes it seems that short term self-serving, but long term destructive strategies are built into our genes. Even so, good strategy can beat bad strategy any day. And good tactics follow from good strategy. So how do we achieve functional strategy?
Good Strategy is about playing a deeper game. It reguires we recognize the strategy of opponents and come up with means to combat them.
Strategy is always present, even when not explicitly so. In my previous post I talked about "abusive mythologizing" and how people use stories to create myths that then are used to counter inconvenient truths or to win people to their side in their struggle for power and dominion over others. The power of such myths was identified for the first time in the modern period by Georges Sorel. And as Mimi noted in her comment on my blog entry, the shameless, perverse and hypocritical use of myth is an ongoing feature of modern life.
There is nothing wrong with using the methods of the PaRDeS (literal, allegorical, Sermonical, and insightful) interpretations of religious texts to advance spiritual awakening and understanding. However, there is something very wrong with the way these tools are used by many of our present day religious, spiritual and political leaders.
The founders of most modern religions were seeking to guide and save people from suffering. Instead their disciples have used these methods to abuse myth, and coupled with lies, have created abusive mythologizing in order to keep people from doing the kind of thinking that would free them from such delusions. Such mythologizing is like the "poison" that the Lotus Sutra talks about. What should be a medicine (religion) becomes an "opiate" and then in the hand of abusive people a poison.
So the "strategy" to fight this sort of strategy. The founder of Nichiren Buddhism recommended the "strategy of the Lotus Sutra." I believe that he was talking about using the hermaneutics (teaching strategy) of the Lotus Sutra to disabuse people of abusive myths, and establish the kind of fable, myth, and stories that are both inwardly true, descriptive of the real world, creative, nurturing, and that would be transformative of society. This requires, however, that people grow up. In the past this meant that the leaders had to grow up and learn exactly what they were doing, why they were doing, and what it all really meant. This was appropriate "esotericism." They had to do this in order to combat abusive mythologizing, money grubbing religious teachers, and ignorant people who had no idea of what was going on. The temptation to fall into the same pattern was so strong that for many of Nichiren's followers the meaning of "strategy of the Lotus Sutra" was turned on its head. It came to mean chant daimoku and ignore the sutra.
So the deeper game is to train people to understand and use myths intelligently, spiritually, and without attaching to literalism or dogmatism. That is a difficult game, but I know it can be done. It is the strategy of the Lotus Sutra.
Chris
In a previous post I brought the writings Sorel and how they fed into the propagandizing efforts of first Communists, later Fascists, and still later modern advertizers, neo-fascists, and modern politics in general. Georges Sorel wrote about the power of myth and fable. What he described is older than modernism. It is the power of Aesop's fables, and the power of the Bible. It is why Ronald Reagan could skunk people with far better logic and proof. One good picture is worth a thousand words, but one good visual narrative is worht a thousand pictures and a thousand words. Mythologizing, fable creating, tale telling can be used for good or for ill. Masters of story-telling can cause great positive transformations or create awful fracases and failures.
Mythologizing is the extraction of pure story from experiential material. The purest myths tell stories using "pure elements" of myth. Legends extract similar "pure elements" from otherwise more plebian stories. Moderns claim to value realism, with realism one tries to retain the things that depict the hero as a human being. But too much realistic detail can detract from the moral of a good story, so story-tellers are always tempted to simplify and fictionalize.
For example when telling the story of, say, a war hero and sky-ace and linking it to the mans character, it doesn't fit in with the story that he later was booted for office for taking bribes. Such a narrative is inconsistant with a narrative of success due to character, gravitus and virtue. For a lionizer, it is a side issue that the person later forgot to attend to all that. Mythologizers are tempted to leave that out of the narrative. As a great story teller once put it, they tend to leave out the "rest of the story."
On the other hand realism and mythologizing efforts can be combined when those telling the story are aiming at comprehensive wisdom. Weaknesses, foibles, and other qualities should be left in the story in order to play a role in teaching morals or lessons. Achilles has a spot in his heel that is not immortal so he can die. He dies because he arrogantly tempts fate,... David betrays a friend and subordinate in order to marry his wife, and then suffers the consequences later when his own son betrays him... The Israelites are not permitted to enter the Holy land after they rebel against "God" and show cowardice in the face of their promises... Our pilot hero was brought down, not by enemy aircraft, but by his believing his own selfish narrative. There is value in presenting people as fallible human beings. Even God is depicted as fallible. He/She/IT is depicted as regreting destroying humanity with a flood, then He/She/IT is depicted as wondering if he should do it by fire.
These are all narratives intended to get people to see things more than one way; both broadly and deeply.
However, folks often want to make a point that accords, not to reality or wisdom, but to their designs for how the world should be, ought to be, or how they want their followers to see it. That is there are people who use mythologizing and story telling abusively, for selfish ends, who manipulate others with stories, or who use stories to convince people to do twisted things. This is "abusive mythologizing." Reagan practiced it when he invented stories about "welfare mothers driving Cadillacs" or put himself into World War II battle scenes he only played as an actor.
Abusive mythologizing is a tool, which combined with sophistry is very powerful. Most of the awful things that happen today and in the past are the fruits of people who have been sold abusive myths.
Myth can retain human characteristics, but more often the mythologizers purify out character flaws.
The difference between good story-telling and abusive mythologizing is subtle. One mans demogogue is another's people's hero. Even true stories can be used abusively. However, the essential difference between legitimate story tellings and abusive story telling or mythologizing, is the substantive truth of the moral and of the fable/vehicle used to carry that moral. Essentially the story itself is just a story. It is how it is used that makes it good or evil. Just like a knife or other tool. A knife is invaluable at the dinner table, and utterly evil in the hands of a killer.
In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha tells of a Physician father whose children had drunk poison. This has been used as a narrative to justify carefully and well crafted religion (color odor and taste). But it also involves a question of what constitutes legitimate story telling and what is not. The Father tells his crazy children through a messenger that he is dead. And this turns out to be the only thing that will get them to drink the medicine that counter-acts the poison they had drank earlier. Believing he is dead they drink the medicine and are cured. In that case the primary morality of the use of skillful words (the narrative that the Father had died) is in the effect -- that the only way the children will wake up is to recognize that they are truly on their own and can no longer use their father as a crutch.
This is, although admitted to be not true, later claimed to be absolutely not a lie. Why? We are expected to grapple with this. My own answer (and you'll have to find your own as well). Is that the Father spoke the truth because as long as the children were poisoned their father was dead to their perception.
The Lesson of this story is that stories and vehicles are not the same thing as history and reporting. They are meant to carry morals. The Lotus Sutra story of the physician is thus a morally positive story that conveys a deep truth. It is not abusive mythologizing.
Even so, in the hands of abusive people, even the Lotus Sutra becomes a vehicle for spreading abusive mythology. Traditionally this story has been used to justify the interpretation of "skillful means" as "lies" and as justification for wholesale lying. This is a matter of interpretation. In the hands of corrupt authority even the lotus Sutra becomes a vehicle for teaching lies, lying, and for creating a fantasy perception of reality.
In conclusing myth, like other tools at our disposal is a tool. Religious thinking and myth can be used either to provide guidance, or to define and spread dogmas. It can be used in an abusive and authoritarian manner, or it can be used to enlighten and uplift.
Abusive myth is usually used to promulgate one view of reality over others. Dogmas are set doctrines that are approved by "authorities." Authorities in this context tend to arrogate to themselves not just the role of giving guidance about how to behave, but to set laws and impose them on people. The Bible, for example, talks about how it is an "abomination" to lay with another man. That is guidance. The hebrew can be interpreted in several ways. Dogma is the taking of that "guidance" and making it law. Such laws might sound reasonable to strait folks like myself, but might be interpreted differently by people in other circumstances. Those passages are balanced by other passages, and modified by examples and custom. For example the passages in the bible about stoning a disrespectful son were never intended to be acted on. Bibles and other religious "law" are meant to be guidance for guiding people not dogma for imprisoning them minds. Nevertheless in the hands of unscrupulous or twisted teachers they become exactly that.
The other role of abusive mythologizing is to try to give justification to abusive rule-making and abusive dogma. Most laws are not one size fits all. When two kids get into a fight, it's not always the best course of action to try them as adults in a court of law. Abusive mythologizing takes stories and uses them to moralize a one size fit all morality. Abortion as "baby killing." "Welfare Mothers drive Cadillacs on the public dole." "liberals are traitors...." etceteras.
The Rabbis learned to interpret contradictory guidance and set guidelines that people could take or leave. Buddhists learned to differentiate their role as teachers from their role as rulers. Buddhism could accommodate societies where there were "Gods", "no Gods", and I think where there is "One God." Other religions get in trouble because they tend to confuse their role as teachers and guidance givers with a role as rulers and judges.
Serving that role has been "abusive mythologizing" such as turning an itinerate self-taught teacher into part of a "God-head." Or making saints out of very unsaintly people. The church set such impossible standards for its leadership, while at the same time teaching that it was okay to do bad things -- as long as one later repented and asked Jesus for forgiveness. Thus a whole gamut of bad to incredibly bad people have done incredibly evil things while wearing the cloak of Christianity and claiming that either "God will forgive" -- or "it is ordained." All this has been bolstered by abusive myths and wishful thinking.
The other error that myth-users make is "replacement." That is taking a story and treating as if it were history or reporting. Or taking a story and twisting it out of context. One should never lose the original context for a story when using it under new contexts.
For example, Daniel is the original narrative that serves as a model for Revelations -- not the other way around. Likewise Daniel's vision is firmly rooted in the vision of other late Kingdom and early diaspora prophets. The Context of both lies in the history of the Jews as an oppressed and self-oppressed people and in the role on human imagination that authoritarianism and paganism have played. Not as an excuse for more authoritarianism and a pagan interpretation of Christianity. And certainly, replacement theology interpretations that demonize Jews and treat Christians as the topic of Daniel and Revelations are just plain loopy. Everything has to be interpreted at least once in terms of original context. Once one understands context, one can go on to all sorts of fantastical and creative interpretations, or even fantastical and hair raising internal revelations. But it is abusive to do things half-way or in a twisted manner [These amount to the same thing].
Christians imposed a thousand years of darkness by trying to turn the very good guidance of the early Rabbis and teachers of Christianity, into often arbitrary and catch-22 style set dogmas and by trying to rule the "material world" by rules that simply sewed confusion and when argued and which required wars and insurrection to resolve. They not only did that but they turned the very Jewish founder-messiah into a symbol of Jewish persecution and violence. They tried to force Jews, even otherwise Christian Jews, to stop practicing the "Law" that their ancestors had promised to uphold until the end of time, and in the process punished people for following the guidance of the Bible. In the middle ages they often burned people at the stake for taking their vows of poverty too seriously or criticizing the corruption of the Clergy. One God? Jesus divine? Charity and poverty? All these things have been literally fought over time and time again, because the church has tended to try to impose dogma rather than constraining itself to advice and wise guidance.
Even so, as I said before, it is how myths are used that determines whether they are abusive or compellingly truthful. A Christian who lives as he/she preaches, who preaches with wisdom, and who tries to guide people "in this world' rather than ruling "this world" can be a very inspiring Christian. A Jew who studies and follows the teachings of Judaism, and who lives righteous, generous and and thoughtfully, is a very inspiring person. A Moslem who sets aside the self-righteousness and prejudices of his brothers and lives by the core of his own teachings, can be an inspiring presence among us Westerners. When teachers eschew hatred and bigotry and use their myths wisely, then the counter for abusive mythologizing is sustaining and creative mythology that is designed to lead, guide and develop reality -- not replace it.
Chris