A New Myth for the Current Age
A Liberal Arts Education for the Age of Poiesis
“A myth is a poetic representation of a hidden reality…[that is] religious in origin and purpose,” explains Russell Kirk.
Or, to turn to Donald Cowan, a myth is the “large overarching metaphor that gives philosophical meaning to everyday life.”
Myths are the stories that enlighten the social imagination and give shape to our lives; thus, far more than cold logic, myths refine societies and superintend the building of cultures.
In the modern age, we are often vaguely unaware of the myths that shape our thinking. Yet, the West has been shaped by many, often overlapping or competing, myths; and there is not an age in its history without a culture-shaping myth, including the present one.
The early Greco-Roman world (i.e., the classical period) was shaped by the myth of the Olympian pantheon. The late classical and early medieval ages were shaped by the myth of Christianity (i.e., the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Logos, the God-man), a geocentric cosmos inhabited by powers and principalities, as well as the Arthurian legends. The Renaissance was shaped by the myth of humanitas, the dignification and glorification of man—man became the measure of all things. The age of Enlightenment and the periods that followed have been shaped largely by the myth of fact, the verifiable, observable, and unchallengeable substance of life where dispassionate communication, measurement, and precision are its characteristics.
But ever since relativity and indeterminacy emerged and challenged the locus of truth, the myth of fact lost its toehold. It could no longer provide a framework for understanding the world and shaping individual or collective identities. “How do we know?” And, “How can we know what we know?” undermined the veracity of fact and desacralized its authoritative hierophany.
In his work, Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age, Cowan suggests that the relentless pursuit of facts and a focus on a "cost-benefit" analysis have resulted in diminishing returns. As a society that solely focused on measurable outcomes, we lost sight of the deeper meaning and purpose of life. And, in an age that emphasized a purely rational approach, the "myth of fact" ultimately neglected vital human qualities such as creativity, empathy, and collaboration.
Thus, beginning sometime in the last three decades (Cowan published this work in 1988), the culture began to shift away from the myth of fact toward a new myth to govern its culture-making. While its contours were not yet fully defined at the time of his writing, this new myth would have to navigate the complexities and challenges of an age that was inundated with technology, that relied heavily on interconnectedness, and possessed a profound need for creative solutions.
Cowan asserts that poiesis is “the central way of the imagination for this new age… a making of things into culture-forming artifacts.” He claims,
The poetic imagination is the active creative agent of culture, a power that transforms raw materials by raising them to a higher, more knowable state and thereby ennobling them, making of them objects of intellect rather than of brute nature. The poetic way is not goal-oriented, not efficient. Instead, like a dance, like melody, like lovemaking, every stage along the way requires attention and evokes delight. Poetry gathers, condenses, images, refers, implies, and remembers. By its ability to symbolize something beyond the present scene, it can call into being and make real an entire invisible cosmos. By its capacity for empathy it educates feeling, fantasy, and dream, as well as imagination and intellect. It brings together all the parts of an experience and, placing them in proper sequence, raises the entire configuration to a new order of meaning. To have a rich and vital culture requires the form, the aesthetic control of the poetic imagination. The new society will be governed by the poetic imagination sustained by technology.
In Cowan’s estimation, technology is the natural and necessary replacement for enslaving human beings which, in previous cultures, was necessary for leisure. In our modern world where technology supplies the necessary support for leisure, we can now have a truly human culture, a culture of equality, where freedom to make, to cultivate “ornament, style, courtesy, and grace” can be pursued by all.
At the time of his writing, Cowan believed that a “new ‘Middle Ages’—an age of stability of wholeness” was invariably presenting itself and could “realize itself amidst a predominantly virtuous people.”
It was not that Cowan was optimistic about some new utopian age. Rather, he could see that a new age was emerging and there was a prime opportunity to educate its leaders in the kind of education that could prepare them to stand in the gap when it was their time (circa 2018).
For Cowan, the mythological figures of Prometheus, who represented progress and equality, and Zeus, who represented intellect and order, were the keys to understanding the right kind of education needed for the new age. The right kind of education was one that balanced the two mythological figures, an education that cultivated innovation, relied on collaboration, engaged the imagination, and valued equality (Prometheus), while also pursuing intellectual rigor and high standards for all (Zeus).
Cowan avowed that nothing less than a liberal arts education would be needed to prepare the leaders who would be leading the most advanced nation in the modern world in 2018.
As the saying goes, the best time to have planted a tree was 20 (in this case 30) years ago. The next best time is today.