12.11.05
Armstrong on Myth
A short review of Armstrong’s new book on mythology:
A Short History of Myth (Myths) by Karen Armstrong
This book suffers from a kind of double identity, as an outline of world history, adapted to some publisher’s project to do with mythology. The question of myth is a complicated one, and Armstrong’s manner of challenging ‘logos’ with ‘mythos’ is to me an invitation to sophistry, as an indirect attack on modern rationality and secularism. The periodization of the book focuses on the data of the Axial Age, which the author threatens to turn into another myth. Armstrong’s treatment of this subject has made it into a proxy for the onset of the world reiligions, when in fact the Axial Age is something far more complex than that. The rise of Greek science, the emergence of the world’s first democracy and much, much else have a place in the consideration of the Axial period. Correctly understanding this period is not so simple and there is a danger that the author’s power to sell books and bestsellers will completely confuse this issue for large numbers of people, making the whole area suspect. The data of the Axial period is one of the most crucial aspects of world history, one that has suffered neglect. The sudden promotion of distorted version is less than helpful. This reviewer’s _World History and The Eonic Effect_ contains a complete analysis of the complexities of the Axial phenomenon for those who wish to sort out the confusion on this question.
There is now a kind of New Age postsecular exploitation of this idea under the rubric of a Second Axial Age, in a further distortion of the original data and its significance.
Myths indeed.