Am I just engaging in "mystification"?

In my last blog I complained about how Hollywood is constantly wanting to take classic mythic material, folktales, and so forth and making them "grounded", "gritty", and putting them through "deconstruction" or "updating them for a modern audience".

My main reason for complaining about this is that I feel that myths and folktales deserve to maintain their magical elements, and moreover, it certainly seems as though every time Hollywood does this, the result is a major flop. I gave a couple of examples of adaptations of the Arthurian Cycle which sufferred mightily from the treatment, from the early 2000s, and more recently Guy Ritchie's "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword".

In that, and of course many other of my blogs, videos, and what have you, I naturally oppose this procedure, because I think that fantasy has much to offer by maintaining the fantastical elements, and recognizing the mysterious connections they offer to our own emotional dynamics.

What's So Great About Fantasy?

But this post promted one of my subscribers to comment that "deconstruction" had its benefits, and that my palate appeared to favor "mystification" of the material. It was a polite comment, given with the enthusiasm of spirited discussion, so I don't mind that at all, but it did make me wonder: what is the real difference between subjecting a myth to a deconstruction, and is this, in fact, better than "mystification"? By dismissing deconstructive efforts, am I only obscuring the texts and making them deliberately confusing, simply as a matter of taste?

To answer this question, of course, we need some definitions. This will naturally be the point at which many might disagree. But we can't do without definitions, so I'll propose my own. First, deconstruction is the process, first coined and developed by philosopher Jaques Derrida, of taking a text and analyzing it in a specific way. Deconstruction, put oversimply, attempts to find and highlight any and all inner inconsistencies, biases, or traces of social power dynamics, or distortions that favor them. The result is often a text which is revealed for its underlying dimensions, and deconstruction can illuminate what is "going on underneath" the surface of the text, in such a way as to often undermine the presumed and assumed meaning.

There is a spirit of subversiveness and even rebelliousness behind the deconstructive process (if you'll forgive me deconstructing the process of deconstruction), because frequently what you're left with is a an analysis which purports to reveal what a text is "really" about, i.e., controlling others, maintaining the status quo, or any and all other manners of ulterior motives, intended or not. Thus, deconstruction can take a narrative like, say, the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, or even that of King Arthur, and breaking it down to show the power dynamics that it exploits, and/or employs in order to service those in power, marginalize others, the assumptions that underly them, and what have you. This is what many out there mean by "deconstruction", even though it could certainly be argued that this simply procedure bears little resemblance to the nuanced and somewhat difficult definition Derrida originally had in mind. See, "deconstruction" itself does not have a 100% clear definition. Derrida would probably find this amusing.

In any case, mystification, on the other hand, is rather less charitably defined (usually) as making something deliberately obscure, impenetrable, or otherwise mysterious. I don't think my subscriber was really accusing me of going quite this far, however, the question did linger in my mind--is this something I am doing with myths, legends, dreams, and/or folktales? By decrying deconstructive efforts, or perhaps "grounding" efforts to make myths more "realistic" (whatever that word is supposed to mean), am I simply taking such texts and deliberately making them impenetrable for the sake of befuddling the observer into some kind of awe-filled, but otherwise irrational state of wonder?

What am I REALLY Doing?

In a word: no. That is not at all my aim. In fact, one of the key observations that Derrida made is that the meanings of words emerges from their context and situatedness with other words. Derrida did not assert that words have no meanings, rather that their meanings can change when you put them into relations with different words. I actually agree with that, but perhaps my conclusions are a bit different from those who seek to "deconstruct" myths.

Derrida's observation is an example of a greater principle--that of holism, which argues that in almost all analyses, especially scientific ones, the whole of the thing tends to be greater than the sum of the parts you identify in isolation. This is definitely true of biological systems--my favorite example is this: consider that a living human body is composed of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Carbon. But so is a DEAD human body. So obviously there is something more going on with the living body that has nothing to do with the components of the body. This "something more" is what holism is all about. In other words, I can analyze a body, or a myth, and I might be able to define, identify, and study their parts X, Y, and Z in isolation, but that does NOT mean I can thereafter smugly proclaim it is "nothing but" X, Y, and Z". That "nothing but" business requires a hell of a lot of extra work to justify!

Holism applies to myths and fantasy elements, provided that you recognize that such texts are symbols. And by "symbols" I have something special in mind. Jung made the distinction between a sign and a symbol. Signs are simply stand-ins: a red octagon is a stand in for "stop". There is nothing more to it than that. Fantasies are not this. Fantasies are full of symbols. And a symbol is an "as if" statement that the mind comes up with in order to understand, make sense of, or otherwise make sense something that is otherwise much more mysterious. Symbolizing is an attempt at better comprehension, not a way to obfuscate!

Of Heat and Hate

Take, for example, the way in which we equate anger with heat. Phrases such as "hot under the collar", or "boiling over with anger" are universal, found in languages from far-flung and otherwise unrelated locations and cultures around the world. Why? Because when we are angry, our temperature literally goes up, our blood vessels flush, which gives us a sensation of heat in our skins, and so forth. Thus, if we are trying to make sense of the experience of anger, we often craft metaphors and symbols to express it. Anger is like boiling liquid. But this is not a literal equation. Anger is not literally heat. It behaves AS IF it were a hot liquid. We find ourselves "overflowing" with anger. The Emperor wants you to feel the hate "flowing through" you. You might even go somewhere to "blow off some steam". These expressions are SYMBOLS because, unlike signs, the image does not exactly encapsulate the experience of anger.

Fantasy is utterly swimming in this kind of thing. All the imagery of the best fantasies do this in the same way that dreams do it. And THIS is why we cannot and should not do away with the fantastical elements of fantasy. Because when you do, it strips away the symbols. And when you strip away the symbols, you strip away the meaning of the story. Fantasy is the original genre of storytelling because, like dreams, it maintains the power of symbolism that is inherent in this process. It gives you the ability to describe otherwise ineffable, inchoate, and elusive experiences by saying "this universal conflict" or "this deep inner problem or challenge" or "this incredibly emotional moment" are AS IF a hero must challenge a dragon, or a magician must shape change into various animals, or a god must battle against a trickster, or whatever.

Mystification?

The mystery here, is not generated by my analysis. Rather, I am merely pointing out, with the cognitive linguists and embodied cognitivists, that there is no better way to describe some experiences except via metaphor. Metaphors themselves can be analyzed down into "primary" metaphors which themselves cannot be broken down further. But all of them have this curious core of meaning that is ineffable in the sense that it cannot be expressed except via other metaphors. Danger is everywhere metaphorically linked with darkness (the dark side, dark intentions, the forgotten darkness, etc.), but it is not LITERALLY the same thing. It is a technique the brain uses in order to understand otherwise ineffable experiences.

That is where the "mystery" really is. Its in our symbols, and no amount of reductive analysis can eliminate it. Analyses and reduction are not bad in themselves, of course, providing you don't analyze a myth and then sit back to say "and that's all that is and nothing more". That violates the holistic principle that even if I break down a complex system into its parts, that almost never accounts for all the properties that the whole has.

In the best fantasy, such as myths that have survived multiple re-tellings across hundreds of generations, each of the fantastical elements are symbols in this manner. And the reason that such symbols are important is because they express something that cannot otherwise be expressed--an inner experience, a phenomenological state, an emotional crisis, or what have you. The real challenge would be to "prove" the opposite assertion: that absolutely everything can be put into words. Good luck proving that! The image really is worth 1000 words--in fact it is worth more, because the words will never really get at the core of the metaphors used to compose the fantasy.

As Ursula LeGuin put it: the job of a fantasist is to put into words what cannot be put into words.

EG