| Abstrakt: |
For several decades, societies across the globe have faced a real existential threat with challenges such as global warming. Yet no one in the elite has been able to do anything to improve conditions. We seem to be trapped in the kind of situation that Einstein described when he discussed problems that can't be solved with the logic that created them. How can we find a new way of thinking that may allow us to address these challenges? This paper suggests a way of answering this question by exploring three others: Have other societies faced equally real existential threats? How did those that survived address them? And what does their survival mean for us today? Drawing on work in cognitive neuroscience, the paper examines myth as a neurobiologically grounded process for addressing such problems, and notes that other societies facing existential challenges have been able to address them by changing the way their people think through reinventing their mythologies. It concludes with some ideas on the mythic reinvention that may be occurring today, which would make a more effective way of thinking available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
