The Importance of Myths & Legends

Why our society needs them more than ever

One of the strangest things about the Anglosphere, from the point of view of a Frenchman (and to all other non-Anglo people) is just how the Anglo-Sphere has gone from creating countless works of art, to suddenly shunning them. This has been going on for quite some time, and while some claim the reason for this is the left’s stranglehold over culture the truth is somewhat more nefarious. And it has its roots in a very peculiar obsession by a great many Anglos, one that many other peoples are non-plussed about and that continually confuses many of them when they meet foreign people.

It has been years now that the Anglosphere has been a dominant force in the world, and for years she has come to care more for the ideal of ‘progress’ than actual ideals. And this notion that people and their society must continue to move ever upwards, ever more rigidly in a straight line and must never deviate is strange.

This idea has spread rather like a plague, throughout the society of most English speaking countries. It has spread throughout more than just the ‘Left’ but also infected the opposition via figures such as Elon Musk.

Now I’m not saying this to hate on the Anglosphere, au contraire, I am an Anglophile, just as I am a Scottophile, Japanophile, Scandinaviaphile, Koreophile and Africanophile. I love the Anglosphere, but am deeply worried over this strange obsession with progress and with rigidity and how it has gripped the imagination of millions. The Anglosphere once created works of wonder such as Ivanhoe, Call of the Wild, Lord of the Rings, Hour of the Dragon, Watership Down, to name a few.

But the truth is that the only reason the left has had such a stranglehold over the culture is because the right long ago abandoned it. It was too hard, they likely might have complained and what’s the point? Science and outdoors are more important. But these things cannot build a culture.

The truth is that technological progress has replaced cultural developments, and has left man broken and a shell of his former self. It is not by the meaningless pursuit of claiming Mars let’s say that we will resolve to-day’s problems with Modernity. Likely it would have accomplished nothing in the 60s and 70s had we done so.

The query must be put forward to the common man; ‘how does this change your life?’ Put another way, did going outside revolutionise society? No. Do most people enjoy it? Sure. We all love going outside (I know I do), but the fact is that it isn’t enough for most people even though there must value in going outside and learning survival skills.

What does learning string theory, or the inner-workings of a rocket mean to the common lay-man? Nothing.

The sciences are important but we must never forget one important lesson; they are a tool, a means to an end and never the end.

Same goes for all the rest of academia. Do the masses actually care about the study of law, medicine, lit theory, philosophy, psychology and such? Well they do, but they don’t. They are useful pursuits for the bettering of ours lives, but does say a plumber really care much about these pursuits in his everyday life? Not really.

Which was more interesting to people in the early 2010s, to-day the dry contents of a scientific university paper, or the House MD tv series? Most men and women cared more about the soap-opera. Why is that? Because it was part of the culture.

Now there are some who propose that it is important to recapture academia for the right, and that this must take precedent over all else. While I do agree to an extent, I also think that academia if treated as an end, will mean stepping towards the world of the Equilibrium movie. A dry husk, without human emotion, where art and culture is banned.

Doesn’t sound very fun now does it? Naturally this is somewhat hyperbolic, but let us be honest as interesting as say history is, the trouble with pushing academia to the exclusion of all else is that it doesn’t leave much room for humanity. Or at least what makes us human. On its own, academia is dry stuff (history excluded in my view, that stuff still rocks), but let’s ask ourselves which would the average taxi driver read? A stack of peer reviewed essays, or the Lord of the Rings, if he must read at all? Very likely if he does like reading he’ll go for the novel.

And now that I’ve mentioned the Lord of the Rings, let’s ask ourselves what was the point of writing it on Tolkien’s part? Now, as a man he was a monumental intellect but did he enjoy academia on its own? No not really. Then what did he love doing? Well writing, and swapping mythical stories and opinion on Norse Sagas and poetry with his Inkling buddies after hours.

Now what does the LOTR novel symbolize for England? What purpose does it serve other than entertainment? Well lots of purposes. For one thing, it passes down the values and ideals of England. Notably the value of humility (Tolkien’s favourite virtue), the importance of duty, valour, Northern Courage, and friendship.

Myths serve an interesting role in society and for a culture. They help to transmit down across the generations, the values, the ideals and what a peoples considered most important.

They preserve the ideas that permeated the civilisation. A good example of this is the Aeneid for Rome, or the Homeric epics of Greece, or Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji Monogatari for Heian-jidai Japan, or even LOTR for England and the Hour of the Dragon for Texas.

These great epics are crucial, for without them something of the culture will be lost. We must have these myths, we must have these epics written less some integral part of our cultures, of our way of life will be forgotten or lost. What is more, is that these epics are important to our children, as they help to teach them right from wrong, to think critically and also help to socialise them in a way. As a society’s myths transmits what is morally acceptable, and what isn’t.

It is for this reason that the elites made a point of capturing companies such as Disney, because they wanted to control the ‘narrative’ so to speak. It is why Japan and France are so protective of their narratives, because they need to keep them home-grown in order to preserve their sense of being.

Education and myths go hand in hand, so that you cannot have education without some literature and vice versa. But the trouble with modernity is that the English-speaking world has sought to sever this bond. And this has led to a ‘Lost Generation’ of men and women.

As human beings we have a natural predilection for loving myths, for loving to see Heracles triumph over Nestor, for seeing Darth Vader redeemed, for seeing Conan defeat Tarascus and free Zenobia. We love these things quite naturally, and this is why it is so important we keep creating.

I tell you now the thing I dislike most about modernity is being cut off from myths, folklore and legends. The reason I write so much, is because I love these things and have the desperate desire to scream this love from the mountain-tops.

To live in a world devoid of myths, of love is to live in an empty world. Academia can be fun, but it is meaningless without culture in my eyes. What is life without art? Without poetry? Without music?

I do not say these things to reprimand those who disagree, far from it. But I do so to convey my frustration and my passion for myths, for legends and to convey to you that without culture, without art, we are existing but not living.

This is why I write literature, why I write mythological stories. Why I write in French and English, and why I derive more joy from my Darkspire Conspiracy story (which will soon see Chapter 2 published) or my other serial novels such as the romance novel Prince of Flames, or the mystery story that is the Swift Shadow Murders or even my kid’s novel Jex the Hero. These mythological tales or as we call such stories’ genre to-day ‘fantasy’ are greater sources of joy to me than anything else in my life these days.

Fantasy serves the role that Medieval lit once did, that the fairy-stories of older eras served that the great epics of the past served. Arguably what is more is that stories as grand as Star Wars and as popular as How I Met Your Mother, aren’t just lightning in a bottle but serve an important societal role.

They help bring people together far more than academia ever could. They fascinate and capture the imagination far more than any dry, psychology paper ever will. Now I’m a nerd, I love dry psychology papers, but after years of denying it, I’ve recently had to accept that though these things are popular in some circles, not everyone wants to read these things.

Nerds’ don’t fascinate people. It’s why people watched How I Met Your Mother more than they watched what Bill Gates was up to in the early 2000s. Because Ted’s love life is way more interesting in some ways, this is not to say this is any more or less important in some ways. And the reason it was important was because it served a useful cultural purpose, in transmitting ideas down through the generations, and served the philosophical purpose of offering commentary on life, the pursuit of love and happiness even as the world was steadily worsening in some ways.

So does this mean that art is only useful in denying the world? No, it is integral to facing the world. You can read the news, but if you obsess about nothing else you will lose your sanity. What a book like Watership Down does, is help to remind you of core values, and take your mind off the grim real world bad news that hangs about us all like a fog.

Myths are a bedrock for us psychologically and philosophically, because they tell a great deal about a person. They tell others what they value, what they feel and how they perceive the world, and from what culture or generation they come from. Now you do need to pay attention to what is happening all around you, so balance is indeed needed.

But a culture needs its myths. So let us ask ourselves what stories like those being pumped out by Disney, or Amazon tells us about the US? It tells us French that ground has been lost and the US is in decline. What does the lack of novels tell us about France? That something has been lost and is in decline.

This is why, I push the events so hard hereon

Substack

and encourage my fellow

Substack Writers

for me Substack is the chance to publish my stories as I write them true, and the chance to connect with other writers true. But also to build something lasting with others, and why I push harder for my novels, it is because to quote Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, ‘I feel in my heart’, that myths are ever more important than any essay. I do love writing essays for you all, but they are written to deep all of our understandings, yes but the serial novels I write and others write are meant to gather together all of these wisdoms, all of the lessons learnt from essay-writing from all across our lifetimes, and to gift them to you the Reader.

To gift a people with a mythology, with an epic is to gift them the greatest form of love. As myths and epics connect a people not only to one another, but to God himself I think, as they come directly from his Holy Spirit.

So while Substack is useful for finding great essays, have a thought for us novelists, and writers who pour our hearts and souls into our novels.

I say this because it is my hope going forward that Substack will become a platform for serial-novels, of all kinds; romance, fantasy, sci-fi, horror and many others. Because this will mean enriching the lives of others with ever more flavour and ever more epic tales that could well better the lives and souls of others. As we do need culture, we do need myths and legends and we do need to read more stories.

Stories are the meats and potatoes of civilisations.

So with that said, I’ll put forward this story of mine, consider it a gift.