Introduction
The turn of the century has instilled many fears and anxieties in the public opinion. The proliferation of risks, associated to the climate crisis, disposed a climate of insecurity in the core of Western cities as never before. The term risk society coined by Ulrich Beck made much sense just after the 2000s. Beck envisaged a society where the logic of instrumentalism creates uncontemplated and apocalyptic risks which would very well place the society into jeopardy (Beck, 1992). The excess of instrumentality, which characterizes the late modernity, places all citizens in egalitarian conditions before the risk, as Beck infers. Not surprisingly, the attacks on the World Trade Center, which were planned by Saudi fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden and his radicalized cell Al-Qaeda, shocked the US and its allies, who formed an anti-terrorism force. George W. Bush, who was ideologically educated and intellectually formed in the Pentecostalism, declared the “War on Terror” as an answer of a dormant Giant who had the responsibility to take care of the world against what he dubbed “the axis of evil” (Jacobson, 2008; Weisberg, 2008). The discourses and narratives circulating in post-9/11 contexts were impregnated of a much deeper eschatological logic, which were historically enrooted in the American tradition. Some voices even alerted on the connection of Nostradamus’ prophecy, the rise of the third Anti-Christ and the 9/11. At a first glimpse, Bush’s discourse was accompanied by “rad-cons” (radical conservatives) who strongly believed in the needs of the US to take direct intervention in the world (Walliss & Aston, 2011). As a dangerous place, which opposes the ideals of democracy, rad-cons widely adhere to the theory that the non-Western world should be ethically controlled and domesticated, introducing democracy as the touchstone. This ideologically legitimated the two US-led invasions in Middle East, as well as the obsession struggling against terrorism as an efficient step in protecting the West (Berkowitz, 2004). In order for readers to gain further understanding of this complex setting, this introductory chapter deals with the nature of bottom-days theory and its connection in modern politics. The first section examines the importance of mythology and exegesis in the study of social world and the systematic reaction of positivism that considered them as “pseudo-science”. Paradoxically, while a portion of sociology rejected mythology as scientific form of knowledge, ethnology and anthropology cemented their authorities in the fields. Far from being speculation or primitive discourses, ethnologists acknowledged that myths are moral guidelines which help society to overcome practical problems as the ancestors did. In other words, mythologies allow the cultural and social reproduction of society in the threshold of time. In second section, we put Mircea Eliade and his interesting intellectual legacy into the foreground. As he noted, myths are cultural constructions which are cyclically replicated in accordance to the cycles of production. The myths of apocalypse remind not only of the temporal nature of existence but also of the dichotomies of economies which alternate states of prosperities with crises. In the third section, we scrutinize in depth the seminal book, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, which is originally authored by Strauss and Howe. As authors put it, one of the limitations of religion rests on the problem of “evilness”. While religion accepts the existence of evil as a feasible possibility, the theory of apocalypse accelerates the times placing the final fight (against this looming evil) as a final solution or the last obstacle toward the prosperity of mankind. This seems to be exactly what captivates the attention of the masses and the reasons behind the adoption of “bottom-days” in the cinema industry. Thus, in the final section, we review the importance of these apocalyptic theories and discourses as platforms of cultural entertainment that today dominate the media.
Mythology and Social Sciences
Somehow, historically associated to certain stereotypes and prejudices enrooted in the Enlightenment, mythology and exegesis, which are the necessary methodologies to interpret myths, are not considered serious instruments in the construction of scientific knowledge (Hanen, Osler, & Weyant, 2006). In fact, some epistemologists as Karl Popper discouraged mythology as a serious scientific option based on his idea of falsifiability, which suggests that any theory seems to be useful only if it can be empirically tested, confirmed or neglected. In view of this, mythology, per his viewpoint, falls in the fields of pseudo-sciences because of the impossibility of being empirically tested (Popper, 1957, 2013). Needless to say, Popper overtly and systematically rejects the figure of induction centered on the fact that it leads very well to mere speculations.
As this backdrop, this position was the dominant paradigm during the days Joseph Campbell studied in Columbia University, where his Ph.D. dissertation in medieval literature was overtly neglected. Campbell was an authoritative voice in the study of myths and the interpretation of cultures despite the ungrounded criticism he received in life. Quite aside from this controversy, others discipline as ethnology and anthropology made of mythology their tugs of war, as well as a more than efficient instrument toward a better understanding of culture (Stocking, 1974). To put this slightly in other terms, while philosophy and sociology avoided discussing the strengths and weaknesses of mythology as a valid method of study, anthropology went precisely in the opposite direction. As Lévi-Strauss (1969) puts it, myths and the process of myth-building cannot be understood in isolation but integrated to a whole system. This was particularly innovating by the 1960s when he published The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction of a Science of Mythology. Lévi-Strauss laments the social sciences overlook the possibility to start a serious discussion revolving around myths. From the outset, his efforts were oriented to introduce readers toward a new science of mythology that explains the formation of cultures no matter what their economic matrixes. This means that the same logic that prevailed in the aboriginal mind can be found in the Westerners (Lévi-Strauss, 1966). In the anthropological fields, Lévi-Strauss was known and ultimately baptized as the father of structuralism. Regardless of his genius, he received the critique of another brilliant colleague, Mary Douglas. She convincingly argues that Lévi-Strauss’ observations sound interesting but implausible. Her criticism is based on the fact that myths cannot be theoretically interpreted lest by the local practices observed in the field. Two structural myths may share commonalities, but this does not credit scientific correlation (Douglas, 1967).
Levi Strauss unguardedly says that the units of mythological structure are sentences. If he took this statement seriously it would be an absurd limitation on analysis. But in fact, quite rightly, he abandons it at once, making great play with the structure underlying the meaning of a set of names. (Douglas, 1967: 50)
The multiple meanings and allegories each myth has, as Lévi-Strauss mistakenly recognizes, place structuralism in a conceptual gridlock. What is equally important, the correct understanding of myth cannot be dissociated by the practices that draw such interpretations. In view of this, Douglas not only wounds structuralism in its core, but also encapsulates myths into the possibility to change in the time (Douglas, 1967).
FitzRoy Somerset 4th, popularly known as Lord (Baron) Raglan, was a British soldier and amateur anthropologist who was originally motivated by the role of heroism in the contemporary culture. His erudition and passion for ancient history ushered him into the lives of different ancient heroes as Oedipus, Theseus, Heracles, Jason, Perseus and so forth. In his seminal book The Hero: A Study of Tradition, Myth and Drama, Raglan realizes that though unverified by the empirical information, myths—as the founding parents of anthropology—signal to abstract ideas which surely help society to understand the world. Myths often narrate complex ideas related to the creation, the life, the death and the bottom-days. Thinkers of the caliber of Durkheim, Mauss, Hubert or Malinowski—Raglan writes—agreed that myths exist not only in a savage community through the circulation of rituals and stories, but also in a modern community as historical facts that connect with a much deeper archetype of the hero. Such an archetype is not limited to aboriginals but remains enrooted in the Western civilization. This means that there is nothing different in the life of Siegfried as compared to Christ. Raglan patiently draws a wide conceptual framework to understand heroism as an intercultural reality. In his model, heroes follow the following traits:
- 1.The hero’s mother comes from a royal kinship.
- 2.His father may be a king or a god.
- 3.Though reputed as the son of a god, he or she is forced to abandon home, most probably growing abroad until his or her adulthood.
- 4.We know little about his or her childhood.
- 5.He becomes a semi god or a king after defeating dragons, beasts or even confronting Gods.
- 6.He descends to the hell and resurrects, reminding that the human character can defy death.
- 7.He or she confronts the Gods to become a protector of mankind.
All the points enumerated above conform to the narratives of heroes in different stories, myths and legends. Raglan concludes that beyond the unhistorical nature of myths, they connect to a natural shared interest: the needs of transcendence.
The thesis of this book is that the traditional narrative, in all its forms, is based not upon historical facts on the one hand or imaginative fictions on the other but upon dramatic ritual or ritual drama. I began by attempting to show that the belief that people have a natural interest in historical facts and a natural ability to transmit them is devoid of foundations. I then took a number of quasi-historical traditions and showed that there is no valid evidence for their historicity. I next gave the evidence for connecting the myth and the folk-tale with ritual, and for believing that hero-tale is derived from ritual and not from fact. (Raglan, 1956: 278)
As the argument given previously, Otto Rank (2013) trac...