Myth and Reality

I am travelling to Turkey and I thought I should read about Turkey and its history beforehand. This brings me to the subject of myth and reality.

The term “myth” (Wikepedia):

… is often used colloquially to refer to a false story; however, the academic use of the term generally does not pass judgment on its truth or falsity. In the study of folklore, a myth is a religious narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form. Many scholars in other fields use the term "myth" in somewhat different ways. In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story.

We consider ourselves rational thinkers and, as such, prefer history to myth. The Turks created their own myth, denying the genocide of the Armenians since 1915 when the events occurred. While reading “Rebel Land” by Christopher de Bellaigue, I quickly realized that even defining who is a “Turk” is a difficult proposition (that, too, may be part of the myth). De Bellaigue’s book was reviewed in the New York Times

To me, the most interesting aspect of the review is that de Bellaigue, a foreign journalist, was seduced by the Turkish myth that the
Armenian genocide never occurred. From the review:

“Notable among these are the notions that the Turkish republic is a nation-state containing no subgroups with valid claims to ethnic or political differentiation, let alone autonomy; that the country has a European and secular essence and destiny; and, more emotionally, that the achievement of Turkish nationhood was an enterprise reflective of a righteous people who to this day remain victimized by the self-interested incomprehension of the West.

In the grip of such prejudicial ideas, de Bellaigue in 2001 wrote an article for The New York Review of Books containing a blandly pro-Turkish account of the fate of the Ottoman Armenians. To de Bellaigue’s somewhat surprising surprise [sic], this excited a furious response. The controversy led the writer to a searching, shameful examination of his sources and his soul: “I had been charmed by the Turks, and perhaps intimidated by their blocking silence” about the Armenians. “I had helped to keep Turkey’s past hidden.””

Seductions are dangerous. A recent one is the myth of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which produced deadly and far reaching consequences. The barrage of media reports, the United Nations address by Colin Powell, etc. all conspired to shape our thinking and make it more difficult to resist the Bush administration push to war.
Deconstruction of the text of myths is not a dismantling of the structure of the text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently-solid ground is no rock, but thin air. Deconstruction takes effort and time, but should lead to a deeper understanding of any subject of study.

Myths also abound in science. Take for example the “myth” created during the 1800’s and debunked about 1890 that light was propagated through ether.
Richard Feynman, beloved by his acolytes and probably the only physicist to make major achievements in theoretical physics in each of 6 decades, reworked every aspect of physics from the basics. From “Richard Feynman: A Life in Science” by John and Mary Gribbin:

“There was another way in which Feynman lacked respect (in the best possible way) for authority, linked to his love of problem solving. He wanted to work out everything for himself, from first principles. That way he could be sure he had got it rights instead of, perhaps, wasting valuable time developing someone else’s ideas, only to find that those ideas had been wrong in the first place.”

Feynman’s most startling and amazing advances in physics derived directly from this framework of thinking. There is an excitement associated with thinking for yourself and being certain (at least as certain as you can be) of the result.
The same applies to journalism and I suggest the same applies to law and the purposes it serves. Slavish application of law without such reflection denies the possibility of a much richer approach to law, to achieving client satisfaction and understanding and to law firm management.

One problem is that we are too busy living (and sometimes to lazy) to think everything through. Not many of us can afford the luxury of deconstructing everything around us. Also this type of examination can challenge our comfortable notions about life – challenge us to change things. On the other hand, have we got our priorities right. If you are person for which the richness and texture of life is the result of creative thinking, can you afford not to focus more on why?

To be continued.