VI - GROUP MYTH

In addition to individual myths, we have group myths. Any unit of people, a family, a circle of friends, a company, a tribe, an ethnic group, a nation, the entirety of humanity, has a belief in and an enactment of a myth in common. The individual myths have parallel or complementary story lines, allowing different people to see the world in similar ways and take coordinated action. We are a social species and coordinated action is necessary for our survival. For an individual to live truly independently of others under normal circumstances is somewhere between very difficult and impossible. For all practical purposes, isolation is death, especially isolation with no hope of reunion.

To survive, we need others. We are each living our myths. We bring other people into our lives by making them part of our myth and they do the same with us. Our need to interact forces an interrelation of personal myths. To interact is to act in each other’s story. For a whole group of people to all interact with each other as a group, there needs to be a story line with roles for all members of the group, the group myth.

The group myth is the story enacted by the group. The group, rather than any one individual, is the protagonist. The group’s question is the main question of the group myth. The group’s reason for existence is moral demonstrations that confirm and develop what the group believes and shift reality in the group’s direction. We seek out others performing moral demonstrations similar to our own. They do some of our mythic work for us and they help convince us of a larger reality for our own moral package. We seek social mythic interaction with others obsessively; it is a primary human need. The group myth makes it easier. Here is a preexisting story. It has acceptance by other people. They assure us it has already been proven true. How does it fit with our personal myth? Do we need the inflow of mythic material membership offers? Is its moral package similar enough to our own to be tolerably compatible? Will the roles available to us in the group myth also play in our myth? Some groups are a better match for us than others. We may enter joyously. We may feel driven to join, perhaps despite our fears. Maybe we have to settle. From others we walk away or even run away. No one group is right for all people. No group myth can accommodate all individual myths.

If you would like to figure out the details of a group’s myth, see Appendix B, Group Myth Analysis. Appendix A, Personal Myth Analysis, will give you a better view of your own myth so you can compare yours with the group’s and see if they are compatible.

Common Sense
If you accept a group myth, the other members of the group will presume you make assumptions similar to theirs about how the world works and how you and the group relate to it and each other. As a new member of a group, you will spend time learning a body of knowledge and mental skills expected of you in your new role in the group.

Much will be expected from every member, sometimes given under the heading of How We See It and How We Do It Here, but usually unspoken, assumed to go without saying. When you hear people mention common sense, they are talking about knowledge and abilities expected of all members of the group, ideas and their application in ways that make sense in the myth held in common by the group.

A group’s common sense is not to be questioned. Anyone who does places himself outside the group myth and courts correction or abandonment.

Most people think of common sense as an absolute, universal quality, that what is common sense for us is common sense for everyone around the world. Most people are mistaken. Common sense for people in other countries is noticeably different from our own.

I lived about two years in a tree house on the north coast of Honduras studying birds. I was repeatedly amazed how much the Honduran version of common sense differed from my own. For example, Honduran common sense had no place for a gringo to spend his time wandering about the fields and forests, swamps and mountains, beaches and jungles, peering through binoculars at tiny birds. What did make sense was that I must have had a secret agenda that for some reason I could not mention, so that was what I was assumed to be doing.

There was some disagreement about whether I was working for the CIA, the FBI, the United Nations, or the Organization of American States. Other people were sure I was looking for gold, oil, pirate treasure, or pre-Columbian artifacts. But everybody knew I was on some sort of secret mission. The truth was that I was just looking at birds, but truth was no match for common sense.

As fate would have it, Honduras got the last laugh. Soon after I left, the United States came in and built a base nearby to train El Salvadoran government troops in counterinsurgency tactics. Now it is common knowledge, an unargued fact, in that part of Honduras that I was the advance man for that base. Yes, there is such a thing as a false fact. This is one example. Most myths contain them.

Group Membership
The defining quality of a group is the group myth. The belief in and enactment of that myth is what separates members from non-members. The unity of a group requires the members to commit to the story line of the group myth. If the members go their separate ways, there is no group.

Groups use various tests to gauge the level of commitment of the members. Asking for sacrifices by the members is common, a sacrifice being a reversal in one’s own mythic position to advance that of the group.

Usually a clear distinction will be drawn between members and non-members, with some symbol of membership publicly displayed or enacted. Outsiders will then associate the members with the group and cast the members’ characters as such in the non-members’ myths. This causes the rest of the world to expect and reinforce enactment of the group’s myth by its members. A man in a military uniform will be treated by others as if he were a soldier.

The culture expects us all to internalize its myth. To the extent we do so and display that commitment in our appearance and behavior we are called normal and considered legitimate members of society. A “true American” is one who has sufficiently internalized the American national myth. At first glance, normal and average seem similar, but they are not. More people would like to be considered normal than average, for normal means you are a good member of the culture, whereas average means you are of no obvious status.

Since being normal is seen as positive, most people try to pass for normal. They try to conform, to seem to have no unique personal myth, only the appropriate subset of the proper group myths. Of course, no one is without some level of personal myth. Each life is unique so we all have some level of odd experience affecting our myths.

Furthermore, no group moral package is sufficiently complete to cover all a person’s needs, so we must fill in with our own personal myths. Each person’s myth is a blend of individual and group material.

Most people try to show only the group side to others. They want acceptance from others. They fear rejection from the group if deviance from the normal is evident. Thus they hide the unique, interesting parts of themselves behind a wall of normality. Their fears are self-fulfilling in that unrelieved normality is boring, and thus they do not get the acceptance they crave. Yet we each have an interesting person inside us somewhere. If we feel safe enough or desperate enough we will let that side show, but otherwise we keep it well hidden, more than is usually necessary.

Making Friends
The next time you meet someone new, someone who has an interest in getting to know you and that you want to be friends with, try revealing a bit of your personal myth. The standard introduction is to shake hands and give your name and relation to the group: “I’m a friend of Bob’s”, “I work in the mail room”, “I live next door”, or some such and exchange a few stock platitudes. That’s not much to build on.

If you want to know each other better and become friends, you will need to find some areas of personal mythic overlap where you can start to build a group myth between the two of you. If the mythic overlap between you is merely the preexisting group myth, you will remain acquaintances rather than becoming friends.

However, people are less likely to make friends with those who are outside the group. We are more likely to pick our friends from Us rather than from Them. We look for some group connection and then move beyond it into friendship.

So when you meet a potential new friend, first establish that you have some group mythic overlap. You might not have to say anything to do this. Sometimes he can tell just by what you are doing, the clothes you are wearing, or simply by your being there. Then open up a little. Say or do something that shows a bit of the character you would like to play in his myth.

Don’t do too much. You are after a response here, not a decision. His myth will probably take a little time to evolve to include you. Don’t overwhelm him or you will unbalance his myth and make him anxious. See what comes back from him. If he wants to be friends, he will most likely reveal a bit of personal myth to you. You two can then take it from there.

Group Roles
We are all members of many different groups of a range of sizes. We are all people, we are all citizens of some country, we all have ethnicity, we are mostly associated with some geographical location, and we have work, friends, and families. Each of these has particular story lines in which we play our parts. Membership in a variety of groups does much to provide the range of characters that we play.

The necessity of common mythic structure in a group creates many roles within the group. A member may shift from one role to another and may have more than one role at a time. Members come and go, but the roles are always there because the group myth needs them. It can seem that the roles are more real than the members. If one person abandons a role, another will soon take it on. If the role is not filled, the group is in danger of falling apart because role vacancies can stall out the group myth or cause the myth to change so it no longer satisfies the members. Not all groups have all the roles, but if a group has a role, it will tend to keep it unless the group myth changes significantly. Here are some of the common group roles. There are others.

The Leader
Nearly all groups have a leader. Leader may be a formal position, perhaps elected, or just that person everyone looks to for leadership. When do they look to the leader? Leadership is needed in times when the story line of the myth is not clear. The leader shows the way. Specifically, the leader sets the myth, outlining the plot for the members to enact. He is the mythic source. The myth must still make sense to the members. Part of the leader’s job is to make the myth make sense, to make the story line clear and morally justified. The leader does not have a completely free hand with the group myth. Tradition is a strong validator of morals and is disrupted at the myth’s peril. The myth must be credible to the members. It must make some kind of sense in terms of the members’ own myths, or else it will have no meaning for them and they will lose interest in the group.

Leaders often hand out a mix of reward and hazing to the members. This binds the members more tightly to the leader than a pure diet of goodies or punishment by keeping abandonment and social standing (are you on the leader’s good side or not?) as an open question that demands a constant focus of one’s attention on the group, so that group issues take over the personal myth. Limited access to the leader helps create the same effect.

Groups without leaders, such as six strangers waiting at a bus stop, are most apt to have a weak, undemanding group myth. If something happens to perk up the myth, say, if the bench collapses, a leader will probably emerge within the group.

In groups with a stronger myth, most people do not themselves want to lead, but they want there to be a leader. Much of the mythic attraction of groups is that the group myth promises a more engaging mythic progression than your personal myth on its own. If you are not the leader, you get to partake of someone else’s supply of mythic material in addition to your own. Being in a group frees you from the job of keeping your own myth going; you can coast along with the group.

If the group has no leader, the members collectively will be in charge of its myth, which will soon become contradictory or even incoherent due to being pulled in different directions by the various personal myths of the members, creating anxiety in the group. At that point a leader will arise or the group very likely will fall apart.

The Lieutenant
Beneath the leader are lieutenants, who disseminate and enforce the myth to the group. Lieutenants can also serve as receptors of negativity that would otherwise be directed at the leader, destabilizing the group. If the lieutenant is seen as the bad guy, it helps the leader be seen favorably and increases our acceptance of his version of the group myth. In my junior high school, punishments were handed out by the assistant principal, not the principal. There is mythic creativity in the leader’s job; there is little of that in the lieutenant’s, whose job is interpretive. Lieutenants are the agents of the leader, and may stand in for him, partially taking on leadership, especially if the group is widespread.

The Inner Circle
Most groups have an inner circle, whose members have greater access to information and privilege. The inner circle might consist of the leader and lieutenants, or it might also include other senior members. Membership in the inner circle is typically held out as a reward for one’s sacrifices for the group. Large organizations may have a whole series of inner circles, some concentric with others, some apart, some overlapping. Working one’s way up the ladder consists largely of gaining access to increasingly exclusive inner circles.

Inner circles may be formal, such as a board of directors, or informal, such as a hostess and her best friend planning a party, or the senior neighbors on the block comparing notes on the newcomers.

People in groups form inner circles continually as a way to control the direction and progression of the group myth as well as to enjoy a feeling of dominance over the excluded ones. Even when you are with just one other person, notice how much control you retain by what you don’t say.

The Fool
Some groups have a fool. The fool has only one foot inside the group. The fool has a larger myth. The fool does not try to conform to the group, which is to try to make the group’s myth his own. Instead, he brings outside mythic information and holds the group’s myth up against the larger reality. The fool provides the reality check. Although the fool is a mythic source, he is not the one the group normally looks to. He is not in charge of the group’s myth, he is not the leader. Artists and prophets play the role of the fool. The fool may point out many deficiencies in the group myth, but he should not be confused with the rebel.

The Rebel
The rebel wants the group to change. The rebel lives within the group myth, so to him the only alternative is the opposite. The rebel focuses on the negative in the group’s myth, yet does not want the group to disband. Why does the rebel stay if he is so dissatisfied? The rebel needs a leader and a group myth yet chafes at the leader’s influence over his myth. He is dependent, yet feels constrained. He needs the group but his own myth is struggling. The rebel wants to tell people how things should be, but from the vantage point of the non-responsible opposition. He is a secondary mythic source. Put him in as leader, the primary source, and he will probably use his power to drive the group myth toward some extreme, creating opposition in the group, causing his replacement or group paralysis in which nothing much is done while the direction of the myth is squabbled over until a new leader emerges. Many group members get sick of the rebel, but if he actually leaves, a new rebel will arise. The old rebel was handling the job of internal challenges to the myth so others did not need to do so. Without him, someone else will have to take on that role, which is a corrective force influencing the forward progress of the myth.

The Black Sheep
Nearly every group has a black sheep-the member who just can’t do right. Everything he touches turns into trouble. The rest of the group imagines what great progress could occur if only he would shape up or leave. The group sees most of its failings as his fault. He makes it possible for all the other members to feel more competent than they are and for the group myth to appear infallible, if only he would do his share. But if the black sheep reforms or leaves, soon someone else needs to be seen as the problem, for no myth is perfect. The members come and go, but the roles remain.

The Newcomer
Every group loses members. Some attrition is caused by members losing interest, dying, moving away, getting too busy, etc. Other groups cycle through members, such as students graduating from school. If the group is not to dwindle away, it must attract new members, or newcomers.

Newcomers usually start out at the lowest status level in the group, although they may be catered to initially to increase their bonding to the group.

It is expected that newcomers will accept the group’s myth, and efforts are made by other members to get them to do so. The rewards of membership are made clear and some level of new identity as a group member is offered. Frequently some form of sacrifice is deemed necessary for the newcomer to undergo. This has the effect of a moral demonstration of the dominance of the group’s myth over his own, and thus its validity as a new mythic source for him, the essence of membership.

Newcomers entering at the bottom of the status hierarchy allow for the upward status mobility of all the previous members, which helps keep peace in the group.

Another function of the newcomer is to bring in validation of the group’s myth from outside. The ability of a group to attract new members is seen as proof that its myth is true in the larger world, since it caused an outsider to abandon some outside myth in favor of it. The more new members the group attracts, the more powerful and therefore true its myth is seen to be. Growth makes the members believe in the group and feel better about themselves. Groups tend to grow or be abandoned by the members.

The True Believer and the Fanatic
Every group needs a critical mass of true believers. They are the ones who have internalized the group’s myth into their own, such that their actions advance the group’s cause even when no one else is watching. They do it on their own, because it seems right. They are attracted to the company of other true believers because they are all moving forward on the same myth, the group myth. Other true believers are obvious choices for friends and mates. As the true believer’s personal myth becomes more congruent with the group myth, people outside the group seem less sympathetic, more irrelevant. Whether or not the true believer becomes a fanatic depends largely on how much he sees his mythic advancement happening only within the group myth. The true believer integrates the group myth, yet still maintains some mythic progression in a larger context. The fanatic denies the possibility of mythic advancement outside the group myth.

The Martyr
Beyond the fanatic is the martyr, overwhelmed by the group myth. The martyr commits to the group myth so deeply that he will make large sacrifices for its advancement, sometimes including self-destruction and death. A group honors its martyrs as a demonstration of the absolute truth of its myth. Who would sacrifice for a falsehood?

Actually, a lot of people would. Myths contain much false information, by omission, if not by commission. A myth is always smaller than reality, so at best, a myth can be true only as far as it goes. A myth is a filter, and a lot of truth does not make it through and is ignored or denied.

The martyr sees his sacrifice as well worth the cost. He is playing a role, living a part in his myth. That part may come to a place in the story where the proper action for that character is sacrifice, maybe death. The martyr welcomes his fate as defined by the group myth, for his personal myth is incapable of opposing it.

You are living a moral demonstration, and you come to the climax of the story. The moment of truth arrives. Do you demonstrate the primacy of honor, loyalty, altruism, or some such, or do you save your own skin? You can go either way. What is the higher value in your myth?

Groups take care of themselves before they take care of members. There is a pressure on members not to choose self over group, so the bias toward martyrdom is backed up with some degree of threat of abandonment or other mythic reversal. Most groups ask more of the members than the members are collectively willing to give.

The Enemy
The myth defines the group. If the membership of the group is smaller than all humankind, then there are others who do not share the myth. They live by other myths. The group’s myth says we are us, we are not them. Why are we not them? Our myth is different. Why do we believe this one and not that one? Our myth is better. Therefore, we are better. We subscribe to a more desirable moral package. We are good. They are trash. Their myth is wrong. It must be opposed. Their agenda must be thwarted. They are The Enemy. (Of course, the enemy or some other group probably feels the same way about us.) That such scoundrels should have a mythic agenda that interferes with ours is proof in and of itself of how bad these guys are, and we owe it to the world to oppose them. Besides, since our myth is not their myth, they are not us, and since they are wrong, then we must be right. That they are wrong and oppose us proves we are right. We are imperiled. We are under attack. For falsehood and evil not to take over the world, we must commit all our efforts and resources to our cause. We must make sacrifices for our cause. We must all pull together in this time of crisis when confronted by such an enemy.

Such is the mythic logic of an enemy to a group. Mythic logic makes leaps where rational logic fears to tread. The enemy is very useful to the group. It justifies the group. It unites the group. It energizes the group. It motivates the group. It organizes the group’s agenda. It validates the group myth. Groups need enemies. A good enemy will cure most of a group’s problems.

But there is a price. Squabbling and fighting are ultimately a waste of time, energy and resources (and people, if it gets bad enough). Any useful activity comes to a halt. The group may even lose the fight. Dramatically, the winner of the fight was proven to have the stronger, truer myth. Story structure would have the defeated accept the winner’s myth or be destroyed, although the losers may wait to fight another day.

In using the word “fight,” I mean not just conscious, direct conflict, but also more indirect interactions, of which the group members may not even be aware, but by which they negate the validity of the enemy myth.

Most groups have enemies. Perhaps on some level, all groups have enemies. How can a member commit to a group myth without seeing competing, conflicting group myths as less valid than his own? Take away the enemies and very often the group will fall apart, either from apathy or internal division within the group, some form of rebellion.

Each member of a group carries within himself his own version of the group myth. When the group has an enemy, the enemy myth is sufficiently different from the group myth so that the differences between the various individual versions of the group myth are not significant. Take away the enemy myth and the individual variations are the largest mythic differences to be seen, so they take center stage, and the group turns on itself in an attempt to unify its myth. It will probably split or disband. Any leader faces the challenge of giving the group a myth the members would rather follow than fight over. An enemy makes this job much easier, so it is in the leader’s interest to find an enemy for the group. Peace is a challenge.

The Group Within
All of these classic group roles, from the leader to the enemy, exist in varying degrees within each person’s mind as roles played by various parts of the self in the enactment of personal myth. Sometimes we play the leader and create new directions for our myth. Later we may rebel against our myth, dissatisfied and angry about the course of our lives. We can be the black sheep, never living up to our own standards. At other times we are the fool, seeing the larger picture. As in the group, where each of the roles does its part to keep the myth on track, so do we within ourselves. We also project these roles onto other people in our personal myths.

Even though we each live by myth, we are not wholly bound to it. There is wiggle room. Yet, in the broad average, human nature is very consistent. Are we free or are we not? Do we, in fact have free will, or are we bound by instinct? I say we have both. In the next chapter I will explain how this can be.