I love philosophical ramblings! Hence why one of my majors is philosophy... though many other philosophy majors are entirely too self-assured for my tastes.
Anyway, digressing from that potential vent...
I definitely agree with that sentiment and notion. As Daniel goes on about a fair bit, mythology is very important to the development of culture. Much like dreams, they're the dreams we share with one another and thereby create cooperative reasoning and rapport with others. Whether certain mythologies are true, all are false, or all are true, it makes little difference in day-to-day life. The important thing is that they exist, regardless of "truth value".
Furthermore, I find this very interesting with Stargate because of a conversation I had with a Canadian friend once about how, in spite of it being a "Canadian-American" show that she viewed the premise, plot, characters, all of it, as being "American mythology". Meaning that in spite of its drawing from other mythologies, or perhaps because of it, the flavor that Stargate has that tends to leave someone on the palate, even when individual episodes aren't necessarily profound, is a kind of thing that is distinctly American. Americans may not notice it, according to my friend, because we live in it all the time, but the Star Trek/Stargate notion of some strange mixture of peaceful, progressive, politically correct expansion (a modified form of Manifest Destiny) and the old school "Take what you can, give nothing back" approach to the same thing are all a part of Stargate that feels like a very natural concern to an American but not so much to people of other cultures.
Anyway. I can explain that more later, and I'm not sure how sound it is, but I think it's a very neat and kind of warm-fuzzy thought.
no subject
Anyway, digressing from that potential vent...
I definitely agree with that sentiment and notion. As Daniel goes on about a fair bit, mythology is very important to the development of culture. Much like dreams, they're the dreams we share with one another and thereby create cooperative reasoning and rapport with others. Whether certain mythologies are true, all are false, or all are true, it makes little difference in day-to-day life. The important thing is that they exist, regardless of "truth value".
Furthermore, I find this very interesting with Stargate because of a conversation I had with a Canadian friend once about how, in spite of it being a "Canadian-American" show that she viewed the premise, plot, characters, all of it, as being "American mythology". Meaning that in spite of its drawing from other mythologies, or perhaps because of it, the flavor that Stargate has that tends to leave someone on the palate, even when individual episodes aren't necessarily profound, is a kind of thing that is distinctly American. Americans may not notice it, according to my friend, because we live in it all the time, but the Star Trek/Stargate notion of some strange mixture of peaceful, progressive, politically correct expansion (a modified form of Manifest Destiny) and the old school "Take what you can, give nothing back" approach to the same thing are all a part of Stargate that feels like a very natural concern to an American but not so much to people of other cultures.
Anyway. I can explain that more later, and I'm not sure how sound it is, but I think it's a very neat and kind of warm-fuzzy thought.