Mythological Structure Research Articles

A Deconstructive Look at the Myth of Race and Motivation

This article examines the myth of motivational differences in Black and White children's achievement within a post-positivist paradigm aimed at deconstructing existing explanations rather than posing alternative ones. Two replications were conducted of an earlier study that substantiated a cognitive-developmental theory of motivational deficit in Blacks. In the first, the achievement task was varied as per the earlier experiment, and racial differences in apparent motivation were found to be consonant with the patterns reported; in the second, the task was systematically controlled across age, sex, and race substrata for interest value, and racial differences disappeared. The implications for theories of motivation and for the methodological integrity of myth-substantiating research on Black-White achievement and potential are discussed. INTRODUCTION One of the most enduring legacies of any society is its structure of myths. These myths usually romanticize, through both simplification and exaggeration, key dimensions of historical experience, along with the principles, values, and moral (as well as pragmatic) implications that derive from them. Powerful myths have remarkable endurance, evolving in narrative form along with the society's technical changes, while retaining the original substance of their central lessons. As such, it is no surprise that certain historical experiences of American society have spawned myths of racial differences whose roots in social, political, or economic programs have survived the paradigm shift to a postindustrial, technical/scientific age. Within the traditional positivistic framework of science, the empirical content of hypothesis statements consists of their evidential referents. Hypotheses, myth or otherwise, once substantiated remain in a status of priority until an alternative hypothesis is advanced of at least equal evidential or empirical substance. Thus, the conventional sociology of scientific practice gave rise early to the emergence of reconstructionist paradigms for the engagement of myths regarding the psychology of Black populations (Montagu, 1942; Stanfield, 1985a, 1985b, 1996). The inherently anti-progressive burden of this approach handicapped a full-scale attack first upon the myth of intelligence, and later upon the myth of motivation. The structure of this scientific mythology is, by now, well known. The behavioral sciences have largely built upon a pre-existing network of prejudices, stereotypes, and disinformation to form an edifice of misunderstanding about the nature of behavior and experience in Black populations (Banks, 1990; Gould, 1981; Montagu, 1942; Stanfield, 1985a, 1985b, 1996). There have been at least three general methodological strategies by which reformists within the discipline of psychology have sought to redress this situation (Banks, in press), but only the approach of deconstructionism has undertaken to confront these myths head-on for the unapologetic purpose of refuting them. Such a deconstructive perspective seems particularly apropos for the examination of a myth whose vitality seems to survive even the most thorough critiques (Banks,1980; Graham,1994), and that sustains an enduring scientific belief in the phenomenon of failure and its causes among Black individuals (McElroy-Johnson, 1993). In the analysis of race and social-class differences in achievement, a central conceptual issue has been that of intrinsic motivation. Katz (1967), for example, attributed minority children's deficiencies in academic achievement to their relative inability to sustain effort in tasks that are not immediately associated with extrinsic reinforcement. In this regard, a general hypothesis has been that minority and lower-class individuals fail to perform as effectively, or be as effectively achievement motivated, as White middle-class persons in the absence of material or concrete reinforcements. Several investigators have provided supportive evidence on behalf of this hypothesis. …

Divine Violence: Spectacle, Psychosexuality, and Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War."

The dirty war in thematic context the strategic theatrics of atrocity the mythological structure of the imaginary in the name of the Father sacrifice and the surrogate victim.

Da Gud blev til en lille grøn mand fra Rummet

The International Raëlian Movement, founded by the French journalist Claude Vorlihon (Raël) in 1974, is one of the best consolidated UFO-cults, now present in more than 40 countries. Its teaching is primarily derived form the judeo-christian mythology, although the interpretation throughout is related to modern scientific and pseudo-scientific notions. Further the cult integrates elements of European folklore, which indeed makes it a syncretistic religion. The article describes the teaching of Raël (said to be the Messiah), and points the the fact that no new religious ideas or structures are promoted. Rather a well-known set of ideas is reinterpreted in the syncretisticc process. The structure of traditional religion is maintained, but the actors on the mythological stage are new. God or even "the divine" is not recognized. We are facing an atheistic religion which claims that the technology and science of extraterrestrial beings are responsible for life of Earth. The article attempts to show how this transfer from transcendent God to extraterrestrial humanoid are dealt with within the limits of already existing mythological structures.

Fanciful English Translations and the Mythological Structure of theLusíadas

Fanciful English Translations and the Mythological Structure of the<i>Lusíadas</i>

The mythological structure of organizations and its impact

Human Resource ManagementVolume 28, Issue 2 p. 267-277 Article The mythological structure of organizations and its impact Abraham Zaleznik, Abraham Zaleznik Abraham Zaleznik is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business School. Zaleznik, a 1946 graduate of the Harvard Business School's M.B.A. program and holder of a doctorate in Commercial Sciences (1951) from the school, is known internationally for his research and teaching in the field of social psychology in the business setting, and for his investigations into the distinguishing characteristics of managers and leaders. A graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, he is certified by the American Psychoanalytic Association as a clinical psychoanalyst. He has published twelve books, including his latest, The Managerial Mystique: Restoring Leadership in Business (Harper & Row, 1989). He is finishing a new book on Psychoanalysis of Organizations, and has written numerous award winning articles.Search for more papers by this author Abraham Zaleznik, Abraham Zaleznik Abraham Zaleznik is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business School. Zaleznik, a 1946 graduate of the Harvard Business School's M.B.A. program and holder of a doctorate in Commercial Sciences (1951) from the school, is known internationally for his research and teaching in the field of social psychology in the business setting, and for his investigations into the distinguishing characteristics of managers and leaders. A graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, he is certified by the American Psychoanalytic Association as a clinical psychoanalyst. He has published twelve books, including his latest, The Managerial Mystique: Restoring Leadership in Business (Harper & Row, 1989). He is finishing a new book on Psychoanalysis of Organizations, and has written numerous award winning articles.Search for more papers by this author First published: Summer 1989 https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.3930280212Citations: 27 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume28, Issue2Summer 1989Pages 267-277 RelatedInformation

The Vithobā faith of Mahārāsastra: The Vithobā Temple of Pandharpūr and its mythological structure

The Vithobā faith of Mahārāsastra: The Vithobā Temple of Pandharpūr and its mythological structure

The Skill of Cain in the English Mystery Cycles

The Skill of Cain in the English Mystery Cycles Blair W. Boone The Cain and Abel plays, and indeed most of the four major English mystery cycles, have in recent years been read exegetically and especially typologically. This method has produced many useful insights and much worthwhile scholarship, but it has its limits as a critical method, several of which have already been pointed out.l I would add only one further caveat: that typology teaches us more about the structure of the cycles than about the internal structure of particular plays within the cycles. Whatever intellectual and aesthetic appreciation we feel in adumbrating the structural unity of a cycle according to typology may be derived as much from foreknowledge of the typology as from its actual manifestation in the cycle. The playwright or playwrights working on a cycle could hardly have avoided the appearance of such formal unity when the Church Fathers had already established the unity of Christian history. At any rate, it is often practically impossible to distinguish between necessary recapitulation of sacred history and conscious artistic manipu­ lation. Moreover, other exegetical modes medieval and modem may tell us more than typology (which is an end in itself) about the historical, theological, and mythological structures of the plays, particularly the Cain and Abel plays. These plays are of interest specifically because of their unique position as the first moral action in history. Situated between the Fall, which begins history, and the Flood, which nearly ends it, the Cain and Abel plays are both type and archetype, consequence and consequential. The general curse of the Fall finds a particular manifestation in the primal eldest curse in history of a brother’s murder, which in turn spawns in the race of Cain particular evils grown to an almost general BLAIR W. BOONE is a graduate student in Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo. 112 Blair W. Boone 113 condition of mankind.2 Having a fallen world to bustle in, Cain may commit an original sin, but not Original Sin. This linguistic paradox reveals an ambivalence inherent in the situation itself, an ambivalence that necessarily finds its expression in the language of the plays. Martin Stevens has sug­ gested that “the Wakefield Author brought to the Towneley Plays an active interest in the uses of language and that he did so to the extent of making that subject a major thematic concern in the cycle. Particularly, he characterizes the abuses of lan­ guage, concentrating on what Abel at one point in Play 2 calls ‘vayn carpyng’.”3 I would like to suggest that in each of the Cain and Abel episodes in the Chester, N-Town, York, and Towneley cycles the use and abuse of language not only become but also constitute the theme of those plays, and do so in a way that unites the structural ambivalence with the moral theme of the plays. The locus of this union may be most clearly determined in the Towneley play, in particular in the use of the word “skill.” The word also occurs in the N-Town play, and while it is not found in the Chester or York plays, it yet provides a key for a comparison of this structural and thematic unity in each of the four dramas of Cain and Abel. The entries for the word “skill” in the OED are prefaced by the following qualification: “The great variety of usage in ME. renders it difficult to assign par­ ticular examples to a definite sense.” Conversely, this variety of usage also renders definite senses rather slippery. Two defini­ tions given immediately concern the use of the word “skill” in the Towneley and N-Town plays: (a) ‘A sense of what is right or fitting’; (b) ‘That which is reasonable, proper, right, or just.’ Under this second definition the final example given is: ‘c 1460 Towneley Myst. ii. 260, I did hym never yit bot skill.’ Turning to the play, we find that the speaker is Cain, and that the “hym” referred to is God.4 The word appears again twelve lines later, once more spoken by Cain, this time as he addresses Abel...

The Structure of the Pantheon and the Concept of Sin in Ancient Japan

Ever since the pioneering works by Chogyū Takayama and others in 1899 Japanese scholars have endeavored to elucidate the structure, meaning, and genetic connections of Japanese mythology, which was systematically described in the volumes on the “Age of Gods” of the Kojiki (compiled in 712 A.D.), the Nihon Shoki (720), and other works. In recent years the research has experienced a remarkable development, which owes much of its stimulation to the epoch-making studies of Indo-European mythologies by Georges Dumézil. For Japanese mythology betrays much in common with the Indo-European ones not only in its motifs but also in its basic structure, as we shall shortly see. In order not to be misleading, however, it should be stated here that analogies to Indo-European mythologies are but one aspect of the Japanese tradition, which comprises many other components, especially South Chinese and/or Southeast Asian components, and current researches on Japanese mythology are not restricted to comparisons with the Indo-European mythologies, but are undertaken through a variety of approaches, including those of the historian, the philologist, and the ethnologist.

FLAUBERT’S ‘UN COEUR SIMPLE’, MYTH AND THE GENEALOGY OF RELIGION

It is well known that Flaubert engaged in extensive studies of mythology for works like Salammbo or the Tentation de Saint Antoine. It is said as well that he attempted to purge himself of this kind of emphasis for his ‘realistic’ fiction. By studying his most famous short story, however, it can be seen that the mythological structures are present and central to its organization; by pursuing this line of inquiry and by looking at Felicite in this light, we discover that neither her heart nor her tale is simple and that Flaubert has condensed all the complexities of his vision into a form remarkable for its apparent austerity. An understanding of this process of condensation and masking helps to see Flaubert’s methods and will hopefully throw more light on his work as a whole.

Dumézil's Tripartite Ideology: Some Critical Observations

In a long series of important and stimulating publications Georges Dumézil has for almost half a century not only re-established a complex of theories with regard to the comparative study of ancient Indo-European mythology, but also applied a modernized comparative method. In investigating the foundations of the Indo-European socio-religious conceptions he bases his arguments and conclusions, it is true, to a certain extent on linguistic data, but these are always amplified and corroborated by a thorough consideration of the social structure, religious beliefs and ritual institutions of the ancient Indians, Romans, Germans, Celts and Greeks. Especially these last thirty-five years his work is of great originality in that he has founded and developed the theory of thetrois fonctions, of the “three fundamental activities which the groups of priests, warriors and producers must fulfil and assure in order to maintain their community”. In this theory it is not the tripartite social organization of the prehistoric Indo-Europeans that is emphasized, but the principle of classification, the ideology to which, in Dumézil's opinion, this organization has given rise. Being reflected in the groupings of, and mutual relations between, the divine powers and in the very structure of Indo-European mythology and view of the world it is here again the ideological rather than the strictly sociological aspects that invite the reader's attention.

On the Typological Similarity of Mythological Structures among the Ket and Neighbouring Peoples

On the Typological Similarity of Mythological Structures among the Ket and Neighbouring Peoples

Some Observations On Dumézil's Views of Indo-European Mythology

important inferences from ill-founded and questionable etymologies and because of their lack of insight into the mentality, the religious beliefs and behaviour which may be attributed to those prehistoric communities which spoke the idioms which were to develop into Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. After some decennia of stagnation in this field of inquiry, the French scholar Georges Dum?zil has these last thirty-five years launched out into a series of monographs in which he applies a modernized comparative method, based, it is true, to a certain extent on linguistic data, but improved by a thorough consideration of the social structure and the allied religious beliefs of the prehistoric Indo-Europeans. Especially these last twenty years his theory of the 'three functions' which are, in his view, an outstanding characteristic of the ancient Indo-European religion and 'Weltanschauung', has attracted the attention, and often invited the criticism, of linguists, philologists, and students of the comparative history of religion. This theory of a 'tripartite ideology' of the Indo-Europeans? that is their socio-religious distinction between the three functions of the 'clerical' order, the military order and the 'third estate'? has now been summarized in a recent work 1). Dum?zil's point of view, maintained in a long series of publications, is well-known: this tripartition is reflected in the groupings of, and mutual relation between, the divine powers, in the very structure of Indo-European mythology: beside the magic sovereignty occupied with the celestial