Are Myths Valuable?

[Belacqua]

There are no such thing as poetic truth, only poetic emotions that overwhelmed proper skepticism and reason.

There's an old idea about how the mind works, which isn't true, yet people often still seem to hold to it. It says that while the body is dross, the mind is a spark of pure rationality. 

In fact we are animals, who evolved to understand things in an unruly blend of ways. Sense impressions, analogy, vague memories, metaphors and other tropes, irrational connections, etc. Even a little bit of logic. 

This is why there are true things about the world which aren't easily taken in by reading only simple discursive sentences. Really to take in certain things -- to grok them deeply -- may require methods more in keeping with our animal nature. 

If we were angels it would be different. (Here I'm using a bit of mythical thinking -- in fact there are no angels, but we use them as place-holders to represent how people would be if we were, in fact, bits of pure reason exiled to the material world.) 

Poetry, myth, all good art, teaches important things. If you want to say these are not "poetic truth" but "truth well expressed through poetry," I'm fine with that.