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So, while Odysseus is over there on the
island of Scharea, getting magnificent,

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wonderful, overwhelming hospitality from
the Phonecians.

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I thought you and I could take a half step
back and introduce the first of what I'm

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going to be calling our conceptual tools.
In this class, we're going to be spend

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lots of time looking at these great
stories, trying to get, get interested in

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them, find the details in them, show the
wonder that they are, just to enjoy them

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for what they are.
But also I want to spend some time lifting

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up the hood and tinkering with what's
underneath there, trying to figure.

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Or how these things work.
What is it that makes a myth a myth?

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In the early part of the course, we laid
down some ideas over a broad sweep of

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time.
And we did a real broad and quick survey

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of ideas on myth over time, talked about
some that existed in the classical period.

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Talked about functionalism and algorism,
in particular, and how those survived

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through the Middle Ages and into the
Renaissance.

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And then the different ideas that emerge
in the Renaissance from people like

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Fontenelle, who talk about myth as a kind
of proto-scientific mentality in an

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attempt to explain the world around us.
We talked about the Enlightenment and

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David Hume, who.
Thought about myth as kind of an earlier

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primitive mentality that, thank goodness
we scientific minded people have grown out

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of, and then we talked about Romantics and
their much more swelling view of myth as a

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repository for the most powerful truths
that humans might find.

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Fast forwarding ahead from the Romantic
period into the twentieth century we're

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going to pick out and focus on four
specific schools of thought that are going

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to give us some useful ways of tinkering
with the myths in front of us.

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A box of tools.
And when we run into things in myth that

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are strange or interesting we can pick out
one of the tools tinker with the myth, and

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see if we get a, something interesting.
The first one I want to talk about is

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functionalism.
The figure Bronisaw Malinowski is our

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important figure here.
His dates are 1884 to 1942.

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Malinowski, an important figure in the
human sciences made tremendous advances

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critical figure in anthropology.
And also interest, very interesting for

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people that study myths.
Malinowski studied the cultures nearby

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him, and noticed.
That they told stories and that these

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stories got repeated over and over, and
that they took place at certain kinds of

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critical times.
There were moments when mythic stories

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were turned to in the society and they had
a, a central role in the building of

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culture.
More importantly, Malinowski noticed that

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there was a specific way that these
stories were used by the cultures.

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Specifically, Malinowski said, that myths
and when cultures tell myths to

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[inaudible].
Sounds.

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What they're doing is legitimizing.
Certain kinds of underlying social and

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cultural norms that they hold dear.
So myths are myths because they serve a

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certain kind of function, and the function
they serve is that they legitimize.

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So myths are there and we, we enjoy
hearing them because they have this

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underlined kind of subterranean always
function to them.

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They serve a purpose.
They're not just there to delight and

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entertain us or to give us the versions or
teach us about the sort of universal

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structure of the Cosmos.
Instead they're there to reassure us that

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our cultural norms and our social values
are the right ones.

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Now the stories are told in such a way
that they have an underlying message that

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endorses our cultural views on the world.
So myths serve the function of

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legitimatizing.
Now a few things we can pull out, few

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notes we can make this, already this early
stage.

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You'll tell from the.
Lecture we just gave, that ideas of

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functionalism have already been a part of
the course, haven't they?

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I snuck one, I snuck a functionalist
reading into the prior lecture.

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When we started talking about Exenia, and
this cultural value of overwhelming

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hospitality, and the usefulness in Greek
culture of securing a means of trade,

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securing a kind of safe territory for
people to trade, the different cultures to

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trade among themselves.
And then we claimed that the story that

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we're being told with Odysseus and his
time on, on Scaria with the Phaeacians.

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We're being told that, that story.
Helps underline and legitimize the social

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and cultural value of Xenia.
We're being given a functionalist reading.

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You and I, as Greeks, love to hear this
story.

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And if someone asks us, why, well, we'll
just say, well, it's just a great story.

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We just love to hear it.
Well, now [inaudible] will just come along

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and say is, the reason that the Greeks
loved to hear this story is because it

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legitimized their investment in this
cultural value of Xenia and made it seem

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like it was a normal, natural thing.
What we're doing then is jumping into a

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functionalist reading.
Now our toolbox is gonna get full of a

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couple of other different tools.
We're gonna talk structuralism pretty

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soon, in fact we're gonna talk about
psycho-analysis and we're also gonna talk

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about another theory called myth and
ritual.

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Functionalism, structuralism,
psycho-analysis and myth and ritual, these

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will be the four main tools in our
toolbox, and when we have need of them and

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see usefulness in them, we'll take the
tool out, tinker with they myth and see

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what results we get.
Our tools are not all gonna get along with

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each other.
They have different ideas on myth.

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Some of them people who are adherents of
one are.

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[inaudible] Approach might eschew the
usefulness of another theoretical

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approach, but you and I are gonna be
friends with all these theoretical tools

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and we're gonna put them to use when
appropriate to try to understand our

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myths.
I think also you're gonna find them useful

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in your own reading of the myths.
I'm gonna.

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Put them to use in our class, and I'll
label them, whenever I, recognize myself

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using one of these theoretical tools.
But also, keep your own, eyes open and,

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maybe there'll be one or two times when
I'm, sneaking in a, functionalist reading

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or, once in a while I'll sneak in a
psychoanalytic reading or, one of the

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other, kinds of, approaches that we have
in the class.

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And you'll say to yourself, a-ha, Struck's
actually being a.

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Of, of.
Functionalist here and doesn't even

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realize it, that's great, that's exactly
the kind of thing you should be doing.

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And then start to realize yourself also
when you start to do certain kinds of

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intuitive readings [inaudible] when you
get into them.

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Well this one seems like it's actually
operating this way or it's operating

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another way, you'll be able to give some
names to the kinds of habits of mine that

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are probably already in place for you.
One or two small pieces of functionalism

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to close before you leave Malanawski
notice that when someone does a

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functionalist reading what they're
interested in is not the origin of a myth.

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We're not talking about when, when the
myth emerged or, where it came from.

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Instead we're interested in what culture
now is telling this myth to itself.

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And.
We're gonna propose that the reason a

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culture tells any myth to itself is
because that myth helps underline,

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legitimize and verify their social and
cultural norms and values.

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Okay.
So origin is not important when it comes

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to functionalism.
Instead, the use of the myth in the time

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the myth is being told, that's what the
functionalist is most interested in.

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Interested in function.
Thus the name.

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Myths according to a functionalist, also a
final note, are interested not in grand,

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universal unveiling of deep human truth.
Right?

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You can take a look at what a functionist
really is looking at and that's gonna be

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the specifics of individual culture.
So harping back to an earlier comment we

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made right at the very beginning of this
class, we talked about the different

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contemporary ideas of myths, and how some
people would claim that myths contain

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universal truths and other people would
claim that myths contain.

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Specific cultural truths the functions are
deathly on a specific culture side of that

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divide.
They look at this as a being a window into

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the particularities of a certain kind of
culture.

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Cultures value different things, we may
think it would be absolutely a, a second

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nature for us to value the kind of things
that we are about.

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For example hospitality or whatever it
might be.

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But in fact different cultures approach
these things in different ways.

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Some of the values that Greek culture
wants to underline.

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Legitimize and support are gonna seem
Absolutely straightforward to us.

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Others are going to seem really strange.
So, we'll keep our eye on both of those.

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So, watch out for the tools, we're gonna
add them to our toolbox every few weeks

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here for the next part of the course.
And soon enough, we'll have a, a box full

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of four different tools.
And we'll use them to tinker with our

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mess, and see what we can make out of them
as we advance in the course.