In reblogging this post about propaganda, this person writes:
This also applies to terms like "mythology" or "religion". I study myths for a living and. It impresses me how much people use words like "this is just a myth", to disqualify an opponent's argument, as if it belonged to an inferior mode of thinking, when they themselves use the same thing, use hypothesis that are beyond assessment or criticism, self-evident truths beyond repproach, you know, like a myth.
The point they're making here seems to be:
You think your worldview is based on truth.
Other worldviews seem like myths to you.
Your own beliefs are myths too.
This kind of relativism is built on a foundation of muddy semantics and half-digested postmodernism. It claims that everyone lives by unexamined assumptions and therefore nobody can claim the truth about anything.
This isn't just false, it's a profoundly terrible argument on multiple levels.
As I am fond of repeating:
Words Mean Things. Specific Things.
Myth can refer to:
A symbolic story (e.g., creation myths)
A false belief (e.g., the myth of multitasking)
An unexamined cultural assumption (Barthes)
These are not the same. Treating them as interchangeable is at best clueless, at worst dishonest.
The fact that randomnumbers751650 conflates these makes me doubt their claim to "study myths for a living."
They've also clearly never studied the philosophy or history of science, or they'd know that Scientific hypotheses ≠myths
A scientific hypothesis is:
Falsifiable
Testable
Provisional and subject to revision from the moment it is proposed
Calling a hypothesis a myth requires ignorance of how both words are defined.
Propaganda ≠myth ≠science ≠religion
Propaganda is deliberate mass persuasion.
Religion (in most cases) is faith-based belief or communal practice.
Science is a falsifiable method.
Myth is symbolic or cultural narrative.
These have different goals, standards, and truth claims. Treating them as the same turns any meaningful discussion into nonsensical gibberish.
What's happening in this argument's rhetoric?
It switches definitions of "myth" mid-sentence
It falsely flattens all truth claims into the same category
It avoids asking whether a belief is true
This perspective, if embraced, removes the tools needed to evaluate any belief at all.
Words mean things. Specific things.
Other important terms people should know.
Post-truth Relativism
Epistemology
Semantics
