Psychology of myth-building in contemporary culture

- Гуцол, С.Ю. (2015) Psychology of myth-building in contemporary culture Masters thesis, Інститут психології імені Г.С. Костюка.

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Abstract

The thesis shows a theoretical generalization and a new solution of myth-building problem in social psychology, which is the developing of concept of its understanding as a permanent multi-level communicative and semiotic process of myths reproduction by subjects of social life, as well as the emphasizing and analyzing of psychological characteristics of functioning of myths and myth-like constructs in institutional and personality-oriented discourses. Tools of phenomenology and hermeneutics as paradigms of dialogue-cultural and semiotic/semantic approaches, which are oriented towards a process of interpretation of meanings of culture, are applied as general worldview and general methodological framework of the research. Application of hermeneutical paradigm allowed interpreting mythological mechanisms of construction and transmission of socio-cultural and personal experiences based on communication and semiotization. The main methodological principle of the study is the phenomenological understanding of myth as an integral component of consciousness, which inputs value-semantic context to reality’s perception and building. The foundation of author’s concept of myth-building is its understanding as a process of formation, updating, accumulation, ordering, transferring of myths and myth-like constructs by culture and their further interpretations and reinterpretations by a personality, the process which permanently takes place in socio-cultural space/time and contributes to construction of both socio-cultural and internal realities of a person. In certain paradigmatic coordinates myth is interpreted as the oldest and most stable form of organization and transmission of socio-cultural experience and as a mechanism of regulation of human behavior, which are relevant to all types of culture. Direct, «sensual-reflective», contemplative productive way of world discernment is a basis for mythological form of organization of individual and group experience. The author shows that the specifics of myth as a mechanism for regulation of human behavior is its continuous paradigmatic (exemplary) behavior and justification of the meaning of its behavior (actions, deeds), which always exceeds beyond individual and even social experience (the highest comprehension). The author introduces a concept of myth as a mechanism of harmonization of socio-cultural oppositions, which enables building a model of mythological narrative as a mechanism of mediation of fundamental opposition «hypo-"/«hyper-» realities in the form of «semiotic square» and «mythological envelope.» Psychological features of narrative creation as a major mechanism of myth-building are described. From historical retrospective point of view, four stages of myth-building process featured by different extent of its content’s reflection by myth-building subjects are allocated: mythos, early mythological narrative, late mythological narrative (mythologies), and neo-mythologies. The author developed theoretical and methodological determinants of analysis of neo-mythological narrative as a mechanism of contemporary myth-building. Neo-mythological narrative is understood as a form of objectification of mythological consciousness: multilayer formation consisting of semantic core and dynamic periphery. Psychological mechanisms of mythological transposition are aimed at adaptation of the key components of mythological thinking (through archetypes actualization) to neo-myth (neo-mythological narrative), as well as at universalization of a new experience, and at future, which faces «end of time» (by building kenotypes). The applied aspects of myth-building in key myth-building contexts of contemporary social and cultural space are analyzed. Analysis of socio-psychological features of myth-building in various institutional discourses, such as family, advertising, professional communities (using a psychotherapeutic one as an example), politics, education, fashion, sports (using football as an example) allowed to identify both their common features as well as specific differences. It is shown that myth-building discourses as practices to construct neo-mythological narratives actualize mythological components of contemporary man’s consciousness and are a productive environment for both «mythologizing» of consciousness («inculcation» of certain social and ideological constructs) and production of texts of personality. The author substantiated the potential of personality-oriented, in particular aesthetic and cultural discourses of myth-building (music, visual art, literature) as an environment for implementation of discоursive practices of personality’s self-designing. Theoretical standpoints of narrative applications of personality’s self-design within mythological coordinates are elaborated. Design of a personality is considered as a possible story plot in the context of narrative self-designing. Interpretation of «plots of transition» as mythological forms of personal design incarnation is introduced.

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