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Erich von Däniken photographed on 19 October
2006. © Michal Manaš
No Sweeping Claims, Please -
Part One
Jun 21, 2010
Despite a knack for
science-fiction writing, the Swiss
Erich von Däniken (1935- ) has
become the face of twentieth century
pseudo-science.
Many scholars share a profound
distaste for cross-cultural
comparison of aspects of human
culture, such as architecture,
ritual practices, rock art, pottery
designs, mythology and religion.
Displeasure is especially incurred
when such analysis highlights
universal similarities in these
areas and inspires explanations
other than the anodyne ‘cultural
archetypes’.
While specialist journals
dedicated to specific cultures or
specific eras abound, publications
in comparative fields are few and
far between; the ones that do see
the light of day generally content
themselves with a presentation of
materials, shying away from raising
questions, let alone offering
answers. The signature of admirable
scholarship is an in-depth study of
a highly specialised subdiscipline.
Archaeologists and art historians
alike take pride in the search for
features that make their pet
cultures unique, with marked
disregard for arguments focussing on
shared beliefs and practices. Among
the most lamentable casualties of
this biased attitude is a theory of
mythology.
Mythology par
excellence
is a global form of cultural
expression that is rich in striking
patterns of agreement between
far-flung regions, but lacks a
consensus paradigm within such
parallels can be categorised and
understood. Specialised studies of
cultural mythologies are invaluable
contributions to scholarship, but
the doyens of fields such as
Egyptology, Assyriology, classical
studies, Sinology, Maya studies and
so on will need to grow more
tolerant towards intercultural
comparison if any broader theory of
mythology is allowed to supplant the
unsuccessful thought experiments of
earlier savants.
The question why eminent
scholars, who supervise doctoral
dissertations, chair conferences and
referee papers, have developed such
a visceral aversion to
interdisciplinary parallels surely
warrants a lifetime’s study and a
PhD thesis in itself. Nevertheless,
a brief psychoanalysis suggests that
hidebound experts perpetuate an
intellectual climate suffused with
trauma.
The trauma is the cumulative
exposure to no less than six
embarrassing types of source abuse
and uncritical speculation, all in
one century, perpetrated by scholars
and laymen alike, and all drawing on
bountiful repositories of
cross-cultural data. A quick
run-down yields the following
fiascos in the field of comparative
studies.
One way to explain common themes
and patterns in contiguous cultures
is through borrowing, missionary
activity and other types of
diffusion. There is no doubt that
interacting cultures have exchanged
objects and ideas – and in many
cases the expert can recognise the
fruits of such exchanges with
confidence.
Hyperdiffusionists
are people who dispense with the
need to identify ‘forensic evidence’
of such borrowing and claim
widespread diffusion of ideas for
which little evidence exists other
than the parallels themselves.
Perhaps the worst excess of this
approach was the ‘Pan-Babylonianist’
school of the early twentieth
century, which attributed highly
advanced astronomical knowledge to
cultures worldwide, all of which was
traced back to Mesopotamia using
dubious methods of reasoning and
with very little in the way of
proof. A late champion of this
theory was the celebrated American
comparative mythologist, Joseph
Campbell (1908-1987).
As the short-lived academic
love-affair with Pan-Babylonianism
wore off, it left in its wake a
deep-seated disinclination for any
theories suggesting accomplished
astronomical skill or historically
related parallels between cultures
that are far removed from each other
in time and space. In this climate,
any discussion of astral materials
in the traditions of illiterate
societies is just about tolerable,
as long as not too much
sophistication is argued for. For
classicists or professionals in the
field of ancient Near Eastern
culture, astronomical
interpretations as well as
comparative discussions are barely
palatable.
Further discouragement from
comparative studies must have come
from the repeated failure of
psychosocial theories
designed to account for global
parallels. Sir James Frazer’s
argument that mankind’s evolution of
mental progress independently
proceeds along exactly the same
lines in all areas was doomed to
failure at the outset.
Contributed by Rens Van Der
Sluijs
http://mythopedia.info
Books by Rens Van Der Sluijs:
The Mythology of the World Axis
The World Axis as an Atmospheric
Phenomenon
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YouTube video, first glimpses of Episode Two in the "Symbols of an Alien Sky"
series.
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Three ebooks in the Universe Electric series are
now available. Consistently
praised for easily understandable text and exquisite graphics.
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