Grumpy > Scalia
A story on the internet this morning laments how a recent survey of Americans reveals that Disney’s version of the Seven Dwarves are more recognizable than the Supreme Court Justices; Harry Potter better known than Tony Blair; Homer Simpson more renowned than Homer the epic poet.
While it is very tempting to take cheap shots at how our educational system is failing us, or how pernicious the media is, or what a narcissistic pack of entertainment-besotted drones we’ve all become, I think I’ll pass on the alarmism. Rather, consider the power of a story. What do Snow White, Bart Simpson, Superman, and the young wizard of Hogwarts all have in common? They inhabit the realm of myth, even if they live in that newly fabricated subdivision called post-modernity.
Perhaps we who love myth ought to be inspired by this otherwise rather unsettling fact: if people would rather bathe their consciousness in story than in history, don’t we have an obligation to tell the best, most visionary, most liberating stories we can?
