Overpowering Myth

 

The overpowering myth permeates because it is relevant. Used as a pillar to buffer against, to push away from, although we could push away from it in any direction it tends towards the counter-myth is the polarised opposite of the original myth. This leads to chaos which leads to destruction.

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This passage describes a recurring pattern in how societies (or individuals) relate to dominant cultural myths—deeply embedded narratives that shape meaning, identity, and behavior.

The “overpowering myth” holds sway not through brute force alone, but because it remains relevant: it addresses real fears, desires, contradictions, or existential needs in the collective psyche. People don’t simply discard it; instead, they treat it as a fixed pillar—something to define themselves against. They buffer, react, rebel, or “push away” from it to establish distance or superiority.

Yet the critique reveals a trap: even though one could depart in countless directions (toward nuance, synthesis, transcendence, or unrelated alternatives), the reaction predictably collapses toward the polarized opposite—the counter-myth. This is the mirror-image inversion: if the original myth is X, the counter-myth becomes anti-X raised to the same dogmatic intensity. Examples abound:

•  A myth of absolute hierarchy and divine order → countered by a myth of radical egalitarianism that demonizes any structure.

•  A myth of inevitable progress and techno-utopia → countered by a myth of inevitable collapse and primitivist return.

•  A myth of pure individualism → countered by a myth of total collectivism that erases the person.

The polarity preserves the original myth’s framing and energy; it just flips the valence. Both sides feed off the same binary axis, amplifying each other in mutual antagonism.

This dynamic breeds chaos because:

•  Energy is spent on endless oscillation or escalation rather than creation/integration.

•  Intermediary positions get crushed or ignored.

•  Institutions, discourse, and psyches become brittle, unable to hold complexity.

Eventually, unchecked polarization erodes shared reality → destruction follows, whether cultural fragmentation, institutional collapse, civil strife, or self-annihilation through fanaticism.

The insight here echoes thinkers like Nietzsche (on ressentiment producing inverted ideals), Girard (mimetic rivalry escalating to scapegoating), or even Jung (enantiodromia—the tendency of extremes to turn into their opposites). It also resonates with contemporary observations of culture-war dynamics, where each “side” claims to be the pure antidote to the other’s poison, yet both reinforce the same underlying split.

Breaking the cycle requires refusing the binary pull: not pushing against the myth as primary orientation, but moving orthogonally—toward what the myth cannot name or contain, toward lived complexity rather than narrative purity.