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Beyond A Weapons Mythology
M artin L uther K ing Jr. Special E dition
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A society’s myths, the stories
that it tells about heroes and villains,
are the building blocks and product
o f culture. Myths shape a culture
while at the same time expressing
and perpetuating its values. Myths
imparted to us from a young age
help form our world views, com
pelling and constraining our behav
ior.
Mythology is imparted through
stories. Induction into the mythol
ogy o f a culture starts at birth, with
songs and nursery rhymes, and con
tinues throughout life. The stories
that we hear and tell as adults rein
force those first lessons from the
cradle.
Weapons are a significant part of
our national mythology. Books,mov
ies, electronic games, chi ldren' s fairy
tales - all are filled with images of
guns, swords, missiles, even nuclear
bombs. By the process of continual
exposure and reinforcement, we be
gin to believe a fallacy - that w eap
ons are the best tools for dealing with
conflict. Our children play with guns
and, like children of any species,
learn adult behavior through their
games. Toy stores are stocked with
all the weapons of war - realistic-
looking, imparting a sense of pow er
to the user. Weapons o f destruction
are so commonplace in movies that
it’s rare action-adventure film that
doesn’t fill the screen with death and
massive ruin in the first five minutes.
Nuclear weapons give us a de
structive capability almost beyond
imagining. We can annihilate nations
with the turn of a key and we’re
heady with the power that confers.
The United States presides over an
elite club o f nations that have this
power. And other nations want to
join the club! Images ofjoyous Indi
ans reacting to their government’s
announcement of a nuclear test dem
onstrate how pervasive a weapons
mythology is in other cultures as
Jan. 13, 1999
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well.
But our power has outstripped
our sensibilities. We understand the
irrational nature of living under the
constant threat of oblivion, o f being
unable to walk the streets o f our
cities at night, yet we profess to
know no better way. As the Rever
end Martin Luther King, Jr. so el
egantly stated, “Our scientific power
has outrun our spiritual power. We
have guided missiles and misguided
man."
We can no longer afford a weap
ons mythology. The ability to de
stroy nations with nuclear warheads,
to escalate ourselves into a war which
nobody can win, which could in fact
cause the very extinction of our
species, dictates a revolution in our
thinking - a new mythology that
recognizes the necessity o f a new
armament. King wrote, "There may
have been a time when war served as
a negative good by preventing the
spread and growth of an evil force.
but the destructive power of modem
weapons eliminates even the possi
bility that war may serve as a nega
tive good.”
We need a mythology in which
our weapons are laws and prin
ciples, not guns and bombs. The
skills we need to develop in our
children are those o f negotiation and
compromise, o f unflinching adher
ence to principles o f fairness and
empathy. Mythology is bom of and
perpetuated through the stories we
tell our children. The heroes of these
stories will become our children’s
heroes. From the earliest nursery
rhym es we need to infuse our
children’s imaginations with tales of
gallant men and women who saved
the day by clinging to principles of
mutual respect and non-violence.
We need to tell the stories ofThoreau
and Ghandi, o f Martin Luther King,
Jr. and Sojourner Truth. In a world
where our very survival depends
upon eliminating the threat of weap-
ons o f mass destruction, a radically
new way of thinking is essential.
King wrote, “ In this world. Nonvio
lence is no longer an option for
intellectual analysts, it is an impera
tive for action.”
We need to tell new stories. Sto
ries excite the imagination and stimu
late creativity. With stories of prin
cipled heroes winning with alternate
“weapons” we are trained to think in
new ways, to find new solutions to
old conflicts.
Violence will existwhereverpeople
live in proximity. We cannot com
pletely escape our biological ten
dency toward aggression. What we
can do. however, is learn to cope
with violence in a way that doesn’t
engender further violence.
With weapons o f creativity, com
munication, and empathy, we can
respond to violence with non-vio
lence. We can foster a new mythol
ogy that honors creation rather than
destruction.
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