How do you kill a myth ?

Nedd Willard

A myth is not a fairy tale about Snow White and the seven dwarfs or Atlantis and its vanished kingdom. A myth is something that influences the way people feel and, most importantly, the way they act. Myths can give you the feeling that you belong to a superior race, that your country is racially pure, or has some inalienable right to govern over others. These are some myths of our recent times. Many of them have died. Some are unfortunately still alive.

Myths that are confined to small populations or poorly armed citizens are not too dangerous except to their immediate neighbours. But the current myth about the Way of Life, symbolised by the American Cowboy has an impact that is worldwide and has proved lethal in effect.

Signs of this myth are all around us. Every time you see someone, most frequently a teenager light up a Marlboro cigarette you are seeing the myth in action. In fact, draw a cowboy hat in Lagos or Kathmandu, and in Europe of course and recognition is immediate, although individuals pretend that it has no effect other than to help them choose a certain brand of cigarette. But why that cigarette?

One way to kill a local myth is to get the fact of a more objective history across. For example, it should be better known that a rainbow of invaders has conquered all the countries of Europe over the past four thousand years. Thus the gene pool has not remained ‘pure’ but greatly enriched. It is still vital to get this bit of history across to all the members and would-be members of the European Union.

But the myth of the cowboy is more insidious and promoted on a scale of magnitude, aided by all the media, never seen before. Put simple the myth convinces people that there exists a country on earth where the way of the cowboy reigns even into the 21 century. The cowboy there is a free soul, alone on his horse, and armed at all times. He decides who is good and who is evil. After he encounters the evil ones, rather than bothering the law or judges, he exterminates them and so wins the eternal gratitude of the more cowardly citizens of the village he liberates.

It is worth noting that the cowboy has no wife, no job, never works, and if he makes money it is reward for capturing or killing villains. He never stays behind to go about the dull business of daily life. He is pure man, or macho, the kind so many city dwellers of the world enjoy being in their imaginations. An unsolved mystery is why the cowboy also appeals to women smokers.

The best illustration of this myth and its international outreach are «Western» movies. Those made in Italy and Spain by Sergio Leone starring Clint Eastwood are good examples. Their plots are simple to the point of inanity. A cold-eyed stranger on his horse arrives somewhere. Villains are seen doing their villainous deeds. The stranger then kills them all in a variety of imaginative ways. Dead bandits even fall gracefully from the open windows of the saloon hotel where they had been cowardly sniping at the Stranger.

Most serious historians estimate that the saga of the free ranging cowboy in the
U.S. probably lasted about thirty years. They were hardworking men and most of them died dirt poor. It was not the cowboy but professional gamblers, many of them pimps, and gangs of disbanded soldiers left over from the civil war who did the shooting.

Mark Twain who lived out West, when it most resembled the myth, painted an acid picture of one of the most notorious among them. This brute had killed a number of men but on one occasion his adversary had the drop on him. He challenged him boastfully by saving, “If you aren’t a coward put down your gun if you aren’t a coward and fight like a man with your fists.” The other man put down his gun, put up his fists, and Slade then shot him dead on the spot in cold blood. So much for Western chivalry.

The myth of the cowboy also has been stretched to include any man or woman who acts cool, in other words betrays no emotion whatever the situation. So do psychopathic criminals. Slowly drawing on a cigarette or clenching a cigar between the teeth adds to the picture.

It is hard to know how to kill this myth but the reason for doing so should be evident. The killer cowboy has mutated into the cold-eyed killer soldier, the ruthless undercover agent or vengeful armed policeman. This myth encourages police states where both the law and the peaceful individual are silent. Recently, emphasis has shifted from the lone cowboy to the tough two man buddy squad, who despise law and compassion just as much as the killer cowboy.

If we can’t kill this myth it will go on killing us. Police states are partially maintained by it and their number has increased in the twentieth and twenty- first centuries. The myth is a menace to democracy and helps strangle what is left of democracy in its unguarded cradle.

The problem is how to put it to rest. Those who promote the myth make most of the films shown on the movie and TV screens in our world. Lawless states are aided by paid intellects, and academics of various stripes, whose seemingly scholarly ideas in favour of powerful elitist nations are little more than camouflage for unjust societies and ruthless practices.

Ending this myth will not therefore be easy work, or even pleasant. It should begin with more factual history about those men who make their own laws and enforce them and show contempt for ordinary citizens. None of us should accept armed men who claim they can distinguish who is good and who should be assassinated. Nor should we accept any country’s behaviour based on such assumptions. Even in conversation, we should stamp on this ugly myth whenever it appears. And we had better start right now.