The Myth of Fingerprints

Like many societies, we seem to be one that clamors for truth—in advertising, in news, in education, and in our relationships—but assumes myth as an acceptable substitute because it’s more comfortable and often provides answers for unanswerable questions. A myth, one agreed upon by a group of people or a society, is a product of an unproven perspective. A truth is factual regardless of perspective and is not swayed by unproven opinions. Take something as basic as fingerprints. The idea that fingerprints are unique to an individual is accepted as an absolute fact in most courts, but it has never been proven. On top of that, there are literally hundreds of different accepted standards for proving they match in courts all over the world. Those standards are administered from the perspectives of many human experts subject to all kinds of misinterpretations. Consequently, it is a proven fact that innocent people have been convicted of crimes based on faulty evidence and not necessarily truth.

Is it possible to separate truth from myth with any degree of consistency? Is one more important than the other in the development of a society or the nature of a culture? If so, which one and why? Certainly, one thing to consider is where it comes from. If a myth is generated by a trusted source most of us are apt to believe it until faced with a personal reality we cannot deny, and sometimes that may be too late. For example, I never ate fish while drinking milk as a child and for much of my adulthood because my mother once told me that if I did I would become dangerously ill as the combination of the two generated a severe form of poisoning called Toe Main. At some point in my reading history, I learned that spoiled fish created ptomaine’s and so did unpasteurized milk, but the combination of the two had nothing to do with either. Some foods are more likely than others to breed bacteria called ptomaine that can make you sick. These foods include: Raw and undercooked foods from animals, including meat, chicken and other poultry, eggs, raw (unpasteurized) milk and products made from it, and seafood. Then, I realized that somewhere in my mother’s childhood someone ate fish and drank a glass of milk with it. One of them was spoiled and a myth was born that restricted my diet for decades, a minor discomfort.

However, on a grander scale, think of the myth generated by WWI and the Treaty of Versailles that ended it. This horrific slaughter was “the war to end all wars” and the peace that followed was intended to usher in an era of enlightenment and progress that would make the world a paradise forever after. At least that was the myth the Allied powers sold to the world. The reality proved to be quite different. The terms of the treaty crushed the people of Germany and left them desperate and starving to the extent that it generated Hitler’s rise to power. Twenty years later, the world burned again.

Closer to home, the white people in America were spoon fed the idea of Manifest Destiny, a myth in the 19^th century that allowed and encouraged them to believe that white, Eurocentric immigrants were destined to expand westward across the continent and fulfill a God-given right to own and prosper from the land. The belief was rooted in the mythology of the historical exceptionalism of the white race and a romantic nationalism it engendered. It was one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism by the United States, and while a great nation was built, it was built on the backs of slaves and the genocide of Native Americans with a bloody reality.

I’m not asking that you agree with everything I’ve written here, just consider it. The reason that myths have become so important in the 21^st century, at least to me, is that we are governed by them because cable news generates and repeats them constantly now 24/7 for profit. We don’t call them myths these days. The current phrase is “fake news” and while fake news is prevalent in every format like print news, advertising, education, and religion, it is most easily disseminated on TV. What makes it so difficult to discern “fake news” may be tied to the reality that, like myths of old, it gives us the answers we need to alleviate personal anxiety while providing a comfortable narrative on which to base our preconceived opinions. Added to this is the reality that we have any number of choices from which to gather fake news whether our bias is liberal or conservative.

Here are some examples of how this works: All Muslims are terrorists, a myth as supported by false Focus News service – “Woman beheaded by Muslims in Oklahoma.” We should stop people of color from immigrating to the U.S. comes from the myth as reported on Fox News called replacement theory, which says Democrats are allowing open borders so white people can be replaced by people of color who will vote for them. This one is tied to a reality that makes it believable to racists. In a few more decades whites will no longer be the majority race in this country due to demographic changes around the world, but it is not a ploy to secure more votes or to steal white jobs. I don’t know any white person looking for migrant farm labor. Do you? There is a movement in some states now to remove from education all history that is detrimental to the white race. This is currently being supported by the myth that slavery was beneficial for black people. Many liberals demand an end to the 2^nd Amendment supported by a myth that gun ownership causes violent crime and argued against by conservatives who believe the myth that gun ownership is the only way a person can keep from being a victim. Both of these concepts are based on America’s only unique mythology, that of the Wild West in the 19^th century.

I could list many more ancient and well written mythologies. Consider the Greco-Roman gods like Zeus who use us for their own purposes.  I haven’t even considered the ten major world-wide religions. Most of them have Creation myths and apocalyptic flood myths. Many people of my generation died in Vietnam from the Domino Theory, prevalent nonsense provoked by intellectuals during the fifties and sixties based on the myth that all communism was the same and a conspiracy created with the idea of world domination as its source. Mutually assured destruction, or MAD, initiated the building of thousands of missiles and nuclear warheads by the United States and Russia because of the myth that no one on either side would use nuclear bombs anymore if it meant the end of the world.

Whether a myth serves a positive purpose or a negative one depends on how it is used by people in power to manipulate the populations they govern. And, maybe more importantly, by how those populations receive that myth. If we accept it with blind credulity as fact because it makes us more comfortable, then a great danger arises that it will justify a destructive purpose for someone ultimately. If we research the history and purpose of the myth and discover the lessons and warnings it was developed symbolically to share, then there is a likelihood we may achieve something positive from its inclusion in our culture. This is on us. It is a responsibility we agreed to when we accepted self-governance by means of public education and the vote. The time has come for us to consider this while we can still claim to be free, especially before the next election.