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As I think of the many myths, there is one that is very harmful, and that is the myth of countries. I mean, why should I think of myself as being an Argentine, and not a Chilean, and not an Uruguayan. I don't know really. All of those myths that we impose on ourselves — and they make for hatred, for war, for enmity — are very harmful. Well, I suppose in the long run, governments and countries will die out and we'll be just, well, cosmopolitans.
--
"A Conversation With Jorge Luis Borges", Artful Dodge (April 1980)

 

Jorge Luis Borges

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There is this first benefit from myths, that we have to search and do not have our minds idle.
That the myths are divine can be seen from those who have used them. Myths have been used by inspired poets, by the best of philosophers, by those who established the mysteries, and by the Gods themselves in oracles. But why the myths are divine it is the duty of philosophy to inquire. Since all existing things rejoice in that which is like them and reject that which is unlike, the stories about the Gods ought to be like the Gods, so that they may both be worthy of the divine essence and make the Gods well disposed to those who speak of them: which could only be done by means of myths.

 

Sallustius (or Sallust)

 

Two-thirds of what we call New Orleans culture is really myth-making, ... People feed myths of the city back to the city. These myths are now in pieces.

 

Andrei Codrescu

 

We have to work sincerely and responsibly to thwart any attempt to divide the Arab nation into small groups, with which foreign countries would deal separately. This would eventually be in the interests of Zionism, which stands behind such policies, formulating the relevant theories and promoting distorted information to world politicians, especially in the West, in order to make them adopt an approach which is harmful to the Arab nation and is even against the legitimate interests of their own countries.

 

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The "flow of information," which is mostly misinformation, is actually a presentation of myths. And people are increasingly rejecting the prescribed myths & developing their own counter-myths.

 

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The United Nations is useless...and also harmful. It is a land that flowers demagoguery with a bunch of newborn countries, devoid of any tradition.

 

Antonio de Oliveira Salazar