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The
verbal culture of a prediscursive society will consist largely
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of
stories, but among those stories there grows up a
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specialization
in social function that affects some stories more
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than
others. Certain stories seem to have a peculiar significance:
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they
are the stories that tell a society what is important for it to
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know,
whether about its gods, its history, its laws, or its class
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structure.
These stories may be called myths in a secondary
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sense,
a sense that distinguishes them from folktales - stories told
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for
entertainment or other less central purposes. They thus
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become
“sacred” as distinct from “profane” stories, and form
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part
of what the Biblical tradition calls revelation. ... Mythical, in
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this
secondary sense, therefore means the opposite of “not really
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true”:
it means being charged with a special seriousness and
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importance.
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