Jayne Anne Phillips - Violence in American Myth

Jayne Anne Phillips - Violence in American Myth: We might start by asking ourselves what Americans love, what myths and stories feed our perceptions of ourselves as a changing people and much divided community. The source of myth, world-wide, is often violent or cataclysmic, but its reduction as an idea that permeates and shapes a culture often becomes romanticized, simplified, removed from its context and reality. Myth then loses dimension. Myth can become dangerous justification, a costume or disguise up for grabs. The inverse of the myth is always worth our attention, and in America, the inverse of the myth can become a kind of politically correct myth, a myth equally reduced. When