Culture Shaping American Culture

Explain the idea of myth and show how it is helpful to explain any American cultural form.
Culture shapes the way we think. It is the society’s system of shared, learned values and norms; these are the society’s design for living. It has an influence on the way we look, our habits, our tastes and the way we relate to others. Values are an abstract of ideas which are about the good, the right and the desirable. Norms are the social rules and guidelines.
The definition of myth is a “popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.”
Originally, we know the meaning of a myth to be “a traditional, typical ancient story dealing with
supernatural
The myths that contain much truth are the ones that have more of an impact on us, as they convince us that there is some realism behind the myth; the more a myth is proven with evidence the more influence it has upon us. Here is an example of our typical mythical thinking of America, as it gives us proof; “Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world” (The Great Gatsby; Ch 4; 1926). This extract gives us a typical mythological image of
America.
However, a myth isn’t told to be proven or told to be judged, but simply is an optic through the way we view the world. If we were to judge a myth, we’d judge it the same way as a poem,
The actual myth of the United States is a “promised land that bestows upon its people unlimited room for development, personal freedom, entrepreneurship, and wealth.” (Migranyan, A; 2013)
“American myth is ultimately connected to all the other building blocks of all other American myths in a network of implied connections that is virtually endless. A group of interlocking myths can conveniently be called a mythology.” However, even the American building blocks “reinforce the power of the national myths reinforce the power of the national myths to shape our perceptions and understandings of the meaning of America, our place in it, and its place in the world.” (Chernus, I; 2013) Each American myth that is created gives us a sense of their national identity and gives us the definition on what it means to be an American.
“American myths have been and still are nearly all influenced by the rationalist culture of the
Enlightenment... Our national myths draw on empirical facts from all aspects of public life — political, economic, cultural, moral, and more — and create a complex interplay among them, creating a sense of the nation and its life as a unified, harmonious whole.” (Chernus, I;