Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - Zsolt K. Virágos: The American Brand of the Myth of Apocalypse

and justify its contradictions, and thus Ml may still be an obvious contender for supreme truth in the light of the transcendentalizing impulses or conative strategies of a true believer, the average myth consumer or the classic myth critic, few Ml formations in modern times could stand up to disinterested epistemological probing. Likewise, while a staunch believer may have absolutely no doubt about his or her cherished version of reality, someone with a different set of truth preferences may easily prove that the object of belief is merely a bunch of pleasant or disturbing lies: false propaganda, a set of fallacious assumptions, an erroneous ideology, "bad knowledge." Thus, while one frequently applied definition of a certain brand of persistently recurring borrowed or received material within the Ml category, "sacred tale or history," "traditional narrative," "high-prestige character type," etc. can be regarded as readily synonymous with "ultimate truth," it could as easily turn out to be false. Thus the Ml = ultimate truth and the M2 = bad knowledge formulas possess a mere statistical relevance; in a strict epistemological sense these equations could be either reversed or declared invalid. Indeed, Ml and M2, depending on the time frame in which they are examined, can be one and the same thing. As regards the general conceptual and functional links, both spheres are subsumed in the broad, if often contradictory and overly encyclopedic, concept of myth and in the all-inclusive function of sense-making. Likewise, they both pertain, in the final analysis, to the literary possibilities of myth, thus both representing legitimate subjects for myth-and-literature studies, with the reservation, of course, that time-honored myths as sacred texts or classical prefigurations (Ml) have traditionally occupied a status considerably different from that accorded to ideologically attuned contemporary/contemporaneous social/cultural myths (M2) in terms of cultural prestige and actual or alleged significance. Yet another shared feature of the two distinct orders of myth is that they both serve as fundamentally revealing indicators of the complex relationship between myth, society, and literature. Thus they serve, either directly or indirectly, as sensitive barometers of the milieu of a given culture. As such, they are strongly 117