Broken Pottery

A rant.

Lots of swears in this one. (Sorry Mom.)

🤖 Robot Summary 🤖

Ryan delivers a humorously explicit, frustrated rant about the gap between modern academic interpretations of myth and the lived logic of the cultures that created those myths.

He argues that mainstream scholarship systematically excludes “magic” and metaphysical frameworks, even when the material itself makes little sense without them, resulting in shallow or absurd explanations. This tension leaves him caught between academia and practice, pushing him toward a position where neglected or “discarded” material can be reinterpreted and actively used rather than preserved behind glass.

Key points:

• Why myths still matter: Ryan begins by describing how people naturally turn to stories and history to understand human development, noting that ancient myths clearly operate on a different, richer logic than modern narrative frameworks.

• Failure of conventional explanations: He critiques how myths like Beowulf, the Iliad, or Norse material are often explained away as primitive misunderstandings, despite clear evidence of sophistication and intentional meaning.

• The fiction vs. nonfiction trap. Ryan explains that writing about myth forces an artificial choice between fiction and nonfiction, even though the original creators treated these stories as real descriptions of the world, not inventions.

• Scholarly rejection of “magic.” He expresses anger at experts who insist on objectivity while explicitly rejecting the metaphysical beliefs—ritual, magic, symbolic logic—that were central to the cultures they study.

• Misuse of Occam’s Razor. Ryan argues that scholars often prefer trivial or implausible explanations (such as jokes or nonsense inscriptions) over metaphysical ones, simply because they avoid challenging modern materialist assumptions.

• Runes as a breaking point. His current research on the Elder Futhark runes exemplifies this failure: academics admit they do not understand key features, yet still assert authoritative explanations that ignore archaeological and cultural complexity.

• Academia vs. use. Ryan contrasts academic preservation—studying artifacts without touching or using them—with the impulse to treat myths and symbols as tools meant for active engagement and application.

• Expert authority questioned. He argues that advanced degrees do not grant access to intent or meaning in unfalsifiable domains like mythology, especially when scholars share the same ontological blind spots.

• “Salvage rights” for outsiders. When academia cannot explain or meaningfully engage with material, Ryan suggests that non-academics have the right to reinterpret, experiment, and revive it in living contexts.

• Reconstructing logic, not replicas. He rejects both museum-style preservation and strict historical reconstruction, advocating instead for rebuilding the underlying symbolic logic so myths can function meaningfully in the modern world.