In a new book, Wendy Doniger compares the world’s mythologies to reveal what is common to humanity
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In this chapter, I will argue that this ability suggests that myth is an inherently comparative genre, in a double sense: it both compares and is amenable to comparison. I have also argued that myths may use microscopes and telescopes to link daily reality with global – indeed, galaxial – politics; that some myths open up our political vision just as other myths open up our theological vision, when juxtaposed with the events of our lives. I also suggested that political and theological texts act as lenses for one another. Now I argue that the comparison of myths from other cultures opens up our political vision. I vertically linked the cosmic and the banal within any single myth; the cross-cultural agenda I consider now looks sideways, constructing links between different tellings of myths in different cultures. My introduction argued for the uses of metaphor; this chapter and the next use three metaphors from the animal world – dark cats, barking dogs, and implied spiders – to advance the argument for comparison.
A rich body of evidence suggests that people compare things all the time, consciously or unconsciously, with useful results. Comparison is, after all, the basis of our value systems; to the...