The Mythology of War: Healing the Divided Soul through Empathy and Symbol

When pain is not resolved through empathy, we anesthetize it with drugs and false mythology.

My grandpa fought in WW2 but never spoke about it. When I asked him as a child to tell me about the war, he would tell me to go watch Soviet movies about the war. There were many. And they were good. I liked them. They told a story of heroism.

Years after, it dawned on me why he was so quiet about his experience and why he watched those movies over and …