At its core,

[MadMojoMonkey]

An essential ingredient of our old moral stories is that they work. The archetypes have been passed down for many thousands of years, possibly because their lessons stand the test of time.

Do they work? As evidenced by what?
What specific morals from what specific stories have worked?
What do you mean by asserting they "work?"

What does the 2nd sentence mean? Possibly... (, but possibly not, so...)

As to what they say about what you guys are discussing, I don't know. But they probably say something, and it's probably of a wisdom developed with lots of trial and error.

Are you asserting that what feels right to you is going to be shown by the data, while not looking at the data?

Even if you're right (not saying you are), in what way does "developed with lots of trial and error" imply good quality results?

Note: the stuff modern people like about the modern world came out of the Renaissance and Enlightenment (reason, humanism, individualism, etc.), and those were a reversion to the classics. The idea that we may be linearly progressing out of the ways of our ancestry may be folly.

Stuff modern people like and why they like it is as subjective as anything comes, man.

Are you trying to incite a discussion about the nuances of why any statement which groups so many people's subjectivity under one banner will always be false?

A reversion to the classics? Hmm. So these classics were a thing, then people moved away from that thing, to a different thing, and they came back to the classics.
Seems like if the classics had it all sewn up, there would have been no side-track to anything else.

***
There's good stuff to interpret from old stories. There's a connection to people who lived eons before you facing similar difficult choices, finding love, failing at it, and finding new love.. etc.

There's also ridiculously bad stuff in old stories. The Bible is full of rape stories, the old Greek tragedies are full of rape stories, etc.

I agree broadly that there are common threads to humanity, but I don't agree that simply because something is old, it has intrinsic value, or that the value it claimed to have when it was originated is still the value it has today.

[wufwugy]

Do they work? As evidenced by what?
What specific morals from what specific stories have worked?
What do you mean by asserting they "work?"

They survived. My hypothesis is that the archetypes and the morals that are widely distributed and prevalent in old literature that developed over millions of years exemplify ideals that humankind evolved for. Here's an example of the type of thing I mean:

Why does the knight kill the dragon to save the virgin? Probably because our ancestors' survival came in part by adapting to a dominance hierarchy in which the bravest and strongest males -- who killed or figured out how to kill predators -- were sexually selected for by and reproduced with females. It can be extracted from this that discarding the morals of this story and others like it probably leads down a path of poor survivability and poor happiness (due to misalignment with natural being). If there is any moral that is objective amongst humans, it might be the kind we evolved for, the kind that aided our survival. How do we discover what those morals are? Old stories is one way.

It should be noted that lots of old stories are probably poorly interpreted. For example, the traditional Christian view of the Garden of Eden is eating the fruit is a loss of innocence and a transgressing against literal father-God-creator. If we use Jordan Peterson's interpretation, which in my estimation is far more astute, the view of the story is along the lines of to see the snake in your own heart you have to open your eyes. The Bible and lots of other myths track this idea roughly, such that it appears the deepest moral for human survivability is some sort of amalgamation of the logos, of honesty, of sacrificing oneself for the greater good/truth.

Seems like if the classics had it all sewn up, there would have been no side-track to anything else.

They for sure do not have it all sewn up. Using what we can from archetypes and morals that are millions of years in the making is a good start.

There's good stuff to interpret from old stories. There's a connection to people who lived eons before you facing similar difficult choices, finding love, failing at it, and finding new love.. etc.

There's also ridiculously bad stuff in old stories. The Bible is full of rape stories, the old Greek tragedies are full of rape stories, etc.

I agree broadly that there are common threads to humanity, but I don't agree that simply because something is old, it has intrinsic value, or that the value it claimed to have when it was originated is still the value it has today.

I agree. My words are regarding caution towards discarding them so easily. I'm not saying you're doing that. I don't think you are. I do think contemporary western culture has sunk its head in the postmodern ground and stuffed ears full of sand by discarding old stories at large. The popular idea that humans are progressing to greater morality away from the caveman morality of the past is just not sophisticated enough for me.