The U.S. television series, Northern Exposure, takes in the challenge of developing a modern global mythology in a functional setting that is, ironically, geographically isolated. Its mythmaking process takes ideas from old myths, juxtaposes them with each other and then synthesizes the point of the myths in its own plot, the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Thus, the old myths are redesigned to become more suitable for the twentieth century. In Northern Exposure's mythic village of Cicely, Alaska, viewers can see elements of the mythic early U.S., cooperatives in the church-centered villages of New England, the independence of the prairies and the rugged individualism of the mythic west. Northern Exposure's episodes demonstrate how Cicelians reach beyond family, nationality, religious community and linguistic community to the whole earth and humankind. In Cicely, the new mythology takes into account Native Americans, African-Americans, non-Christians, women and everyone left out of the old U.S. myths. Northern Exposure experiments with an ideal place where people can find unity in cultural diversity, individual freedom in community cooperation and individual growth through social participation.