Dmb,
Thanks for taking the time. In a grand
comparison, I am a Joseph Campbell fan, I bought
the tapes and watched them a few times. This
viewing was having a relationship with my present
interest in the reification of
concepts. Campbell lost because of his way of
presenting the material, at least in this video
series. Your quotes were more to my "liking",
whatever that might mean. Not sure I think what
I like matters more than a moment even to me.
I hate to bemoan the point, but I do wish the
woman's voice has not been buried for so many
centuries. And when some artifact that might
hint something of Feminine knowing is found, we
get it interpreted through male filters. Don't
pay too much attention to my whining, for my
efforts I have been given some meaningful gifts.
Joe Campbell is a cutie!
Marsha
At 03:16 PM 5/2/2009, you wrote:
Marsha said:
I went through all ten VHS tapes, and he really
spoke as if he were stating the facts. Maybe
Campbell considered himself a scientist speaking
the the facts that have been discovered. This
means this.(period) This means that.
(period) Only a few times did he say something
like "It is thought that" or "Current
interpretation is that". See what I'm getting
at. Man has a thought and thinks it's a fact.
dmb says:
I really don't think so. He says over and over
again that myths are not facts and that the
symbols they employ have many meanings,
depending on the individual's development and
context. There is a rich quote that gets this
across in terms that nearly constitute an
epistemology, one that I find amazingly consistent with radical empiricism...
"The apprehension of the SOURCE of this
undifferentiated yet everywhere particularized
substratum of being is rendered frustrate by the
very organs through which the apprehension must
be accomplished. The forms of sensibility and
the categories of human thought, which are
themselves manifestations of this power, so
confine the mind that it is normally impossible
not only to see but even to conceive, beyond the
colorful, fluid, infinitely various and
bewildering phenomenal spectacle. The functions
of ritual and myth is to make possible, and then
to facilitate the jump - by analogy. Forms and
conceptions that the mind and its senses can
comprehend are presented and arranged in such a
way as to suggest a truth or openness beyond.
And then, the conditions for meditation having
been provided, the individual is left alone.
Myth is but the penultimate; the ultimate is
openness - that void, or being beyond the
categories - into which the mind must plunge
alone and be dissolved. therefore, God and the
gods are only convenient means - themselves of
the nature of the world of names and forms,
though eloquent of, and ultimately conducive to,
the ineffable. They are mere symbols to move and
awaken the mind, and to call it past themselves." 258
"Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as
biography, history, or science, it is killed.
The living images become only remote facts of a
distant time or sky. Furthermore, it is never
difficult to demonstrate that as science and
history mythology is absurd. When a civilization
begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way,
the life goes out of it, temples become museums,
and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved." 249
"Symbols are only the VEHICLES of
communications; they must not be mistaken for
the final term, the TENOR, of their reference.
No matter ow attractive or impressive they may
seem, they remain but convenient means,
accommodated to the understanding. Hence the
personality or personalities of God ...no one
should attempt to read or interpret as the final
thing. The problem of the theologian is to keep
his symbol translucent, so that it may not block
out the very light it is supposed to convey.
...Mistaking a vehicle for its tenor may lead to
the spilling not only of valueless ink, but of valuable blood." 236
Also, for Jung and Campbell both, one of the
most important features of the hero's journey is
to realize a kind of androgyny. For men, this
means getting in touch with your inner woman and
for women it means getting in touch with your
inner man. Each is both. In "The Hero with a
Thousand Faces", which is where these quotes are
coming from, Campbell points out that we find
similar creation myths in Genesis and in Plato's
"Symposium". In both cases, the first person was
an androgynous being. The world as we know it
begins only when this unified creature is split
in two. In the story of Adam and Eve, it's just
a matter of taking a piece of Adam (his rib) to
create woman. In the myth found in the
Symposium, the first people are round creatures
with both male and female aspects who are, for
reasons I don't recall, cut in half. This was
supposed to explain the power of love as the
desire to be whole again. This is also a
symbolic reference to the fall, to the moment
when we were cast out of paradise, where the
world of opposites is dissolved into unity. In
other words, the distinction between male and
female is part and parcel of the
differentiations of consciousness, just like
good and evil, up and down, time and eternity, etc..
On a more practical level, Jung makes a
distinction between the hero's journey and
hera's journey. I should be even more careful
here and say that these are not, strictly
speaking, for men and women respectively. We're
talking about psychology here, not anatomy. It's
more like the hero's journey is what masculine
people do and the hera's journey is for feminine
people, regardless of what kind of equipment you
happen to have in your pants. In fact, I was
surprized to discovery that my own journey more
closely resembled the hera's journey. (I have
four sisters, was raised in a fatherless home
and I've always suffered from a fairly serious
self-esteem problem. I know. That's probably
hard to believe but I swear its true. Most of
the time, I hate myself.) As the professor
points out, who happens to be a woman, the hero
usually starts out from a place of arrogance and
one-sided masculinity while the hera starts out
from a place of humility and one-sided
femininity. In both cases, the trick is to
overcome that starting point and that one-sidedness.
I'm not saying that Campbell or Jung were
feminist activists but I think they both saw
that our culture was out of balance in this
respect and sought to help people restore that
balance for themselves personally and to help
balance the wider culture too. I mean, this
problem exists on both the personal and
collective levels. They both saw a lot of danger
in it. On the other hand, you're not alone in
your complaint. There are definitely feminists
scholars who'd think you're quite right. Dr.
Sharon Coggan, the only Jungian scholar I know,
disagrees with them. She thinks that their
objections would evaporate if they understood
these things more thoroughly. It's worth
pointing out that Jung was born in the 19th
century and Campbell was already an old man when
the waves of feminism starting rolling in. I
mean, you can't blame them too much. They're
attitudes reflected the time in which they
lived. It's not exactly easy to overcome 4000
years of patriarchy in a single lifetime.
Am I trying too hard here? I guess I want you to
be a Campbell fan. I think he makes a nice side
dish when Pirsig is on the menu.
Thanks.dmb
P.S. I'm so, so naughty for doing this instead of my homework.
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail® goes with you.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Mobile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Mobile1_052009
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
.
_____________
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
.
.
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
