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I rented the first two segments of "The Power of Myth," on the recommendation of a friend. While Bill Moyers was tiresome in his leading questions, Campbell was exquisite.
Is anyone else familiar with his work?
Campbell spoke with wealth, depth, and clarity of knowledge concerning the human condition and the presence of myth. He spoke with such humor, candor, and thought that I wanted to run out and get all of his books.
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I've been reading through one of his books and I've been amazed at where certain religions have potentially drawn from for stories.
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I enjoyed those shows! As a teenager, I used to check them out from the library and watch them on a rainy Saturday.
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DavidBrin amongst others thought that Moyers was too adoring fan and not enough interviewer. And pointed out that tales which are allowed to continue being retold until they reach mythological stature must not offend the rulers. That to become truly popular&financially-solvent, the minstrels and bards had to write tales justifying the rulers' prejudices: the main one being that they had the right to rule.
And so, one has the unlikely tale of RichardIII. Which even now is accepted more as history than as a politically expedient tale. Subtract the printing press, add a millenium, and it becomes the only history. Add a century or two in a non-literate society, and it becomes myth.
With "justification of current rulers" as the primary rule of myth-making, it is quite natural to arrive at the "hero with a thousand faces". Hence you have the division of formalized mythology for the rulers, and the multiple-storyline folk tale for the commoners.
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I have the book - I got it for Christmas. I have been enjoying it immensely. It is a book to be savored and not to be torn through.
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I didn't like Bill Moyers in that as well, but Joseph Campbell's ideas stick with me to this day.
When I was in college, I became aware of Campbell's work through a comparitive religions course. I faithfully watched his earlier PBS show Transformations of Myth Through Time, which was basically videotape of his lectures, and I highly reccomend.
Campbell's extensive research cut through the common perception of religion, reaching to the inner core of metaphor beneath. I would not be who I am today without his ideas, and owe him a great debt.
He has been published. I urge you to go out and find his works, starting with The Hero of a Thousand Faces.
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In high school I loved his stuff, and read through all of his books (well, except those big coffee table books). In college I became disenchanted with him. It seemed to me that he would often make mental leaps that weren't supported by the evidence. This was long enough ago that I don't recall any details whatsoever, unfortunately. No idea what I'd think of him if I were to read him now.
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quote: We discussed his ideas in Script Analysis. They're interesting from a dramatic standpoint.
Yeah, I also learned about his ideas in my screenwriting class. Sometimes when I watch a movie now, I accidently pick out certain characters as certain archetypes. Accidently, as in I completely don't mean to.
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When I first began reading his stuff that would be happening to me as well. I would be reading a book and find myself overanilyzing it while I was still reading it. It really pissed me off, because I love reading because I just get lost in teh book, and that was interfering with my reading.
I stopped reading him for a while because of it, to be honest.
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Late last year I took out several of the The Power of Myth videos from the library, after watching some on PBS. I've enjoyed them all, and thought Moyers did a good job of sustaining a dialogue with Campbell. It was not a traditional interview and shouldn't be judged as such. I also checked out the companion book to the series. It's very good as well, but the series is edited so that the book doesn't follow along with the videos very well--there are frequent jumps and backtracking.
Elaine, I missed Transformations of Myth Through Time, thanks for mentioning it.
quote: With "justification of current rulers" as the primary rule of myth-making, it is quite natural to arrive at the "hero with a thousand faces".
aspectre, it's a rule, not the the rule.
One of Campbell's main themes is that myths help societies form and stick together. Not just for the benefit of the rulers or the aristocracy, but for the entire societies benefit. Of course, somebody always gets the biggest shares--frequently the groups that can manipulate myths to their benefit (the shaman and priest classes, for example.)
Also,
quote:And [Brin] pointed out that tales which are allowed to continue being retold until they reach mythological stature must not offend the rulers. That to become truly popular&financially-solvent, the minstrels and bards had to write tales justifying the rulers' prejudices: the main one being that they had the right to rule.
There is some truth to this, but myths also help define good leaders and tyrants, and can lead to popular dissatisfaction with leaders and their removal from power.
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There are also many examples of myths that involve displacment of a current ruling class....the Greek gods fighting the Titans is the first one that springs to mind for me..
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Is this a dialectical thing? I have never heard this phrase used as a description of what one does in the library. I have always said "checked out." But I am often surprised with Southern and Eastern idiomatic usage. Once, RRR had to explain to me what a "play date" was. I'd never heard that phrase in my life.
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I finished the series, and I have mixed opinions. Broadly, I see some truth in what he is says, but there is a lack of reverence that accompanies his perspective. There is a sense in which, in his quest to see the similarities through the myths, he doesn't convey the awe inspiring quality of any of them. I got the feel of an academic distance from the materal. It's the difference between talking to believer and a theologian. I say this out of respect, because he showed himself to be a good thinker, it's just that after the first two segments, I expected him to be a great thinker.
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quote:There are also many examples of myths that involve displacment of a current ruling class....the Greek gods fighting the Titans is the first one that springs to mind for me..
Yeah, but these tend to replace an "unjust" aristocracy or monarchy with a "just" one, as in the case of the Olympian gods.
Here's the quote from Brin:
quote:Alas, not once did Moyers perform the journalist's duty of asking hard questions. For example -- might some of the similarity have arisen out of simple economics? The bards and storytellers of olden times needed to be fed. Naturally, they sucked up to the chieftains and kings and magicians who had all the bread and gold, conjuring legends of elite demigods and princes, seldom daring (and only obliquely) to suggest that creativity and courage -- even sovereignty -- might reside in common men and women.
There's much to agree with here, though a simpler explanation might just be that (except in Greece for a brief period) the democratic "meme" didn't really exist among ancient people.
Anyhow, I tend to agree that the idea of "chosen ones" needs to diminish a bit in literature, because it is contrary to the values that Western society has tried to live up to since the Enlightenment.
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quote:I tend to agree that the idea of "chosen ones" needs to diminish a bit in literature, because it is contrary to the values that Western society has tried to live up to since the Enlightenment.
Word. It's a tough issue to tackle because I think that we are all annointed "chosen ones" by the human condition. I actually think the myth of the "chosen one" has become an excuse for the ones who deem themselves non-chosen to greedily hoard and wait to be saved, a divison of labor regarding virtue.
quote: There are also many examples of myths that involve displacment of a current ruling class....the Greek gods fighting the Titans is the first one that springs to mind for me..
Yeah, but these tend to replace an "unjust" aristocracy or monarchy with a "just" one, as in the case of the Olympian gods.
In the case of the Olympian gods? They were NOT just, nor were they a particularily good replacment for the Titans...one of the Titans was responsible for helping humanity more than any god had at that point, by giving them fire..and the gods punished him with eternal torment.
I think you need to go back and reread those myths again.
quote:They were NOT just, nor were they a particularily good replacment for the Titans...one of the Titans was responsible for helping humanity more than any god had at that point, by giving them fire..adn the gods punished him with eternal torment.
I think you need to go back and reread those myths again.
Kwea is right. Justice, morality, good and bad, as we understand them, are Latin and Christian in origin.
The greeks had Gods, Forces of Nature, moira, and Dike, that virtue by which one is shown their place in the totality of beings, but no justice.
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At least in relation to god-like figures...to the Greeks and Romans, gods were above human judgment..as well as pass judgment on the rain.
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