Why is Joseph Campbell evil? [Archive]

Neall Raemonn Price

12-10-2005, 03:13 PM

I can get "stuck in Freudian ways of thinking that are outdated", sexist, and encouraging of cliches - but how is he racist or viciously baby-eating?

All I know is that some people reject him utterly, yet fail to explain the enduring popularity of Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix.

EDIT: http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2004/12/joseph-campbell-antisemitism-politics.html

PhishStyx

12-10-2005, 03:14 PM

er. . . . . . . . . . . .

Didn't know he was any of those things.

Neall Raemonn Price

12-10-2005, 03:19 PM

er. . . . . . . . . . . .

Didn't know he was any of those things.

Even if he was, it has nothing to do with the Monomyth, which was his most enduring work. People are remarkably quick to bring up character flaws, thinking it invalidates the speaker's position.

Sulpicius

12-10-2005, 03:38 PM

I've had people explain the "racist" part by him asserting that all human mythological structures are basically variations on what one finds in the standard Western corpus of literature.

That's not exactly what he is saying, but it is easy for some people to see either the old "everyone else is just primitive Europeans" argument or "geez, 'universalist' principles sure look like European norms" philosophy.

Mac Logo

12-10-2005, 04:16 PM

What's "Freud" got to do with Campbell?

His thing was much more to do with Carl Jung. As far as I'm concerned the Jungian aspects of his work are the weakest. Trying to tie the monomyth framework he developed into Jung's universal subconcious neglected far more interesting ideas, the physiological bases of which were not available until after he died.

IMO: The Monomyth has been used as a hammer. I see it as a scaffold, but I'm posting this under the auspices of my tutor, Dr. Funk. :) :o

Graeme

Sam DZ015

12-10-2005, 04:20 PM

All I know is that some people reject him utterly, yet fail to explain the enduring popularity of Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix.

EDIT: http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2004/12/joseph-campbell-antisemitism-politics.html

You know, I completely reject Frued, but the continued popularity of mothers doesn't confuse me...

Orsino

12-10-2005, 04:33 PM

All I know is that some people reject him utterly, yet fail to explain the enduring popularity of Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix.

Yeah, dude. He was great in those. I liked him as The Architect, but his roles as Denethor blew me away.

Eric Lofgren

12-10-2005, 04:49 PM

I can get "stuck in Freudian ways of thinking that are outdated", sexist, and encouraging of cliches - but how is he racist or viciously baby-eating?

Unknown. Well, at least it seems clear to those who take a negative viewpoint on his philosophies. Me, I don't claim to be an expert by any stretch. But I do enjoy those teachings of his that I've heard and get a lot out of them. But Campbell can be flame bait here on a level damned near that of the sasquatch wars :D

George Angell

12-10-2005, 05:08 PM

Campbell's big problem is that he had one Big Idea that he focused all of his studies around and like a lot of academics, he attempted to make everything fit into his one big idea whether it did or not. This lead to him getting alot of stuff wrong paticularly it seem when he tried to work Eastern Myth and religion into his theory. I've never heard that he was paticularly racist, but I have heard some people accuse him of being an anti-Semite. However this seem to be more from the fact that he had a distast for Abrhamic monotheism in genral rather than any avowed hatred for jews. There could be somthing I am missing thought sice he is not someone I have studied in depth.

Kethern

12-10-2005, 05:13 PM

I don't know where the idea he is evil comes from. However I do know that some people say he went too far in looking for points that myths have in common so that he ignored large differences. Some say that in some cases he had to take real liberties with a mythology to shoehorn into his theories. These are often people who are studing an individual mythology in detail.

Also of course as with any study of a historical subject some ideas become dated over time as we gain new information, but sometimes he is not given credit for having written something 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

[edit] Or what George said.

Voidnaut

12-10-2005, 05:16 PM

Neall Raemonn Price

12-10-2005, 05:25 PM

There are holes in the theory of Evolution! It must have been the monomyth!

-Voidnaut

I think it's fairer to say, "There are holes in the Monomyth, so dragons save the world."

Futilitarian

12-10-2005, 05:36 PM

Mac Logo

12-10-2005, 05:37 PM

I think it's fairer to say, "There are holes in the Monomyth, so dragons save the world."
No, no, no! Dragons represent Gateway Guardians, that the neophyte hero must gather a knowledgable companion in order to pass on his journey...

... or the Death Star so that Luke Skywalker has to enter the body of the beast, Jonah-like ...

... I'll get my coat.

Graeme

Cognitive Dissident

12-10-2005, 09:37 PM

All I know is that some people reject him utterly, yet fail to explain the enduring popularity of Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix.

EDIT: http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2004/12/joseph-campbell-antisemitism-politics.html
I didn't realise they needed explaining.

In any case the Hero's Journey is used as a basis for many, many films made every year that completely tank at the box office and fade from memory. I'm sure the mythic structures are as easily identifiable in any of these films as they are in the three you have mentioned.

Pseudoephedrine

12-10-2005, 10:04 PM

His method of analsys was fundamentally flawed. He expressly said that he was not interested in the differences betwen myths, but the similarities. In other words, he was analogizing myths to other myths which, since myths are full of analogy in the form of allegory and symbolism already, is as easy and as meaningful as finding hay in a hay stack. No wonder all world myths looked exactly like the one Campbell himself grew up with.

His analysis revealed nothing about world myth. It was instead an exercise in introspection, navel-gazing, and teucerian ass-grabbing.

To explain this another way:

"Analysis" basically means to break things into their constituent parts, then determine how the parts fit together, then re-assemble whatever was broken down. It is the proper mode of thought in Western academic circles. The parts of Joseph Campbell's work that involve analysis remain respected - for example, his analysis of Western myths into their constituent parts remains reasonably accepted.

However, Joseph Campbell also wrote and thought in a different way, one unsuitable to modern Western academic discourse. This is the "analogical" method. This method involves forming meaningful similarities between two distinct objects. As Foucault shows in The Order of Things (the very first chapter, in fact), one of the features of modern thought is that it emphasises analysis over analogy, whereas the mediaeval scholastic mind did just the opposite. Thus, when Joseph Campbell is busy comparing myths with a mind to drawing similarities, he is acting in a sort of thought unsuitable to modern Western academic discourse.

We should not, therefore, be surprised, that the conclusions he draws from the analogical method of reasoning should not be widely accepted.

Eric Tolle

12-10-2005, 10:10 PM

Even if he was, it has nothing to do with the Monomyth, which was his most enduring work. People are remarkably quick to bring up character flaws, thinking it invalidates the speaker's position.

Actually, my main criticism IS of the Monomyth, which is a stunning example of ethnocentricism, selective interpretatio of data, and flat-out dishonest theroizing.

ere's the major problem with the "Hero's journey" theory: I Joseph Campell, as part of my quest to understand Jemes Joyce's Ulyssies, will selectively take stories from around Europe to concoct a theory, and back them up with myths from India. Based on this, I come to the conclusion that all mythologies have common roots, etc.

OK, so what's the problem with this? Simply this: Europe and India have common myth structures because they stem from the same Aryan culture. It's a bit likecomparing English and American governmental systems, and saying that bicameral houses are the natural form of government. In addition, he ignored not only non-western cuoltures, but any tale from his target area that didn't fit in this theory.

Beyond being excessively ethocentric, Campbell's monomyth is downright insulting to the myths and religions of non Euro-Indian cultures: sorry Africans, Chinese, American Indians: the unique qualities of your cultural heritage mean nothing, because we're going to ignore anything that doesen't fit into our preconceived notions of what myths are about.

I consider the man nothing less then the Erich von Dahnken of mythology- his acceptance by holywood does not make his theories any less pseudosciene then the ancient astronauts theory.

MW Turnage

12-10-2005, 10:10 PM

I've never heard that he was paticularly racist, but I have heard some people accuse him of being an anti-Semite. However this seem to be more from the fact that he had a distast for Abrhamic monotheism in genral rather than any avowed hatred for jews. There could be somthing I am missing thought sice he is not someone I have studied in depth.

Bingo. That's the only thing I've ever heard people complain about. I'm not sure I'm convinced of it myself, but there's lots of things that raise little red flags for others.

Burgonet

12-10-2005, 10:30 PM

The biggest problem I have with Campbell's "mono-myth" theory is the same that I have with most historical and mythological Master Theorums -

That a sledgehammer approach, coupled with great swathes of deliberate ignorance (in choosing to ignore, not in a state of accidental ignorance) is usually required to create said theory.

Plume

12-10-2005, 10:53 PM

The real problem with any Big Idea is that once you have it, you tend to get sloppy about details. Campbell's work shows this well, from his claim that polar bears are vegetarian to his inability to correctly associate the Bible stories he wanted to tell with their participants (while claiming to be citing the Biblical narratives) to translations and renderings of various cultures' myths that simply don't fit with what anyone else translating them found.

Personally, I think the hero's journey is a neat mythic structure and I'm glad to have it in my library of concepts. It's just I don't think it's any truer or more fundamental than a lot of others--it's one among many, not the truth behind any myth of progress and insight worth telling. (I also think that it reflects a straight man's experience more than that of either non-hets or non-males. As a queer woman I am not invited to take part in the recapitulation of patriarchal authority's succession nor expected to wish to take part in it, and that sort of knocks a lot of props out from under the whole thing.)

Yavassk

12-10-2005, 11:06 PM

I just liked some of the ideas he came up with, like the Hero's Journey. I didn't think they were revolutionary or groundbreaking but as with all collections of knowledge, there's always going to be something interesting to find in it.

But then I'm just a big fan of myths in general.

Plume

12-11-2005, 12:11 AM

Yavassk

12-11-2005, 12:18 AM

It's hard to beat as a source of neat ideas and images and bits of story you might not otherwise think of right at the moment. It's better as story than as Truth.

Quite true, and there's nothing quite like myths and stories to invoke those kinds of things. Regardless of truth, they always reveal a little something.

Mark Blaxland

12-11-2005, 03:19 AM

Maybe it's just because Campbell was American, but there's not much he says that is particularly contrary to the work his academic contemporaries.

Vladimir Propp's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp) study of narrative (through Russian folk-tales) and Claude Levi-Strauss's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss) work on mythology both adopt a structuralist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism) approach which was primarily concerned with commonalities.

Structuralism's fallen out of favour somewhat since, but I don't think that invalidates their, or Campbell's work so much as puts a few qualifiers on it.

Bahama'at

12-11-2005, 08:04 AM

I can get "stuck in Freudian ways of thinking that are outdated", sexist, and encouraging of cliches - but how is he racist or viciously baby-eating?Racist - umm, gotta think on that. I don't think he was. Insensitive in his willy-nilly cut and pasting of cultural themes to prove his point, yes. So let's downgrade it a bit - ethnocentric? even vaguely imperialist/colonialist? yes.

Baby eating - only on special occasions.

Really his analysis falls down on two key points:
1. He always takes from the sampled cultures and pastes them into his own framework. He never once looks at the nuances and differences in, say, coming of age rituals, he just slaps them all down on his big list and ignores any bits of them that don't fit. He's like the twin giants in the story of Theseus - if there isn't enough "proof" in a myth he will stretch it out on the bed - stretching it all out of shape if need be. If there is, by his definition, superfluous information, then like the second giant, he lops them off with his axe, heedless of however important that "extra" bit was to the myth itself.

I mentioned ethnocentricity because ultimately the framework he built is heavily rooted in the myths of classically-educated post-Enlightenment 20th century Western Europe/North America.

2. He totally ignores women and their myths. While this oversight may have been due to his lack of knowledge, the omission in his otherwise "universal" framework implies that they simply don't exist - which is silly in the extreme.

Campbell isn't evil incarnate, but then again, he isn't a good way to be taken seriously in an anthropology class either. He works with Star Wars, LotR et.al. because SURPRISE these are stories written in, and consumed by, the very cultural context from which he built his theory.

Campbell, like most people who pioneer new ideas, was on to something, the idea needs to be seen and critiqued and above all, travelled by others to better understand it.

- Ma'at

Max

12-11-2005, 08:48 AM

All I know is I've never been able to read through The Hero with a Thousand Faces - it's the unbearably smug tone that gets me - and that he was just as much of a hack as Freud.

suedenim

12-11-2005, 09:03 AM

I think, at least on the Internet, it's because he inspired that talentless hack George Lucas who's a multimillionaire just because he got really lucky and who every Internet poster knows he'd be a much better movie maker than after about 10 minutes of practice, maybe. So anybody remotely associated with such an evil incompetent monster who repeatedly murders my childhood!!!! must, perforce, also be evil.

Matthew

12-11-2005, 09:16 AM

I can get "stuck in Freudian ways of thinking that are outdated", sexist, and encouraging of cliches - but how is he racist or viciously baby-eating?

There's no reason to think he is. He was Jungian, by the way, not Freudian, although he disagreed with Jung on certain issues.

Jack

12-11-2005, 12:12 PM

Even if he was, it has nothing to do with the Monomyth, which was his most enduring work. People are remarkably quick to bring up character flaws, thinking it invalidates the speaker's position.

People are quick to condemn some folks for their character flaws and use that to invalidate their other works. This seems to happen a lot with folks who were at one point visionary, revolutionary, or even just kinda clever. In other news, water is wet.

However, I've never met anyone who does that for everybody...just select folks. Maybe if I did, I wouldn't find it so silly/odd/stupid. But I've met too many "Campbell is bad because he was sexist, racist, etc... Not like real pioneers like Charles Lindbergh." types to take that level of hyperbolic scorn seriously.

Amado G

12-11-2005, 12:26 PM

Awkward Cultural Positivism doesn't make someone evil, it just makes them generally guilty of futzing around in the Set. Also, wrong.

Is all.

Neall Raemonn Price

12-11-2005, 12:53 PM

People are quick to condemn some folks for their character flaws and use that to invalidate their other works. This seems to happen a lot with folks who were at one point visionary, revolutionary, or even just kinda clever. In other news, water is wet.

However, I've never met anyone who does that for everybody...just select folks. Maybe if I did, I wouldn't find it so silly/odd/stupid. But I've met too many "Campbell is bad because he was sexist, racist, etc... Not like real pioneers like Charles Lindbergh." types to take that level of hyperbolic scorn seriously.

See, what Fute and Eric wrote are valid criticisms of the Monomyth. Dismissing someone offhand because he might have been (or even definitely was) racist or sexist strikes me as slightly silly. Orson Scott Card, for one.

Futilitarian

12-11-2005, 01:01 PM

We should not, therefore, be surprised, that the conclusions he draws from the analogical method of reasoning should not be widely accepted.

First, let me say that your post was far more elloquent, precise, and properly spelled than mine. :)

But, whereas I have seen the analogical method used in fields such as philosophy, law, non-Western medicine, and mysticisms of both occident and orient alike, I am unfamiliar with the use of the analogical method in anthropology other than in (IMO failed) Western attempts such as the Hero of a Thosand Faces, the Whte Goddes, and the Golden Bough. I may be begging the question of the failure of Campbell's analogical work by calling it anthropology, however, since anthropology is a Western analytical school in the first place -- but I think Campbell's anthropology fails where Jung's sutdy of psyche succeeds because Jung was unabashedly mystical while Campbell insisted in transforming (hehe) mysticism into an analytic framework.

Futilitarian

12-11-2005, 01:03 PM

- and that he was just as much of a hack as Freud.

Evan Wynnette, a good friend and far greater scholastic than me, once told me that "Freud may be full of crap when applied universally, but he was spot on as far as the Victorians were concerned." :D

Futilitarian

12-11-2005, 01:08 PM

By the way, why to people often say that Star Wars was more Campbellian than The Matrix? The Matrix follows the Thousand Faces 12-step program step by step in such a literal fashion you can tick them off with a pencil as the movie lumbers along.

Neall Raemonn Price

12-11-2005, 01:12 PM

Max

12-11-2005, 01:16 PM

Evan Wynnette, a good friend and far greater scholastic than me, once told me that "Freud may be full of crap when applied universally, but he was spot on as far as the Victorians were concerned." :D
"Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them." (Terry Pratchett)

Pseudoephedrine

12-11-2005, 01:19 PM

First, let me say that your post was far more elloquent, precise, and properly spelled than mine. :)

Thanks :)

But, whereas I have seen the analogical method used in fields such as philosophy, law, non-Western medicine, and mysticisms of both occident and orient alike, I am unfamiliar with the use of the analogical method in anthropology other than in (IMO failed) Western attempts such as the Hero of a Thosand Faces, the Whte Goddes, and the Golden Bough. I may be begging the question of the failure of Campbell's analogical work by calling it anthropology, however, since anthropology is a Western analytical school in the first place -- but I think Campbell's anthropology fails where Jung's sutdy of psyche succeeds because Jung was unabashedly mystical while Campbell insisted in transforming (hehe) mysticism into an analytic framework.

I agree completely with you about Campbell and Jung and the problem Campbell has. I don't know if anyone's ever mentioned this to you btw, but we can also redeem Jung as a thinker by throwing out the mysticism and reading him as a semiotician - he describes some of the play of symbols (the symbols relating to myth) in a particular "text" (Western society). Campbell's work is, unfortunately, too flawed to be redeemed even in this manner.

Futilitarian

12-11-2005, 01:20 PM

I'm not sure. The Matrix even has the climactic battle taking place underground.

Yep; the fight between Neo and Smith takes place in a subway, for cryin' out loud.

Max

12-11-2005, 01:41 PM

Yep; the fight between Neo and Smith takes place in a subway, for cryin' out loud.
...whence Neo then ascends into a highrise for the final scene... :D

Wiseblood

12-11-2005, 01:50 PM

First, let me say that your post was far more elloquent, precise, and properly spelled than mine. :)

But, whereas I have seen the analogical method used in fields such as philosophy, law, non-Western medicine, and mysticisms of both occident and orient alike, I am unfamiliar with the use of the analogical method in anthropology other than in (IMO failed) Western attempts such as the Hero of a Thosand Faces, the Whte Goddes, and the Golden Bough. I may be begging the question of the failure of Campbell's analogical work by calling it anthropology, however, since anthropology is a Western analytical school in the first place -- but I think Campbell's anthropology fails where Jung's sutdy of psyche succeeds because Jung was unabashedly mystical while Campbell insisted in transforming (hehe) mysticism into an analytic framework.

I can only assume that he is referring to the practice of comparing cultures in order to look for universal human culture traits.

Pseudoephedrine

12-11-2005, 01:54 PM

I can only assume that he is referring to the practice of comparing cultures in order to look for universal human culture traits.

Habermas and the Kantian Pragmatists do this far more rigorously and usefully by looking at culture through the lens of invariant forms of justification - what kinds of justifications for things are accepted by all speakers of a given language community, and then all language communities into which the justification can be adequately translated.

Professor Phobos

12-11-2005, 01:55 PM

I've had people explain the "racist" part by him asserting that all human mythological structures are basically variations on what one finds in the standard Western corpus of literature.

Wouldn't Western literature just be variations of what you'd find in non-Western stuff, by the same logic?

Futilitarian

12-11-2005, 02:18 PM

Wouldn't Western literature just be variations of what you'd find in non-Western stuff, by the same logic?

No, because of the author. Roman Catholic sets out to prove that every story in the world and every religion in the world is Roman Catholic (well, author's iconoclastic take on RC) on the inside.

Professor Phobos

12-11-2005, 02:34 PM

Futilitarian

12-11-2005, 02:43 PM

Ah, I see.

Well, that's the criticism re: his cultural baises, anyway. :)

AliasiSudonomo

12-11-2005, 03:35 PM

dr. strangemonkey

12-11-2005, 03:48 PM

Well, that's the criticism re: his cultural baises, anyway. :)

Though oddly he is criticized by many scholars for having fallacious takes on Catholic mystics in their own right.

Mac Logo

12-11-2005, 04:02 PM

As those who wrote for Astounding when he was editor there could tell you, Joseph Campbell was also capable of sudden 180-degree shifts in opinion without apparent structural damage, like a thought UFO.
Errr what?

I didn't realise Joseph Campbell was in any way related to John W. Campbell !?!

Graeme

Quasar

12-11-2005, 05:33 PM

All I know is that some people reject him utterly, yet fail to explain the enduring popularity of Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix.

The Matrix is enduringly popular? Buh?

Jack

12-11-2005, 05:41 PM

The Matrix is enduringly popular? Buh?

Out of curiousity, what makes you think it isn't?

Voidnaut

12-11-2005, 05:44 PM

Habermas and the Kantian Pragmatists do this far more rigorously and usefully by looking at culture through the lens of invariant forms of justification - what kinds of justifications for things are accepted by all speakers of a given language community

They talked to all of them, did they?

-Voidnaut

Pseudoephedrine

12-11-2005, 05:47 PM

They talked to all of them, did they?

-Voidnaut

Nope. Nor do they claim to have. But they've yet to find a language that doesn't have the features they consider necessary to make the kinds of translations they want to make.

Quasar

12-11-2005, 05:48 PM

Out of curiousity, what makes you think it isn't?

1. Its only 5 years old. Enduring to me gives the impression of longevity of its popularity.
2. The fairly considerable Matrix backlash. Though perhaps thats just amongst a subset of geeks.

Not that I even know why it was really popular initially. I never even made it to part deux.

Cognitive Dissident

12-12-2005, 12:17 AM

Not that I even know why it was really popular initially. I never even made it to part deux.
The Monomyth of course. Black leather, lots of guns and bullet time are completely incidental!

Jack

12-12-2005, 03:33 AM

1. Its only 5 years old. Enduring to me gives the impression of longevity of its popularity.
2. The fairly considerable Matrix backlash. Though perhaps thats just amongst a subset of geeks.

1) Most films don't even last that long, nor do they spawn licenses of any notable sort. Anyone seen the a visible Kingdom of Heaven fandom recently? Me neither. And something need not be huge to be enduring. Look at many cult classics. Enduring certainly, even if not huge popular.

2) Shrug. Geeks bitch and complain about things even more than the average human, IMO (which is considerable). Thing is, they only tend to bitch about things that actually leave an impact on them...especially for any length of time. Thus you're still getting Matrix complaining whereas Catwoman is at best good for a quikc "Oh god that's right...that did suck."

JamesCat

12-12-2005, 04:22 AM

Seroster

12-12-2005, 05:52 AM

Really his analysis falls down on two key points:
1. He always takes from the sampled cultures and pastes them into his own framework. He never once looks at the nuances and differences in, say, coming of age rituals, he just slaps them all down on his big list and ignores any bits of them that don't fit. He's like the twin giants in the story of Theseus - if there isn't enough "proof" in a myth he will stretch it out on the bed - stretching it all out of shape if need be. If there is, by his definition, superfluous information, then like the second giant, he lops them off with his axe, heedless of however important that "extra" bit was to the myth itself.

Nitpick: single human, not twin giants.

Bahama'at

12-12-2005, 06:14 AM

Nitpick: single human, not twin giants.In the telling of the myth I read it was two giants - but it could have been a reworking.

- Ma'at

Pseudoephedrine

12-12-2005, 06:57 AM

There have been at least three other threads in which Tetsujin, Fute, and I outlined 'Why Campbell Is Wrong.' Ah, for Search.

On the personal flaws level, it's worth noting that Campbell's documented anti-semitism seeps into the theory somewhat.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly is his "documented anti-semitism"? The only link we've had on the thread about the issue took the tack that he wasn't.

AliasiSudonomo

12-12-2005, 02:40 PM

Errr what?

I didn't realise Joseph Campbell was in any way related to John W. Campbell !?!

Graeme

...

you know, it's really embarrassing to find that they'r etwo seperate people. Given I'm a sci-fi nut and all.

Really.

Although, oddly, I had a twinge in my head and checked via Google before hand, and it looks like I'm ot the only person to have made that mistake.

Mea culpa!

Phantom Stranger

12-12-2005, 02:51 PM

2. The fairly considerable Matrix backlash. Though perhaps thats just amongst a subset of geeks.

Well, it's worth noting at this point that Fute's take here has been based on the original, where the backlash is primarily at the sequels. (I'd like to thank Fute again for pointing me at where the Wachowskis got the sequel dynamics from, while I'm here).

The Ent

12-13-2005, 05:13 AM

I've read The Hero With A Thousand Faces and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also like the Monomyth a great deal. Within the framework of Occidental Myth, it does make much sense; it was an enlightening experience reading it. I also like Jung. So. What to say to the critics? Oh yes. SHRUG.:cool:

Phantom Stranger

12-13-2005, 05:32 AM

My view on the monomyth is the same as on a lot of early-era anthropology; from what I can gather it's wrong, but it makes good gaming advice.

Futilitarian

12-13-2005, 06:26 AM

My view on the monomyth is the same as on a lot of early-era anthropology; from what I can gather it's wrong, but it makes good gaming advice.

Absolutely!

I think Ken Hite was the first to say it: "Bad history makes great gaming."

Futilitarian

12-13-2005, 06:30 AM

Oh yes. SHRUG.:cool:

*Faints*

;)

The Ent

12-13-2005, 06:47 AM

*Faints*

;)

Yeah well, why do you think I added the smiley?;)

:D

Phantom Stranger

12-13-2005, 07:11 AM

Absolutely!

I think Ken Hite was the first to say it: "Bad history makes great gaming."

Yep; that's where I first saw the notion articulated, about... I think elfshot.

The Grey Elf

12-13-2005, 07:19 AM

Here's another point of view for you. I'm currently pursuing religous studies as a second degree, and my opinions on Campbell tend to really piss off a lot of scholars, but I've been lauded by professors for making this argument.

Almost every religious scholar has a specific culture, myth-cycle, or faith upon which they love to focus. They desperately want this faith to be unique, special, and different from every other faith in the world.

Campbell demonstrated that this isn't 100% true.

So suddenly the area you've devoted your whole life to studying isn't much different than the one John Doe #2, 3, and 4 have studied. Scholars REALLY don't like that idea. So it's easier just to piss on Campbell's work and dismiss it entirely.

It should also be noted that no two religious or classical studies scholars can agree on a common definition of what exactly myth is. And every class I've had lays out an expansive definition (no two have matched yet), then puts on the caveat, "not all myths have all of these elements."

Yet, when Campbell did the same thing ("here are common elements of the Hero's Journey, not all heroes have all elements"), people piss on him for it.

Just some food for thought.

Chiaroscuro

12-13-2005, 12:04 PM

No, because of the author. Roman Catholic sets out to prove that every story in the world and every religion in the world is Roman Catholic (well, author's iconoclastic take on RC) on the inside.
Alternately: "They trying to tell us that deep inside, we all wants to be white!"

Anyway, I didn't realize a lot of people disliked Campbell's ideas in geek culture. My experience going through school was everyone loved them and cited them without a second's reflection (and, perhaps an iota of understanding) as support for their various vapid theses. I'm relatively uninformed, but my feeling is that if Campbell was the first to recognize the Hero's journey theme he should be congratulated for it, but taking adulation beyond that point is foolish. Perhaps a good analogy would be taking a 2 page spread of Understanding Comics and proclaiming McCloud a peerless intellectual who had made up whatever he documented in those two pages, thereby forever defining all of comics.

And now I'm sad I've missed the earlier threads on this subject, where apparently much good stuff was posted. Damn.

dr. strangemonkey

12-14-2005, 06:47 AM

You know, in the whole of my educational and hobby history White Wolf is the only source or writer I've read who quotes him extensively in their own work. Some sort of fate must be guiding me to miss his influence.

Seroster

12-14-2005, 07:57 AM

Alternately: "They trying to tell us that deep inside, we all wants to be white!"

Anyway, I didn't realize a lot of people disliked Campbell's ideas in geek culture.

I don't think it's "in geek culture". I think it's in academia.

Plume

12-14-2005, 09:49 AM

People are quick to condemn some folks for their character flaws and use that to invalidate their other works. This seems to happen a lot with folks who were at one point visionary, revolutionary, or even just kinda clever. In other news, water is wet.

I do this the more someone claims to have insights into how everyone, including me, works. It doesn't matter for my views on electronics that one of the transistor's inventors was a racist piece of crud. It would matter to me if someone claimed to know humanity's best path to happiness and fulfillment but were a racist piece of crud, or a gaybashing homophobe, or something like that. There are times when I cut folks slack for hypocrisy and failed efforts to fulfill a noble vision, as with Thomas Jefferson, but even politics isn't so closely tied to character as matters of personal belief and thought are.

The closer we get to the soul's mysteries, the more I want to see a good soul doing the teaching.