Joseph Campbell is awful

I hadn't thought about this, thank you

I can't figure out how to quote multiple posts in the same reply, so excuse the sloppy formatting:

Br. John: I don't wish to give off the impression that I feel obligated to like or agree with Campbell simply by virtue of taking the IP. I don't feel such an obligation, and never has it been suggested to me that I should. What I am wary of, however, is bursting in here and giving off the impression of Johnny Latecomer trying to fix things according to my whim. That having been said I still felt/feel that discussing Campbell and implicitly his role in the IP process may be a useful process.

Carlos.Martinez3: Very insightful, thank you.

Alethea Thompson: Glad to see I'm not the only one. I don't necessarily think that all of Campbell is useless or devoid of value -- I am, after all, continuing the IP and will be working to mine those gems from his material -- but I am sceptical of his overall utility... to say the least...

Trisskar: I don't disagree. The Power of Myth as a book is, indeed, just a transcript of an interview; and interviews are frequently not consistent, coherent, or enlightening by their very nature. It is frustrating however to have *required reading* for a program be, as I said and continue to emphasise, inconsistent at best and incoherent at worst. Perhaps I'm just reliving my own personal hell of Catcher in the Rye in high school. As for my priorities, Point A is the IP and Point B is admission into the Seminary, for a variety of reasons that have a great deal to do with my own personal idiosyncrasies, and that is certainly a goal for which I will tolerate fields and valleys of flowers. So dislike Campbell or not I'll still keep reading him and journaling.

steamboat28: Deep personal distaste for Campbell aside, I don't actually think he's awful; but a little poetic clickbai- I mean, hyperbole is a wonderful thing.

Rosalyn J: I hope you don't see this as a criticism of the IP itself, or those who established and/or regulate the IP, it's almost exclusively meant to be a rant about Campbell.

I soft deleted the post that was posted twice.

Firstly: I enjoyed reading your post and wanted to let you that.

Secondly: I want to agree, and argue, with you (if that's possible! ). In particular I'll focus on this bit you quoted from,

"All myths don’t tell a single story. There are motifs common to some (not all) hero myths, but that doesn’t mean they have the same lesson or meaning behind them."

What if all myths tell part (or different parts) of a single story? That's what I took from Campbell I think- the idea that myths go through a similar process, perhaps summed up as "Here to There to Back Here" (again... except somehow it's different to than before) but that not all myths have to go through the entire process and may focus on a small fragment of the whole...

So can you give some clear examples where a myth or story doesn't fit Campbell's idea of the Hero's Journey? I'm very interested in testing if it is possible to use the theory on any myth or whether I have to accord only a specific fragment of the model to the myth you give...

Anyway, what you said is great so thanks for sharing! I look forward to digging deeper into this and finding out where the model of the Hero's journey doesn't work,

Excuse the double post. I decided I'd go through the entire quote and just say yep or nope to each bit.

"All myths don’t tell a single story."

(Maybe so but maybe they tell parts of the same story)

There are motifs common to some (not all) hero myths, but that doesn’t mean they have the same lesson or meaning behind them.

(Yep)

When you decide on a pattern that you’re sure is right it’s easy to ignore stories that don’t fit or reinterpret stories that just kinda-sorta fit. That’s exactly what Campbell did.

(Yep. This is the "man with a hammer" model- I like what this article has to say on it- https://www.fs.blog/mental-models/ )

The idea of a monomyth undermines what’s greatest about mythology.

(Not convinced but go on...)

Myths carry a tremendous amount of cultural content.

(Yep)

The entire worldview of a society, its values and highest aspirations, are encoded in myth.

(Perhaps. Entire worldview probably not but parts of it yeah sure)

This value-content is unique to each culture’s mythology, and it’s what makes myth magical.

(Hmmm... Yes the value content is unique, but no it's not what makes myth (overall) magical. There's a magic in each story made so by it's own value-content, but there's a magic too in having a model of how myths relate to one another. I think myths are only magical if we can relate to them in some way. That's the nice thing about having a model to look at them with.)

Focusing on the things that are the same between all cultures means ignoring the heart of myth.

(Maybe yes for some people if they define that they know what the "heart of myth" is, or defining that it is NOT something that links all myths together. Others would argue that focusing on the things that are the same between all cultures IS focusing on the heart of those cultures and by extension perhaps myth. But either way, there's something in the idea that if you know that you know... you're probably forgetting/ignoring all the stuff you don't- confirmation bias works all ways, )

When you universalize myth, you don’t.

(Not sure I understand. You don't what? You don't universalize it?)

Any attempt to define the universal story of myth will end up defining the author’s own personal bias.

(True in the sense that any attempt to define anything (a fish bowl, politics, my life story) will end up defining the author's own personal bias. To think you can have a purely objective view on something is arrogant indeed. I am also being arrogant in saying that in some way!)

In Campbell’s case, he focused primarily on male mythic figures and stories that agreed with his own theosophical views.

(Maybe. Maybe his own theosophical views changed through his study of myths? Like a puzzle, he was trying to put different parts of life usually held apart together so he could make better sense of things.)

The monomyth he tells resonates strongly with Western audiences because it was written by a Westerner."

(Yes. Probably true. We share (as westerners) similar models of viewing life or have shared knowledge of certain ideas. This helps understand what one another is saying. I wonder however how well the monomyth resonates with Eastern audiences- have much studies been done on that? Hmmmm...)"

Thanks for your time reading and replying

I cannot help but feel that cultures change more over a couple of generations then the difference between different cultures change, generally speaking. This will probably be more true as globalization digs in. And so personally, I do not discount the capability of a person to develop a deeper understanding of some other culture just because they are not of it, then those who might be having the same focus from within it. Sometimes being too close to the picture means you cannot see what it actually is.... just as much as looking at only a corner hides it also. I think what is more relevant is the nature and extents of the effort rather then the skin colour or upbringing of the person doing it.