Joseph Campbell experts please?

[Nikolai1]

Does anyone know if Campbell considered science to be the mythology of our times?

 

Does anyone have any references where he discusses science?

 

Thanks to you all!

[Uroboros]

He considered space exploration and discovery to be the myth of our time/ future. Of course, much has changed since he died...

 

He wrote a book called, The myth of our time.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Uroboros

[Nikolai1]

Thanks a lot, but I can't find any such book.

[Nungali]

Does anyone know if Campbell considered science to be the mythology of our times?

 

Does anyone have any references where he discusses science?

 

Thanks to you all!

 

I think it might be hard to find a Joseph Campbell expert here.  But I know he lauded Star Wars as the  myth of this age.

 

Ummmm .... you do realise cultural anthropology is one of the sciences ?  So whenever he discusses what he does, he is discussing a science.

 

I dont recall him ever saying science generally is the mythology of our times ( nor am I sure what that means ? )

 

The general overall myth for our times .... since, say .... the last 200 - 300 years  has been identified by some as Faust ... just replace his quest for magic with science and it applies very interestingly - and we have two different outcomes from that 'myth' ; Marlowe's and Goethe's versions of the story . 

Edited April 3, 2015 by Nungali

[silent thunder]

I recall him saying that our dreams are our private myths

and that myths are public dreams.

 

As well as a host of other profound and awesomely aware things.

 

He was one outstanding lad!  Love his books and his entire demeanor.

[Nikolai1]

One point I've heard him make many times is that belief in the myth as literal truth strips it of its force - a force that resides in it being a metaphor for a spiritual reality.

 

So he sees half the people taking the idea of God as literal truth, and the other half seeing it as a falsehood. And neither really understanding the ineffable reality to which the myth of God points.

 

But of course human history is the story of people failing to see myth as myth but as truth, and then fighting thosevwho see it otherwise.

 

It is almost inevitable that he viewed modern science as the myth of our times. It is the one thing that nearly everyone is incapable of viewing as myth, and is therefore an extremely potent myth.

 

But...Campbell did not make this point explicitly at all. I think the point can literally not be made. It is too radical and incomprehensible to nearly everyone.

[voidisyinyang]

http://constantineinstitute.blogspot.com/2009/06/profiles-of-americas-beloved-tv.html

 

Joseph Campbell was a closet racist - a good example of Western New Ageism as b.s.

 

good expose link there.

 

be careful of Western esotericism that does not question the Platonist foundation - what I call the Rotten Root.

[gendao]

http://constantineinstitute.blogspot.com/2009/06/profiles-of-americas-beloved-tv.html

 

Joseph Campbell was a closet racist - a good example of Western New Ageism as b.s.

 

good expose link there.

 

be careful of Western esotericism that does not question the Platonist foundation - what I call the Rotten Root.

Racism hysteria has become the new Commy McCarthyism, Spanish Inquisition or witchcraft trials.  Nothing new here, just the same old phenomena under a different name.  In order to preserve any given zeitgeist world view matrix...anything that threatens it must be "debunked!"

Now, off with the heretic's head!

As part of the infamous “swimming test,” accused witches were dragged to the nearest body of water, stripped to their undergarments, bound and then tossed in to to see if they would sink or float.

The problem is when these tests replace truth tests.  IOW, when "is it racist" is subversively used to replace/override "is it true?"  Because once you start to deviate from the truth, it's all downhill from there!

Edited April 5, 2015 by gendao

[voidisyinyang]

Sure U.S. debt is based on the racist war machine of imperialism - from the NeoFascist Reagan Revolution - military spending is over 50% of U.S. budget when you take into account debt payments and payments for medical costs, etc.

 

Campbell was a big promoter of the imperial racist war machine - in this case the Nazis but the Nazis, the Communists, the U.S. are all funded by Wall St. banks.

 

 

Not necessarily, considering Campbell's acute and unswerving anti-Semitism. Ms Carol Wallace recalled in a letter to NYRB: "In the early 1970s, I worked with Joe Campbell on his Mythic Image at Princeton University Press. It was amazing to me that this man of cosmic vision could harbor such mean-spirited and seemingly unexamined biases against much of humankind. In addition to anti-Semitism, I remember in particular his vexation over blacks' being admitted to Sarah Lawrence."

"When the astronauts landed on the moon," Gill recalled, "Joe made the repellent jest to a member of my family, who was a student of his at the time, that the moon would be a good place to put the Jews..."

 

oh but the OP wanted "science" sources for Campbell - here you go:

 

 

'What about the six million [Jews] who were gassed during World War II?'" In response, Campbell simply shrugged and spat, "That's your problem."

Joseph Campbell not only shrugged off the Holocaust – he was a major force in the racial eugenics movement until his death in 1987. For many years he sat on the editorial board of Mankind Quarterly, the notorious "race journal" subsidized by the notorious Pioneer Fund. The Quarterly's founder, Robert Gayre, held that African-Americans are "worthless." The Quarterly was long published by Roger Pearson, an official of the pro-fascist Northern League, an organization that included among its ranks a number of veterans of Himmler's SS. Other prominent academics who contributed to the journal: Henry Garrett of the White Citizens Council, Ottmar von Verschuer, Josef Mengele's mentor, and Corrado Gini, an Italian biologist under Mussolini, author of The Scientific Basis of Fascism.

 

Dude was a fruit-cake with his racist Mankind Quarterly b.s.

 

You gotta be careful with this New Agers - closeted Nazis.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[mostly_empty]

Does anyone know if Campbell considered science to be the mythology of our times?

 

Does anyone have any references where he discusses science?

 

Thanks to you all!

 

Campbell -  The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion has some comments, but nothing too profound.

 

There is no doubt about his views; consider the above links to be fairly mild.

 

If you want a mythologist who addresses science, try Mircea Eliade. I would not do him the dishonour of trying a brief summary, as his ideas underlie much of what I find best in anthropology and volkerpsychologie.

 

I can maybe help you with your question if I understand better your reason for asking it?

[mostly_empty]

 

 

It is almost inevitable that he viewed modern science as the myth of our times. It is the one thing that nearly everyone is incapable of viewing as myth, and is therefore an extremely potent myth.

 

But...Campbell did not make this point explicitly at all. I think the point can literally not be made. It is too radical and incomprehensible to nearly everyone.

Not to be too difficult here, but lots of cultural anthropologists, religious studies scholars... even Michael Shermer (I am not a fan) are capable of considering science and technology as a foundation myth in current societies. Even more so since so few people actually have scientific or technological skills and interests.

[thelerner]

Towards the OP, are you really asking if Science isn't the religion of our time.  That we've set up men in white coats as authorities over us, believing them blindly?  In our age angels have turned into aliens and miracles into quantum events..

[Nikolai1]

I started to read Campbell's work and it seemed the obvious direction for his thoughts to go. What do we all believe in today, that future generations will refer to, perhaps disparagingly, as myth?

 

Clearly science is the obvious candidate.

 

But JC does not seem to make the point explicitly at all. He alludes to it, usually with reference to the conclusions of Kant and Schopenhauer about the unknowabilty of reality (and therefore theimpotence of science) but doesn't make it clear. I think something was stopping him from spelling it out. I think he would have faced ridicule and been discredited because people would have thought that he was saying scientific facts are untrue; in the same way as it is untrue that there are Gods on top of Mount Olympus.

 

On the other hand, he often describes one of the functions of a myth as a 'protoscience' which suggests that science is something that may evolve beyond the proto and thereby transcend it's mythic origins. So maybe he thought science was the one thing that was beyond myth.

 

JC gets a lot of credit, now as then, but I wonder just how complete he was as a spiritual authority.

 

Thanks for all the interest guys

[voidisyinyang]

Campbell is a fake academic racist.

 

If you want to study mythology go for James Frazer.

 

Read his full set - not just the concise version.

 

I mean if you're serious about mythology - the full set is something like 12 volumes.

 

The concise version is one book as a tome - probably 800 pages.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hermetics.org%2Fpdf%2FSir_James_Frazer_-_The_Golden_Bough.pdf&ei=GcMyVfuPO8GANsDagJAL&usg=AFQjCNErKSDuxOFlp6oDGLEghFoeeXUMKA&sig2=vZ7ltqHb99mwLpTP_jwkfw

 

That's the pdf link for the Golden Bough - the concise. 600 pages.

[Nungali]

I started to read Campbell's work and it seemed the obvious direction for his thoughts to go. What do we all believe in today, that future generations will refer to, perhaps disparagingly, as myth?

 

Clearly science is the obvious candidate.

 

But JC does not seem to make the point explicitly at all. He alludes to it, usually with reference to the conclusions of Kant and Schopenhauer about the unknowabilty of reality (and therefore theimpotence of science) but doesn't make it clear. I think something was stopping him from spelling it out. I think he would have faced ridicule and been discredited because people would have thought that he was saying scientific facts are untrue; in the same way as it is untrue that there are Gods on top of Mount Olympus.

 

On the other hand, he often describes one of the functions of a myth as a 'protoscience' which suggests that science is something that may evolve beyond the proto and thereby transcend it's mythic origins. So maybe he thought science was the one thing that was beyond myth.

 

JC gets a lot of credit, now as then, but I wonder just how complete he was as a spiritual authority.

 

Thanks for all the interest guys

 

My view is that they are all a metaphorical or symbolic language way of looking at things ( or 'reality') ... why should the modern scientific way of looking at things be considered the sole model for defining reality? Other culture take their 'myths' seriously' ( literally) and so do many with 'science'.  Until it gets real deep in there, or real far out there, then the quantum world of slot experiments, postulated black holes and all the rest seems a different world -  or at least a different view or set of 'physical rules'. 

 

The thing is 'science' is a great view for the intellect and mentation and physical accomplishments ... part of (or one view of) 'reality'.

 

Mythological dynamics seem a great view and way to approach the imaginative and emotive world of the psyche / soul .  Why should that view or side of 'reality' not be 'real' ... I feel it is real , in its world, just as physical science is real in its world and quantum physics may be 'real' in the sub-atomic world. I have met  people that are dualistically in 'either camp' (science or a more 'fantasy world') but the problematic issues seems to be for both sides, they take it 'literally'.

 

I see great value in myths as models of the 'human  adventure' and hence, very valuable parts of our reality, but I have no need to accept them literally, nor except that science is the be all or end all of what we need to know. 

 

I dont think we can actually model our 'reality' ....all views are but interpretations, the closest we can get is to incorporate as many views and facets as we can and try to develop a  bigger picture (or understand something 7 ways - as the Sufis say ) . 

 

Spiritual authority ?  Hmmm ... he may have been a religious authority, to some extent, as Cultural Anthropologists are ( or should be) , no, I would not call him a spiritual authority ... but then again, he knows a bit about the role of the Shaman and Priest. 

 

I often just assume that people have come to the same conclusions as me     ... I have supposed that Campbell and many others have had this'multiple reality' view ....  I mean, isnt it a crucial central view of many systems ?   The elephant in the dark room and all that !

 

But I cant remember Campbell espousing that view. Maybe he did  - maybe he said that science was just another model ... or way of looking at things.

[Nikolai1]

My views are the same as yours Nungali, but I haven't found JC saying the same. He does make the point repeatedly that to take the myth literally is to miss its higher meaning, and to allow sectarian strife with other mythologies, which to him is monstrous. But he never details what he considers the true spiritual message in say Darwinism, or modern cosmology.