Cathbad Wrote:
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> That would be my reading of it anyhow - I think he
> was onto something, but whereas a lot of myths
> (ie, myths about heroes) would share one or more
> features of his list, I doubt if they ever had all
> the features he describes. So it's anthropological
> value is nil. But I actually think these are
> pretty effective narrative devices - e.g. how
> often (in a western, say) does the hero refuse to
> get involved, only to reluctantly take his holster
> down off the wall?
But even if accurate, who cares?
To me, when I first heard him enunciate his ideas, I had a moment of of confusion: didn't that man just tell me something that pretty much everyone already knows? That popular myths fall into identifiable patterns, and seem to follow a sort of template or templates?
To sit there and tells us that on TV, and await applause for it, apparently, seemed so filled with chutzpah that for a while I thought that there *must* be more to it than that.
But in my opinion, there really isn't. The very best construct that I could come up with that supported his implication that this observation was in any way important was that if one chose to view these commonalities as a consequence of a common shared origin, it then further implies an Atlantis-like super culture that was mother of all current civilization. But since there are no independent material artifacts that support this, we have only his simple observation that myths tend to address the same themes, and his tacit implication that this somehow supports a vast and monolithic cultural unity.
That's the *best* I could do.
But to me, one might also view the observation that myths from around the world are similar in theme as an indication that the themes dealt with--survival, procreation, ascent to dominance--are simply behaviorial traits common to the species, and of roughly the same urgency.
I'm saying that if apes had myths--and who knows but that they don't?--they'd also fit Campbell's templates.
In short, Campbell's view, as I see it, is that commonality of mythic themes/structures is linear evolution, while the alternative that I described is a case of parallel evolution.
I guess bluntly stated, Campbell seems to me like a guy who, on seeing a dolphin, a shark, and an artist's rendering of an ichthyosaur, concludes that they all descended from a single common aquatic ancestor.
But it's *Campbell* here we're talking about, so he doesn't just simply draw that conclusion, but smugly announces it to the world...
Maybe I have this wrong: who knows?
BTW, Cathbad, I originally made reference to Mr. Natural, comparing Campbell to him; it was so dead-center that I couldn't resist making the comparison, as a sort of all-inclusive shorthand. Later it dawned on me that maybe many might not be familiar with Mr. Natural, a cynical, manipulative cartoon guru of the 60s.
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en.wikipedia.org]
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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