Billboard outside the New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
This reminds me of the Christmas song:
"God Rest Ye, Unitarians"
Lyrics by the Rev. Christopher Gist Raible of the First Unitarian Church of Worcester
God rest ye, Unitarians, let nothing you dismay;
Remember there's no evidence there was a Christmas Day;
When Christ was born is just not known, no matter what they say,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.
There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angels' song;
There could have been no wise men for the trip would take too long.
The stories in the Bible are historically wrong,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact!
Our current Christmas customs come from Persia and from Greece,
From solstice celebrations of the ancient Middle East.
We know our so-called holiday is just a pagan feast,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.
___________________________
And now for my editorial comment:
You know it's a myth? Of course. All the more reason to celebrate Christmas.
Joseph Campbell begins his classic, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, with the following paragraph:
Whether we listen with aloof amusement to the dreamlike mumbo-jumbo of some red-eyed witch doctor of the Congo, read with cultivated rapture thin translations from the sonnets of the mystic Lao-tse; now and again crack the hard nutshell of an argument of Aquinas, or catch suddenly the shining meaning of a bizarre Eskimo fairy tale: it will always be the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known or told. . . It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.
5 comments:
I had never heard of Campbell's book, then I read Wikipedia:
"The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced a number of artists, musicians, poets, and filmmakers, including Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and George Lucas. Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead...
Stanley Kubrick introduced Arthur C. Clarke to the book during the writing of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
George Lucas' deliberate use of Campbell's theory of the monomyth in the making of the Star Wars movies is well-documented.
Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, wrote a memo for Disney Studios on the use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a guide for scriptwriters; this memo influenced the creation of such films as Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. Vogler later expanded the memo and published it as the book The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers, which became the inspiration for a number of successful Hollywood films and is believed to have been used in the development of the Matrix series."
This might be the most important book ever written!
Also, I really dislike that billboard.
"Reasonable since 1963". Cringe-worthy level smugness.
I'm fairly certain I've mentioned this before (probably on this blog) but whenever I hear or see Campbell's name I cringe (the influences of a great professor of mine). While Campbell was a big hit for a while, and influenced countless people has James has pointed out, many scholars in the religion/myth/folklore world don't give his stuff a lot of merit. I think the big reason is for his focus on the monomyth and showing how basically the monomyth can be picked up from one culture and basically dropped down on a second culture with the same results (different names, but the hero's journey is basically the same). Besides the fact that he rarely discusses the differences between cultures and mythology, which are just as important, he tends to have a very male oriented view of the hero myth. In other words, Lyra from The Golden Compass doesn't really fit. That being said, The Hero with a Thousand Faces is an excellent read. His four book series on mythology is also a good read.
I also wanted to point out I hate that billboard too and any other religious billboard - atheist or religious, in America its all about the advertising. (I read somewhere once that's why people basically think Americans are far more religious than Europeans. Except that perception is based primarily on our need to commercialize and advertise our faith here, whereas in Europe its much more personal, spiritual and reflective).
I heard on NPR last night that every year Britain does the Christmas #1 song. And every year Simon Cowell puts out his number 1 right before so basically influencing people to vote for it. I guess there was a popular revolt last year and the people voted for Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" This year, in the same spirit, a group of machines cut an update to John Cage's 4'33'' NPR interviewed Billy Bragg who noted that this is a perfect song for Christmas because it gives listeners a chance for reflection at Christmas.
Quick followup - if you don't want to read The Hero with a Thousand Faces (although, I can hardly think of a better Christmas gift)wikipedia has a nice page on the monomyth
Yes, its clear that academia looks down its nose at Campbell. It doesn't consider him rigorous enough. He's a popularizer and writes, not for academics, but for the unwashed masses. I don't know of a single anthropology student who has graduated since, like, 1985 who hasn't been taught to despise Campbell.
I, however, grew up at a time when Campbell was still revered. At least, the guy is fun to read and his extensive knowledge of literature, religion, mythology and philosophy always struck me as rather astounding. He essentially starts with Jung's idea of a collective unconscious, and asserts that just as dreams are expressions of our individual unconscious, mythology and religion (and literature) are expressions of the collective unconscious. And just as dreams are highly symbolic, so are religion and mythology.
He is very much in the "we are the world" approach to things, since he claims that the same themes run through all religions. Yes, Virginia, Muhammad was a plagiarist.
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