IS JOSEPH CAMPBELL AN ANTI-SEMITE?

[brekin]

To follow up. Campbell had to know (and I think even said) that we have to live with some operating myth. Since his system tries to show that most myths have the same principles then those principles are needed/good but their container (religions) are superfluous. But since we need some operating myth, and the old containers are shown to be derivative and similar I think it makes people more likely to fall for the same myth in a new container. That is why political containers are inherently dangerous because they can exploit the operating myth and its principles. And really the principles of these myths may not be needed or good at all for individuals and societies just because they have a track record. Maybe as a species we have to even let go of myth completely and not try to appropriate or reform the old myths?

The myths that have existed for thousands of years have played no small part in the wars, genocides, and blind hatred to what is unfamiliar or we make unfamiliar. Campbell wants us to see all myths as metaphors. I think that is great, but it is impossible for us to live metaphorically for long and after awhile we become what we pretend we are and believe others are pretending to be.

For example, I'm about 20 pages in to The Iron Dream, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream

The Iron Dream is a metafictional 1972 alternate history novel by Norman Spinrad.

The book has a nested narrative that tells a story within a story. On the surface, the novel presents an unexceptional pulp, post-apocalypse science fiction action tale entitled Lord of the Swastika. However, this is a pro-fascist narrative written by an alternate-history Adolf Hitler, who in this timeline emigrated from Germany to America in 1919 after the Great War, and used his modest artistic skills to become first a pulp-science fiction illustrator and later a successful science fiction writer, telling lurid, purple-prosed adventure stories under a thin SF-veneer.

Spinrad was intent on demonstrating just how close Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces — and much science fiction and fantasy literature — can be to the racist fantasies of Nazi Germany.[1]

The funny thing is if you didn't have Adolf Hitler as the fictional writer of the novel in the back of your head while reading it would be very easy to accept the value judgements and worldview that is laid out because it is so common to sci-fi, & fantasy genres. And what a quinky-dink: one of the mongrel unpure races are Lizard men who with the help of The Dominators exploit and rule clandestinely the purebred humans with hypnotic domination thought patterns. Sound familiar to anyone we know?

Icke is basically a modern myth maker. And while Lucas applied Campbell and made Star Wars, I wouldn't be surprised if Icke applied Campbell and made his Lizard Wars. And again, for the more literal, I'm not saying I know that Campbell intended this, or even wanted this, or that Icke has even read Campbell, but I tend to think if you use the same tools, your only going to get so many possible results.

There is much I like Campbell's work (and it has actually helped in different periods of my life) but some of it is troubling. For example, the following two quotes, codas really, are something that totalitarian systems are no stranger to.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
Joseph Campbell

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.
Joseph Campbell

Again, I think this deserves it's own thread because some people won't be able to separate the ideas from their spokesperson and any criticism or examination of the ideas in relation to negative things will be seen as reflecting back on the spokesperson. This may be justified good or bad but right now I think it is clear some people will not entertain for a moment anything less than beatific regarding Campbell no matter how tangential.

[justdrew]

Was Campbell a founding member of Mankind Quarterly?

nope.

Its foundation in 1960 may in part have been a response to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education which ordered the desegregation of schools in the United States. (<< it MAY also have been in response to a butterfly flapping it's wings in China. That should either be supported or removed I have to say >>) It was originally published in Edinburgh, Scotland, by the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics.

The founders were: Robert Gayre, Henry Garrett, Roger Pearson, Corrado Gini, Ottmar von Verschuer and Reginald Ruggles Gates.

Campbell was the 'mythology' editor, but I've yet to find out for how long. Not clear how much work he did there. Nor is it totally clear that everything ever published in MQ is garbage. Certainly they're controversial, but I suspect it's best we have some research done on even ideas we doubt and find contemptible. but anyway...

I've found a 7 year old thread over on "vanguard news network" forum. (yes, it's a totally racist place) discussing this. So it might be of interest to see what the 'for sure' anti-Semites have to say about it...
http://vnnforum.com/archive/index.php/t-29653.html

one bit I'll quote...

February 7th, 2006, 12:13 PM
Joseph Cambell's insights into mythology have helped spread Traditionalist ideas and approaches. I read a book by Robert Bly once called "iron john" that drew heavily on Campbell as well as Mircea Eliade and Coomraswarmy, 2 well known exponents of Traditionalism.

Two other well known Traditionalists? Rene Guenon and Julius Evola.

so someone once thought that, though I don't mean to imply they are surely CORRECT in thinking that.

[Lord Balto]

slad wrote:

^^^^ TWO YEARS AFTER HE DIED....NOT ONE WORD BEFORE CAMPBELL TOOK HIS LAST BREATH AND COULD NOT DEFEND HIMSELF....FUCKING GOSSIP THAT'S ALL IT IS FUCKING GOSSIP PLAIN AND SIMPLE

Because someone dies we can't examine alleged behavior from those that knew him? slad I get it - you like Campbell and his work. I did and continue to do in parts. But I'm also concerned he (and possibly his work) had a darker side that all the ra-ra around him is over shadowing. Why would colleagues and students write the new york times and go on record detailing such behavior? I can understand having a grudge, but surely they have more to lose by challenging the status of such a benign figure.

I myself like J.R.R. Tolkien and his work, but I wouldn't let that get in the way of discovering whether he had views that were disagreeable or not.

Unfortunately you have to pay to see this entire article:

Joseph Campbell on Jews and Judaism

Robert A Segal
Religious Studies Program, Louisiana State University,106 Coates Hall, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, U.S.A.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0048-721X(92)90056-A, How to Cite or Link Using DOI
Permissions & Reprints
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... cs5ovKB7Mg

Abstract

[b]Joseph Campbell's private expressions of antisemitism have been documented by his acquaintances, his students, and even his friends. But Campbell's own writings attest to his prejudice. Nearly all of his references to Jews and Judaism are disdainful and hostile. Campbell's dislike of Judaism does stem in part from his dislike of Western religions generally and to that extent cannot be said to reflect antisemitism. But his dislike of Judaism is especially uncompromising and, more, appeals to common antisemitic stereotypes. At the same time Campbell applauds the mythology of Judaism, as he does every other mythology, and really seeks to substitute the mythology for the religion.[/b]

Time out! I don't particularly like the Jewish religion as an intellectual exercise myself, and I am a Jew, at least by ancestry and association, but I am certainly not an antisemite. As for the "mythology of Judaism," I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean. What I do know is that I have been writing a chronological history of the ancient world for the last few years, and I have read and quoted a number of establishment and anti-establishment authors, and I have never, ever found a reference to anything Campbell has ever written that contains any hard chronological evidence whatsoever. And, as I suggest in that work, there is no reality without chronology. That's the problem with Christianity, to name an allied religion and whose mythology Campbell presumably likes better than Judaism. The fact is, you can't tell me when anything described in the religious texts of the Christians actually happened, whereas, once you realize that the history of the Jews has been extended by the use of a small number of multiplying factors, you can date the events of Jewish history fairly precisely back to the Exodus in 1185 BC.

[seemslikeadream]

you two anti-semite hunters have NOT posted ONE solid piece of evidence that Joseph Campbell was an anti-semite....just a bunch of crap and if you can list the names of people who actually believe your crap DO IT OR SHUT THE FUCK UP...

here's just a small list I have posted so far and I will continue to post more names of people who loved Joseph Campbell and certainly would not be caught dead hanging out with an anti-semite...So keep posting your hate and I'll keep posting supporters of Joseph Campbell.

Bill Moyers
Joseph Campbell Foundation
Tori Amos
Steven Spielberg
Robert Baird
David Yamada
Derek Beres
Rick Tarnas
Marien Hansen
Paul Horn
David Darling
Mickey Lemle
Terry Lupton
Gerald McDermott
Suzie Self
Michael Murphy
Chungliang Al Huang
Sam Keen
Lynne Kaufman
Michael Christie
David Darling
John Cleese
Phil Cousineau
Stanislav Grof MD PhD
Michael Murphy
Mickey Lemle
Terry Lupton
Angelis Arrien
Stephen Atzenstat PhD
Charlie Bethel
Rebeccca Armstrong
David Steindl Rast
Richard Tarna PhD
Robert Walter
Gina Otto
Manny Otto
Bruce Baumwoll
Opus Archives & Research Center
Carl Cherry Center for the Arts
Joan Konner Graduate School of Journalism Columbia University
Robert Walter
Patrick Takaya Solomon
James P. Hewitt
Robert_Walte
David Kudler
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Steven Spielberg,
George Lucas
Pat Riley
Grateful Dead
Pacifica Graduate Institute
Jean Erdman Campbell,
Alfred van der Marck
Roberta H. Markman California State University
Peter T. Markman Fullerton College

[seemslikeadream]

I need to repeat this in bold and big letters so everyone who is reading this thread will not miss it

DID YOU SEE THIS AD AND brekin....STOP RUNNING YOUR MOUTH ABOUT THIS ...STOP SPREADING YOUR HATEFUL CRAP YOU HAVE NO PROOF OF ANY OF THE SHIT YOU ARE POSTING

Was Campbell a founding member of Mankind Quarterly?

nope.

Its foundation in 1960 may in part have been a response to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education which ordered the desegregation of schools in the United States. (<< it MAY also have been in response to a butterfly flapping it's wings in China. That should either be supported or removed I have to say >>) It was originally published in Edinburgh, Scotland, by the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics.

The founders were: Robert Gayre, Henry Garrett, Roger Pearson, Corrado Gini, Ottmar von Verschuer and Reginald Ruggles Gates.

Campbell was the 'mythology' editor, but I've yet to find out for how long. Not clear how much work he did there. Nor is it totally clear that everything ever published in MQ is garbage. Certainly they're controversial, but I suspect it's best we have some research done on even ideas we doubt and find contemptible. but anyway...

I've found a 7 year old thread over on "vanguard news network" forum. (yes, it's a totally racist place) discussing this. So it might be of interest to see what the 'for sure' anti-Semites have to say about it...
http://vnnforum.com/archive/index.php/t-29653.html

one bit I'll quote...

February 7th, 2006, 12:13 PM
Joseph Cambell's insights into mythology have helped spread Traditionalist ideas and approaches. I read a book by Robert Bly once called "iron john" that drew heavily on Campbell as well as Mircea Eliade and Coomraswarmy, 2 well known exponents of Traditionalism.

Two other well known Traditionalists? Rene Guenon and Julius Evola.

so someone once thought that, though I don't mean to imply they are surely CORRECT in thinking that.

[justdrew]

excavating from archive.org...

Maggie Macary, PhD.c's myth and culture blog

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Joseph Campbell - Robert Segal's Critique

Robert Segal, a respected professor of religion at the University of Lancaster in England has published numerous articles and books regarding Joseph Campbell's work as well as several well-received books on the study of myth. One such article, published in the journal, ReligionVolume 22, Issue 2 , April 1992, Pages 151-170, is entitled "Joseph Campbell on Jews and Judaism." I was unable to obtain the entire article online, but the abstract reads:

Joseph Campbell's private expressions of antisemitism have been documented by his acquaintances, his students, and even his friends. But Campbell's own writings attest to his prejudice. Nearly all of his references to Jews and Judaism are disdainful and hostile. Campbell's dislike of Judaism does stem in part from his dislike of Western religions generally and to that extent cannot be said to reflect antisemitism. But his dislike of Judaism is especially uncompromising and, more, appeals to common antisemitic stereotypes. At the same time Campbell applauds the mythology of Judaism, as he does every other mythology, and really seeks to substitute the mythology for the religion.

Segal, while avoiding anecdotal evidence in his evaluation of Campbell's anti-Semitism, also refers to the various stories that have arisen after Campbell's death that offers proof of his prejudice against Jews and other minorities. But that doesn't seem to be the crux of Segal's discussion about Campbell and his prejudices.

The truth is, I'm not particularly interested in the anecdotal evidence, stories of the man told long after his death. For every person who claims a shadowy story about Campbell, there are equally people who defend his honor with their own stories (and a great number of these defenders are Jewish). No, what interests me is Segal' critique of Campbell's work.

In a response to Morris Friedman In the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Segal clearly seeks to differentiate between Campbell's theories of myth and his deep hostility toward Judaism, quoting numerous Campbell works to establish his thesis. Segal writes:

As hostile as he variously is toward Christianity, toward western religions as a whole, toward eastern religions, he still singles out Judaism as the worst offender. (462).

It is this hostility toward Judaism, contends Segal, that establishes Campbell as an anti-Semite. In contrast to Christianity, Judaism for Campbell is monolithically patriarchal rather than matriarchal, literalistic rather than symbolic, and nationalistic rather than universalistic. Furthermore, Judaism for him is unchanging and means the Bible. (462). Segal goes on to quote specifically from Campbell's work to establish his points, reminding Friedman that while Campbell attacks both Judiasm and Christianity, Campbell finds "glorious exceptions in the case of Christianity yet almost none in the case of Judaism" (465).

In a critical review of the Larsen's biography of Campbell, Fire in the Mind, "The Mythological Life, published in Christian Century 109.14 (Apr 22), Robert Segal points out that Campbell ignores the centuries of Jewish mysticism, choosing to consider Jewish mysticism as a "largely medieval, anomalous strain of Judaism" (431). He heavily criticizes the Larsens for their rebuttal of the anti-Semitism charges through the use of counter anecdotes rather than examining and defending Campbell through his large body of work.

It is Campbell's corpus that Segal turns to, pulling out of the vastness of Campbell's work, specific arguments and quotes that further Segal's charges of anti-Semitism. He particularly emphases passages from The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Masks of God to illustrate his points:

In aboriginal societies, the tribal myths, while unexceptionally ethnocentric,
do not anywhere exhibit such an exclusive fascination with the people themselves
(The Inner Reaches, no page number listed).

Segal also criticizes Campbell's approach to religion. "Campbell rarely for his interpretation of Western Religions to the adherents of those religions," Segal writes (433). Campbell dismisses not only the adherents of a religion, but also the religious scholars, choosing to believe that only a comparativist can correctly interpret sacred texts, creating a polarity between religion and mythology.

Ok guys, as I've admitted, I don't consider myself a scholar in Campbell's works nor have I read enough detail in Segal's work to decide whether or not Robert is correct in his theory. But what little I've read of Segal's work, I find scholarly and insightful and certainly worthy of consideration.

In reading a brief synopsis of the anti-Semitic charges against Campbell on the [url=http://www.jcf.org/]JCF website, I didn't find any discussion on Segal's work. What might be interesting is to have a real discussion where specific passages of Campbell's work are discussed. Or it might be interesting for someone to actually read Segal's work and to present a counter-balance through their own reading of Campbell. I haven't seen that either.

I, of course, am not prepared to take on such a task - hey - I am trying to write a dissertation of my own. To be perfectly honest, my passion for myth doesn't reside in Campbell's work. But I think that someone who does hold a passion for Campbell's work should take it on. And, I'd be happy to host it here at MythandCulture.com. And these brief blogs (I can only spend an hour a day on them), cannot possibly cover the discussion in any kind of depth.

Why do I think this is important? Because it is intellectual conversation, it is rational discussion, it part of a philosophical discourse to move away from anecdotal comments about a dead man's prejudices, and instead move into an analysis of his work, especially a man (deservedly or not) who has become the 20th century icon for myth and mythological studies. Joseph Campbell's work deserves such depth and discussion. Joe Campbell the charming guy, who may or may not have harbored personal anti-Semitic ideas, is of little interest to me.

---

[Wombaticus Rex]

Can I go all Meta for a minute here?

This is a thread on an internets forum, titled, caps lock: IS JOSEPH CAMPBELL AN ANTI-SEMITE? We have incorporated nearly all the extant and easily findable links on the web regarding this general concept, and RI is not only a busy forum in terms of active members and daily conversation, it's also even more heavily trafficked and patrolled by anonymous lurker types. As such, our threads tend to rank highly in Google, which is not merely a reflection of my own google profile, since I maintain several (dozen) and still do SEO gigs for money on the side, so I know how to find clean SERPs. Sorry, that's just an acronym for a page of google results: Search Engine Results Pages.

Now, I like longform dialog and really the most redeeming feature of the community here is how Member X and Member Y can be at each others throats and 2 pages later, be having a calmer conversation before anyone can even, y'know, moderate.

Still, let me diverge further: my favorite part of Data Dump threads is the fact they can be cultivated more, since it's a linkdump and not a conversation. I'm not misrepresenting anyone's words when I add a table of contents to the first post of a three page thread there: I'm editing my own (mostly) work, and those who contributed grok the purpose.

Meanwhile, here and now, we're at 11 pages and nobody's really budged too much, nor do I expect them to. Personally, I think there is ample and interesting evidence to indicate Campbell harbored racist beliefs, and as I've also made clear, I don't really care, at all. I don't burn books, except for the occasional Thomas Friedman hardcover. (They're ubiquitous and cheap, like bottle rockets or PBR.)

If anything, it makes Campbell more interesting. I feel the same about most of the quirks, prejudices and manias of everyone else here. And since we're a self-referential mess, let me just say it outright: If it wasn't for the Icke conversation earlier, this thread never would have been contentious at all. Because it's only in the context of ejecting Icke material from the forum -- which I'm fine with, to throw my hat in the ring! -- it's only in that context that discussion of Campbell's feelings towards "the Jews" (as an absurd reification and failure to separate words from reality) would be so contentious.

Nobody, ever, is going to eject Campbell from RI. I feel like that needs to be said, here at the end of all things.

[compared2what?]

The fact is, you can't tell me when anything described in the religious texts of the Christians actually happened, whereas, once you realize that the history of the Jews has been extended by the use of a small number of multiplying factors, you can date the events of Jewish history fairly precisely back to the Exodus in 1185 BC.

...

It's arguably a semantic distinction. Because I'm 98 percent certain that by "fairly precisely" you mean "relatively precisely within the real hard limitations that obviously apply to stuff that happened in the Bronze Age." And, you know. That's more than certain enough for discussion board text. (Ninety-ninth percentile, in fact!)

So I'm just asking for me, not as a criticism. But that's what you mean, right?
_________________

It's a specialist's area, and I'm not a specialist. So this also isn't criticism, or even argument. It's just a (possibly shamefully ignorant) request for elucidation.

Or...You know. Another way of putting it would be: I have a question that I probably don't really know how to ask as well as I should. So apologies in advance if this is stupid.

But I would have said, maybe wrongly, that while datable aspects of Jewish history extended back that far, the exodus from Egypt wasn't one of them and almost certainly didn't occur as described in the Book of Exodus.

IOW: I've always thought that the biblical narrative of the exodus (Moses, the enslavement, the forty years in the desert, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, the compact between The Holy One Blessed Be He and his chosen, etc) was exactly equivalent to the four gospels of the New Testament, in historical terms. Meaning: Stuff of some sort more or less like that was attested to historically in the right time and place. But, strictly speaking, that there was no proof that the events themselves did. As described. (WRT the exodus, I guess I thought it was nearly certainly a myth, fwiw.*** But it's not worth much.)

Are you saying otherwise?

_________________
***ON EDIT: I guess that I should add that although that's my understanding of the state of the historical evidence, one of the reasons I'm inclined to think it is that it's also basically treated that way in religious teachings.

I mean, obviously, in a religious setting, no one is going to open with: "Remember the suffering of your forefathers, which never occurred and is an utterly invented pastiche of other stuff!" They do it more circuitously than that. But I would have said it was pretty plainly acknowledged that they weren't actual, real events. And that that was more the rule than otherwise, except at the extremes.

(And/or when they were. Which some of them were. I just mean those particular events.)

[justdrew]

I've accidentally posted these 3 articles from the old mythandculture blog in reverse order of their original publication. sorry.


http://web.archive.org/web/20060626091550/http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2004/12/joseph-campbell-anti-judiasm.html

Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Joseph Campbell - Anti-Judiasm

The ultimate goal of Oriental worship is, accordingly, the realization of one's own identity with this reality and a recognition of its presence in all things - not, as in our Western religions, to worship a god distinct from his creation,of a different order of being - apart - "out there." (Joseph Campbell, The
Flight of the Wild Gander 158).

I want to start right out and admit something: I don't consider myself a Campbell Scholar. Yes, I've read Hero, and Masks of God and a number of his other works. But my primary focus as a mythologist is not particularly on Campbell's work, which I often find outdated. Therefore, I'm open to criticism here by people who are more deeply read in his work. I'll take my chances right now.

That being said, I want to emphasize once more that I have a problem with this accusation of anti-Semitism. As I related in yesterday's blog and in subsequent comments to the blog, I think that we should be cautious about over-using the word anti-Semitism because of its connection to the Holocaust, but in general that it should be not be applied to political, religious, or philosophical disagreements because in fact it waters down the nature of the evil the word represents.

Today, I want to talk about an with an excellent article by Maurice Friedman in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (Vol 66.2, Summer 1998, pp 385- ) that I think sheds more light on the issue. In the article entitled "Why Joseph Campbell's Psychologizing of Myth Precludes the Holocaust as Touchstone of Reality", Dr. Friedman who was a colleague of Campbell's at Sarah Lawrence, argues that Campbell's psychologizing of myth, along with his prejudicial anti-Judaism and anti-Semitic slant, precluded Campbell from finding the Holocaust as a "touchstone of reality" and that his work contains an "alarming relativism and amoralism that jettisons social and even interhuman concerns" (390). Friedman again refers to the infamous pacifist lecture on "Permanent Human Values" that Campbell gave at Sarah Lawrence three days after Pearl Harbor in which he urges his students not to give up their education because of politics and in which he compares Hitler to Churchill.

Friedman refers also to the interaction between Campbell and Buber, using Campbell's own recounting of the incident. In the telling of the incident, Campbell argues over the use of the word "God" with Buber, insisting that Buber's Western and Judaic notion of God and the myths of exile are very different from the more immanent experiences of divinity in Eastern religions in which divinity is found within. The fall from grace, the exile from the Garden as Campbell conceives it, contends Friedman, is a psychologizing of evil that takes a universalism approach. Friedman, present at the exchange between Buber and Campbell saw it in a different light - as a real miscommunication between the two in which the notion of *exile* was literalized by Campbell to mean exile from God, whereas Buber was speaking of our exile from each other.

Joseph CampbellHence, Campbell's anti-Judaism was a reflection of his own misunderstanding (not only of Buber's work, but also of biblical and modern Judaism. Friedman also attacks Campbell's universalist approach, stating that the psychologizing of religion by Jung, Maslow, Fromm, Huxley, and Campbell, misses the point: Even when they know something about the world's religions, they do not hesitate to ignore all the phenomenon that do not fit their personal perception and with it the very fact that in spelling out an "essence" of all religions in one formula or another, they necessarily lose it. (395).

Friedman admits in this essay, that Campbell's attack is not merely on Judaism, but both Judaism and Christianity as religions that teach "relationship" rather than "identity" with the Godhead and who insist that their followers submit to the social institutions and memberships in what becomes an "exclusive club" (397). Friedman then refers to Campbell's anti-Semitism as documented through Brendan Gill's article. Interestingly, Friedman includes in this article personal anecdotes about his relationship with Campbell that demonstrate how cordial their relationship was. His only personal account of Campbell's anti-Semitism is Campbell calling Friedman the school's resident rabbi.

He concludes that his concern over Campbell's work is not only because of its anti-Judaism bias, but also because of his psychologizing of myth which in Friedman's viewpoint, rejects history and the unique event in favor of an internal, psychological and universal approach.

It seems that what Friedman really is attacking in this article, is not so much Campbell, but Campbell's bias against the monotheistic religions and his psychological and universalist approach to myth that dismisses the uniqueness of an experience. He also attacks the idea of immanence versus transcendence as a basis of religious experience. Friedman writes:

In Buber's view and my own the self in its integrity, its uniqueness, and its individuality is not the subject and center of religious experience but the sharer and participant in a religious reality that transcends it. There are depths within the self that lie largely unexplored, and it is for this reason that an emphasis upon the need of centering and inwardness, or what the Quakers call the "inward light," is not amiss. Yet it is not simply by voyaging inward - to the archetypal depths that unfold to us when we attain "individuation" or even to the nondualistic, nonindividual Self of the Upanishads - that the self becomes a sharer in religious reality. In transcending and denying the self and going inward one is like to end up in absolutely affirming the self. (400)

This Friedman article is really worth reading if one is truly interested in Campbell's approach to myth and the arguments used against his work. I'm going to respond more tomorrow, but for now I'm going to let some of this just rest.

---

http://web.archive.org/web/20060614031421/http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2004/12/joseph-campbell-antisemitism-politics.html

Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Joseph Campbell & AntiSemitism - The Politics of the Matter

cartoon that ilustrated the Brendan Gill commentaryI came across a rather famous anthropologist last night and in our brief conversation, when he found out I was a mythologist, he mentioned Joseph Campbell and then added, "He was anti-Semitic you know." I was very taken aback by this pronouncement, not because I hadn't heard it before, but because it came from someone who was obviously very intelligent, well educated, and used to a certain level of academic discourse. I briefly responded. But the discourse bothered me.

Joe Campbell has been dead for over 20 years and yet the idea of his anti-Semitism still seems to have some level of vitality. When I woke up this morning, I began to think of this again. The first thing I wondered was - what is the definition of anti-Semitic? The OED defines this in very specific terms: hostility to or prejudice against Jews. For Campbell to have been anti-Semitic means that he would have exhibited personal hostility toward Jews (not toward the Jewish religion per se).

Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with religion, or even politics for that matter - it is a racist position, hatred against another because of race. So, I went to the AntiDefamation League's Website, whose history states "For 90 years, ADL has been combating anti-Semitism and bigotry of all kinds". I figured if Joseph Campbell and his work were anti-Semitic, then surely the ADL would know about it. I did a search on Joseph Campbell. Nope, nothing, no mention of his name, no mention of his works.

So, where did this idea of Campbell's anti-Semitism come from? Its source is an article published in the NY Review of Books by famed critic and columnist for The New Yorker Magazine, Brendan Gill. Written two years after Campbell's death and a year after the airing of the Bill Moyer’s' Power of Myth series on PBS, Gill complained about Campbell's reactionary attitude, an attitude that was anti-Semitic, anti-Black, anti-feminist. In the liberal environment of Sarah Lawrence college (a very liberal woman's college with a heavy Jewish enrollment), Campbell was considered very far right. Gill writes:

So far was Campbell from applying the wisdom of the ages to the social, political, and sexual turbulence that he found himself increasingly surrounded by that he might have been a member of the Republican Party somewhere to the right of William F. Buckley. He embodied a paradox that I was never able to resolve in his lifetime and that I have been striving to resolve ever since: the savant as reactionary.

The evidence of Gill's opinion of Campbell was anecdotal and contained a lot of hearsay, as did the firestorm that followed.

There is always some truth hidden in such controversies - truths that seem to surface from time to time even twenty years later. So, over the next few days (because I'm already finding this topic is too large for one blog) I'm going to explore the roots of the allegations against Campbell. I'm using as a primary reference, a very well done book by Robert Ellswood, The Politics of Myth. Listen, I know this isn't scholarly to do, but this blog isn't meant to present scholarly papers and I like Ellswood's book and have had the opportunity to hear him lecture and to ask him questions. I think it's a fair and balanced presentation.

Campbell belonged to a privileged class, there is no doubt about it. He grew up Roman Catholic in a very upper-middle-class family, where access to art and music were pretty much taken for granted. He was handsome and athletic and moved easily in social circles. In 1924, on a boat trip to Europe, he met Krishnamurti and became engrossed in eastern religions, eventually discarding Catholicism and all religious attachments and especially rejecting any idea of dependence on external authorities. Individualism was for Campbell, the essential basis of the Hero's myth.

Campbell spent two years in Europe studying Grail legends in preparation for his PhD. At that time, he grew to love German culture and became deeply involved with the work of such German scholars as Oswald Spengler, Adolf Bastian, Leo Frobenius, and of course Schopenhauer, Kant, and Nietzsche. His first reactions to Nazi, like those of Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade who were also tainted with accusations of anti-Semitism, was enthusiastic. Nazism had also adopted many of the philosophical notions of the German romantic scholars and for one who was interested in myths, this apparent revival of the mythological heroes of Germanic lore seemed revelatory.

After giving a lecture on "Permanent Human Values" at Sarah Lawrence in 1940 in which Campbell equated the democracies and their totalitarian adversaries and advocated that the United States stay out of WWII, he was repudiated by Thomas Mann. Ultimately Campbell came to see that Fascism, like the dreaded Communism, was no friend of the individual, but not after he had established himself as a rather obstinate pacifist during World War II. Ellswood writes:

It would be unjust to say Campbell was then or ever pronazi or profascist; he several times expresses his distaste for the crudeness, brutality, and anti-Semitism of Germany's present masters. But against all that, he put his freely admitted love for Germany as a country and a culture, and also the passion of hatreds closer to home...Unfortunately, it was perhaps his yearning for transcendent, mythical purity of thought, together with a lack of such actual experience as Mann had had, that kept him from willingness to admit an degree of proportionality in the polticial eveils of the world, or any absolute moral obligation to oppose as well as transcend the worst of them. (141)

Throughout the '50's and 60's, Campbell found himself fervently anti-political, so much so that he ran afoul of his more left-oriented colleagues (he was in favor of the Vietnam War and continued to be staunchly anti-communist). He even supported Richard Nixon. In the 80's, his Republicanism began to waver because of the Republican party's attachment to Christian fundamentalism, to its anti-choice position, and to its stand on the environment (150).

In other words, Campbell's political views were complex and seemingly contradictory as most complex thought tends to be.

One of the reasons I'm bringing all this up right now is not to denigrate Joe Campbell. His work influenced me as it has influenced many people and frankly, I wouldn't have begun a study of mythology if it weren't for him. But he was a complex man and his ideas can't simply be reduced to a pop-phrase or a simplistic accusation. Nor, can he be elevated to heroic status.

Tomorrow I'm going to take a brief look at Campbell's true adversion - it wasn't to Jews, but rather to Yahweh and the Yahwehist religions that elevated a tribal god to a universal deity.

[brekin]

I'm tending to agree with WR about the data dump thing now. We're starting to get the same content previously posted, reposted from different sources and large chunks quoted with only a few sentences billboard size. For me there has been enough evidence for those who want to consider it (or not) so I probably won't post more, unless the smoking gun of Campbell in SS regalia surfaces.

I'd be game for some type of "the dark power of myth" thread looking at myth making and reactionary politics or some such thing but don't feel like taking the lead right now. I have to email George Lucas and break the news to him about his old friend.

[compared2what?]

_________________
***ON EDIT: I guess that I should add that although that's my understanding of the state of the historical evidence, one of the reasons I'm inclined to think it is that it's also basically treated that way in religious teachings.

I mean, obviously, in a religious setting, no one is going to open with: "Remember the suffering of your forefathers, which never occurred and is an utterly invented pastiche of other stuff!" They do it more circuitously than that. But I would have said it was pretty plainly acknowledged that they weren't actual, real events. And that that was more the rule than otherwise, except at the extremes.

(And/or when they were. Which some of them were. I just mean those particular events.)

On reflection, I don't know what I could possibly have been thinking with that "more the rule than otherwise."

I'd like to amend it to:

Doubtless, this is something that numerous rabbis have argued about for 6200 pages at a time since approximately the first or second century AD. So if you ever decide to ask someone who knows, bring a snack. You're going to be there a while.

It's not a big religion for yes/no answers.

[justdrew]

the problem with casting the world as 7 billion individual Hero Journeys...

What happens when Hero's collide?

[compared2what?]

I'm tending to agree with WR about the data dump thing now. We're starting to get the same content previously posted, reposted from different sources and large chunks quoted with only a few sentences billboard size. For me there has been enough evidence for those who want to consider it (or not) so I probably won't post more, unless the smoking gun of Campbell in SS regalia surfaces.

I'd be game for some type of "the dark power of myth" thread looking at myth making and reactionary politics or some such thing but don't feel like taking the lead right now.

Thank you for your posts and research, brekin. I agree that it's interesting in that context. Very. In ways that go beyond reactionary politics, actually. This whole thread is kind of an object lesson in the strengths and weaknesses of narrative as a practical application, in a way. That's kind of unfair, though. Because everything always is. And it's always practically impossible to talk about. Because what story-forms, models and references are you supposed to use to show what you mean b good/bad, etc.? Tends to get bogged down.

Anyway. Thanks. Much appreciated.

Yours truly,

A grateful reader.

[compared2what?]

the problem with casting the world as 7 billion individual Hero Journeys...

What happens when Hero's collide?

Well said.

[justdrew]

but poorly spelled

heroes I meant.

(but it does look better with the 's )