IS JOSEPH CAMPBELL AN ANTI-SEMITE?

[slimmouse]

Im left wondering if the problems with his abhorration of monotheistic tihnking would have barely registered a murmur had he been an islamophoble.

I think thats an angle worthy of discussion, if we daire.

[brekin]

slad wrote:

"For the record, Campbell did not belong to any organization that condoned racial or social bias, nor do we know of any other way in which he endorsed such viewpoints. During his lifetime, there was no record of such accusations of public bigotry"

Hello, it is on record that Campbell belonged to The Mankind Quarterly which it looks like did condone racial and social bias.
It seems people don't want to address the actual facts of his alleged antisemitism.

1. Early enthusiasm for the nazi regime
2. Thomas Mann letter and Campbell's reply.
(You can read it here online if you search Joseph Campbell. To say it is strange is an understatement. Campbell's reply seems to be an apology and justification and then it seems he is talking about meeting the president at the whitehouse, lindbergh, the "civil war in America" etc http://books.google.com/books?id=qMqhQ6 ... nn&f=false

3. Saying the US should stay out of the war with Nazi Germany and Japan (even after pearl harbor and Campbell was no pacifist)
4. Saying that the moon would be good place for the Jews after the moon landing
5. During a seminar dismissing the Holocaust as someone elses problem because of his predator prey framework
6. On the board of The Mankind Quarterly
7. Dismissing Kafka as someone who become the bones of those on the heroes journey they step over.

These in themselves aren't completely conclusive but good lord they would be enough to be the final say with numerous other people.
There are other theoretical parallels with Campbells elevation of myth that has parallels with the Nazi regime but that is something I don't think we can even explore because of the lack of civility and objectivity that would require. The parallels could be completely unintentional but important. Sad, we can't even go down that road.

And seemslikeadream I'll give you a free one that you may have missed:

Look at the hydrangeas who associated with Campbell! after all those years with him....man did he fool them
AD brekin get on it on.....tell the flowers who knew him all these years....man what a fool they were!
so I guess the flowers are anti-semites too?
AD brekin take a look up the old lady's skirt...I'm sure you'll find what you are looking for there
FIND IT AD CRUCIFY THE DEAD MAN..... CRUCIFY THE DEAD MAN!!!.....IT IS YOUR JOB 1
INFORM US ALL WHAT THE EVIL CAMPBELL HAS DONE AS AN ANTI-SEMETIC....TELL US ALL THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY CAMPBELL HAS COMMITTED
JUST LIKE GILL DO IT AFTER HE'S DEAD AND GONE
WATCH THE VIDEOS TELL US WHERE THERE WAS ANYTHING ANTI-SEMETIC IN THOSE 6 HOURS
WHAT A BUNCH OF FUCKIN COWARDS
this was NEVER brought up when the man was alive and could speak for himself....when he would have had the chance to defend himself.......Campbell's body wasn't even cold when Gill wrote that shit
can't take the word of long time friends that KNEW HIM...FLOWERS THAT WERE HIS FRIENDS!!!! unlike yourself
WHERE HAVE ALL THE ANTISEMITIC FLOWERS GONE? HUH? YOU FOOLS!! FOOLS i TELL YOU!![

[seemslikeadream]

go for it brekin


I love finding out just who you are

another poor person who's been deceived.....get on it AD, brekin so much to hunt down so little time

Lunch Time with Joseph Campbell
This is a page that I have longed to do.

Joseph Campbell was a friend of mine. I came to know him when I was a waiter at McBells, an Irish pub on Sixth Avenue at Washington Place in Greenwich Village, NYC. He came in all the time for lunch. Any one that knew McBells knew it as a small place filled with it’s own crowd. Many of the famous, near famous, and some of the greatest writers came there to eat and be left alone. But they also loved the owner Francis Campbell. He was a one of a kind.

I got to know many great people who came there. Some became my friends and others became teachers to me. Joseph Campbell was a friend and a teacher.

In the three and half years that I worked there, I waited on him every week. He loved the bacon cheese burgers and french fries. He loved to watch all that was happening in the place and all the talk from table to table. I have always been the kind of person that if I had something to say or a question, why not ask. One may never get the chance to ask it again.

To say that there never was another Jewish person that worked there, I cannot be sure. I’m pretty sure I was it. So I really was a Bagel in a place full of Shepard’s Pies. Somehow I brought something to the place that was different and many people enjoyed me.

Our friendship began slowly and it grew to a place where he was giving me books to read. We would then talk about them when he came in to eat. During that time, Bill Moyers was doing the series on PBS, “The Power of Myth”. I would watch it each week and go in with questions to Joseph about what the show was about. It was a wonderful time in my life. Nothing is greater to me then hearing people who know something, talk about life, teaching others what they have learned, asking others to open their minds and look at the world in a new light. Joseph was that kind of teacher to me.

We had been talking for about two years about every subject. If I brought the question, he would help me find the answer. The best part was when he would tell me that I needed to read a certain book. During lunch times, he saw that I held my own. I could often be teased for I was somehow different and stood out from others; just being myself, meaning I was, and still am, a very organic person. What you see is what there is. One day, while he was eating, we were talking in between my waiting on the other tables. He said he was thinking about me and wanted me to read a certain book, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Since I did not know what the book was about, I asked him. He told me it was about a man and his experience in the concentration camps. I got very uptight and he asked me what was wrong. I told him the truth; that since my earliest memory as a child I’ve had horrific visions. I did not speak until around the age of three. The things that I would see in front of my eyes, from my first stages of awareness, are still hard to talk about for they took so much out of me; such darkness. I would not share these visions to anyone in fear that, even at a very young age, they would take me away from my mother and father because I irrationally thought that they would think I was crazy. But the visions would never stop. As people walked up to me, I might see visions of them being killed in all horrible ways. I didn’t know where this was coming from. Was I seeing their death or was it a memory from another life? While just in my own thoughts in everyday life, these visions could come up spontaneously at any time. At an early age, when I was dreaming these thoughts at night time and woke up, I was so afraid that I would go to my younger brother and crawl into bed while he was sleeping and hold onto his arm or his leg to feel safe.

In the early fifties there was no way I could have ever seen such things as a small boy in the media like you do now. I began to think these thoughts were one of two things: in a past life, I was either the victim or I was the one that did the crimes. It has taken me a lifetime and I still do not know.

After sharing all of this with Joseph, he asked me if I was a practicing Jew. I told him my family was like many American Jews. They really only went to a Synagogue on the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) and have a Passover Seder. But they didn’t practice daily or weekly, keep kosher or observe the Sabbath. He said to me “you must promise you will read this book and we shall talk about it”. I said I would and I did. I did not sleep for many nights. It opened up all the visions more than normal.

We had many talks about the book and what I thought it was saying. He shared with me many thoughts. One afternoon when he came in I was having a bad day. There were some customers that would come in all the time and they enjoyed getting me going; teasing me, “just having a little fun” they would say. Joseph saw that I was a bit uptight. He called me over to him and asked me what was wrong and I shared my feelings.

He grabbed my arm and held it very hard. I have never liked to be touched but I tried to relax. He waited until he had my complete attention. Paraphrasing, he said, “Bruce I want you to listen to me now. Do you know why I asked you to read Man’s Search For Meaning? During the Holocaust, in the camps, there were two types of souls that went there and only one type came out. I saw in you that if you had lived in that time, Bruce, you would have been the soul that would be the survivor. There is something in your being that is yours and no one can take that away from you”.

That moment changed my whole life and put me on the path that I have stayed on all these years. And finally I am a man that has found my Jewish roots and my place in the world. Joseph Campbell helped me get back to being a practicing Jew. It has taken me a lifetime. And I now understand why he told me such a powerful thing. I can still feel his hand on my arm and the warm smile when he said those words and what he was saying to me. We all have a choice as to how to walk through this thing called life- with our minds open or closed. It is our choice; to keep growing from our times or stay safe. None of us have easy lives. Each one of us must find our own way. My life is no different than anyone else’s. I have always had a need to stay present but most of all, I have been blessed with great guides and teachers. Our minds want to keep expanding. It wants to keep growing. It’s not what one has ever lost in life, it’s what one still has left and to try to find that ray of light.

Bruce Baumwoll

From Wikipedia about the book “Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl:

Man’s Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describing his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. According to Frankl, the book intends to answer the question “How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?” Part One constitutes Frankl’s analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part Two introduces his ideas of meaning and his theory of logotherapy. It is the second-most widely read Holocaust book in the bookstore of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

.

[Jerky]

If the paltry evidence so far should be enough to banish Campbell's writings to the dustbin of history, then what should we do with the work of the following individuals?

Walt Disney
Wernher von Braun
H.P. Lovecraft
J.K Rowling
J.R.R Tolkien
C.S. Lewis
Charles Dickens
William Shakespeare
Roald Dahl
Thomas Edison
Henry Ford
Charles Darwin
H. G. Wells
Carl Jung
President John F. Kennedy
President Harry S. Truman
President Jimmy Carter
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Rand Paul
Washington Irving
Lord Byron
Richard Wagner
Jacob and Wilhelm Gimm
Henry Adams
Voltaire
Tacitus
Philostratus
Cicero
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry James
Rudyard Kipling
D. H. Lawrence
Eugene O'Neill
Henry Miller
Theodore Dreiser
Ernest Hemmingway
Thomas Carlyle
George Elliot
Truman Capote
F Scott Fitzgerald
Percy Shelly
Franz Liszt
Somerset Maugham
Erza Pound
George Bernard Shaw
Robert Louis Stevenson
George Sand
Johannes Brahms
William Faulkner
George Orwell
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
H. L. Mencken
Edgar Degas
Denis Diderot
T.S. Eliot
Pierre Renoir
Mark Twain
Winston Churchill
Nietzsche
Ben Franklin
Martin Luther
J.S. Bach
Mahatma and Arun Gandhi

They have all been accused of Anti-Semitism at some point, either during their lifetimes, or from the vantage point of hindsight.

So... what should we do?

YOPJ

[seemslikeadream]

don't forget me Jerky and apparently Campbell wife...she stood by him all those anti-semitic years

[Wombaticus Rex]

If the paltry evidence so far should be enough to banish Campbell's writings to the dustbin of history,

I don't think it diminishes the value or power of his work one bit to acknowledge the fact there is ample evidence that he harbored some racist beliefs.

[Bruce Dazzling]

slad wrote:

"For the record, Campbell did not belong to any organization that condoned racial or social bias, nor do we know of any other way in which he endorsed such viewpoints. During his lifetime, there was no record of such accusations of public bigotry"

Hello, it is on record that Campbell belonged to The Mankind Quarterly which it looks like did condone racial and social bias.
It seems people don't want to address the actual facts of his alleged antisemitism.

1. Early enthusiasm for the nazi regime
2. Thomas Mann letter and Campbell's reply.
(You can read it here online if you search Joseph Campbell. To say it is strange is an understatement. Campbell's reply seems to be an apology and justification and then it seems he is talking about meeting the president at the whitehouse, lindbergh, the "civil war in America" etc http://books.google.com/books?id=qMqhQ6 ... nn&f=false

3. Saying the US should stay out of the war with Nazi Germany and Japan (even after pearl harbor and Campbell was no pacifist)
4. Saying that the moon would be good place for the Jews after the moon landing
5. During a seminar dismissing the Holocaust as someone elses problem because of his predator prey framework

Brekin,

Can you cite actual Campbell quotes backing up your above assertions regarding his beliefs?

Apologies if they've already been posted, as I've arrived to this thread late in the game, but I'm always skeptical when I see characterizations of someone's beliefs as opposed to their actual words.

[compared2what?]

Im left wondering if the problems with his abhorration of monotheistic tihnking would have barely registered a murmur had he been an islamophoble.

I think thats an angle worthy of discussion, if we daire

I'd object. And (more to the point) there's a reasonably well-organized faction of people and groups who would as well. So I think it would be considerably more than a murmur, in the United States, at least.

But not in all precincts. And it's just not as profoundly culturally or emotionally contentious here, for the vast majority of people. Because it's not as close to home. So it wouldn't be as big a deal, realistically speaking.

I mean, to me, there's no difference and that's, like, a first principle. (Meaning: IIf I'm aware of it and it's bigotry/prejudice/hatred, it's the exact same concept every time. The only question is how best to address it. But that's not to say I'm any less error-prone or selfish or self-deluding than anyone is, obviously. I'm talking about beliefs/ideals/best efforts/etc.)

Anyway. For some other people, likewise. But most divvy up their resources on a less conceptual basis. And there's not necessarily anything wrong with doing that. So it's never literally exactly the same issue in practice, from one group to another.
_________

Took your dare.

[seemslikeadream]

If the paltry evidence so far should be enough to banish Campbell's writings to the dustbin of history,

I don't think it diminishes the value or power of his work one bit to acknowledge the fact there is ample evidence that he harbored some racist beliefs.

Why would a Jewish woman stay with a man who was such a hater for 40 years?...until his death

[Jerky]

Fair enough, although I think we might find that the vast majority of intellectuals in the early 20th century harbored similar, if not far worse, beliefs. I also believe that the intensity and prevalence of such beliefs probably only increased the farther down the social ladder you'd climb to explore. It's just the way things were back then.

YOPJ

If the paltry evidence so far should be enough to banish Campbell's writings to the dustbin of history,

I don't think it diminishes the value or power of his work one bit to acknowledge the fact there is ample evidence that he harbored some racist beliefs.

[seemslikeadream]

ya think a wife would know more than AD or brekin combined....no doubt

she knew him intimately for 40 YEARS

[compared2what?]

If the paltry evidence so far should be enough to banish Campbell's writings to the dustbin of history, then what should we do with the work of the following individuals?

Walt Disney
Wernher von Braun
H.P. Lovecraft
J.K Rowling
J.R.R Tolkien
C.S. Lewis
Charles Dickens
William Shakespeare
Roald Dahl
Thomas Edison
Henry Ford
Charles Darwin
H. G. Wells
Carl Jung
President John F. Kennedy
President Harry S. Truman
President Jimmy Carter
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Rand Paul
Washington Irving
Lord Byron
Richard Wagner
Jacob and Wilhelm Gimm
Henry Adams
Voltaire
Tacitus
Philostratus
Cicero
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry James
Rudyard Kipling
D. H. Lawrence
Eugene O'Neill
Henry Miller
Theodore Dreiser
Ernest Hemmingway
Thomas Carlyle
George Elliot
Truman Capote
F Scott Fitzgerald
Percy Shelly
Franz Liszt
Somerset Maugham
Erza Pound
George Bernard Shaw
Robert Louis Stevenson
George Sand
Johannes Brahms
William Faulkner
George Orwell
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
H. L. Mencken
Edgar Degas
Denis Diderot
T.S. Eliot
Pierre Renoir
Mark Twain
Winston Churchill
Nietzsche
Ben Franklin
Martin Luther
J.S. Bach
Mahatma and Arun Gandhi

They have all been accused of Anti-Semitism at some point, either during their lifetimes, or from the vantage point of hindsight.

So... what should we do?

YOPJ

Burn them. (j/k)

Not all of them were anti-semitic, though. And it's pretty ludicrous to say so, wrt a few of them. However, some were, which does or doesn't have a variety of implications for each, within very broad parameters.

Hey! Wait a minute....Oh, phew. For some reason, I didn't see Wagner, initially. Thought I was losing my mind.

In any event. Virtually every person on that list is presently held in nearly universal high esteem by everybody. And in the vast majority of cases, the accusations of anti-semitism are all but completely unknown to the world.

What does that have to do with Campbell?

(ON EDIT: Not exactly an advertisement for the global zionist conspiracy, IOW.)

[brekin]

Bruce Dazzling wrote:

Brekin,
Can you cite actual Campbell quotes backing up your above assertions regarding his beliefs?
Apologies if they've already been posted, as I've arrived to this thread late in the game, but I'm always skeptical when I see characterizations of someone's beliefs as opposed to their actual words.

Is this Burger King? Is it your way right away? How about you read the thread first before you make a request?
The whole thread is full of actual Campbell quotes backing up the assertions regarding his beliefs.

And Jerky who is saying we throw out Campbell's oeuvre?

[seemslikeadream]

BULLSHIT

[slimmouse]

Im left wondering if the problems with his abhorration of monotheistic tihnking would have barely registered a murmur had he been an islamophoble.

I think thats an angle worthy of discussion, if we daire

I'd object. And (more to the point) there's a reasonably well-organized faction of people and groups who would as well. So I think it would be considerably more than a murmur, in the United States, at least.

But not in all precincts. And it's just not as profoundly culturally or emotionally contentious here, for the vast majority of people. Because it's not as close to home. So it wouldn't be as big a deal, realistically speaking.

I mean, to me, there's no difference and that's, like, a first principle. (Meaning: IIf I'm aware of it and it's bigotry/prejudice/hatred, it's the exact same concept every time. The only question is how best to address it. But that's not to say I'm any less error-prone or selfish or self-deluding than anyone is, obviously. I'm talking about beliefs/ideals/best efforts/etc.)

Anyway. For some other people, likewise. But most divvy up their resources on a less conceptual basis. And there's not necessarily anything wrong with doing that. So it's never literally exactly the same issue in practice, from one group to another.
_________

Took your dare.

And I have duly taken your point. I nearly refrained myself from posting that thought on here, but Im glad I did now.