Joseph Cambell & Our Lack of Myth essays

Joseph Cambell & Our Lack of Myth essays Are we becoming grandmothers and grandfathers to a legacy of faceless nobodies who will one day populate this post-modern vacuum of human isolation? Do myths have the power to halt this cycle weve been sucked into? Are they a way of rekindling that fascination about life that the future is draining us of? Joseph Campbell would argue in the book The Power of Myth that yes, with a psychological interpretation of myths we can find meaning in our lives, or even more so, the experience of living. Myths are important to the betterment of society because, according to Campbell, they bolster the rituals that define it. Campbell says initiations and rituals are necessary to make one feel like part of a great social order. And what if that great order included everyone, if we were all a part of it? Then would we not all feel like a part of nothing? What good is it to be part of a club if everyone is in it? Campbell would argue that that is the lack of myth speaking. A unified world would be a "club" in the sense that it is a privilege to be a part of it. But with all of us in it as one, we are not all on the same level. Rites serve as a way of "promoting" us and defining our position in society. Without myth it is as though we are all wading aimlessly around in the same bowl of gumbo. When one goes through rituals and initiation rites, he first becomes a part of something bigger, and then also crosses a barrier of maturity. The latter is key. It is a natural desire to want to be accepted, and rituals serve as a segway to reaching that ultimate goal and achieving status. They mark the trans ition between two different roles in the community and lay emphasis on the value of their existence as it continues to progress. He states, ...kids have their own gangs and their own initiations and their own morality, and theyre doing the best they can. But theyre dangerous because their own laws are not those of the city. ...