Lecture I.1.3 - Symbolism and the Individual

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Mark O.
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Lecture I.1.3 - Symbolism and the Individual

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Lecture I.1.3 - Symbolism and the Individual

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Post by Martin_Weyers »

And now we come to the agony of the Western psyche, with these two systems of ideals: one preaching the beauty and majesty of the religious submission before God; the other, the heroism of the humane or humanistic insistence on the values of man—these are in collision, and distinctly so in the Christian tradition, I would say, more than in any others.

The figure of Christ himself on the cross is precisely a Promethean figure; he’s precisely a Job figure, and he has got, for man from God, Redemption. The Christian thesis is that man sinned, disobeyed, was rejected from the Garden, and is by Christ’s death and suffering, Promethean deed, returned to God’s grace.

And just as Prometheus sees for man the fire of civilization, Christ sees the fire of Redemption and is crucified for it by God.

Quoted from: Lecture I.1.3 - Symbolism and the Individual
Campbell points here to a fundamental conflict in our own tradition: The appreciation of the individual person on one hand, and the worship of a (sometimes seemingly merciless) god on the other hand.

Some people solve that problem by becoming fundamentalists either of science or religion. I assume, for most readers this is no option. How can we reconcile those two values: The ideal of esteeming every single human being on one hand, and the notion of being at the mercy of a merciless god (or mysterious universe) on the other hand? Many people seek salvation in Eastern traditions. However, it’s important to find our own way, without giving up our own tradition and identity, because …
[…] every single individual is imperfect. And […] it is precisely in his imperfections that he is charming, that he is wonderful, that he is of value. All of the Buddhas on the other hand, are alike. When you see in a temple in India, and in particularly the Jain temples where the Illuminated Ones are shown in a row, they are all exactly identical. They are perfect human beings, they are absolutely cold—they aren’t human at all.

Quoted from: Lecture I.1.3 - Symbolism and the Individual
Is it an option to become “imperfect Buddhas”?
Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

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Post by David_Kudler »

Martin_Weyers wrote: Is it an option to become “imperfect Buddhas”?
Boddhisattvas?

;)
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Post by CarmelaBear »

....a thing without a fault is not lovable. What you love is precisely the fault of the person. And if you can name the fault in such a way that you indicate it is a fault, and that is precisely that individual, that is the quality of that individual, that is what is lovable in that individual—if you can do that, you become not a mere literary man, but a creative poet.
Doesn't that redefine the problem? It presents imperfection as a kind of ideal.
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Post by Martin_Weyers »

CarmelaBear wrote:
....a thing without a fault is not lovable. What you love is precisely the fault of the person. And if you can name the fault in such a way that you indicate it is a fault, and that is precisely that individual, that is the quality of that individual, that is what is lovable in that individual&#8212;if you can do that, you become not a mere literary man, but a creative poet.
Doesn't that redefine the problem? It presents imperfection as a kind of ideal.
Carmela,

I'm sure we can agree, that imperfection is not always and automatically a good thing.

There are some sorts of imperfection that makes us want to hug the person ... and some sorts of imperfection that makes us want to slap them!

The reason why David thought of Boddhisattvas is, obviously, that their imperfections somehow use to touch us, in a positive way. While the imperfections of tricksters, fools and frauds sometimes rather make us go ballistic ...

Now, who has the permission to touch us, and who is considered as a trickster, a fool, a fraud?

The question how to decide, if a specific imperfection is attractive or appalling is pretty subjective. Thomas Mann's erotic irony is based on a pretty subjective judgement of failures and imperfection as something loveable. As Jung pointed out (and the most accessible way to comprehend Jung's ideas on these problems is the very first episode of Campbell's MYTHOS series!), it's a matter of projection -- a matter of maya, illusion, abberation! So we Westeners are the one who are aberrant in a graceful way?
Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

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Post by CarmelaBear »

Martin_Weyers wrote:[Carmela,

I'm sure we can agree, that imperfection is not always and automatically a good thing.

...The reason why David thought of Boddhisattvas is, obviously, that their imperfections somehow use to touch us, in a positive way. While the imperfections of tricksters, fools and frauds sometimes rather make us go ballistic ...

Now, who has the permission to touch us, and who is considered as a trickster, a fool, a fraud?

The question how to decide, if a specific imperfection is attractive or appalling is pretty subjective. .......So we Westeners are the one who are aberrant in a graceful way?
I regard myself as a genuine expert on how it feels to be slapped. Now, this gives me a special kind of expertise that lends itself to pontification upon the general and all-encompassing, spiritually transcendent topic of subjectivity, foolishness, and falling on your knees crying with disappointment, humiliation, and the desire to set oneself on fire in the town square, Tuesday, between 2:00 and 4:00.

As such, this is what I have to say about that:

I love all the people who have slapped me, and, in the next life, I hope God kicks them to Kingdom Come.
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Post by David_Kudler »

Martin_Weyers wrote:The reason why David thought of Boddhisattvas is, obviously, that their imperfections somehow use to touch us, in a positive way. While the imperfections of tricksters, fools and frauds sometimes rather make us go ballistic ...

Well, I think I was being a bit of a trickster myself, not to say the other two titles, to which I certainly could lay claim! ;)

What I was trying to say (aside from being a smartaleck) was that perfection implies completion and therefore stasis. The boddhisattvas are all enlightened ones who chose NOT to pass out of this vale of tears in order to teach and aid those less fortunate and more bound by karma than themselves. They are, if I may make a rather self-serving comparison, like open circles. Like that one up there. :points to the top left-hand corner of the page:
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Post by Neoplato »

Changing topics a bit (Can I start a new thread?) I found this section most confusing.
TRACK 10: Nietzsche’s Superman
So I did the wiki thing and explored a few other websites. It appears that Hitler was a disciple of Nietzsche. This is a revelation for me. I have never heard of this before. Has anyone else came across this in the past?
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Post by David_Kudler »

Neoplato wrote:Changing topics a bit (Can I start a new thread?) I found this section most confusing.
TRACK 10: Nietzsche’s Superman

So I did the wiki thing and explored a few other websites. It appears that Hitler was a disciple of Nietzsche. This is a revelation for me. I have never heard of this before. Has anyone else came across this in the past?
Yup. It was a willful misreading of Nietzsche and Darwin that led to the ugly Nazi 'myth' of the Master Race. Nietzsche and Darwin, of course, were not responsible for the abuse of their theories, being long dead.
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Post by Martin_Weyers »

Neoplato,

you can either start a new thread in another forum, or continue discussing Nietzsches Übermensch here, if we keep in mind the context of this lecture. (If a separate conversation should evolve, we may still consider to split this thread.)

Nietzsche had indeed some crude ideas how to improve society. However, he rejected nationalism as well as anti-Semitism, and the distorted picture of Nietzsche as a precursor of Hitler is based, in large parts, on a willfull misundertanding, as David points out.

After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth, who served as his literary executor for almost four decades, tried to appeal to Hitler and his many followers by generating a misleading view of her brother. While the book that she published posthumously, The Will to Power, was partly drawn from his notes and abstracts in a questionable way, and is considered as inauthentic.
Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

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Post by Neoplato »

Thanks Martin and David,

So then it would be better to say that Hitler put a "spin" on the concepts in order to gain power? This doesn't surprise me, since it seems that "spinning religion", historically, has been an affective controlling mechanism.
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Post by jonsjourney »

Yup. It was a willful misreading of Nietzsche and Darwin that led to the ugly Nazi 'myth' of the Master Race. Nietzsche and Darwin, of course, were not responsible for the abuse of their theories, being long dead. -DK
Hitler also used some of Carl Jung's writings to support his notion of biological superiority. Hitler was good at taking what he wanted and throwing out what he did not agree with.

As I read this lecture, it brought into focus something I am working on as part of a Thesis I am doing at school. My research is centering on Mindfulness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness). When I began thinking about approaching Mindfulness as it applies to therapeutic qualities in psychotherapy it was due in large part to having read Joseph Campbell. There has been much research supporting the effectiveness of the technique, but it has its critics, as well. I wondered why, because it seems, intuitively, to make so much sense.

What I have come to find is the potential shortcomings of Mindfulness as a therapeutic technique stem from the divide between Eastern and Western cultural belief systems. The collectivist versus the individualistic philosophies. Joe was touching on this in this lecture, in fact it was the whole point in a sense. Carl Jung also drew a line of distinction in this regard. He believed that reaching toward a foreign system of beliefs was ineffective because we were unable to relate to the system socially. Jung was a great fan of Mandalas and found the Eastern symbolism profound, but felt it was not effective in treating psychological disorders in Westerners.

Similarly, Maureen E. Smith who is a teacher and writer of Native American Philosophy has stated her concern in a similar way. She wrote about her concern that New Age religion practitioners have appropriated Native American sacred ceremonial rites without any respect for the tribes who's traditions have been seized. What is worse, she says, is that nobody ever asks if it is ok, they just take, which is a profoundly insulting transgression in Native American social etiquette. She, in many ways, shares Jung's view that Westerners are so desperate to find a meaningful system of belief that they will try anything and that the attempt to seize a collectivist cultures' belief system will result in a spiritual failure for that individual.

Have we not seen this often? A person who wants to use the collectivist system, but only in so much as it serves their own desired beliefs. Is this simply a justification system? How many Westerners would be truly willing to cast off their worldly possessions and contemplate their belly?

But the other side of the coin is this...has this not always been the way of belief systems? Are not the old systems modified in order to satisfy the modern psyche? The Id remains essentially the same, with its primitive drives, but the Ego, and even more importantly, the Superego evolve as reflections of the reconciliation of the self within the greater world.

This is why I continue to pursue Mindfulness as a potential benefit for the healing of the Western mind. Perhaps we are coming to see that we can not go it alone and there is a greater need to focus on the moment.

This moment.

This moment may be all we have.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

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Post by Martin_Weyers »

Neoplato wrote: So then it would be better to say that Hitler put a "spin" on the concepts in order to gain power?
I'd say that Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche also put a spin on her brother's concepts, to gain power.

jonsjourney wrote: This moment may be all we have.
... And this moment may be all that exists, so if we have it, we have it all! :wink:

Thanks for your mindful post, Jonsjourney! It may be difficult sometimes, in these difficult times, to learn without taking away from the one we learn from; and at the same time it may be difficult sometimes to share knowledge with everyone, because it means making yourself vulnerable.

So learning to share in times of global exchange can be painful, but maybe we have to get through it to create something new. To keep their wisdom for themselves, does that mean, for native tribes, viability or decline? There's certainly no definite answer.

Today, esoteric traditions from all over the world can be purchased through your book store at the next corner, and that means everybody who buys a couple of paperbacks bears responsibility. Not everybody's aware of this. That's the price we pay for making knowledge available to everyone, instead of asking fo a reader's license.
Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

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Post by jonsjourney »

So learning to share in times of global exchange can be painful, but maybe we have to get through it to create something new. To keep their wisdom for themselves, does that mean, for native tribes, viability or decline? There's certainly no definite answer. -M_W
Exactly. It is my view that Jung and Smith are perhaps looking at it the wrong way. I agree that there exists a large gulf between individualistic and collectivist viewpoints, but there is much to be learned from each view. I certainly sympathize with Smith more, systematic destruction of your entire civilization tends to make one a bit more defensive about whatever is left of it. Still, if an 'outsider' has a genuine interest in understanding your techniques for finding deeper meaning, it is viable to encourage this rather than indirectly aiding in the further decline of your ways toward enlightenment. As for Jung, he was a product of the Victorian age and held many outdated ideas about social potentials for individuals (I still like him and feel he is often wrongly panned by modern Psych as being a crackpot).

I wonder what Joe would have said about using Eastern meditative techniques to alleviate Western psychological suffering.
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Post by Clemsy »

Jumping in for a moment...

John, I'm sure your aware that meditative practices have been thoroughly Westernized, not in terms of spirituality but of mental and physical health for which there's oodles of documentation. The seminal work probably being The Relaxation Response back in the 70's.

As I mentioned in another thread, I took a mindfullness training course a year or so ago. The program is filled with light yoga positions, meditation and one really cool day of total silence. The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society was founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD. (Howard's son-in-law I believe) through UMass Medical School.

My insurance paid the cost!

What works, east or west, works. Holistic thinking doesn't have to be considered 'eastern' per se, just because western thinking tends to be deconstructive, no?

I think Campbell would have been quite pleased, (probably was?) with this development.
Last edited by Clemsy on Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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