It was wrong for me to judge the Dead. The band that is. Their artistry. Especially when all I know comes from the PBS documentary from long back. I’ve always thought of their concerts more as myth-rituals, like the BMF and Rainbow mentioned. And just like a religious ceremony, there’s something you just have to feel to appreciate. That’s my impression anyway, naïve though it may be.
Mark Twain quoted fellow humorist Edgar Wilson Nye when he said, “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”
Campbell was a man of his times and his reaction to the counter-culture was more the rule than the exception for his generation. Time allowed a more balanced perspective, and many, I think including Campbell, realized the impulse that gave rise to the 60's revolution was quite valid, even if aspects of it were naive to juvenile.
In POM, Campbell told Moyers in no uncertain terms that John Lennon, the poster child for counter-culture heresy and its excesses, was a Hero. Campbell's "attitude, as I so often realize, is not unlike my own. "
- Clemsy
Oh goodness gracious me. I thought we weren’t going to get into this? But I’m the same as you. I can’t resist because your vision is always so diametrically opposed to mine. Time should by now allow a more balanced understanding of Campbell, and Lennon. Campbell said Lennon was a hero for his artistry and exposing Westerners to some Eastern ideas. I don’t believe he cared much for his peace activism.
Moyers: We seem to worship celebrities today, not heroes.
Campbell: Yes, and that’s too bad. A questionnaire was one sent around one of the high schools in Brooklyn which asked, “What would you like to be” Two thirds of the students responded, “A celebrity.” They had no notion of having to give of themselves in order to achieve something.
Moyers: Just to be known.
Campbell: Just to be known, to have fame – name and fame. It’s too bad.
Moyers: What did you think of the outpouring over John Lennon’s death? Was he a hero?
Campbell: Oh, he definitely was a hero.
Moyers: Explain that in a mythological sense.
Campbell: In the mythological sense, he was an innovator. The Beatles brought forth an art from for which there was a readiness. Somehow, they were in perfect tune with their time. Had they turned up thirty years before, their music would have fizzled out. The public hero is sensitive to the needs of his time. The Beatles brought a new spiritual depth into popular music which started the fad, let’s call it, for meditation and Oriental music. Oriental music had been over here for years, as a curiosity, but now, after the Beatles, our young people seem to know what it’s about. We are hearing more and more of it, and it’s being used in terms of its original intention as a support for meditations. That’s what the Beatles started.
POM, p163 (small book)
I’m glad Moyers didn’t ask directly about John’s peace activism because I suspect Campbell would have had to scoot around it like a politician. You can’t say anything bad about a guy who the public loves that much on a national broadcast. Lennon was undoubtedly a fine artist, loved by millions, and he was tragically murdered for no reason. The artist is a hero, of course. But my friend - I don’t consider a two week bed-in an act of heroism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed-In
One thing that we young boomers could never get a grip on is how irrelevant most of us were. Nixon didn’t go from 500,000 troops in 68 to zero troops in 73 as the result of a bunch of long haired hippies doing drugs, listening to rock concerts, and chanting slogans. We were annoying. Just – annoying. And that’s about it.
How did Campbell feel about hippyism generally?
P145 Actually I guess the big crisis in my popular career came in the 1960s when people were taking LSD and my book The Hero with a Thousand Faces became a kind of mythological road map for the hippies.
- The Heroes Journey (1980s I believe)
When I look for heroism with respect to that disastrous war, I like John Kerry’s story. He served as an officer from 66 to 70, but after serving joined a 20,000 member organization of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And it was effective.
But a person certainly doesn’t have to be a soldier to be a hero or champion of peace. Mahatma Gandhi was involved in a horrific and divisive civil war in India. He drew journalists into his bed chamber on one occasion just like our hero John Lennon. But in this case, Gandhi was fasting unto death if necessary in an attempt to stop the violence, to pay reparations to the newly formed country of Pakistan, and to force a peace treaty. And it was effective.
There’s a touching story about the one hundredth anniversary of Gandhi’s birth. The year was 1969. A member of the Gandhi Peace Foundation was in Iran. He was to give a speech in Gandhi’s honor. But he was taken aside beforehand and instructed not to say anything that might offend the Shah of Iran. So, the time comes, the speaker stands before the audience, nods to the Shah, and says in slow deliberate voice,
“There is little need to say much about the life of Mohandas Gandhi. He is known throughout the world. I would just like to call to attention his possessions at the time of his death: two cotton dhotis - one shawl - a pocket watch – a dinner bowl and plate - a walking stick - a pen - a pin cushion - a pair of sandals - the Bhagavad Gita - and a pair of glasses.”
And then he sat down.
You never know if these stories about famous people are true. And given that it is said to have occurred in 1969 gives me pause. There were a lot of hippie myths going around back then. But I still love this little story true or not.
Gandhi’s possessions have been in the news recently. An American peace activist, James Otis, who was an admirer of Gandhi, collected many of these items over the years. On March 5th, 2009, he intended to auction them off against a strong protest from the Indian government and threats of criminal charges. After a little wrangling the Indian government elected to purchase the items from the New York auction with donated money. They paid $1.8 million. Now, Otis is suing to keep the items.
Back to our hero. In the late sixties John Lennon co-wrote a song that became an establishment hating icon:
Piggies
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
- John Lennon and Paul McCartney
[Edited 3/24/09] Actually, George Harrison wrote the song Piggies. He wrote 25 of the Beatles songs including such classics as Here Comes the Sun, Something, and one of my favorites Within You and Without You, haunting and spiritual.
When Lennon was gunned down tragically and senselessly in 1980, his net worth was estimated at 40 million dollars. Last time we talked about Lennon in this forum I said 400 million. That was my mind inflating. But he did have a great deal of money as one would expect of an artist as successful as he. Sure, he was a hero. But to think that he had anything going for him in terms of ideology or role model is just part of the whole delusion of which I speak.
[Edited 3/24/09] Another Beatle mistake I made in this post has to do with John Lennon’s net worth when he died in 1980. I recall, way back then, the newscasters saying his net worth was estimated at about 400 million dollars. When I did a quick Web search I found answers closer to 30 million. I figured I must have remembered wrong. It was long ago. But now I believe 400 million is closer to the truth, the 30 million figure a result of peoples mind deflating. Four hundred million dollars in 1980 dollars would be about 1.2 billion 2009 dollars. This from a man whose 1971 signature song Imagine, reads as follows:
Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
- from Imagine, by John Lennon, 1971
In a 1980 interview, just before his tragic death, John Lennon and his second wife Yoko Ono are asked about the incongruence between their perceived philosophy and their current wealth:
LENNON: Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway. [Ono rejoins the conversation.]
PLAYBOY: On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and----
LENNON: We never admitted anything.
PLAYBOY: The Post said you had.
LENNON: What the Post says -- OK, so we are rich; so what?
PLAYBOY: The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?
LENNON: In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell -- if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers.
PLAYBOY: Whatever your politics, you've played the capitalist game very well, parlaying your Beatles royalties into real estate, livestock----
ONO: There is no denying that we are still living in the capitalist world. I think that in order to survive and to change the world, you have to take care of yourself first. You have to survive yourself. I used to say to myself, I am the only socialist living here. [Laughs] I don't have a penny. It is all John's, so I'm clean. But I was using his money and I had to face that hypocrisy. I used to think that money was obscene, that the artists didn't have to think about money. But to change society, there are two ways to go: through violence or the power of money within the system. A lot of people in the Sixties went underground and were involved in bombings and other violence. But that is not the way, definitely not for me. So to change the system -- even if you are going to become a mayor or something -- you need money.
PLAYBOY: To what extent do you play the game without getting caught up in it -- money for the sake of money, in other words?
ONO: There is a limit. It would probably be parallel to our level of security. Do you know what I mean? I mean the emotional-security level as well.
PLAYBOY: Has it reached that level yet?
ONO: No, not yet. I don't know. It might have.
PLAYBOY: You mean with $150,000,000? Is that an accurate estimate?
ONO: I don't know what we have. It becomes so complex that you need to have ten accountants working for two years to find out what you have. But let's say that we feel more comfortable now.
http://www.john-lennon.com/playboyinter ... okoono.htm
Yoko Ono’s response is telling for several reasons. For one, she actually uses the word ‘hypocrisy’ which to me is the cornerstone of hippyism. But also, she explains that the world, which needs to be changed, can be changed by violence, or money, and believes money is the better way – but first one has to survive. She has survived well with her deceased husband’s several hundred million dollars, and has managed to give a little to charity - from what I can find on the Web, very little.
John Lennon and the Beatles meant a lot to me. I remember being moved to tears upon hearing of Lennon’s death way back in 1980. Artists, such as Richard Wagner, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack, Miles Davis, and John Lennon were great artists and heroes to be sure. They were complex, unruly personalities as is often the case with highly creative people. But I would hope that people appreciate them for what they were, as spectacular artists, as complex personalities, and as troubled souls - and not for their philosophy or way of life.
Joseph Campbell too, is a hero to me. He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t a saint as some like to make him out to be. But he seems like an extraordinarily decent man with a philosophy of life that I can admire – and would encourage people to emulate. He possessed a solid core of values and lived a life that was an expression of those values.
And all I am asking…
is to give truth a chance.
[End of 3/24/2009 Edit]
Now I know you’re going to tell me it’s unfair to compare Lennon to Gandhi and you’re right, you’re right, and you’re absolutely right. But I’m just trying to put this Boomer sense of heroism into perspective. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell, and Hillary Clinton are contemporary heroes to many people. So was John Lennon and Jerry Garcia. And that’s fine. But it’d be nice to have someone like a Gandhi once in a while.
Something fell apart in the late sixties. What I’m talking about far exceeds the matter of the war in Vietnam. It has little to do with it really. This interview with Michael Toms was recorded, I believe, about 1984:
Campbell: For instance, in the colleges the liberal arts are – sinking, and everyone’s going in for the professional specialization which does not tell you how to be a human being. Does not give you the rich information that comes from reading the classics; Plato, Goethe, Shakespeare, oh, what do we want with that? What’s the relevance? You know the term – and uh – all of this came in in the sixties – as far as my experience goes.
MT: Well at the same time there was a re-emergence of the liberal arts in the sixties – but it kind of went by the boards in the last few years.
Campbell: Well – I – umm - don’t know what to say about the sixties. It was very politically oriented. There were two things that were going on there. One was blowing up the buildings on the campus. The other was blowing up your own psyche with LSD. And there was a failure to experience the richness of things as they are and also the privilege of living in this society – knowing what it has given you – you know – in contrast to others. If you’d travelled around a little bit you’d know what we’ve got. And this is something that could be lost. And they seem not to have realized that.
I was terribly disgusted with the sixties. I was glad to get out. I never thought I’d be happy to retire from teaching but I didn’t like what was going on.
- Myth as Metaphor, Lost Teachings, with Michael Toms
He didn’t warm up to or come to realize the value of hippie liberalism. He was just dealing with it as we have all had to deal with it. We all try to be accommodating. Sure, we could argue about how bad it was or wasn’t partaking in the culture war if we wanted to. But it isn’t my intention to play the role of conservative fundie just for the sake of argument. I seek the truth. And the truth, as I seez it, is a value melt-down beginning in the late 60s and early 70s and continuing to this day on both sides of the culture war, with each side all too eager to point the finger of blame.
This is one of many books published over the years advocating higher education reform:
I have been a Harvard professor for more than thirty years, having started in 1974. Over the decades I have heard many academic discussions about teaching, about the curriculum, about grading, about athletics, and about responding to the student misdeeds. I have almost never heard discussions among professors about making students better people. Professors are warned to look for signs of emotional distress in students and to steer them to mental health services. But what most students need more than psychiatric referrals is help shaping the lives that they themselves, and not their parents, will lead. Presidents, deans, and professors rarely tell students simple truths, for example that the strategizing and diligence that got them into the college of their choice may not, if followed thoughtlessly, lead to an adult life they will find worth living.
- Harry R. Lewis, (Former Dean of Harvard College), Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education, 2006
Compare this to my quote Joseph Campbell made in 1984. “…all of this came in in the sixties – as far as my experience goes”, he says.
I believe the loss of soul that began in the sixties continues to this day. And for me, this is a little bit more important then whether the man, Joseph Campbell, in his seventies, got into acid rock.
* * * * * * *
JonsJourney,
When I began to look into this period of the late 60s and early 70s I was surprised to find out how many New Age gurus came out of the psychology departments. Timothy Leary was a Harvard psychologist. Richard Alpert, (Ram Dass), who wrote a hippie bible ‘
Be Here Now’, earned his doctorate in psychology at Stanford. Helen Schucman, author of ‘
A course in Miracles’ was associate professor of psychology at Columbia. Marilyn Ferguson, who wrote ‘
The Aquarian Conspiracy’ which some have called the New Age bible, began that effort with a book titled ‘
The Brain Revolution’ and a news letter called ‘
The brain/mind bulletin.’
I was too young, at the time to understand this crossing over from science/psychology to myth/spirituality. As usual, Campbell was right on top of it, seeing the danger of a complete abandonment of those archaic myths, which is why I responded the way I did to your metaphor of burning down a forest in order for it to grow.
* * * * * * *
I want to take the chance here to thank you all for providing a forum with such quality people and ideas. Nowhere else could I trace these thoughts. The university may have lost its soul, but make no mistake, it’s alive and well at the JCF.
- NoMan