Thus Answered Joseph Campbell

A Superman to Defeat the Imperial Waste Land

Dec 03, 2022

Leon Bridges golden vocals grace The Avalanches soulful Interstellar Love

In 1883, in his seminal Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Neitzche famously rationalized that “God is Dead” and his ideas eventually convinced much of Humankind. Neitzche’s drama grapples with the idea that science and rational observation killed our religions and he lamented what we might become without a moral master looking over our shoulder. What will keep us in line as a species?

Neitzche concluded that an authentic Übermensch (aka Superman) would define for us a new morality, now that we’ve mostly accepted that Galileo killed Jesus, as Cain killed Abel ages ago, philosophically speaking.

Today, we are at another crossroads, a turning of ages, and competing visions for our future are being decided by humans globally as a species.

How will we carry forward?

We are on an obviously unsustainable path today. Global conflicts, especially over freedom and authority as well as our energy choices (surrounding climate change) are coming to a head and need resolution. Authoritarians Putin of Russia and MBS of Saudi Arabia, in particular, play the Game of Thrones and attempt dividing the world along an axis that would run down the center of the dominant society, the USA — separate sides of a war of ideas, psychology and ideology.

They’ve attempted to build a coalition surrounding positions on fossil energy, traditional sexual/family values and old-school Judea-Christian-Muslim religious values with their brutal authoritarian power structures. Protect the Golden Goose — those vast reservoirs of oil and gas threatened by a great energy transition. But it is a massive con. (Pssst: they are not looking out for the interests of very many people at all, especially in the USA. Probably better to not be on their team if we’re drawing lines in the sand.)

Will autocrats and oligarchs be free to do as they please to the world and its citizens? Or will citizens fundamental human rights be upheld by liberal governments? Due to relentless technological development, our world shrinks while simultaneously individuals become much more powerful — these questions will necessarily need to be resolved in the immediate future.

Autocrats Putin and MBS enthusiastically high-fiving at the November 2018 G20 summit following the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Tragically, a few generations ago Hitler and other evil men ran with Neitzche’s Übermensch idea to define it for their benefit: cynicism, nihilism and the Aryan nation would become the new Gods of the dominant society, the German Nazis. This would ignite massive and horrific conflict, World War 2, leaving much of the world in ruin.

Thanks a-holes.

Left: Russian Christo-fascist Alexander Dugin’s 2022 book, which essentially justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a reaction to global liberal supremacy. Right: Michael Flynn’s nearly identically titled Christo-fascist road tour declaring spiritual war on coastal liberal ideals

Shortly after WW2, with the world tired of fighting, great American thinker Joseph Campbell offered a new vision, perhaps a re-framing of the idea that ‘God is dead’ to the new dominant culture and security force: the USA. Campbell, building on the work of Carl Jung and his archetype-based psychoanalysis of dreams, applied a similar framework to the realm of Humankind’s myth and religion. He ultimately concluded, having studied as many of the world’s myths and religions as possible over decades, truly awe-inspiring, convincing ideas. These would form a philosophical basis for PostModernism, and underscore the validity of multiple spiritual viewpoints and perspectives. The rationalizations that flow from his works have fundamentally changed my perspective on spirituality. It has jolted me onto a continuing spiritual journey thats proven powerfully meaningful and useful.

Most mind-blowing, in his seminal, 1949 The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell demonstrates how Humankind’s mythology follows similar structural framework, the mono-myth. Campbell dissects its common themes and elements with remarkable clarity, and dubs it The Hero’s Journey. Campbell argues it delivers fundamental human truths in its similarities among world mythology, but each culture’s version has its own cultural ‘face’ or ‘mask’ that speak to each specific culture and its levels of development, resources and circumstances. Myths resonate because they appeal to parts of our minds we do not fully grasp or command, the subconscious, as dreams do.

Thank you to Thea Cooke for creating this excellent depiction of The Hero’s Journey, you can visit her website here

For mythology to evolve, much like the memes of the internet, a sort of Darwinian evolution of ideas must occur, a survival of the most compelling. Ideas that speak to our nature and serve to make sense of the world continue to carry forward. But those less fit, less compelling notions eventually are forgotten and die off.

Before literacy, this process required generations of verbal story telling for compelling ideas across large groups to form and evolve into complex, wholistic mythologies. Campbell highlighted 70 years ago that artists, authors and storytellers made then-modern mythology, which includes less high-brow forms like folks tales and conspiracy theory that might help to explain mysteries and conflicts for our culture.

Today in our internet age, there is now a new, potent dynamic with the internet and networked communication, with huge impacts on individual psychology and culture. This includes, of course, artificial intelligence embedded in search engines and social media subject to distortion for decent or nefarious purposes and screens to access the powerful information hub 24/7.

This has meaningfully changed our consciousness as individuals and as local, national and global societies. The way humans experience the universe, relate to it and one another is fundamentally different now than just a few years ago. And the changes in consciousness seem to be accelerating. As such, these recent advances have allowed a momentous, tempting leap forward and we are only just beginning to understand the implications, let alone synthesize across disciplines the philosophical ones. The opportunities are so enormous they are difficult to envision. But so are the threats.

Just how quickly and recklessly are we merging with our machines?

The internet has amazing power to drive cultural change at previously unimaginable speed, through the power of memes, viral ideas, which often deliver mythology. Meanwhile, here in the West, public research is beginning to document links between individual psychology and political choice as well as mentally ill psychology being linked to authoritarianism and abusive behaviors surrounding societal and cultural conflicts. The opportunity for abuse of these dynamics is enormous. Mythology can be purposefully meme’d to drive change to individuals worldview towards truly dark and anti-social places. Psychosis can be coaxed, helping create authoritarian preferences and ultimately violence aka terrorism. At scale, mass psychosis may bring totalitarianism and atrocity. Because our free and open Western power structures have leadership chosen by democratic elections, we are exposed to grave danger from manipulation and sabotage by malevolent actors in this new information environment.

Our consciousness is merging with our machines and this has changed communication drastically. We are failing to consider the scale of the consequences and scope of the threats. They are vast and we are acting recklessly. We do not yet know proper culture, etiquette, law and morality to healthily function in this domain. Yet we continue charging forward, leaving ourselves vulnerable.

Meanwhile, malevolent actors are a step ahead, exploiting the opening. There is widespread acknowledgment that post-Soviet Russian leadership and their agents (like Prigozhin’s troll farm) have used internet technology to propagandize, to subvert Western governments and interfere with political campaigns: information warfare. Less universally recognized, some of these malevolent tactics and strategies amount to psychological and spiritual warfare.

I observed firsthand on 4chan (a seedy, pseudo-anonymous internet message board that acts as a meme factory), in 2015 into 2016 the already-toxic culture degrade to startling new lows. In the lead-up to the fateful 2016 elections, just as 4chan seemed to peak in popularity and tip into the mainstream, there was a new influence. Fascist imagery and propaganda were suddenly everywhere. What had been an annoying troll joke in that free speech cesspit became the obsession and the mainstream focus with critical mass behind it. And meanwhile, powerpoint slides detailing theories of meme warfare were fed to the alt-right monster being stoked there. I remember watching this go down in real time, disturbed. As did others. A few years later, the same 4chan meme factory had also become a factory for alt-right terrorist violence throughout the free world, helping inspire mass murder sprees in Buffalo, El Paso, London, Toronto, Christchurch, NZ and several others.

Malevolent actors have apparently discovered how to seed meme engines like 4chan to evolve potent, toxic but psychologically appealing viral mythologies (often conspiracy theories) appealing to darker impulses to explain unresolved conflict. These alter cultural consciousness, stymie conflict resolution, driving factions increasingly apart, one small psychological step at a time. Several extremist alt-right cults have been fomented among others. The absurd mythology of Kek as well as Pepe’s Meme Magic (see below) are more juvenile joke than spiritual belief. However absurd, the messaging still cleverly communicates the power of meme propaganda in a manner that encourages further production. Critically, it erodes the notion of objective truth and sanctity of truthful communication — our democracy meanwhile depends on proliferation of truthful information among citizens to make informed choices.

The combined effect is a powerful networked influence from a digital-spiritual army of nihilism degrading the unifying mythos of American democracy — potent psychological and spiritual warfare.

Google Image Hits for Pepe Meme Magic

Google Image Hits for “Religion of Kek”

Back to a much needed alternative vision — Campbell’s centers on a rational basis for self-induced morality based on the values we’ve always known: the loving kindness and rational balance baked into our religions. Even though most religious dogma has been killed by scientific observation, the fundamental lessons religion teaches have been conversely bolstered by Campbell’s rationalizations. The convergence of so many cultures on the same basic human truths, psychological principles and wonder at creation and its eternity — these deliver compelling reason to believe the combined wisdom of so many unconnected people’s perspectives over oceans of time cannot possibly be wrong, at least not metaphorically. It seems rather hubristic to believe one could know better than a common denominator of Humankind’s collective wisdom to date.

So whatever old religious dogma disproven by rational observations is not proof God is Dead, just an old understanding of the same God. Rigid religious dogma is what has been killed. RIP.

A new, less rigid, perhaps less personal, more metaphorical conception of God is in order, one that need not be supernatural (see video below.)

Ultimately, Campbell’s conclusions carry forward to a rational basis for his spiritual ethos: “Follow Your Bliss”. Aka…“Quiet Your Mind, Listen To Your True Feelings, Use the Force.” Once one quiets inner voices of fear and temptation, our better angels guide us to where we fit most harmoniously. Where we have passion is exactly where we are willing to work hard and be happy doing it. When we are useful, motivated and productive, we are most vital, satisfied and balanced, able to provide for our families and help strangers in need. Satisfaction internally leads to more satisfying, healthier relationships, stabilizing society.

Of course not everyone can have their dream job today or tomorrow. Even so, avoiding common cultural and mental traps by listening to your true inner voice, rather than basing on others expectations, one is better positioned to ‘follow our bliss’ professionally too. Todd Rose’s important work researches collective illusions and how they lead us to perhaps ‘ignore our bliss,’ something he recognizes as truly corrosive for free society. Rose finds so many examples in his research within American professional and societal expectations, how we make choices based on factors that we think others value, which they often don’t, cheating ourselves and everyone else into shared drudgery. Such underscores the virtue of the spiritual imperative to Know Thyself.

Campbell also recognizes the most basic fundamental truth underlying the great religions is Golden Rule aka Golden Balance. This recognition of fundamental duality is encapsulated in Jesus’s “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” Buddha’s middle path, Hindu’s dharma, and the yin and yang of Taoism, the fundamental basis for most of the world’s great religions. Distilling Humankind’s great religions down to their essence, Campbell provides a compelling and logical basis for global unity born from both rationality and essential love.

Golden Rule/Balance In Major World Religions (thanks to a user named Di from Wikipedia)

As such, Campbell’s civic-spiritual ethos might be more clearly defined:

Follow Your Bliss to Golden Balance

Follow Campbell’s choose-your-own spiritual adventure to vitality and self regulation. Because the more vital individuals to stabilize society the better, against ‘The Waste Land’ of nihilism that the likes of Hitler, Putin and Trump tempt towards. Of course, Campbell’s is not the only means to fend off nihilistic attitudes and fascism, but it is a potent one.

This conjures the modern version of Humankind’s eternal psychological battle of good vs evil depicted in Star Wars mythology. The Star Wars story depicts outer space literally, but symbolizes inner space: the subconscious psychological battle within all of us. Star Wars creator George Lucas is a devout acolyte of Campbell, and has called him “my Yoda.” Thank goodness, Lucas is one of the good guys. Perhaps an Obi Wan, Lucas purposefully created this most-famous modern mythology in part to help push us to use our powers of the Force for the cooperative, empathetic, self-regulating good guys.

Hitler and Putin, Sith lords, subconsciously or consciously, cynically do to the opposite with their propaganda and conspiracy theory. They manipulate myth to serve only their own interests, and Putin more cynically even than Hitler. Hitler's Superman at least included the Aryan nation - the German people and related - it at least had some basis in family and genetic closeness. I guess that’s one way of saying racism, but at least it is inclusive of an entire race.

Putin’s however is one that just uses racism as a con when convenient. His Übermensch are the post-Soviet kleptocrats who via force, intimidation, machinations and cynical lies exact population control, often manipulating extremist cults they’ve stoked. Putin sneakily and expertly pits forces of society against one another so Russia might not claim the power and freedom (and peace) that is rightfully theirs. They attempt to export this neofascist power structure to us through the silos of the internet, with paid trolls and plants, as well as their corrupted and co-opted American chaos agents (looking at you Trump, Flynn, Musk, Kanye, MyPillowGuy.com, Roger Stone, the alt-right, many of the rioters at the Capitol and among the inner city race riots, Bugaloo Boys etc etc etc.)

Back to Master Yoda, er, Joseph Campbell who guides us to both logically rationalize and to viscerally believe we have a little of God inside each of us, that divine spark. Listening to it requires quieting the security-seeking (fear) and impulse-satisfying (temptation) ego to reveal our own most vital, most self-satisfying, most society-stabilizing, middle path in life. Doing so, we self-regulate and can co-exist in free society and balance prosperity and justice in our own actions. Balancing cooperation and competition to resolve personal conflicts healthily, raise healthy families, have healthy relationships, all balanced in reciprocal arrangement.

It is this way we might find healthy compromise with ourselves and one another in a way that works so much better for more people than society stabilized by oppressive authorities. (I mean just look how dreary everything is under the Disney’s Starwars New Order™)

And so, philosophically, Campbell has rationalized a logical basis for an evolved and unified global society where a critical mass moderate their will to power, entrusting a portion of it to their neighbors and countrymen as a civic-spiritual imperative - liberality and democracy as fundamental values. This might make Campbell, by the way, the Spiritual hero of a new and kinder, freer Age of Rational Spiritualism (of Aquarius?)

Perhaps Campbell’s ideas, then, are not a radical reappraisal of Neitzche after all, at least in some perspectives. Rather, Campbell answers Neitzche, however, far too humble to declare himself the heroic rational prophet of a new era - Ubermench or Superman.

The creator of America’s most recent Superman movies, Zach Synder, was apparently not-so-reluctant, subconsciously or not, but I would guess consciously. He cryptically embedded a Joseph Campbell quote in Superman’s suit and apparently sent out a press release. Nice work, Zach.

“Where we had thought to stand alone, we will be with all the world"

And this quote is so poignant for this isolating information age we live, both closer together and farther apart than ever - is it not?

I hope to the little bit of God inside each of us that its Campbell’s vision of the model citizen — that balanced, decent, calm, compassionate, effective, authentic hero — from which our society chooses to form its moral basis rather than the alternatives. The new post Soviet Ubermensch, the most ruthless gangster conman most able to direct a cult-of-personality, would be a disastrous worldview for our global leadership. The metaverse is coming and if an Emperor in this mold dominates, the miseries will be extreme for the rest of us.

Eventually, our global society will need to choose between free and authoritarian political systems as our worlds continue to shrink. The winners will write the history books in the new age, and atrocities might be relegated to old mythology - Putin and MBS with Jesus and Allah’s 2nd coming wiping out the Satanic infidels (maybe mythologized trans-witch-monsters of some sort?) Like Cane axed Abel back when we still weren’t tethered to machines at all times.

Due to some of our more pressing global conflicts, eventually, it will be a binary choice with enormous downstream effects that will play out over a long time. I hope our global family adopts Campbell’s ideal as Superman rather than cynical a-holes like Hitler or Putin, and their dark acolytes, Darth Trump and Count DeSantis (and sadly now Musk of the trade federation seems infected too).

Instead of hopelessness, we can leverage our strengths. We can be the Lukes, Leias, Obi Wans, Chewbaccas, R2D2s and Yodas. Where ever we can fit in, we can use our skillsets to strengthen our communities and relationships, our civil society. Fundamentally our bottom-up, cooperative liberal system is better. It is more peaceful, more prosperous, healthier and stronger so long as we have faith in it. To bolster our democracy, we must work on reversing the trend of avoiding talking politics in person with friends, family and neighbors with different ideas, and instead work on persuading again. We can limit our exposure to toxic forces on-line. We can shine light towards truth, away from misinformation. We’ll need to work on societal rules, culture and wielding of our power (peacefully) - defensively and offensively - to defeat these Imperial threats of this information age.

We will win, but not without massive effort.