Re: Love in the Afternoon

[ermadog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Macdonald Stainsby wrote:

> > Joseph Campbell has suggested that these early burials give evidence of
> > the first appearance of the idea of sacrifice, {..}
>
> A friend of mine, not very politically oriented, swears by Joseph Campbell as
> the guru of understanding humanities' common origins. I have not read through
> Campbell yet.

Joseph Campbell does not, in my opinion, do much to advance the cause of
human understanding. He does, however, have an encylopedic knowledge of
humanity's store of mythologic treasure. I use him as a resource, but
utterly reject most of his interpretations of his material. In fact, he
does much to fuel the fascination with New Agey obfuscation that grips
popular culture today.

In fact, I haven't seen any place where he develops the idea of sacrifice
as I have interpreted it in my post. I have drawn on my own previous
understanding that generalized human feelings - particularly, morallity -
always serve the status quo. I believe somebody famous said something like
that in the _Communist Manifesto_.

Carroll Cox should be able to understand this, since he posted on this
matter last spring. It was an excerpt from a book on Marxist ethics, which
I saved.

Joan Cameron


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