One Livin' In O hi O

I fell into a pit of regretable pontification not too long ago with DW (dear wife) over something that has troubled me for some time as a father, husband, brother, son and perhaps more than anything....grandfather. You see, as a grandfather, I somehow feel like I should have figured it all out by now. Mysteriously, I feel the weight of my grandfatherly beard (read: symbol of wisdom) is metaphorically as light as it is literally.

As a modern American man-child I, like so many others, spent hours in the backseat of my father's family truckster blissfully reading. Trips to Utah back then took 2 days....no Vrigin River Gorge Highway...lots of winding roads as we climbed into Utah or to some other great American west attraction. That's right, we were trying to get the hell AWAY from Disney's Land. Truth be told, however, I might as well have been languishing in the "Magical Kingdom" for all the distance I was putting between myself and fantasy. You see, at every gas or fan belt repair stop there was sure to be one of those revolving chrome (everything was chrome back then...not just internet browsers) racks with inch thick packs of comic books wrapped in cellophane. Superman, Batman and Archie were my favorites in that order. Television was pretty new. My generation gained an appreciation for jazz, the blues and sarcasm from the likes of Soupy Sales, but our mythology and hence much of our American world view, at least mine, came from comic books.

When I got older I started to see that almost everything I read or watched was shot through with the same Bible (and by default Book of Mormon) based mythology. I used to think it was fun and that I was kind of clever to see it there, but now it seems so pervasive and obvious, it just sort of pisses me off. It's not because I necessarily have anything against the Bible (or other holy books) even though I feel sometimes that it is responsible for the incipient evil that it presumes only to report. It is more like a feeling of being trapped by it. Joseph Campbell suggested that the mythology could be either distributive of a common source (since the same motifs are found in disparate parts of the world in different cultures) or evolutionarily wired into the human psyche. Either way it seems inescapable....as though a god set it in motion and walked away or the need to survive by killing each other over scarce resources through eons of time has led to war even when our collective intelligence has evolved to a level where alternatives seem possible.

A few quotes from Joseph Campbell:

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

Love is a friendship set to music

The speech that President Obama gave when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is a good example of what I am trying to get at. The President defended America's role in protecting the world and it's own interests from evil to people who insist that there is a better way than the one he has chosen to perpetuate. They thought that he understood that (that's why they gave him the award) and most assuredly, he does. I imagine that they were mightily disappointed to hear him pander to the likes of Dick Cheney and his ilk who see America as that which must only be spoken of as the world's holy temple from which all truth emanates. They hold the very world view that has the potential to destroy what has made this place so great for people who have come to it from every other place. It is no longer possible, politically, for an American leader to present America as anything but a perfect-and-to-be-respected-always authority. Patriotism has become religion. It was always so for some but now the "religion" has become pervasive. As Joseph Campbell might ask "are we stuck in our own metaphores".

The two young Jewish men who created Superman used their Biblical Superman....Moses as an archetype. Sent from his people in a basket on a river (in a pod through space) to be discovered in the reeds (cornfield) by his new parents. Growing up and hiding his true identity and on and on. It always comes back to this. You cannot speak or behave outside of this cage of mythology without sounding very odd or disconnected. In our religion, there is a well established mechanism for dealing with those who stray from the script. They are "offended" or they "want to sin". I would like to go to church starting with this current cycle of the Old Testament, however, it does seem pointless to cycle through the "standard works" ....to suggest that we believe them to be separate texts (which of course they are). Unfortunately this time around the Old Testament will be used as the other three texts are used....to establish our metaphors as truth.

Joseph Campbell asks:

Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?

This is what. I want to find a way to keep from being flattened. A single woman once told me that 19 year old LDS missionaries are not troubled by thoughts and feelings for the opposite sex since they are "on their mission" My response to her (though I am not sure why I bothered) was that instead of embracing the miracle that 19 year old men eschew the most powerful force in their physical selves in order to obey and to do what they think that God expects of them (right or wrong), she was denying their humanity and was metaphorically the same as those who slam the door in their faces.

So, I admit I am worried as to what kind of world will prevail for my grandchildren. I worry about how their little brains will be wired by what they read and hear both sacred and secular. Their parents have some responsibility, but it is a monumental task for us who are learning as we go. The typical answer it to give it up to those that speak for God. But don't try to tell me they were reading the sacred texts in the back seat of their father's car.

As for me, I am inclined to listen to those who have been down into the abyss.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the two ordinary young men who created an extraordinary hero, lived twelve blocks apart from each other in Cleveland. The pair collaborated on stories for their high school newspaper and shared a passion for science fiction and pulp comics. It was the 1930s, and comic book publishing was in its infancy. Like many young Jews with artistic aspirations, Siegel and Shuster yearned to break into this fledgling industry. Comic book publishers actively hired Jews, who were largely excluded from more "legitimate" illustration work.
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Coming over from the old country, changing his name like that. Clark Kent, only a Jew would pick a name like that for himself.
-- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon