Campbell, Joseph

From Philosopedia

Campbell, Joseph (1904—1987) Campbell, a mythologist, folklorist, and educator, wrote The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which inspired a “Star Wars’ series of motion pictures. He is also known for having written Myths to Live By. Although purportedly anti-Semitic, no definitive study proves this. Asked his view about humanism, Campbell responded to the present author:

I have never thought of myself as being a humanist, nor can I find in any of the seven categories you have defined a spot into which I fit or should like to fit–except, of course, the first [humanism, devotion to human interests; the study of the humanities], which is so broad as to include practically everybody in the world. My sympathies are rather with the Platonists and Stoics than with the line of thinkers suggested by your rota of “Ancient Humanism,” and although I admire some of the writers named in the category of “Classical Humanism,” I am not of their species; indeed, I think of Classical Humanism as a fossil in the field of contemporary thought–like, say, Judaism or Catholicism. From the movements described as theistic humanism, atheistic humanism, and communistic humanism, I should like to dissociate myself absolutely. The contradictio in adjecto involved in the term “theistic humanism” seems to me too silly for discussion; the negativism of atheistic humanism controverts both the idea of human decency that I share with the classical humanists and that sense of the supernatural wonder of being which is for me the richest gift and delight of human experience; while the association of a systematic liquidation of whole classes of humanity with the term “humanism,” which is implied in the fraudulent rubric “communistic humanism,”I find monstrous. Finally, the position of “naturalistic humanism” I long ago abandoned, consciously and without regret, after having been trained to it in the hallowed morgue of Columbia University. The term “humanism,” in short, remains associated in my mind with a tradition that has contributed to my education but denies my experience–a stilted tradition it seems to me, not open to the winds of mystery and rapture that are synonymous with the breath of life. For nature is to me supernatural in its mystery, and absolutely so. Moreover, I include in my view of nature both man and his civilizations: these I find justified and wonderful, not because they are potential of something, but in their actuality, right here and now. Hence I lack both the “nausea” of the Existentialists and that lean toward improvement which is characteristic of the naturalistic humanists. I do not believe, as Dr. Overstreet does [in a letter to the present author, one quoted herein], that “the goal of human development lies in the greatest possible fulfillment of human powers,” or that man lives “to bring to fruition the powers with which nature endowed him.” Some people live for such things and receive awards (as they should) for their services to the race; others live to enjoy with friends the rich wine of life in one or another of its manifestations, and I believe that I am of this sort–preferring the vintage of Lao-tze to that of Lin Yu-tang, James Joyce to that of Bertrand Russell, and Henry Thoreau to that of John Dewey and his thoughtful brood. The Occidental writers whom I regard as having most strongly influenced my development are Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Spengler, Leo Frobenius, Heinrich Zimmer, Carl G. Jung, Thomas Mann, and James Joyce. The Oriental list includes Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and D. T. Suzuki. But I should also mention–with emphasis–the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, whose Paris studio in the winter of 1927–1928 was the scene of my timely rescue from the rising rocket of naturalistic humanism and establishment in the beatific vision of les grandes lignes de la nature. I hope that these brief paragraphs may be of use . . . [and I am led] to believe that I may be a humanist after all, though of a sort not yet numbered in your list.

Campbell, in Myths to Live By (1972), wrote, “What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man’s imagination.” He also wrote, “. . . god is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.” Theists as well as non-theists find much to like in Campbell’s outlook. {TYD; WAS, 15 June 1956}