From: the.wise.one@abel.co.uk   
      
   BILL MOYERS:  ...We hear people say, "Get in touch with yourself."  What   
   do you take that to mean?   
      
   JOSEPH CAMPBELL:  It's quite possible to be so influenced by the ideals   
   and commands of your neighborhood that you don't know what you really   
   want and could be.  I think that anyone brought up in an extremely   
   strict, authoritative social situation is unlikely ever to come to the   
   knowledge of himself.   
      
   MOYERS:  Because you're told what to do.   
      
   CAMPBELL:  You're told exactly what to do, every bit of the time.   
   You're in the army now.  So this is what we do here.  As a child in   
   school, you're always doing what you're told to do, and so you count the   
   days to your holidays, since that's when you're going to be yourself.   
      
   MOYERS:  What does mythology tell us about how to get in touch with that   
   other self, that real self?   
      
   CAMPBELL:  The first instruction would be to follow the hints of the   
   myth itself and of your guru, your teacher, who should know.  It's like   
   an athlete going to a coach.  The coach tells him how to bring his own   
   energies into play.  A good coach doesn't tell a runner exactly how to   
   hold his arms or anything like that.  He watches him run, then helps him   
   to correct his own natural mode.  A good teacher is there to watch the   
   young person and recognize what the possibilities are -- then to give   
   advice, not commands.  The command would be, "This is the way I do it,   
   so you must do it this way, too."  Some artists teach their students   
   that way.  But the teacher in any case has to talk it out, to give some   
   general clues.  If you don't have someone to do that for you, you've got   
   to work it all out from scratch -- like reinventing the wheel.   
      
   A good way to learn is to find a book that seems to be dealing with the   
   problems that you're now dealing with.  That will certainly give you   
   some clues.  In my own life I took my instruction from reading Thomas   
   Mann and James Joyce, both of whom had applied basic mythological themes   
   to the interpretation of the problems, questions, realizations, and   
   concerns of young men growing up in the modern world.  You can discover   
   your own guiding-myth motifs through the works of a good novelist who   
   himself understands these things.   
      
   MOYERS:  That's what intrigues me.  If we are fortunate, if the gods and   
   muses are smiling, about every generation someone comes along to inspire   
   the imagination for the journey each of us takes.  In your day it was   
   Joyce and Mann.  In our day it often seems to be movies.  Do movies   
   create hero myths?  Do you think, for example, that a movie like 'Star   
   Wars' fills some of that need for a model of the hero?   
      
   CAMPBELL:  I've heard youngsters use some of George Lucas' terms -- "the   
   Force" and "the dark side."  So it must be hitting somewhere.  It's a   
   good sound teaching, I would say.   
      
   MOYERS:  I think that explains in part the success of 'Star Wars'.  It   
   wasn't just the production value that made that such an exciting film to   
   watch, it was that it came along at a time when people needed to see in   
   recognizable images the clash of good and evil.  They needed to be   
   reminded of idealism, to see a romance based upon selflessness rather   
   than selfishness.   
      
   CAMPBELL:  The fact that the evil power is nor identified with any   
   specific nation on this earth means you've got an abstract power, which   
   represents a principle, not a specific historical situation.  The story   
   has to do with an operation of principles, not of this nation against   
   that.  The monster masks that are put on people in 'Star Wars' represent   
   the real monster force in the modern world.  When the mask of Darth   
   Vader is removed, you see an unformed man, one who has not developed as   
   a human individual.  What you see is a strange and pitiful sort of   
   undifferentiated face.   
      
   MOYERS: What's the significance of that?   
      
   CAMPBELL:  Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity.  He's a   
   robot.  He's a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but in terms   
   of an imposed system.  This is the threat to our lives that we all face   
   today.  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?  How do you relate to the system so that   
   you are not compulsively serving it?  It doesn't help to try to change   
   it to accord with your system of thought.  The momentum of history   
   behind it is too great for anything really significant to evolve from   
   that kind of action.  The thing to do is learn to live in your period of   
   history as a human being.  That's something else, and it can be done.   
      
   MOYERS:  By doing what?   
      
   CAMPBELL:  By holding to your own ideals for yourself and, like Luke   
   Skywalker, rejecting the system's impersonal claims upon you.   
      
   MOYERS:  When I took our two sons to see 'Star Wars', they did the same   
   thing the audience did at that moment when the voice of Ben Kenobi says   
   to Skywalker in the climactic moment of the last fight, "Turn off your   
   computer, turn off your machine and do it yourself, follow your   
   feelings, trust your feelings."  And when he did, he achieved success,   
   and the audience broke out into applause.   
      
   CAMPBELL:  Well, you see, that movie communicates.  It is in a language   
   that talks to young people, and that's what counts.  It asks, Are you   
   going to be a person of heart and humanity -- because that's where the   
   life is, from the heart -- or are you going to do whatever seems to be   
   required of you by what might be called "intentional power"?  When Ben   
   Kenobi says, "May the Force be with you," he's speaking of the power and   
   energy of life, not of programmed political intentions.   
      
   MOYERS:  I was intrigued by the definition of the Force.  Ben Kenobi   
   says, "The Force is an energy field created by all living things.  It   
   surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together."  And I've   
   read in 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' similar descriptions of the   
   world navel, of the sacred place, of the power that is at the moment of   
   creation.   
      
   CAMPBELL:  Yes, of course, the Force moves from within.  But the force   
   of the Empire is based on an intention to overcome and master.  'Star   
   Wars' is not a simple morality play, it has to do with the powers of   
   life as they are either fulfilled or broken and suppressed through the   
   action of man.   
      
   MOYERS:  The first time I saw 'Star Wars', I thought, "This is a very   
   old story in a very new costume."  The story of the young man called to   
   adventure, the hero going out facing the trials and ordeals, and coming   
   back after his victory with a boon for the community --   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)