hero

While in Ojai with David Miller in 2006 (I was one of his students at Pacifica Graduate Institute, hold him in high regard, and recorded him regularly), someone asked me in his hearing why Joseph Campbell is still important. I mentioned that Campbell drove a shift in cultural expectations of Hero identity from ‘does best the things we like best’ to ‘goes into the rejected/dark to make essential changes possible.’ I then built a case for contemporary heroism involving a passage through the rejected/dark we are in now. Potentially, contemporary heroes are leading us toward the essential change in the myth that is living us, that change being about learning to live together well and the building of community on purpose by doing conflict well. Presenting about the latter ideas had been my reason for going to the event in the first place, other than being with Miller and Pat Berry and others. Miller smiled, and recommended that I talk to Huston Smith and Sam Keen, and then we returned to his extensive presentations on The Fool.