Was Joseph Campbell based?
If you've taken some courses in religion and culture, then you've probably had to write a paper or two on the famous mythologist Joseph Campbell and his notorious book The Hero with a Thousand Faces as well as his well-known interview with Bill Moyers called The Power of Myth. This was a guy whose ideas helped inspire Star Wars. His tremendous impact on writing in fantasy adventure novels and video game story plots is also well known. Despite whatever honest criticisms you may have about his theories regarding mythology, you have to admit that he's a man of significance.
Well, I never quite suspected this until I started looking deeper into it, but it seems there was a visceral controversy among academics and writers about his "antisemitic" and "crypto-fascist" views back in the late 80's. Campbell apparently had a lot of issues with Jews, was fairly right-wing and anti-communist (the only reason he disliked the conservatives of his time was because of the Protestant Christian fundamentalism), and he also loathed hippies. The fact that he disliked hippies is quite ironic because many liberal and left-wing hippies venerated Joseph Campbell as a great expounder on the topic of Eastern mysticism and Hindu/Buddhist mythology. His oft-repeated slogan "follow your bliss" is prolific in counter-culture. It could be that Campbell saw hippies for what they were: phonies and drugged-up trash who didn't know the first thing about authentic Indo-European religion (and if you've read his larger books, you'll notice that he never really shies away from employing the term "Aryan" to describe Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Persians, Hindus, etc). He was writing in this way even after WWII. His love for German language and culture is also palpable. I recall that he wanted America to stay neutral in the war with Hitler.
Most interesting is the fact that Campbell apparently served on the editorial board for the Mankind Quarterly (which is often accused of being a "white supremacist" journal).
This is a very interesting thing. Campbell was an extremely charismatic and respected mainstream academic who was loved and revered even as a professor at a women's college like Sarah Lawrence; he was seen as a sage of the late 20th century. Both left-wingers and right-wingers have expressed great admiration for his work and the man himself. And yet we was still able to maintain his position while holding such edgy reactionary views. Maybe more people on our side could learn something from him.
I would encourage all Holla Forumsacks to consider reading Campbell's works. He writes beautifully about European culture and mythology. And plus, he's one of the few writers I've encountered who can adequately articulate the Indo-European understanding of masculinity and femininity.
The following articles are ridiculously biased and full of virtue signalling and all kinds of damage control, but they also contain some really insightful and revealing info about his pro-European attitudes and anti-Judaic tendencies (Campbell is one of those semi-fashy individuals that people can't just stop liking just because of his politically incorrect tendencies):
- Article details some of Joseph Campbell's opinions that hint at his feelings about Jews and his assertion that the West has become rot with decadence: nytimes.com
- Jewish colleague at Sarah Lawrence College describes how Joseph Campbell sp00ked him with hints of reactionary opinions: nytimes.com
- Various authors and academics respond to Campbell's alleged antisemitism: nybooks.com
