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Originally Posted by Og  Quote:
Originally Posted by PsiCop About Christianity-as-mythology: Christianity contains mythology, yes, but it is more than "just" a package of mythology. It has ritual components, moral and ethical directives, and much more. Of course, one can define the term "mythology" so broadly as to make almost everything "mythology" -- and as great as he was, Campbell (especially toward the end of his life) tended to do just that. This position can be, and often is, overstated. | Campbell said "Myth is 'other people's' religion"
He also described what he called the 4 functions of a functional mythology. These were "Cosmological, Mystical, Sociological, and Pedagogical." I'm sure you can easily get the details of these anywhere on the web. This would allow for myth to cover the things you added up there. Ritual components, for example, fit the pedagogical function. Moral and ethical directives fit the sociological function. etc...
If you're just going to define the term myth to include descriptions of supernatural entities and their properties, I think you're selling yourself short. We don't call the Odyssey a myth, but we call other stories of gods myths. We don't call Lord of the Rings a myth. There's fiction/fantasy, and then there is myth. Details about the supernatural dudes and their tools (i.e. orcs and rings etc) are just fiction unless they are incorporated into a society and give the people an idea about their place in the universe. This is a true myth.
I don't agree that campbell was casting his net too wide. |
Actually, I dispute whether or not Tolkien's literature constitutes a mythology. He certainly designed it to be sort of a substitute and/or supplemental mythology for his own British tradition. And I'd say that knowledge of his literature is fairly widespread, and that the themes underlying it ... such as the value of persistence, mercy, courage, etc. ... are well-known and widely admired. About the only thing about it which separates it from ancient mythology is that there is no ritual accompanying it, no means of "acting out" the tales that comprise it. (I suppose, however, that there might actually be some "Arda-ists" out there who are trying to construct a Tolkien-esque religion of sorts, I really have no idea.)
As for Campbell, he cast his net so wide, that he ended up spinning off whole new nets of his own. For instance, his position is that each mythology is buttressed by a much-larger, underlying collection of archetypes and themes; each specific mythology is merely a reflection of it. It's all very metaphysical, and very Jungian. I suppose if one accepts it, then one could thereafter discern some sort of uber-uber-mythology underlying Campbell's uber-mythology, and on and on and on. I have to wonder how useful any of it really is, except to inject psychoanalysis into anthropology.