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F.Scott Fitzgerald

Say What?

July 27, 2023 by Peg Leave a Comment

Photo by Peg Redwine

Joseph Campbell says humans, homo sapiens, have created myths since there were humans, about 250,000 years. We create myths out of our hopes and fears but also our necessity to carry on the species. What Campbell notes is how similar human myths are regardless of who creates them or when. Campbell (1904-1987), who was reared a Catholic, was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College where he concentrated on comparative myths and religions. He is best known to most of us as the guru to movie producer George Lucas during the Star Wars saga where the audience easily accepted the myths of good and evil because they resonated with every culture.

In 1972 a few years before his work on Star Wars, Campbell wrote his book Myths to Live By that I have recently enjoyed but struggled with; it sounds benign but is not for casual diversion. However, the ordeal of the mental expedition is worth the exertion.

One can take hints from Campbell’s long-time employer, Sarah Lawrence College that is a small liberal arts institution whose motto is “Wisdom with understanding” and whose mascot is the mythical gryphon. Campbell, the recognized authority on mythology, and Sarah Lawrence formed a long-standing symbiotic relationship. Campbell’s central thesis is that myths are both universal and essential to civilization. He posits we should investigate and understand our culture’s myths and we fail to do so at our peril. Campbell cautions that when we falsely believe our myths are facts, we lose the benefits of the myths and can transform them into detriments.

Campbell examines the myths of numerous societies and concludes:

“Now the peoples of all the great civilizations everywhere have been prone to interpret their own symbolic figures literally, and so to regard themselves as favored in a special way, in direct contact with the Absolute.”

Campbell analyzes several of the world’s religions and states while they may be able to view other religions sympathetically, each thinks of their own as superior and often regard the gods of other religions as no gods at all but as devils and those who worship them as “godless”. On the other hand, for centuries adherents in Mecca, Rome and Jerusalem as well as Peking and India see themselves as “the chosen ones” directly connected with the Kingdom of Light or of God.

            Then Campbell puts things in modern, scientific and historical perspective:

“However, today such claims can no longer be taken seriously by anyone with even a kindergarten education.”

See p.10 of Myths to Live By.

Then Campbell does not dismiss myths or the religions based on them. Instead, he warns of the destabilizing forces in societies who do not understand their social orders are a product of their myths and that they lose contact with the morals engendered by their myths to the society’s detriment. As Campbell says:

“For since it has always been on myths that the moral orders of societies have been founded, the myths canonized as religion, and since the impact of science on myths results – apparently inevitably – in moral disequilibration, … (it is imperative that) we do not misrepresent and disqualify their necessity – …”

Well, Gentle Reader, I have already confessed the angst Campbell’s thoughts have caused me. The passing of Joseph Campbell reminds me of that marvelous description of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby:

“…[H]is mind would never again romp like the mind of God.”

Or, as Campbell might have said, “Any of the gods”.

As I struggle with Campbell’s encyclopedic knowledge of life and how myth is essential to it, I conclude as Campbell teaches, we need our myths and we need to recognize them as such.

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Filed Under: Authors, Gavel Gamut, Religion Tagged With: F.Scott Fitzgerald, Gentle Reader, George Lucas, James M. Redwine, Jerusalem, Jim Redwine, Joseph Campbell, Mecca, myths, Myths to Live By, religion, Rome, Sarah Lawrence College, Star Wars, The Great Gatsby, wisdom is understanding

Table Talk

August 1, 2019 by Peg Leave a Comment

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is generally regarded as a portrayal of the evils of America’s wealth-driven culture. I suggest it really was about Fitzgerald’s tumultuous marriage to his wife Zelda who constantly drove him crazy. When the book’s narrator, Nick Carraway, says about the wealthy Tom and Daisy Buchanan, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me”, I submit Fitzgerald really has Zelda in mind for Daisy. And he is not referencing Daisy’s money but her infuriating ability to easily manipulate Jay Gatsby and, ergo, Zelda’s penchant to drive Fitzgerald over the edge.

It is the institution of marriage, especially Fitzgerald’s complete inability to keep up with Zelda, that was the impetus for one of America’s great novels. Most married couples can relate to such a theme. For example, let’s you and I consider the dynamics between Peg and me as we negotiate our move from Posey County, Indiana to Osage County, Oklahoma. If there is anything more challenging than paddling a canoe for a couple it is moving.

I do want to be fair in relating both Peg’s and my viewpoints on the matter, but let me point out it was not Adam who first suggested taking a bite of that apple; original sin in-deed! Anyway, let’s start at the beginning when Peg first saw our cabin on the prairie.

“Oh, Jim, it is perfect.” That should have been my clue but then I am a man and female-speak will forever remain a foreign language. I did not comprehend that by perfect Peg meant everything from the yard to the interior absolutely required change. Let me suggest the fact that women generally outlive men by several years disproves Dr. Joseph Brady’s Executive Monkey Theory.

You may recall that in 1958 Brady published the results of his psychology experiment in which two monkeys would both be shocked if one of them did not “correctly” press a lever. One monkey had control, the Executive (or wife), and one monkey (or husband) had no control. The non-executive felt no pressure and lived a normal life. But the Executive died young. So, there, Dr. Brady; why do not us non-executive men live longer? But back to our move to the prairie.

Please allow me to cite just one example of a marital disaster in moving. It involves our “new” antique dining table that Peg saw as perfect until we moved it into the cabin. Then she demanded I modify it so there was more leg room. Not being completely obtuse I referred the problem to an expert, our general contractor in charge of implementing all of Peg’s changes to our once perfect property. Gentle Reader, I assume you agree that tables play a huge role in our lives. There is Leonardo da Vinci’s table of the Last Supper. There is Sir Thomas Malory’s Round Table in Le Morte d’Arthur. There were the endless squabbles over the shape of the “peace” talk tables between South and North Korea and South and North Vietnam. And there is Peg’s once perfect antique dining table.

So, I told Mark, our highly skilled contractor, about my problem and he, also of the male persuasion and also not conversant in female-speak, volunteered to help. You know what they say about good deeds. Mark understood the problem to be not that the sides of the table were too low to allow leg room, but that the whole table was too tall. When Peg saw all four legs had been cut off by four inches, well, somethings cannot be printed in a family newspaper.

All’s well that ends well however as Mark was able to apply his magic and restore Peg’s table including ample leg room. Peg, of course, never blamed Mark anyway. I am the one who had to deal with my own Zelda crisis. Well, Gentle Reader, let’s just table that thought!

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Filed Under: Family, Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, Indiana, JPeg Osage Ranch, Males, Osage County, Posey County Tagged With: antique dining table, Dr. Joseph Brady’s Executive Monkey Theory, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Female Speak, Gentle Reader, institution of marriage, James M. Redwine, Jay Gatsby, Jim Redwine, Last Supper, LeMorte d’Arthur, Leonardo da Vinci, Osage County Oklahoma, paddling a canoe, Peg, Posey County Indiana, Sir Thomas Malory’s Round Table, The Great Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Zelda, “peace” talk tables

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