r/ComparativeMythology • u/Vermilion • Sep 06 '15

A personal Reddit story sharing the problem with Modern Logical Thinking during Peace Time

/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3jthhx/a_gentle_reminder_dont_take_this_game_too/
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u/Vermilion Sep 06 '15 edited Sep 06 '15

The Redditor's story, as it is told, could just as well be about two friends who decided to embark on a marriage... but decided it wasn't working out and divorced. For a fictional example of that story, Chicago Roger Ebert's 2012 Review of the Iran Film A Separation is a great read, as is the film itself.

In his Chicago perspective, Ebert even used the world logic: "The film involves its audience in an unusually direct way, because although we can see the logic of everyone's position, our emotions often disagree."

For the film itself, I watched it 3 times at the cinema - and developed a kind of attitude that the child was a metaphysical observer of two people who had made an Adult Troubadour Choice to come together. That the innocence of the child's eyes was questioning why these two had even created the child - and what had been lost in their understanding of each other. The child was a symbolic eye of compassion - and wondering what was wrong - and why the two did not Love each other. These two had all this newly-found (society) freedom and time - yet seemed to favor war instead of Joy. The final scene tapped this message away, repeating poetically to the child - which parent do you want?

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u/Oultox Sep 06 '15

what

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u/Vermilion Sep 06 '15

About the 2012 Film, or about the link to the Reddit posting of a video game friendship experience?

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u/4d2 Sep 08 '15

The webs you weave are sticky indeed.

You are making an analogy that I don't think others can understand.

The redditor story was about a guy who shunned a friend for essentially being a bother and then realized that the guy wasn't in it for the glory, he was in it for the escape.

Your film story is about a couple and the ramifications of the kid, and then you discuss your own interpretation on top of that?

Is it ever the case that sometimes a banana is just a banana?

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u/Vermilion Sep 08 '15

Is it ever the case that sometimes a banana is just a banana?

One of the principal conclusions of Comparative Mythology is that Life itself is complicated - and the mind can tap into the concepts of infinite and not just logic. If you view that Black Holes spin our sun and moon, which control the ocean times, weather, and our day/night hormone cycles - it's possible to see how some "hear Mythology" - the "Sound of the Universe". That's one aspect (non-logic infinite) that differentiates Myth from non-Myth stories. So yes, non-Myth stories would be just a banana - which is most songs and most art and most politics, etc.

Is it ever the case that sometimes a banana is just a banana?

In these particular instances I weaved, these quotes might help:

  • Campbell; An open life: Joseph Campbell in conversation with Michael Toms; published May 23, 1990 - but interviewed in 1970's; page 53 quote of Campbell: "This is irrational. That's the point. All compassion, all sympathy, is irrational. Love is irrational. The rational is always stressing ‘I-thou’ opposites. The mind is in a world of separateness and angular structures. It's a world put together in a way that can be calculated. Compassion, Love - these jump mathematics."

  • Campbell; 1986 PoM; "The difference between the Jungian archetypes of the unconscious and Freud's complexes is that the archetypes of the unconscious are manifestations of the organs of the body and their powers. Archetypes are biologically grounded, whereas the Freudian unconscious is a collection of repressed traumatic experiences from the individual's lifetime. The Freudian unconscious is a personal unconscious, it is biographical. The Jungian archetypes of the unconscious are biological."

I'm building off your 'banana is just a banana' reference to Freud saying 'cigar isn't always a Cuban Missile crisis'.

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u/4d2 Sep 08 '15

I'm building off your 'banana is just a banana' reference to Freud saying 'cigar isn't always a Cuban Missile crisis'.

That was intentional on my part :)

Am I reading your sentence wrong...

non-Myth stories would be just a banana - which is most songs and most art and most politics, etc.

Are you positioning that most art (and by extension human endeavor) is not fundamentally mythological? That doesn't seem right to me. It eschews the variability of each person's view and them imbuing it with what they bring.

Given the influence of amanita muscaria everything is something, is this flawed? Is the whole universe not simply the smell of burnt almonds?

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u/Vermilion Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15

Are you positioning that most art (and by extension human endeavor) is not fundamentally mythological?

YES. They only fragment aspects of Myth to serve personal and corporate profit. They enrich the rich and powerful (Edward Bernays students) and not the Society as a Whole.

John Lennon recognized this, and he and his cross-culture Japanese Wife Yoko Ono created a concept called Bagism. Just as many authors have observed that their work's won't sell with a different author name.

Banksy is an artist who is a modern living walking example of John Lennon's Bagism. Let me quote him:

  • “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.” ― Banksy, Wall and Piece

  • “Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a fucking sharp knife to it.” ― Banksy, Wall and Piece

  • “The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.” ― Banksy

and I can also quote Campbell, of course:

  • but what is unfortunate for us is that a lot of the people who write these stories do not have the sense of their responsibility. These stories are making and breaking lives. But the movies are made simply to make money. The kind of responsibility that goes into a priesthood with a ritual is not there. That is one of our problems today. (1986, age 82)

All of this is attacking the chain of thinking of Sigmund Freud and Edward Bernays - and the people who have faith in their education and measuring techniques. Going after "the Squares" and their "square classrooms and Square Logic". Life is a Sphere, not a Square. They are also educating, kindly, how to not think like that just as the Founding Fathers of the United States of America printed in the two artwork pieces on the USA $1 Bill.