Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I am a regular subscriber to the website WhoWhatWhy written by investigative journalist Russ Baker. Recently he ran a response by one of his readers, Dave Parker, to a video Russ posted of Nick Hanuer, a billionaire venture capitalist who gave a talk at TED, which is an acronym for the non-profit, Technology, Entertainment and Design, TED holds conferences around the world on business/societal issues that relate to its theme. In his talk Mr. Hanuer dispelled the idea that the Rich create wealth and instead said it was really the middle-classes that drove the economy. He disparaged the idea that it is the entrepreneurs who are the “job creators”. Although the talk was well received by the conference attendees, TED curiously chose not to publicize it as it usually does with other such talks. Perhaps their decision was because Mr. Hanuer’s thesis goes against the current widely accepted mythology regarding job creation and entrepreneurship. Here is a video of his talk:
In his comment on this video, Dave Parker used the writings of Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was:
“an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience.”
My reading Dave’s article was the type of moment where you can imagine me slapping my head and exclaiming: “Damn, why didn’t I think of that”. Indeed, I’ve read all of Campbell’s books and seen all of his famed PBS series of interviews, done with Bill Moyers. What follows is my jumping off from Mr. Parker’s excellent comments and any credit for what I’m writing here goes to him for his perception. In applying Campbell to Mr. Hanuer’s comments, Dave solidified a concept for me that’s been playing in my head for years about the 1%’s need to increase the disparity between themselves and everyone else . The Rich are trying to create a new kind of feudalism where Lordships are won not on battlefields, but in corporate boardrooms. The rest of us need to be impoverished because without serfs to worship them, having everything ultimately becomes boring. Some of the 1% no doubt are less ego-driven and have empathy for those not on their level, but even they are beneficiaries of a mythology in creation. I believe that this mythology is the result of a campaign waged since the supporters of Barry Goldwater went down to an inglorious defeat.
Joseph Campbell spent his life studying and teaching about mythology. This is a word that usually evokes images of the Hindu, Greek, Roman and Norse Gods. In a way, for some, mythology has become conflated with paganism. To Christians, Muslims and Jews of fundamentalist beliefs mythology is the other guys religion, when in fact it is also true of their own. However, Campbell did not stop with religion as mythology, he saw it as a driving force shaping human behavior and thus also studied the effects of cultural and political beliefs on human societies. Below is his sense of the role mythology plays in shaping ourselves and our societies via what Campbell calls the “Four Functions of Myth” taken from Campbell’s: “Pathways to Bliss (Novato, CA: New World Library), pp 6-10.”, I will discuss how these functions play out today to shape our collective views of the world.
One salient piece of Campbell’s history should be looked at before showing how these elements of mythological creation have been used in America, to lay the groundwork for a Corporate Feudalism, that will leave enthrone 1% as our Nobility. Dave Parker gives a side of Campbell that I was not aware of and I feel explains much:
“Campbell himself lectured for the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute for Decades, beginning 1956.……………That tells me that ever since the greed heads and warmongers at State and elsewhere have been steeped in a perverse reading of Campbell’s work. They read it for its utilitarian value in pursuing “National Security”. And the “successes” of the Feds are envied and emulated in the world of corporate propagandizing”
My suspicions are that we are being led via popular culture and the redefinition of celebrity, into a mindset that opens the door for Corporate Feudalism and indeed shapes the attitudes of most people. These are Campbell’s Four Functions of Mythology (.pdf):
1. …the first function of mythology [is] to evoke in the individual a sense of grateful, affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence
2. The second function of mythology is to present an image of the cosmos, an image of the universe round about, that will maintain and elicit this experience of awe. [or] …to present an image of the cosmos that will maintain your sense of mystical awe and explain everything that you come into contact with in the universe around you.
3. The third function of a mythological order is to validate and maintain a certain sociological system: a shared set of rights and wrongs, proprieties or improprieties, on which your particular social unit depends for its existence.
4. …the fourth function of myth is psychological. That myth must carry the individual through the stages of his life, from birth through maturity through senility to death. The mythology must do so in accords with the social order of his group, the cosmos as understood by his group”
As sentient beings, self-involved, the fear of our inevitable demise is primary to our existence. This gives rise in us to yearnings for meaning in our lives and purpose to our lives. Most of us need the comfort that when our inevitable end comes, we will continue to exist in some form. Beyond religion though, we are essentially social beings, who have learned the benefit of co-existence with other members of our species. In shaping our society it is essential that we have some over-arching concept that something exists around us to keep us safe from the terrors that are the legacy of our predatory past. We develop words like Republic, Democracy, Islamism, Libertarianism, Fascism and others of that ilk that provide individuals with a sense of something larger than themselves that provide protection for us and give meaning to our lives. In tandem to those words connoting societal structure are conflated words relating to the economic systems we live under such as Capitalism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism etc. In truth all of these words meanings varies with each individuals perception of their meanings.
Most Americans have been inculcated with a set of mythological buzzwords if you will, that connote our Country’s notion of “exceptionalism“. We have been taught that America is a “Republican Democracy” thriving under a “Capitalist” economic system that provides us “Freedom”. We use symbols such as our Flag, our Anthem, and our Constitution to invoke the “grateful, affirmative awe” that Campbell describes. We are proud to be Americans and most importantly we feel protected by our mythology.
These mythological symbols have been translated by our government beginning in WWII and throughout the “Cold War” into awe inspiring emotions within us. Even as I try maintain a skeptical distance between myself and the myth of America’s Dream, I am also emotionally stirred by the evocation of this mythology, that approaches the “grateful awe” of which Campbell speaks. My sense of that awe is limned by my understanding that America’s Constitution nowhere mentions Capitalism, or even sets up a national economic system, so when I see this economic theory conflated with the notion of Freedom my hackles rise. I imagine this is not true for the majority of Americans and this has led to the widespread belief in the “American Dream” and our viewpoint that even the least among us can achieve untold success. People seem to not want to vote in their own self interest. It is this notion of the “American Dream” that has allowed taxation to become inequitable to the point where the rich pay a lesser percentage of their income than the rest of the people, yet many of those shouldering this burden are lured by the siren call of “no more taxes” for fear that they will be burdened once their own success is achieved.
This matches well with another piece of the American mythological order in that there is the widespread concept of a “free market” being the apex of economic freedom. Thus all economic problems can be solved by ensuring that the “free market” is allowed to reign undisturbed by selfish manipulations of the government. The argument about whether there even is such a thing as a “free market” I’ll leave for another day. It is incontrovertible though, that this is a belief of a large majority of Americans and certainly has fared well in the political context. In the notion though of a “free market” comes a further notion that those who partake in the market’s freedom, indeed the movers and shakers of the market itself, are the “real heroes” of the “American Dream”. The Entrepreneur is held up as the most meritorious among us, because it is the Entrepreneur whose efforts create all of the blessings we share in common. The definition of entrepreneur of course is quite stretchable and leads from people of modest birth like Buffett/Gates, to those whose fortunes have been inherited like the Koch Brothers/Walton’s/Trump’s.
If our society is driven by these entrepreneurs then of course their status is rightfully at the top of our particular American food chain. They become sources to be venerated, copied, modeled after and of course envied. I believe they are well aware of this, luxuriate in their Alpha positions and assume the trappings suited to their status. Interestingly, many of the scions of “Old Wealth” in this country eschew the immodest lifestyle, thinking it gauche and nouveau riche. While their living standard reflects the elite into which they were born, they don’t feel the need to flaunt it like those parveneau’s such as Trump. For the masses of us we understand on some level that the Mellon’s for instance, are better than we, even though they don’t comport themselves in a way that draws publicity. Our role models for wealth come from those such as Donald Trump, who beyond his money and/or accomplishment, branded himself as the epitome of wealth and living luxuriously, even though his example is one of gaudy ostentation in the worst of taste. He is the entrepreneur as version of the Movie Star, which has been so confused with success and the “American Dream” that one became President and another the Governor of California.
Awe can be described as “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder”. This in truth is the way many of us view the elite of this country. This has been reinforced time and again by both media and by those in Academia who have functioned as their minions. It has also been the thrust of a massive propaganda campaign to disparage “liberalism” and turn the country towards what was redefined as a “conservative”viewpoint. I believe that viewpoint is less about political philosophy and more about solidifying the hold upon this country of a newly defined aristocracy. We are in “awe” of these our bettors, just as much as the medieval peasantry was in awe of the nobility of their day. Back then the gossip about the local Dukes latest mistress was as interesting and as titillating as Tom Cruise’s divorce, or The Kardashian’s TV show.
In medieval times entertainers were considered to be much less reputable, even while sharing relatively wide fame. Shakespeare was considered disreputable despite his fame in his day. Today entertainers are lionized as members of the elite which is mainly to conflate their fame with that of the Corporate/Inherited Elite, thus borrowing their glamour for the latter. In our society today the doings of the super-rich and other celebrities has become mainstream news. HGTV, for instance, has three programs dedicated to lovingly show the housing of the rich in New York, LA and London. The edifice homes, some costing as much as $50 million are displayed to us peasants for what reasons exactly, if not to inspire us with awe at the lives of our “betters“? Can we all remember the adulation poured out on the passing of Steve Jobs? He certainly was a man who made many contributions, but from his deification one would think he was directly transported to Valhalla. There is deification of our Armed Forces as the heroic exemplars of all that is good and true in America, yet are true gratitude is such that 50% of their families are on Food Stamps. Remember the hushed tones in which the news media portrayed General Petreus? That polls have shown many Americans to believe Ronald Reagan was our “Greatest President” is yet another example of the conflation of celebrity with supposed greatness. Neither Petreus, nor Reagan were either super-rich or super-competent, but they were treated with the deference of nobility and that is the point. We hold all these symbols in awe and the underlying message is one of gratitude to them for showing us what to aspire to and by leading us benighted fools through example. Jesus is of course the ultimate myth since in the opinion of many his decisions control our lives for eternity. “What would Jesus do” is a question asked by multitudes and many have been led to believe that if returned today he would be our ultimate entrepreneur.
This returns us full circle to Mr. Hanuer dispelling the idea that the “rich” create wealth. They are not in the end the “job creators” that Mr. Romney and conservative “wisdom” would have us believe. Yet I must acknowledge that a sizable number of Americans would take exception to that assertion. I think too that the “creator” part of that meme is one fraught with connotation. Just as religion deems that God created the world, isn’t there a strong inference with the term “job creator” that would lead one to feel that the Entrepreneur created America. Doesn’t the mythological creature in that reference stand above the Founding Fathers in our current mythological reference of America being the most exceptional country in history? I believe we are blinded by this American mythology to such an extent that the problems we face as a society will not be fully recognized until it is too late and we will collapse in the shattering realization that so many of our life perceptions are mythological in origin.
Adolph Hitler took a shattered country with a hyper-inflated, impoverished economy and through the brilliance of a master of mythology, Joseph Goebbels, created a world power with the potential for empire. NAZI Germany’s destruction though came about chiefly because the mythologists began to believe, along with those they had gulled, that their mythology was absolute truth and that they the “Master Race“ would prevail against all odds. Fresh from the incredible triumph of World War II and with the evidence of the most impressive military/industrial buildup in history, our politicians and public became convinced of the “exceptional nature” of the United States. We discovered another implacable foe to oppose and fought a new kind of war on a global basis. That having ended with the USSR’s collapse the country’s elite searched for new “enemies” with which to keep our military occupied and our defense industry rich. Perhaps the culmination of the idea of our country’s exceptional nature came with the writing of the “Project For The New American Century” a design to make the United States into an Empire in the Twenty-First Century. The two main guiding architects of that manifesto were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield, who also were the architects of the two wars in which we are still enmeshed.
Joseph Campbell correctly believed that mythology serves as a glue to maintain human beings in the close relationship of society, to give meaning to our lives and to give us inspiration to progress and achieve heretofore unthought-of accomplishments. Mythology though can also be the undoing of a society, community, ethnicity and religion. I believe that in the case of our country I see the signs of our common mythology seeding the possibility of disaster. For the dream captured, however imperfectly, in our Constitution, to culminate in a feudal system dominated by Corporatism, would seem to me tragic. My hope is that this piece will initiate some creative thought in the reader, just as Dave Parker’s comments did with me and I’m interested in how others view this concept of mythology recreating the Feudal System.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Outside of the Heartland Institute where Dr. Nobel Price does his work, in the real scientific world, many 18th Century myths are falling.
The microbial world practices the economic principle of efficiency:
(Interview of Dr. Bonnie Bassler). The folks get out quite often, and they are doing an Einstein’s level of work never done before.
Work Dr. Nobel Price will be doing a hundred years from now.
What Tony said.
A lady professor and her team have discovered the “Rosetta Stone” of microbial languages, finding that there are many dialects.
She says they configure the human body, making up 99% of what we are in terms of cells and genes.
She can talk to microbes and even propagandize them with molecular words, keeping mammals alive that the bacteria otherwise would have killed.
This is interesting because economists on Wall Street have been diagnosed as manic, which could be caused by microbial infection, which causes them to do dumb ass things:
(When You Are Governed By Psychopaths, quoting Dr. Mark Stein). The reemergence of the feudal systems of economics mixed with mythology Mike S talks about in this thread, indicate that American economists would do well to get some therapy or at least a check up.
@Bron: I think I read somewhere that plants give off chemicals when they are in distress to let other plants “know” something is going on.
Yes, plants do that, so do bacteria, but you are inferring purpose where there is none. They do not do it to “let other plants know,” they do it as part of their waste function. Other plants have evolved sensors for that waste and reactions to it to save themselves; and in some cases the process of saving themselves produces the same waste product, and there is a chain reaction via proximity.
… beavers slap their tails on the water as a means of communicating danger.
Yes, but beavers have brains. Squirrels and birds can communicate specific dangers (Hawk, snake, weasel, canine) with various sounds, and that is symbolic communication (and apparently learned, according to some experiments).
I would think a large colony of bacteria would need some method of relaying information to each other if for nothing else just to “say” “hey I am one of you dont eat me”.
That “information” is not voluntary or symbolic. Bacteria respond to environmental stresses (like a lack of food (or abundance), too much or too little heat, a bad Ph balance, too much salinity, too little water) like machines. they will move and act and produce chemicals on cue, not by choice. Their “communication” is like the plant, an involuntary evolutionary response to cues on both parts. In a machine, one gear doesn’t “know” the other gear is there, a shaped piece of metal is not conscious. If one gear causes another gear to turn, it is not choice or communication or encouragement; it is one piece of metal pushing a second piece of metal that takes the path of least resistance: turning.
That is what happens with bacteria. In response to environmental conditions (say a decline in caloric stores due to lack of food), one bacteria emits compounds, which changes the environmental conditions for other bacteria, which have detectors for compounds. Those particular compounds modify the bacterial machine’s threshold for determining whether its caloric stores are sufficient; so it is more likely to emit the same compound, and more likely to enter an alternate survival mode (instead of just randomly swimming in search of food).
But if the second bacteria is NOT also short of food, then its caloric store will be high enough that the new threshold is not triggered, and it will continue in its default mode; randomly swimming in search of food, and eventually the compound breaks down and it is as if nothing happened.
The bacteria do not “know” there are other bacteria, just like the gears in a watch do not “know” there are other gears. What the bacteria are doing is not language, in fact I argue that it is 100% evolved and involuntary responses to environmental cues; both the emissions and the reactions. It is one gear pushing on another.
@Slart: I should have said that trying to control corporate behavior in the same way as one would the behavior of people historically doesn’t work.
Well, we DO control company and corporate behavior through fines and punishments. For example, in my business we collect payroll taxes and pay them, we file our tax returns, we file and pay our corporate franchise taxes, and if we don’t the IRS will come over and kick our ass (something I had an unfortunate experience with a few decades ago, due to fraud). Restaurants (a business I am familiar with through family) obey health and safety laws under threat of being shut down, Hospitals (another business I am familiar with professionally) fear Joint Commission inspections and will spend hundreds of thousands to avoid getting dinged (the Joint Commission can immediately shut down any part of a hospital, like a wing or a surgery suite, or the entire hospital).
When you hear the number of complaints about Sarbanes Oxley, the 2002 “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act”, it certainly sounds like corporations obey the controls (or leave the country).
If you are talking about corporate avoidance or flouting of laws, I think that happens on the same scale as for private individuals. When laws are weakly enforced (like driving 5 mph over the speed limit on a freeway) then people flout them. If laws are written in a way that allows circumvention, whether that was incompetent law writing or intentional subversion, then they will likely be circumvented by anybody that bothers to actually read the law.
I think when laws ARE enforced, by building inspectors, health inspectors, the IRS, the Joint Commission, the SEC, the FAA, the FDA, the EPA, OSHA … They do coerce corporations. That is why corporations complain about them.
Tony C said:
I’m on vacation with limited internet access right now, but I’ll expand on this as soon as I have a chance…
Gene H:
I dont think Dredd thinks it is language in the common parlance of the word nor does he think bacteria can think. Or at least that is my take on it.
Too bad Dredd doesn’t understand half of it.
If he did, he’d realize that bacterial chemical information sharing is not the same thing as language or cognition.
Dredd:
that was a magnificent TED talk. That woman is brilliant.
Beautiful, a simply elegant piece of work. What a wonderful person. This is going to have great ramifications for human beings. Her work will save hundreds of millions of people in the future.
Wow, just wow.
Thanks much for posting that.
Bron,
Then you are using the word without the pejorative connotation (a common modern usage) with which you have used it in the past and I will not only accept your stipulation, but thank you for the complement and apologize for assuming the worst from your language habits.
Dredd:
do you mean language in the sense of communication among entities or do you mean language as in sophisticated verbal communication between entities?
I imagine most living beings “communicate” either visually [as in the case of a white tail deer using its tail as a warning “flag”], verbally or chemically. Animals communicate using pheromones when they are ready to mate or to mark territories.
I think I read somewhere that plants give off chemicals when they are in distress to let other plants “know” something is going on. And beavers slap their tails on the water as a means of communicating danger. While not a language as we know it, these various methods of communication certainly convey information necessary to an entities survival.
I would think a large colony of bacteria would need some method of relaying information to each other if for nothing else just to “say” “hey I am one of you dont eat me”.
more from the same article:
“For the utilitarian English classicist George Grote (1904), the sophists were progressive thinkers who placed in question the prevailing morality of their time. More recent work by French theorists such as Jacques Derrida (1981) and Jean Francois-Lyotard (1985) suggests affinities between the sophists and postmodernism.”
Gene H:
did you read what it said about Sophists? It is actually positive. The article goes on to say that it was Plato and Aristotle who gave the word its negative meaning. I can certainly understand why, they did not like the competition.
Oh, look! Still no proof I’m from the strict genetic determinism camp simply because I won’t accept the stereo evolution extremists either. Just more assumptions, lip flapping and appeals to authority from Dredd.
@Dredd: Microbes do not have a language. I think you are confusing a chemical reaction with a language. Language is specifically symbolic, and microbes do not process symbols in any way.
It is not that it takes a big brain to process symbols, squirrels do it, and crows do it, parrots do it. But microbes do not. Chemical signals are not symbols, they force involuntary reactions in other microbes.
Claiming that effect is a language is like claiming a cop handcuffing a criminal is a symbolic message that the criminal interprets. That would be false, the cuffs are a physical restraint that operate even if the criminal is unconscious or dead; they are not subject to “interpretation.”
Bron,
That you don’t know the difference between sophistry and rhetoric or sophistry and sophistication comes as no surprise. You, like Dredd, are famous for making up the meanings of words when you don’t know them or need them to mean something different for the purposes of your argument. However, since you bothered to look into the word sophist this time? I’ll give you points for your effort, however, your assertion that what me, Mike and Tony engage in is sophistry rather than sophisticated rhetoric is merely your opinion, an ill-informed opinion at that, and indicative of your personal issues with never winning an argument in this forum against anyone, ergo the excuse “it must be sophistry because I lost” which underlies your comment.
What a bonnie lass:
(Bonnie Bassler). LOOK out Tony “No Authorities Allowed” C, LOOK out gene “genetic” gene, LOOK out Mess “O” Po, and any other reality denying punks about the place.
Again, if you’re going to claim I’ve said something incorrect about genetics? Be specific and provide proof – not some of your fringer stereo evolution garbage either, but actual science that shows a proper understanding of natural selection (which you manifestly and repeatedly don’t have). I have never made a claim that behaviors were solely genetic in basis. The other side of the evolution debate – the strict genetic determinism camp – is just as wrong as your camp of the stereo “symbiosis rules!” gang and I’ve said so explicitly before. I will not censor myself to comfort your ignorance or simply agree with your nonsense just to make you feel better.
However, since your response isn’t to
1) provide evidence I’ve ever made a statement identifying myself with the strict genetic determinism camp or
2) prove that what I say about natural selection having various inputs with no evidence that any one input is a dominate factor to the process of natural selection
like someone with a leg to stand on would do, but instead choose to
a) act like a child and throw a fit of name calling because I’m not buying what you are selling (bully/bi-polar/schizophrenic) or
b) simply repeat things you’ve already posted (usually while misstating or misunderstanding the implications of what is being said in context)
then I’m inclined to again dismiss you as crank with a need to
c) have people buy the religion you are attempting to sell as science where microbes are the determining and driving force of everything and
d) be the center of attention someplace else because no one pays attention to you at your own blog (yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve read the pages where you proclaim “Who reads Dreadd Blog” and it simply reeks of fantastical overcompensation).
You’re a pantsload, Dredd.
You don’t understand half of what you read and you act like a child when people point out your logical and factual errors.
But by all means, continue.
You make the actual critical thinkers here look good in comparison.
Carry on.
Somebody (T.See or Mess O Poo) rub the yo momma gene for gene and gene already.
I like the syncopation.
Gene H:
““Bron 1, July 11, 2012 at 11:05 am
Blouise:
“You, Gene, and Tony C. should seriously consider collaborating on a book.”
I heartily concur, may I offer the following for a possible working title:
‘Sophisticated Reasoning’”
There. That’s more accurate.”
I dont know, this is what I found on the Sophists:
“The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek cities in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. In return for a fee, the sophists offered young wealthy Greek men an education in aretē (virtue or excellence), thereby attaining wealth and fame while also arousing significant antipathy. Prior to the fifth century B.C.E., aretē was predominately associated with aristocratic warrior virtues such as courage and physical strength. In democratic Athens of the latter fifth century B.C.E., however, aretē was increasingly understood in terms of the ability to influence one’s fellow citizens in political gatherings through rhetorical persuasion; the sophistic education both grew out of and exploited this shift. The most famous representatives of the sophistic movement are Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus.”