Norland, Stephen, Everyone,

This Mythblast is so rich; as I read it I felt I was taken from the views of the spiritual and psychic strata from heaven to hell: It begins with the monk in mango forest and the brahmin then works its way down to the untouchables, the outcasts who shovel feces and dead animals or anything diseased. The photo of the monk in the mango garden is like paradise, and the orange glow in the photo accentuates the idea of life all aglow; this seems to me to represent the color of a living myth: as Nolan states, it is alive, alive in the psyche, and there is an immediacy of experience with the living myth that feels (imo) less remote. This is not to say I do not feel a strong affinity with the myths of Pompeii, as the dead myths can still provoke and elicit a strong response through the symbols. The symbols of the dead myths are however perhaps less known–to know is to own in the now; Jung stated that a symbol was the unknown (meaning is open for interpretation) whereas a sign is the known (we already know what the symbol signifies within a particular instance or experience). For instance, since I was raised in the Catholic church I knew (was conditioned through repetition) what to do when I walked in the church and dipped my fingers in holy water. The bowl of water that was blessed by the priest was there waiting for parishioners to bless themselves with. Some made the sign of the cross with it, but old traditional was to make the triple sign of the cross in the bridge between the eyes (much like blessing one’s third eye if not just plain vision!), then the lips (to bless the speech), and then over the heart (to bless one’s feelings of the heart). This felt to me like a living myth back then because I did it in the “now” and I “owned” it, carrying through with the behavior of the ritual. I am thinking of what in those days to me felt like a dead myth and what I come up with is this: The Latin Mass. I often attended Latin Mass with my grandmother Mary who knew the whole thing by heart. To her it was a living myth since she knew what it all meant, whereas to me it was a dead myth because I did not understand a word of it but only knew it was from the more distant past in Rome. However, recollecting now, I can add that in a slight sense it it became to some degree a living myth to me because I saw it alive through my grandmother’s eyes and heart.

One thing that can make some dead myths come alive then is ritual, and Stephen has remarked on this at some point before in the discussions. When we actually participate in the mythic/spiritual rites, we bring it to life as a living myth. How perfectly precise the rite today matches the rites of the initiates or priests or spiritual practitioners in the old or ancient world may not always be the most necessary thing, because if we still get the meaning of the symbols through our psychic impressions of the symbols or acts, then we are still receiving the heart of the myth–its art of hearing with the inner ear the voice of the daimon or our inner selves, when it speaks to our souls and our hearts feel it echo in its chambers–the ‘tabernackle of the heart’, as a pagan/earth spiritualist and Qabalist friend of mine used to say. If we come close to using the symbols in the same (similar) way, we can evoke the same meaning–interpreted through our own psyches much as what the ancients may have been feeling. Even those who attempt the old rites of some cultures with the intent of merely “enacting” the rites (such as Celtic rites, Egyptian rites, or any of the old pagan cultural rites) end up feeling some extent of participation mystique and as if they have actually entered the mysteries. Does it depend on belief? Maybe for some to some extent, but it also seems as if nonetheless the symbols speak to the psyche and thus frequently to the soul (for the sake of those who separate them here–I would have to quote more of James Hillman for that probably).

When we evoke those same feelings that the ancients felt in the past rites or symbols, this then could be part of what the archetypal psyche is. Our human psyches have the tendency to “think” in archetypal fashion–our psyches are indeed part of the archetypal pool. The archetypal psyche, as a poetry professor Richard Messer of Bowling Green State University who had also studied at the Jungian Swiss Institute once said to a class I was in, we have all seen the same sun, the same moon, the same forms of thing such as a tree, for centuries, and these images span the ages; he said that strong poetry or successful poetry utilizes the universal appeal of the archetypes. While universal, the images/symbols still speak to us personally through our personal associations through our personal experience, thus we have both the collective psyche and the individual psyche–but there are other considerations too to the collective psyche such as cultures and societies or religious groups, for that matter. Rituals are one way of resurrecting the (a) dead myth.

This brings me to the idea of this caste system. I am not looking up quotes from Jung here, but just speaking from my own individual experience which I guess is also universal experience for most of us (since we are not monks or brahmins per say!): I do suppose we all feel like brahmins at times and like the undesirables sometimes. Some of us might be actual orphans or some of us might be orphaned in another respect. We might feel like a brahmin in one situation and like an untouchable in another situation. We all have our domains, perhaps of where we feel most high and where we feel most low. We all have things we would like to hide or keep hidden. We would like to hide some of the complexes in our Shadows (according to Jung) due to things about ourselves we would like to keep hidden. Maybe when they come out sometimes and someone sees those things, we feel like an untouchable, feeling like the ‘other’ person will not accept us/like us/think we are okay (remember the 60s I’m Okay/You’re Okay? 🙂  If we cannot change the situation of what it is about us that makes us feel at our lowest lows, perhaps we can change our reactions to it to work through the complex. So the personal alchemy of change could make for the process of ripening in the individual psyche and affect the collective psyche in that process just as the collective affects the individual psyche. All the mangoes could rot on the trees if not picked in the right time. As far as the mythic mangoes or the mythic orange mythologems of mangoes, the symbols are always ripe for the picking–and sometimes they do pick us! (Maybe we were born into a particular culture that believes this or that, or follows a certain religion, etc.) Whether we “eat” our god when we take Communion at the Catholic Mass, or whether we eat Cakes and Wine at a pagan/earth centered spirituality ceremony/circle, there is something there to imbibe insofar as the archetypal symbols. Both these symbols mean that the god or the goddess or the spirit of the earth and the cosmos nurture us.

Then there are those myths that are best left dead and not enacted or resurrected (literally) anymore–that is another story that is the story of Abraham thinking God told him to sacrifice his son. I have a cousin who is a Christian minister who told me that that story marks the time when human sacrifice was no longer to be done and that the sacrifice/crucifixion of Christ was the reminder of that and no more animal sacrifices either. Repetitive enactment of old rites like Easter as just the acknowledgement is the part that is kept alive of the Crucifixion, though, just as pagans will celebrate the same rites going around the Wheel of the Year from Spring Equinox through Winter Solstice. Traditionalists will repeat the old rites/same rites year by year, and others will make it fresh and new each year by changing or adding something, but both traditionalists and non-traditionalists will probably invoke the 4 directions prior to the rite and draw the Circle–just like Catholics will use the holy water and genuflect before Christ on the cross.

The symbols have meaning that gets carried on down through the generations and for the most part all is needed is the symbol to be affected, but to understand it consciously is why we study and discuss the myths. I think those who are not interested in discussing mythology are those that do not feel the desire to understand it the way some of us do. Some of us want to know it, to know the mysteries–for whatever reason. Some people ask why study these old “dead” myths–perhaps they just don’t have the same desire to understand that some of us do. I would love to hear people describe why it is they feel pulled or called to know the old myths, whether a feeling or what you think about it.

P.S. to my response:

I did not edit this, and could have, to shorten it. I just wrote it in a stream of…consciousness? This Mythblast was so beautifully rich, and it also brought up a lot of memories for me. Thank you, Nolan, and thank you Stephen for your wonderful thought-provoking introduction to this Mythblast. I am in the middle of moving to a new home, and have been in a rush–it was wonderful to think of these things instead of how to organize the kitchen shelves or where to put the furniture for the first time in about two weeks! 🙂

Norland; another great offering you have brought and indeed one of Stephen’s insights for me suggests the: “Archetype of the Hero”.

It’s interesting this topic makes it’s appearance today since the US is in mourning recognizing one of the icons of the Civil Rights movement; “John Lewis”; who like Dr. Martin Luther King has come to symbolize not only the role the hero plays within a particular society; but also the character behind the figure. One might ask: “What is identifiable that evokes the best in human nature whether it be a god or a human being? What is this quality in the Hero; whether mortal or god that makes this timeless symbol so important? And why is this quality also universal? What does it mean to be heroic?”

In in the opening lines of Phil Cousineau’s introduction of the: The Hero’s Journey, (on page, XI); he wrote:

 

Joseph Campbell’s long odyssey through the seas of ancient mythology was as much a spiritual quest as it was a scholarly one. Through his prodigious readings, writings, and travels, as well as his crossroads meetings with many of the country’s most influential men and women. he discovered remarkable parallels in our world’s mythological heritage and reinforcement for the deep conviction he had held since he was a young student that there is a fundamental unity at the heart of nature.

‘Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names.’ he often quoted the Vedas. To synthesize the constant truths of history became the burning point of his life; to bridge the abyss between science and religion, mind and body, East and West, with the timeless linkage of myths became his tasks of tasks.

‘My hope’, he wrote in his preface to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, ‘is that a comparative elucidation may contribute to the perhaps not-quite-desperate cause of those forces that are working in the present world for unification, not in the name of some ecclesiastical or political empire, but in the name of human mutual understanding.’ ”

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So what would the main feature be of the world’s great myths and heros that would clarify their distinction throughout history; and my answer would be: “Transcendent”. “Transparent to transcendence” is a phrase Joseph would often use to describe a message of metaphysical or spiritual quality that could penetrate through the material manifestations that often blocked a deeper interconnecting understanding between different realms of human experience. And these barriers most often were the major difficulties that stood in the way of human understanding. To be clearer my approach has to do with different: (east vs west) outlooks as well as historical barriers of: race, class, prestige, monetary advantage, spiritual disagreement, emotional dislike, or just harmony in general if you will; and these are the kinds of problems the hero most generally faces. There are other hero distinctions of course such as: sacrifice, selflessness, courage, determination; to name but a few; but this one feature I think most properly addresses some of the cross-cultural and historical concerns Norland’s piece and Stephen’s multi-dimensional bridge opens up.

Part II:

“We all must live within a system”; was one of Joseph’s clarifications about modern human existence. And his point had to do with how myth would help one accomplish that; not change it but to live within it under whatever kinds of trials and tribulations that one might encounter. The modern technological and social conditions mankind now faces have much to do with the tremendous rate of change whereby what was relevant one moment would evolve into something else at an ever increasing rate of speed so that human society is now in; as he put it: “a freefall into the future”. And by this he meant that the myths that had been the glue that had held them together no longer worked and the individual is thrown back on themselves in learning how to navigate this new landscape they now find themselves in. And here is where his understanding of Carl Jung’s themes begin to come into play along with the ideas of: Adolph Bastian’s local myth (Desi); and universal myth (Marga); Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of 5 values: survival, security, personal relationships, prestige, and self-development; and Oswald Spengler’s: “Decline of the West”, which had to do with the ever increasing disintegration of western civilization. These have nothing to do with what a mythically inspired person lives for; as he says in: “Pathways to Bliss”; on page 91:

“The beginning of a mythic world or a mythic tradition is a seizure–something that pulls you out of yourself, beyond yourself, beyond all rational patterns. It is out of such seizures that civilizations are built. All you have to do is look at those monuments, and you’ll see that these are the nuttiest things mankind ever thought of. Look at the Pyramids. Just try to interpret them in terms of rational means and aims or economic necessities; think of what it means in a society with the technology of Egypt—which is to say practically nothing—to build a thing that massive. The cathedrals, the great temples of the world, or the work of any artist who has given his life to producing these things—-all of these things come from mythic seizure, not from Maslow’s values. The awakening of awe, the awakening of zeal, is the beginning, and curiously enough, that’s what pulls people together.

People living for these 5 values are pushed apart. Two things pull people together: aspiration and terror. These are what glue a society together.”
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Joseph goes on to describe some of the mythic themes that informed these early cultures such as the Christian doctrines of salvation from the: “Fall from the Garden” of Original Sin, the Church being the vessel of Grace through Redemption and Salvation with the whole society intertwined around the Church, God, and the business of these ideas where he ends with on: (page, 94): “You have this amazing culture whose whole purpose is to cleanse each individual soul from the terrible error of the disobedience in the Garden of Eden.”

But what he is driving at in my view is humanity has now evolved to a place where these ancient mythologies if read “literally” no longer serve the functions for which they were originally designed; (they are out of date); as Joseph put it in his series of conversations with Bill Moyers in: “The Power of Myth”. So therefore the individual is as he stated: “thrown back on themselves; and must learn to find their own way”. And here is where his idea of one’s: “personal myth” emerges; and with this the psychological ideas of Carl Jung. The template motifs of the: “Journey-Adventure of the (thousand-faced) Archetypal Self/Hero”; or free agent; has now replaced that of the suppliant worshiper of the deity; and the individual has now become the god of their own destiny. And like that of the Hindu Upanishads; the gods are all within; not without. You are one with nature; a strand in the web of life; not a separate entity unto itself dictated on how to live to by a spiritually and psychologically outdated and dysfunctional: “thou-shalt” system. And this is what I would interpret as Stephen’s topic reference to an: “archetypal psyche”; that is if I’m understanding this reference correctly in it’s proper context.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and contributions—thank you Mary and James, it delights me to see so much fire struck by our mythblasts! I think it is a testimony to our shared passion for mythological studies!

Despite myself, I will have to keep this first reply brief but I hope to the point, especially addressing Stephen’s question about my use of the term “archetypal psyche” and “collective manifestation,” which he rightly brought attention to, for it can be a contentious issue even within the Jungian community. And yet Stephen challenges me to put it in the simplest way possible for those not familiar with archetypal psychology or Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious, which Jung advanced in contradistinction to the “personal unconscious” falsely attributed to Freud. I say falsely attributed because Freud already knew what later feminists would make into a rallying cry for women’s rights, namely, that “the personal is already the political.”

This is my contention with the emphasis on “collective manifestation” when it comes to archetypal data. In line with Jung’s original idea, I want to broaden our view of the psyche as an encompassing reality well beyond the confines of an individual consciousness. Part of the problem with accepting this notion, I think, is the fact that it gently pushes against the ideological fantasy that underpins our belief in rugged individualism. Although it should have been obvious to most jungians, as it was obvious to Jung despite himself, the manifestations of the collective psyche are in spectacular display everyday on the broad stage of history, not necessarily always hidden in the bowls of an individual consciousness.

So the simplest term for the collective manifestations of the archetypal psyche contains the hyphen of a mystical union of opposites: it is mytho-history, which is, of course, a favorite term of mine, derived from my study of the Popol Vuh and Maya mythology. Sometimes contracted into mythistory, as Joseph Mali does in his book titled Mythistory: The Making of Modern Historiography. This is an apt term in this context since it contains both the material and symbolic dimensions of the psyche, in its individual and collective manifestations, as an integrated whole of human co-existence on earth.

Much blessings,

NT

Norland; thank you for such a wonderful reply. But after reading through my posts I must say though I’m not very comfortable with my understanding concerning this topic right now; so I’m going to wait a bit before posting anything else at the moment until I have a better view of this.  (Please continue on though since it’s probably because I’ve not quite gotten the jest of things.)

Thanks Stephen for the invite here – and everyone for the awesome responses.

Is it OK to anchor this to NOW? Is it too far of a stretch to relate these “outcasts” to the “essential workers” or COVID-19 survivors?

I don’t want to go too far down that path alone & detract from this excellent topic!

Stephen; this is truly a tremendous response to this topic; full of clarity and most helpful going forward. I have to say I was very confused about what the overlying themes of this topic were; and this post combined with Norland’s very thoughtful and insightful reply; (at least for me); helped to pull many concepts together into a more cohesive whole. (Although I’m still working through much of it.)

Joseph’s themes that many of us are aware of within the general public do not normally address these larger concepts in an accessible way so therefore; just like with the: “collective unconscious” when one uses the term: “collective manifestation” they are like patterns without a bridge to connect them unless one’s understanding of: “Archetypal Psyche” includes the distinction between the singular individual and the wider collective cultural overviews that separate them. Just like the western European psyche is different from the eastern; these cultural divides approach spirituality from two directions; especially concerning the idea of the “Ego”. So my confusion was left without a bridge to the other side which is what this topic addresses. As your post clarifies my starting place with the Hero as “vehicle of the transcendent across time” obviously came up short from what this topic was addressing. And my second part attempted to connect western theological concepts that Joseph had previously addressed within this larger realm also fell somewhat short because I did not fully understand what the overview was laying out as a starting place.

At any rate; I’ll continue in my attempts to better absorb this material while Norland and anyone else takes it from here. Again a masterful post Stephen!

Norland,

Yes, your post spiralled my thoughts into some outer (or inner?) spaces!  I very much enjoyed your further description of the archetypal psyche. Is this in your opinion more Hillman than Jung in scope insofar as Hillman’s notion and “invention” of Archetypal Psychology? Hillman seems to think that Jung only went so far and had limitations that he could extend and mend. I am curious as to your opinion on that. I love a lot of Hillman and when I began reading him and studying him, it certainly was a new way of seeing. (Way of Seeing, John Berger). It has seemed to me that most of Hillman’s ideas are based upon Jung’s ideas and theories but what fascinates me so much about Hillman is his heavy use of mythology in text.

I agree with your definitions which I agree are quite clarifying. I wish I could say more right now but with the vast amount of responses I do not feel that anything I could add could do any justice to any of the points made in your or anyone else’s discussion/posts/responses here. I feel like all I would be doing would be as I did above, putting my own spin on things from my own lived myths (personal mythology) of personal experience.

I really enjoy your thoughts and your writing and thank you again for an intriguing Mythblast. I also enjoyed everyone’s very rich and deeply contemplative responses to this Mythblast.

Mary; this was a really nice post and I hope you’ll add more whenever you feel like it. (Lived experience I think is extremely important; and I thought the added ideas you brought added much to this topic.) As for myself I’m regrouping for a bit so maybe there are some others who might have thoughts to add.

Hi, All,

James, I love your question, “One might ask: “What is identifiable that evokes the best in human nature whether it be a god or a human being? What is this quality in the Hero; whether mortal or god that makes this timeless symbol so important? And why is this quality also universal? What does it mean to be heroic?” At this moment I am thinking of many of my favorite myths and about the various traits of the heroes in each myth, such as the Greek myth of the 12 Labors of Heracles or Beowulf. Both of them had remarkable strength that was rather miraculous. Sometimes such as in The Lord of the Rings it is an inner spiritual of psychic (psyche) strength or integrity that Frodo has to overcome the powerful spell of the ring that usually brings out people’s inner ugly greed. For his travel companion and helper Sam (Samwise) it is his wisdom in his supportive role, and both have stamina. SInce the hero is always the protagonist, he has something good about him that serves good for the good of all; Gollum, an antagonist, antagonizes the protagonist and is the opposite trouble or evil. The hero transcends when after his departure on his hero’s journey he reaches the desired place to receive the boon to bring back to humankind/his or her people./society, whether freedom (slaying the dragon) or bringing fire from heaven to earth. His journey brings him the view from above the two places, the here and the there, and bridges them in transcendence, is one of my definitions, yet I consider both the traditional definitions of transcendence from Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching and then Jung’s too.

Link to “Hexogram 20: Contemplation/View,” from Wilhelm’s Translation of the I Ching:

As I read this, I think of Beowulf being the guest of the king to save people from Grendel, and then I think of Froto and Sam up on the mountain to throw the ring in the volcano and the  evil eye on top of the mountain that gets destroyed when the ring gets thrown in the pit and destroyed. “Full of trust they look up to him:” the hero is one who helps the people and so the come to trust him, even after many power struggles with those who would not believe in the hero’s abilities and try to downplay him or her–the role of a tale’s antagonist(s). I could go on and on looking at the hero from the considerations of this hexogram. One point that really intrigues me about this in accord with transcendance is that the contemplation is done from a tower that gives the hero (or wise man–for one can be a hero whether going though the path of the hero (not hidden) or that of the sage (hidden and working behind the scenes, yet each would have both qualities in the other) a wide view–and “trans” means across and not just up. Before I ever read the I Ching or Jung, I did meditation (Transcendental Meditation for one) and later I encountered the I CHing and took up karate so was into zen and zen meditation, and so initially I thought of transcendence as “up” as in transcending the cares of the day, of stress, of rising above. I was a young teenager at that time (my parents were TM’ers and when I was 14 they took me to meetings and had me initiated and given my mantra, etc.) Then later I found the I Ching and  this tower of contemplation as a bridge stretching from one horizon to the next giving not just height but width or breadth. Then a bit later I began reading Jung and his writings on transcendence. I will post a definition (a long one) below.

Anyway, the question of what makes a hero a hero set my mind spinning to a bunch of my favorite heroes and heroines from myth in the classical and non-classical mythologies, to myth in film and in literature. What I found intriguing and fun about trying to answer this question is that is made me examine as many virtues as I could think of. And that is the one thing I think all heroes have in common: virtue. However, in “real” life, and I think this is also somewhere in the I Ching but I cannot think of which hexogram at this moment, “honor exists even among thieves,” so in real life, a thief could have a thief for a hero, so then there goes the virtue–unless you are Robin Hood.

Thank you James for sending my mind on a fun journey this evening through some beloved stories. I do believe the qualities of the hero are still living myths today in the legends we have of great people who have served humanity in one way or another whether politically or medically or virtuous police people (as opposed to the non-virtuous) and firefighters, etc. As for firefighters, we often don’t have a story though without the antagonist arsonist. So what makes for the anti-hero or antagonist? What qualities do they have that make them the people we “love to hate?” Please excuse the strong word “hate”–I am using it on purpose as strictly as the expression with which we are all familiar.

Thank you Mr Norland for this refreshing new perspective on the question of living vs fossil myths.

Yes, some of the harshest aspects of a living myth are on display in many ancient societies.
It is the living myths that we breathe and and finally dissolve into that has helped Indian civilisation to remain the only surviving Pre Bronze Age Pagan culture in the world.

Rather than trying to identify the archetypes invested in a myth, I think  we should explore the rise and evolution of the Story and as to why people chose to believe ideological premise and social codes that are sustained by the story.

I read that someone was uncomfortable about the idea of  diminished individuality when dominated by a collective imperative.

You have to understand that the individual is still a newfangled notion in Asia.  The Compelling need for any individual in those days was to lose himself –  alive or dead – to the collective identity. In this case the castes  – that eventually make up a Macro Individual -Manu.

Quote “I want to broaden our view of the psyche as an encompassing reality well beyond the confines of an individual consciousness.“

This is exactly what Western civilization struggles with – and pursues as an afterthought.

Rather, the journey should be traced from the collective to the individual. I had read a Manusmriti translation almost 40 years ago. And in the preface the scholar who I believe was British, confesses that there is a theatre in the fringes of conscious reality, that will elude even the most diligent of students.
It is the story – and it has to connect to and knit together a fraying society at an instinctual realm, A fraying society eaten  away by  detractors of Brahminism, many of whom, were born into it like Buddha and Mahavira. As well as the Nishedhis the people who rejected all forms of political and ideological architecture that underpinned the society.

So it is the story that is paramount

A living myth will transplant the story to any social or geographic environment and strike root into the psyche of a people drawing nourishment as well as giving shade them and their parochial archetypes.

Ramayana ,one of the oldest epic in the world composed by a Shudra (Wayside robber) turned Sage is a great example.

I would really hesitate to Anchor it to Now

If we place a Story in a timeframe it will lose its Eternal nature and therefore meaningfulness . It will remain a Picture, framed and nailed to a wall.

But I concede that such an exercise is necessary for research and didactic purposes. For eg the Caste system and untouchability existed among those who themselves were considered outcasts. These were the first people – the forest and hill tribals of India.

Another feature that indicates an organic evolution of Caste system was that genetic studies indicate that South Asians had a high level of miscegenation at around 4millenium BC and then in a millenium or ao very little gentic variation. Just giving a context to our story.

Welcome back Captain Sunshine; good to see your presence on the new CoaHO. I think this is a great addition you bring to this topic and should be very helpful in broadening it out. (I removed a post I previously made since I’m not sure if it’s really relevant to your topic. I’ll look forward to hearing more about this subject and how it progresses.)

I keep being assailed by the delight and depth of our conversation—truly worthy of the name of our forum! I only regret not being able to answer all the salient points that have been provoked by my little piece. But I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Stephen’s wonderful condensation of what was brought up by the term “archetypal psyche” and “collective unconscious”—the latter in particular, as Stephen mentioned, being rather out of touch with our present reality. Of course, to put it even stronger, one can say that this critique extends to the whole of Jungian psychology, which strikes most readers outside its sacred circle as right down reactionary or ideologically backwards.

Although I don’t want to open a can of worms or get off topic, we can point to the existence of Jordan Peterson as a prime example of where you might end up if you were to swallow Jungianism whole, that is, without putting Jung himself in the alchemical fires of critical transformation: a staunch defender of Capitalism’s status quo and its grotesque hierarchies of power. I don’t want to develop this line too much further but only to answer aloberhoulser’s plea to anchor this piece to the historic NOW present—our current hierarchies, with their grotesque inequality and double standards, very much resemble the hierarchies of the ancient Indian caste system. THAT is the background of my essay in terms of its relevance TODAY. Of course, the lowest of the low today are unmistakably immigrants, especially brown-skinned immigrants, not just here in the USA, but also all over the world. Poor immigrants today have effectively become our very own “untouchables,” whereas the shudra are easily homologous to the African American community and the BLM movement, which Malcom X would have characterized as he did the Civil Rights movement: a kind of “slave revolt.” James Baldwin was fond of this redefinition of a protest movement by a group of the population not considered true citizens.

There is no doubt to anybody with a clear sense of history that there is nothing “natural” or “biological” about the existence of such hierarchies, including our own, but that at each moment in history there have been powerful mythologies that have sanctified them to make us believe that they are “divinely ordained,” or ordained by “Nature” as apologists of the status quo would have us believe today—since Science plays the role of the “divinely ordained” for most modern people.

This brings me back to Stephen’s wonderful paraphrase which I think is worth repeating:

“If I understand correctly, you are saying that a living mythology isn’t something one believes in, like choosing a religion today, but is experienced simply as “what is” – part of the warp and woof of a culture – what a member of that culture knows to be true, perhaps akin to the way we experience gravity or know the world to be round.”

This is exactly the way people have experienced the workings of the global capitalist system up to now. And of course, this mythology, which largely constitutes our true mythology, has held on for many decades, even centuries, at the price of untold violence and bloodshed—forms of violence which are now resurfacing within the continental USA as if they were familiar strangers.

Nevertheless, today we are experiencing a tectonic shift in the collective psyche that is truly unprecedented. Such moments of “crisis,” when the system itself is made to feel, to realize once again, its own brittle ideological foundations—the fact that the divinely ordained itself is ordained by the human, all too human “nature”—we are at the same time witnessing the sign of a new mythology struggling to be born in freedom. Perceptible only when we dare to delve in the contradictions of what is, unafraid to sift through the rot of the system and to take a stand against it, can we speak of true mythology in the making. This is what gives me hope and keeps me going in the face of so much despair and suffering and literal bloodshed.

It is important to underscore the fact that this sense of hope cannot stem from “what is” in the self-consciousness of our present age, that mode of apologetics that would have us “naturalize” the fatal contradictions of our global system, even as it tramples on the lives of the majority of the world population—a fact, once again, in spectacular display with this pandemic in the USA.

The hope I’m speaking of is rather like a message in a bottle which has been sent from the future of what could be, from what is not-yet here: a new Rising Dawn illuminating a future form of collective consciousness.

It is just as Marx put it in a wonderfully psychological way (a quote that has been ringing in my ears for the last few days):

“Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.” (Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)

This may seem like an obvious insight but it is quite true that what a person thinks of himself or herself—our own “personal mythology,” or, as Stephen pointed out, the many idiosyncratic religions we might choose in a whim—that these “myths” are mostly false narratives we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel good, and to justify our actions—or to cover up what we truly believe in. (Imagine trying to understand the Trump phenomenon based on what Trump thinks of himself!)

Our actions speak louder than our words, indeed, for these actions often speak of a set of ideas that are quite different from what we “officially” believe.  On the other hand, our true beliefs, the level of true mythology, is often far from our lips and their faithful service to our ego consciousness. And as Marx points out, the same is true for the entire collective and its prevailing mythologies.

Someone “nudged” me in the direction of French philosopher & sociologist Maurice Halbwachs –

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25480359?seq=1

Now I can’t “unsee” the idea of collective memory as a social contract.  Post modernists and especially deconstructivsts have made an impact on us today,  whether we like it or not.

Does mythology suffer at the unsteady hand of modern social constructs? I feel like we are bombarded with so much information in this digital age that many are unsure of what to believe in anymore. Part of that could be rooted in how we use the term “myth” to illustrate falsehoods.

Maybe I’m jumping off a cliff here somewhat, but how do we reconcile the power of myth with the modern notions of collective memory and the collective unconscious?

Greetings Norland!

Thank you for quite the thought provoking Mythblast! It is, indeed, difficult to grasp what myths are driving us today. I’m reminded of, “We are fish arguing over the existence of water.” But your use of the Hindu caste system is inspired, I daresay. We can only look at our own societal structure by analogy to see how deafening, but ultimately shallow, ‘that’s just the way things are” can be, especially given the nexus moment we seem to be in.

Looking back over the past 70 years we can see how moments of significant societal unrest shifted the narrative toward some degree of progress, but never, seems to me, as much as you’d think the effort and energy should have inspired. That societal narrative, with its mythic elements, is a heavy stone to push along. (Allusions to Sisyphus aside! Though it can certainly feel like that.)

There’s an effort-progress equation in there somewhere.

But there is value in shining a light on the siren song of “that’s the way things are,” and how the economic, ethnic and overall societal narratives are, after all is said and done, outworn artifices with which we deceive ourselves. It’s revealed very clearly by the common reflex response here in the West to criticisms of capitalism or just the mention of Marx.  I’m reminded of my favorite quote from Campbell’s Creative Mythology:

For even in the sphere of Waking Consciousness, the fixed and the set fast, there is nothing now that endures. The known myths cannot endure. The known God cannot endure. Whereas formerly, for generations, life so held to established norms that the lifetime of a deity could be reckoned in millenniums, today all norms are in flux, so that the individual is thrown, willy-nilly, back upon himself, into the inward sphere of his own becoming, his forest adventurous without way or path, to come through his own integrity in experience to his own intelligible Castle of the Grail—integrity and courage, in experience, in love, in loyalty, and in act. And to this end the guiding myths can no longer be of any ethnic norms. No sooner learned, these are outdated, out of place, washed away. There are today no horizons, no mythogenetic zones. Or rather, the mythogenetic zone is the individual heart. Individualism and spontaneous pluralism—the free association of men and women of like spirit, under protection of a secular, rational state with no pretensions to divinity—are in the modern world the only honest possibilities…

In lieu of a cultural norm with THAT as it’s center of gravity, we will always be playing catch up, (Oh damn. There’s Sisyphus again. lol), striving against past norms turned into anchors with stagnation waiting for exhaustion to set in.

Never before have I valued the certainty of death as much as I do now. Not from misanthropic despair, which does hide around the corner these days, but from the hope that arrives with each succeeding generation. During my 32 years as a secondary school teacher, I’ve watched, first, the Millennials and then the Zoomers  begin to tell themselves a story different than that of their Boomer and Xer parents, and you see this story being told on the streets right now. It’s all very encouraging. There is a shift occurring in this evolving narrative.

I imagine that the pull of the caste system remains in India to some degree. But I don’t think it drives that society as it once did, although they are dealing with their own reactionary impulses as we are here in the States. But positive change is happening, even if we can’t define what’s too close to us to see.

Warm regards,

Michael

Hi James, All

Tonight while responding to another post or remark elsewhere in the forums, I stumbled across this Joseph Campbell quote about the hero from The Power of Myth.

MOYERS: So if my private dreams are in accord with the public mythology, I’m more likely to live healthily in that society. But if my private dreams are out of step with the public –
CAMPBELL: — you’ll be in trouble. If you’re forced to live in that system, you’ll be a neurotic.
MOYERS: But aren’t many visionaries and even leaders and heroes close to the edge of neuroticism?
CAMPBELL: Yes, they are.
MOYERS: How do you explain that?
CAMPBELL: They’ve moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you’ve got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can’t. You don’t have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience — that is the hero’s deed.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Here are kind of some side questions:

Do you think covid-19 challenges us all to be a hero of sorts and on the verge of neuroticism?

Could that neuroticism, though, be partially what is responsible for so many people acting so odd in the face of this virus by getting in other people’s faces?

Could it be we are called to the hero’s journey one and all now but how we react to the call will determine what kind of hero we will or will not be? Do we wear the mask or do we not wear the mask: as an answer to the hero with a thousand faces–who will don the mask? Who is illusional seeing windmills as dragons? Who will and who will not breathe fire? Will the vaccine help?–so what will and what will not breathe fire and covid and what and at what numbers will eventually not breathe?

Could it possibly partially be a defiance against their own neuroticism rearing its head and not just defiance against the “rules” that they are thinking interferes with their freedom?

Is it perhaps not that they do not want to admit their own possible physical weakness (mortality, for sure!) but also do not want to admit to their own emotional/mental weakness.?

Also I am all for positive thinking but I do see in some instances where the positivist psychology is misinterpreted by many to think that if you think positive then absolutely nothing can go wrong or against our wishes. Have you ever noticed this in any individuals today and/or see it in the collective?

I love this, what Stephen wrote: “One is the awareness that mythologizing is always going on, under the surface, both in our individual psyches as well as the collective psyche of the greater society – but these are unconscious processes: we are generally not aware of them.” This seems befitting for everything going on also with the “I Can’t Breathe” Mythblast.

I want to include a mention and quote here and also in the reference section, if I may: a book by archetypal psychologist (and as I regard him, mythologist also) James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology. As for mythologizing, he calls it psychologizing, and wrote, “There are Gods in Our Ideas.” He states,

Archetypal psychology the fundamental ideas of the psyche to be expressions of persons–Hero, Nymph, Mother, Senex, Child, Trickster, Amazon, Puer, and many other specific prototypes bearing the names and stories of the Gods. These are the root metaphors. They provide the patterns of our thinking as well as of our feeling and doing. They give all our psychic functions–whether thinking, feeling, perceiving, or remembering–their imaginal life, their internal coherence, their force, their necessity, and their ultimate intelligibility. These persons keep our persons in order, holding into significant patterns the segments and fragments of behavior we call emotions, memories, attitudes, and motives.When we lose sight of these archetypal figures, we become, in a sense, psychologically insane: that is, by not “keeping in mind” the metaphorical roots we go “out of our minds”–outside where ideas have become literalized into history, society, clinical psychopathology, or metaphysical truths. Then we attempt to understand what goes on inside by observing the outside, turning inside out, losing both the interiority of all events and our own interiority as well.

Yet “psychologizing” is only 1/4 of a mythic/polytheistic psychology. For Hillman, the four stages of what he calls soul-making are: 1) Personifying or Imagining Things, 2) Pathologizing or Falling Apart, 3) Psychologizing or Seeing Through, and 4) Dehumanizing or Soul-making. Hillman also makes sure to tell us that a polytheistic psychology (that drives away from egocentric monotheistic ideology) is not a religion, but a psychology that stays with “the soul’s native polycentricity.”

This idea of mythic psychology coincides with Campbell’s thought:

I would say that all our sciences are the material that has to be mythologized. A mythology gives spiritual import – what one might call rather the psychological, inward import, of the world of nature round about us, as understood today.There’s no real conflict between science & religion … What is in conflict is the science of 2000 BC … and the science of the 20th century AD.

–Joseph Campbell, from Thinking Allowed: Understanding                                                                                    Mythology, with Joseph Campbell (and host Jeffrey Mishlove)

So, we “lose our minds” when we lose our myths, pretty much as Campbell said, as has been stated in the forum Mythblasts that in our day the myths are not commonly recognized or even known so much.

What Norland responded above stands out to me:

This brings me back to Stephen’s wonderful paraphrase which I think is worth repeating:

‘If I understand correctly, you are saying that a living mythology isn’t something one believes in, like choosing a religion today, but is experienced simply as “what is” – part of the warp and woof of a culture – what a member of that culture knows to be true, perhaps akin to the way we experience gravity or know the world to be round.’

I am thinking now about religion, how being a child raised in a religion is then simply a “what is” to that child who accepts that religion because they are told that their religion is true. Many people grow up believing in the religion they were taught/raised to believe in, whatever that religion just so happens to be. So I am thinking about how the “what is” to so many people is a matter of happenstance–until they get older and begin to question things, if  they indeed begin to question things and get to wherever that may lead. We often accept the happenstances of our culture–its beliefs and conditionings. Also, I am now reminded of a book on the reading list for a class I took in Complex Theory called The Cultural Complex: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives on Psyche and Society Edited by Thomas Singer and Samuel L. Kimbles that I can highly recommend for this topic in this thread. Below are some key phrases, ideas, and quotes from the book in reference to mythology and living myths:

• […] the inner world of trauma, [and] the outer domain where myth, psyche, and politics intersect”
• […] to illustrate the reality of the collective psyche and the power of collective emotion to generate living myths [or more appropriately here to Norland’s terminology “archetypal psyche”]
• Thomas Singer wrote about how Donald Kalshed (1966) had published his book, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit and how there are not only archetypal defenses of the personal spirit but also archetypal defenses that protect the collective spirit or any traumatized “group soul.”
• These protective archetypal agents are, he says, the daimons.
• These archetypal daimons can be individual, collective, or both; Singer wrote that, “Perhaps they even found their earliest historical expression in group life rather than that of the single person, when the psychology of the individual was less developed and the survival of the group more in the forefront.”  The group as the collective might apply here nicely to Norland’s theme here because this quote can help describe how the archetypal psyche can be both individual and collective and not belong to just the individual or a group–it helps demonstrate (for me, anyway–it might not speak to each person here the same way, of course)  a difference between what might be regarded as the archetypal psyche as opposed to the collective.  As Kevin Lu has said/written, we are all born into a group, implying that the group psyche is already in motion from our earliest days and that thus our cultural complexes have in that sense already begun when we are born into a family that is within a cultural group in the then larger societal culture. This too can apply as Norland says into the types of caste systems of other cultures besides Indian culture. (The paraphrasing I provided of Kevin Lu is taken from an article of his article on a response to Singer and in personal communication–I would need to find that article in order to cite it and my home office is pretty much all packed up at the moment as I am still in transit to my new house.)

Singer also wrote, which is in lieu of this Mythblast,

Jung’s earliest work at the Burgholzli led to the development of his theory of compelxes which even now forms the foundations of day-to-day clinical work of analytical psychology., In fact, there was a time when the founders of the Jungian tradition considered calling it “complex psychology.” Later, Joseph Henderson created a much needed theoretical space between the personal and archetypal levels of the psyche which he called “the cultural level of the psyche.” This cultural level of the psyche exists in both the conscious and unconscious.

• This chapter in the book is chapter one and is written with this description to introduce the purpose of the chapter to to then, elaborate upon Jung’s theory of complexes as it manifests itself in the cultural level of the psyche. There are several examples of this archetypal level of the psyche as pertains to groups in this chapter such as political upheavals and hatred against various cultural groups and even the split between Freud and Jung to help illustrate cultural complexes in which the archetypal defenses (part of archetypal psyche–defenses would be survival instincts and instincts as archetypal) in regards to groups or individuals, since individuals ‘belong in’ or at least live within a group.
• With all the group protectiveness currently operative in group psyches and in individual psyches in our current times (including Stephen’s “I can’t breathe!” Mythblast, I kept thinking of this material that it may be a good read at this time, this book on the cultural complex and how it relates (or seems to, to me) to both Norland’s and Stephen’s recent Mythblasts.

The more I think on this Mythblast and do close reading, closer and closer each time, the more I am getting out of it. It is so rich and layered like the many “levels” or strata of the psyche (for illustrative purposes only, not actual floors of a skyscraper!)

Rather late to the party, and commenting without reading the other comments in detail – so please, I may be repeating a point which someone else may have raised.

One: I have come to the conclusion that the caste system is endemic to India. It’s not an aberration; it’s what defines society. And it’s spread across all religions – a Dalit is a Dalit, whether Hindu, Christian or Muslim.

Two: Manusmriti is a law book. It’s connection to myth is very tenuous, just the mention of the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda at the beginning. It’s a toxic, casteist and misogynist document, which often contradicts itself. It’s also horrendously boring. (I read the whole thing in the original Sanskrit. My Sanskrit is pretty rusty, so it took me six months.)

However, I seriously doubt whether castes delineated in the document were ever seriously practised. The permutations and combinations are too numerous. What it does is, lay down the laws for the four castes – it talks about outcasts only incidentally.

Three: Even more than the Manusmriti, it is the moral justification given to caste in the Bhagavad Gita which is more revealing. Unlike the Manusmriti, this text is considered as revealed scripture by most Hindus, and it reinforces the caste model of Manusmriti (especially Chapter 12). However, the Gita is very uneven in its structure – lofty philosophy and evocative poetry mixed with didactic preaching – that one feels justified in thinking it has been bowdlerised at some point of time.

Hello Nandu, Stephen, Marianne and Everyone else on this thread,

I am intrigued by Nandu’s comment, “caste system is endemic to India. It’s not an aberration; it’s what defines society. ” I agree. Indian society, its traditions, its folktales, its rituals, its rankings and gradings all point to a hard-core caste system. Nehru tried desperately to rid the Indian society from this endemic lore, but he could not. What would  (Nehru)  say, were he to  look at the conditions of the Dalits now? And, as you and Nandu suggest, Stephen, ” the caste system is not confined to any one religion, but is how society is organized.”  Yes, the entire legal, political, socio-economic model  is organized to keep Dalits, as the lowest of the lowest in the rankings of the Indian caste system.

I had written a paper on the Daalits, and their treatment by the law enforcement, by the media, by the Indian Parliament. If you don’t mind, I’ll post excerpts here.

Stephen and Shaheda,

The difference between the Indian caste system and other such systems is that caste the identity on which India is built. Dismantle it: and the country and the culture disappear.

Like all left-wing liberals, Nehru was anti-caste and at the same time, tolerant towards religion. This does not help. To rid India of caste, one will have to jettison a huge part of the mythos that makes the country tick.

It will be like an operation which would remove the tumour and kill the patient.

We need to find a different way.

Nandu.

Nandu,

With India’s eco-socio-political machinery operating in a rigid caste structure, what sort of operation, do you propose?

Consider the ’Dalits ’of India’

Excerpted from “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”:  “Saddam Hussain was his chosen name, not his real name. His real name was Dayachand. He was born into a family of Chamars— skinners— in a village called Badshahpur ……One day, in answer to a phone call, he and his father, along with three other men, hired a Tempo to drive out to a nearby village to collect the carcass of a cow that had died on someone’s farm….…We found the dead cow easily.  It’s always easy, you just have to know the art of walking straight into the stink.” [2]  They loaded the carcass on to the Tempo and set off for home. On the way they stopped at the Dulina police station to pay the Station House Officer his cut, a previously-agreed-upon sum, a per-cow rate. But that day the officer wanted more not just more but three times the amount.

And this inability to pay ended three lives. What is bone-chilling is the manner of ending these lives. The Station House Officer arrested them on a charge of ‘cow-slaughter’ and placed them in the police lock-up. Two hours went by — A few men went into the police station and brought out Saddam’s father and his three friends.  Then began the beatings, at first just with fists, and then with shoes. But then someone brought a crowbar, another a car jack and with the first blow, Saddam heard their cries. He had never heard such a sound before. It was a strange, high sound, it wasn’t human. [3] This is not one isolated or fictional event. Human Rights Watch reports that these incidents happen every day, of every year, to countless ‘Dalits’.

The daily beatings, beltings, floggings and final disposition of the ’Dalits’ are generally not covered by regular news channels, but propelled by the coverage on social media,  stories of Dalit-atrocities are pouring fuel on dying ambers.  On July 21, 2016, “The Hindu” a very respected Indian newspaper,  reported: “For the last three days, Gujarat’s Dalit community has been seething with anger over the public flogging of a group of ‘Dalits’ who were skinning a dead cow in Mota Samadhiyala, a village near Una town in Saurashtra region.

“The four men were brutally beaten with steel pipes and iron-rods, they were later stripped, tied to a SUV and dragged through the main market near the local police station in Una.  The flogging was filmed, posted on Facebook as a warning to other Dalits.” [4]

While ‘Dalits’, together with other tribes, make up nearly 25 percent of the country’s population, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) found that the media “provides negligible space to their plight/problems.” Instead, these communities mostly receive attention when the discussion is focused on backwardness, population growth, lack of entrepreneurship and productivity. [5]

Could Rawls’ “democratic equality” – the combination of fair equality opportunity principle with the difference principle be a good first step for the Dalits?

[2] Roy, Arundhati. 2017. The  Ministry of Utmost Happiness. [S.l.]: Penguin books India.
[3] Ibid (1362 of 6459 – Kindle Book)
[4] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Gujarat-has-history-of-atrocities-and-discrimination-against-Dalits/article14499609.ece
[5] National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) NHRC Report, Section VI, p. 134

Stephen Gerringer wrote:

What do you think is the difference between the Indian subcontinent and the civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, and so many others that shared essentially the same social divisions?

The difference is that the priestly class chose to enclose itself and practice endogamy.And  in the other classes it became prevalent as a derivation.

the further the classes were to the priestly class – the looser ,  the rules governing their conduct.

If one looks at DNA studies the Indian society showed  robust miscegenation till about a millenium or more before CE.

And then the genetic picture shows a strictly endogamous trait.

All the stories ,the practices that lionized Sati and Widowhood and Chastity were means to ensure that Endogamy was practiced in a class were Exogamy is still very much a norm. It is even today punishable with death if one married within a Clan or community or village. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj%E2%80%93Babli_honour_killing_case

So why did the classes opt for endogamy? Could it be competition ? Too many of the priestly kind loafing around ,waiting for temples to be built inorder to discharge their duties?

increase immigration? Or the desire to be a part of an organised social order?

But when some Classes close their doors to others. There are those who were automatically shut out from all doors.The Dalits are one of those.

But it is hilarious to see people accuse the Brahmins for their predicament. Cultural absorption is something all classes aspire to. The Brahmins may have found the means to remain an undiluted and critical social component but to force endogamy on other classes would prove far above their mettle. This is according to the stalwart Dr B.R Ambedkar a Dalit , who  authored our constitution.

And now we see those who take the cause of the Dalits seized with impotent rage. And fattening themselves on it.

There are classes among Dalits who enjoyed great economic and social stature a few  even rose to become Emperor Like Mahapadma Nanda and the Nanda  dynasty.

So in effect the situation could be charitably described as that of a particularly slippery snake and ladder game.

And if you think that the Brahmins had it easy ,Well,  think again.

The life within a caste itself is highly controlled and monitored and never more  so than for a Brahmin.

A good example is  Poet Rabindranath Tagores Grandfather who was ostracised bcz someone in his clan converted to Islam.

Another more tragic eg is my great grandfather who was accused of if having sexual relations with his Gurus wife, when he was a teenager and committed suicide 20 years later when my grandfather was 8 years of age.

And he was demoted to a lesser subcaste. Which like the Tagore family proved to be a blessing!

If you want to see how caste overshadows religion look at this quora comment by a pakistani muslim punjabi

the ruling elite in Punjab was mainly Rajput before the arrival of Sikhs. Many of them converted to Islam and remained Rajput just like my ancestors. When Sikhs came into power most of its people belonged to Jatt tribes and people who converted to Sikhism, whether they were Rajput or not denoted themselves as Jatts.

For instance Barar and Sidhu/Sindhus are also a sub caste of Bhatti Rajput just like Sansi. My grandfather was from a village in Moga called Killi Kalan. Now it belonged to Bhattis and Brars. All Hindus who converted to Islam remained Bhatti and those who converted to Sikhism became Brars.

But the real premise of your OP if I am not wrong is that of the creeping Casteism in America.

Well we have seen a midline split of the electorate in USA.

Fareed Zakaria described the groups without batting an eyelid as thus-

If you hold a diploma or a higher education and live in an Urban area you are a Biden voter. Highschool and non urban population vote for Trump.

The demographics are changing and it is no longer about colour or creed.

Its about clamouring and jostling for opportunities. Just the way things are happening in India.

Look how ML King discovered  that he belonged to a Caste when he came to India 😀😀 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/isabel-wilkersons-world-historical-theory-of-race-and-caste

For those who gnash their teeth at the way India is not changing to their expectations. I say to them – India never believed in the idea of a linear progression of events ending in a makebelieve world.

The Gods and Demons , the Dark and Light will come

and go again and again.

Like that carousel in ‘A Hundred Years of Solitude’ 

We will reach the realm of enlightenment  then descend into the darkness and come out of it again.

But the important thing  to remember

– is to dance 🙏

Hello All,

It takes time and brain power to go through all the fascinating posts above, hence I am just picking up a few illuminating points from the most recent post on this topic.

Mythistorian, thank you Thank you for your illuminating piece, quoting Marx,

“It is just as Marx put it in a wonderfully psychological way (a quote that has been ringing in my ears for the last few days):

“Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.” (Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)”

So Marx is saying that our opinion of ourselves is different from the opinions of others, because the opinions of others (the collective) is shaped by the forces (means) of production ?  I find it very true, because that is how huge profits are made, by shaping the views of the collective for or against, however, the opposite is also true, that is, our opinion of ourselves (sometimes) is shaped by how people react to us, look at us, place us in categories that are based on their personal prejudices. We act and react to what is said about us. It’s just natural.  What do you think?

I am writing a blog post on the subject. I will articulate my ideas there and link it here.

#4407

Hello Nandu,

I am looking forward to your post. Remember, there might be some delays, if you post via a link. As Stephen mentioned in his message that for security reasons, posts with links are not immediately logged but require  manual intervention and approval.

My take on what ails India, and where liberals go wrong. Caste comes into it.

Brilliant! The predicament of millions of Secular minded Hindus
and unspoken words find a place n your essay.
Yes. This is a phase in Indian history that will determine
our survival as a modern nation through this millennia.
I daresay that it is going to be traumatic and the first step
is to be brutally honest to oneself and those around you.
The revelation of the real nature of the Indian soul is a
revelation not only to the Liberal Hindus but also to the minority
community who now find that they cannot hold the Hindu community
to ransom by raising the spectre of the Hindu Radical Juggernaut
and reinforcing the politically correct conduct in an obliging people.
Its already at their door step.
It behoves all Indians to negotiate this changing dynamics
that define us as a people, with honesty and only then
proceed with dialogue
and hopefully succeed in reconciliation

Thank you, Shaheda and Captsunshine.

Shaheda, as far as I am concerned, the law will work only to a certain extent – in a country like India where there is huge corruption in law enforcement agencies, and even the courts are compromised in favour of the privileged. (For example, Uttar Pradesh has just enacted a law which effectively criminalises interfaith marriage between Muslim boys and Hindu girls, and people are getting arrested.) The slow climb will start with the building of awareness – educating people what it means to be “Indian” (not Hindu or Muslim).

The Britishers, then the Congress and now the BJP exploit the divisions within the society, making one group hate the other, based on false narratives. We need to remove these false divisions and make people see reality. In India, the only division is between the privileged and the underprivileged.

I would suggest that the leftists (the genuine ones, not the career communists) start doing ground-level activism at the rock bottom. Now, that area has been usurped by the Maoists who encourage armed revolution- a sure recipe to disaster. Instead, the onus must be on providing basic services to the poor and education.

At the level of the middle class, youngsters must be apprised of the false narratives they are consuming from their parents, peers and politicians. If possible, non-politicised discussion forums must be created wherever possible. And the advantages of a scientific mindset should be disseminated to all and sundry, to get India out of the morass of superstition it is wallowing in.

Hello Nandu,

You provide a rich history of nearly many decades of India’s conquests, notably the Brits and the Mughals.  The essay reflects your intimate grounding in India’s typologies and periodization. It also corrects the thinking that only the upper class Hindus are to blame when it’s a predominant culture of many groups, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsees? Yes Parsees too, as I recently read, “Tatas inexplicably pulled their sponsorship of Britain’s famous Hay Literary Festival after bankrolling it for five years to the tune of nearly £1 million.”

You wrote,

“The Britishers, then the Congress and now the BJP exploit the divisions within the society, making one group hate the other, based on false narratives. We need to remove these false divisions and make people see reality. In India, the only division is between the privileged and the underprivileged.”

My question is, Is that not the division in most places, that is, the division between the privileged and the underprivileged? And in India, the privileged class mixed in with politicians have almost taken over the free press. Perhaps, a little bit of academic freedom,  supported by new legislation and reforms,  might help in removing the “false narratives“?

I am reminded of the  2016 incident when Roy’s political writing landed her in trouble in India after student protests broke out in universities across the country following the hanging of a Kashmiri separatist whom Roy had praised.  She left Delhi for London —  of course, as one who is privileged she could do it. But it also suppressed the voice that expressed the wrongdoings of the Modi government. “Roy describes her nonfiction as “urgent interventions”, but ever since Modi came to power she is mostly drawn to writing fiction.”

Fictional writing too could help dispel the false narratives, but India’s ruling Junta is not taking this bitter pill.

Looking forward to your reply.

Shaheda