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> On Oct 4, 2015, at 6:42 AM, "Jim Farmelant" <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
>
>> The essay, by Doug Enaa Greene, was published in Red Wedge.
>> http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/essays/heroic-deed-myth-revolution
>>
Mr. Greene bases himself on the fatuous view of "myth" presented by Joseph Campbell, which is nothing but condescension to the "primitives" who thought their "myths" represented important knowledge. In his superb ignorance Campbell lists four aspects of myth all related to "social function" without any grasp at all of the central function of myth defined more than two millennia ago by Plato-- preserving the memory of extraordinary and traumatizing events like the flight of a great mixed multitude from Egypt, memorialized in the Hebrew myth of the Exodus. Thus, Timaeus cites the myth of Phaethon as appearing like a fictional story but having an important truth behind it--a tendency to deviation of the planetary bodies from their orbits which more than once in human experience had brought about catastrophes of fire and of flood. Instead of recognizing what myth is all about, Greene gives the dignity of myth to what are nothing but lies and propaganda.
Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.
Herakleitos of Ephesos