LETTERS Follow Your Bliss?

LETTERS Follow Your Bliss? people or with ideas." These assertions Doniger fleshes out with what were, for I am sorry to see that Jack Newell, me, sad and shocking answers to my whose thinking, writing, and speaking earlier questions about why he was not I have admired since first I read his represented in my text. Then Doniger wonderful essay "An Echo from the concludes: Foothills," has fallen to a Johnny-One- Note reverence for Joseph Campbell's We must be grateful to him for mak- flawed philosophies in the spring 1993 ing so many people aware of the existence issue of Dialogue. Newell should, at of great myths... but we must regret that he did it so slickly that no one was ever least, be reminded that Campbell is not encouraged to go on to the second stage, well thought of in the scholarly com- to do the serious work done by other munity. comparativists.... He cooked up the TV I first became aware of this at the dinner of mythology, so that everything time of the Bill Moyers "Power of Myth" tastes the same. He reduced great television series. Being somewhat taken books to slogans, he made the myths he in by the charisma of Campbell myself, retold his myths, instead of letting them I wondered why in my text for my class tell their own story.... in "Folklore and Religion" Campbell The evidence in this book presents the image of a man who inspired many was not represented, even in a footnote. people to love his versions of the great There were the greats in folklore and myths of the world . but who was religion—Levi-Strauss, Mary Douglas, neither a scholar nor a gentleman. Victor Turner. Why not Campbell, this presence, I wondered. More recently I read a memoir by Then early in 1992, when a biogra- Brendan Gill about Campbell (A New phy of Campbell appeared (A Fire in the York Life, Poseidon Press, 1990). Gill Mind, by Stephen Larsen and Robin knew Campbell well and concludes by Larsen), I read reviews with interest. observing sadly that the TV series Wendy Doniger (New York Times Book caused his "friend" to "become, if not Review, 2 Feb. 1992), Mircea Eliade Pro- my enemy, then at least my adversary." fessor at the Divinity School of the Uni- And with good reason. The series glori- versity of Chicago, assessed Campbell fied a man whose bigotry was transpar- and the biography. She chronicles some ent. Gill tells of a dinner with Campbell of Campbell's bigotry and anti-Semi- when "Campbell spent much of his time tism and then summarily says, "He was arguing that it was of no use to admit certainly not a scholar." She early ob- blacks [to Sarah Lawrence] because they serves that "Campbell avoided any pro- were 'unable to retain information.'" found, difficult, messy contact with Gill also tells of Campbell's habit of Letters to the Editor V meeting people and saying, "You're a Newell Responds Jew, aren't you? I can always spot a Jew." And when astronauts landed on I am both complimented and trou- the moon, Campbell told a member of bled by Professor Cannon's sentiments. Gill's family that "the moon would be a I am complimented, of course, by the good place to put Jews." Gill makes earnestness of her response to my essay clear that Campbell's despising of Freud in the spring 1993 issue and by her kind (and admiring of J u n g ) had to do at least words about my earlier writing. in part with the fact that Freud was Jew- I am troubled, however, on several ish (while Jung was not). accounts. While I agree completely that It appears that Jack Newell, bright we are most compelling when we speak humanitarian, has come to sit w i th Moy- in our own voice, I believe it is ridicu- ers at Campbell's feet, no longer pre- lous to suppose that every idea in my senting his own good thoughts for us to head is original. As individuals and read, but serving over Campbell's mi- scholars, we owe enormous debts to one crowaved TV dinners (to pick up the another, both near and far. "Liberal earlier metaphor). Can it be that Newell Spirituality" is an account of my relig- has fallen for the feel-good message that ious sojourn—as I am living it and as others are influencing it. popularized Campbell's flawed think- It is no secret that Joseph Camp- ing? Are we as LDS intellectuals to bell's work "is not well thought of in the adopt Campbell's advice to simply "Fol- scholarly community." In making this low [our] bliss"? Brendan Gill deplores point, however, and citing other schol- this simplistic world view: ars to support and extend her view, isn't Helen falling into the pattern for which If it is only to do whatever makes she faulted me—using others' voices to one happy, then obviously it sanctions reinforce her j u d g m e n t ? Speaking in our selfishness on a colossal scale. ... It is a own voice, and linking ours with others selfishness that is the unspoken... ration- ale of that contemporary army of Wall (supporters and critics alike), is the way Street yuppies, of junk-bond dealers, of ideas are formed and refined. takeover lawyers who have come to be The trick, I suppose, is to tread among the most conspicuous members of gracefully along the path between hid- our society [and Newell might add, the ing behind others' voices and ignoring most conspicuous attitude of contempo- or failing to credit them. Erring in either rary LDS society] Is it not radically at direction is bad business. In looking odds with Judeo-Christian traditions that back at my article, Professor Cannon have served as the centuries-old founda- may be right that I offered more of tions of our society? Campbell in that section than was ap- propriate for my purpose. I suggest that Jack Newell study On the issue of Campbell's credibil- more critically the works of Campbell, ity, readers may recall that I led into the his idol, and that he trust, instead, his disputed section of my essay with these own voice, his own thinking—a good words: "Campbell and [Ernest] Becker and true voice that we need to hear. are important to me not because their logic or evidence is airtight but because Helen B. Cannon they continued to stimulate my thinking Logan, Utah and raise questions I like to ponder" Letters to the Editor vi (83). That was my bow to Campbell's organizing principles. That's the debt able critics and an acknowledgement of we owe him. His ideas compel us to my own questions about the foundation think on a large scale and to search for of some of his work. increasingly valid insights about hu- What I like about Joseph Camp- man nature and the human condition. bell's thought is his willingness to risk His mistake, especially in the bloom of thinking big, thinking globally. The ab- his career, was listening too much and sence of this quality is precisely what I too selectively to others' voices. A find limiting about so much academic keener and more willing ear may have thought. We have long engaged chiefly opened his reputedly intolerant heart as in the earth-shattering examination of well. minutia. Our implicit faith is that our I thank Professor Cannon for offer- separate studies will add up to some- ing her critique for Dialogue readers (in- thing larger, but when someone is bold cluding me) to ponder. enough to suggest a greater whole we are disposed to criticize it. And criticize L. Jackson Newell it we should. Salt Lake City, Utah From one perspective at least, un- derstanding human culture (and all of nature) is a never-ending seesaw between getting small things in focus and Speaking Out trying to form larger images from them. But the larger images inevitably blur the Those in the highest leadership po- precision of the constituent elements. If sitions of the church would have us be- one of those elements happens to be my lieve that in order to be true disciples own, I'm offended by the blurring. And of Christ, we must follow them in un- so it goes. questioning obedience and refrain from If we use this set of assumptions criticizing their pronouncements or be- about knowledge, then the more ele- havior no matter what the resulting in- ments we bring together, the clearer the justice or injury to individual members picture we form—and the more confi- might be. At the very least, we should dent we are that we have smoked out overlook falsehoods, secret files, or false images among the parts. The irony punishment for disagreement with doc- in all this is that the more our mental trines or procedures as simple manifes- picure of the world begins to match the tations of the humanity of those bewildering complexity of the real directing an otherwise divine church thing, the more incomprehensible the and say nothing in the interest of avoid- image becomes—mirroring reality as it ing contention and remain close to the does. To deal with our disorientation we Lord. seesaw back to broader generalizations The exact opposite is the case. The and look at more particulars—then Jesus who cleared the court of the gen- grapple once again for organizing prin- tiles in the temple of the money chang- ciples.

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