Saturday, March 16, 2024

Joseph Campbell: Our Society Is the Human Race

So beautifully and wisely said. Thank you, Joseph Campbell. May the wisdom and deep truth here inspire and awaken us all. ― Molly

“We're in a period, in terms of history, of the end of national and tribal consciousness. The only consciousness that is proper to contemporary life is global. Nevertheless, all popular thinking is in terms of loyalties to the local communities to which all are members. Such thinking is now out of date.
What we face is a challenge to recognize one community on this earth, and what we find in the face of this challenge is everybody pulling back into his own in-group. I don't want to name the in-groups, but we all know pretty well what they are. In our country we call them pressure groups. They are racial groups, class groups, religious groups, economic groups, and they are all tangling with each other.
For any people to say, 'We are it and the others are other'— these are dangerous people. And there are religions still doing this. The new thing that is very difficult for people to realize is our society is the human race. And our little suburb is the globe. Spaceship Earth.”
Joseph Campbell
From Myth and Meaning: Conversations on
Mythology and Life

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