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Reel opens to charitable funding by announcer and overlay the Eleventh Hour graphic.

Host Robert Lipsyte in the studio sitting in front of four small tv's, one screen displays "Joseph Campbell The Pose of Myth". He talks about tonight's program, Joseph Campbell, Professor of Mythology at Sarah Lawrence and how Bill Moyers' PBS show, "The Power of Myth" made Campbell posthumously famous.

Copy of The New York Review with headline article, "Istvan Deak: Jews, Catholics, Nazis & THE HOLOCAUST". Also, "Ronald Dworkin: Will the Court Abolish Abortion?" and. "Brendan Gill: Bigotry & Joseph Campbell" as well as "A Soviet Writer on Le Caries Russia House"

Copies of letters by readers To the Editors of the New York Review, overlay each other.

Copy of The New York Times featuring the article, "After Death, a Writer is Accused of Anti-Semitism".

People magazine open to photo of Bill Moyers, Brendan Gill and Robert Lipsyte and article "Bill Moyers Angrily Defends Joseph Campbell Against Charges that his Wisdom Was Only a Myth"

Lipsyte further states that tonight's program was stimulated by the wide response to the program's weekly forum, Talkback. More letters were received on this topic than on any other show in the past.

Lipsyte refferring to other guest (unknown) on the show that evening, and he disagrees with Gill and states that Campbell's idea of bliss had nothing to do with the modern idiom of pleasure.

Excerpt from letter continues, Lipsyte narrating:
"Emerson and the Theosophists encouraged the exploration. Zen, The Tao, Jung, all encouraged the most revolutionary and subversive of principles: to know oneself and to act accordingly.

And Joseph Campbell said emphatically. And Brendan Gill missed it."

Cutaway again to previous Eleventh Hour program with Brendan Gill and Bill Moyers

Letter continues with Lipsyte narrating:
"The Nazi slogan: strength or power through joy or bliss was just as trite and therefore very attractive."
"However, Campbell is entitled to his misreadings, to his charming legend telling, and to a homeport for his lost soul. But he is not entitled to have his distortions promoted, and become part of another cult that tries to assure other lost sounds of salvation".

Lipsyte reads another excerpt from a viewer's letter:
"Mr. Campbell's ideas are really a fraud, but not only because Campbell may have been anti-Semitic or conservatively blissful.

Few people...understand the problems Campbell's theories cause. Campbell was an athiest, not the "best Jew, Christian, Buddhist'."

Host Lipsyte unseen introduces guests on tonight's program: Robert Segal, Professor of Legal Studies at Louisiana State University and author of "Joseph Campbell An Introduction"; Dr. Madeline Knold, Psychologist and Former Campbell Student; Daniel Noel, Professor of Religion and Culture at Vermont College of Norwich University and editor of a Campbell Anthology; and Cynthia Ozick, author of the Shoal.

INTERVIEW SEGAL, OZICK, NOLD, AND NOEL

Robert Lipsyte:
nerve first the series, then Gil, then Guillain Moyers, then the reaction, why are people so exercise? Why are they so excited by this?

Robert Segal 6:39
I think and I'm not saying this as either a defender or recruiter of critic of Campbell. I think Campbell indeed touches a nerve. Obviously, his sales, his sales attest to that the popularity the show attest to that. Campbell is and I'm not saying this, either to criticize him or endorse him, which I trust we'll get to Campbell is romantic. And Campbell appeals to the latent or overt romanticism of lots of persons Campbell is a romantic in saying that all myths have the same message or people or one and what is the meaning? That that that that that myths have and that all people have, that they are in fact one. I think Campbell appeals to what people would like to think the nature of the world is like, I'm by no means saying it is but that's what I think Campbell's

Robert Lipsyte 7:22
Cynthia, what's what's so bad about that?

Cynthia Ozick 7:24
Well, there's nothing bad about it and my my heart is holy with it. I'm a writer of fiction I've written about a rabbi who populates with a Dryad, a figurehead who comes off a ship and copulates to rather disastrously with a with a lawyer I'm I'm for the nature deities. I'm for poetry, Campbell says again and again, it is metaphor, it's poetry. I'm for poetry. But he also says, myths are a way to live, you live by them. You don't live by polytheism and you don't live by the imminent deity. And you certainly don't live by saying the creator is in me.

Robert Lipsyte 8:02
You say that the Creator is there

Cynthia Ozick 8:05
The creator and the creator and and the creators creation are divided. There is a distinction. There's a firmament between them and once you break the firmament, you become you become a polytheist and and what makes what makes Campbell's so angry at Judaism, nevermind about the Jews, what he's what makes him so angry at Judaism, and the daughter religions Catholicism, and and Islam is the fact that they stick to their guns is monotheists.

Robert Lipsyte 8:36
Madeline, how do you feel about that? Is that Is that an accurate portrayal of

Madeline Nold 8:40
um, yes and no. I wouldn't call Campbell a polytheist. I would say the Campbell went behind the myths. He always said the myths were doorways and mysteries to the truth which cannot be described, that you cannot put in categories, although in the West, we put them in distinct categories I in now. And in the east, it's imminent. And even beyond all of that there's something that you cannot describe as either it's all and you know it inside you sense it. And that's where the follow your own bliss may be related to deep religion in a religion. You know, inside you have an experience. You have a sense it's indescribable, ineffable, full of awe and rapture.

Robert Lipsyte 9:17
Yeah. Do you think that's Daniel, you think that's why people?

Daniel Noel 9:21
Yes, I think that's one of many ways one could characterize this appeal and counter appeal, as it were from Brendan Gill. Campbell had appeal to the to the hope that we have to make connections, Glasnost as part of that right now. We want to reach across all boundaries and old divisions. We've seen this whole earth icon since the late 60s. And people very much want to believe in this universal oneness. I think there are problems with it. But the appeal is very powerful. And I don't rule out the possibility of a viable polytheism either, but I think his main appeal was to a minism to a oneness that may not have been theistic. So it Isn't monotheistic, but it moved us beyond our narrow enclosures toward connecting links between cultures between peoples and gets to the point of a kind of homogenized oneness, which then raises other questions.

Robert Lipsyte 10:14
Let's try to be specific for a moment. The phrase that keeps reappearing in all these discussions about Campbell is follow your bliss. So let's follow his line of thought on that.

Studio Interview Continues:

Robert Lipsyte 11:45
Well, to me follow your bliss gives you a lot of slack, doesn't it?

Madeline Nold 11:49
It can if that's the only phrase you look at because it's out of context and then you miss read it or read it the way you want to the way that Campbell used that was usually for people who were stuck in a career path. And he said sometimes you climb the ladder, you climb the ladder, you climb the ladder, and then you realize whoops, it's against the wrong wall. And the answer to that is follow your bliss.

Robert Lipsyte 12:09
So he used it in a very narrow vocational way

Madeline Nold 12:12
In the vocational the way that a lot of people took it and learned from it and some people really broke through but he did once say to me in a conversation when I said do you mind that sometimes people put you down or don't take you seriously? And he said no he said I don't go the way of the Folk a lot of people go the way of the group of the Folk he said going my own way has always been as natural to me as breathing and I think that's his that's his

Robert Lipsyte 12:35
You don't feel he goes his own way?

Cynthia Ozick 12:36
Oh no, he goes he goes with the herd monism is a vision is a vision of it's a herd vision it won't make distinctions it does not honor a particular group or a particular individual. And in fact

Robert Lipsyte 12:50
Could you help me Cynthia when you say monism I don't know what that means.

Cynthia Ozick 12:53
What's the it's it's the polarization between monism and monotheism. Monism says, God and the world are one God and all the galette God in the universe are one and monotheism says there is a transcendent creator. And then there is that creation. And that creator cannot include his own creation in him. It's it's

Robert Lipsyte 13:14
So mon ism what he's talking about says, God is me.

Cynthia Ozick 13:17
God is me. That's the ultimate thing that that's, that's his hero.

Robert Lipsyte 13:21
And that's really what your objection is, well as a religion if you feel that God is not me, God is somewhere else and outside

Cynthia Ozick 13:29
If God is me, that's quite different from the human being being made in the image of God. That's that's an aspiration and a deep respect. But if if you say God is me, you end up as one of your letter writers said, as as a possibility of being a Hitler.

Robert Lipsyte 13:47
Okay. Do you think? Do you think Campbell didn't believe in God?

Robert Segal 13:51
Well, he he certainly believed in God. It depends on characterization of characterization of God he believed in believed the basic distinction, the basic distinction Campbell makes, and here he is intellectually following his bliss, precisely because it's counter to what to what most scholars not to say most practitioners believe. Campbell made a hard and fast distinction on the one hand between what professedly Western religions which are monotheistic belief, and Eastern and primitive and what other religions believe which is mystical, but where Campbell follows his bliss isn't proceeding to argue, and this is not just following his own bliss. This is presumptuousness incarnate proceeded to argue that Western religions from their start and forevermore have systematically misunderstood their own what he calls their myths in contrast to their theology. What Campbell argues and again, this is more than this is idiosyncratic, if not unique to Campbell. This is saying that all religions in fact preach the same monistic mystical line, and the only difference between Westerners and Easterners is that Easterners recognize the fact that Westerners don't exist.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES.
Daniel Noel 14:54
the West, however, who have said the same thing Joe is not unique, I wouldn't say There is a tradition which you know, well perennialism and esotericism, that rereads, the Judeo Christian tradition, the Western monotheistic tradition in a mystical way and links it up with the Asian, Buddhist and Hindu way. And Joe was prone to do that. And I don't think that makes him more of a herdsman than if he were a monotheist.

Pre-recordpd clip of an exchange between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. Campbell discusses his faith, religion and experiences.

INTERVIEW CONTINUED

Robert Lipsyte:

dangerous or counterproductive to our lives?

Cynthia Ozick 17:39
Oh, absolutely counterproductive. Where where his conduct? Where we're are what? Mr. Campbell despises the rules. How do we know the difference between good and evil? He said in another part of those broadcasts that there was no good and evil one, everything that is, is all right, because it is. Now first of all, you would never have technology. If you believe that nobody could ever invent the wheel, you would never have amelioration of suffering. And in any case, he he and noble suffering, I don't believe he's a revolutionary at all. I think the revolution comes in the in the first moment that the human being says, I have a desire to do something, but I will not do it. Restraint and restraint of one's own conduct is the revolution. That's the revolution of conscience. Do

Robert Lipsyte 18:33
you think he's dangerous? Do you think he's dangerous to all those 30 million people out there who watched that series?

Cynthia Ozick 18:38
He's probably not too dangerous insofar as the poetry is lovely. If they're going to take him seriously, then of course, he's dangerous. He's going to make everybody feel that he or she is capable of other unrestraint

Robert Lipsyte 18:52
Cynthia, sitting next to you somebody who would want people to take Joseph Campbell seriously, wouldn't you? Yes. Oh, how do you feel about what you just said?

Madeline Nold 19:00
Well, I agree to disagree. And I don't feel that he's dangerous in the sense that he might change millions you know, you mentioned Hitler or something before like like that. He's a he was a kind soft spoken, intelligent man. What is dangerous if you think about danger, are perhaps the real fascists who are out there the real skinheads, you know, the groups that are really alive. He's not alive anymore

Cynthia Ozick 19:24
his philosophy creates

Robert Lipsyte 19:26
they don't watch PBS.

Cynthia Ozick 19:28
You don't think that that the philosophy of I am God are inseparable. God is in me, the power of the universe, the force of allnness is in me, you don't think that's a dangerous thing.

Madeline Nold 19:40
I ask you something. If you don't trust yourself, and I'm taking a little bit of a theoretical leap here, okay. If you don't trust yourself deeply inside and you're a little scared of trusting yourself, then you might project out that it's dangerous to trust yourself and have an experience that would be beyond the mental safety of thinking and ideological

Robert Lipsyte 20:00
I hear you saying that religion is for insecure people? And that Joseph Campbell gives you this the strength and energy to move out

Madeline Nold 20:06
no, I'm not saying that's what I want to do. To clarify, this is what I feel that religion as such, gives you dogma and ideas, and you can line up rituals in a way of life so that you can feel secure. I don't think it's bad. I'm not a Marxist on that, you know, I don't think that it's the opiate of the people. But on the other hand, to trust your own your own inner life, your own experience, can sometimes take a lot of courage.

Daniel Noel 20:33
In the area of psychology, where Joe Campbell was moving the Western tradition and the myth, mythical tradition of the West End of the World, precisely in this individualistic direction, then one has to start to talk about what did he mean? And what did his mentors Freud and Jung mean by the self? Because it follow your bliss means to trust yourself? The question is, is this the ego is this the deep self, we start to get into those distinctions. And if one goes deeply, quote, unquote, deeply enough, one reaches something that may be transpersonal, or transcendent of the ego and of the self in a narrow sense. And then you start to get something that is not selfish in our, you know, small s sense of selfish.

Robert Lipsyte 21:18
So I think you are saying that we get to that with Campbell. that ultimately he gives rather than takes away

Robert Segal 21:21
May I reinforce I think what Dan is saying, where I think Gil and perhaps Cynthia have misunderstood once again, I don't present myself a defender of Campbell misunderstood the clout of follow your bliss, is in failing to connect it to Campbell's staunch, relentless, never abandoned mysticism to follow your bliss is not for him. And again, I'm not defending it is not for him, to do whatever you like, oblivious to others. It's not to find God in yourself, and not to find it and others on the contrary, it's in Campbell's reading of mysticism in which all things are want all paths are one as well. Wherever you go by Campbell's logic, wherever your bliss leads you, it will lead you it will lead you down the same path as as following the bliss of others will lead them it will lead you to the same oneness you find I find God only

Robert Lipsyte 22:07
I gotta tell you, somebody who really enjoyed the series as watching storyteller, I find this kind of woolly. I mean, this oneness and this path and everything like that.

Daniel Noel 22:17
Might be woolly, wool. Wool should be woolly. We use these terms, spongy, fuzzy and woolly. Well, you have to realize there are many logics,

Cynthia Ozick 22:26
which is a more philosophical term, how about the term fusion, as opposed to making distinctions?

Robert Lipsyte 22:32
Well, like what it's all about,

Daniel Noel 22:34
fusion people, I like, fusion better than nuclear,

Robert Lipsyte 22:37
people are trying to find their way. And for some people, of course, this series was nothing less than an exploration of the meaning of life. It Campbell put an interesting spin on that, too.

Wide shot back in the studio again with Robert Lipsyte and guests.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

Robert Lipsyte:
engineering school like you really want to.

Madeline Nold 23:57
Yeah, he never really career counseled. But people would ask, you know, you know, sometimes your own intuition and follow your bliss could be following that inner voice that intuition that hunch, as as banal as to take an umbrella on an uncertain day when you sense it might rain I mean,

Robert Lipsyte 24:11
As banal as that the paths that we're talking about. You said, some are willing and some are not.

Daniel Noel 24:16
Some are willing, some are not. And I'm just saying let's be a little bit more pluralistic in this pluralistic society and allow for different paths

Robert Lipsyte 24:26
How should we look at Campbell?

Daniel Noel 24:28
I think we should look at him as a person who was very much drawn toward the fusion that Cynthia complains about the oneness, the universality of myths, which I think gave his theories a lot of problems. What I think I like best about Campbell is the storyteller. The poet, the lyrical writer, has been only mentioned in passing to me, that is the message I would continue to carry with me, even where I disagree with some of the contents and theories he advanced such as this universalism, I know its very attractive

Robert Lipsyte 24:59
You're not talking seriously then as a philosopher or a quote guru,

Daniel Noel 25:02
I would take it seriously in that he conveyed it through storytelling. That to me is the serious thing about his philosophy was the way he conveyed it.

Robert Lipsyte 25:11
Would it be very unfair to say, well, let me ask you because you you're not going to take it. You think it'd be very unfair to say Joseph Campbell was a great television performer and stop there?

Robert Segal 25:23
No, and I'll tell you why this is an aspect of the wiliness that hasn't been aired. Campbell doesn't justify the oneness that he found. So far, we've been talking about what the what the effect of it on people would be for good or for bad. My objection as a would be philosopher is, as they say, epistemological, how the hell does Campbell know that all things are one? How the hell does Campbell know that one ought to follow one's bliss, let alone where it should direct one? What grounds? Does he know things?

Robert Lipsyte 25:48
Are you attacking his right or his scholarship?

Robert Segal 25:51
His scholarship?

Cynthia Ozick 25:51
I don't think he's a scholar at all. You don't know he's not a scholar. The difference can be shown if you look at if you look at the work of gershom schelom the magisterial late scholar of Jerusalem, who did work, groundbreaking work, pioneering work on Jewish mysticism, nobody had ever done this work before. And there was a lot of opposition to it. And he was revolutionary in in explicating, Jewish mysticism, and he did it as a scholar. He didn't buy into it. And what Campbell does is he leaves the world of scholarship, behind course, he's a great scholar, in terms of the collection of these things and the anthologized of these things. But if you buy into it, your scholarship and so he's not a scholar

Madeline Nold 26:28
I disagree with that.

Robert Lipsyte 26:29
How should we think about him,

Madeline Nold 26:31
we should think of him first of all, as a scholar, because he knew a lot and he amalgamated a lot. And most scholars are in one area only. And they really go deeply into one area. He went broad face across many areas. And I mean, he studied he read and wrote 16 hours a day for 1000s of hours throughout his life. He knew what he was doing. When he spoke he was impassioned. I think that we need to look inside ourselves when we listen to him and look for our own truth whether you agree with him or not. I wonder why there is all this hoopla now I mean, obviously he hit a bone a bare bone within everybody who is all excited about this one way or another so some truth inside you got touched whether you agree with him or not by listening to him and and he did open up a doorway to the unknown the mystical or your own true intuition and even love of humanity

Robert Segal 27:23
or simply your hope that that door is there. It's one thing to say that he touches people which is which is which is undeniable. It's another thing to say again, that that he justifies what it is that he's touching. It's one thing for people to want to believe even to feel in their heart of hearts that all things are one it's quite another thing to demonstrate that all things are one, let alone that the myths that are told

Robert Lipsyte 27:43
where he touchdown needs Robert Segal, Daniel, Noel, Madeline Nold Cynthia ozick. Thanks very much for being with us.

Host Lipsyte close up encourages viewers to write in their questions and opinions.

Host Lipsyte announces the show and introduces himself. Show ends.

Reel ends.