Transcendental Mythologies

My freshman year at Xavier University included a class on 'rhetoric'. It basically taught literary analysis, the fundamentals of critique, and how to write a good argumentative essay. This was a solid grounding for the poststructural claptrap that English Majors are forced to endure in the later years of the curriculum. But for me, to be honest, I'd already had those skills beaten into me during high school.

I recall a feeling of boredom and malaise at the time. So for about a week I went to the library and watched the PBS documentary 'Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth'. Bill Moyers interviewed him in the last years of his life at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Campbell brilliantly explains how myths and archetypes convey eternal meanings across time and culture, strengthening core values with recurring themes and character types. The sheer depth of his knowledge is breathtaking - moving with deft ease from Sumerian myth to tales from Polynesia to Arthurian legend.

And it's no surprise the interview took place at Skywalker Ranch. Lucas, while writing Star Wars, was heavily inspired by the works of Joseph Campbell. In case it isn't obvious, Obi Wan, Vader and Luke are each common archetypes, lined up with Meriln, Sauron and Frodo - and hundreds of other story characters that go back to the dawn of civilization.

And that's really what has me thinking. Two of the largest cinematic epics of the past thirty years - both wildly successful - are essentially tales of spiritual journeys. Lucas may be a California new ager, and Tolkien was a Catholic with a fixation on the monarchy - but essentially they are peddling the notion that truth is transcendental. Is this an escapist fantasy, or enduring wisdom that has animated the human spirit for thousands of years? After all, Tyler Durden and the nihilist ethic that claims we are nothing more than atoms and sensation - this brutal self-centrism is a much more recent invention, and hardly seems to raise itself to the level of myth.

(Truth to be told, the latest Star Wars movies haven't inspired me. In the area of space opera I prefer the new 'Battlestar Galactica' - a surprisingly smart noire reinvention of the hopelessly schlocky 1970s series. But even this show has religious themes, as God, humanity and it's creations wrestle with problems that go back to Faust and the original Shelley Frankenstein.)