Chapter Seven
THE ALMIGHTY JOSEPH CAMPBELL
What has created great confusion in today's world is that many people do not understand that the function of creation that was once universally understood to belong to force or forces outside the mind of man has now been attributed to belong exclusively to the mind of man. The credibility of the idea of an out-there-somewhere Creator with a Mind and a Will and a Plan of His own has been obliterated from the minds of millions of people on this planet.
Two diametrically opposed definitions of self-evident truth are now vying for control of the government of this world. Two contradictory definitions of Cause now control the minds of every person on this planet. And two contradictory theories of government world views have been formed in the minds of those people on this planet who believe themselves to have authority to govern. To grasp the nature of this fundamental conflict that is brewing on this planet is to see the kindling spark that will someday ignite the heavens and the earth unless the conflict is resolved by some other means. Because in this conflict there is absolutely no ground for compromise.
Let us examine the conflict. In the previous chapter I stated that I reasoned from an scientifically unverifiable presupposition, "Everything is subject to government. Everything," I said. In effect, I justified the necessity of government by presupposing that all things are governed. Since I presumed to declare that all things are governed, it logically followed that we must have government. I declared Government to be a self-evident fact of the created order that existed regardless of what people thought or wanted. The Cause of government was defined by me to be a force that existed outside ourselves that forced us to move in obedience to the will of that force. Given my presupposition, the only question remaining was what kind of government are people forced to obey.
Now it is theoretically possible to deny my presupposition. But to do so would require defining all the order in the universe supposedly perceived by people throughout history as something approaching illusion. Such a theory would remove the idea of an order that had been imposed upon creation to which the mind of man is subject, and substitute in its place an idea that defines all appearance of order as a creation of the mind of man. The mind of man would then be seen to be the source or Cause of order, and if of order, of government. Since Cause is synonymous with the Creator, and since the mind of man had been defined as the Source or Cause of order, it must logically follow that the mind of man is, according to this theory, the Creator.
In order to understand the New Revolution that has destroyed the government founded by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America and is well on its way to establishing a New World Order, we must understand that millions of people today believe that the mind of man is God, the Creator. Joseph Campbell tells us about the two definitions of Cause that rule the mind of man today, "Throughout the Orient the idea prevails that the ultimate ground of being transcends thought, imaging, and definition. It cannot be qualified. Hence to argue that God, Man, or Nature is good, just, merciful, or benign, is to fall short of the question. One could as appropriately--or inappropriately--have argued, evil, unjust, merciless, or malignant. All such anthropomorphic predications screen or mask the actual enigma, which is absolutely beyond rational consideration; and yet, according to this view, precisely that enigma is the ultimate ground of being of each and every one of us--and of all things.
Campbell continues, "The supreme aim of Oriental mythology, consequently, is not to establish as substantial any of its divinities or associated rites, but to render by means of these an experience that goes beyond: of identity with that Being of beings which is both immanent and transcendent; yet neither is nor is not (italics mine). Prayers and chants, images, temples, gods, sages, definitions, and categories are but ferries to a shore of experience beyond the categories of thought, to be abandoned on arrival..."Thou are that," declares the Vedic sage; and the Japanese: 'It is you true self."
Campbell clearly defines the goal of oriental religion to result in the individual realizing identity with that "Being of beings" which is the cause of all things.
In a later work, Campbell summarizes what he believes to be the outcome of the competition between the two world views described above, "In the earlier volumes of this survey of the historical transformations of those imagined forms that I am calling the "masks" of God, through which men everywhere have sought to relate themselves to the wonder of existence, the myths and rites of the Primitive, Oriental, and Early Occidental worlds could be discussed in terms of grandiose unitary stages. For in the history of our still youthful species, a profound respect for inherited forms has generally suppressed innovation. Millenniums have rolled by with only minor variations played on themes derived from God-knows-when. Not so, however, in our recent West, where, since the middle of the twelfth century, an accelerating disintegration has been undoing the formidable orthodox tradition that came to flower in that century, and with its fall, the released creative powers of a great company of towering individuals have broken forth: so that not one, or even two or three, but a galaxy of mythologies--as many, one might say, as the multitude of its geniuses--must be taken into account in any study of the spectacle of our own titanic age. Even in the formerly dominant, but now distinctly subordinate, sphere of theology (italics mine) there has arisen...a manifold beyond reckoning of variant readings of the Christian revelation; while in the fields of literature, secular philosophy, and the arts, a totally new type of non-theological revelation, of great scope, great depth, and infinite variety, has become the actual spiritual guide and structuring force of the civilization (italics mine).
Government is the "structuring force" of civilization. The "totally new type of non-theological revelation" described by Campbell has released a "structuring force" that has created a Revolution in government, not only in the United States of American, but in all the developed nations of the world.
Anyone who desires to understand government as it exists on this planet today must be willing to seriously consider the fact that there are many extraordinarily gifted and learned people who firmly believe that the mind of man is the only source of order in the universe. These gifted people do not believe there is a Being outside the mind of man, a Being with a Will and a Plan that Homo sapiens is obligated to obey. In fact those gifted people are convinced that anyone who believes in the actual existence of such a Being is deluded by superstition.
Anyone who wants to understand the real battle going on in this world today must grasp the fact that these people are absolutely certain they are right. They are totally persuaded.
There are others, though, who are equally gifted and learned who believe there is a Creator out there with a mind and will of his own who has imposed an order upon the universe that people are obligated to obey.
The presence of these two diametrically opposed world views held by people who are proselytizing with all their might means that the world is being divided into two camps: one camp believes there is a creator out there somewhere with a mind and will of his or her own who created the order we see around us; the other camp believes the will of man is the only source of order on this planet.
Between these two opposing camps stands a third group of people. They have viewed the dangers confronting us and have concluded that the main threat to the survival of our species comes from people who presume to be certain that they know anything well enough to call their knowledge Truth. This camp would have us believe that the search for Truth itself is the root of the problems threatening our survival. They would have us decide we can know nothing with certainty and therefore any person who imposes their will on another person is by definition certainly wrong. They would solve the problem of clashing truths between governments by convincing public opinion to abandon the search for truth.
In theory, their analysis offers some comfort to people befuddled by the amazingly complex world in which we live. In theory, the loss of certainty would be a small price to pay for the survival of our species. But some things require something approaching absolute certainty.
Government is one of those things. Government is the process through which the will of one is enforced on the will of another. No power of will is present unless certainty is present. Governments do not last very long unless the people involved with those governments are very close to absolutely certain they are supposed to survive.
There has never been a period in history when the will to govern was absent on this planet. Somebody has always been willing to do the job. But whose will actually provides the force of government has undergone drastic changes throughout the course of history. As we explore the changes that have occurred in government throughout history, we are enabled to see that Homo sapiens has always been subject to will. But whose will? Ah, that is the question.