Why are the same myths everywhere? Frazer's Golden Bough

[@rickybosephus2036]

Campbell already answered the question of diffusion vs inate instinct archetypes. When i hear university woke professors dislike words used years ago that were acceptable to refer to non western societies like "Rude" "Rustic" "Savages" ...those were words that were used when he wrote the book. Frazer's book is fundamental. What book did Campbell recommend? Frazer's Golden Baugh, the one volume version. Frazer isn't really postulating a thesis like Darwin did. He's more of a documentarian. Read this book. He's he's father of anthropology for a reason. Joseph Campbell said of him, NOBODY did a bigger job than Frazer at putting it all together. I'd like to hear anyone today claim that anyone has better insight than Joseph Campbell and James Frazer. ...crickets.

[@goodtothinkwith]

Agreed, Frazer is a great read. That’s why he still appears on syllabi for mythology classes. Yes, as I mentioned in the video, I like the term “primitive” simply because it implies that such things are found earlier in history. There really was a problem with anthropologists looking down on primitive societies and treating them as less than European and perhaps even being less human. So while I have no particular love for trying to redefine terms for the sake of some particular agenda, even now people still have to mention that part of anthropological history… it wasn’t that long ago. Unfortunately, while I tend to agree that Campbell and Jung hit the nail on the head with their account of the origin of religion, academia became hostile to the exploration of such theories for fear of being reductive. We have to worry about being reductive of course… but it’s still amazing to me that an entire area of study is now basically off limits because of that. That’s not good. I’m hoping the tide will turn and we’ll see more work on so-called “grand narratives” like Jung’s and Campbell’s in the future. These are along the lines of what Graeber called “poetic ideas” … we need more of that.

[@douglaskingsman2565]

Erich Neumann, Walter Otto, Marie-Louise von Franz, Mircea Eliade, Karl Kerenyi... I hear no crickets.

[@rickybosephus2036]

@@douglaskingsman2565 all great minds, but, as you should know, those on your list were all born decades after Frazer. They all read Frazer, built on his work ,used the foundational axium he grounded-that there are mythological systems are fundamentally the same, and therefore, the human mind must be univeral throughout all races and throughout all time.

[@czowiekpierwotny2160]

Great channel! How to place in the discussion the idea of perennial philosophy?

[@goodtothinkwith]

Thank you!! You’re right on target - that’s what we’re building up to. I have a video coming soon on the perennial school… and a lot of others on the later comparativists (Durkheim, Otto, …). I love that stuff, so I hope to have others to follow as well.

[@czowiekpierwotny2160]

@@goodtothinkwith Looking forward to it! Always been interested in such topics even though I'm coming from an economic academic background. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@KevinPaterson]

What does it say about the world, that in parallel discovery, cultures used the same narrative structures? The idea of a universal history is an interesting one.

[@goodtothinkwith]

Yes indeed! That was one of the key insights from Campbell that sparked my interest in philosophy and religion. When we drill down further with that idea from Campbell, we hit Jung. I need to do a video on his archetypes

[@douglaskingsman2565]

Science has ruined your aesthetic intuition, Dr Johnson. Even rhetoric is inspired by the imagination.