#monomyth — Public Fediverse posts

One more time: the #Monomyth would argue it's perfectly possible to understand Darth Vader and a corrupt Roman statesman (as portrayed by an ancient Roman author) as *the same tyranny.* It's not just that it can't tell us the difference - we are taught to willfully ignore how Roman authors portrayed evil, and instead to look for the archetypes and symbols that supersede the text.

We can't understand the nature of this resurgence without also understanding the ongoing discussions about gender roles. Bringing more and more topics to the table to explore why last year's #Tiktok trend was a different historical moment from those that came before is antithetical to the #Monomyth.

We can't understand the nature of this resurgence without also understanding the ongoing discussions about gender roles. Bringing more and more topics to the table to explore why last year's #Tiktok trend was a different historical moment from those that came before is antithetical to the #Monomyth.

When Campbell wrote, "there is no final system for the interpretation of myths," whatever his intention, what has manifested in the #Monomyth is its structural opposite - *"there is no alternative for the interpretation of stories."* You can break or subvert every trope in the Monomyth's cycle, and its photo negative, its afterimage, yet stains your eyelids. It insists upon itself that it's impossible for the psyche to come up with anything different.

When Campbell wrote, "there is no final system for the interpretation of myths," whatever his intention, what has manifested in the #Monomyth is its structural opposite - *"there is no alternative for the interpretation of stories."* You can break or subvert every trope in the Monomyth's cycle, and its photo negative, its afterimage, yet stains your eyelids. It insists upon itself that it's impossible for the psyche to come up with anything different.

Then there's Campbell's influences. For instance, we know he combined Freudian psychoanalysis with Carl Jung's archetypes and collective unconscious theory. The result, applied to myths and storytelling, is the #Monomyth. Jung, likewise, was a progeny of Freud's work, and, like many conservatives post-WW2, heavily influenced by the works of Irish philosopher Edmund Burke:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

Then there's Campbell's influences. For instance, we know he combined Freudian psychoanalysis with Carl Jung's archetypes and collective unconscious theory. The result, applied to myths and storytelling, is the #Monomyth. Jung, likewise, was a progeny of Freud's work, and, like many conservatives post-WW2, heavily influenced by the works of Irish philosopher Edmund Burke:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

For whatever reason, we seem to keep passing thought experiments - like the #Monomyth - down the telephone game, and arriving a priori at the conclusion that, given enough data (or stories), they can be proven a fait accompli. We do this in spite of Campbell's self-waiver above, an extremely safe, and conservative conclusion. We've done this before with #Hobbes and #Rousseau. The structure of conclusion is the same. Maybe there are angles we're missing.

For whatever reason, we seem to keep passing thought experiments - like the #Monomyth - down the telephone game, and arriving a priori at the conclusion that, given enough data (or stories), they can be proven a fait accompli. We do this in spite of Campbell's self-waiver above, an extremely safe, and conservative conclusion. We've done this before with #Hobbes and #Rousseau. The structure of conclusion is the same. Maybe there are angles we're missing.

Comparing one story to another isn't the problem. The #Monomyth lens can shine a light on a thousand stories with a thousand supporting protagonists, young and male, who join the main protagonist after they've crossed the first threshold. The lens cannot tell you that there is one, and only one, Junpei Iori from #Persona3Reload ("DA MAN"). The best it can do is shrug and go "Idonfuckinknow, he's the Romeo to Chidori's Juliet, I mean, have you SEEN West Side Story? Same story."

Comparing one story to another isn't the problem. The #Monomyth lens can shine a light on a thousand stories with a thousand supporting protagonists, young and male, who join the main protagonist after they've crossed the first threshold. The lens cannot tell you that there is one, and only one, Junpei Iori from #Persona3Reload ("DA MAN"). The best it can do is shrug and go "Idonfuckinknow, he's the Romeo to Chidori's Juliet, I mean, have you SEEN West Side Story? Same story."

The #Monomyth is literature's #cryptid. As long as we continue to concede that it's "at least a good model," it remains in that liminal state between being a universal measurement for stories, or the overgeneralisations of a man who, as he admitted himself, was just spitballing. That is, the effect of the Monomyth has on our studies is to learn to compare stories by stripping them down to their symbols, and what they have in common. Curiously, on symbols, Campbell wrote (next post 👇):

The #Monomyth is literature's #cryptid. As long as we continue to concede that it's "at least a good model," it remains in that liminal state between being a universal measurement for stories, or the overgeneralisations of a man who, as he admitted himself, was just spitballing. That is, the effect of the Monomyth has on our studies is to learn to compare stories by stripping them down to their symbols, and what they have in common. Curiously, on symbols, Campbell wrote (next post 👇):

I could go on. Fitting the evidence to evopsych, not unlike trying to fit stories to Campbell's #Monomyth, seems less of a scientific exercise, and more an ideological one. It is a part, and not the whole that is otherwise suggested.

I could go on. Fitting the evidence to evopsych, not unlike trying to fit stories to Campbell's #Monomyth, seems less of a scientific exercise, and more an ideological one. It is a part, and not the whole that is otherwise suggested.

Not unlike the #Monomyth, starting with the TL;DR of Darwin's theories is more open-ended than you'd think, and this means it lends itself to being fertilizer for shithead ideologues to make their means to an end palatable. Not all evopsych enthusiasts see themselves as bedfellows with eugenicists, nor successors to the phrenologists before them, but if you *are* for #eugenics, then evopsych is the perfect smokescreen, and you might as well call yourself one to confuse everyone else.*

Not unlike the #Monomyth, starting with the TL;DR of Darwin's theories is more open-ended than you'd think, and this means it lends itself to being fertilizer for shithead ideologues to make their means to an end palatable. Not all evopsych enthusiasts see themselves as bedfellows with eugenicists, nor successors to the phrenologists before them, but if you *are* for #eugenics, then evopsych is the perfect smokescreen, and you might as well call yourself one to confuse everyone else.*

I am not immune to the #monomyth. My Mum's read a lot of romance novels and thrillers in her time, from authors such as 'Sunday Times Best-Seller,' and I've found myself thinking, time and again, "What's the point if they're the same book with the same plot?" *Who am I to judge?*

https://brologue.net/2023/11/05/fantasy-for-mums/

I am not immune to the #monomyth. My Mum's read a lot of romance novels and thrillers in her time, from authors such as 'Sunday Times Best-Seller,' and I've found myself thinking, time and again, "What's the point if they're the same book with the same plot?" *Who am I to judge?*

https://brologue.net/2023/11/05/fantasy-for-mums/

It's more accurate to say that the Hero's Journey is a product of the last half-century, urged into relevance from the writers of Star Wars, who found the myth of the #monomyth to be, based on their own experiences, 'true enough.' The problem with this is that once you start judging literature only through what stories have in common, you grow cynical of the idea that literature builds upon itself.

It's more accurate to say that the Hero's Journey is a product of the last half-century, urged into relevance from the writers of Star Wars, who found the myth of the #monomyth to be, based on their own experiences, 'true enough.' The problem with this is that once you start judging literature only through what stories have in common, you grow cynical of the idea that literature builds upon itself.

The #Monomyth theory is far too blurry to claim any historical provenance. That's why it's nonsense. It promises to be a theory of everything for literature, yet when stood against the historical record, it's no more a crack at making the Philosopher's Stone; a minority of clichés that, today, could be found on TV Tropes with a thousand non-exhaustive sub-articles. Interpreting stories with it involves more shifting goalposts to get them to fit than it's worth.

The #Monomyth theory is far too blurry to claim any historical provenance. That's why it's nonsense. It promises to be a theory of everything for literature, yet when stood against the historical record, it's no more a crack at making the Philosopher's Stone; a minority of clichés that, today, could be found on TV Tropes with a thousand non-exhaustive sub-articles. Interpreting stories with it involves more shifting goalposts to get them to fit than it's worth.

As Spencer McDaniel writes, The Hero's Journey may be a vox pop method of storytelling, but it's no #Monomyth:

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/12/31/the-heros-journey-is-nonsense/

As Spencer McDaniel writes, The Hero's Journey may be a vox pop method of storytelling, but it's no #Monomyth:

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/12/31/the-heros-journey-is-nonsense/