A NIFTY COMPARISON OF OCCIDENTAL/ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHIES BY JOSEPH CAMPBELL

The following is from MYTHS TO LIVE BY, pp. 72-74, by Joseph Campbell:

[Open quote.] The philosophies of India have been classified by the native teachers in four categories, according to the ends of life that they serve, - i.e., the four aims for which men strive in this world. The first is dharma, “duty, virtue,” of which I have just spoken, and which, as we have seen, is defined for each by his place in the social order. The second and third are of nature and are the aims to which all living things are naturally impelled: success or achievement, self-aggrandizement, which is called in Sanskrit artha; and sensual delight or pleasure, known as kama. These latter two correspond to the aims of what Freud has called the id. They are expressions of the primary biological motives of the psyche, the simple “I want” of one’s animal nature; whereas the principle of dharma, impressed on each by his society, corresponds to what Freud has called superego, the cultural “Thou shalt!” In the Indian society one’s pleasures and successes are to be aimed for and achieved under the ceiling (so to say) of one’s dharma: “Thou shalt!” supervising “I want!” And when mid-life has been attained, with all the duties of life fulfilled, one departs (if a male) to the forest, to some hermitage, to wipe out through yoga every last least trace of “I want!” and, with that, every echo also of “Thou shalt!” Whereupon the fourth goal, the fourth and final end of life, will have been attained, which is known as moksha, absolute “release” or “freedom”: not “freedom,” however, as we think of it in the West, the freedom of an individual to be what he wants to be, or to do what he wants to do. On the contrary, “freedom” in the sense of moksha means freedom from every impulse to exist.

“Thou shalt!” against “I want!” and then, “Extinction!” In our modern Occidental view, the situation represented by the first two in tension would be thought of as proper rather to a nursery school than to adulthood, whereas in the Orient that is the situation enforced throughout even adult life. There is no provision or allowance whatsoever for what in the West would be thought of as ego-maturation. And as a result—to put it plainly and simply—the Orient has never distinguished ego from id.

The word “I” (in Sanskrit, aham) suggests to the Oriental philosopher only wishing, wanting, desiring, fearing, and possessing, i.e., the impulses of what Freud has termed the id operating under pressure of the pleasure principle. Ego, on the other hand (again as Freud defines it), is that psychological faculty which relates us objectively to external, empirical “reality”: i.e., to the fact-world, here and now, and in its present possibilities, objectively observed, recognized, judged, and evaluated; and to ourselves, so likewise known and judged, within it. A considered act initiated by a knowledgeable, responsible ego is thus something very different from the action of an avaricious, untamed id; different, too, from performances governed by unquestioning obedience to a long-inherited code—which can only be inappropriate to contemporary life or even to any unforeseen social or personal contingency.

The virtue of the Oriental is comparable, then, to that of the good soldier, obedient to orders, personally responsible not for his acts but only for their execution. And since all the laws to which he is adhering Will have been handed down from an infinite past, there will be no one anywhere personally responsible for the things that he is doing. Nor, indeed, was there ever anyone personally responsible, since the laws were derived— or at least are supposed to have been derived—from the order of the universe itself. And since at the source of this universal order there is no personal god or willing being, but only an absolutely impersonal force or void, beyond thought, beyond being, antecedent to categories, there has finally never been anyone anywhere responsible for anything—the gods themselves being merely functionaries of an ever-revolving kaleidoscope of illusory appearances and disappearances, world without end. [Close quote.]


READING JUST FINISHED

HIROSHIMA by John Hersey [First read this in mid-1960s after viewing "Hiroshima, Mon Amor". Still a clear and almost dispassionate account of death and suffering. I also now have the film "Black Rain" to view, another film I saw way back when, probably about the same time I watched "Dr. Strangelove", a real terror tale.]
100 YEARS, 100 STORIES by George Burns [Bedside reading, stories from Burns' reality and imagination.]


MOVIES VIEWED THIS WEEKEND

Songs From The Second Floor [A must see. A surrealistic poem. Two thumbs up by Ebert/ Roeper too.]
Manchurian Candidate [Just so so, but exciting.]
Meet The Fockers [Went to please my wonderful wife. She said she got from it what she expected so she wasn't disappointed.]


BOUGHT TWO BOOKS THIS WEEKEND TO GO ON MY STACK OF TO-READ BOOKS

101 MYTHS OF THE BIBLE by Gary Greenberg
THE SELFISH GENE by Richard Dawkins
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"Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around." —David Lodge [However, I think David is forgetting a lot of second class, regional literature and the literature of the South. In fact, I think David doesn't know what he's talking about.]