The Poverty of Myth

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Somehow, long before Campbell

I knew a truth though without a way of knowing it.

The power of a myth is its very poverty

to takeaway what is and replace it with a lie.

A myth is the lie that tells the lie

America is great: myth

America is Rich: lie

America is free: lie

America is brave: myth

America is a raping genocidal stepchild of all the bastard king and queen murderers of Europe:

Not a myth, not a lie

Myth: Native Americans lived in gentle peace before first contact

Africa was never exploited by people of color: lie

Asia is all beauty and tigers: myth

All the sins of the world do not forgive mine: not a lie

Joseph, the poverty overwhelms us, we starve and starving we kill and in killing we become rich, and being rich we become greedy, and greed is hunger, and in palaces we starve for riches, for rich myths of our beauty and glory and power and yet we die like ants to be swept away from the mound. In a few days our souls that do not exist decay like the rotting dead bodies we do not leave behind, but become. Our myth dies with our soul, our myth rots on the dung heap as hungry as the first day we knew we were starving.

 

-an open letter to Joseph Campbell