The Secondary Father

Textbook Joseph Campbell.

The way Campbell explained it, 
Young Men need a Secondary Father to finish raising them.

Beyond their Biological Father, they need a surrogate, traditionally a minister or a coach or a military officer.

The floatsam and jetsam of a generation washed up on the beach of last resort.

That's why street gangs are so appealing. 

They send you men out, like Knights on Quests to hone their skills and improve themselves.

And all the TRADITIONAL Mentors -- forget it.

Men are presumptive predators. They're leaving Teaching in droves.

Religious Leaders are pariahs.

Sports Coaches are stigmatized as odds-on pedophiles.

Even The Military is sketchy with sexual goings-on.

A Generation of Apprentices 
Without Masters.

Derek Vineyard 

(note the surname) 

is a Reverse-Noah.

" The Question is, what does it mean to see your father naked? 

And especially in an inappropriate manner, like this. 

It’s as if Ham…He does the same thing that happens in the Mesopotamian creation myth, when Tiamat and Apsu give rise to the first Gods, who are the father of the eventual deity of redemption: Marduk. 

The first Gods are very careless and noisy, and they kill Apsu, their father, and attempt to inhabit his corpse. 

That makes Tiamat enraged. 

She bursts forth from The Darkness to do them in. 

It’s like a precursor to the flood story, or an analog to the flood story.

I see the same thing happening, here, with Ham. 

He’s insufficiently respectful of his father. 




The Question is, 
'Exactly what does The Father represent?'

You could say, well, there’s 
The Father That You Have: 
A human being, a man among Men. 


But then there’s The Father-as-such, 
and that’s The Spirit of The Father. 

Insofar as you have a father, you have both at the same time: you have the personal father, a man among other Men—just like anyone other’s father—
but insofar as that man is your father, 
that means that he’s something different than just another person. 

What he is, is the incarnation of The Spirit of The Father. 
To disrespect that carelessly…

And Noah makes a mistake, right?

He produces wine and gets himself drunk. 

You might say, well, if he’s sprawled out there for everyone to see, it’s hardly Ham’s fault, if he stumbles across him. 
But the book is laying out a danger. 

The danger is that, well, 
maybe you catch your father at his most vulnerable moment, 
and if you’re disrespectful, 
then you transgress against  The Spirit of The Father. 

And if you transgress against The Spirit of The Father and lose respect for The Spirit of The Father, 
then that is likely to transform you into a slave.

Bob Sweeney: 
There was a moment, when I used to blame everything and everyone for all the pain and suffering and vile things that happened to me, 
that I saw happen to my people. 

Used to blame everybody. 

Blamed White People, 
Blamed Society, 
Blamed God. 

I didn't get no answers, 
'cause I was asking the wrong questions. 

You have to ask the right questions.

Derek Vinyard: 
Like what?

Bob Sweeney: 
Has anything you've done 
made your life better?
 

" That’s a very interesting idea. 

I think it’s particularly germane to our current cultural situation. 

I think that we’re constantly pushed to see the nakedness of our Father, so to speak, because of the intense criticism that’s directed towards our culture—the patriarchal culture. 

We’re constantly exposing its weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and, let’s say, its nakedness. 

There’s nothing wrong with criticism, but the purpose of criticism is to separate the wheat from the chaff:

It’s not to burn everything to the ground. 

It’s to say, well, we’re going to carefully look at this; we’re going to carefully differentiate; we’re going to keep what’s good, and we’re going to move away from what’s bad.

The criticism isn’t to identify everything that’s bad: it’s to separate what’s good from what’s bad, so that you can retain what’s good and move towards it. 

To be careless of that is deadly.

You’re inhabited by the spirit of the Father, right? 

Insofar as you’re a cultural construction, which, of course, is something that the postmodern neo-Marxists are absolutely emphatic about: you’re a cultural construction. 

Insofar as you’re a cultural construction, then you’re inhabited by the spirit of the Father. 

To be disrespectful towards that means to undermine the very structure that makes up a good portion of what you are, insofar as you’re a socialized, cultural entity. 

If you pull the foundation out from underneath that, what do you have left? 

You can hardly manage on your own. 
It’s just not possible. 
You’re a cultural creation.

Ham makes this desperate error, and is careless about exposing himself to the vulnerability of his father. 

Something like that. He does it without sufficient respect. 

The judgement is that, not only will he be a slave, but so will all of his descendants. 

He’s contrasted with the other two sons, who, I suppose, are willing to give their father the benefit of the doubt. 

When they see him in a compromising position, they handle it with respect, and don’t capitalize on it. 

Maybe that makes them strong. 

That’s what it seems like to me. I think that’s what that story means. 

It has something to do with respect. 

The funny thing about having respect for your culture—and I suppose that’s partly why I’m doing the Biblical stories: they’re part of my culture. 

They’re part of our culture, perhaps. 

But they are certainly part of my culture. 

It seems to me that it’s worthwhile to treat that with respect, to see what you can glean from it, and not kick it when it’s down, let’s say.