Content

content (v.)

satisfy in a LIMITED way;

content (v.)

make content;

content (adj.)

satisfied or showing satisfaction with things AS THEY ARE

Modern War is merely 

Media Content.

War becomes a 

continuous Sporting Event —

A World Cup that never ends.

The Crucial Detail is CONSENT.

Consent creates 

A Game, 

NOT A Crime.”

— Tyler Durden

BILL MOYERS: 

Let me ask you some questions about these common features in these stories, the significance of the forbidden fruit.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, there’s a standard folktale motif called 

“The One Forbidden Thing.” 

Remember, in Bluebeard, 

“Don’t open that closet.” 

You know, and then 

one always does it. 

And in the Old Testament story, 

God gives the one forbidden thing, 

and he knows very well, 

now I’m interpreting God, 

he knows very well that 

Man’s going to 

eat the forbidden fruit. 

But it’s by doing that that 

Man becomes 

The Initiator of His Own Life. 

Life really begins with that.

BILL MOYERS: 

I also find in some 

of these early stories, 

the human tendency to find someone to blame.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

Let me read Genesis 1, then I’ll ask you to read one from the Bassari legend.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

All right.

BILL MOYERS: 

Genesis 1: “And God said, ‘Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat?’ Then the man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.’ And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you’ve done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ Now, I mean, you talk about buck-passing, it starts very early.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s right.

BILL MOYERS: 

And then there’s the Bassari legend.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It’s been tough on serpents, too. “One day Snake said, ‘We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry?’ Antelope said, ‘But we don’t know anything about this fruit.’ Then Man and his wife took some of the fruit and ate it. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, ‘Who ate the fruit?’ They answered, ‘We did.’ Unumbotte asked, ‘Who told you that you could eat that fruit?’ They replied, ‘Snake did.’ It’s the same story.

BILL MOYERS: 

Poor Snake.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It’s the same story.

BILL MOYERS: 

What do you make of this, that in all of these stories the principal actors are pointing to someone else as the initiator of the fall?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah, but it turns out to be Snake. 

And Snake in both of these stories is 

The Symbol of Life throwing off The Past 

and continuing to live.

BILL MOYERS: 

Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The Power of Life, because The Snake sheds its skin, 

just as The Moon sheds its Shadow. 

The Snake in most cultures is positive. 

Even the most poisonous thing, in India, The Cobra, 

is a sacred animal. 

And The Serpent, Naga, 

The Serpent King, Nagaraga, 

is the next thing to The Buddha, 

because The Serpent represents 

The Power of Life in The Field of Time 

to throw off Death, 

and The Buddha represents 

The Power of Life in The Field of Eternity 

to be eternally alive.

Now, I saw a fantastic thing of a Burmese priestess, 

A Snake Priestess, who had to bring rain to her people 

by calling a king cobra from his den 

and kissing him three times on the nose. 

There was The Cobra, 

The Giver of Life, The Giver of Rain, 

which is of Life, as The Divine Positive, 

not negative, figure.

BILL MOYERS: 

The Christian stories turn it around, 

because The Serpent was the seducer.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, what that amounts to 

is a refusal to affirm life. 

Life is Evil in this view. 

Every natural impulse is sinful unless you’ve been baptized or circumcised, in this tradition that we’ve inherited. For heaven’s sakes!

BILL MOYERS: 

By having been The Tempter, 

Women have paid a great price, 

because in mythology, some of this mythology, 

they are the ones who led to the downfall.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Of course they did. I mean, they represent Life. 

Man doesn’t enter life except by woman, 

and so it is Woman who brings us into 

The World of Polarities and Pair of Opposites 

and suffering and all. 

But I think it’s a really childish attitude, 

to say “No” to Life with all its Pain, 

you know, to say this is something 

that should not have been.

Schopenhauer, in one of his marvelous chapters, 

I think it’s in The World as Will and Idea, says: 

“Life is something that should not have been. 

It is in its very essence and character, 

a terrible thing to consider, 

this business of living by killing and eating.” 

I mean, it’s in sin in terms of 

all ethical judgments all the time.

BILL MOYERS: 

As Zorba says, you know, 

“Trouble? Life is Trouble. 

Only Death is no Trouble.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s it. And when people say to me, you know, 

“Do you have optimism about The World,

 you know, how terrible it is?”

I said, ‘Yes, just Say,

“It’s great! Just the way it is.”

BILL MOYERS: 

But doesn’t that lead to 

a rather passive attitude 

in the face of Evil, 

in the face of Wrong?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

You participate in it. 

Whatever you do 

is Evil for somebody.

BILL MOYERS: 

But explain that for The Audience.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, when I was in India, 

there was a man whose name was 

Sri Krishnamenon 

and his mystical name was 

Atmananda and he was in Trivandrum, 

and I went to Trivandrum, 

and I had the wonderful privilege of 

sitting face to face with him 

as I’m sitting here with you. 

And the first question, 

first thing he said to me is, 

“Do you have A Question?” 

Because The Teacher there always answers questions, 

he doesn’t tell you anything, 

he answers. 

And I said, 

“Yes, I have a question.” 

I said, 

“Since in Hindu thinking all The Universe is Divine, 

is a manifestation of 

Divinity Itself,

How can we say ‘No.’ to anything in The World —

How can we say ‘No.’ to Brutality, 

to Stupidity, to Vulgarity, 

to Thoughtlessness?” 

And he said, 

“ For you and me, 

we must Say ‘Yes.’”

Well, I had learned from my friends 

who were students of his, that 

that happened to have been 

the first question he asked his guru, 

and we had a wonderful talk for about an hour 

there on this theme, of The Affirmation of The World. 

And it confirmed me in a feeling that I have had, 

that "Who are We to Judge?" 

And it seems to me that this is one of 

the great teachings of Jesus.

BILL MOYERS: 

Well, I see now what you mean in one respect; 

in some classic Christian doctrine 

The World is to be despised, 

Life is to be redeemed in The Hereafter, 

it is Heaven where Our Rewards come, 

and if you affirm that which you deplore, 

as you say, you’re affirming The World, 

which is Our Eternity of The Moment.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s what I would say.