The society to which we belong moulds our lives; it gives us language and shapes our thoughts. As an individual we cannot be representative of our society; we can only show facets of it, facets that change as we age and grow in experience. One person cannot represent the young, the mature, and the old at the same time; a man cannot represent the feminine or genderless aspects of society; a scholar cannot represent other professions. Together, individuals in the society make up the whole and our traditions and ceremonies serve to help us fit into the society. Most ceremonies transition us from one aspect of our life to the next: birth celebrations, such as a baptism; coming-of-age ceremonies, such as Bar and Bat Mitzvah; weddings; funerals. Each of these show us and the community where we belong in society. Other ceremonies are about the community as a whole: Plough Monday was the first day of the agricultural year in England, Thanksgiving is a celebration of the harvest made possible only through the work of the entire society.
There are no ceremonies in which we celebrate a person being an individual separate from society. Some ceremonies, such as a vision quest, might involve separation from the society but only for a period of time. Being permanently separated from society was reserved as a punishment, typically for sever crimes. Cain was exiled for the murder of Abel1, in 16th Century Scotland those found acting against the interests of the burgh were banished.2 Individual identity separate from society has only recently been something sought after.
Myths reinforce the idea that, as individuals, we are only part of the whole. As Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”3 Or God’s words, “Muhammad hadst thou not been, I would not have created the sky.”4 Myths tell us that God is part of all of us and that we are part of God; all people are interconnected and belong to the whole. And yet in today’s world we are removing all identification with groups and placing increasing emphasis on the individual. As individuals we are lost; we cannot grasp the fullness of life without a group and “we have been split in two”, our conscious and unconscious selves.5
“We think of ourselves as Americans, children of the twentieth century, Occidentals, civilized Christians. We are virtuous or sinful. Yet such designations do not tell what it is to be man, they denote only the accidents of geography, birth-date, and income. What is the core of us? What is the basic character of our being?”6 We are humankind; we are the past, the future, and each other. We are better off as a group. No single facet of humanity, not one religion, or social class, or profession, or gender can represent all of humanity. Further, no single nationality or ethnicity can represent all of humankind. As humanity has in the past, we must move beyond these limiting factors, we must recognize that our society is global not tribal or provincial or national. These labels hold humanity back from maturing.
Religion is unable to help us break away from the guardians of the status quo. Long ago religion became a tool of the “ogre-tyrant,” used for propaganda and self-congratulation. “It is hardly more today than a sanctimonious exercise for Sunday morning, whereas business ethics and patriotism stand for the remainder of the week.” For proof we need only look to the United States, it is an unofficial requirement that to run for high office a person must be a Christian while also praising the system that encourages a few to hoard while others go without. This can also be seen in Buddhism, which is today a tool for the country of Tibet. Gautama Buddha was a prince who cast off his material life for enlightenment but the Dalai Lama has, until recently, been the head of the Tibetan state and continually uses his religious position for political purposes. We must break free of these restrictive mythologies or be forever trapped in a cycle of violence against each other.
A key part in ending the cycle of violence is to discontinue our practice of Capitalism and our belief in the ideologies and myths that have sprung up to support it. The profit motive is used to excuse violence on all scales, from banks forcibly removing people from their homes to countries warring on one another. Capitalism is a belief predicated on violence and greed; it necessarily stagnates humanity as it encourages uniformity, falsely portraying a single facet of humanity as being representative of all.
We must all, as Campbell points out, be modern day heroes7. It will, however, not be for society to guide us in our journey but, rather, for each of us to bear the torch that will guide us back to society. We must discover those unconscious symbols that can serve as guideposts and help to create new mythologies or reinterpret old ones that will guide those following us. We must become united in humanity. That is not to say we must all have a single culture and use the same symbols and stories for enlightenment but we must recognize that we are all engaged in the same journey; the path may be different but the destination is the same: a global, respectful humanity.
1Gen. 4:11
2 Elizabeth Ewan, “'For Whatever Ales Ye': Women as Consumers and Producers in Late Medieval Scottish Towns,” in Women in Scotland: c.1100-1750, 124-135, ed. Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen Meikle (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999), 126-127.
3Matt. 25:40
4 Saʻdī, The Bústán, trans. W.H. Allen (1879), 13.
5 Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. (Novato, California: New World Library, 2008), 334.
6 Ibid., 332.
7 Ibid., 337.
