Bim Bom Bim Bim Bom Bom
Culture is the fabric of meaning we create to make sense of the cycle of life and death.
People do pretty much the same things around the world and across time because we share the same human nervous system. There has been only one living human species for the last 30-40,000 years. Yet our minds and bodies are so flexible that we have been able to adapt to every possible environment on Earth (at least until now).
These adaptations are human culture and our cultures are all related to each other. Colonizers teach us to see differences to justify their own violence and thievery, but what is truly wonderful is how similar we are.
Culture is The Hero with a Thousand Faces
“The Hero with a Thousand Faces” is a book on comparative mythology written by Joseph Campbell in 1949. Campbell’s thesis is that the human hero story is the same around the world and across time.
It goes something like this. A young person is cast out of her or his people. They wander some kind of desert for a long time. One day they meet a wise older figure who gives them some special knowledge or tool. Meanwhile the people are suffering some calamity. The hero returns to their people and saves them. They “slay the dragon” if you will.
If that sounds like a Biblical story, it is. If that sounds like an Australian Aboriginal story, it is. If that sounds like “Star Wars,” it is. George Lucas acknowledged spending a lot of time with Joseph Campbell.
The artist is meant to put the objects of this world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal.”
Joseph Campbell, “Pathways to Bliss,” 2004
On our pages about “others,” we hope you will see some of yourself and through that recognize our common humanity.
Separation is an illusion. There are no “others.” There is no “them.” There is only us.
Culture makes us human.