{"id":92382,"date":"2017-07-13T02:14:26","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T06:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/?p=92382"},"modified":"2017-07-13T11:38:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T15:38:51","slug":"more-than-a-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/more-than-a-man\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than a Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bodhihulk.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-92384 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bodhihulk.jpg\" alt=\"Source: http:\/\/newbuddhist.com\/discussion\/24778\/bodhi-of-christ\" width=\"464\" height=\"580\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bodhihulk.jpg 464w, https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bodhihulk-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 464px) 100vw, 464px\" \/><\/a>It must have been nearly two decades ago. I was a featured guest at a Horror\/Fantasy conference in Georgia. It was barely organized, any scheduling left to spontaneous generation. Largely a waste of time. So I spent much of the weekend in my motel room reading Walter Kaufmann\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s translation of Nietzsche\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Thus Spoke Zarathustra. <\/em>And as I read, a peculiar realization dawned on me. I suddenly realized that it had fallen to me to be this generation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Zarathustra (hence, of course, the title of this column). It would be my task to carry forward the work of Nietzsche and his fictional alter ego, bringing their insights to bear on today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world, today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issues. To proclaim the Death of God and what it means to us. To lay bare the nonsense that chokes our discourse, the stupidity and fustian that render futile contemporary discussion. To expose the chicanery of religion\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand of atheism.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Megalomania? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not ashamed of it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/batbuddha-e1499924979973.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-92386\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/batbuddha-e1499924979973.jpg\" alt=\"Batman Buddha\" width=\"89\" height=\"166\" \/><\/a>But I do want to reflect on it. When discussing the coming of the Superman it is not surprising that one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind turns to superheroes, and to their movies. In <em>Batman Begins<\/em> we see Ras al Ghul training Bruce Wayne high in the Himalayas. He explains to his apprentice that, in order to accomplish his mission as a superhero he must \u00e2\u20ac\u0153become more than a man,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d hence the costumed persona with cape and cowl. The bat-suit is no mere exotic set of clothes. It is a kind of second skin denoting Bruce Wayne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s transformation, his transcendence of mere humanity, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more than a man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We see the same metamorphosis in another movie, <em>Captain America: The First Avenger<\/em>, in the scene when Steve Rogers has rescued hundreds of American POWs from the dungeons of the Red Skull. As he leads them, limping but victorious, into the American camp, his friend Bucky Barnes raises a cheer for the new hero: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hear it for <em>Captain America!<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Before this, the man had been Steve Rogers. But in this moment he has taken upon his broad shoulders the mantle of the mythic hero archetype. His costume and title denote he is henceforth something more than a man: a living incarnation of collective America.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RW8Et2pAb5g\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing new. Is Queen Elizabeth entitled to live in such opulence? As an individual, not necessarily. But she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a living symbol of the majesty of the United Kingdom. The opulence, the majesty is not hers; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that of Great Britain. Maybe you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t buy that. Maybe you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d prefer they did away with all that pomp(osity). \u00c2\u00a0Make it like East Germany. I guess things just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be mundane enough for you. The People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Republic of the Rainy Day. Well, as Bluto Blutarsky once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can kiss my ass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or, I guess, the Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ass. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know which would be worse, actually.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To go from one great thinker to another, Carl Jung has helpful stuff to say on our subject. What I am talking about is what he calls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inflation of the archetype.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Our Unconscious is hardwired with a galaxy of images: numbers, geometric figures, mythic types, etc. These last include the Crone, the Axis Mundi, the Hero, the Wise Man, etc. Sometimes an individual comes to identify with one of these archetypes to the point where it defines him. The danger is that such an individual may become completely consumed, or subsumed, in the archetype, and then you have a nut who thinks he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Napoleon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Stephan A. Hoeller puts it well: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The worship of the archetypes implies their overevaluation, which frequently leads to the personality being possessed by an archetype. The ghastly apparition of spiritual pride soon rears its swollen head, and, instead of utilizing the power of the archetypes, individuals come to imagine that they have become a divine archetype themselves. [This] reduces the power of the gods to the level of the psychic caperings of fools and madmen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 (<em>The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead<\/em>, pp. 126-127).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/jung.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-92387\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/jung.jpg\" alt=\"C.G. Jung by Jerry Bacikiz\" width=\"897\" height=\"603\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/jung.jpg 897w, https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/jung-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/jung-768x516.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/jung-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 897px) 100vw, 897px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to go off the deep end. Jung once found himself assuming the persona of the second-century Gnostic teacher Basilides. In this exalted state he penned his <em>Seven Sermons to the Dead<\/em>. (I wonder if any students of Gnosticism actually count this writing among the works of Basilides? If so, it would be the only one extant, since all the others were destroyed by the Catholic Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bomb Squad!)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Paul Tillich\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Christology would seem to fit Jung\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understanding. Tillich considered that Jesus \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proves and confirms his character as the Christ in the sacrifice of himself as Jesus to himself as the Christ.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jesus yielded himself up to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u009d archetype which already existed. (This, by the way, is the element of truth in C.S. Lewis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s essay, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Myth Became Fact,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d where he admits there were pre-Christian myths of dying and rising savior gods but tries to co-opt them as hopeful yearnings of the human race for the Savior, Jesus, who should one day arrive to fulfill those \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coming attractions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/lastemp.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-92383\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/lastemp-300x169.png\" alt=\"Jesus comes down from cross in a dream\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/lastemp-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/lastemp.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>What would it mean for Jesus to sacrifice that in him which was Jesus to that in him which was the Christ? Think of the sequence in Nikos Kazantzakis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>The Last Temptation of Christ<\/em> (or the Paul Schraeder\/Martin Scorsese film version) in which Jesus (dreams that he) is taken down alive from the cross and lives out a full life as a conventional family man\u00e2\u20ac\u201duntil he snaps out of it and finds himself back on the cross. He has realized that opting for the life of an ordinary man would be to betray his unique destiny. So he traded his prerogative for his dharma. He traded his Jesus identity for his Christ identity. Thus did he become more than a man.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And, if I may pursue this one step more, allow me to suggest that Tillich is here presupposing his crucial distinction between a symbol and that to which it points (symbolizes). The symbol participates in what it points to, or it could not really symbolize it. It could only <em>refer<\/em> to it, like a crummy footnote. But if we <em>equate<\/em> the symbol with that which it points to, as Christians do with the Bible when they deem it the infallible Word of God, we thereby commit idolatry. Jesus could have made himself an idol in his own mind. He would have become like the self-deified Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim who executed all who refused to worship him. Or he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have been like one of the poor souls in insane asylums who think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Jesus, like the guys in Milton Rokeach\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s study <em>The Three Christs of Ypsilanti<\/em>. Theologically, this would have been <em>Monophysitism<\/em>, the heresy that the divine nature had completely swallowed up the human nature of Christ.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In his essay \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Writer on Holiday\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Semiologist Roland Barthes discusses a magazine story about a famous author taking a vacation and points out the implicit significance of the magazine doting on the fact that this famous person does many of the same mundane things the rest of us poor mortals do. Why make a big deal if these things are mundane? Because the one doing them in this case is a celebrity, i.e., divine. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like Jesus being born in a manger. Wow! We marvel at the divine condescension to share the humble lot of mortals! You see, the mundane details only serve to magnify the greatness of the divine!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the nature of his inspiration and making it clearer, it is the whole mythical singularity of his condition which the writer emphasizes by such confidences. For I cannot but ascribe to some superhumanity the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pajamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Barthes, <em>Mythologies<\/em>, p. 31)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/xmenbathroom-e1499925743529.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-92388\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/xmenbathroom-e1499925743529.jpg\" alt=\"X-Men bathroom sign\" width=\"222\" height=\"223\" \/><\/a>But it should work the other way, too. In <em>Annie Hall<\/em>, Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is growing exasperated with his ditzy date\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gushing over the guru she has dragged him to see: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s God! I mean, this man is <em>God<\/em>!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To this Alvy replies, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s God coming outta the men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s room.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Well, stuff like that should constantly remind the one who feels himself bearing the mantle of the archetype that he is still a man, even if more, after all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Stuttering John, one of Howard Stern\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flunkies, managed to get into a press conference given by the Dalai Lama. His shouted question: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How does it feel to be God?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You see, the Buddhist doctrine holds that he who occupies the position of the Dalai Lama is the earthly manifestation of the great Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, who contains all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in himself. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much God all right. So Stuttering John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s question was not an idle one. But His Holiness was ready for him: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just a Buddhist monk.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00c2\u00a0Huh? Was he rejecting the very doctrine of the religion for which he serves as a figurehead? No, you just have to remember what someone in the crowd in <em>Monty Pythons Life of Brian (of Nazareth)<\/em> yells out: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Exactly.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Are you tempted to imagine you have a destiny, a mission or responsibility to do something which the run of mankind are not expected or expecting to do? I suggest you remember that destiny is not delusion. To keep straight the difference, you might try to keep in mind that you have this treasure in an earthen vessel. But you can become \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more than a man,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d whether it is a cape or a cross you are to bear.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Nietzsche_uber_zara.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-92389 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Nietzsche_uber_zara-232x300.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It must have been nearly two decades ago. I was a featured guest at a Horror\/Fantasy conference in Georgia. It was barely organized, any scheduling left to spontaneous generation. Largely a waste of time. So I spent much of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/more-than-a-man\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}