EPISODE 1: America on a Hero's Journey

The literary construct of Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey" offers insight into the America’s quest for a stronger democracy, and for its citizens, struggling to appropriately engage in pursuit of that healthier democracy.  This episode outlines the ways that citizens individually, and America, as a collective, engage in aspects of the hero’s journey.   

Topics discussed in this episode:  

•  [08:40] Departure. The Ordinary World. 
• [09:00] The Call to Adventure. 
• [11:05] Refusing the Call to Adventure. 
•  [14:20] Meeting the Mentor. 
•  [17:00] Crossing the Threshold.
• [19:05] Initiation. Test, Allies, and Enemies. 
•  [22:10] Approach to the Inmost Cave. 
• [23:00] The Ordeal.
•  [25:00] The Reward.
• [27:15] Return. The Road Back. 
•  [28:00] Resurrection. 
• [28:30] Return with the Elixir.

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

• [02:50] Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces
• [03:00] Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth
• [15:00] Pacifica Graduate Institute

Episode Music:   An Epic Story, by MaxKoMusic | https://maxkomusic.com/
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Disclaimer:   The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of sponsors, underwriters, advertisers or guests. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. 

Transcript

Welcome to American Musecast and this, our first full episode, “America: One Country on a Hero’s Journey!”  I’m your host, Susan Travis, and I’m absolutely delighted that you’ve chosen to tune in!  In Episode 0, I talked about the use the literary motif of the hero’s journey as an appropriate frame for individual and collective political engagement. Well, today, I’m gonna pull the sheet off the mystery and do a “Big Reveal” so you’ll have a better sense of what I’m talking about! 

The first thing to understand, is that the hero’s journey is specific time-honored story pattern.  That’s all. It’s the framework or blueprint for a particular type of journey called a quest.  It’s more than a map because it contains other characteristics, accompanying items, helpers and sidekicks, obstacles, elements of transformation and growth, that sort of thing – different from a map. There’s a saying, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”  A former professor of mine pointed out that, “If the goal of the dance were to get across the room, you’d just walk over there.” He’s right, because in that circumstance, you might have a simple map showing the path from Point A to the destination Point B.  But with the dance, as with a quest, there’s much more involved.  A dance carries emotion.  

A quest carries a story.  History, politics, relationships, wounds, and personal growth carry story. We don’t just pop from the womb fully mature; rather, there’s a journey, a growing, and thus, a story.  The obstacles, the sacrifices, and the character development are always present, in life, and in story.  Another professor noted, that the story is in the wound.  We don’t stand before you with a bashed fender and tell you all about the smooth one on the other end of the car. There’s no story there, but there’s a story in how your fender took a bashing.  It’s where all the verbs are, as my pop would say, “in der bangin and der crashin.” It’s where the action is, where the expense and repair will be, where your man Eddie was a godsend with a wrench, and where the glory of a recovered fender will be both a reward and a place of gratitude. Thus, the story is in the wound.

In 1949, author Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces in which he coined the term “hero’s journey,” referring to narrative patterns found in myth, religion, culture, and politics.  Fast forward to 1988, when his interview with Bill Moyers led to the film and the book The Power of Myth, and since then, movies very consciously incorporate the pattern of the hero’s journey.  Whether we knew it or not, we’ve seen hundreds of examples:  The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, The Princess Bride, Shrek, Castaway, and Star Wars, come immediately to mind.  The narratives of most religious figures, such as Christ, also move along the pattern of the hero’s journey.  Video games like Fortnite, quite deliberately incorporate the hero’s journey. 

So, first, there were stories across history and culture in which the pattern of the hero’s journey was unconsciously baked in – it was just there.  Then, once discovered and sort of released into public consciousness, it’s now popular as a very deliberate tool of creativity and analysis. 

Okay, so let me tell you a story using bones that you’ve heard a thousand times.  I need a story-voice, so I’ll use my very regionally imprecise what-the-hell-is-that brogue voice, so brace yourself.  Here goes: Once upon a time . . . A potential hero, living an ordinary life, was called to the quest (Come, you’re needed elsewhere), then refused the quest (No, not me, I’m just a humble selfish scaredy cat copout and I’m not gonna do it!) The hero met a mentor (But you must, and I, the wise mentor, will be at your side) and crossed the threshold from the known to the unknown, (here we go, leaving everything behind just to go on this stinking adventure)!  The hero came upon magical talismans, allies, and enemies both helpful and hurtful in the face of tests and tribulations (watch how my magic doodad and my besties are quite helpful! Or not) then was faced with an innermost cave of despair (Oh, no, my greatest fear is all around me!), before facing an epic ordeal (oh, even more NO, here’s a tremendous overwhelming tribulation to overcome, and at the very climax of the story, too). Overcoming the ordeal yielded a precious reward (aha, I got it, I got the coveted THING), so the hero embarked on the journey back (let’s go home, but oh, my, look how I now easily vanquish these pesky obstacles along the way)  Whether transformed or resurrected (at last, take a look at me NOW!) the hero returned home, (ah, home sweet home, I’m finally back, where are me slippers and loved ones) and now lived in a new way (ah, we shall live happily ever after, or perhaps not, but differently regardless, all because of the journey).  The end.  

Recognize it?  The hero’s journey goes where no one has gone before, as in Star Trek, Gilligan’s Island, or the earliest pioneers moving west.  The would-be hero hates the idea and resists, think, attorneys like Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, who don’t want to take the case, but then they do, and the drama unfolds!  The mentors help and sometimes make mischief, like Jiminy Cricket, Pancho Sanza, Tonto, Obi Wan, the many delightful Marvel sidekicks, the 12 apostles, faithful pets, or Glenda, the Good Witch.  The hero leaves earth, leaves Hooterville, leaves the bunker and takes the compass, the treasure map, the bag of magic beans, all the breadcrumbs, and the money on the table. Packs it in a duffle.  Takes off.  The journey begins, moves through a middle, and ends.  Mmmm, like life – life-like – a beginning, middle, and end.   You get it.  If you never noticed before, you will now!

Okay. Now, let’s pick up the same trusty tool, and apply it to citizenship, and American traditions and progress.  Let’s look at how our political life ALSO follows this pattern.  America’s adventure requires a level of participation that we may resist, values, norms, and traditions that we may resist or not understand, an array of helpful mentors and devious villains, quite a bit of bull-puckie both on display and lurking in the shadows, and the many tools, mechanisms and expectations of democracy.  We’re tested, challenged on all directions, looking for an elusive way of being.  We look for a way in.  We look for a way out.  As a people, we have yet to collectively appreciate the value of democracy; we’ve yet to win a behave with collective integrity, or to transform our nation to fulfill its promised liberties. The hero’s journey is as much mine and yours, as it is the journey of American democracy.  It’s also a journey in which we are midway.  How will we use the tools?  Will an ally betray or befriend us?  Will we betray ourselves?  Are we up to this? Many people don’t even realize that the quest is NIGH!?

Any story, any situation with a quester, a place to go, obstacles, and a real reason to go, is a quest.  Yep! Sounds like America!  So, let’s take a few minutes to zoom in on the pattern, get a closer look.  

As previously noted, it all begins in the midst of an ordinary life, when an ordinary subject receives a call to quest, a call to adventure.  In this moment, the hero, not yet a hero, is suddenly “compelled,” pulled in an unforeseen direction.  Perhaps there’s a message, a dream, an idea, or an encounter with a mentor or guide.  It MIGHT be a crisis, or perhaps a long-held yearning, but regardless, it arises as a compelling need to begin. To step out of an old skin.  It’s known as “the call to quest” as in questioning, searching, or hunting. The call to quest may be to help, to serve, to participate, to live authentically, or to fight, or to love.  

In February 2022, Ukrainians were called to fight.  Some were called to run and take the children.  Some were called to help, or to serve as journalists. Some were called to provide weapons and humanitarian aid.  A calling compels a person to write, to start a business, or to go to a foreign country to teach or minister.  The call might be spiritual or philanthropic or an introspective journey.  It might be a draft notice.  The calling.  The quest.

I think the word, “compelled,” might be the closed verb that fuels energy to the idea of a launching quest.  Immigrants have lived the call.  We must go.  Increasing signs that we might actually vote in an authoritarian dictatorship, have many citizens restless, but hearing the call, they try to drown it out with more episodes of Law and Order. Just you sit tight, Thelma, it will pass.  Don’t you fret!

The United States hears a call to help other countries, to mind its democracy, to ward off crises from a pandemic to inflation.  Something must be done.  That’s the call, whatever it sounds like, and whoever hears it.  At first, it whispers in the wind.  Something must be done.  Well, someone else can do it, I didn’t ask for this, and the would-be hero refuses the call.  Soon, it’s heard in a fierce and howling wind.  Something must be done.  No longer easy to ignore.

The refusal of the call is a critical second stage for our gonna-be-a-hero.  That initial refusal of a call to adventure, often due to fear, doubt, or a sense of inadequacy. Not enough money, not enough courage.  Most of us can relate to that one!  Fear, bubbles all around resistance.  When the phone rings, we sometimes don’t answer.  We see who it is, and we set it aside.  We are NOT GOING THERE.  We refuse the call to quest!  We choose crime drama number 5,837 rather than find something amazing to do with our one wild and precious life (from the words of Mary Oliver).  

Whether we refuse to leave Hooterville, refuse to run off with a traveling man, or refuse to set out to seek our fortune, that resistance has a stubbornness, a critical heels-dug-in feature that will not be budged. It’s the back half of the call – I want to be more, I can’t I’m scared – worthless – busy – I will not go further, I will not seek and be more.  I will surrender to being less, to stagnation, to what seems safe and known over what is unknown.

Complacency, cowardice, depression, confusion, cynicism, we’ve all reached out with our sticky fingers for at least something from the buffet of excuses for refusing that call to more robust citizenry. America, too, as a collective institution, refuses similar calls to be more, be better, solve the problem, or to heed the call of the high road of human decency. Those creating obstacles have their reasons.  Power. Money. Fear. Resentment. Arrogance. Pride. Safety.  As citizens, we disengage, or engage elsewhere, lashing out in our fear.  Fear drives the hyper-reaction, the panic seen in those faced with an inevitable shift in demographics. Holy cow, we’re going to be a MINORITY?  That, there, my friend, is an underlying howling mighty resistance to change, to an inevitable power shift.  That’s how America and its citizens refuse the call. A big fat NO to the choices of a high road. A better-the-devil-you-know strategy.

At least, for now.  Let’s recap.  The call comes in, and the hero is not down, not gonna do it, just gonna just SIT THERE in the Barko-Lounger.  Just gonna wander the halls of Congress polishing name plates. Squat in the road with fingers in the ears. But then!

Enter the mentor, the third stage of the hero’s journey.  Maybe it’s the fairy godmother, maybe it’s a mouse in your pocket!  Maybe it’s a soccer ball named Wilson. Regardless, the hero gains a mentor or guide who provides support, advice, and guidance on the journey ahead. Encouragement and insight for the road ahead.  Well, like what, you say?  Well, here’s a relevant little story about me.  

Many years ago, I was living in Lugano, Switzerland working at a TINY little college. I had an intense desire to go back to school, and I found an amazing doctoral program at a tiny little school in California.  I sent for the materials and got SO excited . . .  BUT it was in California, and I wasn’t keen to move to California.  I was caught between a strong calling and a strong resistance.  For weeks, I told only one person about it – not a close friend, but a person I happened to tell and who seemed interested. For weeks, I waffled between the amazing adventure and the status quo. One day, he asked, “What is holding you back? You seem SO excited – what is the obstacle – tell me about this place?”  I told him, and his mouth dropped.  “That’s where I went to school!”  Thus, the one work colleague in this tiny college in SWITZERLAND, was a graduate of this tiny college in California that was calling my name.  Feel a chill, because we did. He said, “I can tell you, that if you have a chapter in your life waiting to be written, write it at this school.  I know you, and I know your heart.  This is where you are meant to be, and it’s where you’ll thrive.”  For the moment, he became a mentor for that bold adventure that lay ahead.  

Right now, I feel a “waffling” as I begin this podcasting journey.  I’m not so brave that I don’t launch wishing for a podcast consultant, a theologian, a historian, a political scientist, my favorite professor, and maybe a personal therapist. Not to worry, though because I’m accompanied by the writings of literary and political theorists, journalists, and fellow adventurers are mentors for all of us on this journey. Perhaps American Musecast is, itself, an emerging mentor – meh, who knows? But the mentor provides moral support, and is a blessed welcome, whatever the journey.  Resistance crumbles, and the ordinary world fades into the past with the third step.

Crossing the threshold.  It’s the acceptance of the quest, where the hero leaves behind the known and moves into the unknown.  In my story, I was called, I resisted, I met the mentor, and yes, I went.  I crossed that threshold from my “real life” into an expensive exciting educational journey at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in Carpinteria, California.  The moment is reminiscent of the time Marty stepped into the DeLorean in Back to the Future.  Crossing the threshold is the time you took a chance, and went for it.  

One of the most dramatic examples of the hero’s journey is found in Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, The Inferno.  The hero sees a sign above the entrance to hell: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  F-that.  He goes anyway.  He crosses the threshold, from the known to the unknown.  Life will never be the same.  There’s no going back.  It’s a terrifying new beginning, but you have to go, so you go.  

Americans are at the threshold, though many don’t recognize it as such.  Now more than ever, there is a scream in the wind for its informed citizenry to become true allies, to overcome their collective palpable resistance, to awaken, to rise up to defend the precious gift with which we’ve been entrusted.  Cross from the recliner to a whole new way of being.  America, its very own self, must leave the status quo and cross to the unknown in order to become a better entity.  Anyway, my guess is that you’re beginning to see how this works. Remember in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy steps from an ordinary black and white, no nonsense world into a technicolor world of  . . . 

Talismans, tests, allies, and enemies!  As adventure begins, the hero must navigate a series of tests, trials, and challenges, often with the help of allies and the opposition of enemies.  I chose to fully participate in that adventure of moving from Switzerland to pursue my doctorate, and suddenly I entered a world of travel, tribulations, and challenges from financial to sometimes struggling with the material, to rigorous deadlines, and other obstacles.  I got a weird job with the local undercover narcotics unit.  I had an enemy.  I took a lover.  It was complicated, that whole crossing to the unknown thing, and it was all part of the whole.  Adventuring is not for the faint of heart!  Lions, and tigers, and bears!  It is exactly the place in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy meets with her tests, her allies, and her enemies. 

So, now we find America, our beloved socio-political bestie struggling with this myriad of tests and tribulations!  Our democracy is fraught with dishonorable elements - gerrymandering, childish politicians, election interference and subversion, police brutality, immigration demonization, to name only a few of a thousand.  America is tested with tensions and assaults from every side. It faces literal threats to its very existence, and we are ill-prepared to defend it; we’ve come to see democracy as a spectator sport, until, now, we’re frightened that we won’t have what it takes, and frightened that it won’t be here for our progeny, and frightened that we will lose this precious gift and fall into a way of being from which we might not recover. All of that fear.  

Despite these tests, we do well to remember that the tools of our constitutional democracy, however rusty and in disrepair, include the rule of law and other guardrails offered by American institutions.  We’ll look at these in greater detail, but in this category of “tools and talismans” I’d like to note the very specific psychological tools related to positive psychology, tools which are hallmarks of the American psyche.  I’m speaking, of course, of our grit and perseverance, resilience, and hope that power American well-being.  Harness our better angels, fueled by the kind of vision and hope underlying previous American accomplishments, and this country can be a model of democratic recovery.  There’s also the American Ego, which is a sort of two-sided coin that we’ll talk about later, but which serves us well if we don’t trip on it!   

All of that serves us in another facet of the journey known as the approach to the inmost cave, a sort of heart of darkness, wherein lie the hero’s greatest fears.  It’s a place of dismay and confusion.  It’s NOT your happy place.  It’s the dark place you don’t want to go.  

I submit that this is where we are in our American journey. It’s the place we never thought we’d be, where we can’t go back, and going forward could be the end of us. But it MUST be done – we MUST press through, because staying is not an option.  It’s the pace requiring courage, action despite our fear and despair.  What we’re doing, isn’t working. In my assessment, we are in the space between the inmost cave and . . . 

The ordeal:  In this moment of the hero’s greatest challenge, there appears a major obstacle or enemy which the hero must overcome to continue the journey.  We’ve all faced ordeals – those experiences where we just didn’t know if we were going to make it . . . financially, emotionally, the death of a loved one – the ordeal saps us of our strength, and it is ALL we can do to make it through.  Sometimes we don’t, and we become a story, cut short with the epitaph. “While on a hero’s journey, the ordeal proved too much for the hero.”   It happens.

We are in that moment of ordeal faced by America, as a nation.  The difficulty is that as a collective unit, America‘s ordeal is a real struggle of identity.  It’s not “Oh, lookie over there, a dragon.” It’s the self-fighting-the-self, a sort of schizophrenic struggle, like an autoimmune disease in which the body perceives itself as a threat.  I will be this v. I will be that.  It’s what we call, an “existential struggle,” meaning that the struggle will determine our fate, our existence.  Existential – existence.  It is an all or nothing ordeal, nothing namby-pamby.  So, at the heart of “will I be this or that,” it’s not about what to be, but instead, it’s the ultimate existential question: “Will I be?”  

Scary, but we have to keep going.  The options have narrowed.  What are we going to do having come this far? Run home to the Barko-lounger?  Take what’s left of our lost marbles, and go home to hide under the bed?  Are we going to fumble the ball in the end zone?  I think NOT.  I hope not.  This part is yet to written for our journey, but after all, we might get the participation-in-an-epic struggle trophy! 

The reward!   Assuming the hero emerges triumphant from the fire, battered but not broken, the hero achieves a reward of some sort – perhaps knowledge, insight, or a powerful object, and it will make all the difference.  It’s an epiphany – that moment of clarity where we realize something of significance or discover something critical.  

For an America struggling with its identity, the reward stems from the outcome of the ordeal.  It’s the payoff.  We stand in the space between our darkest hour, our ordeal, and our reward.  It’s tough stuff.  The problem is, those on a different journey for America, will see the demise of our democracy as their reward.  So, that’s a problem. 

Now.  Full disclosure.  This podcast is on the “side” of a healthy, thriving democracy.  I have a “side” the same way I am “biased,” in “siding” with the science of a healthy diet over junk food.  You will NOT hear me claiming any “both sides” moral equivalency, for the sake of appeasement. You will hear me be fair, to the very best of my ability, but I won’t throw heroes into the fire to satisfy the bloodlust of sanctimonious both-sidesism.  Just saying. 

So.  That having been said, what’s your game?  How are you going to play?  How will we play, collectively, and what is the prize?  We will not find a healthy democracy in setting aside laws, condoning injustices against others, obstructing the will of the people, or descending into intellectual mush. Now, some may well find the prize for which they are looking, but deep in those kinds of shadows, it won’t be democracy.  I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming episode.   

So let’s assume success and understand that the journey includes what we call, “a road back.”  The hero begins the journey home, often encountering new challenges and obstacles along the way.  Although I’m an optimist, hopeful, and siding with the idea that healthy democracy will re-emerge, I’m not so silly as to think it will emerge unscathed. There will be work to be done.  In many ways, this is less the work of vanquishing darkness, and more the work and obstacles of rebuilding, reclaiming, and remodeling our democracy.  Still requiring our engagement - still requiring America the collective to step up. Who knows, stewardship of democracy may well be back in vogue at that point.  The new fad!

It's a rebirth, or a resurrection.  Whatever the details of the work ahead, America would experience a transformation into a new way of being.  We’d certainly be in a state of resurrection and rebirth when and if a healthier democracy emerges, introducing perhaps, an American Renaissance.  

And so, the hero returns home - transformed and changed by their experiences, armed with new knowledge and insights of benefit to the whole. It’s the more mature America we’d like to see.  Imagine if civics, economics, history and the arts were interwoven components of public education.  Imagine a compassionate response to our social issues . . . loving solutions that uplift and offer healthy paths through challenging times.  Just imagine!

It’s a new stage of freedom and enlightenment, that happily ever after state of balance and harmony.  It’s all aspirational for a country stuck in the midst of Stage 7 the Ordeal. Heaven?  There are a lot of names for this apex or peak of attainment.  Suffice to say, it’s elusive, but seems well worth the price of the ticket. 

NOW.  Although scholars of Joseph Campbell’s work understand him to be a flawed character, holding prejudices that taint his legacy, I submit that whatever elements of bigotry he espoused, Campbell’s recognition of the pattern of the hero’s journey proves helpful in our own exploration, perhaps indeed, because we reflect such flaws ourselves. 

The stages we’ve just reviewed help in understanding where we are in this epic tale of American democracy.  That said, please understand that my intention is NOT to plug every little news factoid and dynamic into the nooks and crannies of this pattern.  We’ll save that for the large budget film, American Musecast, the Movie!  Rather, we get our bearings using this navigational tool.  

You know, whether we like it or not, kicking and screaming, bored in the backseat, quivering on the top of a Ferris wheel, or embracing the wind in our face and the sand in our teeth, we are ON this journey.  I can’t say how it will end, and I fervently hope it doesn’t end.  Additionally, it will be critical that our stewardship continue, even if the seas calm. 

Because once we think we’ve arrived at some agreed upon destination, there’s a danger in putting it all on autopilot.  Without a new commitment to stewardship, our citizenry could easily forget their pilgrimage of sacrifice, and the journey will by necessity, begin again.  The best we can truly hope for is that we come to an agreement on what constitutes human decency, that we come to believe in ourselves as legitimately healthy stewards of democracy, taking seriously our obligations so as to enjoy the fruits along the journey.  Maybe THAT’S the destination!

Over the coming week, I ask that you think about this.  Look at your own lives and segments of history, a business you started, a relationship that seemed an epic adventure.  Think about how this path repeats in so many ways, yet always unique, and always an amazing story. Think about what strengths got you through difficult times, the calming voices of encouragement.  Turn to them.  Reconnect, or imagine responses that use their energy.

Well!  Thank you so much for making me a part of your day!  And for my dear listeners with a fire in the belly, please follow this weekly podcast and share it with others.  I welcome your comments and observations in the comments section.  Just use your manners.  I’m a real person.   So, buckle up buttercups!  Let’s get out there, and steward democracy!