Now you have to know that anybody who attended Joseph Campbell's Mystical Meditations would have to say something that resonates with me. Farrell notes:
"The mythic world has fascinated me since taking a Joseph Campbell seminar on 'Mythical Meditation' while at Morgan Stanley back in the 1970s."But given that I just wrote about mental models that we have to build to make sense of things, mythic representations absolutely represent the most elegant and elevated form of mental models. It's worth clicking on Farrall's links, too.
I suppose, too, that having a representation of the archetypal "They", the aggregated financial community of pickpockets (humongous banks/brokers) wanting to lighten the load of the individual investor, is a useful one. But like most mythologies, we have to be careful about the myth as pedagogy v. myth as absolute truth.
Why the distinction? Whether it is making investment choices or envisioning political, economic or social reform, you have to understand the myth to operate constructively. I think that if we see these myths (which understand have truthful elements) as absolute, it robs us of our perception of being in control of our choices. It robs us of our reason.
3 comments:
I really enjoy your comments on several blogs, keep up the good work. You make me smile as well as inform me.
Also a Virginian (Waynesboro H.S. Class of '62)
Waynesboro Anonymous--thank you for your nice note.
Waynesboro is so beautiful. I feel so fortunate to live in our beautiful state. Though I must say that my allergies seem to get progressively worse each year.
My allergies are awful this year, and I am in the Carolinas. So your suffering is shared.
In the call to meditation some Buddhists use a gong I believe. In the West, we are less formal and use apt to use any roundish resonating object that can be rapped with a hard object. Frying pans work well:)
I think is article could be simplified by simply noting that Wall Street has many conflicts of interest, and is willing to use them to make money.
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