Мифтің Күші: Джозеф Кэмпбелл және мифология туралы әңгімелер

Book based on the 1988 PBS documentary about Joseph Campbell

The Power of Myth is a book based on the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary was originally broadcast as six one hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers. It remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television.

The words attributed to Chief Seattle, read by Campbell in the fourth episode of the series, were actually written by Ted Perry for a 1972 ecology film called Home. Perry adapted the text from newspaper accounts that were, in turn, published years after Chief Seattle delivered the actual speech.

During the interview, Campbell reveals his views on religious fundamentalism in the modern world. On this immediate level of life and structure, myths offer life models. But the models have to be appropriate to the time in which you are living, and our time has changed so fast that what was proper fifty years ago is not proper today. The virtues of the past are the vices of today. And many of what were thought to be the vices of the past are the necessities of today. The moral order has to catch up with the moral necessities of actual life in time, here and now. And that is what we are not doing. The old time religion belongs to another age, another people, another set of human values, another universe. By going back you throw yourself out of sync with history. Our kids lose their faith in the religions that were taught to them, and they go inside."