Reddit r / WorldNews comment message March 11, 2025 “In a way he’s the perfect embodiment of our era. Everyone just desperate for fame or clout by any means despite how disgusting it leads them to act. Like if Johnny Somali was president. Clout Derangement Syndrome?”

(Notable that the user only joined Reddit 3 months ago)

back to 1986… Campbell

For this post, I’m shifting from subreddit core focus of 1985 Neil Postman book to Bill Moyers / George Lucas Skywalker Ranch / Joseph Campbell 1986 and 1987 interviews in Power of Myth.

BILL MOYERS: We seem to worship celebrities today, not heroes.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL (New Yorker, Professor at Sarah Lawrence College): Yes, and that’s too bad. A questionnaire was once sent around one of the high schools in Brooklyn which asked, “What would you like to be?” Two thirds of the students responded, “A celebrity.” They had no notion of having to give of themselves in order to achieve something.

MOYERS: Just to be known.

CAMPBELL: Just to be known, to have fame—name and fame. It’s too bad.

MOYERS: But does a society need heroes?

CAMPBELL: Yes, I think so.

MOYERS: Why?

CAMPBELL: Because it has to have constellating images to pull together all these tendencies to separation, to pull them together into some intention.

MOYERS: To follow some path.

CAMPBELL: I think so. The nation has to have an intention somehow to operate as a single power.