New Age Mythology: A Jewish Response to Joseph Campbell Tamar Frankie! special video event: a series of videotaped conversa- tions with Joseph Campbell, the well-known scholar of mythology and popularizer of comparative religion. Completed a few months before Campbell died, the tapes are a summary and retrospective of Campbell?s decades of writing and thinking about comparative religion. The repeated showings have generated much appreciative discussion among those interested in mod- ern religious thought and those involved in spiritual practices. The book based on the tape transcripts, en- titled Tbe Power of Myth, has been selling with enormous success. The popularity of this material should have come as no surprise: for years Campbell?s works have provided many students with an introduction to the ?eld of comparative religion, and he is popular among people in certain other ?elds as well?notably among ogists with a Jungian bent. Although he was sometimes regarded by other scholars as too much a generalist and popularizer, overriding the data with his interpretations, his impact was considerable. He both re?ected and contributed to the post-19605 movement of young Americans and Europeans toward a more universalistic, nature-oriented spirituality (a mythology for the whole planet, as he said), and he offered his scholarly reputation to give this movement a solid foundation. For a Jew intereSted in the spiritual direction of contemporary life, however, watching the tapes is un- settling. In the panorama of spirituality that Campbell presents, and in the vision he offers of a spiritually uni?ed planet, we do not glimpse a role for Judaism. Of Judaism as a living tradition, no discussion occurs; and of our ancient biblical heritage, there is almost nothing but negative references. If Campbell is a scholarly rep- resentative of a signi?cant trend in modern spirituality, as he surely is, where does this leave the Jew in the religious future of the planet? Listening to him, one would conclude that Judaism doesn?t Speak to today?s concerns about higher consciousness and planetary unity. I 1988, Bill Moyers and PBS offered viewers a Tamar Frankie! lives in the San Francisco Bay area and writes and lecture: about tbe history of religions. Better to turn to Hinduism, Buddhism, or a tribal shaman. Indeed, many young Jews have done just that? some undoubtedly under the in?uence of Campbell?s writings. The END OF THE IN-GROUP A person with some knowledge of Western intellectual traditions might be even more concerned. For intellec- tual inspiration, Campde refers us to the tradition of Schopenhauer and in philosophy and Adolf Bastian in anthropology. These thinkers contributed to the creation of secularized German romanticism, from which National Socialism later drew. Campbell would, with good reason, disavow any connection with nazism that was based only on similar intellectual traditions. Indeed, one of the foundations of his normative philos- ophy of religion is that no religion or philosophy based on the notion of an ?in-group,? no ?sociologically oriented mythology,? can be a foundation for modern spirituality. The Nazis would of course be discredited under this criterion. But so would Judaism. Insofar as group boundaries are an inherent and necessary part of the structure of Judaism, it would no longer be a viable religion in our age. While Campbell voices respect for differences among religions (on the model of the federal govern- ment?s respect for states? rights), one wonders how deep this concern runs, at least in the case of Judaism. For while he appreciates the mythologies and sacred scriptures of many traditions, he views most of our foundational literature, the ?mythologies? of the Hebrew Bible, as deeply ?awed in their basic orientation. Let us look at some illustrations. According to Camp- bell, the ?Yahweh cult? illustrated in the Book of Kings was the ?imperialistic thrust of a certain in-group cul- ture.? As a result, Western culture has inherited a view of the universe from the ?rst millennium B.C.E. that ?does not accord with our concept either of the universe or of the dignity of man.? Our heritage teaches us to condemn nature, declare it corrupt, and dominate it. Moreover, the Bible teaches negative views of other peoples. Referring to the story of Jacob?s sons? destroying Shekhem, Campbell observes that the ancient Hebrews 23 were basically killers: The semite invaders were herders of goats and sheep, the Indo-Europeans of cattle. Both were formerly hunters, and so the cultures are essentially animal- oriented. When you have hunters, you have killers. And when you have herders, you have killers, because they?re always in movement, nomadic, coming into con?ict with other people and conquering the areas into which they move. And these invasions bring in warrior gods, thunderbolt hurlers, like Zeus, or Yahweh. tion. Earlier, in discussing religions of primitive hunting peoples, Campbell sympathetically de- A careful reader might be surprised at this descrip- scribed these people as involved in the continual round' of sacri?ce by which death gives rise to life: ?Killing is not simply slaughter, it?s a ritual act, as eating is when you say grace before meals .. . a recognition . . . that this is in accord with the way of nature.? Later, however, Semite hunters are simply ?killers.? Of course, one might also wonder at the logical leap from the culture of hunters to that of herders: because the herders are nomadic and animal-oriented, are they also killers who initiate conflict? The argument is questionable, to say the least. The Hebrews, Campbell goes on to say, were a more negative spiritual force than the Indo-Europeans, be- cause the Hebrews refused to preserve the great god- desses. Even worse, however, was the way the ancient Hebrews treated those around . them. Discussing the Deuteronomic instructions concerning the capturing of a city (to kill the men but take the women captive), Campbell comments: ?The Hebrews were absolutely ruthless with respect to their neighbors. But this passage is an extreme statement of something that is inherent in" most sociologically oriented mythologies. That is to say, love and compassion are reserved for the in-group, and aggression and abuse are projected outward on others.? It is startling, given what we know of modern biblical scholarship (not to mention Jewish commentaries, which Campbell might regard as biased), to ?nd statements so out of context. Campbell is not entirely honest to the text: he does not acknowledge, for example, that in the Shekhem story itself Jacob objects to what his sons did to Shekhem. Moreover, the claim that the ancient Israelites were extremely violent compared to other groups with similar mythologies simply is not supported by evidence. Campbell also does not mention that, given the standards of warfare of the time (including those of the supposed nature-lovers who worshiped goddesses), Deuteronomy?s laws were quite humane: they insisted, for example, that a city be offered the 24 VOL. 4, No. 3 chance to make peace before being attacked and that a woman taken captive be given an entire month to mourn her loved ones. What are we to make of Campbell?s criticisms? Un- doubtedly he did not intend them to be slurs against Jewish tradition. He used such allusions, along with some material from Roman Catholicism, to make ideological points about the outmoded worldview we have inherited and about the need for a different social and spiritual perspective. Nevertheless, while his comments about Christianity are more evenhanded-he expresses appre- ciation for Jesus? sayings, the medieval cathedrals, and the cult of the Virgin?he offers no positive words about Jewish tradition that would counterbalance his negative comments about the Old Testament. Intention- ally or not, Campbell perpetuates negative stereotypes about Jewish tradition. - It is easy for a Jewish scholar to be.oversensitive to such slights. The ?eld of comparative religion has inherited a Christian bias, which had led scholars frequently to contrast ?the religion of the law? (that?s us) with ?the religion of love? (you know who). The real question is not whether Campbell raises our hackles, or eyen whether he may make mistakes in interpret- ing Jewish sources?though that is more serious-but whether the basic philosophy he advocates has validity. Is it based on a sound treatment of comparative relig- ion? Is it internally consistent? Can it be purged of its perhaps unintentional stereotypes and offered to Jews and non-Jews alike as a foundation for the spirituality of the future? To answer this question, we must look more closely at Campbell?s fundamental interpretation of religion. MYTH, AND THE RELIGIOUS PATH Campbell?s view of religion is essentially All the basic features of religion?personi?cations of gods, and religious rites?are points of entry into the deeper layers of our own In this respect Campbell?s ideas are closely aligned with those of Carl Jung, who held that present us with ?archetypes,? the basic forms through which we experi- ence and interpret our existence. Campbell agrees: reveal us to ourselves; in particular they reveal, in pat- terned form, the essential nature of the life experiences we have and the dilemmas we face as we seek to grow to maturity. Stories about heroes who slay dragons and heroines who refuse their suitors express the archetypal con?icts we have to face to ful?ll our destiny. Rituals of sacri?ce remind us of the need to give up our egos for something higher, while recurrent symbols such as immersion in water, the circle, and the well represent basic logical facts of life. The gods themselves are actors on this symbolic stage, representing in intense form the energies we ourselves bring into play. The purpose of all religious symbols and acts, Camp- bell argues, is to bring us to a deeper consciousness, a greater awareness of ourselves and of life as a whole. They do not present us with a meaning so much as with a possibility for deeper experience. Campbell explains: People say that what we?re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don?t think that?s what we?re really seeking. I think that what we?re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. increase our awareness, our consciousness, and thus?since ?consciousness and energy are the same thing somehow??they make available to us a freer ?ow of life energy. We can hold the examples of and gods in our minds, bringing that deeper reality and that sense of greater vitality into our daily lives. vidual one, carved out by each person according to his or her own sense of what is good, deep, and true. Campbell?s constant advice to people seeking a better quality of life is ?Follow your bliss.? For a model of this path in life, Campbell turns to the medieval troubadours who sang. of devotion to their loved ones. In Campbell?s view, the troubadours expressed the unique contribution of Western tradition. They were determined to be ?the author and means of their own self-?rl?llment, and they were going to take their wisdom from their own experience and not from dogma, politics, or any current concepts of social good.? Campbell offers a philosophy of self-ful?llment in a rich and sophisticated format; he tells stories of personal transformation from all over the globe. Besides being colorful, this philosophy is highly congruent with the way our culture has absorbed other perspectives'from such varied sources as depth the human potential movement, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. And it is attractive? promising enlargement of the arena of consciousness, extending from personal growth into ?spiritual domains where one can achieve a different perspective on all of being. Metaphysically, Campbell?s ideas have their foundation in a viewpoint that is probably closest to that of classical Hinduism, to which he often refers. Life energy has a continuity and a resonance through all domains. This impersonal life energy, which is the ground of being, manifests itself in one?s own and takes form in he path to that higher level of living is an indi- the collective imagination through mythology and per- soni?cations of gods. This energy is also cyclical, and the multitudinous forms it takes recur over and over. Even the person on his or her own unique quest follows a familiar pattern: . All these different mythologies give us the same essential quest. You leave the world that you?re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height. There you come to what was missing in your consciousness in the world you formerly inhabited. Then comes the problem of either staying with that, and letting the world drop off, or returning with that boon and trying to hold on to it as you move back into your social world again. The gradual expansion of consciousness leads to the ultimate aim of the spiritual quest: to recognize the unity behind this multiplicity of forms and experience, and thereby to let the heart experience oneness with other individuals, with humankind, with the planet, and with the principles of life behind all things. Authority has been confused wit/9 authoritarianism, disaplzhe wit/9 ?gzdziy. Note that the ultimate experience is not of God as a transcendent source or initial creator, as in the West, but of God as an impersonal ground of being that is reflected in all particular beings. Following Schopenhauer, Camp- bell conceives of the world as we experience it as ?fea- tures of the one great dream of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters dream, too; so that everything links to everything else, moved by the one will to life which is the universal will in nature." The basic religious desire is to experience oneness with all being, to experience the ultimate ground of being, but without form. In union with one?s god, duality is transcended and forms disappear. There is nobody there, no god, no you. Your mind, going past all concepts, has dissolved in identi?cation with the ground of your being, because that to which the metaphorical image of your god refers is the ultimate mystery of your own being, which is the mystery of the being of the world as well. Campbell is offering here an expansive spiritual vista, which extends to a unity with ?ultimate? being but is founded on our basic human nature and our inter- dependence with the rest of nature. Indeed, he claitns that spirituality is grounded in the energy of our own bodies and that the Jungian archetypes are biologically New AGE MYTHOLOGY 25 WPECTAL 5213153 PECERESSIVI JEHISH EH LTERRTT l-Ii winks Hearilom. Cnll: (21319294955 (JED-3553831 {3152's for Fauln) cart 1ang HASHOMER HATZAIR rat: mm Sui-'5 in NEW vans. NEW YORK 10011 grounded. From this natural energy come the works of the mythic imagination. By connecting with this energy, the individual can transform his or her consciousness and achieve creativity and contentment with life. This profound faith in a person?s ability to connect with deeper sources of being is founded on a ?mystery,? but it is not a supernatural faith; the secrets are hidden within life itself. NATURE AND AUTHORITY is not immediately clear why Campbell ignores the many examples he could draw from Judaism concerning this dimension of spirituality. Judaism has its ancient cycles connected to nature, its hero stories (he does mention Moses brie?y), its renewal through the feminine aspect of the divine, its deeds of compassion and sacrifice, its seers and prophets, its mystical philosophy that speaks of going beyond the world of multiplicity, beyond the ?images? of God. On the face of the matter, it seems that Campbell, on the basis of a certain reading of the biblical stories, has set up Judaism?or the ?Hebrew? tradition?as the negative example of in-group religion which is now to be sur? passed as we move to a ?planetary? future. ?The crucial question? for the future, Campbell says, ?is simply: With what society, what social group, do you identify 26 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3 yourself? Is it going to be with all the people of the planet, or is it going to be with your own particular in-group?? In fact, this is not the real issue?for Campbell or for modern spirituality. His conception of spirituality is convincing and attractive in its simplicity: espousing universalist, nature-oriented, planetary religion makes one a spiritual hero of the new age, and anyone who voices a reservation becomes a potential enemy. If you?re an advocate for a particular group, you must be against planetary unity. But the simplicity is deceptive. Like the slogan ?Zionism is Racism," Campbell?s portrayal of (unnamed) groups as guilty of being devoted to their heritage masks a different and more fundamental dif?- culty that he does not face. The problem is not group identity versus universality. Rather it is a matter of integrating structure and dis- cipline into spirituality. We can see this problem in the way Campbell speaks out against ethics. (His stance is something of an ironic twist against modern Judaism: many Jews for 130 years have been declaring that rituals are obsolete and that, to keep up with the times, we must preserve Judaism as an ethical system. Now Campbell, extolling the role of archaic ritual, launches a critique of ethics!) Ethical laws, he says, ?the laws of life as it should be in the good society," dominate Western mythology and are now out of date?" [a]ll of Yahweh?s pages and pages and pages of what kind of clothes to wear, how to behave to each other, and so forth, in the ?rst millennium Campbell inappropriately lumps together ?in-group? rules with ethical laws under the rubric of ?sociologically oriented mythology." He seems to assume that instructions about how to live are nec- essarily culture?bound (whereas some philosophies, such as the ninth-century B.C.E. Hindu ideas quoted earlier, apparently are not). Campbell therefore connects ethical laws to the in-group theory of the ?chosen people? that infects Western religions. In Campbell?s view, ethics do have a place as instruc- tion for the immature person. Following he says that the ?thou shalts? are necessary to convert the human animal into a civilized being, but when they in- hibit self?fulfillment they must be broken up. Ultimately, he argues, they are inferior to spiritual realization. In reaponse to Moyers's direct questions about the role of ethics, Campbell replied as follows: We spoke of the metaphysical experience in which you realize that you and the other are one. Ethics is a way of teaching you how to live as though you were one with the other. You don?t have to have the experience because the doctrine of the religion gives you molds of actions that imply a compassionate relationship with the other. (Continued on p. 118) vitation to his friend John Cardinal O?Connor to deliver a eulogy at his funeral; Koch?s public likening of the tactics of mayoral opponent, city Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin, to those of Goebbels. ?Obviously I do not enjoy being called a Nazi,? Goldin responded, as Jews across the city winced. weekly, Tbe City Sun, told New lbr/e Newsday: do not believe that anyone Black can win [the mayoralty]. Jews have worked too hard and waited too long for that position. And they?re just not going to vote for somebody Black and turn it over.? Whether or not Jews are ?ready? for a Black mayor, Cooper is wrong to attribute to us-a conception of our power so narrow that it rests upon having a Jewish one. Yet he can be forgiven his miSperception precisely be- cause of the way Koch has managed to identify his own ideological, political, and personal battles with those of politically conservative Jews, from Begin to Podhoretz. What liberal Jews want passionately is not a Jewish mayor, but the assurance that the culture of progressive institutions we?ve struggled to create will thrive long after Jews have ceased to dominate it numerically or even politically. Unlike Newark, Atlanta, or Detroit, New York will never have a majority of any one ethnic or racial group. The deluge of immigration from the four corners of the earth means that by the end of the century New York will hold three-quarters of a million Asians (Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Japanese); two million Blacks (American-born Blacks, West Indians, Africans); two million Hispanics (Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians, Salvadorans, Cubans); a million Jews (including Israelis and Russians); and hundreds of thousands each of Irish, Italians, Greeks, Poles, and other ethnic minorities. Will these newcomers ?nd a stake in the city?s institu- tions, organizing new coalitions to revive the public schools, rebuild the hospitals, uplift the fallen, pursue justice? It is too soon to know. But while liberal Jews still have the political strength, we?d best concentrate on passing the torch, not on making ourselves the center of attention, as Koch has too often done. When the Yiddish-language theater died in New York some years ago after a long illness, a saddened Zero Mostel took comfort in the fact that its actors were still alive and performing in English. ?We?re getting even,? he said. ?We still gesture in Yiddish! If somehow, after Koch?s reign is over, the city?s newcomers manage to take up where we left off, then perhaps New York will still gesture in the idiom of the garment workers, the New Deal, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Jewish language of justice. I July, Andrew Cooper, editor of the militant Black 118 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3 NEW AGE MYTHOLOGY (Continued from p. 26) In short, ethics is a pale substitute for the experience of oneness with all life, which Campbell sees as the highest goal. Further, it is a substitute imposed by an external authority, violating the person?s inner direction. On the surface, it would seem that Judaism?s clinging to ethics is one more illustration of its obsolescence. But before we jump to that conclusion, we should examine more closely Campbell?s negative attitude toward discipline and authority. His bias against ?laws of life? and pages of rules leads him to ignore many important features of religious traditions. The most obvious examples are the various monastic traditions. One would think they would offer prime examples of people seeking to get close to the divine, but Campbell does not discuss them. These people?s extraordinary submission and personal discipline do not ?t his ideal of extemporaneous, bliss-seeking spirituality. Likewise, submission to a teacher, common to virtually all religious elites, if not to the common folk, occupies a small space in Campbell?s map of the territory. He comments that in traditional societies the teacher or guru provided spiritual guidance?but he also mentions, in another place, that such a teacher often guided the student through the steps of instruction in a patterned way that did not really allow the emergence of individuality. think,? says Campbell, ?that anyone brought up in an extremely strict, authoritative social situation is unlikely ever to come to the knowledge of himself.? Yet we know that the disciplines and austerities of the shaman or prophet, the monk or nun, deeply im- mersed in ritual and an archetypal framework produce intense and authentic experiences of the divine. Meister Eckehart and the Dalai Lama are certainly better known for their spirituality than are most modern Western seekers of freedom. We have a contradiction between Campbell?s overall philosophy of spirituality and the data of comparative religion. his point leads to the second dif?culty be- tween Campbell and Judaism. The presumably ?external? authority of ethical systems is con- nected for Campbell with the ?supernatural? aspect of religion, with what is beyond nature, with the ?trans- cendent? aspect of God. For Campbell, everything spir- itual is on the level of nature; speaking theologically, we would say that he af?rms only the ?immanence? of God. When Campbell speaks of the transcendent he does not mean what is called the supernatural; he prefers a conception, similar to pantheism, of ?an unde?nable, inconceivable mystery, thought of as a power, that is the source and end and supporting ground of all life and being.? The source of life beyond the limitations of our egos is our connection, largely unconscious, to life energy. More emphatically, he states: The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that ?nally turned that world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a thing they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In other words, even when Campbell speaks of the ?unde?nable and inconceivable,? he does so still within the bounds of the natural: the ?unde?nable and incon- ceivable? must be accessible to everyone from within his or her own being or the religious system runs the risk of becoming ?inauthentic.? This collapsing of divine transcendence into a meta- physics of life energy is a problem. Bible scholar Yehezkel Kaufman many years ago identi?ed this problem as the fundamental difference between Judaism and paganism. It makes a great difference if ?God? means the ground of being, the mystery of life as we know it, or if ?God? refers to something more. What more? The kabbala points us to the greatness of God by observing that, for God, the creation of worlds is a minor preoccupation. Even if we hold that God continually supervises every rock, plant, animal, and human on earth, not to mention in the galaxies, we should not think that this keeps Him or Her busy. What else does God do? We can?t imagine?which is exactly the point. Transcendence, by de?nition, is far beyond us, not only beyond our meta- phors and but beyond anything we can imagine; so much so that we must af?rm that it goes beyond the life system as we know it. Campbell speaks of the ?inconceivable,? but he cannot allow that this ?divinity? is really beyond life itself-otherwise it could become an ?external? authority. Judaism and Western religions based on it have insisted that the idea of transcendence points to something more than the mystery of protOplasm taking form, and more than an apparently coordinated intention behind life?s movement. God?s transcendence makes possible real novelty, revelation, ?creativity? of the most profound kind. This notion comes not from the troubadours, as Campbell would have us believe, but from the Prophets. If one relies for the source of one?s ideas only on life as given, one cannot help but remain in the pattern of circles and cycles, the eternal round of life. For this world is patterned from beginning to end, with each being, as Campbell points out, a re?ection of every other. Novelty and creativity can come only from recep- tivity to that which is outside the realm of life as we know it. The traditional ways to increase one?s access to the transcendent have been to reduce distractions that come from ordinary life, to quiet the mind, to practice recep- tivity to that which is not nature. In this context, obedience has been a tool for learning humility and receptivity. Ethical systems teach obedience in two ways: they discipline people by making them observe given laws, and they help them practice humility in relation to their fellow human beings. In the West as well as the East (for example, the Hindu laws of Manu or Confucian ethics), ethics has little to do with the philosophy of oneness with all being; it is part of the disciplining of the ego. No matter how many great spiritual experiences one has, ethics and religious discipline cannot be re- placed. In fact, a rigorous ethical practice is the con- tinuing prerequisite for these spiritual experiences. In Jewish tradition, further, ethical laws ensure that we reconnect to ordinary life, that we come back from experiences of higher consciousness to enrich the life of the world. ampbell speaks of the spiritual path as being ?dangerous, like walking on a razor?s edge.? We may be reminded of the famous saying of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: ?The whole world is a very narrow bridge; the main thing is nor to fear.? Campbell thinks the danger is that the individual and his or her creativity will be crushed by society; that dogma, credo, authority will kill the inner person and will interfere with the unity of all pe0ple. What he fails to incorporate into his understanding of spirituality is the inner need for discipline, humility, and obedience to balance the ego istic claims of the human soul with all its great creative potential. How could a scholar of comparative religion miss this point, which runs through all religious tradition? The answer lies in part in the German intellectual tradition on which Campbell relies, but it also re?ects a broader confusion common in our age: authority has been confused with authoritarianism, discipline with rigidity. Most of us, like Campbell, have a great fear of external structures imposing themselves on us ~we fear for the survival of our inner life. Certainly, one reason for this fear is that our society is so outer-directed; we are oriented toward the social and natural worlds and, so far as we can tell, there is nothing else. We have not learned that we really do have an inner, inviolable life?? our ?soul,? if you will?and that we can give as much time and energy to that inner reality as we do to the demands of the outer world. If, as in traditional Judaism and other traditions, that dimension of life is nourished, we need not fear authority We can accept it because it is identical with the inner authority; the archetypes are one. Is this other, ?follow-your?bliss" spirituality dangerous, TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3 119 then? It is not a politically dangerous philosophy, at least not in the short term. Many of its manifestations are intellectually sloppy, but that is true of most popular trends of thought. Inasmuch as Campbell points to a deeper archetypal level of reality and an inner life that needs to be nourished, he is encouraging people to live a nonmaterialistic life, a life that looks beyond short- term pleasures to the individual?s true inner will. These are basically harmless features. But because, by eliminat- ing ethics and authority, he diminishes the practical impact of the theological concept of transcendence, and thereby shortcuts the spiritual path, Campbell?s approach undercuts Jewish values (and perhaps all seri- ous spiritual traditions) in the long run. The Jewish path is rich and sensuous, intimately connected with the life energy that Campbell extols; but it is also deeply imbued with a sense of the transcendence of God. This means that humility is a primary value, a top-priority character trait. It also means that, through the path of receptivity and humility, true creativity and compassion can emerge. Jews af?rm the wondrousness of life, as does Campbell, and we also stand in awe of something more. El SLOUCHING TOWARD PRESSOLOGY Continued from p. 44) in the state, and ancillary concepts such as propaganda, have been ignored by mainstream political philosophers. Yet various intellectual traditions?~Marxism, American liberal sociology of the fifties and sixties, ?mass-society? analysis on the Continent?-offer insights into the system that Chomsky and Herman take for granted. It is pre- cisely a thinker such as Chomsky, gifted at peering through to first principles, who can?t be excused his shortcuts here. Retooling Chomsky/ Herman pressology requires recog- nition that in the study of journalism the citation of press stories is necessary but not sufficient reportage?and in no way a science. Because journalists enjoy enormously greater discretion in writing stories than informants (in linguistics) do in speaking standard sentences, the notion that the text alone can provide the data for ptessology? as Chomsky assumes well-formed sentences can for linguistics?makes no sense. The whole sloppy back- ground of intentions and values and history needs to be brought into play. Bad for science, perhaps, but good for truth. Thankfully, On Beaded Knee and A History of News provide such sloppy background. Each repeat- edly suggests why a ?propaganda model? of the US. mass media is too simplistic. On the surface, one would expect Hertsgaard?s book to bolster Consent at every point. Based on some 150 interviews with key players from the national 120 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 3 .v press and the Reagan administration, OH Banded Knee documents Michael Deaver?s and James Baker?s attempt to manipulate press coverage, their frequent successes, and the response of journalists. Of?cially, Hertsgaard echoes the line like a studio apprentice of one of the great Renaissance masters, instructed to paint a ?School of Chomsky? miniature with persuasive detail. The Reagan ?propaganda appa- ratus? comes out of ?witless malevolence.? Leading jOur- nalists ?allowed themselves to be used.? Hettsgaard contrasts the coverage of El Salvador and Poland and castigates the mass media?s failure to emphasize that Salvadorans, in the controversial 1982 ?showcase? elec? tion, didn?t get their identity cards stamped if they didn?t vote. He deems White House reporters a ?palace court press? disposed to ?con?ne its naughtiness within relatively narrow limits,? and he goes so far as to say that ?for the American press, truth was not truth, and fact not fact until the government said so.? et, unlike Chomsky and Herman, Hertsgaard plunges into the real world of journalism and government, coming across points of view that threaten to subvert his own. In one minor heresy against the propaganda model, Hertsgaard acknowledges that while journalists are ?inclined toward obedience from the start,? the lies of Vietnam and \?Uatergate changed that, and ?self-respect, if nothing else, demanded of journalists a more skeptical attitude toward what they were told.? Thus the Reagan White House had to ?en- gineer? mass consent by devising concrete Strategies of a sort Chomsky and Herman never attend to. One technique that the \White House used was to repeat endlessly whatever theme the administration wanted to push. Another was the ?smiling stonewall" limiting access in order to foil undesirable stories. A third was to call the networks frequently in order to provide spins on the news, to push the administration?s ?line of the day.? A fourth aimed to provide so much information and help (like phone banks and good visuals) on sto ties the White House wanted covered that report- ers faced a choice between getting the \Vhite House?s story quickly and struggling to do an alternate, almost certainly more critical story that would take much greater time and effort. Hertsgaard?s attention to journalism?s practical side, while corroborating the toothless quality of White House reportage, nonetheless undermines the Chomsky/Herman view of why such reportage takes place?often not because of ideological subservience to authority, but because of TGIF thinking. Hertsgaard?s attention to the formulas and techniques of reporting (objectivity requires reporters to ?attribute all statements of fact to a rec0gnized expert or author- ity?) also shows that much of the problem Chomsky i._m