
The Hero’s Journey Is No Longer Serving Us - rbanffy
https://blog.collectivejourney.com/the-heros-journey-is-no-longer-serving-us-85c6f8152a50
======
b5

        > Like no other time in human history, we each
        > now have a say in any and every story being
        > told;  any and every story ever told.
    

This is disingenuous and misleading. The centralisation of entertainment -- in
books, TV, movies -- has had exactly the opposite effect. Prior to this, oral
history and storytelling were some of our most important forms of
entertainment. These were largely replaced by mass media which is much more
fixed in form. We can certainly _respond_ to and _adapt_ mass media, but it's
not the same as having a say in how stories are told.

------
jasode
This essay is very confusing. I'm not sure the author has a clear thesis
there.

I had to read it twice and I think I found the source of my confusion:

The author first writes about "hero's journey" but that's a _" topic"_ or _"
subject"_ of a story.

He then attempts to contrast "hero" with the opposite -- the "collective" \--
as in "collective storytelling". Hmmm... Did the author realize he just
switched gears to the _process_ of creating a story rather than the "topic" of
the story?!? _They are orthogonal concepts._

E.g. A collective/collaborative writing group (process) using Slack message
channels or reddit[1] can join forces to create a "hero's journey" story
(topic).

E.g. Or, a "lone heroic writer" (process) can write about a "collective group
working together to build a bridge" (topic).

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/)

------
ggambetta
TL;DR: The Hero's Journey doesn't apply to things it was never supposed to
apply to, and that aren't really related.

Save your time, skip this one.

------
Buttes
>while the Hero’s Journey functions as an engine driving the survival of the
fittest (both physically and ideologically)

I think this is a pretty questionable interpretation. The Buddhist myth of
Prince Five-Weapons contradicts this, for example, as do many other myths
which adhere to the "formula".

~~~
wu-ikkyu
Agreed, self-sacrifice is a common motif in the Hero's Journey, which is
antithetical to survival of the fittest.

------
danvoell
Who is upvoting this? This is terrible.

"None of this adheres to the rigid circular structure and ancient
underpinnings of the Campbellian Hero’s Journey model. What is required is a
new kind of storytelling, a narrative engine that lends itself to our
nonlinear, networked, omni-perspective digital age. The kind of storytelling
where any audience member can suddenly and at any point start contributing to
the narrative. It’s a model of storytelling we call the Collective Journey."

\- Nope sorry, you haven't changed the narrative in any way. People have
always had opinions. It doesn't change what was written, just because its on
the internet vs. newspaper vs. word of mouth.

------
alexpetralia
The Hero's Journey is not about ego or self-righteousness at all. This feels
like a major swing and a miss.

------
Animats
That's because heroes aren't that important in the real world. Read a history
of a modern war and try to identify anybody who acted like a fictional hero
and made a difference in the outcome.

 _" Wars are won by the average performance of the line units"_ \- Field
Marshall Slim, British army, WWII.

~~~
swagtricker
Yeah. I'm sure Field Marshall Slim would have been just fine without the help
of a handful of cryptography breakers (some homosexuals, some women) in little
huts at Bletchley Park cracking the Enigma machine. No difference in being
able to intercept and use Nazi communications for months on end without their
knowledge. They pretty much had the Germans on the run at that point, right?

~~~
Animats
Bletchley was a huge industrial operation. They had several thousand people,
including the outstations. The bombe hardware was built in quantity by the
British Tabulating Machine Company and then by National Cash Register in
Dayton, OH. The US cryptanalysis effort had units at Arlington Hall and Pearl
Harbor, with buildings full of IBM tabulators and special-purpose hardware.

The real innovation in WWII was scale. Cryptanalysis in WWI was a few people
in Room 40 and didn't accomplish that much.

------
katastic
Wow they're not even trying to hide their collectivism and statism these days.
All individuals must bow down before the great state!

And this statement:

>The villain, after all, must get his comeuppance.

Is completely orthogonal and erroneously attributed to the hero's journey. Has
the author ever read any classic literature like the Greeks? You were supposed
to feel _bad_ that the "evil guy" was evil and that he had to die. It was a
tragedy. (In a Greek Tragedy? No!)

I question many of the author's projections and "read-between-the-lines"
interpretations that he uses to make his argument.

There's nothing wrong with writing a story about people coming together. But
his arguments for everyone else to do so, are flimsy at best.

~~~
mikeash
Who's the "they" not trying to hide their collectivism and statism?

~~~
katastic
Journalists.

------
gallerdude
I’m not sure I agree. The Hero’s Journey is about fiction, and the role of
fiction isn’t to react to it; it’s to teach us something about ourselves.

------
teilo
God save us from modern literary criticism and their literary theories. They
add nothing, accomplish nothing. They deconstruct, but never build.

------
dropit_sphere
Without the hero's journey, you don't get heroes.

And we desperately, desperately need heroes.

