Module 6 Lesson Plan 2 - Cross Cultural Psychology

International Culture: 
The Hero Adventure with Joseph Campbell

Language Pun

These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him.  So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop.  Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

Review:

What elements according to Joseph Campbell seem to make the hero universal?

Class Activity:

1.  Listen to and then respond to the South American Country Report.  Point out those man-made objective elements of culture you have seen, and also those man-made ideas or institutions by which South American people characterize themselves.

2.  Joseph Campbell was a writer of the sort who can retell stories.  He writes in ways that bring together the themes of seemingly different stories.  He is a discoverer of recurrent patterns in the stories about many cultures.  He is the author of:
Historical Atlas of World Mythology;
The Way of the Animal Powers;
The Hero With a Thousand Faces; and
The Masks of God (in four volumes).

A video about heroes naturally begins with some of these: persons in space, the moon landing, Martin Luther King speaking before Abraham Lincoln's statue, Ghandi, Amelia Earhart, sports figures, Mother Theresa, etc.  It was no accident that this video was filmed at the California ranch of filmmaker George Lucas.  Lucas made the film Star Wars and Campbell sees parallels between the future and past heroes.  In this video, you will see him draw parallels between religious heroes such as Moses, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed.

Listen to excerpts from The Hero Adventure and see if you can apply what you've seen to the world around you.  Who was the hero in World War II ...  
-  in America?
-  in Germany?
-  in Japan?
-  in England?

Who were American heroes when the United States proclaimed its independence?

Who was/are the heroes within Islamic culture today?

3. Optional Activity:  Can you discover the values to which Americans shape their energies, talents and aspirations?  Read "What is Culture?" and "The Values Americans Live By."  Would the people from a country in South America hold the same values and to the same degree?

Summary:

1.  Each country report will introduce us to a completely new culture as well.  Note the objective man-made elements that mark the culture physically.  Then note the ideas - political, religious, and educational by which each culture shapes the behaviors of its youth and adults.  The African Country Team should pre-brief the instructor during the next class session and present its own briefing during Part Two of the next module.

2.  The hero is he or she who leads or transforms him or herself, undergoing a difficult trial, and ultimately becoming what was possible within the period of his or her circumstances.  The journey from birth to death is punctuated by distinctive life changes.  Teens must ultimately  renounce their childlike behaviors and assume responsibilities of adulthood.  Working adults must ultimately retire.  Retired adults must ultimately make peace with the transition to nothingness, or to life after death.  Joseph Campbell says that the function of myth is to prepare men to make such transitions, by holding forth for each person a hero who has done so before.  This is one possible thread which links many differing cultures together.  Buddha was a certain kind of hero to oriental peoples.  Christ is a hero to Christianity.  Mohammed is a hero to Islamic peoples.

3.  (From the optional activity)  Some foreign cultures might prefer the right-hand column of values below in contrast to American values in the left-hand column.  The table is taken from page 12 in Explorations in American Culture. 

World Capitals

webofculture.com

Customary Behaviors (Other than my own)

Has Your Travel Agent Told You?

Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay-over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

crosscultural.com

Homework

1.  Read Chapter Five "Depth Perception and Visual Ilusions:  Why Do Cultural Differences Exist?" pages 24-27 in Cross-Cultural Perspectives in America.  Answer the following questions in your notebook:

Customary Behaviors (Other than my own)

"All people smile in the same language" ---- Unknown

Below are two man-made artifacts.  Each is a great passageway.  The first is the Panama Canal, linking two great bodies of water.

Below is the Great Wall of China, a kind of human highway, or man-made artifact, around an ancient empire.