A Brit Joseph Campbell, it seems - at least re contemporaries.

Ah yess... inauthentic lives - a recurrent theme in Campbell's several books / a fitting description of the guaranteed produce of Vulture Capitalism as theology + the spread-sheet concept of determining wealth. For the terminally unimaginitive.

Our modern alienation from myth is unprecedented, because human beings have always been myth-makers. There is a moving, and even heroic, asceticism in the rejection of myth, but purely linear, logical and historical modes of thought have debarred us from the wisdom that enabled men and women to draw on the full resources of humanity. The most developed and ethically intelligent myths taught people that compassion and abandoning egotism were beneficial and helped them to cultivate a sense of the earth as sacred, instead of merely being a resource. These are attitudes that are sorely needed today. Tragically, because of our lack of mythical expertise, the myths that did emerge in the 20th century were narrowly racial, ethnic, and egotistic, exalting the self by demonising the other. We cannot counter bad myths by reason alone, because undiluted logos cannot deal with such deep-rooted, unexorcised fear and hatred. We cannot completely cancel out the rational bias of our education but we can acquire a more educated attitude to mythology.

Brilliant!

Thanks.
Bookmarked, passed on.

PS - another angle on the dilemma -

Willa Cather, Death Comes to the Archbishop
-- excerpts recently dramatised on 'our BBC'.