[Robert Juliano]

Stephen,

Let’s look at Rule #5 more closely. It says:

Avoid Contemporary Politics: Given the volatile nature of contemporary political discourse, we ask that members steer clear of candidates or current political controversies. Forum members come from across the political spectrum. There are other fora across the internet for discussing myth and politics.

While neoliberalism certainly includes certain political ideas, it itself is more of a global economic-based approach which is largely orthogonal to local system of government. And the ‘controversy’ involved is not one of party vs. another party, but is the pattern of living which has immense effects with which myth and notions of community must work. And it is close attention to such issues that Joseph Campbell highlighted in the above quotation repeated here:

I think that in one’s political action and influences, if one can think of oneself as part of a world community without betraying the legitimate interests of one’s local neighborhood, one would be helping the world forward.

And this was precisely the spirit with which I raised the issue of neoliberalism – it is a pattern whose participants do think about the world community but, crucially, at the expense of the interests of local neighborhood.

In any case, I won’t raise this issue again on this board and apologize for doing so.

Have a great weekend!