Hero with a thousand faces

This evening, the multi-talented and well-respected American journalist, Bill Moyers, will officially retire from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and his weekly program, "The Bill Moyers Journal."   Although he expects to return with special projects in the future, the departure of Moyers from regular programming will leave a major vacuum in American broadcasting.

Moyers is a living legend.  He is truly compassionate and thoughtful, a humanist who sincerely believes that human beings have more in common than not.  He is a journalist who checks his facts thoroughly, who does not hesitate to tell the truth even when that truth goes against the so-called conventional wisdom, and who always tries to inform  - rather than to inflame passions in a tawdry attempt to increase ratings.  In the vast wasteland that passes for US broadcast journalism, where it takes a Jon-Stewart-type of entertainment show to ask the questions and make the points that all serious journalists should have been asking and making all along ... and most definitely since 9-11, Moyers will be greatly missed.  He has not simply been a bright spot, but a beacon.

Moyers began working in public service early in his career.  He served as a Deputy Director of the Peace Corps from 1962-63 during the administration of President John F. Kennedy.  I personally have a soft spot for anyone, whatever their political affiliation, who served the Peace Corps, my first post-undergraduate employer, in any capacity.

There are many others who have the honor to know Moyers personally, who are able to write with more understanding and description about his life, his work, his motivations and his own personal heroes.  But he is truly one of mine.

In the late 80s, he broadcast a PBS series called "The Power of Myth," in collaboration with American mythologist, Joseph Campbell.  The series explored Campbell's ideas concerning mythological, religious, and psychological archetypes and exposed them to a wide audience.  It captured the imagination of millions of viewers and is a staple of PBS television membership drives even now.

Campbell's most influential work was "The Hero with a Thousand Faces."  It introduced the concept of the hero's journey and began to popularize the very idea of comparative mythology, that is, the study of the human impulse to create stories and images.  Though the stories may be clothed in the motifs of a particular time and place, they draw on universal, eternal themes.  Moyers has drawn on these concepts in his reporting time and time again.  He also understands the past as prologue.  So long as we do not know or refuse to learn about the past, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

I wish Mr. Moyers and his family all the best in his retirement.  But I selfishly hope that he will not be absent from the airwaves for long.