Tag: academica

The Danger of Never Outgrowing the Teacher: When academia becomes a platform for tyranny

There is a certain kind of academic enthusiasm that becomes dangerous not because the person is malicious, but because the person is earnest in precisely the wrong way, which is why I can’t stand the air that Amy Acton breathes. Many people encounter a thinker like Joseph Campbell at a formative age, as she did because we are roughly the same age, when the mind is still soft clay and every new idea feels like destiny itself. The problem is not the exposure — the problem is the arresting of development at that stage. They absorb the surface vocabulary, the archetypes, the metaphors, the rhythms of intellectualism, and then confuse that early awakening with mastery. Campbell himself warned repeatedly against confusing the first illumination with the completion of the journey. Yet so many people build their entire intellectual identity around that first spark, never noticing that its warmth has become a ceiling. They inherit the language of scholarship without inheriting the discipline of outgrowing the teacher, and that is where the trouble starts.

Academia often encourages this dynamic without realizing it. Institutions reward the ability to cite, to signal, to align, to display affiliation with the canon. They do not necessarily reward the thornier work of contradiction, independence, or divergence. The result is an entire class of individuals who are conversant with the lexicon of myth but not the substance of individuation. They quote Campbell without ever reenacting the very process he described — the departure from the familiar, the confrontation with one’s own shadow, the return with something genuinely earned. Instead of heroes, academia produces interpreters of heroes. Instead of individuals shaped by ordeal, it produces intellectual loyalists who cling to their early revelations as a kind of lifelong credential. When such individuals migrate into positions of authority, they use symbolic vocabulary as a substitute for actual expertise, believing that their comfort with metaphor qualifies them to govern reality itself.

What makes this especially troubling in public life is that misinterpretation hardens into ideology. Someone who never advanced beyond the first romantic reading of myth turns that reading into doctrine. They begin to treat the collective as the primary vessel of meaning and treat the individual as a replaceable component within a prefabricated cosmology. They believe that because they have internalized a symbolic framework, they are now equipped to guide society through its trials. But mythology, misread in that collectivized way, becomes a justification for control rather than a map for courage. It allows leaders to cloak their instincts in archetypes and present policy as though it were destiny. The more confidently they cite the canon, the more certain the audience becomes that they are hearing wisdom. Yet certainty built on a misreading is the most volatile certainty of all, because it turns sincerity into a weapon. Sincerity is no safeguard when the framework itself is flawed.

And that is the deeper danger: when someone sincerely believes their early intellectual awakening grants them the right to impose that awakening on everyone else. Knowledge, half‑formed and poorly examined, becomes a cudgel. Mythic vocabulary becomes a credential. Academic recognition becomes a mantle of authority rather than a starting point for self‑critique. People who never surpassed their teachers believe they honor the teacher by repeating him, but in truth they betray the teacher by fossilizing him. Campbell sought to liberate the individual; his imitators often unintentionally conscript the individual into their own mythic projection. And when this projection leaks into public policy, it creates a feedback loop where the symbolic substitutes for the empirical, the poetic replaces the practical, and the collective is treated as the final moral authority. That pattern is not merely misguided — it is dangerous anywhere real lives, real risks, and real consequences are at stake.

Dr. Amy Acton, the former Director of the Ohio Department of Health and a current Democratic candidate for governor in the 2026 election, has frequently drawn on mythological themes in her public remarks, particularly referencing the work of Joseph Campbell. During Ohio’s COVID-19 response in 2020, she evoked metaphors such as describing masks as a “superhero cape,” urging Ohioans to “wear both the cape and the mask” as “masked crusaders” to protect one another. This imagery positioned collective action—social distancing, masking, and shutdowns—as heroic, framing public health measures as a shared quest against an invisible threat, was and is very dangerous.

In more reflective settings, Acton has explicitly cited Campbell. In a 2022 commencement address at Ohio Wesleyan University, she described discovering Campbell around college age, crediting him with revealing a universal “hero’s journey” across world religions and mythologies. She explained that Campbell observed a recurring theme of a life well-lived: embarking on a quest, facing fears, slaying dragons, and returning with “gold” to benefit society. She tied this to her own experiences, including during press conferences amid the pandemic, where she mentioned him while reflecting on life’s seemingly rambling path composing into a “perfectly composed play.” In interviews, she listed Campbell alongside figures like Brené Brown and Alan Watts as inspirational reading she set aside for post-crisis reflection.

These references portray Acton as philosophically inclined, blending mythology with public service. She presents the hero’s journey as a personal compass for resilience, often emphasizing collective heroism—society pulling together on a “life raft” against ambiguity and threat. This aligns with her role in Ohio’s early, aggressive pandemic measures, including school closures, elective surgery halts, and stay-at-home orders, which she helped shape and sign as health director under Governor Mike DeWine.

However, a deeper engagement with Campbell’s work, particularly The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), reveals tensions in this application. Campbell’s monomyth describes the hero’s journey as an individual’s transformative adventure: separation from the ordinary world, initiation through trials, and return with a boon to share. While myths often serve societal functions, Campbell stresses the psychological and spiritual growth of the individual psyche. The hero confronts the unknown, integrates opposites (such as ego and shadow), and achieves individuation—a process of becoming a fully realized self beyond mere group conformity.

Campbell drew from Carl Jung’s collective unconscious and archetypes, viewing myths as expressions of inner human development rather than prescriptions for enforced collectivism. He explored the tension between individual and collective, noting how myths can bind people to social order but ultimately point toward personal transcendence. In later reflections, including his 1954-1955 journals published as Baksheesh and Brahman, Campbell expressed disillusionment with aspects of Indian culture after visiting. Having idealized Eastern traditions through texts, he encountered poverty, nationalism, religious rivalry, and a pervasive “baksheesh” (alms-seeking) culture that clashed with his scholarly expectations. This led him to question romanticized views of collectivist societies, reinforcing his emphasis on individual emergence over rigid group structures.

Critics of Acton’s approach might argue that her invocation of Campbell during the pandemic emphasized the collective “heroism” of compliance—masks as shared capes, society as a unified front—while sidelining the monomyth’s core: the individual’s confrontation with chaos for personal growth. Policies mandating lockdowns and restrictions, which Acton advocated and implemented, prioritized group safety and collective sacrifice over individual autonomy. This could be seen as inverting Campbell’s arc, where the hero ventures alone into the unknown rather than being compelled to remain in a restricted “ordinary world” for the group’s sake.

Scholarship in mythology and academia often faces similar pitfalls: early inspiration from a thinker like Campbell can become static, used to validate positions without further evolution. Many encounter The Hero with a Thousand Faces in youth or college, drawn to its universal patterns and empowering message of personal quests. Yet true depth requires moving beyond surface readings—outgrowing the teacher, as it were. Campbell himself encouraged this; he did not seek disciples but individuals who would transcend his insights. Those who quote him reverently without critical engagement risk turning profound ideas into rhetorical tools for authority.

In Acton’s case, her philosophical bent—mysterious and interesting to some—may appeal to voters seeking depth in leadership. But when academic or mythological references justify expansive state power during crises, skepticism is warranted. Academia can sometimes lend unearned credibility to political actions, especially when the interpreter remains at an introductory level. The danger lies in mistaking collective mandates for heroic journeys, potentially stifling the very individual fulfillment Campbell championed.

This critique points out Acton’s intentions in 2020 of a person who never overcame the academic teacher, but yielded to a surface level understanding of the material presents a major danger when it comes to state policy. Her background of overcoming hardship lends authenticity to her calls for communal resilience. Yet fair examination, especially in a gubernatorial context, demands scrutiny of how ideas are applied. Calling her an “old hippie” who misread Campbell—clinging to surface collectivism without grasping individuation—captures a valid concern: that superficial engagement with profound thought can lead to policies that hinder rather than foster human emergence.

Ultimately, true growth in scholarship or life involves surpassing influences. Campbell would likely approve of questioning his own ideas in light of lived experience. Voters in 2026 might ask whether Acton’s mythology serves individual Ohioans’ journeys or a collective vision that limits them.  Of which I would say based on her use, makes her an extremely dangerous person seeking authority over others.

Bibliography

•  Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New World Library, 2008 (original 1949).

•  Campbell, Joseph. Baksheesh and Brahman: Asian Journals – India. HarperOne, 1995.

•  Acton, Amy. Keynote Address, Ohio Wesleyan University Commencement, May 7, 2022. Available at owu.edu.

•  “Wear the cape and the mask’: Dr. Amy Acton warns that masks aren’t a substitute for physical distancing.” WKYC, April 2020.

•  Vesoulis, Abby. “Meet the Woman Fighting to Flatten Ohio’s Coronavirus Curve.” TIME, April 8, 2020.

•  Smyth, Julie Carr. “Dr. Amy Acton, who helped lead Ohio’s early pandemic response, joins 2026 governor’s race.” AP News, January 7, 2025.

•  Wikipedia entries on Amy Acton and Joseph Campbell (accessed January 2026).

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Why The Desecrators of Davos Want to Redefine Our History: If you know the truth, you won’t listen to them

There’s been a little game going on for a very long time that is the core of all our political movements around the world. Many people recognize the problem and point to secret societies, and all their maniacal schemes are revealed as danger from behind many curtains of concealment as the ultimate villain. But it’s far more profound than that, and it all centers around history and our understanding of it. One thing that is clear coming out of the World Economic Forum events at Davos over the last several years, and we’ve seen it in the United States through attacks such as the 1619 Project, is the desire to reinterpret history so that a modern political class can make a move to change our society into what they want to control. We’ve seen it in the push to remove the Bible from courtrooms; we’ve seen it attempting to make slavery a Republican problem and undo the foundation of America in the first place. The game is to feed mass populations a lot of garbage and keep them from having the opportunity to know the truth about themselves and their own history so that centralized bureaucrats within the Administrative State can easily control them. However, even as much as I talk about politics, I know a lot more about history, and it’s easy for me to see what’s going on, which is why I have been spending more time on history lately. The clear strategy is to redefine the historical narrative so that “they” (the Desecrators of Davos) can become our new gods from the perspective of the “technocrat” and rule the world just as any king or dictator from times past might have tried. I have addressed many of the concerns about artificial intelligence and the future of robots in my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, to counter what the Desecrators of Davos have been saying, hoping to scare people into compliance. Instead, the actual game is what we all must stay focused on to understand what they are really after.

Much of what I do in life, I don’t mind saying because, in many ways, the explosions have already gone off, and there isn’t a damn thing anybody can do about it now is operate like the demolition experts in Force Ten From Navarone did in that famous war movie. In that film, the goal was for a small crack team to blow up a dam that would then flood out a bridge to prevent Germans from crossing a vital river and attack Allied forces. So a small group of two people takes their little bag of explosives into the center of the giant dam complex to set it off, only to realize that the charge was too small to destroy the dam. Feeling like they failed, the two guys leave thinking all is lost. But, as the demolition expert understood from the outset, if the charge were too big, they never would have been able to get it behind enemy lines. Therefore, the charge was designed to be small but to set off a chain reaction that would gradually put cracks in the dam, allowing the pressure of the water behind the dam to do the rest of the job, which is what happened. The small charge set off cracks in the dam that grew bigger and bigger until the whole thing came apart. That is how I see the attacks we are inflicting upon the Desecrators of Davos and the many secret societies that have been working behind them with cult-like persistence for many centuries. So the global attackers’ goals today, the rumors of child sacrifice that go on behind the curtain of our society, and the media’s seeming complicit to help cover up appear very scary. But when you understand the goals and how to beat them, things start to make a lot more sense. That is why they don’t want people to understand history.

So what’s going on? Well, there is a push from the global elite, that people call them, to return the earth to a global species of goddess worshipers, to the religions that predate Egypt and most of the advanced cultures we think of in such a way. The truth is, and this is why I have been talking about Atlantis a lot more lately, is that these global forces and their secret societies want to get back to that origin story; they want to erase the ideas of Christianity away as if it never existed and force everyone into this cult of blood sacrifice to the mother earth as things were in societies of Atlantis and even much older. You can always tell what people are up to by what they attempt to keep people away from. Talk about Atlantis was common until the 1930s when the progressive movement in America began taking over politics and our media culture. But the truth is that Atlantis was a major cultural center with international commerce at least 10,000 years ago. Whatever happened to the talk about an island in the middle of the Atlantic, a large island that sunk by many thousands of feet, leaving behind only the mountaintops in the Azores and Canary Islands, the people of Atlantis, who were very tall in stature, which led to the mythology of the Titans in Greek mythology, and the giants of the British Islands, the people migrated into North America where the center of all culture was until a giant comet came and wiped everyone out. The descendants of the cataclysm, over the next 4000 years or so, reestablished what they remembered from those times. We have the many cultures of the world that led to what we know about in Sumer, Egypt, and the events that led up to the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran, with Buddhism evolving in the far East. All these influences are similar yet developed their own evolution, cut off from the homeland of the original earth-worshiping culture.    

The thing that nobody wants to say is why we should ever want to return to Atlantis as the Mason movement obviously wants to, along with many secret societies with the same aim. The idea of devil worship and astrology is to deface the beliefs of Christianity that developed, which created western civilization centered around the pronoun “I” and to return to sacrifices to the forces of nature which govern the universe. The idea that man would use science to dominate nature is a threat to members of that ancient religious order, which is why people like Yuval Harari are trying to scare everyone away from science by saying that humans will cease to exist and will be replaced by Artificial Intelligence. But with the evolution of western ideas, which grow out of the Bible, the concept of mankind dominating and owning nature is a threat to the globalist forces who have not yet matured and grapple at the skirt of mother earth because they are terrified of a self-fulfilling future. America represents that self-fulfilling future, which is why they seek to destroy it. As far as Atlantis society evolving out of North America and being a global trading alliance, you can trace the history of the Aztecs to their ancestors in the caves of Aztlan, in the White Sands area of New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, and follow the Indian legends of prehistory for them and see how things connect. I would point the curious to the Skinwalker Ranch just outside Vernal, Utah, for evidence of this lost society. But it’s all about scope; you have to pull back far enough to see the whole picture before you can understand it, and why the Desecrators of Davos want to limit that vision for their own attempts at global domination, and to know why they want to do it. Then and only then can we make a moral case for America, which is precisely what I plan to do over the coming years. The slow explosion that will bring down all they are holding back and destroy their intentions where they are powerless to stop it. Wait until we get into the empire of giants that ruled in North America during the Archaic period, but that’s for a bit later after the cracks in the damn are more obvious. This will be fun!

Rich Hoffman

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