Bad Cowboys [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

When I was a wee-tot I was never without my cowboy hat and boots. I’m told by a reliable source (my mom) that I regularly attempted to sleep with my boots on. I can’t remember my dedicated cowboy fantasy but the few photos-of-proof make me smile. I grew out of my cowboy clothes but carried forward my cowboy ideal. An artist and a cowboy serve similar calls.

The cowboy is a foundational myth of these United States. The rugged individualist. Self-reliant. According to the movie-ideal, the good cowboy is a guardian of the herd, a protector of what is right. The cowboy archetype is a servant to a higher ideal.

The bad cowboy steals. The bad cowboy is needy and self-serving. The bad cowboy isn’t really a cowboy at all. He’s a criminal.

Black-and-white foundational myths afford no shades of grey. Bad cowboys are bandits. They rustle cattle. They hurt people. Good cowboys safeguard while driving the herd to market. Their dedicated individualism is lived as an act of service. They mostly do not own the cattle. They are never paid well. Their reward is honoring the call to a life of relative freedom.

The archetype begs the question for all the republicans out there claiming the cowboy mythos as their guide-star: are they a servant to a higher ideal or self-serving? Are they currently pitting their oath to the Constitution against their desire for personal gain? Good cowboy or bad? My questions are, of course, rhetorical.

The cowboy is the remake of an archetype that reaches back to Achilles, running through the knights of The Round Table, stretching forward to modern tales: Strider and Hans Solo. A servant to a calling, pulled by a force into a life that makes little sense because it is driven by an inner imperative.

“A person who is truly gripped by a calling, a dedication, by a belief, by a zeal, will sacrifice his security, will sacrifice even his life, will sacrifice personal relationships, will sacrifice prestige, and will think nothing of personal development; he will give himself entirely to his myth.” ~ Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

The good cowboy is gripped by a calling. Again, a servant of a higher ideal. A Jedi knight.

A bad cowboy is gripped by greed. A servant to nothing greater than personal gain at any cost. A swindler. A liar. A robber. A villain.

My inference, of course, is obvious. Our communal cattle are being rustled. We are currently overrun with criminals and cowards pretending to be cowboys.

My hope is also obvious. Against all odds, in the movies at least, the good cowboys have a way of arriving on the scene just in-the-knick-of-time.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COWBOYS