Last week here at the pond, there was a convergence of energies that seemed to be going in two different directions. One was an awareness that perhaps it was time to “up the stakes” in our activities against the Bush administration. NorthDakotaDemocrat and Man Eegee both wrote powerful diaries spurring us forward in our thinking.
Then came Napoli and the rape/sexual assault stories. I’m sure we are all still trying to absorb the power that was on display by the courageous women here.
I believe these kinds of things happen for a reason and began to wonder what one has to do with the other. Something totally unconnected to this question sent me back to review diaries I have previously written here. I came across the very first one titled “Straining to Hear the Feminine Voice” and the question was answered for me.
I’ve copied that rather short diary below the fold with some very minor edits.
The first time I noticed that my internal processes were going in a radically different direction from our prevailing culture was my reaction to 9/11. While it seemed that everywhere I looked, the prevailing mood went quickly from shock to sadness to anger, I got stuck in the sadness. I never had a sense emotionally of needing to get revenge. I felt increasingly distanced from our national march into the “war on terror.” And this eventually drove me to revisit a book I read back in the late ’80’s by Riane Eisler titled “The Chalice and the Blade.”
Eisler contrasts the “chalice” (read: matriarchal) cultures of the Neolithic agrarian era with the “blade” (read: patriarchal) cultures that formed during the early development of our Judeo/Christian history. She then tries to go beyond the either/or of these two cultures to define a partnership model of society to replace our current hierarchical model. I’ll encourage others to read Eisler’s book rather than try to capture all of it here, but a few of her ideas will help me get to my point.
Original chalice cultures worshiped the goddess and celebrated birth as the central symbolic demonstration of their spirituality. For the blade cultures, “the central mythical image… is no longer the birth of the young god. It is his crucifixion and death” (ie, “The Passion of the Christ.) She says, “The underlying problem is not men as a sex. The root of the problem lies in a social system in which the power of the blade is idealized – in which both men and women are taught to equate true masculinity with violence and dominance and to see men who do not conform to this ideal as too soft or effeminate.” Eisler also draws on the research of psychologist David Winter, who in looking at historical patterns was able to demonstrate that “more repressive attitudes toward women are predictors of periods of aggressive warfare.” She sounds her ultimate warning this way, “For be they religious or secular, modern or ancient, Eastern or Western, the basic commonality of totalitarian leaders and would-be leaders is their faith in the power of the lethal Blade as the instrument of our deliverance. A dominator future is therefore, sooner or later, almost certainly also a future of global nuclear war – and the end of all of humanity’s problems and aspirations.”
This is why, when our own beloved Democratic Party decided to mount a completely militarized national convention and thought they could trump the Republicans as the party of the blade, I despaired and wondered “WHERE IS THE FEMININE VOICE?” I’m straining to hear it.
I think we heard that feminine voice very clearly here over the last few days. And it has come from the women AND the men. It is this voice that is needed – without it we will continue to perpetuate the blade culture – which will eventually doom us all.
I’m not sure where all of this will lead me, but I’ll be listening to that feminine voice that has made itself heard loud and clear here at the pond. Speak to me!!