Surfaces [was Patriarchal Power Imagery?]

[Guest guest]

This is a large issue and an incredibly large issue. Even divorced

from the reactionary parlances of Western feminism, its an important

issue to look at and examine both deeply and carefully, subjectively

and objectively, personally and impersonally.

 

If you were going to college in the US in the 70's and 80's, you read

books like EARTH WALK or PURSUIT OF LONELINESS by Philip slater and

by other writers discussing that sense of alienation between the

individual and the world. At that time it was couched in Existential

and Marxist terms though what they were writing about was deeper

because the the culture itself is deeper.

 

For the west, the culture can be very alien to who or what we are as

human. The one was describing his life in New Orleans and a friend

was telling me of his experiences in Calcutta. It has been alien for

a long time east and west, north and south. In America the great

hope was that everyone would be given a chance to become what he was

capible to becoming if he or she chose. Jefferson talked about a

natural aristocracy that would be made of men (and women) based upon

their talent, ability and knowledge only. Family placement or

wealth wasn't to be the issue. To be sure his big social experiment

is still in play, but the hierarchical structures are in play, too,

shaping and directing a world and world view that is becoming less

free and less kind.

 

Men and women think differently. The science is showing this.

Twenty-five years ago newly out of college, the idea was that if you

changed the way women were raised so that the would somehow stop

being women. Whether it genetic, hormonal, energetic, karmic, or

simply how the brain comes in wired, it appears that women are

different and the idea of unlearning one's feminine aspects wasn't a

workable idea, and as I look at it, not a good idea. This is because

what was hoped for was apparently to take on the things hated. The

hierarchy doesn't care if it has male cog or a female cog in place as

long as either perform what the structure want them to perform.

 

I've been reading John Taylor Gatto book THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF

AMERIAN EDUCATION which carries on the idea of how American public

education has had a big hand in undoing a lot of the big ideals of

Jefferson and the founding fathers and mothers. The educational

system set up all kind of structures that lead to a lot of our

unhappiness in terms of social class structure, economic and

educational class structures, creating person's sense of worth both

to himself and herself within the culture, developing people who are

conditioned immediate gratification and rewards, where independent

thinking is not appreciated, etc., that all serve the heirarchical

maze.

 

The thing that has facinated me about tantra is that is really is an

attempt for people to discover what it means to be truly human. Of

the involvement that I have had, it seems to have the ability to peel

away the lies and the structure. I read the stories about the

Yoginis and how some of them were outcasts. No one seemed to

understand what they were up or misunderstood it. I think they were

renegades from a world system that they confronted. They were the

ones trying to be the uncarved blocks a world even then that has

wanted square blocks for a long time. Things have not changed.

 

If this is your path, you are going to be speaking a different

language than the world - or more precisely - the ideas and structure

that make up the thinking of the world. That is a big task and a

difficult proposition.

 

sincerely,

 

Eric

 

(Sorry for being so long winded here. Every once and awhile I need to

rant. I really think that world should be kinder.)

 

 

 

 

 

, sankara menon <kochu1tz>

wrote:

> Patriarchy may be spread over a large part of the globe. But at

least I belong to a matriarchal lineage.

> Kochu

>

> Devi Bhakta <devi_bhakta> wrote:

> But patriarchy itself is also a surface.

>

> The modern human species has walked the earth for around 100,000

> years. Geneticists and psychologists agree that every modern human

> carries the psychological evolution of the species (and all that

> preceded it) in their very DNA. "Patriarchy," as you have defined

it

> in previous posts, dates back 2,000 or 3,000 years. So, to grossly

> oversimplify, at most 2 or 3 percent of our psychological

> inheritance is patriarchal in nature. It has affected our social

> institutions to be certain. But I doubt it has affected our

> psychology as much as you give it credit for.

>

> An example: For probably 10,000 years of human history, the serpent

> was not a negative symbol -- for untold millennia it was a

positive,

> life-affirming symbol of the ancient Goddess cults. Then the Old

> Testament -- in its (patriarchal) zeal to wipe out these cults in

> Canaan -- essentially flipped the old symbolism on its head.

Ancient

> symbols were given new interpretations -- now the serpent was a

> symbol of evil. But humankind's genetic memory (i.e.,

> Jung's "Collective Unconscious") is strong: Intellectual

> redefinitions of a symbol as old as humanity cannot that easily

> change our instinctive reactions to it.

>

> As Joseph Campbell observed: "There is an ambivalence inherent in

> many of the basic symbols of the Bible that no amount of rhetorical

> stress on the patriarchal interpretation can suppress. They address

> a pictorial message to the heart that exactly reverses the verbal

> message addressed to the brain -- and this nervous discord inhabits

> both Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism, since they too

share

> the legacy of the Old Testament."

>

> Shaktism, by contrast, does not share that legacy. The serpent --

to

> keep to a single example -- remains identified with Goddess (Devi),

> and never became associated with evil in any form. That is true

> across the spectrum of Hindu religious systems, I believe.

>

> Has Indian society been tainted by patriarchy? Sure -- and in some

> ways, India remains behind the modern West in shedding that legacy.

> But its symbolic depth is extremely shallow -- thus the survival of

> Shaktism; thus the survival of Devi in even the most "patriarchal"

> schools of Hinduism; thus the survival of martriarchal systems in

> the South and East of modern India.

>

> My point remains the same: You must trust these systems rather than

> prejudging them. Once you are inside, the symbolism -- to the

extent

> that it remains such -- will be revealed, and the experience will

be

> unmistakeable. You will have broken the surface.

>

> There is no need to take my word for it; in fact I would encourage

> you not to take my word for it. Take your own word. Try it.

>

> *** I am seeking other ways and means of power with and within,

> that's all. ***

>

> It may be closer than you ever imagined.

>

> Aum Maatangyai Namahe

>

>