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Title: The Primal Wound Subtitle: The origins of authoritarianism Date: 2005 Source: https://www.academia.edu/36156046/THE_PRIMAL_WOUND Authors: Larry Gambone Topics: History, Misogyny, Class struggle, Abuse, The state, Authoritarianism, Class, Child liberation
<em>Many thousands of years ago, all the people of the world believed in the same Way of Life, that of harmony with the Universe.</em> IROQUOIS ADDRESS TO THE WESTERN WORLD, 1976
…**the prevailing viewpoint among the peoples of the Earth was that the planet itself was a living creature...** (They) **also believed that the Earth was a female being, the actual mother of life.** Carolyn Merchant THE DEATH OF NATURE
Among “primitive people” **…no command-obedience is in force.** Pierre Clastres, SOCIETY AGAINST THE STATE.
<em>The “desire for the absolute... something atavistic from the ancient steppe.”</em> Hugh Graham, THE VESTIBULE OF HELL
“**Most authority commences as the raw power of the gangster...** Harold Barclay, PEOPLE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT
From around the age of twelve I thought the world was run by lunatics. Nature, though often cruel, seemed governed by some inner logic or possessed a level of harmony rarely found among the humans I encountered. The longer I lived the more convinced I became that humans were basically crazy, and perhaps this was just the way it was, and always had been.
When I studied anthropology at university, I read about so-called primitive societies like those of the San, Australian Aboriginals, Inuit and Andaman Islanders, who were not tormented by the neuroses and psychoses of the “civilized” world. They lived “naturally” — ate when hungry, slept when tired, had no bosses or any other bullying, exploiting, elite, had no hang-ups about the body and its functions and were “permissive” in their child-rearing. The Andaman islanders, for example, had gender equality, very little negative mythology, and did not see the world as inherently evil, unlike the “civilized” people.[1]
Since our Paleolithic ancestors most likely lived in ways similar to the residual “primitives”, they too must have been free of these afflictions. Mental illness was not an innate human condition. Of course, there are organic causes for mental disturbance, such as brain damage or chemical imbalances, but these account for only a minority of cases. In the main, mental illness had to have **social** causes. It was how society was arranged that lay at the root of the problem.
<strong>The arrangement in the “civilized” world, and virtually a definition of the word civilization, was hierarchy and power, in other words, authoritarianism. Among the “civilized”, certain people, almost always a minority of male adults, had the right to dominate, torment and exploit others. These conditions did not exist among truly “primitive” people</strong>. Authoritarian relationships were lacking among these mentally healthy, but technologically backward peoples.
Freud claimed that repression was necessary for the development of civilization. Repression of the natural and instinctual seemed an understandable basis for technological development. How much work would be done if everyone came and went as they pleased, or decided to stay home and make love instead of going to the salt mines? Why misogyny was also on the list of “necessary” repressions, I could not fully understand, but the degradation and humiliation of women always seemed an important part of the brutal package called civilization.
In the late 1970’s — early 80’s, I read the anti-civilization writings of the “primitivist” thinkers like John Zerzan and Fredy Perlman. They believe civilization a disastrous mistake and the only solution is returning to the hunting and gathering existence of our ancestors. “Technology” was the problem and we had better get rid of it right away. Some choice! Either live in a cave or be tormented by lunatics! The “primitivists” solution — return to the Paleolithic — required the death of 99% of the population — a ghastly “final solution” to the problem of mental illness! On the other hand, the “civilized” lunatics could turn the world into a cinder. One could easily become a pessimist. I chose not to.
Why? In spite of repression, people still fight for liberty. In spite of the failures, the fact people have tried over and over again to establish sane, natural relations with each other and with nature, made me believe that not all was lost. As Loreena McKinnet sings, “the spirit never dies”, and this was evidence for me that authoritarian insanity was not the only possible human condition. Not much to go on, but this was more or less what I thought for the next 20 years.
Back in the Nineteenth Century, Bachofen and Engels, proposed the existence of a matriarchal stage of history preceding our own patriarchal civilization. The belief in an original “matriarchal” culture had its origins in the 19th Century belief that phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny. This idea was found particularly in early 19th Century German thought, going back to philosophical idealism. [2]
Matriarchal society gave high status to women, was egalitarian and lacked repression and violence. It supposedly grew out of the discovery of agriculture by women and was replaced by patriarchy when men took over the main economic role with the invention of the plow. There was no archaeological evidence for a matriarchal society. Anthropologists wrote about matrilineal societies, (decent through the female side) but matrilineal did not equal matriarchal, even though the status of women was usually higher in a matrilineal society than in a fully patriarchal order.[3]
Feminists adopted the Bachofen-Engels conception. Some denied the historical existence of matriarchy, but all believed patriarchy had reduced women to chattel and was also responsible for the violence and madness found in so-called civilization. The Marxist class model was applied to women, with men in the role of capitalists and women as the proletarians. How patriarchy came about no one knew for sure, but at some point it certainly involved the conquest and suppression of women. Recent archaeological discoveries in Turkey (Catyl Huyuk) and the Minoan civilization of Crete, both of which appeared to be women-friendly societies, gave new life to the Bachofen-Engels thesis. But there was no solid proof of the existence of a sane, non-violent, pro-woman ancient society. Nor was there any proof of a conquest. Discussion remained within the bounds of myth and speculation.
The proof came in the 1980’s with the work of the eminent archaeologist Dr. Marija Gimbutas. What she found was not matriarchy, but what Rian Eisler calls a “partnership” society.[4] According to Gimbutas, a goddess-worshiping partnership civilization existed in Turkey and Eastern Europe thousands of years before Egypt and Sumeria flourished. And “civilization” was an apt term to describe these societies, for they were urban, had solidly built houses, practiced trade, used metals and had a form of writing.
While Dr. Gimbutas’ concept of a pan-European Goddess Culture has been harshly criticized by other archaeologists, they support her evidence that the Neolithic civilization of Europe was peaceful and egalitarian. Dr. Gimbutas also discovered archaeological evidence the partnership civilizations were conquered by “dominator culture” nomad barbarians who imposed their violent, authoritarian, world-hating, misogynist, child-abusing ways upon Europe and all the other places they overran.
This act of conquest and imposition I call the Primal Wound. Partnership cultures, lacking rigid hierarchy and authoritarianism, are mentally healthy. Dominator culture inequality and violence gave rise to the neuroses and psychoses generally associated with civilization. Dominator culture splits humans from each other and humanity from nature, giving rise to alienation. Thus we are wounded.
There have been major advances in paleontology and other related sciences in the two decades since Dr. Gimbutas issued her challenge to orthodox archeology. As I write, new discoveries are being made. One change is there is less of a strong division between the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. For the anthropologist, Pierre Clastres, the important changes in the structure of society did not occur during the Neolithic period, since the organizational system was not radically altered then.[5]
Proto-agriculture has been found to be rooted in the Paleolithic, the harvesting of grain of goes back more than 20,000 years. Each year pushes back the origins of true horticulture and agriculture. These same people engaged in rudimentary forms of writing, calendar and star map making.[6] Forget the crude visions of the cave dwellers! Mesolithic houses 30 m square of wood and plaster, were found in Lepenski Vir, Danube.[7] A Paleolithic long house 30 meters long was unearthed near the Don River,[8] and a hectare of cobbled pavements were discovered, indicating the existence of a large village site in the Durgone in France.[9]
Scholars have come to realize water craft capable of making long distance, or even trans-oceanic voyages, might go back 50,000 years. Some now hypothesize the Americas were initially populated by people following the ice floes in boats. Even when the ocean level was at its lowest during the Ice Ages, it still required a voyage out of sight of land of more than 100 miles to cross over from New Guinea to Australia. And Australia has been inhabited for at least 50,000 years.
Humans have had the same brain structure for 200,000 years. This means Cro-Magnon man is no different from modern man. It doesn’t take a genius to realize if you spill some seeds on the ground they will sprout into plants. The taming of dogs seems to go back to the beginning of Homo sapiens and it wouldn’t take a cave-dwelling Einstein to figure out that maybe other animals could also be domesticated. Paintings and drawings are symbols, there is no reason other, simpler symbols would not be created as a form of permanent communication.
My suggestion is if early humans did not farm or write, this was not out of stupidity, but rather that they didn’t need to. When the time arose, say due to population pressures, or the extinction of large animals, humans simply applied what they already knew. The viewpoint of early humans as slack-jawed idiots is ultimately rooted in 19th Century racism, the cult of Progress and social Darwinism. This ideological view has what develops earliest has to be inferior and ‘primitive’. Early humanity was equated with existing non-white ‘primitives’ who were considered sub-human by these racists.
<em>Recent studies show “repeatedly” that agriculture is not a necessary precondition for hierarchical society. Inequality is more “than just an epiphenomenon...</em> {of agriculture}[10]
<em>While some horticultural societies are statist the majority are egalitarian</em>,[11]
By 7000 BC a Neolithic civilization had arisen in S.E. Europe and within a few hundred years spread to Central Europe. This culture was brought to Europe with the arrival of small, dark-haired Mediterranean peoples from Asia Minor, and was quickly adopted by the aboriginal (Cro-Magnon descended) tall, large-bodied, Paleolithic hunter-gatherer population.[12] The newcomers occupied areas unused by the hunter-gather aboriginals, such as river valleys and loess plains, and thus conflict was avoided.[13] The Paleolithic survived in isolated pockets on marginal lands unsuitable for horticulture or pasturage until at least 3000 BC.[14]
The two peoples interbred and future innovations came through internal social evolution.[15] Neolithic Old Europe (hereafter OE) had well-built (timber, stone or plaster) houses, villages based upon farming, crafts such as weaving and pottery, and long-distance trade. (Obsidian, marble, flint, sea shell, salt, later on, copper)[16] Interestingly enough, OE Neolithic women wore tight, ankle-length skirts, lots of jewelry, make-up and ankle-length boots or moccasins. They even curled their hair![17] (I saw a drawing of the 16 year old Danish Bog Girl who died about 4000 years ago. I kid you not, she was wearing a mini-skirt and a bare-midriff tee shirt! Some things never change…)
The period, 5500–3500 BC, saw the development of full size towns. One of these in the Ukraine, had 10,000 inhabitants living in twelve concentric rings of houses.[18] This Chalcolithic (Copper Culture) had two-story, multi-roomed houses, potters wheels, kilns, copper-mining-smelting and sailing ships.[19] The use of copper by Pre-Cucutenai (Ukraine) and Vinca (Yugoslavia) cultures goes back to 3800 BC.[20]
There were a number of large two-story structures. These were temples with work shops on the first floor. The temples were communal (perhaps clan-based in the large towns) and were devoted to goddesses.[21] They were definitely not palaces for kings.[22] The workshops, both temple-connected and non-temple, were devoted to pottery and weaving. It appears from models found, that these pottery factories were run and operated by women.[23]
Most interesting of all, by 5300 BC at the latest, the OE culture had a form of script, based in part upon symbols that were already thousands of years old. This was almost 2000 years before the alleged inventors of writing, the Egyptians and Sumerians began making signs on papyrus and clay tablets. OE script remains undeciphered, as we have no idea what language they spoke. In Western Europe, the same sort of culture was responsible for building the megaliths and passage graves.
Towns, public architecture, writing, crafts, metals, trade. There is no doubt that OE fits the definition of civilization in its material culture. However, most definitions of civilization include the existence of the state and class division. How does OE fair in that regard?
Villages and towns were built upon the plains, lake, sea and river shores and not upon hill tops. Nor were there any fortifications or defensive perimeters. Many villages were surrounded by shallow ditches or low fences, but these were presumably to keep animals out.[24] Nor is there any evidence of warfare, such as burnt villages or mass graves of the massacred — until this civilization was destroyed by invaders. The thick mounds (tells) left from the settlements show a long period of uninterrupted habitation.[25] Aside from a few hunting implements, no weapons have been found in graves.[26] The evidence shows that OE culture was peaceful, a society perhaps of peasant village federations.
The passage graves were communal in nature, each belonging to a village or clan.[27] There is no evidence of a hierarchy of wealth in these graves. Symbolic items are buried with the dead, not masses of treasure. There is no evidence for a hierarchical structure during the Megalithic period of Old Europe.[28] Megalithic Europe was marked by monumental architecture, yet no **individual** displays of wealth and power. Equal numbers of males and females were interred. The most honored dead, however, were the women elders.[29] (Perhaps these were the Clan Mothers and shamans.) The later Chalcolithic culture had large cemeteries, but little inequality in grave goods; beads, pendants and little figurines only.[30] Even during late pre-historic Europe little inequality existed.[31]
There does not appear to be economic inequality in the villages either. The largest houses are no more than 4 times greater than the smallest. Most large structures appear to be communal. The way houses were placed in some villages indicates extended families lived together in clusters of houses. House size may then indicate nuclear family size and not differences in wealth. Many Northern OE people also lived in communal long-houses like Native Americans.
Old European spirituality and philosophy evolved directly from the beliefs of the Paleolithic hunters who painted those marvelous cave paintings. The central belief seems to have been that everything is alive and therefore ought to be respected. Paleolithic people saw themselves as part of a larger whole or totality. All creatures, all things, were part of the web of life and every act, no matter how insignificant, had meaning. Life and death were not polar opposites but part of a continuum, since nothing, or at least a part, never dies. The sacred was not demarcated, for existence itself was deemed sacred.
It wasn’t enough to understand this intellectually, people had to truly feel it, to experience it directly. Some people have an innate ability to contact the numinous. These men and women were the shamans, who served as guides to the initiates. Everyone could contact this unity through rituals where the ingestion of psychedelic plants was combined with dancing, chanting, drumming and fasting. People did not fear death since they directly experienced continuity.
With partnership cultures no separate evil cosmic force exists. There is creation and there is dissolution. There is dark and light, negative and positive. However, this opposition is not real. Both aspects are needed for such “opposition” to exist. Both sides are ultimately part of one whole existence. There is no sense of alienation or duality. Nature/divine, man/woman are not split from each other. It’s not difficult to understand how such the beliefs and practices would sustain mental health. For partnership society, spirituality is not reduced to a rigid doctrine, belief or theology, but is a way of life, integrated into daily existence. There is no repression. If people fast or go without sex, it is for a ritual purpose and not because enjoying food or sex is supposedly sinful.
How do we know what our ancestors believed? Such evidence in pre-literate cultures can only be based upon artifacts coupled with a knowledge and understanding of symbols, mythology and psychology. Ancient Europeans appear to have some sort of goddess or female-based symbolism. Hundreds of female figures and symbols that relate to female or goddess themes have been found in Paleolithic settings. Some of these date far back. The Venus of Laussel, has an ox horn in hand (goddess symbol) and dates from circa 30,000 BC. Very few, if any, male figures and male symbols have been discovered. Combine this evidence with obvious shaman figures in cave paintings and you have to conclude that some sort of female-symbol using, shamanistic belief system was involved.[32]
The Kurgan peoples were the descendants of the Paleolithic hunters who lived on the plains near the Ural Mountains. They became nomadic herders of cattle and horses and were dominated by a warrior caste. Kurgan society was misogynist, hierarchical and warlike. They used weapons unknown in Old Europe such as horse-draw chariots and bronze swords. Kurgan villages were fortified and on hill tops. Graves were almost exclusively male and an elite was buried in barbaric splendor with wealth and sacrificed slaves and horses. Suttee was practiced, as well as human sacrifice to their Sky God. Women were chattel and polygamy was the norm for the warrior chieftains.[33]
Europe was invaded in several waves, the first of which about 4000 BC.[34] temporarily destroyed the OE culture of Hungary and Romania. The second invasion circa 3500 BC, destroyed the Cucuteni Culture of the Ukraine. (The people with the cities of concentric circles) turning the area “into a pale reflection of former times.” where “all the settlements... suddenly ceased and disappeared.”[35] The Kurgan influence can be seen during the shift from the Chalcolithic to the Bronze Age a period marked by increasing use of defensive measures, replacement of collective burial by individual burial, and greater inequality of wealth.[36]
The third wave, 3000 BC, destroyed the whole of Greece except for Crete. The masses of burned villages “speaks for a gruesome take-over.”[37] The Bell Beaker People, who were the European descendants of the Kurgans, then seized the Megalith Cultures of Western Europe around 2100 BC. The first mass burial of war dead in France, circa 2000 BC — evidence of arrow heads — was found at La Vaucause and corresponds with the arrival of Beaker People.[38] No evidence has been found for the disruption of Provincal culture prior to this. About the same time forts were built in Spain.[39] After the arrival of the Beaker People in Ireland, around 2000 BC, inequality begins. Few women or children are found in burials and the graves are individual rather than collective.[40] During the Late Bronze Age, Ireland becomes very violent with the discovery of “formidable arsenals of weapons” and the development of fortified hilltop villages.[41]
Aside from the isolated OE outposts of Crete, Sardinia and Malta, Europe collapsed into a Dark Age.[42] Writing, high temperature pottery and casting of copper disappeared.[43] Indeed, some areas previously of high culture, such as the Ukraine, did not recover for thousands of years from the horrific onslaught of the barbarian invaders.
The destruction of the OE partnership culture and its replacement by a dominator culture did not come about through some sort of social evolution. Nor was its decline a result of the dialectical unfolding of contradictions within that society. It was destroyed through **conquest**.[44]
In a dominator society, such as that of the Kurgan invaders, the animistic beliefs are pushed to one side and the spiritual is usurped by the Sky God. The Sun God, (or whatever tribal god resides in the sky,) does not give birth to existence, but creates it the way a potter molds a pot. The divine and nature are separated and reality is now split into “higher” and “lower” forms, since the god is superior to his creation. The divine and the spiritual, are above and below lies the lesser world of material existence. Out from this split, slither most of the other dichotomies, which plague humanity until this very day.[45]
Existence is no longer worth of respect and some things deserve a great deal more respect than others. Hence, men vs. women, young vs. old, humans vs. animals, “noble” humans vs. “common” humans, and humanity vs. nature. It now comes easy to rationalize the domination and exploitation of other people and the environment. Life and death, once seen as a continuum, are now polar opposites and death is feared. Subconsciously aware of their crimes, dominator cultures believe in punishment in the afterlife.
The Sky God is modeled on the tribal war chief or king, a sadist who not only pillages other societies but also inflicts punishment upon his followers. This sky monster can only be placated with human blood. Society is permeated with both real and imaginary fears and thus slips into generalized psychosis. Evidence for this is found in the prevalence of human sacrifice among dominator cultures.
With the development of a power hierarchy, trust breaks down within society. In many senses society ceases to exist at all, as everyone is at everyone else’s throat. Women and children, treated with contempt, naturally hid their true feelings. So too, the slaves and tax-drained peasants. Thus arose those ancient dominator culture clichés, “women are devious” , “slaves (or workers) are lazy and dishonest” and “children are innately wicked.”
A hierarchy of power means continual struggle within the hierarchy, as those who have power seek to maintain it and those with less power seek to replace those at the top. With power struggles comes back-stabbing hypocrisy and the rise of self-serving “yes men”. Other dominator cultures are enemies and wars of revenge and conquest are incessant.
Polygamy meant some men were left without wives. This is especially true of societies practicing female infanticide at a time when women died in great numbers in child-birth. Inheritance through the male side (patrilineality) meant it was important who the father was and female sexuality, out of necessity, became highly restricted. Male sexuality, limited by sexual repression and polygamy flowed into unhealthy channels such as rape, incest, bestiality and pedophilia. In order to combat these perversions, sexual repression increased and vice was practiced hypocritically, in secret. Prostitution was invented and women were now divided between those who are “bad” (and free with their sexuality) and those who were “good”, (who keep their knees together and their mouths shut.)
Within such an authoritarian, and therefore divisive and brutal system, violence and the threat of violence became the usual method of social control. Child abuse, wife-beating, the flogging of slaves and tax-avoiding peasants was endemic, indeed, “natural” and divinely sanctioned. The brutality of the masters became replicated among the dominated. The rod was the norm among the once “permissive” peasantry. Each generation crushes the self-esteem of its children, turning them into neurotics and sociopaths, and in this manner the authoritarian madness perpetuates itself through history. **Humanity descends into Hell.****[46]
The above description of dominator beliefs and their results is only a model. In reality what occurred after the invasions was a good deal more complicated. The invaders merely super-imposed their beliefs upon the conquered and a synthesis developed between the sky god and shamanic-goddess cultures. In Greece, Rome, India, Egypt and Babylon, all areas taken over by dominator culture, goddess cults and mystery societies remained an outlet for the oppressed and those who sought an immanent divinity. Early dominator societies did not try to stamp out the old beliefs, their system was authoritarian, but not totalitarian. That would come later…
Some of the people invaded by the Kurgans descendants were able to resist. The Kurgans were few in number, forming a tiny overlord class. Whatever the reason, cultures like the Teutons and Celts were highly OE. Rather than despotic kingship, they practiced tribal democracy, land holding was communal, and women had many rights. The Celts were essentially goddess worshipers and the Druids a shamanistic organization. The period immediately after the Beaker People conquest of Ireland was less violent than thought. Most metal objects found are tools, few are weapons.[47] OE remnants such as the Basques and Baltic peoples (like the Lithuanians) successfully resisted dominator culture until the late Middle Ages.
Peasants everywhere tended to pursue their traditional partnership beliefs and practices — when the dominators weren’t looking. There was always pressure to retain (or re-introduce) communal land holding, local democracy, matrilineal descent, sexual freedom and the female aspect of the divine. We see this during the Middle Ages with the immense popularity of the Cult of Mary, the so-called witches, Maypole dancing, and the peasant revolts to take back the land stolen from them by the gangster “nobles.”
The Paleolithic peoples of Europe who evolved into OE culture lived in areas where a sedentary life style was possible. The coastal plains, lake shores and river valleys were rich in fish, game and edible wild plants. A sedentary lifestyle tends to favor women and children and to allow for the development a host of peaceful technologies. However, during the Magdelanean Period, the climate became wet and the hoofed animals fled for the steppes of Asia with many hunters following them.[48] These Paleolithic hunters of the Steppes, whose descendants became the Kurgan invaders, had a much more limited environment, one which induced nomadism.
<br>Neolithic OE culture arose during another, later warm, damp period. About the same time, the melt water of the remaining Ice Age glaciers inundated the coastal plains. The resulting population movement away from the coasts put pressure on the hunting/gathering economy and possibly led to the development of agriculture. The climate remained warm throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of Old Europe (7000–3000 BC)[49] Thus, agriculture expanded north and west.[50]
Under ideal climatic conditions, pastoral peoples keep to the plains. But when adverse conditions occur, herders will, out of necessity, leave their environmental niche and invade the river valleys. It is of interest that the climate became progressively warmer and drier around the same period (circa 3000 BC) the Kurgan people invaded Old Europe.[51] According to The American Geographical Union, “The transition to today’s arid climate was not gradual, but occurred in two specific episodes. The first, which was less severe, occurred between 6,700 and 5,500 years ago. The second, which was brutal, lasted from 4,000 to 3,600 years ago. Summer temperatures increased sharply, and precipitation decreased, according to carbon-14 dating. This event devastated ancient civilizations and their socio-economic systems.”[52] It seems the warming conditions that made for the spread north and west of OE civilization also lead to its destruction. The same climatic changes created desertification in Asia, driving the herders west to conquer the agriculturalists.
In the book, SAHARASIA, Dr. James DeMeo examines in great detail these same climatic changes and their negative effects. Famine and conflict over scarce resources due to rapid desertification of the Sahara and Central Asia created a psychological-cultural shock engendering mass psychosis among the survivors.[53] This suffering gave rise to a violent and extremely negative world-view, the ideological roots of patriarchal-authoritarian culture. Important aspects of this new culture included the dictatorial warrior-king, a cruel, demanding sky god, a class of slaves and a subordinate role for women and children. These are, of course, the characteristics of the Kurgan invaders.
DeMeo also examines other cultures and their relationship to dersertification. He finds a remarkable correlation between the rapid spread of deserts and authoritarianism. Where areas become desert, groups emerge which conquer other peoples, imposing a State and a brutal, sacrificial religion on them. Deserts in existence **prior** to human habitation, such as the Australian and the Kalahari, did not have this negative effect on the humans that migrated there. (The Kung of the Kalahari and the Australian Aboriginals are not noted for either
authoritarianism or sexual repression) This process only occurs when an **existing** population is subjected to the shock of desertification.
De Meo also undertakes a massive, exhausting and first time, comparison of hundreds of cultures for their degree of sexual and gender repression, absence or presence of war, violent religious beliefs, polygamy, genital mutilation, sutee and human sacrifice.
Dominator culture sees the world as a threat and prepares its children for this frightening world by bringing them up with restrictions and cruelty, to “toughen them up.” Partnership culture, on the other hand, sees the world as largely benevolent — if treated with respect. Children are brought up in freedom and with kindness.
Sexual initiation usually occurs among young teenagers. This may happen naturally as an outgrowth of childhood sex-games, which in their society are not proscribed. In partnership societies a father or mother may ask an older boy or girl to initiate their child. Sexual congress with a priestess or priest as with Tantric Yoga and the rites of Sumerian temples is another method.
Dominator society, however, restricts the sexuality of the young. This is most severe with young women. Among upper class young men heterosexual initiation takes the form of seduction and rape of lower class girls. First sexual experiences are often homosexual, as sexual apartheid and hyper-masculinity lead to a climate of misogynist homosexuality. Battlefield homosexual rape is sometimes practiced as with the Yamomani, as a means to degrade the enemy (Implying they are like women.) Seduction or rape of young boys becomes a popular pastime among adult males.
Partnership societies generally don’t stigmatize homosexuality. Effeminate males in Native American society dressed as women and married other men. There were female war chiefs who had wives. It is dominator society that makes homosexuality an issue, and as we have seen, in true psychopathic fashion, actively promotes it. In many dominator cultures only the passive role is considered homosexual, and therefore condemned, since the male is acting in a supposed feminine role. Finally, with the Hebrews, homosexuality, both active and passive, was condemned and through the Bible, homophobia passed into Christian culture.
Dominator society cannot help but be in a perpetual state of crisis because it is **born in crime**. Its original sin is the stripping of unity from the world and humankind — the evil of dualism. As a social system, it is based upon a protection racket imposed upon a foreign peasantry. “We will protect you from those other guys, if you give us half your crop. If you don’t give us half your crop, we’ll take all of it and rape your wife to boot.” At any sign of weakness on the part of the authorities, the peasants resist taxation and the gangster-class is starved of wealth. Slaves drag their feet at work, and given an opportunity, will run away. Women and children are tempted to revenge themselves upon their tormentors. (Hence the frequent stories of parricide, poisonings, and treason in dominator society.)
Hierarchy creates an impossible situation for those at the top, automatically producing bureaucracy, and therefore corruption and inefficiency. The rulers are perpetually starved for information and always act in ignorance. The sort of people attracted to power are yes men, who tell their bosses what they want to hear, rather than the truth. Typically, the errors of the elite are blamed on their subordinates which causes resentment in the lower levels of the human dog-pile. Such power struggles are both divisive and diverting. The power lust of weak psychopathic egos breeds empire. Empire in turn leads to imperial over-extension and a weakening of the home base. Empire gives rise to the parasitic megalopolis, a breeding ground for epidemic disease and mass producer of irreparable environmental damage.
In an attempt to minimize conflict and keep power concentrated, parasite-classes make top level positions hereditary. Kings, once elected by a Council of Elders, eventually become hereditary despots. After a couple of generations, inbreeding results in a weakening of the stock. The insane and the feeble-minded take command. The organization breaks down and the system slides into decadence. Outside dominator forces, seeing a chance for booty, invade. Or, the lower ranks of the hierarchy revolt and seize power. Either way, after a period of chaos, a new dynasty emerges and the whole cycle of misery begins anew. Out of an internal dynamic, dominator society is in a state of perpetual insecurity and the cyclical pattern of the rise and fall of civilizations is the result. Contemporary pseudo-democracy where one chooses one’s dictators every four or five years isn’t much different. **The dominator system is not a society, so much as a human meat grinder with the worst psychopaths turning the handle.**
[1] Campbell, Joseph, PRIMITIVE MYTHOLOGY, Vol. 1 p. 367
[2] email discussion with Ed D’Angelo
[3] Mary Douglas Interview. Her experience with matrilineal societies in Africa was that while the society as a whole was egalitarian, the women had no real power. One society, the Lele were egalitarian to an extreme but were also self-tormented by fears of sorcery. From ORIGINAL MINDS by Eleanor Wachtel, Harpers 2003, pp 331–2
[4] Just to get one straw man out of the way, a partnership society does not mean a perfect anarcha-communist utopia, nor any kind of primordial Eden. It is however, a society without a state and classes and is thus very egalitarian, especially when compared to dominator societies.
[5] Barclay Harold, People Without Government, Kahn and Avril, 1990, p.142
[6] Rudgley, Richard, Lost Civilizations Of the Stone Age, Random House 1999 pps.72,92
[7] Tringham, Ruth, Hunters, Fishers, Farmers Of Eastern Europe, 6000–3000 BC Hutchinson 1971, p. 54
[8] Hadingham, Evan, Secrets Of The Ice Age, Heineman, 1979 p.157
[9] ibid, p. 159
[10] Feinman, G.M., Price D., Foundations of Social Inequality, Plenum 1995, p. 251
[11] Barclay, p. 56
[12] Tringham, p. 71
[13] ibid, pps 68, 71
[14] Hadingham, p. 284
[15] Tringham, pps., 73, 99, 104
[16] Gimbutas, p.48
[17] ibid, Pps.273, 279
[18] Gimbutas P.105
[19] ibid, Pps. 52, 64
[20] Tringham, 197
[21] Campbell, 396
[22] Gimbutas P. 94
[23] ibid, Pps. 107, 123
[24] Tringham, 162
[25] ibid, 90
[26] Gimbutas, Pps. 105, 352, Tringham, 87, 124
[27] Gimbutas, 219
[28] ibid, 339
[29] ibid, 388–89
[30] Tringham, 154
[31] Feinman, 249
[32] Campbell, 375, 376
[33] Gimbutas, 352, 361 It should be pointed out that not all nomadic herding cultures are authoritarian, as for example the cattle herders of East Africa
[34] Tringham, 108
[35] Gimbutas, 366, Tringham, 205
[36] Feinman, 244
[37] Gimbutas, 389
[38] Phillips, 130
[39] ibid, 141
[40] Flanagan, 111
[41] ibid, 157, 161
[42] Phillips, 146
[43] Tringham, 206
[44] Gimbutas, 396
[45] Political dualism, which leads to persecution and violence is rooted in religious dualism. See Graham 79
[46] According to Riane Eisler, humanity has taken a 5000 year detour from partnership society, Merchant, 35
[47] Flanagan, 122
[48] Campbell, 377
[49] Tringham, 31
[50] ibid, 73
[51] ibid, 205
[52] American Geographical Union Press release July 7 1999
[53] Saharasia ought to be read by everyone interested in then origins of authoritarianism and mental illness. It is available for $34.00 US from Natural Energy Works, Box 1148, Ashland OR 97520 USA
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