Russell Means on "Paradigm Shift"

[nativeastral]

l think we will have to agree to disagree cos now you are contextualising me wrongly imo. l did not bring up idealize/demonize, only that there is an imbalance that needs to redressed ie more female contribution to power politics to change the world!

 

[juantoo3]

Some interesting points. First, let me address the "historical truth" issue. Who is writing the history? When you mention the tribes you are familiar with, how are you familiar with them? Are you familiar with individuals within those tribes, as they exist today, after 500 years of cultural and bodily annihilation by disease and genocidal war, after the carving up of land into reservations, after the kidnapping of children from kin to transfer them to boarding schools? What is left of the history?

It's kinda difficult to converse with a person who has been dead for a few hundred years, . Yes, I have known and still know a handful of people who are better in touch with their indigenous heritage. Some other resources include a book called "Hanta Yo." Also some books by Fool's Crow and Black Elk are in my library, and I am always looking for more resources to round out my understanding of the Cherokee.

PBS is just about finished running a series "We Shall Remain," (American Experience program,) quite excellent in my opinion, for at least making an attempt to present the Native side of the story in context with the Colonials. This week past they told the story of Geronimo, next week they will tell the story of the Wounded Knee uprising that took place in the early '70's.

It's hard to know what things were like on the two continents of Turtle Island before 1492. The historical record we have is certainly biased, full of prejudices, preconceptions, and outright lies. How can we be certain that what RM is claiming is not true? I'm willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt and at least allow him to speak his mind and recount the history of indigenous people as he has come to understand it. I'm certainly not convinced that he speaks verifiable, unvarnished truth, but I do welcome his version of history, if for no other reason than to add some counterweight to the scales of the historical record, which are polluted with racism and the fanciful embellishments of the apparent victors.

No argument from me...

Counting coup: from what I understand, your account of war as something akin to the superbowl is pretty close to the "war" practiced by the natives. I think Means' point was that the "all or nothing" war, as you put it, practiced by Europeans and waged on the native inhabitants of North and South America, was an entirely foreign concept to those people. Possibly--very probably--people did die in their engagements, but the scale of both the "war" and the casualties from those contests were completely negligible compared to the crusading, pillaging, raping, and murdering perpetrated by the Europeans.

Absolutely.

One other thing to keep in mind is that by the time the English colonies got under way, disease had likely rampaged up into North America, decimating the population, so that when the English arrived, the people had already gone through a holocaust that had broken down their social structures. It's likely also that they were familiar with the shenanigans of the conquistadors down south and in California; due to the precarious state of their cultures and the advent of the "all or nothing" style war that was raging in other parts of the continents, the tribes likely did develop more aggressive war tactics to use in defense of their lands. They were, after all, facing hordes of invaders.

Actually, that series I just mentioned referenced the spread of disease. A lot was accidental, coming directly with the Pilgrims and the Conquistadors, for example. Later, one tactic used to help decimate the indigenous population was to deliberately infect the blankets that were traded, spreading disease by that route, an early method of "germ" warfare.

I have no argument that indigenous tribes were dealt with cruelly. In fact, I would argue they were dealt with more cruelly than any other culturally significant people...including Africans. I would also add that indigenous peoples as a whole were more open to interaction with cultures other than their own, which frequently led to their downfall. They were *too* trusting.

 

[Avi]

It's kinda difficult to converse with a person who has been dead for a few hundred years, .

Juan, I can't argue with that logic

So what do you think about matriarchy vs. patriarchy ?

A few posters have advocated it is time to try matriarchy.

But Dauer has made a pretty good argument that what should be done is what is fair, so neither matriarchy or patriarchy is good.

 

[juantoo3]

Juan, I can't argue with that logic

So what do you think about matriarchy vs. patriarchy ?

A few posters have advocated it is time to try matriarchy.

But Dauer has made a pretty good argument that what should be done is what is fair, so neither matriarchy or patriarchy is good.

I guess like Dauer I don't really have much of an opinion on the matter, just a long standing observation:

Ever notice how developed the warrior "caste" is in a "matriarchal" society?

Boudiccia, for example?

In AD 60-61 there was an uprising led by Queen Boudiccia. Boudiccia had become the leader of the Iceni people (from East Anglia) when her husband died. The Iceni people were angry with the Romans and started a revolt .

With an army of 70,000, they attacked Colchester and London before having a major battle with the Roman army. The rebels lost and Boudiccia drank poison to save herself from being taken prisoner.

Roman Britain

Seems to me estrogen isn't all butterflies and daisies...despite the hype to the contrary.

Another case in point...don't get between a momma bear and her cubs. Not much different translated to humans.

I think if one really tears the situation down to its bare essence, "paternal" and "maternal" societies are illusions, just one more way of attempting to label. The reality as I see it, is that even if the men do happen to rule the halls of government; momma rules every supper table that exists in any form it exists. So women always have and always will have a formative influence regardless of political structure. At least until the state figures out a way to usurp motherhood from the raising of children (like Huxley's Brave New World).

 

[nativeastral]

Pathless, I think that women are better team players, leaders and bring less ego to the table. Part of the reason for this is because they have been minorities for so long (eventhough they are the majority of the population !) that they have deeper understanding of concensus and power sharing.


So yes, you are right, it is time for paradigm shift.

/quote shawn
What we have is a paternalistic society, worldwide.
With big brother, and big uncle as well.
But it is a single parent family being a patriarchy with a mistress/maidservant.
So for the sake of balance, our dysfunctional family structure needs some reconciliation.
Both patriarchy and matriarchy need to be wed in equality.
Something which has not been done before in recorded history in any significant way.
Both have good qualities which can be emphasized.
But on their own they can become tyrannical and capricious. /unquote

l don't think anyone here has advocated a switch to total matriarchy a la total patriarchy system we have witnessed if the system and structure is the same ie competition, aggression and warfare over the worlds resources.

We dont know how a 'total' matriarchy would manifest anyways would we? we are still using the same concepts in imagining that. its all very well pointing to Boudecia [who no doubt still had her husbands lieutenants etc ie the same system in place], its just like Thatchter trying to be a man in a mans world [as it has been evolving]. Very succinctly discussed by Linda on a Judaism thread ie the inherent patriarchy within Europe at least.

/quote juantoo
Seems to me estrogen isn't all butterflies and daisies...despite the hype to the contrary.

Another case in point...don't get between a momma bear and her cubs. Not much different translated to humans.

I think if one really tears the situation down to its bare essence, "paternal" and "maternal" societies are illusions, just one more way of attempting to label. The reality as I see it, is that even if the men do happen to rule the halls of government; momma rules every supper table that exists in any form it exists. So women always have and always will have a formative influence regardless of political structure. At least until the state figures out a way to usurp motherhood from the raising of children (like Huxley's Brave New World)./unquote

Aye and testoterone isn't all ball cocks and black eyes; no one is denying shared human hormones and instincts. Russell just pointed out the correspondence between the moon/female cycle and therefore perhaps a greater attunment to earth and how to treat it and it inhabitants. l believe the male is obviously 'influenced' too, just not manifested so blatantly bloody and without the insight of childbirth and suckling which entails a different 'take' on 'things'. He was just making the point of natural connectiveness with regard to his culture viz a viz 'mother nature' thats all, and looking back fondly no doubt when folk did live relatively peacably [in contrast to the dehumanizing genocides of the 'civilized' world]. The fact that men do happen to rule government [and religious hierarchies,still] makes them the continual creators of weapons of mass destruction; who knows how it would have panned out if women 'ruled' the world? Methinks not like this.



Of course, since the other half of the population were not allowed 'open' joint citizenship/power it is no wonder it seeped out sideways hence the remarks made about women eg rudyard Kipling [wasn't he a racist btw?].

Maybe we need to look at what communities [eg tibet] that are left in the world who do practice either matrilineal,matriarchal or maternalistic modes in some form or another to see what benefits it may bring 'to the table'. l have no doubt it will involve much more talk before so easily 'reaching for the gun'.

The political structure must change but unfortunately it is irrevocably wedded to the religious androcentric structure of Europe. l have high hopes for the next generations though as they have gone through much more sexually, the women becoming more logical and the men emotional 'in general', here at least l can see it.

So nature is 'redressing', slowly, if we can stay alive that long.

 

[juantoo3]

l don't think anyone here has advocated a switch to total matriarchy a la total patriarchy system we have witnessed if the system and structure is the same ie competition, aggression and warfare over the worlds resources.

Regardless of the form government takes, it still must address the same questions, and those questions whittle down to "how do we provide sustenance and defense for *our* people."

We dont know how a 'total' matriarchy would manifest anyways would we? we are still using the same concepts in imagining that. its all very well pointing to Boudecia [who no doubt still had her husbands lieutenants etc ie the same system in place], its just like Thatchter trying to be a man in a mans world [as it has been evolving]. Very succinctly discussed by Linda on a Judaism thread ie the inherent patriarchy within Europe at least.

I think you might misunderstand. I didn't choose Boudecia because she became a leader by default of her husband dying. I chose her in part for leading a matriarchal society, and in part because of the brutal and ruthless way she dealt with those who crossed her...even other Celtic tribes. Celtic tribes in general are held out as shining examples of matriarchal society, as are Native American, African and Australian aboriginal tribal peoples, all of whom have highly developed warrior castes. I think you may be making the common mistake of presuming that because a man is in the position of leadership that that society is patriarchal...not so.

Aye and testoterone isn't all ball cocks and black eyes; no one is denying shared human hormones and instincts. Russell just pointed out the correspondence between the moon/female cycle and therefore perhaps a greater attunment to earth and how to treat it and it inhabitants. l believe the male is obviously 'influenced' too, just not manifested so blatantly bloody and without the insight of childbirth and suckling which entails a different 'take' on 'things'.

Of course men are influenced by natural cycles, there's no *belief* involved. It would be like saying that this ocean will rise and fall with the moon, but that one won't. With due respect, that would be nonsense. The human body is something like 90% water, and the moon's gravity affects *all* water, male and female are irrelevent.

You make the distinction gender biased, I don't think it works that way. I think it is city / country biased. A person who works the soil or husbands animals, like a farmer or shepherd, is more in tune with the natural cycles. It is the people who stare at tv tubes and computer screens for a significant part of their day and spend the balance of the day plotting and scheming to earn the money to buy the next tv or computer who lose track of the progression of the planets, the unfolding of the seasons, and the cycle of the moon. They lose track, but they are still affected. They imagine they are not affected, that they are somehow above celestial influence. In saying this it can be misconstrued...I am not talking about astrology, any more than I am talking about G-d, yet both seem to play a role.

He was just making the point of natural connectiveness with regard to his culture viz a viz 'mother nature' thats all, and looking back fondly no doubt when folk did live relatively peacably [in contrast to the dehumanizing genocides of the 'civilized' world]. The fact that men do happen to rule government [and religious hierarchies,still] makes them the continual creators of weapons of mass destruction; who knows how it would have panned out if women 'ruled' the world? Methinks not like this.

I suspect men became the leaders because the women of the tribe were looking for the strongest (physically) to "protect" them from any outside dangers.

Where does a child learn its ethical values? School? Church? Village? Sure, all of those play a role, but every child learns first and best *at home* from momma. Happy Mother's Day, by the way!

Maybe we need to look at what communities [eg tibet] that are left in the world who do practice either matrilineal,matriarchal or maternalistic modes in some form or another to see what benefits it may bring 'to the table'. l have no doubt it will involve much more talk before so easily 'reaching for the gun'.

Ah, Tibet. Pretty neat example and a pretty cool place. Where did martial arts come from? How did Buddhism get to Tibet?

 

[nativeastral]

hi juan,

Buddhism got to Tibet very late [7th century AD] which is why shamanism is still part of the culture there, where the male shamens are like 'females'.

from wiki
'Due to a lack of a clear and consistent definition of the word matriarchy several anthropologists have begun to use the term matrifocality. Matrifocality refers to societies in which women, especially mothers, occupy a central position, and the term does necessarily imply domination by women or mothers.[17] Anthropologist R. L. Smith (2002) refers to 'matrifocality' as the kinship structure of a social system where the mothers assume structural prominence.[17] The Nair community in Kerala in South India is a prime example of matrifocality. This can be attributed to the fact that the community being warriors by profession, were bound to lose male members at youth, leading to a situation where the females assumed the role of running the family. Some consider the use of the term a euphemism, lacking a parallel to patriarchy, which is not redefined in the same fashion.'

Celtic civilizations were not ruled by women but through the womans lineage ie her father/uncle was 'chief'.

l omitted using the word nurture in the last paragraph which is maybe why l see definite changes in the gender stereotypes built up via historical 'patriarchy' since l hang out with a lot of [female] single parents bringing up strong females with no need or want of 'protection' and gentler guys aware of how f## up this planet has become; or if in a family of 'aging hippies' then brought up with the axiom 'make love not war'. Are you an antifeminist?! Children are brought up in a culture which has developed over millenia which has been patriarchal by and large and so the habitual mindset is ingrained and automatically accepted.

We have already established that population growth and the need to expand is the reason for conflict in the world. And we have [well maybe not you] agreed that Russells ideas on a paradigm shift are valid; not a complete turn around but a parity in decision making that will mitigate war mongering.

You seem to think if women were in power at the outset nuclear bombs would still have been made and used? [they made them or would have?]. l am saying if human [natural and cultural] evolution did involve complete equity of the sexes [and not as an 'object' or second class citizen to be owned like a slave] then perhaps there would be less violence, and l am attributing this in part to creation of and protection of the young, not just 'ours' but 'everbodys'. So here you can bring in biology and the fact of natural hierarchies; but aren't we more intelligent?

The thread turned gender based very early on, as dauer pointed out the difficulties are concepts/dualistic ways of thinking and getting beyond them. Now it seems l am considered a feminist as though l am anti male. l am anti war and the mob psychology of whos got the biggest bomb.

l live in the country and believe me there are plenty macho males looking for a fight with a village mentality, 'us' and 'them' in the next village. And no doubt the girls 'in competiton' as well. lt has came to this complacency. We look to the governments [well we don't really] to set things on a better course but the 'system' is 'established'. We cannot ignore the ideological influences of religious narratives here.

 

[Janz]

All I am going to add for now and I do have some more thoughts on this discussion is the following Proclamation:

The Mother's Day Proclamation

The "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

To which I say..Amen sister, Amen.

 

[juantoo3]

You seem to think if women were in power at the outset nuclear bombs would still have been made and used? [they made them or would have?].

I'm surprised to learn you don't think so.

Besides Madam Curie, who set the whole atomic bomb thing in motion with the discovery of radium and polonium, there is:

Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
An Austrian Jew and a woman, Meitner was constrained early in her career to working without pay in a basement room in Berlin. For many years, she collaborated closely with the chemist Otto Hahn; they even discovered a new chemical element together. But Hahn later betrayed her friendship, failing to keep her from being expelled from their institute after the Nazis had gained power. Isolated in Sweden, she nevertheless continued to guide and interpret Hahn's work, ultimately realizing that his results represented the splitting of the atom—nuclear fission—in accordance with Einstein's equation E = mc2. Hahn claimed the discovery for himself and accepted a Nobel Prize for it without crediting Meitner. She later received informal recognition for her role.

Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972)
...During World War II, she was part of the Columbia University team of the U.S. government's secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. In 1963 Mayer won a Nobel Prize for her work on the shell model of nuclear structure.

and Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997)
...In 1936 she came to the University of California at Berkeley. She received her doctorate there and began working on the Manhattan Project. She developed a process to separate fissionable uranium-235 from uranium-238, a key step in accumulating uranium fuel for the bomb.

NOVA | Einstein's Big Idea | Library Resource Kit: Some Outstanding Women of Nuclear Physics | PBS

So the short answer is yes, I do believe if the situation in WWII that made the development and use of nuclear weapons appear to be necessary and women were in charge at that time, they would have done pretty much the same thing. Just like Boudiccea in her day and age.

But since we cannot go back in time and change things around to find out, all we have is our opinions on the matter.

 

[shawn]

I think, as the OP suggests that "paradigm shift", is what is key here.
Women are not any different than men.
And being raised up from birth in a patriarchal society, women tend to think how they were taught to think.
Which, for the most part is the way the patriarchy wants women to think.

I have listened to feminists I have known despair over the women who help maintain the status quo and fight against those who seek to liberate them, just because they are stuck in a way of thinking.

My wife looks at the muslim women in the black bags burkhas and shakes her head saying she would never submit to such inhuman treatment ( which a black head to toe covering in a desert climate of 40 to 50 + degrees C would be very hot, therefore cruel).
Yet the muslim women will often defend such things and cling to their obvious bondage.
Stuck in a paradigm.

And going to a matriarchy would be a rotten choice as women can be very cruel and capricious.
They are not some magical creatures who will liberate us all.
They are just people too.

As I have said previously, we need to explore the best that both modes have to offer and cobble something new from them.
Patriarchy needs to go.

 

[nativeastral]

Yes this thread exemplifies the difficulties in thinking outside the box [of 2000 years of patriarchy viz unequal status of the sexes at an overt power level].

Russell may have used words 'wrongly' or ambiguously but in my mind was only 're-minding' and pointing out the lack of 'goddess' in the European mind set and therefore imbalance in all spheres engendering a separation from and domination of nature - simple as. The results we are living now. The unfortunate thing for me is that the insatiable appetite of western consumerism has exploited other countries that would never have gone down that route and are now just cash crops who are co opted nay sucked into the system and who want a piece of this wonderful western lifestyle.

Scientists are impartial and objective [but are of course there to make a living in the 'system']. Einstein himself abhorred the end game of his discoveries as any human loving person would.

As the powers that be are even more entrenched in the box than we are and any woman that we do promote to a power level, as l have said, will slip into that role already established in the game rules of politics, the hope for any paradigm shift may come too late for effecting global change across the board.

Even this so called world recession may have been an opportunity to re evaluate the state of play. Obviously good things are happening but still overwhelmed by the status quo.

btw sorry to lower tone but to emphasis there is a difference the vast majority of prison inmates are? the majority of peados are?! hello!

 

[dauer]

Yes this thread exemplifies the difficulties in thinking outside the box [of 2000 years of patriarchy viz unequal status of the sexes at an overt power level].

I think your responses represent difficulty thinking outside of the box. You're just jumping on a bandwagon with knee-jerk defenses against valid concerns. Those of us who have approached the speech more critically (that is, thinking outside of the box) have been in the minority. I don't think anyone here disagrees on the need for change. It's the specifics of Russell's speech that are disagreeable, and without the specifics he's not saying anything terribly new or exciting. Even his whole emphasis on the feminine could be seen as mere jumping on bandwagons rather than thinking outside the box.

btw sorry to lower tone but to emphasis there is a difference the vast majority of prison inmates are? the majority of peados are?! hello!

What I find interesting is that when women demonstrate poor governance skills, violence etc you write off their behavior as merely normative, influenced by the corruption of the feminine, as it were, because of the influences of patriarchy understood as a natural extension of masculinity. And yet, when you find something negative about men you assume that it is natural, that it's just what men do. Surely it would be useful to consider the possibility that, if most/all poor governance and decision making by females is normative, maybe the same is true for males. We do, after all, create categories such as "pedophile" or "inmate" which we then associate with certain types of people, sometimes based on class or race, and certainly based on sex, and then those people either conform with or rebel against what society expects them to be. We have "victim" categories too. If a woman has a black eye, we assume she's been abused which we would not assume for a man. Further, it is far less socially acceptable for a man to complain of domestic abuse than it is for a woman. I don't think it would make sense to call any of that natural.

Broadening the label "pedophile" to "child abuser", a survey of the history of the term (as can be found in Hacking's Social Construction of What?) will certainly see that men have been a victim of that label. In some cities it was for a time advised that, if a man saw a child hurt, he should not go and try to help the child (that's right, not help a child who is hurt, may be at risk for complications unless someone intercedes on his/her behalf) unless he had someone he trusted that would witness the encounter and could speak on his behalf in a court trial if someone called foul and accused him of child abuse because helping the kid might have involved some sort of "touching" which could then be misconstrued as inappropriate.


I further think there are some groupings of ideas together that aren't helping the conversation. I've already spoken about my problem with the term matriarchy as it was being defined and nativeastral seems to have validated my conclusion that the term was meant to include its original meaning and, at least in her case, this is what she stands by rather than a watered-down redefinition. Another issue is the way the idea of living according to the cycles of nature is being thrown around.

For example, when Juan brings up men living in an agrarian society according to natural cycles, NA protests that in her village, many men have an us-and-them perspective. But being in tune with the cycles of the planet does not entail a lack of ethnocentrism for men or for women. They're two entirely different things. Even if we go, for the sake of argument, with the assumption that because of their periods women are more in tune with natural cycles, that says nothing about us-and-them mentalities among women. Surely, in the same post NA observes that the women of the village are "in competition" as well. I would suggest that the gender differences don't entail a lack of us-and-them but rather, different types of us-and-them and that these distinctions themselves may be in many ways merely normative.

Russell may have used words 'wrongly' or ambiguously but in my mind was only 're-minding' and pointing out the lack of 'goddess' in the European mind set and therefore imbalance in all spheres engendering a separation from and domination of nature - simple as.

I don't know if you're referring to secular society or the religious, but if you mean to include religion then you're generalizing the European mind set by excluding those who maintain some form of mariolatry in Catholicism as well as Jews for whom the shechinah is an integral aspect of theology and neo-pagans about whom I don't really need to explain connections with some sort of divine feminine.

 

[nativeastral]

All I am going to add for now and I do have some more thoughts on this discussion is the following Proclamation:

The Mother's Day Proclamation

The "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

To which I say..Amen sister, Amen.

Amen sister thanks for sharing that; we must have different mothers day as juan mentioned it too. we celebrate it in March, its called mothering sunday around the equinox

 

[nativeastral]

Interestingly, just read this article:
614:HBI eZINE - Is Judaism a Girl Thing?

on the increasing trend for men in the Jewish Reform movement to be less and less active (as compared to women) and an analysis suggesting this is in some ways due to the overextension of feminist ideology. My own experiences in one particular community suggest that may be very true. There was a lot of feminine energy and little room for an acknowledged masculine energy which found ways to gurgle up outside of the imposed communal structure.

I'm not certain either a patriarchal or matriarchal system are the answer.

I mean, I think for a lot of hetero- men on the board, there is probably the experience in relationship that women aren't so much about "a celebration of all the sexes and their differences". Rather, I argue, they subtly try to impose their will upon us: trying to change the way we dress, break us of our bad habits, decorate our living spaces and so on.

I don't think matriarchy is much more than an equivalent answer to patriarchy.

hi dauer l haven't had time to critically watch the russell talk again but even if l did l would still be less critical of the language used than you as l go more with the spirit of what is said and concur with pathless' evaluation in that matriarchy is or would not be an equivalent [see wiki quote in my last post].
lt seems you have a bias yourself rather than a pure objectivity or critique of the language used going by rereading the posts here; so knee jerks are not confined to me, which btw was steered by other posts emphasising matriarchy as an equivalent therefore still thinking inside the box, as l had always taken the second definition you posted [lineage].
l don't think there ever has been a matriarchy in the same sense as the state of affairs we have now, which by your own admission is flawed.

We have nature/nurture ie biological natures akin to animals [hence my observations with youths and the girls succumbing to that] and cultural that follows on from that. If that society had originally maintained an acknowledgement and celebration of the equality of the sexes ie honour both as equal partners in governance etc then things would have been different now [cf nairs in wiki above-communal wars less where matrifocal existed]. Yes conflicts/wars would still have happened [again back to demography/population issues] but personally l feel it would have been massively, massively less than it has been - in Europe at least, which is what we are confining ourselves to aka russell.

l will ignore your views on normative behaviours [which l take it to be of a patriarchal kind?] particularly in regards to a semi defence of predominantly male deviancy.

mariolatry and sheckinah or 'some sort of divine feminine' is not the same as g#d is it? lts not an equivalent and neither was patriarchy and matriarchy which you assume that is what l thought. l am all for egalitarianism which is why l was interested in this post. You seem to have issues regarding the validity of something special about the menstrual cycle [ie russells take on it]. perhaps you have experienced too many PMT complaints!

 

[shawn]

I think old Russell was talking the way he did to win some points with one of the hot mama's he knows.
"6th, 7th, 8th and maybe even 9th sense."
A bit overdone I think.

 

[nativeastral]

I think old Russell was talking the way he did to win some points with one of the hot mama's he knows.
"6th, 7th, 8th and maybe even 9th sense."
A bit overdone I think.

and theres maybe 11 dimensions; who knows what knowledge has been lost over the centuries of killing indiscriminantly those thought to have no souls, or witches?
http://www.ringingcedars.co.uk/

 

[dauer]

lt seems you have a bias yourself rather than a pure objectivity or critique of the language used going by rereading the posts here;

The post you point to was half in jest and inspired largely by rants common to the show Coupling. I had in fact considered posting a youtube video of one such rant. In my experience, among a certain kind of feminist that you may very well be, it's perfectly acceptable to criticize men but any criticism of women is unacceptable. We all have biases and I'm not sure there's any such thing as pure objectivity. The challenge is to remain self-reflective, to acknowledge and challenge one's biases on a regular basis. One of the most important aspects of this, imo, is a degree of integrity in the application of criticism and reflection, that is, a universality in the application of a given methodology. It is this type of openness to reflection that I have repeatedly challenged you to display. You may disagree that such is necessary. I hold that once one begins to engage in 2nd or 3rd order reflection, in order to be epistemically responsible, he or she must be willing to apply this reflective mode across the board.

Additionally, if you were really only concerned with the spirit of what Russell was arguing then I don't think you would have felt it necessary to argue so strongly against me, or to argue the point you have which go beyond the spirit of his message. You would have acknowledged instead that we are in agreement and felt no need to defend what to you would then be mere trivialities. Our disagreement would only be on whether or not those matters are trivial. But you have taken it upon yourself to defend much more and so I think your claim that the spirit is all that matters to you is disingenuous. Or perhaps, to take a more diagnostic approach, you've been projecting your issues with male leadership and chauvinism onto me and have felt the need to argue against something that I am not.

If that society had originally maintained an acknowledgement and celebration of the equality of the sexes ie honour both as equal partners in governance etc then things would have been different now

I agree and if that's all you were arguing for, you would not have felt the need to make the arguments that you have in this discussion. However, I'm not certain that things would have been much better even if things were different because as a species we were in a different developmental space then. I see the move toward egalitarianism today as more symptomatic of shifts in human development toward worldcentric perspectives than as the cause of those changes.

l will ignore your views on normative behaviours [which l take it to be of a patriarchal kind?] particularly in regards to a semi defence of predominantly male deviancy.

This is the kind of lack of self-reflection that I'm talking about. If someone defends males or speaks against the moral superiority of women, they must be either defending patriarchy or anti-feminist. That is purely your bias. I have merely suggested that your doubts about whether certain behaviors are natural should be extended universally to both men and women, rather than assuming that women behaving badly is largely normative and men behaving badly is largely natural. There is quite a bit of literature that deals with this issue and I have pointed you to some of it. Indeed, Hacking himself in his essay on the social construction of child abuse points to quite a few other sources. I am in no way defending or condoning abusive/violent behaviors. I am however suggesting that you should remain as reflective and skeptical about negative male behavior as your are about negative female behavior. This type of out of the box thinking is not something that you have shown yourself to be capable of.

Beyond that, your blaming the problems of society on male leadership seems to largely disempower females throughout history, rendering them all impotent cogs in the big male machine. I have known very strong women, including those of my grandparent's generation when there was far more public emphasis on male authority. I find it hard to believe that women have really been as powerless as you suggest, and I return again to the notion that when men are the head, women have still often been the neck.

mariolatry and sheckinah or 'some sort of divine feminine' is not the same as g#d is it?

Actually, the Jewish G!d is genderless and described with both masculine and feminine language. The shechinah does indeed refer to some aspects of G!d, especially, G!D as immanent in the world. The concepts of shechinah and HaKadosh Baruch Hu are in some ways parallel to those of a mother earth and father sky. I can't speak as much to mariolatry as I am not as familiar with it, but I do know that in some of Catholicism, Mary is extremely important.

. You seem to have issues regarding the validity of something special about the menstrual cycle [ie russells take on it]. perhaps you have experienced too many PMT complaints!

You're oversimplifying the issue and you've failed to address much of my post, apparently because you consider requesting a more universal application of reflection on what is natural/normative in human behavior to be too strong of a bias to be worth considering. You prefer to assume that the best in women is natural for them and the worst merely normative, largely the blame of patriarchy, while the worst in men is surely natural to you. What I have seen in your presentation is that, if something's wrong with the world, you believe it's most likely due to male leadership. This to me seems extremely naive.

You've also made no attempt to address my suggestion that cyclical=less ethnocentric is confused even though you've yourself presented counterexamples where cyclical and in tune with nature has not meant less ethnocentric.

I think old Russell was talking the way he did to win some points with one of the hot mama's he knows.
"6th, 7th, 8th and maybe even 9th sense."
A bit overdone I think.

In a general sense I agree with you and this is the jumping-on-the-bandwagon I suggested he might be engaging in. I'm not so certain however that he was trying to impress a particular woman. More likely I think he was unconsciously influenced by certain tendencies to marry anti-establishment language with feminism and his own culture's idealization of their past as in some ways utopian. It is a common type of human myth.

 

[nativeastral]

hi dauer

l agree with the last paragraph skipping over Russells clip; but as is the case with most arguments that have been sidelined/evaded etc [regarding equality and maintenance of the status quo] is is bound to get extreme and revolutionary in language/action eg the blacks in america.

It has only been 200 years or so for women/minorities regaining any sense of equality which is why l was extremely pleased with the new U.S. president as some sort of breakthrough or change.

You are not taking any responsibility for your terminology used [reread your posts] which were a] sceptical of anything other than biological concerning cycles b] dismissive of matriarchy in general as you saw it as an equivalent to patriarchy which all agreed was imbalanced. That set the tone for me to defend the strengths of the missing balance [which Avi mentioned] whilst being sidelined by your bias, works both ways as acknowledging agreement.

Antifeminism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

l didn't even want to get into a specifically gender debate despite the OP but the reaction of the posts in countering Russells idealization was such that l reacted.

 

[dauer]

l agree with the last paragraph skipping over Russells clip; but as is the case with most arguments that have been sidelined/evaded etc [regarding equality and maintenance of the status quo] is is bound to get extreme and revolutionary in language/action eg the blacks in america.

Yes and all of that can be done while using language that accurately describes what it's referring to. Russell did not use such language, hence attached a lot of unnecessary baggage to his speech.

You are not taking any responsibility for your terminology used [reread your posts] which were a] sceptical of anything other than biological concerning cycles b] dismissive of matriarchy in general as you saw it as an equivalent to patriarchy which all agreed was imbalanced

How is that not taking responsibility for my terminology? I stand by my skepticism both that referring to a woman's cycles as more than biological is, to use your word, fact and that matriarchy is a positive alternative to patriarchy. I have not redefined any terms. I've said what I mean. If I have thrown around terms casually, and I admit that I may have, you haven't pointed to those situations.

That set the tone for me to defend the strengths of the missing balance [which Avi mentioned] whilst being sidelined by your bias, works both ways as acknowledging agreement.

I don't know quite what you mean here. Russell argued for matriarchy and I argued against it, that what we need balance. That much I follow. I don't I presented a bias that sidelined anything. I argued against what Russell actually presented while a number of people attempted to water-down Russell's words.

l didn't even want to get into a specifically gender debate despite the OP but the reaction of the posts in countering Russells idealization was such that l reacted.

I take it then that my diagnosis was correct and you weren't actually reacting to what I said, but projecting something onto me that I am not. Following the first two paragraphs of your previous post, I think that your feelings are justified but I don't think that reflects at all on the content of your posts which were highly defensive. Even though it sounds like our disagreement has had more to do with feelings, you still seem to focus on how my presentation must be wrong because of facts, and I just don't see that. I think your perspective has been limited because you felt on some level attacked. I am truly sorry if you felt that way because of my words. That was not my intent.

As to your link, I'm not sure if you're trying to say that I qualify as an antifeminist for disagreeing with some forms of feminism but if that is the case then I think most reasonable people are antifeminist, including many women as I think and have experienced that most reasonable people are critical of extremists be they eco-terrorists, jihadists or militant feminists.

When I was in high school, well, one of the high schools I attended, we used to have speakers come through. A friend of mine heard of a woman who she suggested to the headmaster might be a good speaker. Her feminist views include the belief that "All men are pigs". At the end of it both the males and females of the school thought she was ridiculous. I certainly think feminism is still necessary, that there is much more work to be done. I am also highly critical of some of it. But then I'm critical of a lot of what gets presented as constructionism or culture studies with minimal reflection. I don't think something should count as a discipline if arriving at a particular telos becomes more important than maintaining a measured and reflective method for doing so. At that point it's nothing more than a tool for justifying rhetoric.

 

[nativeastral]

hi dauer
Sorry as l cant multi quote l have been unable to respond point to point as your posts deserve. And no l dont think anyone here is hardcore antifeminist but there was a whiff of that 'fear' alluded to in the OP, which presented itself, in much the same way the religious patriarchs are loath to give in and up their authority for the sake of change or progress.

wiki
Many antifeminist proponents say the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men[1][2][3].

None were seeking this but it seemed as though some thought that was what russell was promoting; his culture was 'too trusting' [juan], the very thing lost in the millenia of the alienating and continual competition for land etc splaying out from the density of populations around Europe. No he was pointing out that lack of reverence given to the 'fairer' sex had been taken over by the reverence to tools and technology and therefore the 'raping' of the earth which he equated as feminine. [glad to hear parallels with judaism here, perhaps you could expand?].

l have no doubt there is as much misandry as misogyny in some circles and wonder whether this is symptomatic of this lack of balance, this need for a paradigm shift. Nature/nurture and whats normative? Whatever is laid on the chicken and egg plate of each culture intertwining politico-religious ideologies over the ages of patriarchy. Its difficult to disentangle the chicken and the egg when it has set into a ceramic dish and difficult to crack. Whats the answer apart from letting it all unfold, revolution through evolution? [and promoting a universal application of a given methodology!].