Patriarchy, part 3

Friday, April 21, 2006

The seeds of patriarchy had been planted, the execution was flawlessly developed and maintained, the Church and western civilization had bought and swallowed the plan hook, line and sinker. Today, we can see it's expression in the need to clearly define things...we don't like uncertainty. We see it in the binary role that has been manifested by fundamentalist and patriarchal thinking...the usual dichotomies...good versus evil, right versus wrong, rich versus poor. And, of course, our understandings of gender and sexuality. Women still have a lesser role in society...they are paid lower wages, matters concerning THEIR bodies are decided by male doctors, laws are written mainly by male legislators and litigated primarily by male attorneys. Their lives are dominated by laws executed primarily by male elected officials and adjudicated primarily by male judges. Of course, their are token women, but they are just that...underpaid and not given serious consideration for the most part, because tey are "just women".

The dichotomy rears its ugly head in the gender wars. If you are not "straight", as defined by a literal interpretation of the Bible, you are a deviant. You might as well be a murderer, rapist or drug dealer, because you have been written out of the right to participate. Your lives have been marginalized because you do not fit the binary model...the either/or methodology of determining if you are "on the bus or off the bus". Their are no continuums in the binary model, just that ever present either /or. There are no shades of grey in ther binary world, just white and black.

This patriarchal and dualistic approach lends itself most perfectly to the establishment of elitist groups. Again...you are either "on the bus or off the bus", either a sinner or have been saved, either accept the precepts as the moral majority dictates or deserve to be written out of society.

It is similar to the leper colonies and to the days of "ships of fools". Take everyone who does not conform, who does not "fit in" neatly...any round pegs in square holes or square pegs in round holes...round' em up and ship 'em out. We don't want them in our neat and orderly binary system. We do not UNDERSTAND them. Therefore, they pose a threat, because, in the binary and patriarchal system, anything which is indefinite and undefined , which defies categorization, is suspect and represents potential harm to the well oiled machinery of dichotomistic thinking.

Of course...we fear what we do not understand, so the syllogism becomes clear. Indefinability breeds lack of understanding...lack of understanding breeds fear, fear breeds elitism and hatred.
Ergo...indefinability breeds elitism and hatred. Just look around the world. We do not understand the Muslim world, we cannot define their values...we fear them and thus we hate them. Forget that the terrorists comprise an infinitesimally small percent of Muslims.

And...in this fundamentalist, literal Bible believing, judgement passing, binary country we now live in...well...there is certainly concern for the future.

It is interesting that the confluence of events seems to be approaching...the day we acknowledge that there is not enough oil to power the world, the day population growth reaches critical mass, the day that the environment reaches a level of pollution SO BAD that mother earth fights back (the effects of global warming), the day nuclear armanment becomes available throughout the world, the day fundamentalists believe the second coming will occur, the day marking the end of the Mayan calendar...all of these events are conspiring to occur within the next decade.

We are at a cusp...astologers know this is the end of the Piscean age and the beginning of the Aquarian age. It has been compared to the travail a woman undergoes during labor and childbirth. The analogy is apt, because we are about to experience a new astrological birth. but...it could go either way...the baby could survive to become strong and vibrant, or it could be stillborn. Such is the variable nature or Aquarius. It can signify the enlightened age of personal responsiblity, or it can represent a fixed and elitist world where humanity has not kept up with technology and which plants the seeds of its own demise.

All this can be seen as the results of seeds planted by the patriarchal world, and these seeds may be ready to bear their fruit.

It is NOT TO LATE!!

We can make a difference, by embracing the wonder of individuality, the miracle of diversity, the beauty of accepting alien and different ideas, cultures and understandings. the world manifests itself through multitudinous diversity, not through the binary. There are more than just two flowers, two birds, two fish, two ways of being inthe world. There is more to life than "on the bus or off the bus". It requires opening oneself to the appreciation of the 'many", not the deification of the binary.

But...first we must abandon the patriarchal, binary, dichotimisic model and adopt more tolerant, non judgemental, non elitist modes of thinking.

The choice, as they say, is up to us...

trickster108