h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> ...when did they change? And why? <<

As a result of 'the Flood'. Because they were wet.

Or more seriously:
A series of catastrophic natural disasters occurred around the time of our oldest 'recorded' history, or what the Fundamentalists 'the beginning' of time.

There were then several existing agricultural and trading civilisations from Timbuctu to Crete to Turkey and Tehran which dated back perhaps 12,000 years based on the latest excavations.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav041708a.shtml

This and similar cultures lasted 6,000 years or more and even migrated into Northern Europe. But with their downfall (at the time badly remembered as the Flood in several pre-historical accounts) the Goddess and women in general were blamed for the disaster and were persecuted by a new violent militaristic masculine mentality.

Inevitably, in the aftermath the 'survival of the strongest and meanest' emerged from the chaos. These gangs and warlords gave rise of the Classical Age of armies and conquest and spread out from Egypt to Israel, Syria, Greece, Rome, Spain, England and finally America.

Happily , the Patriarchies seem to have run their course having no sense of the true values of provision, moderation, nurturing or fair and self-regulating economies. To which Nature now adds the damning reality that sperm counts in all species have been halved in the last century.

The great wheel of life is still in spin.

peace
~jwf~

Hmm. So are pre-agricultural societies non-hierarchical, as that link suggests? That doesn't seem to be the way with other primates.

Stanley said nothing about a god in his posting, anhaga. Why the ignorant and insulting response from you?

>>See...I really don't get this ancient/modern matriarchal/patriarchal dichotomy. If ancient people were such fluffy hippies...when did they change? And why?<< Ed

What is there to imply fluffy hippies? When I think of pre-Maori native cultures here in NZ, there's nothing fluffy about them. Yet they probably had much more egalitarian society (at least when it came to gender). This doesn't mean they were all peace love man. On the contrary to live in such a harsh environment meant toughness that we can only now imagine. But that wasn't necessarily an excuse to be oppressive, or imperialistic.

I'm interested to see ~jwf~'s reasoning about the flood and that being blamed on women. I've seen other explanations - that the nomadic horse cultures from further north came south due to food shortages, to those cultures closer to the mediterannean and bought war. Or that agriculture bought the need for war (as opposed to tribal fighting) because it enabled civilisation.

So maybe no-one is saying that all humans were egalitarian in their prehistory, but why is it so hard to believe that some where?

I don't believe it is an ancient/modern matriarchal/patriarchal dichotomy. Like I said, I've not seen any evidence for a matriarchy where women ruled and men were oppressed. The models I've seen talk about egalitarian cultures, and in those women and men had gender roles without the heirarchy as we now know it. Matrilineal is a better way of describing them, not least because it takes us away from seeing them in dichotomy to what we have now.

There are recent/current cultures who operate matrilineally, which is why I don't find it hard to imagine the ancients doing so.

I think we're agreeing. No - no reason to suppose ancient weren't matriarchal, egalitarian etc. Nor to suppose that they were.

>>A series of catastrophic natural disasters occurred around the time of our oldest 'recorded' history, or what the Fundamentalists 'the beginning' of time.<<

Approximately when, ~jwf~?

Ed, the other useful thing to consider, which ~jwf~ is also talking about, is if you look at the cultural mythologies of that time period, you can see the transition from whatever came before to the patriarchy. There is such a definite move from the universe being conceived of as female* and a huge respect for female power, to worlds where god is a man (or men) and women become increasingly evil and needing to be controlled. Those changes in the stories coincide with actual history when women (and others) become increasingly oppressed. I cannot see how that can be a coincidence.


*and this in no way implies a denigration of men. That's another reason for not seeing this as a dichotomy.

Which maybe brings back in my Marxist angle. The change is also related to the advent of hierarchical economic structures.

>>Nor to suppose that they were.<<

Well, lets see:

1. We have recent or current 'stoneage' and precivilisation cultures that have matrilineal/egalitarian structures.

2. We have recorded mythologies that track the historical changes that led to the patriarchal situation in the West.

3. We have archeological evidence that is open to interpretation. Taken in the context of the above, and when examined by women scholars, who obviously have a different bias and motivation than mainstream academia (which has previously been male), it doesn't seem so unreasonable to consider that humans may not have always been patriarchal/dominating.

I promise you - I have an open mind. I'm simply poking at pre-lapsarian assumptions.

>>Which maybe brings back in my Marxist angle. The change is also related to the advent of hierarchical economic structures.<<

Maybe. It still doesn't explain why that became the preferred option. Maybe it just happened. And happened over a long enough time that it was there before people could see it was problematic.

I'm sure that's a useful thing. Although it begs the question of why we ended up with the Garden of Eden myth if things before were so bad I mean, that story has survived a very long time.

I don't think that everything was perfect in that garden of eden sense. I look at some of the recent egalitarian native cultures and think, shit that would be pretty hard for my modern sensibility. But it's interesting that even with all the benefits of the modern civilised patriarchy alot of colonised peoples still say they were better off before. There's a really good reason for that.

>>Maybe. It still doesn't explain why that became the preferred option.

Well hierachachies aren't necessarily the prefered option. For everyone. But they tend to be more prefered by those wtith the most power.


Garden of Eden Myths. Well of course...things were always better yesterday. Or tomorrow.

I was meaning myth as in history transformed to archetype. i.e. that myth has some historical meaning.


>>But they tend to be more prefered by those wtith the most power.<<

Maybe. But why does everyone else put up with it?

Because hierachies aren't simple haves/have nots dichotomies. They're layered.

But Marx can tell you more about class alliances than I can.

>> Approximately when, ~jwf~? <<

According to Fundamentalists it was 4:42pm, April 4th, 4042 BC.

Seriously, some of them (those who reject Evolution and believe only in Creation as described in the Bible) claim it can be calculated based on 'the evidence of Gods Word' (Genesis) right down to the day of the week. I'm not sure if they mean the very first day or the seventh day (of rest) as the beginning of time.

But this 'point in time' is really just the earliest time observed in the surviving histories and myths recorded by several ancient cultures. In those myths it follows a period of 'creation', 'chaos' or of 'catastrophic' natural disaster. Whether there ever was any 'written' history prior to these times is moot, because the collapse of the early civilisations destroyed any records except those written (painted or carved) in stone (on high ground in dry caves).

I'm obviously focusing on the Middle Earth (western) traditions from the Mediterranean and European areas since it is that history which forms the basis of Western culture. Native North American societies have similar references to times of chaos that followed the days of creation and, as you know better than I, the Aussie and NZ natives trace their history back to a 'dreamtime' of wandering in a history which some say may be 50,000 years deep.

But the current evidence (the link above) reveals large complex civilised structures created about 12,ooo years ago in what is now Turkey. That's well before the Pyramids and maybe 7,000 years before Stonehenge (a structure of eerily similar design - a circle of stone posts and beams).

At a basic psychological level (Bless you Sigmund Freud) the circle is a female symbol. After 'the Flood' buildings (in the old and new world) become more about square based pyramids looking for higher and higher ground and aligned to the stars.

It can be argued then that a simple comparison of pre- and post-Flood architecture demonstrates the shift from matriarchal to patriarchal societies.

BTW, I do wish we could put the issue of 'dominance' aside. The modern notion of the leather-clad, whip-lashing female 'dominatrix' really muddies the ability to imagine the true possibilities of a culture where life, the universe and everything was seen as a Mother, provider, nurturer and lover.

I might even suggest Noah might have been a woman but the story had to be revised in the male 'dominated' chaos (leading to pyramidic hierarchies) that followed. And obviously the Creation myths (Genesis) were also modified to blame Eve for the loss of paradise.

peace
~jwf~

>>this shift from matriarchal to patriarchal

The "Jesus Fish" beloved of American Christians started out as a picture of a womb. Then it got turned on its side and associated in some way with Jesus.

Well, indeed. And Sophia-worship was big in that part of the world. Still is, obviously.

Which leads me to ponder...does godess-worship imply matriarchy? There's a well-known bunch of Sophia worshippers who are about as patriarchal as they come, after all.

You're thinking of the sacred stump, yes?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0709/1224250319175.html

So we know people in the stone age was matriarchal because they built round stone formations and Freud told us circles are female. Well, I´m convinced.

Some parts of South America are quite big on worshipping the Virgin Mary, rather bypassing Jesus and God. Yet they all seem to be patriarchal.

Indeed. The Blessed Mum is a Sophia proxy. And thanks to Gnomon, I now know that a lot of people are driving around with her womb on the back of their hatchbacks.

(incidentally...I've been to her house, near Ephesus)