Progressing
Toward Enlightenment
“Once
we transcend the older ideological labels of liberal versus
conservative, religious versus secular, or left versus right, modern
history becomes in many critical respects radically clarified. The
progressive modern ideologies can be seen as part of one mounting and
continuing revolution against androcracy.”
Riane
Eisler (The Chalice and The Blade)
This
book by Riane Eisler was published in 1987. It was a book that I
couldn't put down, but had to keep a dictionary beside me to look up
every third word. Today, when I randomly selected and opened it, this
paragraph was at the top of the page. I was struck with it's accuracy for today, twenty-five
years later. Androcracy, in case you don't know as I didn't, means
“male supremacy” and indicates the type of society in which
ranking is the primary principle of organization. We have seen that
topple in our lifetime in America. The replacement for this
fundamentally patriarchal system is gylany, or the partnership social
system based on equality of men and women, which Eisler says is
necessary for humanity to progress and evolve.
Riane
Eisler was born in Vienna in 1937. Her family fled from the Nazis to
Cuba and she went on to become a college professor in the United
States. She has no doubt lived this change in a very real way. But so
have we, and it's incredible to see the wave continue. According to
Eisler, the rebellions of the burgers, workers, peasants, right up
through the colonials, were part of one continuing movement. Now we
see this change in the middle east and we can assume that the other
parts of the world where women are oppressed in order to maintain a
brutally patriarchal social system will change as well.
Radical change brings about especially ferocious acts of
violence—like the gang rape and murder of the young woman in India
and the escalation of gun violence in our own country. No system based on
hierarchy goes down without a fight. But if we look to our young
people, the gen-x and millennial generations, we see that gylany has
already occurred. Partnership has replaced patriarchy in their
marriages and in their workplaces.
I
see many young fathers with their kids in the grocery store, in the
park, strolling, playing. This is a sight not seen at all when I was
a child, and rarely seen when my own children were young. We are, as
hard as it may be to see, making progress toward a more evolved state
of being. When systems make changes for women, all authoritarian
systems begin to lose strength. We are seeing that now in the repeal
of 'don't ask, don't tell', in the number of states passing marriage
equality laws, in the changing demographics in law and medicine and
religion. There is no stopping change once it starts.
It's good to know that our children and grandchildren will inherit a
more egalitarian world.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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