Modern society, is it a regression on the past? In our dominator centered mindset, have we so arrogantly assumed that we are the more advanced… as we destroy the loins from whence we sprung?
Modern history, is it just the record of our conquests and unbridled hatred for life? What of the Agrarian societies dating ten thousand years ago? They have successfully returned the earth to the way they found it… leaving little to no trace but for cave paintings (often misinterpreted in the male dominated society that persists today)?
“- For millennia men have fought wars and the Blade has been a male symbol. But this does not mean that men are inevitably violent and warlike. Throughout recorded history there have been peaceful and nonviolent men. Moreover, there were both men and women in the prehistoric societies where the power to give and nurture, which the Chalice symbolizes, was supreme. The underlying problem is not men as a sex. The root of the problem lies in a social system in which the power of the Blade is idealized-in which both men and women are taught to equate true masculinity with violence and dominance and to see men who do not conform to this ideal as “too soft” or “effeminate” (xviii)
- The larger picture that emerges indicates that all the modern, post-Enlightenment movements for social justice, peace, and ecology movements, are part of an underlying thrust for the transformation of a dominator to a partnership system. Beyond this, in our time of unprecedentedly powerful technologies, these movements may be seen as part of our species’ evolutionary thrust for survival (xx)
- In actual fact, not even our technological evolution has been a linear movement from lower to higher levels, but rather a process punctuated by massive regressions, such as the Greek /Z ? Dark Age and the Middle Ages. Nonetheless, there seems to be an underlying thrust toward greater technological and social complexity. Similarly, there seems to be a human thrust toward higher goals: toward truth, beauty, and justice. But as the brutality, oppression, and warfare that characterize recorded history all too vividly demonstrate, the movement toward these goals has hardly been linear. Indeed,… here too there has been a massive regression (xxi)”
Excerpts from the introduction of “The Chalice and The Blade”
A good read, for all of you semi-intellectuals and barbarians alike… it might shake some sense into all of you and your world views. And that’s just the introduction…
Hitchhiker 