THE ANCIENT PROBLEM WITH MEN The prehistoric origins of patriarchy and social oppression Bruce Garrard Paperback, 203 pages Published 2011 Available at special price for copies bought from this website: £7.00 See article summarising the book See review |
“Once, before the great cultural advances of 35,000 years ago, before the technological developments which made life possible through the last ice age, before the beginnings of farming, before the Neolithic ‘revolution’, before the first towns, before the first cities, there was oner basic reality to human life. And afterwards there was the farmer and the herder, the European and the Asiatic, the ‘matrist’ and the ‘patrist’, the hunter-gatherer and modern civilisation.” The key element of this change was the emergence of patriarchy – rule by men – along with oppressive social structures, and warfare. How and why this came about is a question that the academic establishment has failed to answer. We are still living with the myth, left over from nineteenth century pre-conceptions, that ‘primitive man’ was brutish, sexist and lacking in culture. This is quite untrue. Patriarchy, and the injustices and cruelties that have come with it, is not natural to human beings. It has only been a significant force in society since about 4,000 BCE. The myth has been dispelled to some extent by recent work that highlights the Goddess Culture of Neolithic Europe. Its demise at the hands of warrior invaders from the East is well described – but with no explanation as to why this came about, nor what caused such a warrior culture to come into being. ‘The Ancient Problem with Men’ carries the discussion forward by presenting a fresh exploration of human origins: not only our physical evolution but also the economic, cultural and psychological aspects of our development. The results are both intriguing and hopeful. |
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A brief extract:
Riane Eisler’s work [The Chalice and the Blade] is both an inspiration and a conundrum. ‘The Chalice’ is the goddess-worshipping, matrifocal culture of Old Europe. Based largely on the research of Marija Gimbutas, she offers a view that is rapidly changing the way we think about the origins of civilisation: it does not depend on kings, armies, or the concentration of power and wealth.
A sophisticated level of culture, including the first known towns, was created by people with a religion centred on the Goddess and an understanding of human genesis based on the lineage from mother to daughter; people whose society did not promote or idealise the role of the warrior, and whose social structure appears to have been remarkably egalitarian. This way of life had its roots in Ice Age Europe, tens of thousands of years ago. It found its final and most impressive expression in Minoan Crete, between about 3000 and 1500 BCE.
‘The Blade’ is the god-worshipping, patriarchal culture that emerged from the Asian steppes, waged war on the goddess-worshippers of old Europe, and ultimately led to the emergence and growth in importance of the warrior class of Greece and Rome. Apart from ancient Crete, the development of the classical world essentially came to be based on male rather than female values, paternal rather than maternal rights and powers, gods rather than goddesses. This happened - or at least the process began - in response to warlike invasions from the east. It is hardly surprising that, in the view of feminist readers of Eisler and Gimbutas, this is where it all went wrong.
But then there is the conundrum. The symbolism of chalice and blade is the symbolism of balance, of creative union, of human wholeness. To portray these events of our immediate pre-history in terms of right and wrong, of patriarchal ‘baddies’ and goddess-worshipping ‘goodies’, is simplistic. It misses the most important point - that both protagonists in this, the first real warfare in the human story, were equally part of the human race and equally part of the same evolutionary process - and it leaves more questions unanswered than answered ...
Riane Eisler’s work [The Chalice and the Blade] is both an inspiration and a conundrum. ‘The Chalice’ is the goddess-worshipping, matrifocal culture of Old Europe. Based largely on the research of Marija Gimbutas, she offers a view that is rapidly changing the way we think about the origins of civilisation: it does not depend on kings, armies, or the concentration of power and wealth.
A sophisticated level of culture, including the first known towns, was created by people with a religion centred on the Goddess and an understanding of human genesis based on the lineage from mother to daughter; people whose society did not promote or idealise the role of the warrior, and whose social structure appears to have been remarkably egalitarian. This way of life had its roots in Ice Age Europe, tens of thousands of years ago. It found its final and most impressive expression in Minoan Crete, between about 3000 and 1500 BCE.
‘The Blade’ is the god-worshipping, patriarchal culture that emerged from the Asian steppes, waged war on the goddess-worshippers of old Europe, and ultimately led to the emergence and growth in importance of the warrior class of Greece and Rome. Apart from ancient Crete, the development of the classical world essentially came to be based on male rather than female values, paternal rather than maternal rights and powers, gods rather than goddesses. This happened - or at least the process began - in response to warlike invasions from the east. It is hardly surprising that, in the view of feminist readers of Eisler and Gimbutas, this is where it all went wrong.
But then there is the conundrum. The symbolism of chalice and blade is the symbolism of balance, of creative union, of human wholeness. To portray these events of our immediate pre-history in terms of right and wrong, of patriarchal ‘baddies’ and goddess-worshipping ‘goodies’, is simplistic. It misses the most important point - that both protagonists in this, the first real warfare in the human story, were equally part of the human race and equally part of the same evolutionary process - and it leaves more questions unanswered than answered ...
