"Godess" Religion and Pre-Biblical Paradise
Jon Cohen
Some of my New Age acquaintances here in Santa Cruz
have adopted a view of ancient history that they take
for historical fact, but which I believe to be
myth. The essentially believe:
In ancient, pre-biblical times, there was a beautiful,
peaceful, paradisal civilization in Mesopatamia and
other parts of the Middle East. This civilization was
matriarchal in nature, and worshipped a Goddess.
These peaceful, Goddess-worshipping folk were
very close to nature, ecologically minded.
Unfortunately, however, the peaceful Goddess-worshiping
folks were overrun by brutal, patriarchal, warlike
peoples from the North. This latter group established
the civilization that would eventually evolve into
Western Civilization. In fact, the idol smashing we
read about in the bible is actually part of the
process by which the peaceful Goddess-worshippers
were annihilated by the warlike worshippers of
Yaweh and other brutal, male dieties.
This is an extremely popular view among people who
associate themselves with New Age thinking and with
some elements of the femminist movement. Is there any
historical or anthropological truth to it?
********
David O Hunt
just as violent as the rest - heck, their war diety was FEMALE!
As to before that? I dunno, though given human nature I'd be surprised if the
peoples were that loving and peaceful....
Sad, isn't it?
David Hunt - Grad Student | My mind is my own. | Towards both a
Mechanical Engineering | So are my ideas & opinions. | Palestinian and
Carnegie Mellon University | <<<Use Golden Rule v2.0>>> | Jewish homeland!
============================================================================
"You should be furious that polluters are threatening your great-great-
grand children's lives!"---Iroquois chief speaking about the environment.
James J. Lippard
I don't think so. A source which argues against some of
the above is Elliot E. Rose, _A Razor for a Goat_, 1962,
Toronto University Press. (The primary concern of this
book is witchcraft and Satanism.)
Jim Lippard Lip...@RVAX.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy Lip...@ARIZRVAX.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Robert Sheaffer
>
>
>Some of my New Age acquaintances here in Santa Cruz
>have adopted a view of ancient history that they take
>for historical fact, but which I believe to be
>
>peaceful, paradisal civilization in Mesopatamia and
>other parts of the Middle East. This civilization was
>matriarchal in nature, and worshipped a Goddess.
>
>folks were overrun by brutal, patriarchal, warlike
>peoples from the North. This latter group established
>
>
masquerading as scholarship. One excellent book touching on this
is "Sexual Personae" by Camille Paglia. It's mostly about art
history, but she debunks this myth in particular. Paglia points
out that the ancient Goddess was not purely "sweetness and light",
but was the goddess of creation AND destruction equally. Many of
the rites associated with the Goddess were extremely bloody and
brutal. Male devotees of the Roman Goddess Cybele were expected
to castrate themselves in a frenzied ceremony, then rush about
holding high their bloody severed parts.
An excellent popular article on this matter is "Feminism Against
Science" by Steven Goldberg, chairman of the Sociology Dept at
the City College in New York [Natl Review, Nov. 18, 1991]. The
article is summarized: "'Feminist Science' began with a willful
misreading of Margaret Mead and went on from there. Besides
feminist anthropology, we now have feminist physics and feminist
astronomy."
Goldberg, author of a book, "The Inevitability of Patriarchy",
writes "I have checked well over a hundred claims - never made by the
ethnographer who actually studied the society in question - that a
specific ethnography describes a nonpatriarchial society; it has
never taken over ninety seconds with the invoked ethnography to
demonstrate the ludicrousness of the claim. I have never found
anyone willing to back up such a claim once it became clear that
I had checked the ethnography that had been invoked." He provides
quotes from Margaret Mead that show her in 100% agreement.
Any time that ANYONE - Christian, feminist, or whatever - begins
spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
--
Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - shea...@netcom.com
Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!
"The facts can only take you so far in this case.",
- Oliver Stone, discussing "JFK" on CBS-TV's "48 Hours", Feb. 5, 1992
Pete Hardie
Although there is some recent work that supports the existence of
*some* cultures that fit this description (see soc.feminism for someone
to direct you to the readings), I don't think there is any evidence for
a widespread culture like that.
It also smells of a common thread - Goddess worship as 'better' than the
current system, solely due to its matriarchial/female nature, while the
whole of current system is somehow 'illegitimate' because it 'destroyed'
the older culture.
Also, there is little evidence that primitive cultures were in the slightest
aware of ecology in the sense we mean - most would have easily destroyed
their local ecosystem, had they the means to increase their population to
out levels.
--
Pete Hardie: phardie@nastar (voice) (404) 497-0101
Digital Transmission Systems, Inc., Duluth GA
Member, DTS Dart Team | cat * | egrep -v "signature virus|infection"
Position: Goalie |
ing...@bbn.com
In article <22...@scorn.sco.COM> jco...@sco.COM (Jon Cohen) writes:
>In ancient, pre-biblical times, there was a beautiful,
>peaceful, paradisal civilization in Mesopatamia and
>other parts of the Middle East. This civilization was
>matriarchal in nature, and worshipped a Goddess.
>Unfortunately, however, the peaceful Goddess-worshiping
>folks were overrun by brutal, patriarchal, warlike
>peoples from the North.
Is it true? Hell, no! It's just Politically Correct twaddle
masquerading as scholarship.
...
Any time that ANYONE - Christian, feminist, or whatever - begins
spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
Anybody who wants to look into some aspects of this issue, at least as
it relates the the Classical world, should look at:
John Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan, eds., _Women in the Ancient World:
The Arethusa Papers_, State University of New York Press, Albany,
1984, especially ``Selected Bibliography on Women in Classical
Antiquity'', by Sarah B. Pomeroy (with Ross S. Kraemer and Natalie
Kampen), pp. 315--372. Most of the bibliography is on standard
primary and secondary sources, but some deals with works by
non-classicists.
Leanna Goodwater, _Women in Antiquity: An Annotated Bibliography_, The
Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, N.J., 1975. Since this is just an
annotated bibliography, you can look up your pro-matriarchal work of
choice and see what a classicist has to say about it.
To cite one of my favorite bete-noires in the ``women created all
civilization'' camp, here's what they say about _The First Sex_, by
Elizabeth Gould-Davis:
Pomeroy, p. 319: ``...is crammed with misinformation about antiquity
cited pell-mell to support the thesis of the primacy of women in early
societies. Davis is a librarian, and her book is listed here merely
for the sake of her wide-ranging footnotes which may seduce the
classicist into considering the viewpoints of modern anthropology,
sociology, and psychology on women in antiquity.''
Goodwater, pp. 70-71: ``A treasure trove of misinformation, this book
sets out to `put woman back into the history books' because `her
contribution to civilization has been greater than man's.' Ms. Davis'
chapters on `The Pre-Hellenes' and `The Women of Greece and Italy'
cull together indiscrimanately a vast amount of material (regardless
of its reliability) to `prove' that the pre-Hellenes had
`female-dominated' cultures where `men were but the servers of women,'
that in Rome's `gynarchic social structure' the liberated women ruled
the roost, and that classical Greece was realy a haven of `female
emancipation.' ''
Just one example of Davis' reliability (or lack thereof): she seems to
think that the Proto Indo-European language was the first human
language, from which all other languages (and not just the
Indo-European family) were descended. Since PIE had a word for snow,
but humanity is supposed to have originated in tropical climes, she
finds only one way of reconciling these two facts: Velikovsky was
right and the current orientation of the earth was only produced by
the earth being knocked about. And it goes on like this.
Hilarious stuff if people didn't take it seriously (I first heard
about it via a column by Jill Johnston in the Village Voice in '74).
The feminist program of introducing into textbooks and history books
women of accomplishment who were unfairly overlooked was a reasonable
one. It's unfortunate that it has sometimes been perverted into the
claim that only women ever accomplished anything. It also is
surprisingly diversionary, from a political standpoint. Many (if not
all) of those writing the golden-age matriarchy books, would argue
that there are many inequities in the way women are treated today.
How does devoting time and energy to research on these matriarchies
help that cause? Suppose these theories were true: would a golden age
of women's rule do anything to help women today? ``That, and $1.15
will get you on the subway'', as they say in New York City these days.
-30-
Bob
``American feminism is awash with soupy Campbellism: schlockmeisters
like Marija Gimbutas, the Pollyanna of poppy-cock, with her Mommy
goddess tales conveniently exalting her Lithuanian ancestors into
world-class saintly pacifists.'' --- Camille Paglia in _Arion_
rocker
>An excellent popular article on this matter is "Feminism Against
>Science" by Steven Goldberg, chairman of the Sociology Dept at
>the City College in New York [Natl Review, Nov. 18, 1991]. The
>article is summarized: "'Feminist Science' began with a willful
>misreading of Margaret Mead and went on from there. Besides
>feminist anthropology, we now have feminist physics and feminist
>astronomy."
Could anyone enlighten me as to what "feminist physics" or
"feminist astronomy" might be? Is it supposed to be a scientific
movement? A political one? Can non-feminists do feminist science?
Can feminists do non-feminist science?
Or could this just possibly be another catchword, like "Politically
Correct", meant to dismiss new ideas with ridicule without examining
the substance of those ideas?
I am amking no stand as far as the validity of the ideas themselves,
of course, as I have no concept as to what might be meant by the
phrase. However, if there are people out there doing bad science in
the eyes of the sceintific establishment, I find it very irresponsible
of that establishment to link it with a legitimate political group. It
appears to be only an attempt to discredit feminism by implying that
"feminism makes bad science" or more subtly, "feminists can't do
science". Do you suppose it might offend anyone to call Velikovsky's
(sp?) ideas "Republican Science" or the geocentric theories
"Masculinist Science"?
If the science is bad, fine, attack it and discredit it if possible.
But Goldberg merely makes himself look like he's pushing an agenda
with the attempt to discredit feminism in the process.
> Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - shea...@netcom.com
-rocker
Ron Dippold
>shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>Could anyone enlighten me as to what "feminist physics" or
>"feminist astronomy" might be? Is it supposed to be a scientific
>movement? A political one? Can non-feminists do feminist science?
>Can feminists do non-feminist science?
Feminists can (and do) do real science. Feminist science is the
feminist version of afrocentric science - rewriting science to conform
to feminist theory. The first clue should be that many of their
prominent advocates denounce logic as a tool of the patriarchy.
--
I think, therefore I am. I think.
rocker
More "they" and "them". Does anyone perhaps have specific
citations?
-rocker
Robert Sheaffer
>
>Could anyone enlighten me as to what "feminist physics" or
>"feminist astronomy" might be? Is it supposed to be a scientific
>movement? A political one? Can non-feminists do feminist science?
>Can feminists do non-feminist science?
It's the same idea as "Aryan Science", i.e. that the science being
done by the Incorrect group (men, Jews, whatever) is somehow
"tainted" by the inborn defects of that group.
In "Feminism and the College Curriculum", Christina Hoff Sommers
(Assoc. Prof. Phil., Clark Univ.) writes in the June, 1990 issue
of Imprimis (a publication of Hillsdale College),
"One of the busiest areas of feminist research today is the gender
critique of the sciences. ... Students are taught ... that Newton's
Law of Mechanics and Einstein's relativity are gender-laden. Regarding
the latter, Sandra Harding says that the only remedy is "to reinvent
science and theorizing itself to make sense of women's social
experience.""
Margarita Levin writes in a "recent" issue of "American Scholar" (date?)
[Feminist scientists] "see male dominance at work in, for instance,
the "master molecule" theory of DNA functioning; in the notion of
forces "acting on" objects; in the description of evolution as
the result of a "struggle" to survive; in the view that scarcity of
resources results in "competition" between animals - in short in
any theory positing what they deem destructive, violent, uni-
directional, or hierarchial."
>appears to be only an attempt to discredit feminism by implying that
>"feminism makes bad science" or more subtly, "feminists can't do
>science". Do you suppose it might offend anyone to call Velikovsky's
>(sp?) ideas "Republican Science" or the geocentric theories
>"Masculinist Science"?
That's not it *at all*. "Feminist science" does NOT originate from the
anti-feminist camp, but from the most Politically Correct sources.
The intention is to discredit science as we know it, as an arbitrary
invention of Dead White Males.
--
Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - shea...@netcom.com
James J. Lippard
Try Sandra Harding, _Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?_ (1991). She
also has an earlier book, I believe it's titled _The Science Question
in Feminism_.
> -rocker
Cook Fred
>>
>>In ancient, pre-biblical times, there was a beautiful,
>>peaceful, paradisal civilization in Mesopatamia and
>>other parts of the Middle East. This civilization was
>>matriarchal in nature, and worshipped a Goddess.
>>
>>Unfortunately, however, the peaceful Goddess-worshiping
>>folks were overrun by brutal, patriarchal, warlike
>>peoples from the North.
>>
>masquerading as scholarship. One excellent book touching on this
>is "Sexual Personae" by Camille Paglia.
>to castrate themselves in a frenzied ceremony, then rush about
>holding high their bloody severed parts.
>
Don't you know that that is just what Molly Yard and the rest of her
feminazi compatriots would like to see!!!
>Any time that ANYONE - Christian, feminist, or whatever - begins
>spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
>ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
>zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
>"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
>
No kidding. Nothing should be exempt from rigorous scrutiny. Amen, brother.
>
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U.S. SNAIL |
FRED C. COOK |
921 EAST 14TH |
ADA, OK 74820 USA |
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frc...@student.ecok.edu (Cook Fred) |
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Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <22...@scorn.sco.COM> jco...@sco.COM (Jon Cohen) writes:
(Wifty account of Mesopotamian goddes-worship deleted.)
> >
> >
> Is it true? Hell, no! It's just Politically Correct twaddle
> masquerading as scholarship. One excellent book touching on this
> is "Sexual Personae" by Camille Paglia. It's mostly about art
> history, but she debunks this myth in particular. Paglia points
> out that the ancient Goddess was not purely "sweetness and light",
> but was the goddess of creation AND destruction equally. Many of
> the rites associated with the Goddess were extremely bloody and
> brutal. Male devotees of the Roman Goddess Cybele were expected
> to castrate themselves in a frenzied ceremony, then rush about
> holding high their bloody severed parts.
Well, I
'll be among the first to agree that it's twaddle, but it's not even
masquerading as scholarship-- it's that wonderful 'Golden Age' myth rising
again on the horizon, motivated solely through wishful thinking for a less
regimented and less Chriatianized time.
However, I really have to take issue with Bob's sources. Camille
Paglia's "Sexual Personae" struck me-- admittedly, in the brief passages I've
read without throwing the damn thing away-- as the writings of someone who's
so wraopped up in seeing herself as an innovative and original thinkert that
she avoids or rationalizes anything that might take that specialness away
from her. What we get is a kind of self-absorbed incoherence; Paglis portrays
herself as a tough-minded independent thinker, yet attacks women (especially
lesbians) for either not being tough enough or being too masculine. (The
_Village Voice_, in a dandy anaylsis of Paglia's thought, recommended that
someone taker her to a SAGE event or the Clit Club to let her know what's
been going on-- it's not likely the education'd take, because, although
Paglia claims to have been the only woman wearing jean jackets and men's
clothes at SUNY-Binghamton, her classmates remember differently.) It gets
truly amazing when Paglia denies, categorically, that date rape really
occurs. Molly Ivins wants to introduce her to some frat boys at Texas A&M.
What's gotten Paglia her attention is the current hysteria over
'political correctness,' a largely manufactured myth over an attack on the
'shared values of western civilization,' whatever they are.
Still, I don't think we need a second-rater like Paglia to tell us
how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
Sheaffer also writes:
Any time that ANYONE - Christian, feminist, or whatever - begins
spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
Well, count me OUT of this one, Bob; it amounts to an attack on
religous beliefs that I just won't be a party to.
First of all, I'll agree that these pop-culture citations of
blissfuly idyllic 'matriarchal' societies are pretty silly, but no less silly
than, say, idealizations of any other ancient culture-- not the least of
which is the ubndefined canon of 'Western Civilization" that PC-bashers claim
to defend.
Second, I should point out that much of the latter-day occultism I've
run into-- and no, I don't mean the crystals-and-UFos crowd, but neo-Pagans
and some of the more intelligent Wiccans I know-- is more an attempt at
synthesizing a religious or spiritual orientation within the context of
modern society while drawing on practices and mythologies of the past. And I
should mention that, among the more serious-minded neo-Pagans I know, few of
them have bought into the silliness of actual paranormal claims; they also
tend to have a sense of irony I appreciate.
Third, I've found a greater sympathy towards skeptical viewpoints
among the neo-Pagans than amongst other resurgent religious beliefs; they've
adopted this rather idiosyncratic religious view out of disaffection with the
existing structures of religion and dogma. They're a lot less likely to put a
high emotional investment in a pretty mythology than you might think.
And fourth, it has never struck me as the place of the skeptics'
movement to 'zero in' on a religious belief that-- to be really honest-- has
got to be FAR less harmful than the authoritarian structures of Scientology
or the evil-minded, quasi-fascist pronouncements of the Fundamentalist Right.
Most latter-day Pagans have struck me as easy-going, tolerant, relatively
intelligent and open-minded (with exceptions, of course-- like Robert Anton
Wilson's fans); this myth about a benign Goddess-worshipping past may be
bullshit, but it strikes me as eminently harmless bullshit.
I should also mention that, should the skeptics decide to 'zero in'
on this, it'd be a matter of historical debate and interpretation; and if
that's an area where the skeptics should tread, than I suspect we'd be seeing
some dandy debates between Libertarians, Marxists, Socialists,
Anarcho-Syndicalists and others on this echo-- on topics a tad removed from
busting on _true_ silliness.
Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano
re...@cellar.org
Organizer of the Delaware Valley Skeptics (though opinions posted are my own,
and not representative).
"Not only does Bush have a depression on his hands, now he's got this self
pitying, pathologically lying pornofreak on the Supreme Court." -- Robert Bly,
in conversation with Deborah Tannen.
Loren Petrich
: Some of my New Age acquaintances here in Santa Cruz
A limited amount, though that account of history seems more
like a caricature than anything else.
For instance, the archeologist Marija Gimbutas has advocated
something much like it; and she presents LOTS of evidence in support
of her views. Simply read _The Language of the Goddess_ and _The
Civilization of the Goddess_. I mentioned the former book one time on
sci.archaeology, and someone reported that he had mentioned it to
several prehistorians, who broadly agreed with it despite some nits
to pick here and there, but who did not want to be quoted in public!
Example: Neolithic and Copper Age ("Old European") cities were
mostly unwalled for most of their existence, except for the end of
their days when Kurgans started coming in from the east.
She does NOT propose "annihilation", she proposes that a lot
of Old European culture was absorbed by Europe's Kurgan conquerors,
who could hardly be called religious exclusivists. This is evident
from her numerous citations of European folklore.
Simplistic views like the ones listed are easy to ridicule; it
would be a shame if scholarship like Gimbutas's was to be dismissed
just because of the excesses of some of the more enthusiastic
advocates of views like hers.
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Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: lo...@sunlight.llnl.gov
Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try:
loren%sunlight...@star.stanford.edu
Loren Petrich
> As far as my limited knowledge of history goes, the mesopotamian culture was
> just as violent as the rest - heck, their war diety was FEMALE!
There is a simple answer for war goddesses, who are clearly
not in the likeness of the gender that participates the most in
warfare. It is that these deities were originally non-warlike, but
were turned into war deities by worshippers who became more warlike.
Thus, Isis was celebrated as the "Queen of War" in Hellenistic times.
Athena is a good example; she is a war goddess, though many of
her attributes would make her right at home among the Minoans, who had
relatively little taste for warfare (though they were certainly not
absolute pacifists). These include associations with birds, snakes,
and olive trees; there are lots of Bird Goddess and Snake Goddess
depictions in Minoan art, and there was apparently a Minoan tree cult.
When the Mycenaeans took over, they may simply have adopted the
worship of some Minoan goddess and made her more warlike out of their
more military concerns.
> As to before that? I dunno, though given human nature I'd be surprised if the
> peoples were that loving and peaceful....
> Sad, isn't it?
But there are some studies suggesting something pretty much
like that for "primitive" peoples -- like last month's Scientific
American article, which concluded that warfare was rare (though not
necessarily nonexistent) among gatherer-hunter peoples (not much to
fight over, for one thing), and that it was stimulated by contact with
much more "advanced" societies. European colonialists are the obvious
villains here, though the article does suggest that some non-European
warlike societies, such as the Aztecs, had much the same effect on
their neighbors.
Loren Petrich
> In article <22...@scorn.sco.COM> jco...@sco.COM (Jon Cohen) writes:
: :
: :
: :Some of my New Age acquaintances here in Santa Cruz
: :have adopted a view of ancient history that they take
: :for historical fact, but which I believe to be
: :
: :In ancient, pre-biblical times, there was a beautiful,
: :peaceful, paradisal civilization in Mesopatamia and
: :other parts of the Middle East. This civilization was
: :matriarchal in nature, and worshipped a Goddess.
: :
: :Unfortunately, however, the peaceful Goddess-worshiping
: :folks were overrun by brutal, patriarchal, warlike
: :peoples from the North. This latter group established
: Is it true? Hell, no! It's just Politically Correct twaddle
: masquerading as scholarship. One excellent book touching on this
: is "Sexual Personae" by Camille Paglia. It's mostly about art
: history, but she debunks this myth in particular. Paglia points
: out that the ancient Goddess was not purely "sweetness and light",
: but was the goddess of creation AND destruction equally. Many of
: the rites associated with the Goddess were extremely bloody and
: brutal. Male devotees of the Roman Goddess Cybele were expected
: to castrate themselves in a frenzied ceremony, then rush about
: holding high their bloody severed parts.
C'mon, Robert Sheaffer, haven't you ever heard of the Problem
of Evil???
One has to account for death and destructions some way, and
one such way is to suppose that the deities are sometimes bad.
The more responsible advocates of the "early Goddess culture",
such as Marija Gimbutas, recognize exactly that; a chapter of her
_Language of the Goddess_ is devoted to symbols of death, which are in
abundance: the thin and bony White Lady, the boar, the poisonous
snake, the vulture, and the dog (I'm doing this from memory).
The case of Cybele seems interesting -- why would men
willingly castrate themselves and dress like women?
: An excellent popular article on this matter is "Feminism Against
: Science" by Steven Goldberg, chairman of the Sociology Dept at
: the City College in New York [Natl Review, Nov. 18, 1991]. The
: article is summarized: "'Feminist Science' began with a willful
: misreading of Margaret Mead and went on from there. Besides
: feminist anthropology, we now have feminist physics and feminist
: astronomy."
Baloney.
: Goldberg, author of a book, "The Inevitability of Patriarchy",
: writes "I have checked well over a hundred claims - never made by the
: ethnographer who actually studied the society in question - that a
: specific ethnography describes a nonpatriarchial society; it has
: never taken over ninety seconds with the invoked ethnography to
: demonstrate the ludicrousness of the claim. I have never found
: anyone willing to back up such a claim once it became clear that
: I had checked the ethnography that had been invoked." He provides
: quotes from Margaret Mead that show her in 100% agreement.
There is a work called _Becoming Visible_ (Renate Bridenthal
and Claudia Koonz) which contains an article by anthropologist Eleanor
Leacock which suggests that women had had social parity with men in
early gather-hunterer societies, and suggests that ethnographies that
suggest male dominance are a byproduct of several causes, notably the
degradation of women's status in societies in contact with more
"advanced" and male-dominated ones (who's the gender they deal with?)
and biases of the ethnographers, who may sometimes consider only the
male members worth studying. I think she has a convincing rebuttal to
Goldberg her.
: Any time that ANYONE - Christian, feminist, or whatever - begins
: spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
: ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
: zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
: "exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
Or it was just out of sight.
Loren Petrich
: To cite one of my favorite bete-noires in the ``women created all
I would agree that Elizabeth Gould Davis's book is easy to
ridicule, but there are a lot more responsible advocates of this type
of hypothesis, such as Marija Gimbutas. She is an archeologist who had
given the Kurgan culture its name, for instance. Her most recent work,
_The Civilization of the Goddess_, is worth examining, if nothing
else. She does not advocate the view that men were just no around or
were nobodies; she notes that men could have high status in the
pre-Kurgan societies she has studied. And in _The Language of the
Goddess_, she suspects that male deities are probably underrepresented
in the artifacts (only about 1-3% male), from being worshipped out in
the open.
: Hilarious stuff if people didn't take it seriously (I first heard
: about it via a column by Jill Johnston in the Village Voice in '74).
c: The feminist program of introducing into textbooks and history books
: women of accomplishment who were unfairly overlooked was a reasonable
: one. It's unfortunate that it has sometimes been perverted into the
: claim that only women ever accomplished anything. It also is
: surprisingly diversionary, from a political standpoint. Many (if not
: all) of those writing the golden-age matriarchy books, would argue
: that there are many inequities in the way women are treated today.
: How does devoting time and energy to research on these matriarchies
: help that cause? Suppose these theories were true: would a golden age
: of women's rule do anything to help women today? ``That, and $1.15
: will get you on the subway'', as they say in New York City these days.
The advocates of such research suggest that it would show that
women are not doomed to be complete nobodies, that women are capable
of genuine achievement, by citing examples of such achievement. I
guess that sounds like a lot of Afrocentrism; but the excesses of both
schools of thought will probably obscure any legitimate points they
may have to make.
: ``American feminism is awash with soupy Campbellism: schlockmeisters
: like Marija Gimbutas, the Pollyanna of poppy-cock, with her Mommy
: goddess tales conveniently exalting her Lithuanian ancestors into
: world-class saintly pacifists.'' --- Camille Paglia in _Arion_
I can see that Camille Paglia has not read Marija Gimbutas's
work very well, for Gimbutas claims no such thing. I know that because
I have read Gimbutas's writings. Her scholarship is a lot more sound
that EGD's, IMO.
Loren Petrich
> shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
: : Is it true? Hell, no! It's just Politically Correct twaddle
: : masquerading as scholarship. One excellent book touching on this
: : is "Sexual Personae" by Camille Paglia. It's mostly about art
: : history, but she debunks this myth in particular. Paglia points
: : out that the ancient Goddess was not purely "sweetness and light",
: : but was the goddess of creation AND destruction equally. Many of
: : the rites associated with the Goddess were extremely bloody and
: : brutal. Male devotees of the Roman Goddess Cybele were expected
: : to castrate themselves in a frenzied ceremony, then rush about
: : holding high their bloody severed parts.
Some advocates of this school of though, such as Marija
Gimbutas, are responsible enough to acknowledge the destructive
aspects of the deities they study; it does make for a nifty solution
to the Problem of Evil, doesn't it? For instance, there is a whole
section in Gimbutas's _Language of the Goddess_ on symbols of death,
which include the thin and bony White Lady, the boar, the vulture, the
poisonous snake, and the dog.
: Well, I
: 'll be among the first to agree that it's twaddle, but it's not even
: masquerading as scholarship-- it's that wonderful 'Golden Age' myth rising
: again on the horizon, motivated solely through wishful thinking for a less
: regimented and less Chriatianized time.
Tell that to Marija Gimbutas :-). She is an archeologist who
has actually dug up some examples of the societies she's described,
whatever you think of her interpretations of her findings.
: However, I really have to take issue with Bob's sources. Camille
: Paglia's "Sexual Personae" struck me-- admittedly, in the brief passages I've
: read without throwing the damn thing away-- as the writings of someone who's
: so wraopped up in seeing herself as an innovative and original thinkert that
: she avoids or rationalizes anything that might take that specialness away
: from her. What we get is a kind of self-absorbed incoherence; Paglis portrays
: herself as a tough-minded independent thinker, yet attacks women (especially
: lesbians) for either not being tough enough or being too masculine. (The
: _Village Voice_, in a dandy anaylsis of Paglia's thought, recommended that
: someone taker her to a SAGE event or the Clit Club to let her know what's
: been going on-- it's not likely the education'd take, because, although
: Paglia claims to have been the only woman wearing jean jackets and men's
: clothes at SUNY-Binghamton, her classmates remember differently.) It gets
: truly amazing when Paglia denies, categorically, that date rape really
: occurs. Molly Ivins wants to introduce her to some frat boys at Texas A&M.
: What's gotten Paglia her attention is the current hysteria over
: 'political correctness,' a largely manufactured myth over an attack on the
: 'shared values of western civilization,' whatever they are.
I agree that Camille Paglia is nothing but a new Ayn Rand; if
anything, she with her machismo provides a strong counterexample to
the traditional stereotype that women are necessarily nice and gentle.
: Still, I don't think we need a second-rater like Paglia to tell us
: how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
Some of them, certainly. But ALL of them?
I would agree with that, even if the more enthuasiastic
advocates of such views are easy to puncture.
: I should also mention that, should the skeptics decide to 'zero in'
: on this, it'd be a matter of historical debate and interpretation; and if
: that's an area where the skeptics should tread, than I suspect we'd be seeing
: some dandy debates between Libertarians, Marxists, Socialists,
: Anarcho-Syndicalists and others on this echo-- on topics a tad removed from
: busting on _true_ silliness.
That would be fun :-):-).
Robert Sheaffer
>
> Still, I don't think we need a second-rater like Paglia to tell us
>how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
Whether she is a "second-rater" is, of course, a matter of opinion. One
can easily find the opposite opinion in some very credible places.
The New York Times Book Review called Sexual Personae "a first-
rate book". And Yale University Press tends *not* to publish books by
"second raters".
o
>
>
>Any time that ANYONE - Christian, feminist, or whatever - begins
>spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
>ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
>zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
>"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
>
> Well, count me OUT of this one, Bob; it amounts to an attack on
>religous beliefs that I just won't be a party to.
>
>Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano
So, the "Rev. P-K" is suddenly sensitive about attacking religious
beliefs!! That's rich! Let somebody on the Religious Right make so much
as a small faux pas, and "Rev P-K" is all over them. But let the Loony
Leftists proclaim nonsense on stilts from a thousand pulpits, and Brian
is suddenly afraid of 'offending religious beliefs'! Watssa madda, Brian:
afraid of being branded a Bourgeois Right Deviationist?
A good skeptic will stand up for the truth, no matter *whose* ox is gored!
Robert Sheaffer
>In article <mFJyFB...@cellar.org>, re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano) writes:
>: Most latter-day Pagans have struck me as easy-going, tolerant, relatively
>: intelligent and open-minded (with exceptions, of course-- like Robert Anton
>: Wilson's fans); this myth about a benign Goddess-worshipping past may be
>: bullshit, but it strikes me as eminently harmless bullshit.
>
> I would agree with that, even if the more enthuasiastic
>advocates of such views are easy to puncture.
>
do everything right, and men do everything wrong", which is sexism of
the most **blatant** kind (in addition to being false): how can anyone
call this "harmless"? This is not so different from the viewpoint
espoused by National Socialism: Group A (Aryans, women) have certain
innate virtues making them natural and fit rulers; Group B (Jews, men)
have certain inborn, irremediable defects making them undesirable in
positions of leadership. Therefore, A must rule.
Youre smart enough to KNOW that it's false. Yet you call such crap HARMLESS????
The ideological blinders must be more powerful, indeed. I thought you
guys were SKEPTICS!
Robert Sheaffer
>: Science" by Steven Goldberg, chairman of the Sociology Dept at
>: the City College in New York [Natl Review, Nov. 18, 1991]. The
>: article is summarized: "'Feminist Science' began with a willful
>: misreading of Margaret Mead and went on from there. Besides
>: feminist anthropology, we now have feminist physics and feminist
>: astronomy."
>
> Baloney.
One hopes for a better refutation from a skeptic than just the word
"Baloney", especially when the statement to which he objects is indeed
true. Didn't Jim Lippard (or whoever) just post the references for
some of these works on "Feminist Science"?
Please cite the references proving this "Baloney".
>
>"advanced" and male-dominated ones (who's the gender they deal with?)
>and biases of the ethnographers, who may sometimes consider only the
>male members worth studying. I think she has a convincing rebuttal to
Yes. Any evidence demonstrating the falsehood of pro-Goddess claims
can be dismissed as the "bias of ethnographers". The pseudo-science
of Marxism employed a similar mechanism to dismiss the findings of
its opponents, something about "class consciousness".
ing...@bbn.com
Athena is a good example; she is a war goddess, though many of
her attributes would make her right at home among the Minoans, who had
relatively little taste for warfare (though they were certainly not
absolute pacifists).
The fact of the matter is, the Minoans were a pre-historic people,
i.e. left no written records of their culture (even if we decipher the
Linear-A tablets, they are just inventory records), so we don't know
what their attitude towards war was. Certainly the boxing fresco and
the fresco of the sea battle from Akrotiri showed that the Minoans
weren't the Golden Age pacifists that they had previously been made
out to be. A good deal of what we think we ``know'' about the Minoans
is based on Evans' speculations, and should be taken with a grain of
salt.
-30-
Bob
Bob Ingria
In article <1992Feb09.0426...@netcom.COM>, shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
Many of
: the rites associated with the Goddess were extremely bloody and
: brutal. Male devotees of the Roman Goddess Cybele were expected
: to castrate themselves in a frenzied ceremony, then rush about
: holding high their bloody severed parts.
The case of Cybele seems interesting -- why would men
willingly castrate themselves and dress like women?
To be more like the goddess, obviously. Transvestism, at the very
least, by male worshippers of a goddess is attested at least back to
Minoan times, to my knowledge; see the transvestite priests on the
Hagia Triadha sarcophagus.
The other aspect to all this is that in many of the religions of
Greece and Rome, there is what I like to call an ``enthusiasmic''
aspect (en-thusia meaning literally ``to breathe in'', the god(dess)
breathing him/herself into the priest or other celebrant). The goal
of the ceremony was to become one with the god or goddes, and one way
to facilitate this process was to become physically more like the
object of worship.
Also, in at least some of these rites, the participants were worked up
into a religious frenzy, so that the male celebrants castrated
themselves when they were in an altered state of consciousness (or,
not in their right mind, to look at it a different way). For a
description of such a case, see Catullus' poem 63, about Attis, who
castrated himself one night during the frenzy of a ritual, and
regretted it the next morning, when it had all worn off. A quite
chilling poem. Catullus ends it with a prayer to the goddess to keep
her frenzy away from him.
Incidentally, in her book Paglia points out that one of the theories
as to what the numerous breasts on Ephesian Artemis represent, are
votive offerings from her female devotees. In which case, the Great
Goddess may have been an equal opportunity employer. Brrr!
-30-
Bob
Bob Ingria
: how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
Some of them, certainly. But ALL of them?
I can't think of any exceptions, within the Greco/Roman pantheon.
Every goddess unthinkingly and unflinchingly did things that we would
consider excessively cruel. (As did the (male) gods, of course.) The
notion that divinity must inherently be connected with a sense of
justice was not present in the mythologies of these deities; they were
gods, dammit, and could do whatever their powers (perhaps constrained
by fate; see the meditation by Zeus on the fate of Sarpedon in the
Iliad) allowed them to do. In Kazantzakis' play ``Lot'', one of the
final lines by Lot, who had previously believed that his god was a
just and merciful god, is ``He is all powerful, and nothing more.''
And this is certainly true of the Greek gods, all powerful and nothing
more.
-30-
Bob
Bertil Jonell
>Ms. Davis'
>chapters on `The Pre-Hellenes' and `The Women of Greece and Italy'
>cull together indiscrimanately a vast amount of material (regardless
>of its reliability) to `prove' that the pre-Hellenes had
>`female-dominated' cultures where `men were but the servers of women,'
>that in Rome's `gynarchic social structure' the liberated women ruled
>the roost, and that classical Greece was realy a haven of `female
>emancipation.' ''
It is an interesting center of gravity (to quote Clausewitz:) where the
reasoning change from "(1a) It is wrong for men to opress women, (1b) because
they are equal" to "(2a) It is wrong for men to opress women, (2b) because
women are superior."
This moving of the center of gravity from 1 to 2 is hard to detect, because
most often only 1a and 2a is spoken up front. It is hard to prove the existance
of it since some proponents of 1 think that everybody that says 1a or 2a
supports 1b. It is hard to discuss since proponents of 2 attacks everybody
questioning 2b as being against 2a. And even if the discussion gets going it
is hard to get anywhere since the proponents of 2 thinks that all support for
1a or 2a is support for 2b.
>Bob
>``American feminism is awash with soupy Campbellism: schlockmeisters
> like Marija Gimbutas, the Pollyanna of poppy-cock, with her Mommy
> goddess tales conveniently exalting her Lithuanian ancestors into
> world-class saintly pacifists.'' --- Camille Paglia in _Arion_
Are we talking about the same Lithuanians that once held an area from the
Baltic to the Black sea? :)
-bertil-, supporter of 1a and b
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
exercise for your kill-file."
Gerry Roston
Loren,
You sounded almost respectable until this article.
First, there is no such thing as evil. Period. Some people act in a
manner that is called evil, but there is no evil force, devil, etc.
Second,
In article <117...@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> lo...@lintilla.Inria.Fr (Loren Petrich) writes:
There is a work called _Becoming Visible_ (Renate Bridenthal
and Claudia Koonz) which contains an article by anthropologist Eleanor
Leacock which suggests that women had had social parity with men in
early gather-hunterer societies, and suggests that ethnographies that
suggest male dominance are a byproduct of several causes, notably the
degradation of women's status in societies in contact with more
"advanced" and male-dominated ones (who's the gender they deal with?)
and biases of the ethnographers, who may sometimes consider only the
male members worth studying. I think she has a convincing rebuttal to
Goldberg her.
This is a totally meaningless quote. Ask you self this: where did the
"more advanced" groups come from? Hmm... They were once hunter-
gatherers like everyone else, so the male domination had to spring up
without outside interference.
Not being a anthropologist, even I understand male dominance. Early
on, physical strength was everything. Males are stronger, therefore
they dominated. There is no evil, or motive, associated with this, it
is simply a fact. The continued male dominance in today's society is,
however, another story, one that will hopefully change.
--
Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | Liberty is to faction what air is to fire,
Field Robotics Center, | an aliment without which it instantly ex-
Carnegie Mellon University | pires. But it could not be a less folly to
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | abolish liberty, which is essential to pol-
(412) 268-3856 | itical life, because it nourishes faction
| than it would be to wish the annihilation
The opinions expressed are mine | of air, which is essential to animal life,
and do not reflect the official | because it imparts to fire its destructive
position of CMU, FRC, RedZone, | agency. James Madison
or any other organization. |
Daniel A Ashlock
writes:
> Not being a anthropologist, even I understand male dominance. Early
> on, physical strength was everything. Males are stronger, therefore
> they dominated. There is no evil, or motive, associated with this, it
> is simply a fact. The continued male dominance in today's society is,
> however, another story, one that will hopefully change.
But, in fact, this is not the case. A womans superior endurance would
make her better able (in hunter gatherer culture) to do the gathering; I
suspect the reduction is status of women is tied to the invention of
agriculture. The hunting -the male food activity- got no harder (got
easier, in fact) but the gathering -female food- got much harder (though
also much more productive).
Okay, now the women are too busy to do a good job of running the clan
like they used to and the men got more free time than ever. In the abscence
off television, the men would start running the clan. In addition, posession
of land becomes more important (I PLANTED THESE CROPS-YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY)
and thus the need for warriors gets enhanced. Pretty soon women are, in
effect, slaves to agriculture and the men are running things.
If your running things and someone else is doing all the work, you feel
a need to justify yourself, hence the "men are better" myth. The rest is
history...
...no golden age, no goddess, no moral superiority based on chromosome count,
just economics...
Loren I. Petrich
:Here we have a form of widespread nonsense essentially proclaiming "women
:do everything right, and men do everything wrong", which is sexism of
:the most **blatant** kind (in addition to being false): how can anyone
:call this "harmless"? This is not so different from the viewpoint
:espoused by National Socialism: Group A (Aryans, women) have certain
:innate virtues making them natural and fit rulers; Group B (Jews, men)
:have certain inborn, irremediable defects making them undesirable in
:positions of leadership. Therefore, A must rule.
This is a misstatement of the position of many of the
advocates of the hypothesis of early matristic societies. Read Riane
Eisler's _The Chalice and the Blade_, Elinor Gadon's _The Once and
Future Goddess_, or Marija Gimbutas's works. There is no clear sign
that any of these three is anti-male, for instance. Indeed, Eisler
suggests that the problem is not men, per se, but the idea that one
gender has to control the other, and that she blames for many
difficulties. Thus, women controlling men would be just as bad as men
controlling women.
For one feminist neo-pagan view that is critical of Elizabeth
Gould Davis's theories, check out Margot Adler's chapter on
Goddess-worship in _Drawing Down the Moon_. Although an admirer of
early pagan goddesses, she is sympathetic to the view that an early
"matriarchy" might not necessarily be absolutely peachy. Indeed,
throughout her entire book, she exhibits remarkable critical sense.
It is true that EGD and like-minded feminists might be accused
of reverse sexism, but even so, it is interesting that they turn
traditional stereotypes around from deficiencies to virtues. And the
views he ascribes to feminists are the exact reversal of traditional
misogynist views, a fact he hardly even mentions. Simply consider the
Nazi position that women are fit only for _Kinder, Ku"che, Kirche_:
children, kitchen, and church.
I am very disturbed by Robert Sheaffer's almost hysterical
responses to feminism. This is the only serious flaw that I could find
in his book _The Making of the Messiah_. For example, he practically
gloats over Elaine Pagels's pique at the statement at the end of the
Gospel of Thomas that women should make themselves male so that they
can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. However, he practically ignores the
misogyny itself. And I wish that he could have picked a better critic
of Christianity than Friedrich Nietzsche, for his other views make me
almost blush with embarrassment. For instance, FN glorified the
rigidly-disciplined, ultra-macho "superman" or "overman". That may not
in itself seem so terrible, but he goes on to relish the prospect of
the "annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched" -- all those
non-supermen. Although he was turned off by the New Testament, he
admired the Old Testament, which featured lots of massacres of
(presumably) "bungled and botched" people. FN was also a very violent
misogynist, advocating that women be treated as property:
Man is to be trained for war and woman for the procreation of
the warrior. All else is folly.
And:
You go to woman? Do not forget your whip.
I don't see how any decent person can read such comments without
wincing. I can imagine some less-than-sympathetic critic of _The
Making of the Messiah_ writing off the book just because of RS's
selection of FN as an authority on the nature of Christianity.
And Robert Sheaffer's views on the Minoans -- I'm afraid that
he has never seriously studied the context of the Minoan double-ax,
for example. It is depressing to see an otherwise great mind stoop to
such depths of invective as he has.
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <mFJyFB...@cellar.org> re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
> >
> > Still, I don't think we need a second-rater like Paglia to tell us
> >how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
>
> Whether she is a "second-rater" is, of course, a matter of opinion. One
> can easily find the opposite opinion in some very credible places.
> The New York Times Book Review called Sexual Personae "a first-
> rate book". And Yale University Press tends *not* to publish books by
> "second raters".
> o
> >
> >
I see; we judge the worth of someone's writings by what publishing
house publishes them. Makes sense to _me_.
> >spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should start
> >ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to start
> >zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
> >"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
> >
> > Well, count me OUT of this one, Bob; it amounts to an attack on
> >religous beliefs that I just won't be a party to.
> >
> >Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano
>
> So, the "Rev. P-K" is suddenly sensitive about attacking religious
> beliefs!! That's rich! Let somebody on the Religious Right make so much
> as a small faux pas, and "Rev P-K" is all over them. But let the Loony
> Leftists proclaim nonsense on stilts from a thousand pulpits, and Brian
> is suddenly afraid of 'offending religious beliefs'! Watssa madda, Brian:
> afraid of being branded a Bourgeois Right Deviationist?
>
So, where did I say '_offending_' religious beliefs, or even that I
object to attacking religious beliefs in general?
Please reread for context, Bob: I stated that, if skeptics were going
to 'zero in' on this particular belief, it was an attack I wouldn't be part
of. I then explained why I didn't feel these beliefs deserved to be attacked
in the spirit your original note suggested. Criticized, yeah, sure I do that
all the time with people who _do_ subscribe to these beliefs; but _attacking_
them requires that I loathe these people and these beliefs to a pretty high
degree.
As I illustrated in my original note, it strikes me as a relatively
benign belief, no worse than, say, a Catholic accepting transsubstantiation
or Jews keeping kosher. Unlike Fundamentalist Christians-- who not only
demand that others share their beliefs, but have attempted to have states
legislate it, and whose political actions have contributed immensely to the
suffering of the world at large (cf _Spiritual Warfare_ by Sara Diamond,
South End Press), and who deserve to be attacked not only by skeptics, but by
crazed, rabid, acid-crazed wildebeests-- I've met relatively few neo-Pagans
who demand that I share their beliefs.
The attack that you described, Bob, struck me as no better than the
intolerance Fundamentalists wish to visit upon all of us. I hope my comments
put this into a better perspective.
> A good skeptic will stand up for the truth, no matter *whose* ox is gored!
> --
And that's what I did, more or less; one should bear in mind that,
although we're both skeptics, we can be skeptical about _different_ things.
As I said, I wasn't favorably impressed by Camille Paglia; her ideas have
struck me as incoherent, and this incoherence seems to stem not from
intellectual failings so much as a need to present herself as the century's
only original thinker. She winds up characterizing straights and gays in
terms that she apparently thinks are 'intellectually challenging,' but strike
me as either deliberately contrary or simply out-of-touch. (In an interview,
Paglia once said that if she were younger, she'd be involved in Act-UP; I
know a lot of people in the local Act-UP, and it's hard to gauge their
contempt for her.) Not being an ethnographer, I can't compltely dismiss the
classical scholarship, but her points about modern life are silly; if that's
a gauge or her reliability, perhaps a reading of Michel Foucault's _History
of Sexuality_ might be a welcome balance.
Loren Petrich
I know that this looks rather flamey, but...
In article <1992Feb11.1531...@netcom.COM> shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
:Here we have a form of widespread nonsense essentially proclaiming "women
:do everything right, and men do everything wrong", which is sexism of
:the most **blatant** kind (in addition to being false): how can anyone
:call this "harmless"? This is not so different from the viewpoint
:espoused by National Socialism: Group A (Aryans, women) have certain
:innate virtues making them natural and fit rulers; Group B (Jews, men)
:have certain inborn, irremediable defects making them undesirable in
:positions of leadership. Therefore, A must rule.
This is a misstatement of the position of many of the
And:
Loren Petrich
I guess Sir Arthur Evans has become every Minoanist's favorite
whipping boy now :-). Some of the Minoans' taste for rough sports had
been known for some time, well before the discovery of that fresco of
the two boxing boys. Interestingly, Nanno Marinatos points out that
this fresco is associated with some frescoes of antelopes butting
their heads, and makes an analogy with the sort of "combat" it is to
represent -- a simple test of strength.
As for another sport of theirs, their ritual bull games, there
is no depiction of any weapon being used on the bull, in distinction
with present-day bullfights, where the toreador killing the bull is an
important part of the show. But the ultimate fate of the bull we
cannot be certain, however. Though the Minoans practiced animal
sacrifice, depictions of that act are rare. Maybe animal slaughter is
something they did not like to show, though there are a couple
examples of that.
The only serious militarism I think I've ever seen in Minoan
art is that Thera Ship Procession Fresco, and even there, we see a
ship captain with a Mycenaean boar's tusk helmet dangling above his
cabin. Perhaps the Mycenaeans were starting to move in even then.
There are some depictions of battles, but nothing that looks like a
clear depiction of a military triumph. Compare Egypt at the same time,
where we see depictions of Pharaohs just about to bean captives with
their maces.
I will concede that some Minoan customs would certainly seem
rather gross to many present-day people. For instance, they practiced
the custom of blood offerings, as on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus and
one of the Thera frescoes. This may be compared to blood offerings to
the likes of Artemis and Cybele.
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <117...@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> lo...@sunlight.llnl.gov writes:
> >In article <mFJyFB...@cellar.org>, re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Sian
> >: Most latter-day Pagans have struck me as easy-going, tolerant, relatively
> >: intelligent and open-minded (with exceptions, of course-- like Robert Anto
> >: Wilson's fans); this myth about a benign Goddess-worshipping past may be
> >: bullshit, but it strikes me as eminently harmless bullshit.
> >
> > I would agree with that, even if the more enthuasiastic
> >advocates of such views are easy to puncture.
> >
> Here we have a form of widespread nonsense essentially proclaiming "women
> do everything right, and men do everything wrong", which is sexism of
> the most **blatant** kind (in addition to being false): how can anyone
> call this "harmless"? This is not so different from the viewpoint
> espoused by National Socialism: Group A (Aryans, women) have certain
> innate virtues making them natural and fit rulers; Group B (Jews, men)
> have certain inborn, irremediable defects making them undesirable in
> positions of leadership. Therefore, A must rule.
>
> Youre smart enough to KNOW that it's false. Yet you call such crap HARMLESS??
>
> The ideological blinders must be more powerful, indeed. I thought you
> guys were SKEPTICS!
>
> --
>
Bob, that's so crazy it's not EVEN wrong. I haven't encountered
_ANYone_, among the neo-Pagans I've encountered, who've claimed anything
along the lines of "women do everything right, men do everything wrong."
(Andrea Dworkin, perhaps, but I think of her about as highly as I do of
Camille Paglia.) I have met one or two lesbian separatists who've voiced such
sentiments, but I'll be honest; they were exceptions, not the rule.
I get the distinct feeling, based on the sources you've cited-- the
National Review, for example, hardly a reliable source in these matters--
that you really haven't looked at much feminist, lesbian, neo-Pagan or what
can be termed 'neo-tribal' stuff beyond a) obvious Newage twaddle (and
there's just far too much of that), and b) what opponents say _about_ it. And
I wouldn't rely on _Newsweek_ or _Time_ for examinations of the stuff,
either. I hate to say it, but I really get the feeling you're talking about
these topics with background from Rush Limbaugh's radio nonsense.
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
>
> Yes. Any evidence demonstrating the falsehood of pro-Goddess claims
> can be dismissed as the "bias of ethnographers". The pseudo-science
> of Marxism employed a similar mechanism to dismiss the findings of
> its opponents, something about "class consciousness".
> --
>
> Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - shea...@netcom.com
that isn't sufficiently condemning of those wayward souls can be dismissed as
being 'politically correct' or 'following the party line' or any number of
epithets-- several of which you've used already.
Please remember that in examining history, people frequently examine
perhaps a single aspect or two-- the role of Eunuchs in the houses of
royalty, for example, or the function of the Skoptsy in Russian society.
Because these examinations are available, we, as interested readers, can draw
upon these various examinations to perhaps draw a more comprehensive view of
history that we can ap[ply to our own lives. (For example, one could write an
economic history drawing only on examples of where laissez-fair capitalism
worked out well, or one could do the same for collectivist economies. One
doesn't gain insight through one insight or the overview of one other
scholar.)
Similarly, much of the scholarship I've seen on ancient forms of
Goddess worship has been valuable in several respects. It illustrates how
religion is shaped through the images it uses, and it shows how different
cultures applied imagery to address issues and values they felt were
important. By showing us how different life was in other societies, we gain a
sense of how our own lives could be different, and we could draw upon this to
mke our own lives more enjoyable. (For example, consider how our attitudes
toward sexuality might be if Christianity never gained ascendance; you'll
find that studies of Greek and Roman civilization provide a strong sense of
the mindsets of those who had lived without Christianity.)
And since there's a lot in our current society that really hasn't
worked out very well-- if a spiritual outlook has been corrupted by the
religious institutions that have grown over the centuries, and turned into a
propaganda machine-- it's nice to be reminded of the alternatives, and to
gain an understanding of how these alternatives can offer something. That's
why I'm not bothered by people turning towards a form of Goddess worship; at
least they're not turning into zombies for Jesus.
But to dismiss scholarship in these areas-- or, as your posts
indicate, to demand that the scholars make it clear that what they're
researching is irrational nonsense-- is, let's face it, not something I'd
like to see the skeptics allied with.
Think of it this way; imagine looking at a debate on the Net in some
future where Fundamentalism has won out. We might see a post about "how some
friends of mine are into this political system called Democracy; how, once in
the past, there were societis that allowed people to vote for their leaders,
and freedom of speech was allowed." And there'd be someone who'd reply,
"Irreligious nonsense! Blasphemy! People are wretched scum, suffused with
original sin! Such a system could not work, and it'd be evil as well! Put
such impure and Satanically-inspired thoughts out of your head!"
Michael Tobis
>rdip...@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>
>>co...@aix.rpi.edu (rocker) writes:
>>>shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>>>Could anyone enlighten me as to what "feminist physics" or
>>>"feminist astronomy" might be? Is it supposed to be a scientific
>>>movement? A political one? Can non-feminists do feminist science?
>>>Can feminists do non-feminist science?
>
>>Feminists can (and do) do real science. Feminist science is the
>>feminist version of afrocentric science - rewriting science to conform
>>to feminist theory. The first clue should be that many of their
>>prominent advocates denounce logic as a tool of the patriarchy.
I agree. Some very excellent scientists decsribe themselves as feminists,
of this I have no doubt. Also, it is a serious mistake to minimize or
deny the disincentives to girls and younger women to seriously study
math and science, nor to deny the presence of blatantly sexist older men
in the institutions governing science and engineering who tend to ignore
or deny the capacities of women scientists.
That said, and as much as I hate to support the National Review, no bastion
of objectivity itself, a criticism of "feminist science" is quite distinct
from a criticism of scientists who are feminists. "Feminist science" is a
demand of the radical feminist branch of academic "theory" (I use the word
loosely) who think the accomplishments of western civilization are so trivial
compared to the flaws of it that western civilization should only be
considered as the principal origin of evil in the world (unfortunately, the
right wing is NOT exagerrating the position, although they may be exaggerating
the extent of its influence, I'm not sure) Now they propose to attack science,
and seeing that "patriarchal" science uses objectivity as its first line of
defense, many radical feminist academics choose to attack the concept of
objectivity itself.
They claim that since perfect objectivity is impossible (reasonable enough
premise) that we should forget about it, and try to find politically
"progressive" positions for ALL sciences, including physics, chemistry,
and astronomy.
>More "they" and "them". Does anyone perhaps have specific
>citations?
A specific denunciation of symbolic logic is
_Words of Power: A Feminist Reading in the History of Logic_, Andrea Nye,
Routledge Press, 1990.
A more general condemnation of "patriarchal" science is
_Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?_, Sandra Harding, Cornell U. Press, 1991.
There is a specific call for "feminist physics" on p. 56, and an extension of
the argument to astronomy and chemistry on p. 81.
Each of these books have extensive bibliographies, if you are looking for
more of the same. The sociology journals are full of this stuff.
It's this material that prompted me to start the related thread, "sociology
vs. science" in this group. I first got worried about this subject when
a good, decent, intelligent, pleasant, well-read woman who considers herself
a "deconstructionist" rolled her eyes when I attempted to explain the
second law of thermodynamics, and called it "a myth, as good as any other
myth", saying "oh, you scientists are so attached to your dogma...". (She
is not a specialist in sociology or philosophy of science, she was just
agreeing with the post-modern synthesis. These ideas are becoming fairly
widespread.)
mt
Robert Sheaffer
>
> I am very disturbed by Robert Sheaffer's almost hysterical
>responses to feminism. This is the only serious flaw that I could find
>in his book _The Making of the Messiah_. For example, he practically
>gloats over Elaine Pagels's pique at the statement at the end of the
>Gospel of Thomas that women should make themselves male so that they
>can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. However, he practically ignores the
>misogyny itself.
You missed the point. Pagels, a feminist, was NOT pique'd *at all* at
the cited example of Gnostic misogny ("for women are not worthy of
life"), as she has every right to be. Rather, Pagels is bending the
facts to make them conform to a political agenda. She is arguing,
'orthodox Christianity is terribly misogynist, but look how much
better the Gnostics were; you contemporary Christians should learn
from them.' My point was to illustrate that the Gnostics, while
perhaps in *some* ways less misogynist, were STILL pretty bad, and
that by whitewashing them, Pagels is playing loose with the facts
for political reasons (exactly what the Goddess
Gabblers are doing). Look again at Pagels' own words: the Gnostic
passage SAYS that women must make themselves male, because women
are not worthy of entering eternal life. But Pagels argues that
the passage does not mean what is SAYS, but is rather to be understood
"symbolically", as a metaphor of the human and the divine! If we
go along with that, then everything David Dukkke says can be
understood "symbolically" as an expression of his love for blacks!
> And I wish that he could have picked a better critic
>of Christianity than Friedrich Nietzsche, for his other views make me
>almost blush with embarrassment. For instance, FN glorified the
>rigidly-disciplined, ultra-macho "superman" or "overman". That may not
>in itself seem so terrible, but he goes on to relish the prospect of
>the "annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched" -- all those
>non-supermen. Although he was turned off by the New Testament, he
>admired the Old Testament, which featured lots of massacres of
>(presumably) "bungled and botched" people. FN was also a very violent
>misogynist, advocating that women be treated as property:
You're presenting here the cartoon image of Nietzsche as 'the evil
Nazi', which is of course what the Nazis themselves claimed, but
it is quite at odds with modern scholarship. The real Nietzsche was
a much more complex figure than the one of the cartoons. For every Nietzschean
quote glorifying war, you can find another expressing horror at the
brutality, regimentation, and destruction that war brings. For
every quote that might be taken to portray women as "property",
you can find several extolling romantic love. And don't forget
that several of the most "liberated" women in Europe, including
Louise von Salome, Meta von Salis (one of the first women in Europe
to earn a PhD), etc. were close personal friends of Nietzsche's,
and they had only good things to say about his behavior toward them.
Plus, you also don't seem to realize that the one group that is
the most consistently criticised in ALL phases of Nietzschean
thought is the anti-Semites. Nietzsche lived at the time of
the Second Reich, which he abhorred for its mindlessness and
regimentation; had he lived to see the Third Reich, he would
have been even more revolted by it. All in all, I think that
Nietzsche is an entirely appropriate figure for we skeptics and
humanists to relate to, but (as always) NOT uncritically. For
a more balanced picture of the complex Nietzsche known to modern
scholars, see Kaufmann's "Nietzsche" (Princeton Univ. Press), and
the various notes accompanying his translations of Nietzsche's works.
> And Robert Sheaffer's views on the Minoans -- I'm afraid that
>he has never seriously studied the context of the Minoan double-ax,
>for example. It is depressing to see an otherwise great mind stoop to
>such depths of invective as he has.
>
I confess to not having "seriously studied the context of the Minoan
double-ax". That was not within the scope of "The Making of the
Messiah." What I sought to do was simply to refute the claims of
"a Goddess paradise, all sweetness and light", and move on to other
matters. The case I was trying to make in that chapter was the
more humane posture of polytheism vs. monotheism, that some of
the virtues attributed to "the Goddess" are primarily the advantages
of polytheism over a jealous monotheism (which was discussed earlier
in this forum.)
I'm curious: since you seem to like the rest of "The Making of the
Messiah", do you agree that Jesus was 'born of fornication', and
that he was never crucified, but 'hanged on a tree'???
Robert Sheaffer
> I see; we judge the worth of someone's writings by what publishing
>house publishes them. Makes sense to _me_.
In case you weren't aware, the academic publishing houses *do* select
books to publish based on their judgement of the work's merit. Of
course, it's not an infallible guarantee, and different publishers
(as well as different scholars) may disagree greatly as to the
worthiness of any particular work. If you doubt this, try to
get a book on astrology or Elvis sightings published by a house
like that! Sure, it would sell, but they *still* wouldn't publish it.
>>
> So, where did I say '_offending_' religious beliefs, or even that I
>object to attacking religious beliefs in general?
OK, so I assume that whenever outrageously false Goddess claims (as they
pertain to facts, not just pure belief) are posted, you'll vigorously
react? And when people are put down on the basis of their sex, you'll
object, even if the victims ARE only just men?
>> --
>As I said, I wasn't favorably impressed by Camille Paglia; her ideas have
>struck me as incoherent, and this incoherence seems to stem not from
>intellectual failings so much as a need to present herself as the century's
>only original thinker. She winds up characterizing straights and gays in
>terms that she apparently thinks are 'intellectually challenging,' but strike
>me as either deliberately contrary or simply out-of-touch. (In an interview,
We may be reacting to different works of the same author. I think that
"Sexual Personae" is a brilliant work (and yes, so does its author!).
She strikes me in that work as quite tolerant toward homosexuality,
and she has come under attack from some Christians for
her 'approval' of Mapplethorpe's photos. No doubt those holding
intensely rigid views will find something Incorrect in her attitudes
on these matters. But I can see how one might easily disagree with much
of what she says. (Hell, it's mostly about Art History, you can't
"prove" ANYTHING right or wrong!)
ing...@bbn.com
In article <117...@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> lo...@lintilla.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes:
In article <920211162...@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ing...@BBN.COM writes:
> In article <117...@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> lo...@lintilla.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes:
: Athena is a good example; she is a war goddess, though many of
: her attributes would make her right at home among the Minoans, who had
: relatively little taste for warfare (though they were certainly not
: absolute pacifists).
: The fact of the matter is, the Minoans were a pre-historic people,
: i.e. left no written records of their culture (even if we decipher the
: Linear-A tablets, they are just inventory records), so we don't know
: what their attitude towards war was. Certainly the boxing fresco and
: the fresco of the sea battle from Akrotiri showed that the Minoans
: weren't the Golden Age pacifists that they had previously been made
: out to be. A good deal of what we think we ``know'' about the Minoans
: is based on Evans' speculations, and should be taken with a grain of
: salt.
I guess Sir Arthur Evans has become every Minoanist's favorite
whipping boy now :-).
I respect Sir Arthur very much. But it's no secret that he idolized
his Minoans. (There was a lot of that going around at the time;
Minoanists and Mycenaeanists brandished their reconstructions at each
other like clubs: ``My guys were better!'' ``No, mine were!'' (in
more scholarly terms, of course.))
Some of the Minoans' taste for rough sports had
been known for some time, well before the discovery of that fresco of
the two boxing boys.
...
As for another sport of theirs, their ritual bull games, there
is no depiction of any weapon being used on the bull,
...
The only serious militarism I think I've ever seen in Minoan
art is that Thera Ship Procession Fresco, and even there, we see a
ship captain with a Mycenaean boar's tusk helmet dangling above his
cabin.
...
I will concede that some Minoan customs would certainly seem
rather gross to many present-day people. For instance, they practiced
the custom of blood offerings,
....
All this is well and good, but it doesn't address my main point. You
said:
the Minoans ... had relatively little taste for warfare
And I replied:
the Minoans were a pre-historic people, ... so we don't know
what their attitude towards war was
As far as I can tell, what I said is the simple truth. We don't have
any statement by the Minoans about their attitude towards war so we do
not know what that attitude was. There is comparatively little in
Minoan remains depicting war compared to a culture like the Egyptians'
(but there are weapons and armor, including the boars tusk helmet,
which is Minoan as well as Mycenaean). On the other hand, Minoan
remains constitute only a fraction of what's left of Egyptian culture,
so we don't know how representative the remains are.
Speculating on the pacifism of the Minoans is one thing. Assuming
it, particularly to make a point in a different discussion, is quite
another. We don't know what the Minoans' attitude towards war was and
we shouldn't pretend that we do.
-30-
Bob
J. E. Shum
In article <1992Feb12....@meteor.wisc.edu>, to...@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
> It's this material that prompted me to start the related thread, "sociology
> vs. science" in this group. I first got worried about this subject when
> a good, decent, intelligent, pleasant, well-read woman who considers herself
> a "deconstructionist" rolled her eyes when I attempted to explain the
> second law of thermodynamics, and called it "a myth, as good as any other
> myth", saying "oh, you scientists are so attached to your dogma...". (She
> is not a specialist in sociology or philosophy of science, she was just
> agreeing with the post-modern synthesis. These ideas are becoming fairly
> widespread.)
>
Yikes! I supposed that it is a myth that the Earth and other planets
revolve around the Sun rather than the Sun and planets revolving
around the Earth.
Next thing you know we'll be told that having PMS is justification for
manslaughter... Oops! Sorry. Thats already happened.
--
<j...@mitre.org>
Seth Dobbs
>Not being a anthropologist, even I understand male dominance. Early
>on, physical strength was everything. Males are stronger, therefore
>they dominated. There is no evil, or motive, associated with this, it
>is simply a fact. The continued male dominance in today's society is,
>however, another story, one that will hopefully change.
I'm not an anthropologist either. However, there are other theories.
According to Joseph Campbell (in _Primitive Mythologies_) there were some
matriarchies long ago. He said that the men were somewhat fearful and in awe
of women, because she could create life and was affected by the cycles of the
moon. Eventually, men started making male-only secret societies in an attempt
to appear that men had secret mysteries, too. I don't remember all the details,
but through various activities of the secret societies, the men tried to, and
eventually achieved dominance over women.
Mircea Eliade also makes a brief reference to the actions of these secret
societies in _Shamanism_.
>--
>Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | Liberty is to faction what air is to fire,
--
Seth T. Dobbs | Internet: se...@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com
GSS/AMT Motorola Inc. | Standard Disclaimer
"A watched pot never boils....Unless you're superman"
"Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open." -Thomas Dewar
Gerry Roston
--
Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | Why has government been instituted at all?
Field Robotics Center, | Because the passions of man will not con-
Carnegie Mellon University | form to the dictates of reason and justice
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | without constraint. Alexander Hamilton
(412) 268-3856 |
|
The opinions expressed are mine |
and do not reflect the official |
position of CMU, FRC, RedZone, |
or any other organization. |
Gerry Roston
up on this Freudian penis envy shit, that I threw the book down in
disgust. It may be popular, but that doesn't make it right.
--
Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | Why has government been instituted at all?
Field Robotics Center, | Because the passions of man will not con-
Carnegie Mellon University | form to the dictates of reason and justice
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | without constraint. Alexander Hamilton
(412) 268-3856 |
|
The opinions expressed are mine |
and do not reflect the official |
position of CMU, FRC, RedZone, |
or any other organization. |
Loren Petrich
Lines: 58
Organization: Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics
In article <920211162...@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ing...@BBN.COM
writes:
>
> In article <117...@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> lo...@lintilla.llnl.gov (
Loren Petrich) writes:
: Athena is a good example; she is a war goddess, though many of
: her attributes would make her right at home among the Minoans,
who had
: relatively little taste for warfare (though they were certainly
not
: absolute pacifists).
: The fact of the matter is, the Minoans were a pre-historic people,
: i.e. left no written records of their culture (even if we decipher
the
: Linear-A tablets, they are just inventory records), so we don't know
: what their attitude towards war was. Certainly the boxing fresco
and: the fresco of the sea battle from Akrotiri showed that the
Minoans: weren't the Golden Age pacifists that they had previously
been made
: out to be. A good deal of what we think we ``know'' about the
Minoans
: is based on Evans' speculations, and should be taken with a grain of
: salt.
I guess Sir Arthur Evans has become every Minoanist's favorite
whipping boy now :-). Some of the Minoans' taste for rough sports had
been known for some time, well before the discovery of that fresco of
the two boxing boys. Interestingly, Nanno Marinatos points out that
this fresco is associated with some frescoes of antelopes butting
their heads, and makes an analogy with the sort of "combat" it is to
represent -- a simple test of strength.
As for another sport of theirs, their ritual bull games, there
is no depiction of any weapon being used on the bull, in distinction
with present-day bullfights, where the toreador killing the bull is an
important part of the show. But the ultimate fate of the bull we
cannot be certain, however. Though the Minoans practiced animal
sacrifice, depictions of that act are rare. Maybe animal slaughter is
something they did not like to show, though there are a couple
examples of that.
The only serious militarism I think I've ever seen in Minoan
art is that Thera Ship Procession Fresco, and even there, we see a
ship captain with a Mycenaean boar's tusk helmet dangling above his
cabin. Perhaps the Mycenaeans were starting to move in even then.
There are some depictions of battles, but nothing that looks like a
clear depiction of a military triumph. Compare Egypt at the same time,
where we see depictions of Pharaohs just about to bean captives with
their maces.
I will concede that some Minoan customs would certainly seem
rather gross to many present-day people. For instance, they practiced
the custom of blood offerings, as on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus and
one of the Thera frescoes. This may be compared to blood offerings to
the likes of Artj+Aw+OO+/#^B+~=B+|+132e/BX^D)<^F?|+^\' +S_-FSC-Control:
|@E^ZVu+U,^U+Y^C4.=/wnLaW>%4BNOa+[+-/^Z;K+#oe>Va{PQ!mp]|p\oo}[lCiz^E:
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OcnS yYeW^B+u@t^W<^[N+<-=++?U_WW)=|?^XYcba_M^Q+zi^S>N++T^[+fJ)^_-^
VCf0C^QBq?+[e|^L+Uo1@!Zz~E3@T,aT^BV+ ,A^Ba`5oc^N=-/|a+0?++.~+S2e^5$(p=^
,[+uKO)yF*+E~c.+#Op^Q+!4^Xej-ji_+or9^X6n_O+^Zoa-+E$?<+/Yt++*]O(oPPz}^T.
:ah$ehD|tF^N+o1^Y+m^[&+Oe+W^T.D+$;;F|$'#7^XA<C+|"d+Pepi
--- D'Bridge 1.30/001501
* Origin: BonaFido (3:771/170) USEnet gateway, Wellington, NZ (3:771/170)
Loren Petrich
Keywords: goddess paradise
Lines: 79
Organization: Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics
I know that this looks rather flamey, but...
In article <1992Feb11.1531...@netcom.COM> sheaffer@netcom.
COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
:Here we have a form of widespread nonsense essentially proclaiming "
women
:do everything right, and men do everything wrong", which is sexism of
:the most **blatant** kind (in addition to being false): how can
anyone:call this "harmless"? This is not so different from the
viewpoint
:espoused by National Socialism: Group A (Aryans, women) have certain
:innate virtues making them natural and fit rulers; Group B (Jews, men)
:have certain inborn, irremediable defects making them undesirable in
:positions of leadership. Therefore, A must rule.
This is a misstatement of the position of many of the
advocates of the hypothesis of early matristic societies. Read Riane
Eisler's _The Chalice and the Blade_, Elinor Gadon's _The Once and
Future Goddess_, or Marija Gimbutas's works. There is no clear sign
that any of these three is anti-male, for instance. Indeed, Eisler
suggests that the problem is not men, per se, but the idea that one
gender has to control the other, and that she blames for many
difficulties. Thus, women controlling men would be just as bad as men
controlling women.
For one feminist neo-pagan view that is critical of Elizabeth
Gould Davis's theories, check out Margot Adler's chapter on
Goddess-worship in _Drawing Down the Moon_. Although an admirer of
early pagan goddesses, she is sympathetic to the view that an early
"matriarchy" might not necessarily be absolutely peachy. Indeed,
throughout her entire book, she exhibits remarkable critical sense.
It is true that EGD and like-minded feminists might be accused
of reverse sexism, but even so, it is interesting that they turn
traditional stereotypes around from deficiencies to virtues. And the
views he ascribes to feminists are the exact reversal of traditional
misogynist views, a fact he hardly even mentions. Simply consider the
Nazi position that women are fit only for _Kinder, Ku"che, Kirche_:
children, kitchen, and church.
I am very disturbed by Robert Sheaffer's almost hysterical
responses to feminism. This is the only serious flaw that I could find
in his book _The Making of the Messiah_. For example, he practically
gloats over Elaine Pagels's pique at the statement at the end of the
Gospel of Thomas that women should make themselves male so that they
can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. However, he practically ignores the
misogyny itself. And I wish that he could have picked a better critic
of Christianity than Friedrich Nietzsche, for his other views make me
almost blush with embarrassment. For instance, FN glorified the
rigidly-disciplined, ultra-macho "superman" or "overman". That may not
in itself seem so terrible, but he goes on to relish the prospect of
the "annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched" -- all those
non-supermen. Although he was turned off by the New Testament, he
admired the Old Testament, which featured lots of massacres of
(presumably) "bungled and botched" people. FN was also a very violent
misogynist, advocating that women be treated as property:
Man is to be trained for war and woman for the procreation of
the warrior. All else is folly.
And:
You go to woman? Do not forget your whip.
I don't see how any decent person can read such comments without
wincing. I can imagine some less-than-sympathetic critic of _The
Making of the Messiah_ writing off the book just because of RS's
selection of FN as an authority on the nature of Christianity.
And Robert Sheaffer's views on the Minoans -- I'm afraid that
he has never seriously studied the context of the Minoa^QE$^^AZo&s|h||+
ef^U:+7^S+aA[ojb;e^TKUao0_^[++&+oT,#P2*h^L&^V,AJP7Y~+a#AnB~-^T1=o^
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o}E
Brian rev P-k Siano
Keywords: goddess paradise
Lines: 81
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system
shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
> In article <mFJyFB...@cellar.org> re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-
K' Siano)
> >
> > Still, I don't think we need a second-rater like Paglia to
tell us
> >how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
>
> Whether she is a "second-rater" is, of course, a matter of opinion.
One
> can easily find the opposite opinion in some very credible places.
> The New York Times Book Review called Sexual Personae "a first-
> rate book". And Yale University Press tends *not* to publish books
by> "second raters".
> o
> >
> >
I see; we judge the worth of someone's writings by what
publishing
house publishes them. Makes sense to _me_.
> >spouting off about a "vanished golden age", alarm bells should
start> >ringing in your head. I think it's about time for skeptics to
start
> >zeroing in on this Goddess-Matriarchy garbage. It's held an
> >"exempt from critical scrutiny" card for too long.
> >
> > Well, count me OUT of this one, Bob; it amounts to an
attack on
> >religous beliefs that I just won't be a party to.
> >
> >Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano
>
> So, the "Rev. P-K" is suddenly sensitive about attacking religious
> beliefs!! That's rich! Let somebody on the Religious Right make so
much
> as a small faux pas, and "Rev P-K" is all over them. But let the
Loony
> Leftists proclaim nonsense on stilts from a thousand pulpits, and
Brian
> is suddenly afraid of 'offending religious beliefs'! Watssa madda,
Brian:
> afraid of being branded a Bourgeois Right Deviationist?
>
So, where did I say '_offending_' religious beliefs, or even
that I
object to attacking religious beliefs in general?
Please reread for context, Bob: I stated that, if skeptics
As I said, I wasn't favorably impressed by Camille Paglia; her ideas
have
struck me as incoherent, and this incoherence seems to stem not from
intellectual failings so much as a need to present herself as the
century's
only original thinker. She winds up characterizing straights and gays
in
terms that she apparently thinks are 'intellectually challenging,' but
strike
me as either deliberately contrary or simply out-of-touch. (In an
intervi^L^H
SwC*+6d
Stanley Friesen
|In article <mFJyFB...@cellar.org> re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano) writes:
|>
|> Still, I don't think we need a second-rater like Paglia to tell us
|>how bloody and horrifying ancient goddesses were.
|
|Whether she is a "second-rater" is, of course, a matter of opinion. One
|can easily find the opposite opinion in some very credible places.
|The New York Times Book Review called Sexual Personae "a first-
|rate book". And Yale University Press tends *not* to publish books by
|"second raters".
I guess it depends on just how you mean 'second-rater'.
All the NYT book review (and Yale Univ. Press publication) really mean
is that she has a professional *writing* style of some power. It does
*not* mean she is a qualified anthropologist, and from what I have heard,
she is *definately* a second rate anthropologist.
Ms. Gimbutas is a very different story.
She is a respected and well-qualified anthropologist/archaeologist,
and will continue to be so even if her theories should prove to be incomplete
or invalid.
--
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)
Larry Huntley
>
>
>Some of my New Age acquaintances here in Santa Cruz
>have adopted a view of ancient history that they take
>for historical fact, but which I believe to be
>myth. The essentially believe:
>
>In ancient, pre-biblical times, there was a beautiful,
>peaceful, paradisal civilization in Mesopatamia and
Have any of these folks been caught reading "Skinny
Legs and All" by Tom Robbins recently? He outlines
this view of history quite nicely in that book. Is
it true? Maybe. So what? If the current view of
pre-biblical history is not completely accurate (as
most of us suspect, I guess), what possible effect will
changing the view have on anyone's day-to-day life?
(Scholars of the era excluded.)
We will have a mighty orgy,
In the honor of Astarte
It will be one helluva party
And it's good enough for me.
--
Larry Huntley / Logic Automation Incorporated / Beaverton, Oregon
Republicans is fine if you're a multi-millionaire,
Democrats is fair if all you own is what you wear. - FZ
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <as9ZFB...@cellar.org> re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
> > So, where did I say '_offending_' religious beliefs, or even that I
> >object to attacking religious beliefs in general?
>
> OK, so I assume that whenever outrageously false Goddess claims (as they
> pertain to facts, not just pure belief) are posted, you'll vigorously
> react? And when people are put down on the basis of their sex, you'll
Well, as the debate on this newgroup went, someone posted a short and
breezy summary of a myth about a 'Mesopotamian culture' which was
matriarchal, Goddess-worshipping, and more ecologically 'aware.' Your
response to this description was first, and in my reply to your post, I
stated that I agreed that the description was pretty wifty. (I didn't really
need to react 'vigorously;' I was more taken aback by your response than I
was by seeing yet another example of this Golden Age idiocy.)
As for people being put down on the basis of their gender, that
wasn't in the original post, and as far as I've seen, it hasn't cropped up on
this newsgroup during this debate, either. If I see it, I'll certainly react,
and probably very vigorously; but the only person who's seen any male-bashing
here has been yourself.
I might as well drag back that Mesopotamian stuff again, and give my
two cents. The story, as posted, wasn't definite enough to even qualify as
pseudo-anthropology. It cited Mesopotamia as the location for this lost
civilization; well, that could include the Assyrians, the Sumerians, the
Babylonians, or whoever else we might want to zoom in on.
Similarly, I know of no ancient culture that was exclusively
'matriarchal' in nature, although there were civilizations and societies
where women had a greater role in the community's administration. (Which, I
should mention, points up the degree that our current society is dominated by
males. I can't say whether a matriarchal society would be fairer or more
successful, but a more balanced society would certainly be fairer towards
women than ours is now.)
And finally, this business about 'more ecologically aware' is just
wishful thinking; since 'ecologically aware' is such an ill-defined term, we
must ask whether it means a greater dependence upon nature (thus a less
technologically advanced society, more agrarian in nature), or does it mean a
greater understanding of natural processes (thus producing a more
technological society, less dependent upon the vicissitudes of nature).
> object, even if the victims ARE only just men?
>
> >> --
> >As I said, I wasn't favorably impressed by Camille Paglia; her ideas have
> >struck me as incoherent, and this incoherence seems to stem not from
> >intellectual failings so much as a need to present herself as the century's
> >only original thinker. She winds up characterizing straights and gays in
> >terms that she apparently thinks are 'intellectually challenging,' but strik
> >me as either deliberately contrary or simply out-of-touch. (In an interview,
>
> We may be reacting to different works of the same author. I think that
> "Sexual Personae" is a brilliant work (and yes, so does its author!).
> She strikes me in that work as quite tolerant toward homosexuality,
> and she has come under attack from some Christians for
> her 'approval' of Mapplethorpe's photos. No doubt those holding
> intensely rigid views will find something Incorrect in her attitudes
> on these matters. But I can see how one might easily disagree with much
> of what she says. (Hell, it's mostly about Art History, you can't
Actually, the people I've seen who disagree with Paglia have been
toiling the anthropological and art-history beanfields for a long time, and
from a variety of perspectives and sources; intolerance from 'those with
rigidly held views' really hasn't constituted much of the criticism I've
read. As I wrote, a lot of the criticisms focus more on how much Paglia
either seems ignorant of many cultural moements or efforts even withing
groups she ostensibly champions. Certainly, Paglia praises gay _men_, but in
interviews, she is surprisingly contemptuous of lesbians, even though she
identifies herself as one. (Recently, though, she has stated that she's found
what she considers similar spirits among some of the more artistically
outspoken lesbians, like Susie Bright.)
Actually, as a nifty counter to Paglia, get ahold of ReSearch's
newest publication, "Angry Women." It contains interviews with people like
Annie Sprinkle, Susie Bright, Diamandia Galais, Karen Finley, and a number of
other take-no-shit women who make Paglia look like Julie Andrews. I can't say
I agree with everything in "Angry Women," but it does put Paglia into
perspective.
Matt Kennel
Ok, time for all of you to stop the endless runaround about UFO's,
ESP, and Christ, and get on to something real:
How convincing is the scientific evidence for, or against, the official
Warren Comission findings on the Kennedy assasination?
I have no idea one way or another, (I have NOT seen the movie), but figure
that there has to be some, at least minimally convincing, scientific
evidence supported the Warren Commission.
Is there evidence against? How good?
Alright, let'er rip.
(Finally, a topic on this group whose answer is not *obvious* to anybody
with a brain)
Matt Kennel
m...@inls1.ucsd.edu
William E. Smith
>
>
>
> Ok, time for all of you to stop the endless runaround about UFO's,
> ESP, and Christ, and get on to something real:
>
>
> How convincing is the scientific evidence for, or against, the official
> Warren Comission findings on the Kennedy assasination?
>
>
>
> I have no idea one way or another, (I have NOT seen the movie), but figure
> that there has to be some, at least minimally convincing, scientific
> evidence supported the Warren Commission.
>
> Is there evidence against? How good?
>
evidence of the Kennedy Assassination. The program seemed to support the
findings of the Warren Commission. However, not all of the evidence could
be presented, (i.e. the autopsy evidence was not allowed to be filmed).
There was a careful examination of the Zapruder film and the conclusion
apparently debunked the second gunman theory.
I thought it was an objective look at a controversial event.
Any comments?
Gerry Roston
obviously do not know how to think. Consider: we and the great apes
have a common ancestor in the recent past. In ape societies, it is
the dominant male that is the ruler, not a female. This STRONGLY
suggests that as we evolved from our ancestor, this was the case.
More: Although the female of the species frequently does more work
than the male, the primary job of the male is to protect the females
and the young. Primitive man would/did see the Earth as a Mother
figure, since it gives life. Therefor, protection of the Earth/goddess
would fall to the dominant male of the tribe.
I see no evidence to suggest that there were ever an matriarchal
societies. One does not need a degree in antropology to weild Occam's
razor effectively. Also, since we have developed significantly from
the days of the cave-dwellers, I believe that discrimation against
women is wrong and must be eliminated. There are only two differences
between men and women:
1-Women can have babies.
2-Men are typically stronger.
Difference 2 is only important for a small fraction of the available
jobs and should not be used to discriminate.
--
Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | The fairest thing we can experience is the
Field Robotics Center, | mysterious. It is the fundemental emotion
Carnegie Mellon University | which stands at the cradle of true art and
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | true science. He who knows it not and can
(412) 268-3856 | no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement,
| is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
The opinions expressed are mine | Albert Einstein
Gerry Roston
Have any of these folks been caught reading "Skinny
Legs and All" by Tom Robbins recently? He outlines
this view of history quite nicely in that book. Is
it true? Maybe. So what? If the current view of
pre-biblical history is not completely accurate (as
most of us suspect, I guess), what possible effect will
changing the view have on anyone's day-to-day life?
(Scholars of the era excluded.)
Isn't Tom Robbins that ultimate scum bag/sleaze ball who shows up on
tv sellign some new scheme to get rich quick/walk on coals/new age
fluff crap? If so, this book is worth the caloric value obtainable
upon burning.
Ron Dippold
>Ok, time for all of you to stop the endless runaround about UFO's,
>ESP, and Christ, and get on to something real:
>How convincing is the scientific evidence for, or against, the official
>Warren Comission findings on the Kennedy assasination?
Please! This debate has utterly consumed alt.conspiracy. If you
want to know anything about this, you can do so to your heart's content
over there. Please don't consume another group with it.
--
Build a system even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.
James J. Lippard
>In article <1992Feb14.0...@cabezon.uucp> lar...@cabezon.uucp (Larry Huntley) writes:
>
> Have any of these folks been caught reading "Skinny
> Legs and All" by Tom Robbins recently? He outlines
> this view of history quite nicely in that book. Is
> it true? Maybe. So what? If the current view of
> pre-biblical history is not completely accurate (as
> most of us suspect, I guess), what possible effect will
> changing the view have on anyone's day-to-day life?
> (Scholars of the era excluded.)
>
>Isn't Tom Robbins that ultimate scum bag/sleaze ball who shows up on
>tv sellign some new scheme to get rich quick/walk on coals/new age
>fluff crap? If so, this book is worth the caloric value obtainable
>upon burning.
No. You are thinking of Anthony Robbins. Tom Robbins is the novelist
who wrote _Jitterbug Perfume_, _Still Life with Woodpecker_, _Even
Cowgirls Get the Blues_, and other works of *fiction*.
>--
>Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | The fairest thing we can experience is the
>Field Robotics Center, | mysterious. It is the fundemental emotion
>Carnegie Mellon University | which stands at the cradle of true art and
>Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | true science. He who knows it not and can
>(412) 268-3856 | no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement,
> | is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
>The opinions expressed are mine | Albert Einstein
>and do not reflect the official |
>position of CMU, FRC, RedZone, |
>or any other organization. |
Jim Lippard Lip...@RVAX.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy Lip...@ARIZRVAX.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Loren Petrich
At least this fellow is a bit more reasonable...
In article <GERRY.92F...@onion.cmu.edu>, ge...@cs.cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
> This goddess stuff is getting out of hand because those proponents
> obviously do not know how to think. Consider: we and the great apes
> have a common ancestor in the recent past. In ape societies, it is
> the dominant male that is the ruler, not a female. This STRONGLY
> suggests that as we evolved from our ancestor, this was the case.
I think that this bit of ethology is a bit out of date. Is it
clear that the "dominant" males dominate all the members of a group,
or only other males?
In the case of horses, they go in two types of herds, one of
mares with a "dominant" stallion, and the other of "bachelor"
stallions. The mares follow very predictable routes, with their
stallions following; the stallions start getting possessive of their
associated mares only when everyone gets too crowded. For a mare,
reproductive success involves access to reliable food sources so that
their colts don't starve; for a stallion, reproductive success
involves establishing access to mares when they get into heat, so they
either exclude other stallions from a group of mares or they wander
around looking for a stallion who can be ousted. For the latter
strategy, a stallion can tolerate some lean times. It is evident that,
in the mare-stallion groups, it is the mares who are "dominant" in
where to go; the stallions apparently don't care much outside of the
reproductive monopolies they seek.
I wonder how many other cases of "dominant" males turn out to
be dominant only over other males most of the time.
> More: Although the female of the species frequently does more work
> than the male, the primary job of the male is to protect the females
> and the young. Primitive man would/did see the Earth as a Mother
> figure, since it gives life. Therefor, protection of the Earth/goddess
> would fall to the dominant male of the tribe.
> I see no evidence to suggest that there were ever an matriarchal
> societies. One does not need a degree in antropology to weild Occam's
> razor effectively.
Welcome to Marija Gimbutas's _The Civilization of the
Goddess_. She does not propose that either sex ruled the other, but a
social organization best on female lineages and wandering males, much
like horse herds and lion prides. I'm not sure if that's a fair
summary of her proposals, but she proposes something like that.
Loren Petrich
[about Camille Paglia being second-rate...]
I agree. And if there is anything that she proves, women can be
as obnoxiously macho as men; this machismo runs through many of her opinions.
> Ms. Gimbutas is a very different story.
> She is a respected and well-qualified anthropologist/archaeologist,
> and will continue to be so even if her theories should prove to be incomplete
> or invalid.
I certainly agree with this evaluation. She seems to have
absorbed a vast amount of information. She is reportedly fluent in
seven languages and she can read 22, which certainly helps for reading
archeological reports in out-of-the-way languages like Romanian or
Bulgarian.
She has long been interested in the Indo-European question,
and it was she who (1) gave the Kurgan culture group its name and (2)
proposed the Kurgans as the original Indo-European speakers. The
Kurgan solution still remains one of the most plausible solutions to
the IE homeland problem, and it has gotten fresh support from the
discovery that a Dereivka cult stallion had had a bit in its mouth.
One thing led to another, and she was led to consider what the
pre-Kurgan Europeans were like. The main criticism I have seen of her
cultural reconstructions is apparently that the inferences she makes
simply cannot be done, that we cannot know for sure what the people
she studies were really like. That seems like a rather weak argument
against the abundance of evidence MG marshals; she gets around some of
the familiar difficulties with interpreting mythologies and artifacts
by also consulting settlement and cemetery evidence.
Maybe it is some of her cultural inferences that really bother
many of her critics; perhaps she is being excessively romantic about
the Old Europeans, but the picture she comes up with is certainly a
dramatic departure from the stereotype of a caveman dragging off his
wife by the hair. That could well be why Camille Paglia does not like
her work; since CP is so violently hostile to women who are not as
aggressively macho as her, it would be natural for CP to dislike MG.
Loren Petrich
[A defense of his criticism of Elaine Pagels...]
I still don't think that that does justice to EP's position; a
perhaps more plausible hypothesis is that even the Gnostics may have
been divided among themselves, with some having women in important
positions alongside men, and others saying that Jesus Christ had
taught that women should change their sex in order to enter the
Kingdom of Heaven.
[Robert Sheaffer's defence of Friedrich Nietzsche...]
Was FN more than some proto-Nazi? Maybe. But his criticism of
Christianity does sound a lot like he was saying that Christianity is
against his super-macho Overman.
[the question of the nature of the Minoan double-ax...]
Though he concedes that he has not studied its context, he was
willing to make an issue out of its supposed militarism in _The Making
of the Messiah_. Though some Minoanists continue to repeat this
contention, a careful study suggests otherwise. The most detailed
study I've ever seen was done by Marija Gimbutas in her books on Old
Europe. She notes that the "double-ax" is never "used" on anyone; that
it usually has its handle stuck in the middle of some sacred horns.
She notices depictions of a butterfly rising from a bull's head and a
butterfly-winged woman going upward from some sacred horns, thus
coming to her conclusion. I'm repeating this as an example of MG's
methodology, so you people can see how she works.
> I'm curious: since you seem to like the rest of "The Making of the
> Messiah", do you agree that Jesus was 'born of fornication', and
> that he was never crucified, but 'hanged on a tree'???
Yes, I certainly do agree that those contentions are probably
correct. What makes the apocryphal traditions tthat support these
contentions especially strong is what they say about Mary, that she
had been a hairdresser. As RS points out, "Mary the Hairdresser"
sounds an awful lot like "Mary Magdalene" in Hebrew, and Mary's shame
of being the mother of an illegitimate child fits well with Mary
Magdalene being a fallen woman. The only difficulty with this
hypothesis, that Mary had been effectively split in two in the early
Christian literature, is an apocryphal Gospel stating that JC and Mary
Magdalene had kissed each other rather lovingly (but JC might have
suffered from a severe Oedipal complex :-).
There is also the interesting question of whether the Roman
soldier named Panthera honored in that Sidonian tombstone was really of
a close relative of Jesus Christ's father, according to the apocryphal
traditions. That would depend on how common a name "Panthera" was; how
many Pantheras there had been in the Roman Army at the time. If the
name was rare, then we could be close. If the name was common, we may
never be sure.
Robert Sheaffer
>
> I still don't think that that does justice to EP's position; a
>perhaps more plausible hypothesis is that even the Gnostics may have
>been divided among themselves,
No doubt it's true that the Gnostics, like ALL sects, had factions. That's
not the point. The point (I really don't see it's such a difficult one!)
is that here you have a feminist who is saying good things about a
particular religious group, portraying this long-dead faction as "good
for women", to thereby castigate the current orthodoxy. When she
stumbles across a blatantly offensive passage from the supposedly
"good" group, saying "women are not worthy of life", she DOESN'T
EVEN GET MAD! (Try posting that particular quote on some feminist
newsgroup, say you agree with it, and watch the flames fly!) Rather,
she says, in essence, "oh, that passage may SAY horrible things, but
it couldn't possibly MEAN what it says!" Which means simply that she
has to set up a straw-man scenario - "Gnostics good, orthodox bad" -
for political reasons, and if facts don't agree with it, then the
facts be damned.
>
> Was FN more than some proto-Nazi? Maybe. But his criticism of
>Christianity does sound a lot like he was saying that Christianity is
>against his super-macho Overman.
Then you need to study a lot more about Nietzsche. His main criticism
of Christianity is that it overthrew the learned, cultured civilization
of antiquity, and put in its place ideals of filth and narrow-mindedness.
I wrote a long article on Nietzsche's "Der ANtichrist" in the Winter
1988/89 issue of "Free Inquiry." I think you've been propagandized
about Nietzsche's supposed "super-macho" stance. In aesthetics,
Nietzsche was rather effete in his tastes. He was revolted by Prussian
heel-clicking and boot stomping, and admired 17th Century French
writers, and the effete manners of l'ancien Regieme. Some Nazi!
>
> [the question of the nature of the Minoan double-ax...]
>
I'm not taking any strong position on this or any other particular
warlike implement. I cited it as one of various Cretan implements
that suggest something other than a blissful, pacifistic Paradise.
In Greek legend, the Cretans are fierce fighters, worthy enemies.
>had been a hairdresser. As RS points out, "Mary the Hairdresser"
>sounds an awful lot like "Mary Magdalene" in Hebrew, and Mary's shame
>of being the mother of an illegitimate child fits well with Mary
>Magdalene being a fallen woman. The only difficulty with this
>hypothesis, that Mary had been effectively split in two in the early
>Christian literature, is an apocryphal Gospel stating that JC and Mary
>Magdalene had kissed each other rather lovingly (but JC might have
>suffered from a severe Oedipal complex :-).
But that Gospel is *much* later, plenty of time for legend and
invention to work.
Roland King
>-30-
>Bob
>
>``American feminism is awash with soupy Campbellism: schlockmeisters
> like Marija Gimbutas, the Pollyanna of poppy-cock, with her Mommy
> goddess tales conveniently exalting her Lithuanian ancestors into
> world-class saintly pacifists.'' --- Camille Paglia in _Arion_
Camille Paglia on science:
... nature cannot be understood.
Science is a method of logical analysis of nature's operations. It has
lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality
of nature's forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is
always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it
wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt.
_Sexual Personae_ Ch. 1, p 5.
Perhaps Paglia's mentor the Marquis de Sade was "indisposed" when
Benjamin Franklin visited Paris. In any case, poor old Ben went to
his grave believing that he lived in a rational universe, and that
his lightning rods actually worked.
If the term "skeptic" is to be anything more than a redundant
synonym for "cynic", irrationalism must be equally rejected,
whether it comes wearing crystals or leather.
- Roland E. King rol...@xanadu.com
Eric Rescorla
>No doubt it's true that the Gnostics, like ALL sects, had factions. That's
>not the point. The point (I really don't see it's such a difficult one!)
>is that here you have a feminist who is saying good things about a
>particular religious group, portraying this long-dead faction as "good
>for women", to thereby castigate the current orthodoxy. When she
>stumbles across a blatantly offensive passage from the supposedly
>"good" group, saying "women are not worthy of life", she DOESN'T
>EVEN GET MAD!
Hmmm...I'd like to point out at this juncture that Gospel of Thomas
is not a Gnostic work. Rather, it's "Thomasite." Thomasite(largely
Syriac) Christianity is highly distinct from Gnosticism.
That said, I personally have always taken that saying as relatively
feminist. Jesus says, after all, in response to the claim that "women
are not worthy of life" that he will MAKE Mary as one of them.
-Ekr
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Rescorla, DoD#431, Honda CM400 rider resc...@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu
Yale University Department of Chemistry We hack anything.
My mind is now for rent: C/Unix,Vacuum Tech,Machining,P-Chemist. Hire me, eh?
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
Well, discussing the JFK assassination _has_ cropped up on several
newsgroups, including this one. So, not to get the ball rolling again, I
migth as well post an overview of issues that strike _me_ as important.
If we limit ourselves to the _scientific_ evidence regarding the
assassination, we can only address ourselves to the ballistic analysis of the
event. We can only address whether a single bullet inflicted the wounds on
Kennedy and Connally, and decide whether the 'single bullet theory' proposed
by Arlen Spector is supported by available evidence.
Offhand, it just doesn't make sense to me; the bullet is required to
make several adjustments in direction, apparently bounding off of human
bones, and yet emerging with nary a scar. On the basis of this alone, I think
the 'single bullet' theory is pretty much nonsense.
Information regarding this issue is compromised with the debate over
the autopsy performed on Kennedy; since I really haven't made a study of
this, I can't say whether I support the thesis that a) the autopsy supports
the single-bullet theory, b) the autopsy demonstrates several different
bullet wounds that could only be caused by multiple gunmen, c) the autopsy
was falsified to disguise the wound evidence. In other words, the scientific
evidence on this is already so muddled that I don't think I could consider it
reliable.
Beyond the above, we're left with speculations over events, which
really isn't as specific an issue as the question above requires. If we
wonder whether Kennedy was killed by Oswald, the Mafia, the CIA, or any other
theorized conspiracy, we're not exactly talking _science_ here. And, since
the theory we choose will influence our choice of evidence regarding the
scientific issues outlined above, we here at sci.skeptic are more or less
asked to limit ourselves to the ballistics theories behind the assassination.
Beyond all of this, I might as well weight in with my own opinion on
the subject; I frankly don't care who shot the President nearly _thirty years
ago_, when I was a nine-month-old baby. Kennedy wasn't that great a
president; for a man Oliver Stone claims was going to pull out of Vietnam, he
sure had a great record of destabilizing other countries, such as the
Dominican Republic. (Gore Vidal recalls visiting Kennedy when he was adding
designs to the Green Berets' uniforms. Sure, sounds like a pacifist to _me_.)
There are far more interesting scandals going on today that would do
well to have the investigative efforts wasted on the Kennedy assassination--
the Savings and loan scandal, the Iran-Contra affair, the "October Surprise"
theories bouncing about (and that's quickly receding into the distant past),
the involvement of the CIA with drug trafficking (and the use of narcotics
money to fund covert ops), the rise of the Religious Right and its efforts to
erase humane ideals from human history...and these are just _worldwide_
scandals. I'm certain the hometowns of Kennedy conspiratologists have
factories dumping toxic wastes, public works offices run by the Mafia,
featherbedding of the public payrolls, conflicts-of-interests between city
councils and the major banks in the area, the influence of racist groups in
police departments, and lots, lots more.
Frankly, it's gotten to the point that if _anyone_ so much as
mentions the JFK assassination to me, I just file them away in the same
dustbin I put the UFO fans who breathlessly tell me that the Greys and the
Reptoids are at the center of "the most important event in human history."
It' not that the theories are so nutty; it's that these people don't seem to
want to aim this encyclopedic knowledge, doubt of the establishment story,
and intellectual effort to ferret out the "truth" at anything that might
actually make a _difference_ in peoples' lives.
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <1992Feb14.0...@cabezon.uucp> lar...@cabezon.uucp (Larry H
>
> Have any of these folks been caught reading "Skinny
> Legs and All" by Tom Robbins recently? He outlines
> this view of history quite nicely in that book. Is
> it true? Maybe. So what? If the current view of
> pre-biblical history is not completely accurate (as
> most of us suspect, I guess), what possible effect will
> changing the view have on anyone's day-to-day life?
> (Scholars of the era excluded.)
>
> Isn't Tom Robbins that ultimate scum bag/sleaze ball who shows up on
> tv sellign some new scheme to get rich quick/walk on coals/new age
> fluff crap? If so, this book is worth the caloric value obtainable
> upon burning.
>
> --
Nope: The firewalking guy is _Tony_ Robbins, while _Tom_ Robbins is
the novelist.
Paul Lewis, here we go now...
How about looking a little deeper than a TV special before making a
decision?
|-Paul Lewis- 'Some of us were just meant to be alone.' -|_____________
| 'I'd love to turn you on.' -The Beatles |
| 'You should be with us, feeling like we do, -Perry Farrell |
| like you love to, but never will again.' |
| 'Sleep delays my life. Where does time go?' -Michael Stipe |
| 'Did you think I wouldn't recognize this compromise?' -Trent Reznor |
| 'Please don't leave me to remain' -Fugazi |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|_JFK Assassination Mailing List: PM...@NS.CC.LEHIGH.EDU_______________|
Robert Sheaffer
> [Now let's look at that passage with its context restored]
>
>Camille Paglia on science: (??)
[...An orgasm is a domination, a surrender, or a breaking through.
Nature is no respecter of human identity. This is why so many
men turn away or flee after sex, for they have sensed the annihlation
of the daemonic. Western love is a displacement of cosmic realities.
It is a defense mechanism rationalizing forces ungoverned and
ungovernable. Like early religion, it is a device enabling us to
control our primal fear.]
> [Sex cannot be understood because]... nature cannot be understood.
> Science is a method of logical analysis of nature's operations. It has
> lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality
> of nature's forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is
> always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it
> wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt.
crushing individuality. Perfect freedom would be to die by earth,
air, water, and fire.
>
> _Sexual Personae_ Ch. 1, p 5.
Clearly, what we have above, restored to its original context,
is a discussion of sex, and its relation to the 'forces of nature'.
Here is what Paglia has to say about science:
"One of feminism's irritating reflexes is its fashionable disdain
for "patriarchal society," to which nothing good is ever attributed.
But it is patriarchal society that has freed me as a woman. It is
capitalism that has given me the leisure to sit at this desk
writing this book. Let us stop being small-minded about men and
freely acknowledge what treasures their obsessiveness has poured
into culture.
We could make an epic catalog of male achievements, from paved roads,
indoor plumbing, and washing machines to eyeglasses, antibiotics,
and disposable diapers. We enjoy fresh, safe milk and meat, and
vegetables and tropical fruits heaped in snowbound cities. When I
cross the George Washington Bridge or any of America's great
bridges, I think: *men* have done this. Construction is a sublime
male poetry. When I see a giant crane passing on a flatbed truck,
I pause in awe and reverence, as one would for a church procession.
What power of conception, what grandiosity: these cranes tie us to
ancient Egypt, where monumental architecture was first imagined
and achieved. If civilization had been left to female hands, we
would still be living in grass huts."
Sexual Personae, pp. 37-38 (Vintage ed.)
When we look at what Paglia had to say on the subject of science and
civilization, the picture is quite different from the quote above.
(AND we can also see her Unspeakable Heresies, which is why she
sends the Politically Correct types into fits of hysteria.)
>If the term "skeptic" is to be anything more than a redundant
>synonym for "cynic", irrationalism must be equally rejected,
>whether it comes wearing crystals or leather.
Yes, and if we are to be proper "skeptics" we must also place
quotations in their valid context. And we must avoid doing
things like, say, omitting the first five lines of a sentence
(especially when they are like "Sex cannot be understood because"),
which show the subject matter to be other than what the poster
seems to want us to understand it.
Robert Sheaffer
>
>That said, I personally have always taken that saying as relatively
>feminist. Jesus says, after all, in response to the claim that "women
>are not worthy of life" that he will MAKE Mary as one of them.
>
("secret saying" 114:)
Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not
worthy of Life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male,
so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males.
For every woman who will make herself male will enter the
Kingdom of Heaven."
So when Eric says that Jesus offers to "MAKE Mary as one of them",
it means Jesus will make her MALE, and hence worthy of life.
Now, what should we deduce when a feminist such as Pagels comes
across such a quote, and instead of flying off into a rage (I
surely could not blame her if she did!), saying in essence, "Oh,
it's really not as bad as it sounds! It's just a *metaphor*, you
see!" All that I can deduce is, "The facts be damned, it is
politically expedient to whitewash the Gnostics."
If nothing else, the passage should give encouragement to certain
lesbians! :)
Robert Sheaffer
>There are only two differences
>between men and women:
>1-Women can have babies.
>2-Men are typically stronger.
This is false. Modern research is turning up all manner of differences
between male and female brains. This was summarized in a recent issue
of Time magazine, about Jan. 20. A good overview of the biological
differences between the sexes is in:
"Man, Woman, Boy & Girl" by John Money & Anke A. Erhardt
The John Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1972.
See especially Chapter 6, "Fetal Hormones and the Brain: Human Clinical
Syndromes."
Robert Sheaffer
>
> Offhand, it just doesn't make sense to me; the bullet is required to
>make several adjustments in direction,
Actually, as the Zapruder films show, there was one milisecond when JFK & JC
were lined up as would be required to produce all the wounds, and it
matches the time when this bullet is "supposed" to have been fired.
This matter has been discussed to death in "alt.conspiracy", so I suggest
that the discussion be taken there. We don't want to *deluge* this
forum with it.
Plus, as Brian noted, the evidence for "JFK the Dove" is poor, indeed.
That's about the only thing that ALexander Cockburn and William
F. Buckley can agree about: that JFK was a real Cold Warrior.
Please, let's not fill up this forum with thousands of posts on this!
Eric Rescorla
>In article <1992Feb15....@cs.yale.edu> resc...@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>>
>>That said, I personally have always taken that saying as relatively
>>feminist. Jesus says, after all, in response to the claim that "women
>>are not worthy of life" that he will MAKE Mary as one of them.
>>
>OK, the exact quote is:
> ("secret saying" 114:)
>
> Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not
> worthy of Life."
> Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male,
> so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males.
> For every woman who will make herself male will enter the
> Kingdom of Heaven."
>
>So when Eric says that Jesus offers to "MAKE Mary as one of them",
>it means Jesus will make her MALE, and hence worthy of life.
Agreed.
However, you have to realize that male-female is also used
as an analogy for spiritual-physical. Moreover, COMPARED TO THE ATTITUDES
of the time, the Thomasite message IS liberal.
>Now, what should we deduce when a feminist such as Pagels comes
>across such a quote, and instead of flying off into a rage (I
>surely could not blame her if she did!), saying in essence, "Oh,
>it's really not as bad as it sounds! It's just a *metaphor*, you
>see!"
Well, it IS metaphorical, but it's also COMPARATIVELY liberal.
> All that I can deduce is, "The facts be damned, it is
>politically expedient to whitewash the Gnostics."
Ahem. I'll say this again. The Thomasites were NOT Gnostic.
Paul Lewis, here we go now...
That is truly a pitiful reason not to want to learn the truth
behind the Kennedy Assassination: 'he wasn't a good President anyway.'
That not only speaks of ignorance, but of disrespect. Did this give
Kennedy the right to die? Surely you believe that a ballot is better
than a bullet.
If you don't think that his death had any influence on our current
situation, I ask you to look again. You surely are outspoken for
someone who admits that he doesn't know anything about the case.
Robert Sheaffer
>>
>> Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not
>> worthy of Life."
>> Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male,
>> so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males.
>> For every woman who will make herself male will enter the
>> Kingdom of Heaven."
>Well, it IS metaphorical, but it's also COMPARATIVELY liberal.
Jeez, if that's "comparatively liberal", I'd hate to see what
a misogynist text looked like!
>
>Ahem. I'll say this again. The Thomasites were NOT Gnostic.
Well, it's included in the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic texts.
The introduction to it says, "The influence of Gnostic theology is
clearly present in the "Gospel of Thomas", although it is not
possible to ascribe the work to any particular school or text."
Eric Rescorla
>In article <1992Feb16.1...@cs.yale.edu> resc...@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
>>Well, it IS metaphorical, but it's also COMPARATIVELY liberal.
>
>Jeez, if that's "comparatively liberal", I'd hate to see what
>a misogynist text looked like!
>>Ahem. I'll say this again. The Thomasites were NOT Gnostic.
>
>Well, it's included in the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic texts.
Ah. There is mistake number one. As Wayne Meeks put it, the name
"Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library" is three misnomers in one.
It wasn't found in Nag Hammadi, it's not Gnostic, and it's not
a Library.
The idea that Nag Hammadi was somehow a collection of "Gnostic texts"
is purely modern. For instance, it includes parts of the Republic,
which is obviously not Gnostic. Good examples of Gnosticism are
The Gospel of Truth(Valentinian) or the Apochryphon of John(classic
Gnostic.) GTh isn't.
>The introduction to it says, "The influence of Gnostic theology is
>clearly present in the "Gospel of Thomas", although it is not
>possible to ascribe the work to any particular school or text."
Which text specifically are you quoting? Robinson's intro?
The defining characteristics of Gnosticism, particularly the elaborate
creation mythology and metaphorical theology are clearly not present
in the Gospel of Thomas. The attitudes aren't even particularly Gnostic.
It looks more like The Hymn of the Pearl(also Thomasite) or the Acts of
Thomas.
Gerry Roston
> Offhand, it just doesn't make sense to me; the bullet is required to
>make several adjustments in direction,
Actually, as the Zapruder films show, there was one milisecond when JFK & JC
were lined up as would be required to produce all the wounds, and it
matches the time when this bullet is "supposed" to have been fired.
This matter has been discussed to death in "alt.conspiracy", so I suggest
that the discussion be taken there. We don't want to *deluge* this
forum with it.
Sorry Bob, but his doesn't wash!
A bullet from the type of gun travelled would by moving at about 2000
ft/sec. This means that during 1 millisecond, it travels 2 feet, not
far enough to account for said wounds. Furthermore, this claim of 1
ms is ludicrou, because a movie camera integrates the received light
over a period of about 40 milliseconds (figuring 24 frames/second).
Although I will not make any judgment or statement about the why and
wherefores of the Kennedy assination, I feel quite confident in
claiming that there was more than one marksman and that the single
bullet theory is crap.
--
Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | A man's ethical behavior should be based
Field Robotics Center, | effectually on sympathy, education, and
Carnegie Mellon University | social ties; no religious basis is
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor
(412) 268-3856 | way if he had to be restrained by fear and
| punshiment and hope of reward after death.
Loren I. Petrich
: "One of feminism's irritating reflexes is its fashionable disdain
: for "patriarchal society," to which nothing good is ever attributed.
: But it is patriarchal society that has freed me as a woman. It is
: capitalism that has given me the leisure to sit at this desk
: writing this book. Let us stop being small-minded about men and
: freely acknowledge what treasures their obsessiveness has poured
: into culture.
: We could make an epic catalog of male achievements, from paved roads,
: indoor plumbing, and washing machines to eyeglasses, antibiotics,
: and disposable diapers. We enjoy fresh, safe milk and meat, and
: vegetables and tropical fruits heaped in snowbound cities. When I
: cross the George Washington Bridge or any of America's great
: bridges, I think: *men* have done this. Construction is a sublime
: male poetry. When I see a giant crane passing on a flatbed truck,
: I pause in awe and reverence, as one would for a church procession.
: What power of conception, what grandiosity: these cranes tie us to
: ancient Egypt, where monumental architecture was first imagined
: and achieved. If civilization had been left to female hands, we
: would still be living in grass huts."
I guess she's just showing her machismo again :-).
True, most of the "achievements of civilization" of the
better-documented times are mostly male, but for the most part, they
are male by virtue of excluding women. I'm not sure if Camille Paglia
would enjoy suffering through the misogynist stereotypes that have
been common for several centuries now. One such stereotype is that
women are fundamentally incapable of any sort of intellectual
achievement, which means that Camille Paglia would have had a hard
time getting the sort of position she now has for over 2000 years.
Somehow, I can imagine her thinking in response:
I'm not a real woman, I'm a man who just happens to be born a
woman, and that's why I'm confident I'd have no trouble at all.
But somehow I doubt that this line of argumentation would make
much of an impact...
Also, this argument sounds suspiciously like the argument that
black Americans should be grateful to the white population for
kidnapping and enslaving their ancestors, because they would not
otherwise have come to America; or else that we Americans should all
be grateful to our ancestors for having expelled and exterminated the
people living here before us, just so we could have all this land.
Loren I. Petrich
>In article <GERRY.92F...@onion.cmu.edu> ge...@cs.cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
::There are only two differences
::between men and women:
::1-Women can have babies.
::2-Men are typically stronger.
And let us not forget individual variations!
Though men are usually taller than women, I have known
individual women who are noticeably taller than individual men -- in
one case, a "head" taller.
:This is false. Modern research is turning up all manner of differences
:between male and female brains. This was summarized in a recent issue
:of Time magazine, about Jan. 20. A good overview of the biological
:differences between the sexes is in:
: "Man, Woman, Boy & Girl" by John Money & Anke A. Erhardt
: The John Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1972.
I can see that Robert Sheaffer did not read Barbara
Ehrenreich's dissent too closely (or is she one of those evil
feminists? :-). I point this out because she notes that there are lots
of studies that do not show any clear differences (I think some
references can also be found in Leon Kamin's _Not In Our Genes_). It
is clear from personal experience that there are nice men and nasty
women, and numerous other examples of departures from stereotypes.
Ignoring individual variation is the great flaw of many such studies.
I think that these sex-differentiation researchers ought to
study Camille Paglia for a change, and she if she fits "feminine"
stereotypes.
Gloria Steinem in _Revolution from Within_ addresses this
question, and she notes that her father had been a very nurturing
parent, so that is why she considers traditional stereotypes
less-than-convincing.
:See especially Chapter 6, "Fetal Hormones and the Brain: Human Clinical
:Syndromes."
Carl J Lydick
Apologies that the attributions here are confused. They were that way when I
received the article.
>In article <1992Feb16.18561...@netcom.COM> shea...@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>>In article <GERRY.92F...@onion.cmu.edu> ge...@cs.cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
>:This is false. Modern research is turning up all manner of differences
>:between male and female brains. This was summarized in a recent issue
>:of Time magazine, about Jan. 20. A good overview of the biological
>:differences between the sexes is in:
>: "Man, Woman, Boy & Girl" by John Money & Anke A. Erhardt
>: The John Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1972.
>
> I can see that Robert Sheaffer did not read Barbara
>Ehrenreich's dissent too closely (or is she one of those evil
>feminists? :-). I point this out because she notes that there are lots
>of studies that do not show any clear differences (I think some
>references can also be found in Leon Kamin's _Not In Our Genes_). It
>is clear from personal experience that there are nice men and nasty
>women, and numerous other examples of departures from stereotypes.
>Ignoring individual variation is the great flaw of many such studies.
>
> I think that these sex-differentiation researchers ought to
>study Camille Paglia for a change, and she if she fits "feminine"
>stereotypes.
Since we don't have anything even close to a good mapping from brain function
to personality (except possibly in a few mental disorders), your above two
paragraphs are utter nonsense. Just how would seeing whether Paglia fits
"feminine" stereotypes be relevent to the fact that activity in different parts
of the brain in response to standard stimuli appears to vary between men and
women?
> Gloria Steinem in _Revolution from Within_ addresses this
>question, and she notes that her father had been a very nurturing
>parent, so that is why she considers traditional stereotypes
>less-than-convincing.
Again, a difference in personality, not in brain function, and we don't have a
useful mapping between the two.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CA...@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL
Disclaimer: Hey, I understand VAXes and VMS. That's what I get paid for. My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below). So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it. If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Gerry Roston
always look to the past and say, "We were wronged, but we are really
better than you, and the fact that you wronged us if proof?" At
least, this is what Loren's post reads like to me. I freely admit
that in the past, and even continuing today, there is a lot of gender
and racial bigotry that exists. It is all wrong. However, this does
not in any way at all dimish the past achievements of the dominant
white male society! What these minority proponents should be doing is
seeking to join the dominant white male society, because unless they
do, they will be powerless to change it. Those minorities hwo have
become a part of the "system" have been effective in changing it, as
witnessed by the increasing numbers of minorieties entering the
system. However, the establishment has a vested interest in not
changing, and by making rediculous claims of past events, the
minorities are only fueling the fire of the establishment to maintain
the status quo.
Gerry Roston
You would do yourself well to stop flaunting your ignorance
publically. When a statement such as "Men are taller than women" is
made, this does NOT mean that ALL mean are taller than all women.
That would be stupid. What it DOES mean is that the heights of men
and women can each be approximated by a normal distribution curve and
that the mean value of the curve for men is greater than that of the
mean value for women. There must necessarily be some women who are
taller than some men; similarly there are some men who are shorter
than some women. However, by knowing the mean and standard
distibutions of the curves, we can accurately predict the percentage
of women who are talle rthan men of a given height, etc. [Needless to
say I am simplifying this since height is probably not a random
statistic across all peoples of the Earth. For instance, American
women are taller than Pigmy men, so to carry out this excersize, the
population would have to be appropiately sampled so as to study
certain geographical areas seperately from others.]
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> >
> > Was FN more than some proto-Nazi? Maybe. But his criticism of
> >Christianity does sound a lot like he was saying that Christianity is
> >against his super-macho Overman.
>
> Then you need to study a lot more about Nietzsche. His main criticism
> of Christianity is that it overthrew the learned, cultured civilization
> of antiquity, and put in its place ideals of filth and narrow-mindedness.
> I wrote a long article on Nietzsche's "Der ANtichrist" in the Winter
> 1988/89 issue of "Free Inquiry." I think you've been propagandized
> about Nietzsche's supposed "super-macho" stance. In aesthetics,
> Nietzsche was rather effete in his tastes. He was revolted by Prussian
> heel-clicking and boot stomping, and admired 17th Century French
> writers, and the effete manners of l'ancien Regieme. Some Nazi!
>
> >
horribly sullied by the fact that his sister was not only a vicious
anti-Semite, but she was more than willing to alter and misrepresent his
writings to better fit the propaganda demands of the Nazi party. Nietzsche,
however, thought anti-Semitism was abysmally stupid; he was full;y cognizant
of the contributions Jews have made to civilization, and was sharply critical
of the suffering they'd experienced under Christianity.
I should also mention that, until Walter Kaufmann's translations,
there haven't been any reliable English versions of Nietzsche. The result?
even the admirably even-handed Betrand Russell castigated the cartoon
nietzsche in his "History fo Western Philosophy."
Nietzsche's strong suit was in the history of languages; his "On the
Geneaology of Morals" is a dandy examination of how the word 'noble' was
subtly shifted from meaning the wealthy and powerful, to a meaning that
better fit the self-sacrifice morality of Christians.
I have to admit, though, a lot of Nietzsche's more extreme passages
have usually struck me as a conscious attempt to shock and intimidate
Christians rather than any actual extremism on his part. (For another
historical attack on Christianity, I'd also recommend Gore Vidal's _Julian._)
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
reason, Bob; and the fact that such nonsense as excerpted above is taken
seriously by the media (including the verifiably patriarchal New York Times)
while more sophisticated thinkers are ignored is what ticks off the
'politically correct types.'
Please examine the preceding passage again; throughout, it is implied
that what created this wonderful technological society is, specifically, _men
only_, and that _patriarchy_ was responsible was well. Not that human beings
are resourceful and build things, mind you; Paglia's passage above rests on
the simplistic notion that Men Build and Women Can't.
(I'm also surprised at her equating capitalism with patriarchy, as
well as freedom. I've learned not to be so certain of these equations.)
What we have here, Bob, is something that you may have missed. What a
lot of us criticize about such simplisitic views as the Newage movement is
their reliance on simple dualistic interpretations. For example, I think we
can agree that such yin-yang stuff ignores a lot of the complexities of the
world. In medicine, there is no division between 'holistic' verus
'reductionistic,' or 'homeopathic' versus 'allopathic,' because these are
terms used to set up a nonsensical dichotomy designed to make Newagers look
better.
I'm also _very_ offended when people actually say (to my face, on
occasion) that men think in certain ways, and women think in certain ways;
implied in this is that men and women are incapable of going beyond these
bounds that have been imposed upon their gender. To say that men are
engineers while women are the homemakers insults both men and women, and
reinforces a view that may keep those precious exceptions from finding lives
they'd find fulfilling.
What Paglia says is in _no way_ radical; she accepts this simple
dichotomy in its most extreme form. Her _only_ difference is to praise the
Men=Engineer side, which, even I'll admit, is a tad out of fashion these
days. (And I think Robert Bly does a far more effective job of this,
frankly.)
Think of it this way. Imagine that Paglia were using the same terms
to write about race. She'd be accepting the sterotype that blacks have beter
rhythm, but whites build civilizations; and her 'radical' p.o.v. would be to
praise the civilization builders. Admittedly, this is a hypothetical example,
and I've seen no evidence that Paglia is a racist, but it does put the
structure of her argument into sharper perspective.
In short; Paglia is a thinker who _reinforces_ existing gender
stereotypes, yet has somehow been presented as a 'radical' and
'unconventional' thinker in these areas. (By the way, if she did live in a
more patriarchal society-- say, Britain in the 19th Century-- she wouldn't
have the freedom to write her books or teach. They'd send her to the
country for a 'long rest' until she calmed down. She really shouldn't be such
a romantic over patriarchy.)
Robert Sheaffer
>>
> I think the picture that emerges is that Paglia may not be capable of
>reason, Bob;
*obviously* "incapable of reason."
>
> Please examine the preceding passage again; throughout, it is implied
>that what created this wonderful technological society is, specifically, _men
>only_, and that _patriarchy_ was responsible was well. Not that human beings
Well, this *is* what the feminists charge, to whom she is replying.
> (I'm also surprised at her equating capitalism with patriarchy, as
>well as freedom. I've learned not to be so certain of these equations.)
This is yet another charge of the feminists, to whom she
is replying.
Name a half-dozen female founders of the capitalist system.
>
> What we have here, Bob, is something that you may have missed. What a
>lot of us criticize about such simplisitic views as the Newage movement is
>their reliance on simple dualistic interpretations. For example, I think we
The "Rev P-K" says that he doesn't *want* to criticise simplisitic dualistic
interpretations such as "goddess matriarchy vs. Judeao-Christian
patriarchy", because they are harmless and benign.
OK, suppose I agree that what Paglia says here is nonsense. But it's
"benign" nonsense, like the Goddess stuff, so let's not attack it.
> I'm also _very_ offended when people actually say (to my face, on
>occasion) that men think in certain ways, and women think in certain ways;
Then you must be *grossly* offended by feminist thinkers. For example,
Andrea Dworkin writes,
"Men love death. In everything they make, they hollow out a central
place for death, ..."
And she is far from the ONLY one to argue in this way. It is central
to feminist thinking that mens' emotions and thinking are somehow
'tainted'.
This is funny. I don't recall any postings From Brian saying how he's
offended by feminist thought.
>
> Think of it this way. Imagine that Paglia were using the same terms
>to write about race.
She didn't.
>
> In short; Paglia is a thinker who _reinforces_ existing gender
>stereotypes, yet has somehow been presented as a 'radical' and
>'unconventional' thinker in these areas.
Well, she is *extremely* unconventional by present-day standards, even
radical. Actually, she is DEBUNKING currently-fashionable stereotypes,
i.e. the Politically Correct view that there are *no* differences
between men and women, except concerning who has the baby.
James J. Lippard
> I'm also _very_ offended when people actually say (to my face, on
>occasion) that men think in certain ways, and women think in certain ways;
>implied in this is that men and women are incapable of going beyond these
>bounds that have been imposed upon their gender. To say that men are
>engineers while women are the homemakers insults both men and women, and
>reinforces a view that may keep those precious exceptions from finding lives
>they'd find fulfilling.
Oddly enough, I hear this claim most often from feminists--that men and
women have distinct "modes of thought" and ways of learning and
communicating, and that these ways are incommensurable. The claim is
also made by multiculturalists about different "learning styles" of
different ethnic minorities.
>Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano
>re...@cellar.org
>Organizer of the Delaware Valley Skeptics (though opinions posted are my own,
>and not representative).
>"Not only does Bush have a depression on his hands, now he's got this self
>pitying, pathologically lying pornofreak on the Supreme Court." -- Robert Bly,
>in conversation with Deborah Tannen.
Jim Lippard Lip...@RVAX.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy Lip...@ARIZRVAX.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Grant Edwards
[ stuff about Z film showing J&C being lined up for 1ms]
: Sorry Bob, but his doesn't wash!
:
: A bullet from the type of gun travelled would by moving at about 2000
: ft/sec. This means that during 1 millisecond, it travels 2 feet, not
: far enough to account for said wounds. Furthermore, this claim of 1
: ms is ludicrou, because a movie camera integrates the received light
: over a period of about 40 milliseconds (figuring 24 frames/second).
Well, there _are_ 24 frames per second (one every 41.67 ms) but that
doesn't mean that each frame is exposed for the entire time. There is
a significant amount of time spent with the shutter closed while the
film is moved to the next frame. I would _guess_ that exposure time
for each frame is closer to 10ms or so. Is shutter speed adjustable
in movie cameras like it is in SLR still cameras?
--
Grant Edwards |Yow! Youth of today! Join
Rosemount Inc. |me in a mass rally for
|traditional mental
gra...@aquarius.rosemount.com |attitudes!
pen...@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
JP
Robert Sheaffer
time, one d-of-t, OK? If we want to argue bullet velocity, go over
to "alt.conspiracy", there are *thousands* of posts about that!
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> Why must all feminists (and proponents of other minority groups)
> always look to the past and say, "We were wronged, but we are really
> better than you, and the fact that you wronged us if proof?" At
_All_ feminists? Gerry, sweetheart, baby, this is what we call a
"gross and erroneous overgeneralization."
As a thought experiment, consider that Yours Truly considers himself
a feminist, so it'd be pretty damn hard for _me_ to say that "we were
wronged, etc. etc." Also, as a slightly more involved thought experiment,
please procve that _all_ feminists, civil rights leaders, spokespersons for
Native American rights, or whatever argue this.
I'd be glad to bet money that you can't.
> least, this is what Loren's post reads like to me. I freely admit
> that in the past, and even continuing today, there is a lot of gender
> and racial bigotry that exists. It is all wrong. However, this does
> not in any way at all dimish the past achievements of the dominant
> white male society! What these minority proponents should be doing is
Doesn't diminish it? Well, that's a rather simplistic spin on things.
Granted, a nice building or bridge or other achievement is pretty impressive,
within its own context. On the other hand, if it was created by a society
where injustice was a way of life (and, in some societies,
institutionalized), it does put a pretty sour spin on the achievement. Think
of it this way; If an architect designs a nice building, it's not a bad
achievement in any society. However, would one be so willing to credit a
cotton plantation owner with his 'achievement,' knowing that without slavery
it wouldn't have been possible?
By placing this in a conext of whether social criticism dimishes a
particular achievement, Gerry, you're eluding the issue that not all
achievements are as separte from the society bey`ing criticized as the
question seems to indicate.
> seeking to join the dominant white male society, because unless they
> do, they will be powerless to change it. Those minorities hwo have
> become a part of the "system" have been effective in changing it, as
> witnessed by the increasing numbers of minorieties entering the
> system. However, the establishment has a vested interest in not
> changing, and by making rediculous claims of past events, the
> minorities are only fueling the fire of the establishment to maintain
> the status quo.
>
Well, again, this depends on the degree the individual is being asked
to conform to a particular value of society's, and what the individual is
being asked to give up. For example, if you live in an urban environment,
you're probably going to see a lot more neo-African clothing being worn than
you would have, say, thirty or forty years ago. Standards have changed mainly
because many people decided that they'd rather follow a different standard
than that demanded by the dominant culture. As a result, we've become a lot
more tolerant of these differences as a society.
Similarly, pointing out past injustices-- especially if said
injustices are more or less forgotten in conventional presentations of
history-- is _not_ "making rediculous claims," as you phrased it. It's
reminding us of injustices of the past, with an eye towards not repeating
them.
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
(Note: This message has experienced a LOT of fragmentation, mainly
between my comments, Robert's replies, and my replies. So bear with us.)
shea...@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
> In article <8P3agB...@cellar.org> re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
> > Please examine the preceding passage again; throughout, it is implie
> >that what created this wonderful technological society is, specifically, _me
> >only_, and that _patriarchy_ was responsible was well. Not that human beings
>
> Well, this *is* what the feminists charge, to whom she is replying.
Actually, Robert, you cited the passage in question as an example of
how Paglia feels about patriarchy; the passage made it very clear that what
Paglia likes in patriarchy is expressed in her admiration for engineering and
management feats.
Not once was it stated that "the feminists" charge this, by the way.
And since we're intent on muddyig the waters, perhaps you can clear up a
question:
Does Paglia like patriarchy, which she claims has built nifty stuff,
or does she dislike feminists, whom, you claim, bnelieve that patriarchy
builds nifty stuff? Or is Paglia a feminist? Or are you an anti-feminist who
dislikes Paglia? Or have you thoroughly confused the issue?
>
> > (I'm also surprised at her equating capitalism with patriarchy, as
> >well as freedom. I've learned not to be so certain of these equations.)
> This is yet another charge of the feminists, to whom she
> is replying.
>
> Name a half-dozen female founders of the capitalist system.
A non-sequitir, Robert, and you really should know better; when
capitalism was first formulated as an economic theory, please name ten women
who'd be _permitted_ to have published their ideas and be taken seriously.
Also note that communism, socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, Italian
fascism, German national socialism, American democracy, French democracy,
agricultural collectivism and even the game of Monopoly were invented by men,
as well. So let's not have any men-are-wonderful-because-we-created-free-marke
ts nonsense, okay?
>
> >
> > What we have here, Bob, is something that you may have missed. What
> >lot of us criticize about such simplisitic views as the Newage movement is
> >their reliance on simple dualistic interpretations. For example, I think we
>
> The "Rev P-K" says that he doesn't *want* to criticise simplisitic dualistic
> interpretations such as "goddess matriarchy vs. Judeao-Christian
> patriarchy", because they are harmless and benign.
>
> OK, suppose I agree that what Paglia says here is nonsense. But it's
> "benign" nonsense, like the Goddess stuff, so let's not attack it.
>
_Sheesh_. I really wish my words could appear more slowly on Robert's
screen so I could make certain he could understand _every word_ at a
comfortable pace. Let's go over this again.
I said that we _do_ criticize simplistic dualistic assumptions-- sez
so there, right above Robert's assertion that I _don't._
Second: I don't spend as much energy criticizing neo-Paganism because
I've found most neo-Pagans to be far more sympathetic to the skeptical
viewpoint that most, and as a whole, they present little danger to my values
as a whole. Last I checked, they weren't infringing on Robert's freedoms,
either; for example, they weren't demanding 'equal time' in classrooms.
And as I stated, examinations of Goddess-worship in history does
_not_ automatically imply the dichotomy between 'goddess matriarchy and
Judeo-Christian patriarchy.' I should mention that Camille Paglia
consistently works on the _assumption_ that this dichotomy is true; and I
don't see much 'benign' stuff about her, frankly.
And Robert, are you suddenly arguing in _favor_ of Judeo-Christian
values? I'd better let Pat Robertson know. He'd be delighted to recruit a
former skeptic.
>
> > I'm also _very_ offended when people actually say (to my face, on
> >occasion) that men think in certain ways, and women think in certain ways;
>
> Then you must be *grossly* offended by feminist thinkers. For example,
> Andrea Dworkin writes,
> "Men love death. In everything they make, they hollow out a central
> place for death, ..."
>
Robert, please recall; I specifically cited Andrea Dworkin as one of
the few feminists I can legtimately call 'man-hating,' and fitting pretty
much every sterotype you hold about feminists. You aren't telling me anything
new; in fact, since I've already stated that I think Dworkin's more than a
tad cracked, I'm beginning to wonder if you actually _read_ these replies.
And not that I feel like defending Dworkin, but I couldn't help but
notice that you quoted roughly a sentence and a fragment, without sources.
When someone quoted Paglia earlier-- with far more material, and pretty much
within her meaning-- you jumped up and down and carped bout how Paglia was
being quoted out of context. Maybe that's true, but please, extend Dworkin
the same responsible skepticism you demand that we give to Paglia.
> And she is far from the ONLY one to argue in this way. It is central
> to feminist thinking that mens' emotions and thinking are somehow
> 'tainted'.
>
> This is funny. I don't recall any postings From Brian saying how he's
> offended by feminist thought.
Like I said, I've already let you know how I feel about Dworkin. But
how about other feminists? Gloria Steinem? Alice Walker? Molly Ivins (one of
the most delightful columnists going)? Betty Friedan? Molly Yard? How about
others with concerns alongside of women's issues, like abortion activist Bill
Baird? Robert, there is a _wide_ variety of thought that comes under the
banner of 'feminist,' yet you persist in claiming that "feminists," _as a
group_, believe in what you claim they believe in. And as several of us have
posted, these assumptions about feminism are either nonsensical or
hysterical. Sure, Dworkin's a jerk; but where have you been learning about
feminism? _The 700 Club_ and _The Old Time Gospel Hour_?
> >
> > Think of it this way. Imagine that Paglia were using the same terms
> >to write about race.
>
> She didn't.
>
That's why I asked you to _imagine_ that she did, in order to
illustrate the fallacy of her rhetoric by way of a simple thought experiment.
Robert, I know you're smarter than this. But when I'm spelling this
out at a keyboard, I really don't like thinking that I have to _spell this
out_.
> >
> > In short; Paglia is a thinker who _reinforces_ existing gender
> >stereotypes, yet has somehow been presented as a 'radical' and
> >'unconventional' thinker in these areas.
>
> Well, she is *extremely* unconventional by present-day standards, even
> radical. Actually, she is DEBUNKING currently-fashionable stereotypes,
> i.e. the Politically Correct view that there are *no* differences
> between men and women, except concerning who has the baby.
I think my original post-- the substantive matter of which isn't in
Robert's reply, oddly enough-- argued quite well that Paglia's approach is to
_rest_ upon accepted stereotypes of Man as Builder and Woman as Whiny
Homemaker. As far as Paglia goes as a debunker, what she debunks is
apparently Paglia's own view of things. She says that such-and-such _is_
feminism, for example, and then takes apart the straw man she's created; and
apparently, her readers aren't informed enough about her subject matter to
know when they're being hoodwinked.
Her approach is scarcely different from Robert Anton Wilson's,
Robert; Wilson, for example, says that the skeptics are evil, mechanistic
left-brained quasi-fascists, and then attacks _that_ image; all the while
presenting himself as a 'heretic' daring to speak the unspeakable. Paglia
makes sweeping generalizations about whatever it is she wants to attack, and
so it's no wonder that she comes out ahead. Nobody ever lost a fight arguing
with himself.
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <8P3agB...@cellar.org>, re...@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> > I'm also _very_ offended when people actually say (to my face, on
> >occasion) that men think in certain ways, and women think in certain ways;
> >implied in this is that men and women are incapable of going beyond these
> >bounds that have been imposed upon their gender. To say that men are
> >engineers while women are the homemakers insults both men and women, and
> >reinforces a view that may keep those precious exceptions from finding lives
> >they'd find fulfilling.
>
> Oddly enough, I hear this claim most often from feminists--that men and
> women have distinct "modes of thought" and ways of learning and
> communicating, and that these ways are incommensurable. The claim is
> also made by multiculturalists about different "learning styles" of
> different ethnic minorities.
>
Jim's found an area that I really haven't resolved for myself just
yet; exactly how intrinsic are mental traits?
One of the factoids that's stayed with me since a women's studies
class I took at Temple U. was the only roughly consistent psychological
difference between men and women; men developed better spatial and
mathematical skills, while women developed language and communications skills
at an earlier age. There are always exceptions, and no experiment's been
conducted that indispuitably factored out societal influences, but it did
seem roughly consistent.
The issue is pretty intriguing, actually; if there are tendencies
towards abilities linked to gender, how well can men and women get past those
boundaries? And one issue that always bothers me is the implied judgement
that one is better (or more utilitarian) than the other.
For example, in Robert Sheaffer's excerpt, camille Paglia clearlt
describes herself as having a strong reverence for engineering feats, which
she ascribes to the abilities of males and patriarchal societal structures.
Nobody on this echo's disputing that engineering's nice to have; but this
seems to have eben adopted as a means to belittle abilities that women may
have that men may be lacking in.
Granted, I've seen examples of this kind of gender-exclusiveness--
the belittling of men because of stereotypes, and several centuries of women
being belittled because they didn't hold much power and their abilities were
seen as useless or ephemeral. I don't enjoy it from either side; this doesn't
mean I won't accept the possibility that gender does carry with it some
tendencies towards abilities.
I think what I'm working on is a distinction; of being able to
discuss possible differences linked to gender, while avoiding the implied
'inevitableness' and dismissals of the opposite traits that seem to follow.
Thomas Kettenring
>According to Joseph Campbell (in _Primitive Mythologies_) there were some
>matriarchies long ago. He said that the men were somewhat fearful and in awe
>of women, because she could create life and was affected by the cycles of the
>moon.
Wouldn't then all women have their periods at the same time, causing
homo sapiens to have a sexual behaviour similar to the palolo worm?
--
-Caddy------(thomas kettenring, kaiserslautern, germany)--------
-I will not waste bandwidth--I will not waste bandwidth---Stolen
-I will not waste bandwidth--I will not waste bandwidth-----from
-I will not waste bandwidth--I will not waste bandwidth--Matt G.
Gerry Roston
Doesn't diminish it? Well, that's a rather simplistic spin on things.
Granted, a nice building or bridge or other achievement is pretty impressive,
within its own context. On the other hand, if it was created by a society
where injustice was a way of life (and, in some societies,
institutionalized), it does put a pretty sour spin on the achievement.
NO IT DOESNT'T! It is this type of silly argument that open the door
for the current spate of attacks on everything we know. Newton
developed his law and mathematics at a time when women were little
more than slaves. Does this diminish nis work? NO!! Does the fact
that the great pyramids of Egypt were built by forcibly conscripted
labor belittle their magnificance? NO!! Are any past achievements
diminished by the social structure at their time of creation? NO!!
Think
of it this way; If an architect designs a nice building, it's not a bad
achievement in any society. However, would one be so willing to credit a
cotton plantation owner with his 'achievement,' knowing that without slavery
it wouldn't have been possible?
Yes I would. Keep in mind that an achievement must be looked upon
based on the existing societal values of the time that it occured.
When slavery existed in this country, as wrong as it is, it was both
legal and socially acceptable. We can not denigrate those plantation
owners because they did what was normal/common/accepted, however, we
can look back and say that it is now socially unacceptable and should
not be repeated.
Brian, using your logic, everything that has happened in the past must
be tainted, and looking back at today from the future, everything we
do will certainly be tainted. We must strive to do our best today,
knowing that when we are judged tomorrow, that that judgement will be
in light of today context.
--
Gerry Roston (ge...@cs.cmu.edu) | II - A well regulated Militia, being
Field Robotics Center, | necessary to the security of a free State,
Carnegie Mellon University | the right of the people to keep and bear
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 | Arms, shall not be infringed.
(412) 268-3856 |
|
The opinions expressed are mine |
Robert Sheaffer
Ortiz de Montellano, author of the two-part article in the Skeptical Inquirer
on "Afrocentrism":
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1992 08:01:58 EST
Reply-To: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKE...@YORKVM1.BITNET>
Sender: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKE...@YORKVM1.BITNET>
From: Bernard Ortiz de Montellano <BORTIZ@WAYNEST1>
Subject: Re: Afrocentrism
To: Multiple recipients of list SKEPTIC <SKEPTIC@YORKVM1>
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 19 Feb 1992 07:51:40 EST from <OMARTI@TIFTON>
I'm glad that a discussion of afrocentrism has begun, since there are
several fairly disturbing elements involved. The question originally raised
about claims that Egyptians were black is important if placed in context.
Elizabeth is correct that anthropologists, among others, have tried
mightily over the years to point out that there is one human species,
that the differences between people of one "race" are much greatrer than
the differences between "races", and that culture and race are different
things. However, the public at large still holds the concept of race to
valid, and, more importantly for our discussion, there is a growing movement
among Blacks to claim that their melanin in fact makes them superior
biologically to whites.
There is a group of called the KM [pronounced khem] WARE Consortium, or
the "melanin scholars." Briefly they argue that melanin has a number of
unusual properties, such as the ability to absorb energy from the entire
electromagnetic spectrum, that it is the central organizing molecule of
life, that it is present in all the muscles and is responsible for the
superior performance of black athletes, that neuromelanin (melanin in
the brain) makes blacks intellectually superior and in fact confers
paranormal capabilities upon them (psi, telekinesis, remote viewing
etc.). They argue that amounts of neuromelanin parallel the amount of
melanin in the skin, and therefore that blacks are superior to whites
biologically. In fact, this argument is fatally flawed since neuromelanin
is synthesized from different precursors by a different enzyme than skin
melanin, and there is absolutely no correlation between amounts of skin and
neuromelanin. Normal amounts of neuromelanin are found even in albinos.
Some of the members of this group are: Leonard Jeffries, soon to be former
Chair of African-American Studies at CUNY, who is much in the news for his
antisemitic remarks; Wade Nobles, who teaches at San Francisco State University
and argues that whites stopped evolving with a Central Nervous System (CNS)
but Blacks continued to evolve an Essential Melanic System (EMS) leading
to an equation HB (human being)= CNS+ EMS, i.e. whites are not full human
beings; Frances Welsing, a Washington, D. C. psychiatrist, who argues that
George Washington Carver was able to discover many useful plant components,
not because he had a Master's degree in chemistry and worked very hard, but
because "he was a very black man and the plants talked to his melanin and told
himwhat they were good for"; Hunter Adams, who claims to be a research
scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, but in reality is an environmental
science technician with a High School degree. Hunter Adams also claims that
neuromelanin gives paranormal abilities to blacks and that astrology is
scientific. Further information on this is available in my two articles
"Magic Melanin", Skeptical Inquirer, 16, 162-166 (Winter 1992) and "Afrocentric
Creationism", Creation/Evolution, 29, 1-8 (Winter 1991-92)
These scholars produce the "scientific" theoretical basis for arguing as
Afrocentrics do that Egyptians invented almost everything thousands of
years ago and that the Greeks, Chinese, Hindus, and even Incas and
Olmecs stole all they know from Egyptians. The Egyptians were able to
do this because they were Black and their melanin gave them these
extraordinary gifts. This is the context why Afrocentrics are so
adamant that ancient Egyptians (at least the rulers and scholars) were
all Black. In fact, ancient Egypt was a mixture of colors pretty much
as it is today, with darker people as one goes further South. A good article
on the topic is: Frank Yurco, "Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White?"
Biblical Archeology REview, 15 (#5) 24-29, 58 (Sept. Oct. 1989).
A more serious problem is that the most widely diffused Afrocentric
curriculum, the Portland Baseline Essays, which have been adopted, have
greatly influence, or are being considered for adoption by a number of
urban school districts like Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C.,
Fort Lauderdale, Prince George Co., MD, includes a science essay written
by Hunter Adams. This essay argues thatreligion is a part of the scientific
research paradigm, that supernatural causation exists, that astrology is
scientific, and that Egyptians were masters of psi and that the validity
of the paranormal has been confirmed by modern science. The essay also
contains a number of exaggerated claims: that Egyptians discovered the
Theory of Evolution, the wave/particle nature of light, some of the
philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics, plating of gold by electricity,
and flew full sized gliders some 4000 years ago. Children in some of our
large school districts are being taught these ideas which will increase
rather than decrease scientific illiteracy. More information is available
in my article "Multicultural Pseudoscience", Skeptical Inquirer, 16, 46-50
Fall 1991 and in a forthcoming editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Anthropology Department
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202
Howard D Lewis
>The following was posted on the BITNET SKEPTIC discussion by Bernard
>Ortiz de Montellano, author of the two-part article in the Skeptical Inquirer
>on "Afrocentrism":
>
>Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1992 08:01:58 EST
>Reply-To: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKE...@YORKVM1.BITNET>
>Sender: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKE...@YORKVM1.BITNET>
>From: Bernard Ortiz de Montellano <BORTIZ@WAYNEST1>
>Subject: Re: Afrocentrism
>To: Multiple recipients of list SKEPTIC <SKEPTIC@YORKVM1>
>In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 19 Feb 1992 07:51:40 EST from <OMARTI@TIFTON>
>
>>
>curriculum, the Portland Baseline Essays, which have been adopted, have
> greatly influence, or are being considered for adoption by a number of
>urban school districts like Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C.,
>Fort Lauderdale, Prince George Co., MD, includes a science essay written
>by Hunter Adams. This essay argues thatreligion is a part of the scientific
>research paradigm, that supernatural causation exists, that astrology is
>scientific, and that Egyptians were masters of psi and that the validity
>of the paranormal has been confirmed by modern science. The essay also
>contains a number of exaggerated claims: that Egyptians discovered the
>Theory of Evolution, the wave/particle nature of light, some of the
>philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics, plating of gold by electricity,
>and flew full sized gliders some 4000 years ago. Children in some of our
>large school districts are being taught these ideas which will increase
>rather than decrease scientific illiteracy. More information is available
>in my article "Multicultural Pseudoscience", Skeptical Inquirer, 16, 46-50
>Fall 1991 and in a forthcoming editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
>
>Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
>Anthropology Department
>Wayne State University
>Detroit, MI 48202
>
This somewhat sad that such disinformation is being promoted in the public schools simply
because it is the PC thing to do.
Stanley Friesen
|
|Jeez, if that's "comparatively liberal", I'd hate to see what
|a misogynist text looked like!
Yes, I am sure you would, and so would I, and so would most Americans.
If you wish to see a pale shadow of what was, take a look at how women
are treated in many modern Arab countries. Not a pretty sight to our eyes,
and it is almost certainly less extreme now than it once was.
In First Century Judea women could not own property, they could not speak
in synagogue, they could be divorced merely by public announcement of
intent, they were generally considered as property, and as being unworthy
to consider spiritual matters.
So, to even consider *teaching* a women at all, under any pretext, would
have been utterly scandalous.
--
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
> In article <6...@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com>, se...@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com (Se
> >According to Joseph Campbell (in _Primitive Mythologies_) there were some
> >matriarchies long ago. He said that the men were somewhat fearful and in aw
> >of women, because she could create life and was affected by the cycles of th
> >moon.
>
> Wouldn't then all women have their periods at the same time, causing
> homo sapiens to have a sexual behaviour similar to the palolo worm?
>
> --
I _hope_ Campbell meant that they _believed_ this moon=menstruation
business way back when, and _not_ that it'd be true.
Paul Lewis, here we go now...
being lined up), and exactly WHEN this source claims this occurred.
I didn't know they narrowed it down to milliseconds. Very impressive
since the Zapruder film is divided into 18.3 frames per second.
|-Paul Lewis- 'Alone in a crowd.' -|___________________________________
Daniel A Ashlock
(Howard D Lewis) writes:
> This somewhat sad that such disinformation is being promoted in the
>public schools simply because it is the PC thing to do.
I was under the impression that it was not just that the Portland Baseline
Essays were PC but that there was a resounding lack of other materials
available. So does anyone have materials they could suggest to illustrate
black participation in the human adventure that is not crap?
Dan Ashlock
Room 468, George Washinton Carver Hall
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
50011
(Why this building houses a math dept., a business college, and the LA&S Dean
I don't know...)
M. Edward Borasky
>available. So does anyone have materials they could suggest to illustrate
>black participation in the human adventure that is not crap?
CAN SUPPLY ANYONE WITH A CARD WITH ENOUGH GOOD BOOKS ON BLACK HISTORY
TO FILL UP YOUR ENTIRE HOUSE, AND I DON'T (GERUND DELETED) CARE HOW BIG
YOUR HOUSE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COME ON!!!!!!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are proud to use FORTRAN as our only professional programming language.
Sorry, we are unable to assist recruiters who refuse to assist recent graduates.
Daniel A Ashlock
writes:
> In article <1992Feb2...@IASTATE.EDU> dan...@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A
Ashlock) writes:
>>available. So does anyone have materials they could suggest to illustrate
>>black participation in the human adventure that is not crap?
>FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!! ANY (GERUND DELETED) PUBLIC LIBRARY IN THE USA
>CAN SUPPLY ANYONE WITH A CARD WITH ENOUGH GOOD BOOKS ON BLACK HISTORY
>TO FILL UP YOUR ENTIRE HOUSE, AND I DON'T (GERUND DELETED) CARE HOW BIG
>YOUR HOUSE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>COME ON!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, that helps lots. Perhaphs I should clarify. The black history
stuff in the library, except for the occasional treasure like George Washington
Carver's biography, is predomanantly depressing stuff about the mistreatment of
blacks or dry academic things like material on the black empires in the
interior of Africa (I believe no written record from those cultures are
available) niether of which will fill the slot that the Portland Baseline
Essays fill.
While I suspect the stuff in the Library is fairly representative of
History the PC police have already caused the schools to sort of ignore
history when attempting to build the self esteem and sense of history
in black children. I was asking if anyone has any treasures of black
history they would like to reccomend.
Even the guy with the CAPS LOCK key up above is smarter than a library card
catalogue and I was hoping to tap some of that intellegence rather than sort
through the one public library in my home town single handedly, possibly
missing a really good book they didn't happen to have.
In the back of my mind I was hoping we could outline the beginning of a real
resource package to displace the crap and that could slip by the PC police.
Have a (gerund deleted) nice day yourself. Were you really under the
impression that filling my house with such books would help the problem?
If so you have a somewhat inaccurate impression of how fast I can read.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> We are proud to use FORTRAN as our only professional programming language.
That speaks to the inability to capitalize properly!
Do you still use punch cards?
(Define Bozo (Lis)
(Cond ((Eq Lis Fortran) T)
(() F)
)
)
John Lynwood Scott
> CAN SUPPLY ANYONE WITH A CARD WITH ENOUGH GOOD BOOKS ON BLACK HISTORY
> TO FILL UP YOUR ENTIRE HOUSE, AND I DON'T (GERUND DELETED) CARE HOW BIG
> YOUR HOUSE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> COME ON!!!!!!!!!
Er, close. A gerund is a verb ending in "ing" used as a noun. The "ing"
word you are deleting above was used first as an adjective and second as an
adverb. An example of a gerund would be "(gerund deleted) is fun." That
example is, of course, also an understatement.
--John Scott
Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano
Well, as an adjunct to Robert's post about the melanin=brains
nonsense, I might as well mention that The New Republic did a lengthy article
examining anthropological claims that blacks provided the basis of the great
ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Babylonia.
Not being as up on my history as I'd like to be, I can't evaluate the
article from an informed perspective. (On the oen hand, it looks very well
researched and well-reasoned; on the other, Martin Peretz is the publisher of
TNR, and he's an arch-conservative jerk, so I approach it with caution.) But,
since the issue's cropped up here in a tangential sense, I figure I ought to
pass the word on.
Albert van der Horst
>
> I wonder how many other cases of "dominant" males turn out to
>be dominant only over other males most of the time.
>
>> I see no evidence to suggest that there were ever an matriarchal
>> societies. One does not need a degree in antropology to weild Occam's
>> razor effectively.
>
> Welcome to Marija Gimbutas's _The Civilization of the
>Goddess_. She does not propose that either sex ruled the other, but a
>social organization best on female lineages and wandering males, much
>like horse herds and lion prides. I'm not sure if that's a fair
>summary of her proposals, but she proposes something like that.
>
>
One does not need a degree in antropology, but a skeptic may want to
read some serious litterature about a subject (s)he writes about.
We do not have make do with mere "proposals"
I have been reading Engels' (yes the marxist) century old book
"on the origin of the family, private propery and the state".
Maybe dated, maybe biased. But proofs of the existance of early
matriarchal societies are abundant, many of them originating from
investigation of Morgan in the structure of Indian society in Northern
America.
They start with the facts, then explain them as follows:
1. inbreed is biological unfavourable
2. in primitive societies the father of a child is not known
3. household are organized by mother lines
4. a man is wedded out of the household, the women stays within this
so called "gens" (Indian tribe "clan") to get rid of inbreed
Traces of these are too many to repeat here (go on read).
Many examples from all over the world.
A single example still actual at 1880 :
australian negroes had two gens. A member of the opposite gens
was a natural seks partner. Everybody inherits his mother's gens.
A man fucking his daughter would not be considered incest (but then
how would you know?). But stay away from your sister, or her daughter.
These old "matriarchal" societies
were primitive communist societies, with one (wo)men one vote.
Because there was so little real power to grasp, then.
Nothing to long back too, actually.
>$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: lo...@sunlight.llnl.gov
Albert van der Horst
"If it weren't for Salt-N-Peppa, I wouldn't make it through midlife crisis"
Albert van der Horst BSO/Automation Technology
P.O 8052 3053 RB UTRECHT The Netherlands
uunet!sun4nl!bsovax!albert
sc...@gw.wmich.edu
> In article <6...@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com>, se...@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com (Seth Dobbs) writes:
>>According to Joseph Campbell (in _Primitive Mythologies_) there were some
>>matriarchies long ago. He said that the men were somewhat fearful and in awe
>>of women, because she could create life and was affected by the cycles of the
>>moon.
>
> Wouldn't then all women have their periods at the same time, causing
> homo sapiens to have a sexual behaviour similar to the palolo worm?
Women's menstrual cycles are generally "lunar" in nature, occuring
on the average, every 28 days. Also, studies of women living in close
proximity to each other (for example, a college dorm), have shown many
begin to cycle together and cycle with phases of the moon. This is, I
believe, termed "the dormitory effect". If primitive societies had
a societal structure where women where living in close proximity to each other
(say with a cave or other enclosed dwelling), this, coupled with
lunar-like cycling, would re-enforce the moon=menstrual cycle mystic.
In fact, it could have been quite true.
Julie Scott / If all else fails, read the directions /
sc...@mickey.acs.wmich.edu