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Awakening to a cultural limitation …

Posted January 2nd, 2012 by Charles Bowling in notes from a sign reader

 

Hi All,
 
Rising above the miasma of ours or any culture is not an easy thing. Our culture treats us like fish in water, oblivious to any possibility of life in another element. All is not lost however, as amongst our fishlike counterparts there exist certain rare creatures. They have extraordinary capacity. These are flying fish. These are the cultural realizers with capacity to soar above the limitations of their birth; all the way from Plotinus to Wilber and beyond.
 
A chief limitation in our culture is the denigration of the feminine. There are cultural artifacts that are the tools of this limitation. Many of these are relatively unseen, and unrecognized.
 
One way to examine this phenomenon is through the language that has come down to us; and though I make no special claim to linguistic expertise, I do have some facility as a wordsmith. Take the word 'whore' for example. It is not only gender specific, but a pejorative -a word loaded with negative connotations towards the feminine and all women in general. Note that there exists no exact equivalent derogatory word equally descriptive of the masculine, i.e. it usually means women who accept money for sexual favors. For men we have the word gigolo; which on its face is much less common. This imbalance represents only a small indicator of the denigration of the feminine.
 
If we try to trace this denigration back to its source, we find it to be a long and not easy journey. KW has pointed out that there are two main versions of cultural/religious movements in our historical past, describing them as ascenders and descenders. What they share in common is distaste for the chief values held by the other group. Ascenders tend to eschew the body, in the same way that the descenders tend to celebrate it. Roughly ascenders favor the masculine (and agency) in the same way that descenders favor the feminine (and communion). It's only a small step to transfer this to gender identity.
 
There are artifacts in our languages to support this dual cultural tendency. In Latin the word for female genitalia is cloaca, a word that in English can also be translated as sewer.
  
There is another more famous ‘C’ word in the English language. (I won't use it here as many people find it offensive.) (However my understanding of its roots can be found elsewhere:)
 
This denigration of the feminine has serious consequences, including inhibitory factors that act as limitations to our ongoing evolution.
 
Consider the often used tripartite breakdown of pre-rational, rational, and trans-rational. A starting point in this consideration is to assign to rationality a tendency towards the masculine, much in the same way of assigning feelings/emotions to the feminine. A further step is to consider how it is that rationality is fed.
 
It's my view that pre-rationality ‘feeds’ rationality through instinct; and that trans-rationality ‘feeds’ rationality through intuition. Furthermore it's my view that both instinct and intuition tend to favor the feminine, much in the same way that musculature and thought favors the masculine.
 
Now this may not seem like a big deal, but I ask you to further consider what happens where some action involving musculature goes right through to the idea of thought, without due consideration of the moderating influence of the feminine, i.e. some sense of feel for the other or communion. The results are many cases where brutalizing women appears to be a good idea.
 
This is to say nothing at the other end of the spectrum where rationality is informed of the trans-rational through intuition. Some profound sense or great picture or sublime feeling illuminates the mind. The results may show up in a great work of art or literature or poetry, etc.
 
I submit that without an engagement of the feminine principle our tendency is to short-circuit our evolution by denying the best of our past and our future. Simply put this engagement of the feminine principle can be described in a single word: surrender!
 
Finally, when we employ -either wittingly or not- words such as ‘whore’ the effect is to increase the cultural miasma, at the expense of clarity and our own ongoing unfoldment.
 
-Charles

 

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awakening to two cultural limitations

Posted January 2nd, 2012 by Layman Pascal

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Finally, when we employ -either wittingly or not- words such as ‘whore’ the effect is to increase the cultural miasma, at the expense of clarity and our own ongoing unfoldment.
 

Yes, but.

We should keep equally in mind (and heart, and whatever they have in common) that reassimiliating these terms is also critical.  The "strain" that historical attitudes imposes upon our terminology is maintained by our own reflexive contraction and needs to be purified in this sense.  

Our sensitivity must be double-ended.  On the one hand we are alert to possible upset and the continuance of pathological trends such as the diminishment of the feminine.  On the other hand CUNT and WHORE and any other bad words need, urgently, to be divested of their presumed, reactionary energy content.  Our job is not to purify language but to redeem it.  Is not typically masculine to try to marginalize terms whose energies we find distressing?  

I'm not accusing you, Charles, just saying that both these approaches are pretty equal in my experience.  I don't want to live in a world where any man or any woman perpetuates evil unconsciously through symbols or unconsciously through perpetuating the supposed magic power of derogatory terminology which is projected upon the innocence of language from out of our own habits and bio-emotional cringing in the face of symbols. 

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

 

(to receive other "Weekly Harangues" write to: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

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Nice!

Posted January 2nd, 2012 by Annie

I feel like I have a big advantage in reading these words of yours, because I know exactly how you mean it. It reminds me of a conversation we had regarding "teasing", you adamantly object to its use, until I realized we were actually speaking of two different events. One being a sure thing...the other not LOL!

I have a similar conflict with the word Whore, although the way Stanley used the word...it was indeed devaluing, but my point was something that I knew he would never understand. Perhaps I thought that if he took the time to wonder about it, he might suspect something I was pointing to.

I know how strongly you feel about certain language Faux pas, but for me the perversion is in the mindset, not the word. To exhibit a contradiction to the mind that utters perceived slander, is a practice of embrace, it is also a practice that releases oneself from the habit of contracting. Specifically with the word Whore, it was much deeper and more profound than practicing "embrace", it also has significant ties to a way of being that defies all such known concepts as; sex for money, and degradation of the body. It implies a way of naked being, complete vulnerability and uninhibited responsiveness. I am certain that the range of emotions I feel towards that word, stem from my Catholic upbringing, but in a sense it has a kind of life of its own. As if we were speaking of the best kept secret, that to hear it, one is transported to another dimension.

Anyway Charles, I do appreciate your governance, and I would always respect your adherence to certain standards, but I think you know me well enough to suspect that when I accept certain artifacts, it is on my own terms.

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Posted January 2nd, 2012 by Johanna M

Thank you, Charles (and others) for writing about this.

"KW has pointed out that there are two main versions of cultural/religious movements in our historical past, describing them as ascenders and descenders.  What they share in common is distaste for the chief values held by the other group.  Ascenders tend to eschew the body, in the same way that the descenders tend to celebrate it."

Interesting that you use these words--"distaste" and "eschew".  It always puzzles me why ascending and descending are so often seen in terms of opposition, rather than synergy and interdependence.  Whereas in my own mind and experience, it seems that they are necessarily connected--just as breathing in and breathing out--as a continual exchange is necessary for life.

In our culture today, though there is much less political oppression of women, there remains the cultural habit or shadow of the denigration of the "feminine"--and this is much more subtle and difficult for people to understand.