The suggestion that a metaphorical Matricide is necessary for the evolution of consciousness is, I think, fatalistic. Its a confusion between what has happened and the way things have to be. Its like saying, ‘Oh, It was the will of God. It was meant to be.” Or, more crudely, ‘Whatever happens is deserved and therefore right,” and simply serves to absolve ourselves of responsibility and bestow the events of history with ad hoc justification.
Ok, come on what’s eating you now?
Well, its just that wherever you turn, learned heads nod over the demise of ancient and peaceable people who had a balanced gender perspective on things, claiming it couldn’t have happened differently.
and so…
Well, if we claimed that Hitler was inevitable and what he did was part of the evolution of consciousness I’d have an angry mob at the door in no time.
Yeeees…and…
So how is that different from saying that highly evolved civilisations where the goddess was venerated alongside her male consorts had to be overrun and destroyed as part of some ‘natural process’?
clearly bollocks, but still… your point?
It means that my natural revulsion toward neatly tied packages has to overrun my attachment to my favourite pet theorists…
Oh dear, that.. Disillusionment in your heroes?
yeah
Sorry, never mind, you need to think about what the word disillusionment actually means…
Thanks, so …..the problem with stating that..
without illusion..
the problem with stating that amazing systems like the Sumerian civilisation which valued the masculine and feminine equally ‘had to crumble’ is that we are just handing over power and authority to others whose usurpation is given credibility and divine sanction simply by virtue of their having pulled off some act of uber aggression…
that’s the way of the world…
and 9/11?
er….
thankyou, now shut up and listen… The child only has to struggle free in a violent way if the maternal principle concerned is smothering him. Painting the feminine as some cthonic figure to be overcome as though she were simply a dragon to begin with, is a version of reality promulgated by the patriarchy which refuses to share the stage he’s busy smashing his guitar up on, and using spin that would make Alistair Darling blush, to present the feminine as though she were the shadow she throws.
Its like giving someone a character reference simply on the basis of negative traits, forgetting that the Principle of Relatedness wants her child to fulfil his own destiny and sometimes has to shove him out of the door to do so.
The equation between the unconscious/feminine and the conscious/masculine in some kind of Mexican stand off is excessively simplistic, though it is indeed a recapitulation of an age old prejudice employed by the church to suppress and demonise what it can’t control…
just goes to show how deeply such attitiudes infiltrate modern thought…
And of course it is indeed a necessary part of the hero’s journey to discriminate and be torn between opposites but there is a distinction to be drawn between separation and being split, and its only in the latter situation that daggers have to be drawn.
In the judeo-christian system the divine image is only transcendent. This has led to the perception that consciousness can only be the same. As such it must be antagonistic to the unconscious on the basis that the father as Law and the mother as Nature are irrevocably set against each other.
In other cosmologies we find that differentiation is symbolically represented as a pair of lovers rather than as aggressors. The image of Geb and Nut in Egyptian mythology are presented as co-operating equals in eternal erotic embrace as are Shakti and Shiva in the Hindu pantheon.
These cosmological beginnings are older than written record or human memory. They suggest that consciousness of individuality originated way further back in antiquity than our capacity to trace it, anxious as we are to claim it as a recent phenomenon as though consciousness could only belong to us….
in our age..
like kids in the playground going, ‘Its my game’!!!
Also suggested is that the differentiation of I from Thou, with a corresponding inner dialogue between I and Me, or, in fact, the capacity for reflection, need not depend on violent subjugation of anything.
so below…