Beyond a Technology vs Nature Society
By Ishtar
Abstract
I challenge the romanticisation of the past by some progressives, pagans, eco-feminists and the like. As well as destructive potentials, technology can move society forward spiritually, environmentally and socially. I feel we should think carefully about powerful dualisms like organic-technological, culture-nature and even male-female. I present a goddess figure that exists in all dimensions, times, cultures and technologies.
Many people in the new age/pagan/goddess movement/eco- feminists hark back to a golden age when human society was beautiful, natural, holistic peaceful and often matriarchal. These times are symbolised by the mother Goddess, an icon frequently found in many Neolithic and Palaeolithic settlements. Often technological advances and male domination of economic and spiritual systems are cited for the unequal relationship between the sexes and the gradual destruction of the Earth’s resources. The above groups romanticize both the past and nature suggesting a complex and distrusting relationship with modernity. However we cannot return to the past and it may not be the past that they imagine. Ancient people were not always environmentalists. The Bronze Age in the UK, for example saw an unprecedented stripping of trees. Technology and the by-products of worldwide human consumption are only toxic and dangerous because of the political and spiritual ideas that dominate the decisions the hierarchies of our world make.
Technology has the power to harness the resources of nature in a clean environmental way. The power of the sun, wind and water, worshiped by the ancients, could potentially give us all light, heat and energy to power our machines. The internet and computer technology has within it the power to create a universal mind and evolve society beyond the dichotomies that we all live within.
Archaeological evidence seems to suggest a more feminine type of social organisation in the distant past. The Goddess-centred art from ancient times, with its striking absence of images of warfare and male domination reflects a social order in which women are central.
New Age cultures in the West have found in the Goddess their customary enjoyments, that is, the archaic and the esoteric. However, many of the ancient icons and symbols have been misunderstood. For example, although our intuition speaks to us, we cannot ever be sure about the meanings of icons and symbols from the distant past. Perhaps it is not a bad thing to invent meanings and integrate them within our own culture. However, any symbol taken outside the geographical, cultural and mythical location will have its meanings altered.
Human sexuality and spirituality have had various forms and manifestations over the millennia. Goddess philosophy can be resurrected to suit the technological advances of this age, as her spirit can exist within any technological or social context.
Advances in technology have the potential to liberate the goddess into mass human consciousness. In particular with advances in the computer age we are now in. There are digital parallels to the spiritual experience. The latency of formless chaos and therefore pure creation can be represented in the digital domain. In digital terms, the openness of interactive systems is related to the latency of potential within the data base. The combination of primal metaphysics with cyberculture and cyber-aesthetics, has the potential to create religious and spiritual digital spaces, including the formation of a future-ancient temple, where art, worship and altered consciousness have the potential to be contained within the one experience. According to Cown in the 'Mists of Cyberhenge' the World Wide Web is an environment of the mind and the 'mind has the power to shape things in ways far removed from those intended by their creators'.
The ideas of the creator(s) have changed from a universal conception of the femininity of the divine spirit, to the contemporary global belief that the creator is male. The transition from Mother God to Father God is correlated with the onset of patriarchy and the development of the State. This reflects the transition from a feminine cooperative society to a male centred society based on exploitation.
The decline of the matriarchy is shown in all cultures as myths begin to involve the violent destruction or rape of the Goddess. As Engels noted, 'the decline of the mother-right was the world-historical downfall of the female sex'. Many academics have deconstructed myths to understand their psychological and sociological significance. Early creation myths often involve the universe emanating from a female. Often a dark formless mother splits and creates the universe; She illuminates the formless black void with her presence. The oldest myths make the Goddess the maker of heaven and earth. When male deities first came into the picture they were as an inferior consort, often her sons. Many prehistoric artifacts, depict pregnant Goddess or female figures in ecstatic poses. These early religious icons feature goddesses as solitary figures who depict the great mother of the tribe/universe. Interestingly, the Palaeolithic image of the mother does not show any corresponding father God.
Besides creating the world and everything in it, the Goddess created the civilized arts; poetry, writing, building and generally all the aspects that make up science and culture. Hindu scriptures say that the Goddess invented alphabets, pictographs and mandalas. The great mother/destroyer Goddess Kali created the Sanskrit letters and could manifest phenomena just by proclaiming words. In the Middle East also numbers and words were inventions of the Goddess and of special concern to priestesses.
Adrienne Rich argue
s, ‘power is both a primal word and primal relationship under patriarchy’. Through control of the mother, the man assures himself of control and ownership of the children; through control of the children he assures the disposition of his patrimony and the safe passage of his soul after death. Rich argues that this relationship is reflected through the process of colonisation, where each colonised people is defined by its conqueror as weak, feminine, ignoran
t, uncultured and incapable of self-government.
Nearly all
mythologies, religions etc., speak of a time before the fall, when people lived harmoniously with the land and nature and even had the power of magic. In Christianity it is depicted as the Garden of Eden. Matriarchal societies are assumed to be egalitarian yet patriarchal societies seem to insist on pecking orders, violent overthrows and a disconnection of people from the rest of the natural world. Marija Gimbutas' 'Idyllic Goddess' theories focus on speculation of an idyllic female centred time in European Neolithic days. Her ideas have been welcomed by eminent figures like the mythologist Joseph Campbell, Gimbutas had a fervent belief that knowledge about a Goddess-worshipping past can guide the world toward a sexually egalitarian, non-violent, and "earth-centered" future. "Little by little, we became a patriarchal and warrior society," [Gimbutas said]. "We dominate nature; we don't feel we belong to her. This warrior society goes back to the Indo- European conquest of Europe, which eventually led to such people as Stalin and Hitler. We have to come back to our roots". Despite methodological critiques, Gimbutas's, The Language of the Goddess has provided us with an amazing record of the art of our early ancestors. Like any art we bring to the experience of viewing our own ideologies and preconceptions.
Not all accounts of the past are so idyllic; David Anthony, an assistant professor of anthropology at Hartwick College, N.Y., said that contrary to her claims, the cultures of Old Europe built fortified sites that indicate the presence of warfare. There is also evidence of weapons, including some used as symbols of status, and of human sacrifice, hierarchy, and social inequality.
Modern male scholars often indicate a distinct gender bias in their rewriting of history. For example, Great Mother is often translated as God. Like many others, Gimbutas felt that archaeologists with their patriarchal paradigms, alienated from nature and intuition, could not possibly understand the prehistoric past. Whether or not the world she describes existed, her advocates feel as if they've glimpsed it, and long for its return. In recent years, several women authors such as Elizabeth Gould Davis in The First Sex and Merlin Stone in When God Was a Woman have revived the notion that humanity experienced a golden age of matriarchy in the past. This belief has been combined with the assertion that there is a conspiracy against its acceptance. This conspiracy is a male-centred one, generated to eradicate the idea that there has ever been a social system other than patriarchy. Anthropology - academic enterprises – is said to be dominated by sexist males.
Magic and science are becoming closer. Recent discoveries in physics have given empirical evidence for the effectiveness of magical practice. Capra, Bohm Greene and Wolf have recently integrate science and spirit in the presentation of their theories.
Online discussion groups provide the dissemination of information without the usual censorship and prejudice of mainstream media. One contributor for online pagan group ‘Circle network news, enthused that the snowballing of the group would result in ‘...a new paradigm of earth centred spirituality....’ However, a totally technological worldview can be unrealistically utopian. Furthermore, technology cannot attend to our deepest spiritual and emotional needs. In the present social system ‘a great deal of technology often helps to foster vast social inequality and broader environmental degradation’ (Dooren 2005). For this time we are in now requires a balanced approach. A wholeheartedly technophobic or technophilic attitude represents an incomplete position. Doormen argues that cyborg and Goddess should be perceived as ‘kin rather than adversaries’.
As human societal/spiritual beliefs have a history of change and evolution, it seems logical that this trend will continue. There does however seem to be an international movement against globalisation, which is looking to instigate a more humanitarian approach to the organisation of our world.
Gimbutas and Eisler argue that the Old Europeans would not waste their wealth on nuclear arsenals, nor would they allow life on the planet to be threatened. However we evolved from them , so in some ways we must be like each other. It is fascinating to look at the evolution of technology which seems to follow the same steps of advancement as the mammalian brain. Each stage becomes more and more complex. Perhaps their are so many people alive on the earth now because Gaia wants it that way, so she has more minds to recognise and process her. The internet is a sharing of minds in the digital domain. It is only a matter of time before an interface between mind and machine is developed. Once the neural code is discovered we can plug in and extend our consciousness in a way that is unimaginable now. Perhaps this is when we will realise that on the soul level we are all connected. Then the reality and immoral nature of exploitative social systems will dissolve and be replaced with more beautiful and just ones.
According to Maslow and others, we can not achieve spiritual realizations unless our survival needs are met .We can not be free if our minds are tortured with hunger or the insecurity of homelessness. Real freedom is without external or internal dogma. To idealize the past and create it into a golden age which it may be possible to recreate is a mistake. Discovery of past cultures can inform us of alternative methods of social organization and the many possibilities that human spirituality and society can take. Perhaps it’s best to think that the best is yet to come. In this way metaphysically we are helping to create a world we want, by expecting it.
Jung intuited that the psyche and matter must ultimately be made of the same stuff. Amit Goswami agrees with this premise and believes the mind can be observed using principles from quantum mechanics. He argues that mind functions through the archetypes of ‘mental objects’ .Deterministic Newtonian ideas of the mind sound progressively less convincing in the light of new scientific developments. Goswami suggests that the concept of nonlocality of mind, creativity and spirituality are what separates us from even the most intelligent machines. Perhaps people in simpler, more holistic and integrated societies did not experience modern levels of personal dissatisfaction many people feel today. However, life must have been hard and a lot of time spent on survival. We can coexist with nature and live comfortable ‘modern’ lives if our basic social, political and religious philosophy is focused to recognise social justice, environmental sustainability and respect to all the divergent forms of humanity and other life forms.
Technology presents us with confusion and propaganda from the elite groups, in the form of the internet it also spreads and democratizes information. Technology can make or break us, but should not be underestimated as a vehicle for alternative spiritualities. The future must involve a stripping away of the illusions of Cartesian dualism. The distinction between nature and culture, organic and machine, out there-in here, mind and body, animal and human and God and Goddess, will not be viewed as separate realms rather as points on an eternal continuum. We can enjoy the organic and reap the benefits of the technical world which have the potential to instigate positive change in our world.
Perhaps one day we will be able to embrace both technology and nature to accept the masculine, but also celebrate the feminine values embodied by the goddess religions. The world is unbalanced in favor of the so-called masculine traits this is why a feminine spirituality is needed now to redress this balance not to act as a superior alternative. Jung’s hope for the future was bound up with people having the ability to reflect honestly on their own behavior. We have the potential as human beings to evolve beyond the concept of which is superior, - matriarchy or patriarchy? We should overthrow the notion that ‘women are from Venus and men are from Mars’. To also recognize the validity of the social and cultural attributes of all societies. The dualism that exists within our self of self and other, the great 'I' that lives within our skin disconnected from the universal web is an illusion, a spell that must be broken. The Goddess, in her essence, represents the whole to which we all connect.
A truly egalitarian society will evolve when we have a mass awareness of the collective, linked to the gift of our individual natures. We all have a part to play in the grand scheme of things and all our contributions are significant. Perhaps we all know in our heart of hearts that we can create Eden if we truly have the desire to. We know a beautiful harmonious place exists as a potential, because so many of us can imagine it.
Ishtar, 2005
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