Until his death, I had really never paid much attention to him.  I have never been especially interested in popular music, and I was in my forties when he was really coming into his own. I knew about the white glove – and I would sometimes glance at his videos when my children were watching MTV, but that pretty much sums up my exposure to him – except for the periodic and vitriolic media attacks which were hard to avoid. So, when I heard of his death, my only thought was, “He’s still so young; how sad.” But that was  pretty much  it.

The Friday evening  after his death, I was watching Charlie Rose and to my surprise I discovered that he was devoting part of his program to Michael Jackson. I learned that Michael Jackson was possibly the most famous person in the world, that news of his death had brought the internet to its knees. What was this global outpouring of grief all about?

That night, I got on my computer and went in search of Michael Jackson videos. And I found them! I watched well into the early morning – and found myself, like millions of other fans before me, mesmerized by the magic and power of this incredibly gifted man. Although a great deal of tv time and printed matter has been devoted to the brilliance of his performances, what interests me the most are the powerful feelings he expressed and inspired in others – including me, watching him, all alone, the day after his death.

The video, and song, which I love the most is the hauntingly lyrical “Earth Song” with its  deliberately jarring segue into the angry and accusatory refrain “What About Us?”. In “Earth Song,” Michael connected with  and called forth the terribly deep pain and anguish  — the anger and frustration — we all would feel all the time if we would — or could — allow ourselves to internalize the terrible things we, and those who act in our name, are doing to all Life, including human life,  on our planet.  In “Earth Song,” Michael Jackson, his whole being filled with love and compassion,  arrows his powerful message straight into our hearts.  In “Earth Song,” he makes us feel earth’s pain  – which apparently was his intent when he wrote it.

Although I applaud Al Gore’s environmental efforts and commitment,  “An Inconvenient Truth” is addressed to our heads, not our hearts. To put a stop to the multitude of human and environmental tragedies playing out globally on an hourly basis, we need to feel them, experience them, at the level of our deepest, most powerful, emotions – those having to do with our survival and the survival of others. But we don’t. Because we can’t. We are too busy erecting defenses precisely to keep ourselves from feeling, because we can’t face the pain and the guilt.

Michael Jackson in “Earth Song” cuts through all those defenses and brings us face to face with  the consequences of our destructive  acts. He gives voice to the planet and to the planet’s most vulnerable  inhabitants.  And death cannot still his voice.

God/Creation
Heaven/Earth
Spirit/Matter
Transcendence/Immanence
Humanity/Nature
Man/Animal
Male/Female
Mind/Body
Mental/Physical
Reason/Emotion
Light/Dark
Up/Down
High/Low
Tall/Short
Doctor/Nurse
Management/Labor
CEO/Employees
General/Troops
Husband/Wife
White/Black
Brain/Heart
Head/Hands
Boss/Secretary
Rocket Scientist/Street Cleaner
Lawyer/Child Care Worker
Engineer/Mom
Housing Development/Wilderness
Teacher/Student
Order/Chaos
Urban/Rural
Independence/Interdependence
Producer/Consumer
Capitalism/Socialism

Does the fact that the items on the left fall in the category of high or intrinsic value while the items on the right have no or merely utilitarian value feel right to you? Does this sorting out seem to be the natural order of things?  Or an arbitrary assignment of value?

I have always valued the domestic sphere.  As a child, I loved coming home to a loving mother and a comfortable home. For a few years, I even had the pleasure of an extended family, with a great aunt and uncle who lived down the street. I practiced the piano at their house and shared my school experiences with them – and felt loved and cared for. Later, when our family fell on hard times and my mother went to work outside our home (much against her will), I hated coming home to a cold, empty house, still smelling of the breakfast we had all wolfed down on our way out the door to work and school.

Years later, when I was a mother, I treasured the few years I had at home with my children. But all too soon, economic pressures also forced me to go to work outside the home and enter the world of the frazzled mother, trying to find reliable, trustworthy childcare so I could concentrate on my work without worrying every minute about my children. But just being separated from my youngest, who at four still required a lot of lap time, was wrenching.

The creation of a comfortable haven which provides both physical and emotional security seems to me to be a very worthwhile  endeavor.  But our society and our economy are doing everything they can to ensure that a stable domestic environment is a luxury which few can afford.  And this is primarily the result of women being forced to work one and sometimes two jobs outside the home because none of the work they do inside the home is deemed to have any economic worth or cultural value.  And before you think I am on a right-wing, kirche, kuche, kinder rant, let me quickly say that I am not recommending that women should be imprisoned in the home, tending the home fires; I am not recommending “a return” to traditional roles. I am merely pointing out that in the loss of the domestic sphere – in the diminishing hours that anyone has available to spend at home – we have lost a lot.

Providing  tender loving caring to children is probably the most important work any person will ever do. It is critical to the continuation of the species. It is critical to the development of socially responsible human beings. And, in most cases, it is better for both the mother and the child if the child’s mother  is available to look after her child. But she doesn’t have to do it in a traditional marriage; she doesn’t have to do it at home; and she doesn’t have to do it all the time.

If we had paid maternity leave of up to two years,  mother-friendly work places, and more flex time, we could create a world where  women would truly be free to choose to have — as well as not to have — children.  I am for a feminism which recognizes the problems facing the majority of women and which is devoted to helping us all. I am tired  of a feminism made up of and focused primarily on women who aspire to enter professions traditionally associated with men.

The feminist concept of choice should not be limited to the choice not to have children (although, admittedly, the ability to avoid unwanted pregnancies is a fundamental freedom for women), but should be expanded to improve and enrich the lives of all women, all the time,  even mothers .

To be a feminist means never to forget that I live in a patriarchal society. To live in a patriarchal society is to live in a society which assigns value based on gender, using the male sex as the standard. In patriarchal societies, men and men’s work are viewed as vastly more valuable than women and women’s work (think of the difference between the incomes of a hedge-fund manager and a stay-at-home mom).

This assignment of value is a result of cultural beliefs rather than a reflection of “real” social value. Unfortunately, less conscious members of patriarchal societies (both men and women) do not recognize the arbitrary nature of patriarchal values, but take it as a given — as the natural order of things — that men and men’s work are more valuable than women and women’s work (i.e., that hedge fund managers deserve to be paid billions, while stay-at-home moms deserve to be paid nothing). Members of patriarchal societies unquestioningly accept patriarchal values as “real” values because they have been programmed to believe that patriarchy itself is “reality.”

Note: When I use the terms “men’s work” and “women’s work,” I mean work traditionally associated with men or women – not work which should be done by men or women.

As a feminist, I no longer view patriarchy as “reality”. I take the post-modern position that cultures create their own realities ; therefore, I recognize patriarchy as a construct of culture rather than a fact of nature – and a very unjust one at that, especially as it pertains to women. Consequently, I do not feel that I must accept patriarchy’s value system as representative of a reality which, like it or not, I must put up with.

If we created patriarchy, we can uncreate it and construct a more just society. Recognizing that patriarchy systematically and arbitrarily devalues women while systematically overvaluing men, feminism’s primary task, as I see it, is to make more people conscious of the injustice of the patriarchal value system in order to right the wrongs which patriarchy systematically inflicts on women.

But patriarchal programming is so powerful and so insidious that even women who call themselves feminists have a difficult time fighting clear of it. For the feminist movement appears to have unconsciously bought into the idea that men’s work is more valuable than women’s. Working from this mistaken assumption, feminists believe that the only way women can achieve full social value is to be accepted as an equal in the male world, which means denying that there are any differences between men and women, totally ignoring the demands of domestic life which the majority of women have to deal with.

Instead of working to create a workplace which can accommodate the needs of most women who are attempting to juggle the roles of wife, mother, and breadwinner, the feminist movement has more or less joined the patriarchal bandwagon that requires women to become ersatz males – regardless of the realities of their lives as women. Feminists have bought into the patriarchal line which says, “Ladies, if you want to play in our world, you have to play by our rules. This is a feminist movement which has sought not to overthrow patriarchy but to join it. There is no feminist questioning of the overvaluing of work traditionally done by males. They just want to jump on the bandwagon so they, too, can reap the rewards from an unjust system.

In addition, there is no questioning of the devaluation of women’s work. Nowhere have I encountered in mainstream feminist rhetoric any serious argument for a boost in wages for day-care workers, or waitresses, or cooks, or cleaners. Most of these jobs today do not even pay a living wage. And a woman who chooses to stay at home with her chidren is frequently looked on as a traitor. In fact, I can find no group more contemptuous of women’s work in general and motherhood in particular than feminists themselves. The end result is that feminists are reinforcing the patriarchal value system.

I believe that feminists want to achieve a more just society, but I think they are going about it the wrong way. A feminism seeking a more just society would question the ridiculous amounts money in the form of salaries and bonuses men (and some women) receive for doing work the social value of which is extremely questionable. A feminism seeking a more just society would also question the ridiculously low pay – in many cases no pay – women receive for doing work which has enormous social value – such as childcare, eldercare and care of the sick.

Instead of trying to sell the idea that there are no differences between men and women (as if we were all disembodied genderless minds floating in space), feminists need to recognize that, regardless of whether or not there are innate differences in male and female brains, there are actual differences in male and female bodies and, consequently, the way men and women experience life – especially reproductive life. And in spite of the few far-out feminists who have such contempt for childbearing they envision a perfect world where women eschew motherhood altogether, most women are going to continue to have children, for the simple reason that motherhood is one of the greatest joys available to a human being – and it is an experience which is uniquely available to the female of the species – no matter how difficult patriarchy (and the feminist movement) tries to make it.

To really help women, feminists should stop trying to pressure women into becoming men; they should stop promulgating the myth that there are no differences between men and women, when it is clear to any fool that there are. Instead, they should recognize the differences and point out the inequities in the values assigned these differences. They should put their energies toward creating a work environment that accommodates itself to the exigencies of women’s lives, rather than joining forces with the male world in requiring that women accommodate the very real demands of their lives to the arbitrary demands of the workplace. They should work toward a more equitable society where work traditionally associated with women is paid at the very least a living wage – regardless of where it is done. They should work to better women’s lives, no matter whether a woman chooses the business/professional world or the domestic sphere. Bottom line, feminists should stop trying to turn women into men.

Many years later, I was able to realize the dream of going to a rainforest, but it was not on the continent of Africa, but in Central America – in the Quaker community of Monteverde, Costa Rica. In August, 1972, I finished a graduate degree in English one week and left for Costa Rica to get married the next. It was quite a jolt, going from the Barsetshire of Anthony Trollope’s novels, which had been the subject of my thesis, to the world of Joseph Conrad’s “Nostromo.” Like most North Americans of that era, I knew something about Europe, but almost nothing about Central or South America. I had never even heard of Costa Rica. So, when I boarded LACSA, the national airline of Costa Rica, I felt like I was stepping off into the void. I had no idea what an impact this tiny beautiful country was going to have on my life. I was going to Costa Rica to join my husband to be; I was focused on my marriage, not the locale.

Upon my arrival at the small and simple airport just outside San Jose, I could see David standing among the crowd gathered to meet the plane. At the time, I had no idea how close we had come to missing each other. Communications were very difficult between the US and the mountain community where he was living and, unknown to me, he had never received my letter giving him the date and time of my arrival, but was relying on a previous letter which only generally alluded to my arrival time. I learned, years later, that he had been meeting planes from Miami for several days and had decided that if I didn’t arrive on the third day, he would return to the mountains. But arrive I did, and thereby hangs the tale.

After a week of trying to find our way around a city with no addresses, and trying to figure out how non-Catholics got married in a Catholic country, we ran into a friend who knew the ropes, took pity on us and got us an appointment with the governor of the province for a civil ceremony. David pulled in a couple of acquaintances, and we showed up at the governor’s palace after hours so he could charge us the overtime rates. The service was brief and in Spanish – which I neither spoke nor understood. We each said “Si” each time the governor paused and looked significantly at one or the other of us, signed our names, handed over $40 and were pronounced “hombre y mujer.”

Early the next morning we set out on a former United Fruit Company train with small wooden cars, which took us, rattling loudly, across rickety bridges spanning impossibly deep mountain gorges to our interim destination of Puntarenas on the Pacific Coast. We killed time in the stereotypical, seedy, waterfront bar drinking beer and eating ceviche, waiting for the recycled American school bus to arrive which would take us on the last leg of our trip. As we headed up into the mountains at sunset, on the scariest and most beautiful narrow dirt road I have ever traveled in my life, I fell head over heels in love – with a place.

The beauty was so overwhelming that I felt the experience was well worth the risk. I sat back and drank it all in: the view up close of hibiscus and bougainvillea and orchids and cattle with the softest sloe eyes standing at the most improbable angles, the view in the middle distance of deep green ravines with tiny colorful houses scattered around like game pieces, and the faraway view — coming and going as we climbed and wound through the mountains — of the peninsula separating the Gulf of Nicoya from the Pacific and of the volcanic islands, dark shadows, jutting through the sunset colors glittering on the surface of the sea.

Our destination was a Quaker dairy farming community known as Monteverde, where we were to make our home for the next four months. I spent my honeymoon in a one-room casita, waking up in the morning to the roars of howler monkeys and the musical gong of the bell birds. For four glorious months, I breathed in pure mountain air, drank and bathed in pure water piped in from a mountain spring, and ate food fresh from Quaker gardens. For four glorious months, I lived at the intersection of human settlement and virgin forest – and came to value the Quaker notion of living lightly on the land. And I found myself wedded not only to my new husband, but also to a community, a way of life, and the incredible natural beauty and diversity of the country of Costa Rica. So separated was Monteverde, in time, space, and way of life, from the everyday reality of my previous existence that, once I reached there, I felt like I was in Carl Sandburg’s “Village of Cream Puffs,” floating high above the earth, blown about by the winds, with only the most tenuous of connections keeping it from blowing away altogether.

In Monteverde, I was introduced to the Quakers and the peace of silent meeting, the sweetness and conflict of married life, and a staggeringly dramatic natural world. In four short months, one small community on a remote mountain top in a tiny country I had never heard of gave my life new meaning and new direction. Although I had been focused on the plot and the characters in planning for my trip, as it turned out, the setting was everything.

In Monteverde, living amidst a natural splendor I never even dreamed existed. I “found myself” (to use that old, ridiculed — but apt –60’s expression). Most days, David was off helping a local farmer with his vegetable garden, leaving me with lots of time alone, which was a gift, given that there was so much change in my life and so much to take in and think about. I read and walked and assisted an elderly friend with preparing the noon meal. Long peaceful silences, occasionally interrupted by the buzzing of a bee or the call of some exotic bird, made up much of my days, and gave me the mental and emotional openings to see what was most important to me in life. And although I was in a new relationship, in a Quaker community whose values and customs were alien to me, in a foreign country whose language I couldn’t speak, I had never felt more at home. My new relationships and surroundings began to call forth the spirits from the deeps of my own personal unconscious. Away from all the distractions of the modern world, all its conventional wisdom, and all its “normal” expectations and social pressures, I was able to hear and respond to different voices, which, like the buzzing of bees, the noise of mainstream urban society world had completely drowned out.

Silence was a real and powerful presence in the Monteverde of the early 70’s. Today there is little silence with the groaning and straining of huge tour buses trying to negotiate the narrow, winding potholed mountain road, mixed with the traffic jam noise of taxies, tourist cars and motos, carrying thousands of ecotourists to the now famous Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. But in 1972, the silence which pervaded every aspect of the community was peace bringing – as if the unifying and loving silence of Quaker meeting, which I attended on 1st day and 4th day, had spread out and embraced the entire mountain top.

I had never attended a Quaker meeting in my life and approached my first one with a terrible fear that my stomach would make embarrassing noises, but after the first meeting I realized it really wouldn’t matter to anyone if it did. As a natural-born introvert, I fell easily into the comfort of collective meditation – centering down and listening to what Quakers referred to as the “God within.” I loved the democratic, non-hierarchical Quaker notion that since God dwelled within every man woman and child, God’s truth was accessible to every man woman and child, regardless of race, color, gender, or creed and with no need of the services of a “hireling priest.” One only had to be silent and listen. Daily life, lived in a religious community, drew my attention to the nature of religion itself and living among Quakers taught me to treasure silence and to look within for my answers.
rocessing it inside – finding my answers within.

Living among Quakers also introduced me to the idea that pacifism was or should be a primary tenet of Christianity, a belief which I had not encountered head on in my previous existence as either a Methodist or Episcopalian. But to these Quakers, it was a belief so profound that it had led them, in the early 1950’s, to leave the United States in search of a country more hospitable to their pacifist beliefs. And they found what they were looking for in Costa Rica which had recently disbanded its army.

Living in Monteverde forced me to question and rethink many things: the serious and committed belief in pacifism made me conscious of and led me to question the predilection for war which I had assumed as a given of human nature. When I thought about it, it seemed to me that this predilection for war ran, like an unbroken thread, through all traditional western thinking, including the civilized world’s attitude toward and method of relating to nature. It seemed that the goal of the western way of life was to impose humanity’s will on nature at every turn – to relentlessly exploit nature without regard for the destructive consequences. By contrast, the Quakers adopted a more friendly attitude toward nature: true to their precept, they lived lightly on the land.

In Monteverde, there was very little “built environment;” we lived among animals and plants and insects and quickly learned what was harmful and what was not. Houses were built to keep out the rain and not much else, and so “much else” walked right on in. Evenings were often spent, not watching television, but identifying the various beautiful beetles – often silver and gold – attracted by the light which shone through the cracks in the siding. Walking was our only means of transportation, through tropical downpours or on breezy, sunshiney days. Our feet, so used to the intervening concrete of urban America, were in direct contact with the earth on dirt roads and forest paths.

The environment itself was so compelling and so present that I could not help but be mindful of it and recognize my complete dependence on it — as a source of food, as a source of building materials, as a source of everything humans or any other animals needed for life, including entertainment and pleasure. Given our complete dependence on the natural world – which is often obscured by the urban landscape and human technology, I began to wonder why my culture should have adopted such a hostile and destructive attitude toward it.

In 1982, my husband and I returned to Monteverde with our two sons to live for a year. In the intervening ten years since I had first discovered Costa Rica, environmental issues were beginning to come to the fore and Monteverde was becoming a center for scientific inquiry, especially in terms of biodiversity. The steep mountain sides were home to hundreds of microclimates and hundreds of thousands of organisms especially adapted to each. Every Thursday afternoon, a different biologist would hold court and deliver a talk on her or his particular speciality – complete with slide shows and live specimens. My younger son, who was four, was especially entertained by the show and tell at the herpetology lecture. And, it was during that time that I began to grasp the significance to humanity of the species loss brought about by human development. In July of 1983, however, we had to leave our beloved Monteverde, and it was eight years and one divorce later before I could figure out a way to return.

In the fall of 1991, in the spirit of the upcoming Earth Summit, I had the bright idea of persuading the computer company I worked for to donate, as a public relations gesture, a biodiversity information management system (yet to be developed) to the country of Costa Rica – which had recently established an organization dedicated to performing a species inventory for the whole country. This organization was known as INBio, (the National Institute for Biodiversity). In all honesty, I must admit that my motivaton for promoting this project was not entirely altruistic; I was hoping that if the company bought my idea they would pay my way to Costa Rica – which, due to financial constraints, I had been unable to visit for some time. I was also hoping that I could create a project which would be in line with my personal philosophy – a project which would help stave off species loss and operate to conserve nature. I was looking for that almost unattainable goal in American business – work that had deeply personal meaning.

Over the course of six months or so, I cajoled, buttonholed, and in every way possible tried to get my company to go along with my idea. Luckily, the conservation community was totally onboard, recognizing that the enormous task INBio had taken on required computing power far beyond anything that was even known in the scientific community and also recognizing that the company I represented had the tools to get the job done. Finally, with the help of a couple of the more enlightened Intergraph executives , all our joint efforts paid off, and, at the Earth Summit in June of 1992, the deal was announced: Intergraph would provide three-quarter of a million dollars worth of computing equipment and expertise, INBio would provide the scientific knowledge, the world of conservation would get a new tool to combat the relentless destruction of biodiversity, and I would get to go back to Costa Rica.

During the campaign to get the INBio project approved, I learned a great deal. I learned that, in spite of the enthusiasm surrounding the Earth Summit, environmentalists, like myself, who viewed environmentalism as a moral issue – an issue critical to human survival — were very much in the minority. I learned that companies, like the one I worked for, devoted to serving various types of engineering applications, viewed their work as assisting in the task of controlling, exploiting, and reshaping nature, not conserving or promoting the survival of non-human nature – and that the ability to control and exploit nature was considered to be a very manly endeavor. Biodiversity Information Management was viewed as a “wimp” application, not suitable for macho computer engineers.

I was astonished to discover just how resistant most people were to even thinking about environmentalist issues – and how “knee-jerk” this resistance was. As a part of my growing commitment to the conservation of nature (with a view to the conservation of the human species, which is, after all a part of nature), I wanted to solve the mystery of this seemingly self-destructive resistance. Particularly as those most hostile to nature seemed to be born again Christians I worked with. To me, the conservation of non-human nature seemed paramount to the conservation of the human species, while to almost everyone else, the future of the species seemed to lie with the control, exploitation, and in many cases the all out destruction of non-human nature. How could everyone be getting it so wrong? But, for some miraculous reason, and against all odds, the project was approved.

In 1997, at the age of 56, twenty-five years after my introduction to Monteverde and the beginning of my quest to discover the poisoned spring which poured forth the toxins which were killing western civilization, I entered Vanderbilt Divinity School. During the intervening years, I had evolved from a woman with a traditional view of family values and marriage to a radical feminist, from a woman who merely appreciated and was sensitive to nature’s beauty to a committed conservationist, and from a devout – if liberal – Christian, to a woman who found herself on the verge of evolving out of Christianity altogether. Because, as a part of my evolution in values, I had developed a very troubling suspicion: I suspected that the Christian God was the cause rather than the solution to what I viewed as the three greatest social evils confronting human kind — – the deliberate degradation of the earth, the use of war as the primary means of solving international disputes, and the institutionalized subjugation of women (and other groups which, at one time or another, it had been convenient to believe were not fully human).

This suspicion had lead to a severe case of cognitive dissonance. The liberal Christian I once was could not reconcile these practices with the “God of love” I had believed in. But, conservative Christianity was not only reconciled to these practices, it promoted them. In fact, it was beginning to appear to me that it was right-wing, conservative, Christian values which provided the cultural rationale for war, sexism, and environmental destruction. So the question came down to, “How could the God I believed in lead me to deplore these activities, while the same God led others to promote them as doing God’s will?” Who were the “real Christians”?

I became obsessed with trying to make sense out of these conflicting worldviews — both of which claimed to be “Christian.” If God loves humanity, as I had been taught, how could the destruction of the environment be in accordance with God’s will, when we are a part of the environment? If God loves humanity, how could the oppression and mistreatment of women be in accordance with God’s will, when women, who are also human, have the primary responsibility for nurturing and bringing to adulthood each new generation of humans? If God loves humanity, how could going to war be in accordance with God’s will when 20th century wars had led to the deaths of millions and future wars promised the annihilation of the human race?

The more I read and the more I studied, however, the less sense either worldview seemed to make. Although the conservative interpretation of God’s will appeared to be supported by the Bible and traditional Christian doctrine and teaching, it was clearly destructive. Yet the liberal interpretation of God’s will appeared more and more to me to be a matter of wishful thinking, with little to back it up – and almost no real resonance in the places of power where the big decisions were made. Given the destructive nature of the conservative worldview and the weakness of the liberal position, I began to doubt the value of Christian teachings altogether. But, before I ditched Christianity completely (since it looked like it was ditching me and the rest of the human race), I decided that the whole matter deserved more study — which is why I entered divinity school. Surely, I couldn’t be correct. Surely Christian beliefs could not be powering the juggernaut of our self destruction. But, if they were, my next quest was to discover the source of the power of a religious teaching, which, if continued to be followed, seemed destined to doom humanity.

More and more I came to see that the right wing interpretation of Christianity had a great deal of evidence to back it up; while liberal Christianity was always skating on thin ice – that right wing Christianity more clearly reflected Western values as lived while left wing reflected western values as promoted by intellectual elites, and that, au fond, the west believed in the rightness of the exploitation and control of nature, the subjugation of women, and the use of military force to solve international problems. Tragically, there was plenty of scripture and Christian doctrine to back up these beliefs; therefore, it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that belief in the Christian God was the problem and not the solution.

But, I still had doubts. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe intensive study of Christian doctrine and practice would prove me wrong. I wanted to find out. So, I applied to and was accepted into an excellent program of study at Vanderbilt Divinity School. However, my three years of study only confirmed my worst suspicions – in spite of and because of my very able teachers – most of whom were as sincere and devout believers as they were excellent scholars and teachers. It was not their fault that I no longer believed. I just couldn’t any more. The main focus of my study was the analysis and the taking apart piece by piece that entity which we know as God as a means to understanding its power in our culture and the role it plays in compelling us to do the things we do. I wanted to answer to my own satisfaction “what is this thing called God.” And, I did. In the process, I was freed from an enchantment. The spell was broken. My consciousness was irrevocably changed. Deconstructing god had the effect of reconstructing me. The image was shattered.

From CDS’s to WMD’s, nothing is as it seems, and it seems to matter very much what “the meaning of is” is. Our literal financial bankruptcy is a metaphor for our moral bankruptcy. No matter what venue one might be talking about, value given does not result in value received, but in value lost. We value that which no longer has any value and devalue that which is valuable. We do those things we ought not do and do not do those things we ought to do, to paraphrase the book of common prayer, and there is no health in us.

But just because I am out to expose the problems inherent in the image of the Christian God, it is not my purpose to deny the value of religion altogether. Indeed, it is my contention that humans require a value system of one kind or another to survive. And it is my purpose to persuade my readers to at least entertain this contention long enough to evaluate the logic of my essays. Humans need a collective worldview in order to function collectively, and a collective worldview is based on a mutually agreed upon system of values. Humans get their value systems from their cultures and cultures get their values from religion; in fact, within each culture, religion serves as the repository and medium for the transfer of cultural values from generation to generation, and these values in turn shape culture – which is why it is hard (impossible?) to discover any culture which does not have a religion at its core. Western civilization’s values come from Christianity. Whether one leans to the left or the right, one is still riding the same Christian tricycle. What I propose is that we need a new vehicle, but I’m not sure we can dispense with a vehicle altogether. Although Christian values are betraying us – I am not suggesting that the whole notion of religion should be thrown out. Instead, I think we need to recognize the value of values – and of religion as the symbolic system for values.

I’m quite aware that the topic of values has been tossed around quite a bit in both the political and religious spheres, with talk of values voters, the culture wars, etc. – but, so far, the discussion really hasn’t been especially enlightening or productive. On the contrary. Over the past twenty years or so, in a slowly building reaction to the swerve toward liberalism begun in the 1960’s, we have had a hard turn to the values of the right – exemplified by the rise and popularity of right-wing religious and political fundamentalism. This hard turn to the right peaked with the election of George Bush and the rush to war in Iraq. However, the disaster known as the Bush administration has resulted in a small but significant pullback from the all out support for conservative values. Recently, riding on the coattails of the failure of the Bush administration, we have had the “new atheist” backlash – which resulted in the publication and enthusiastic media promotion of books by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, signaling the end of – or at least a pause, a hiccough in the media’s love affair with right wing Christianity.

But, in spite of the media attention given to these books and their authors, they have had little overall cultural effect other than to give secular humanists a few good laughs at the expense of the devout. Preaching to the converted, the “new atheists” have done little to discredit Christianity, but a great deal to motivate “people of faith” to dig in their self-righteous heels. At a time when both a serious critique of Christianity in particular and an understanding of religion in general are called for, these critics all too often have resorted to the cheap shot and the easy laugh. Having held up for ridicule beliefs which are peculiar to certain Christian sects and not representative of Christianity in general, much less all religions, these writers have underestimated and trivialized the very real power of religion itself. So, in spite of their erudition and cleverness, they have achieved very little resonance with the larger populace.

I find it tragic that the only intellectual reaction to right-wing conservative Christian values, which are becoming more and more toxic by the day, is the glib and facile response from thinkers who have given very little serious thought to religion – other than to despise it, when its dangerous flaws need a good, hard, honest, intelligent analysis. So offended are they by Christianity, which they show no real understanding of, that they conflate it with all religion and condemn the whole lot to perdition. As to politicians on the left, they, too have bought into the idea that conservative Christian values are synonymous with values in general, but with the exact opposite effect. To them values mean values voters – and they need values voters, and so Jesus has begun to play a prominent role in the political discourse of the left. Having decided that it is far too dangerous politically to repudiate values, and mistakenly assuming that right-wing Christian values=all values, our Democratic politicians have embraced Christianity with a vengeance, when they should be at least hinting at the need for something new. Either and both positions are fatally flawed.

I would like to propose a middle ground, a philosophical position which negates Christianity as the path to collective salvation (i.e, the source of a value system which provides a stable and healthy foundation for society), but affirms that a religiously-based value system of one kind or another is necessary for human survival. Human beings are biologically determined to be culturally constructed, which means that we have no choice but to embrace a religio-cultural value system (atheists are people who have “withdrawn the projection; that is, they have integrated the cultural value system so perfectly into their consciousness that an outside agent like religion is no longer needed to keep them on the straight and narrow). My analysis attempts to explain why it has been necessary for religious beliefs to be so deeply rooted in the consciousness of a culture that they are taken for truth, and the worldview they create, for reality, and why it necessary that religious belief not be so deep that it cannot be changed.

This proposal is based on the following logic: (1)humans, like other animals, within a given culture or species need to be able to relate to each other and to work together in order to survive, i.e., they need to be reading from the same page. (2) to relate to each other and work together they need a collective “worldview”; (3) the human worldview is culture specific, while the non-human worldview is species specific; (4) the survival value of a culture-specific worldview, rather than a hard-wired human nature, is that it is adaptable; (5) adaptability is the ability to change when changes in the physical or social environment threaten human survival; (6) culture-specific worldviews derive from religiously-based value systems; (7) a value system which is religiously based is stable enough to provide a collective worldview, but mutable enough to allow change when change is required; (8) Christianity has created a value system which has outlived its usefulness, so much so that, to hold onto its values is promoting death instead of life. (9) We need a new system of values which will better serve us in the face of a radically altered physical and social environment. The question is whether or not a new value system can be created consciously or whether it must derive from a new religion which will arise spontaneously from the depths of the collective unconscious in response to very real threats to the survival of the human species.

If you are wondering why I am using the politically incorrect term “man” for humanity or why I am  using the masculine pronoun to refer to all humanity,   I do it because the image we were created in is a male image (He is after all Jesus’ father, not his mother, and the pronoun He is universally used to refer to Him throughout the English-speaking world).  Consequently, we live in a society which is based on the idea that only those who are male are truly made in the image of God; therefore, only those who are male can be understood as fully human. Females are merely a subset,  as Eve’s secondary creation makes manifest,  their single purpose being to act as vessels to incubate the next generation. To be made in God’s image is to be not only male, but also a dominant male,  as Eve’s mandated submission to Adam represents.  In short, we live in a patriarchal society,  the hallmark of which is a dominant male deity – such as God or Zeus.  And it is this “patriarchal bent” which is causing all the trouble – both socially and environmentally.

Within patriarchal societies,  there is a built-in power differential between men and women (men have the power,  women don’t).  It is an absolutely essential ingredient of patriarchy,  which is why feminism is so feared and hated,  and why so many people remain willfully blind to misogyny, for feminism threatens the very foundations of patriarchal society. This power differential  has been institutionalized and blessed by church and state,  primarily through the establishment of traditional marriage and family values,  as well as other laws and customs and cultural narratives  which serve to hobble women.  It is so deeply embedded in our consciousness that many believe it is the natural order of things. The power of the dominant male/submissive female model, however,  indicates not that it is the natural order of things, but that it is about much, much more than male/female relationships,  which helps explain – but not defend — why the oppression of women is readily accepted and so hard to eradicate.

Male dominance, coupled with female submission, in itself a survival strategy,  also symbolizes the central survival  strategy of western culture.  In the family tree of western culture, the ascendance of male dominance as an approved cultural behavior  culminated around 3500 years ago in the mythological overthrow of Bronze Age Goddesses. Bronze Age Goddesses were among the many representations of the all-powerful, all-inclusive  Mother Nature or Great Mother, who was understood as the source of all life and who had long been a part of human psychological consciousness.  The conquerors of the Bronze Age Earth Goddesses (otherwise known as brazen hussies) were  Iron Age Sky Gods, who, themselves  symbolized a newly emerging (male) humanity – a humanity who saw themselves no longer as coming from nature or dependent on nature  but as a different order of being altogether,  the owners and exploiters of nature,  whose source and creator was a transcendent male deity.  The conquest of the Bronze Age Earth goddesses by Iron Age Sky gods symbolized the triumph of male mind over female matter,  a triumph of a technologically assisted, active male Humanity over an inert, passive female Nature – a triumph which was demonstrated daily in the lives of ordinary humans by the absolute subjugation of women to men and the creation of a value system which overvalued  males and devalued females.

This mythological palace coup ushered in the western version of patriarchy,  within which the submission of a wife to her husband’s will represents the supplanting of the Bronze Age nature-oriented , immanent, worldview  with the worldview of the Iron Age – a worldview which imaged a  transcendent male humanity taking dominion over a female  earth.  The control of women by men, therefore,  serves as a foundational metaphor for western civilization’s  belief that the ability to control nature  is the key to survival.  Whether we’re talking about achieving control of food production through technological dominance over nature and the earth or control of land and natural resources and people through military conquest, the conquest, rape,  and exploitation of the female body and the ownership of her offspring is the underlying model.  Today,  this survival strategy is backfiring – and we need to back off.  Patriarchy needs to be replaced and the patriarchal gods need to be overthrown just as the goddesses of the bronze age were.

The most successful of the Iron Age Gods,  the most powerful of the Iron Age Gods, the God which not only controlled nature, but created nature,  the God which is reputedly the source of our being, is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Constantine.  We were created  “in His image.”  It is time for that image to be shattered – and replaced.  In order for a new image – a new behavioral pattern — to take root in the unconscious of the collective  cultural psyche,  we must first disempower and demythologyze  the image  already planted there.  And the only way to do that is to investigate  and bring to light the destructive implications of being created in the image of that ancient Iron Age patriarchal  sky god.  By taking apart and analyzing God as the dominant symbol of western civilization  we might have a chance at removing the enchantment  — or breaking the spell — which is forcing western societies to behave in self-destructive ways.

To be called a “Mom” (except by one’s children) is the greatest putdown our society can dish out. As is well known, especially among liberal pundits and intellectuals, from the moment that seed is planted in her womb and that little embryo starts to grow, female mental capacities simultaneously begin to diminish. At the end of nine months, with the birth of the baby, the infantilization of the Mom is complete. And as her child grows and matures both mentally and physically, Mom’s brain atrophies and turns to mush – so that by the time her child reaches adulthood, Mom has turned into that most worthless of creatures – an ageing female whose body is a mere husk and whose mind is non-existent – and who is strangely unresponsive to Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin, self-described hockey mom, rehabilitates the image of a human female who has committed the cultural sin of caring enough about her children to attend their games. She juxtaposes the image of Mom with the image of Governor and the image of a candidate for Vice President of the United States. This may not be enough to persuade me to vote for her, but it is enough for me to cheer her on.

As has been pointed out since feminism stepped forth onto the cultural stage, Western civilization is fundamentally patriarchal. A patriarchal society is founded on the idea that the male of the species represents the standard –the ideal–for what it means to be human. Women, being by definition different from men, have been considered to be substandard, as any difference from the standard implies inferiority. Women have therefore been constructed — both physically and mentally– as inferior to male humans, their brains and their bodies, like the brains and bodies of other female mammals, understood as serving one purpose only – reproduction. Women have been viewed as less well developed, less evolved, than men, with the logical consequence that to be a woman in Western civilization has been to be something less than fully human.

This outdated cultural assumption has been lodged so deeply in the collective unconscious of western civilization, that most of us don’t even know that it is still there until a political campaign like the one we are currently experiencing comes along, where both parties have put forth candidates for high office who are not male – unleashing a shocking level of sexism in a society which thought it had said “goodbye to all that.” It is to be hoped that the psychological meltdown exhibited specifically in the liberal visceral rage which has met the candidacies of both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin will bring to consciousness the original sin of misogyny on which our culture is based. We really need to move on.

The “Western” definition of what it means to be human originated approximately 2500-3000 years ago. It arose from a weaving together of ideas from Greek philosophy and Hebrew religion. According to the Hebraic/Hellenic narrative, Man is possessed of free will and the reason to exercise it. Man’s transcendent reason frees him from the biological constraints of lesser creatures. Man identifies with mind – rather than the lowly physical body. Where non-human animals depend on “instinct” for survival and are ruled by these instincts, Man’s key to survival is his reason, which lifts him out of nature’s prison and puts him in control of himself and his environment. For Man, alone, biology is not destiny. Nobly exercising his free will, Man can chart his own course, determine his own fate. As Shakespeare put it (with some irony) –

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…

Admittedly, this is an attractive and seductive cultural construct – even godlike (In fact, one might say that the JudeoChristian idea of God is a symbolic projection of this ideal). It has served Western humanity (especially the white male part of it) well, providing us with the collective self-esteem to go forth and conquer the world – and the earth — militarily, economically, culturally, and technologically. But, today, the world and the earth are fighting back. This cultural construct is “out of joint,” causing a world of pain and demonstrating that it has outlived its usefulness. And, it is precisely this overrated, inaccurate, and inflated definition of male humanity which has made life in patriarchy so difficult for women – especially women in their reproductive capacity. And this is why –

Since the beginning of human history up until the past 50 years or so when the pill came on the market, women’s lives have been heavily involved with childbearing and childrearing, often from the onset of puberty until death or menopause – whichever came first, and all too often it was death. Spending so many years either pregnant or lactating, women were seen as hostage to their bodies – making it difficult to argue that they were free from biological determinism. For most women without outside help, these overwhelming maternal duties left them little time to prove their mental abilities in the male world – even if they wanted to.

Furthermore, well into the late 19th century, the best medical authorities even believed that for a woman to attempt to develop her intellect would damage her reproductive capacity – and since her reproductive work was her raison d’etre, education was severely discouraged. In short, women were looked on as little more than breeding stock – incapable of entering or understanding the male world.
Of course, this less than flattering view of women was constructed by men for men, just as was the idea of what it means to be human. And it completely ignores the fact that women have used their minds as well as their bodies over the millennia in the care and feeding and healing of countless generations. As if the challenging task of keeping the species alive has no value.

Over the centuries, women have not been unaware that their reproductive role is what comes between them and being valued as fully human, and, pre-pill, women with a strong intellectual bent either remained unmarried, if they had the wherewithal, or entered a convent, if they didn’t. Either way, they escaped the rigors of motherhood – and unintentionally established the parameters for generations of intellectual women to follow. Instead of questioning the system which has been responsible for women’s devaluation, the strategy of independent and intellectual women has been to distance themselves from their womanly bodies and focus on developing their (male) minds, hoping to achieve the status and value of the fully human.

In spite of its negative implications for women, especially in their reproductive mode, the traditional image of what it means to be human is so mesmerizing, so beautiful, and so noble and has such a powerful hold on the human imagination that feminists have not even wanted or attempted to take down the standard. Instead they have striven to have this definition also apply to them; they have chosen the path of aspiring to belong, by proving to the men of this world that they, too, are rational creatures who, thanks to the pill, are also free from biological determinism.

Until the pill came along, women’s intellectual abilities as measured by worldly success had remained largely in the realm of theory. But, today, the pill has put women in charge of their reproductive lives, enabling them to put the lie to the idea that women are biologically determined – at least women who are not mothers. Liberal feminists, therefore, have seized on birth control as the primary means of opening the way for women to gain admission to the “fully human” class. The liberal feminist argument is that, with the pill, women are now able to finesse the whole idea of male/female differences, proving that beyond all that bodily reproductive claptrap we all – male and female alike – possess that uniquely human characteristic, the transcendent, un-gendered, human mind. Except for mothers, of course.

However, if we buy into the argument that there are no “real” differences between men and women because we are all human, we must not forget that the definitive human – even the definitive human mind — is still male. Women are asking to be folded into the male model; men are not asking to be included in the female one. The result is that for a woman to be defined as fully human, before society achieves a more woman-friendly and inclusive definition of what it means to be human, it means that she has broken out of one prison, only to be incarcerated in another: our culture’s model of maleness.

For many women, this campaign to prove women’s equality, based on the underlying claim that there are no differences, has backfired. For, although those women who assume the roles of ersatz males while operating in the male world may be able to convince themselves that there are no differences, back in the domestic sphere, little has changed. There is still nothing more real in the daily lives of women with children than the not insignificant differences in reproductive roles; and patriarchy is never more oppressive than when it is dealing with women’s reproductive lives – from actively working to deny women the freedom to choose whether or not to have a baby to making it all but impossible for single mothers to have the time to properly care for their children or to earn enough money to give them a good home and access to life’s advantages.

In the reproductive sphere, the liberal feminist denial of differences has the unintended consequence of assisting in patriarchal oppression. It puts some feminist women in conflict with their own reproductive desires and in conflict with other women who have chosen to reproduce. For the logical result of denying differences means that feminists cannot allow themselves to recognize – or realistically deal with — what women are up against when they have children, as is the fate of the majority of women at one time or another in their lives. For to recognize that a mother’s experiences of parenthood might be different from a father’s (a 20-year commitment vs. a one-night stand, to put it in the starkest/darkest light) – or that the female reproductive role, within patriarchy, is more onerous than the male’s — is to open the door to the slippery- slope idea of differences which would be traitorous to the liberal feminist cause.

The only way the liberal feminist can maintain the position that women are just like men is to eschew any participation in the female reproductive process, for once a woman assumes her reproductive role, no one can deny that there are differences between men and women – if it hasn’t been obvious already. The result has been the rather harsh feminist position that if women find themselves mired down in the reproductive morass (which is only a reproductive morass because patriarchy makes it so), it has nothing to do with innate differences, but is the result of choice, and is no fault but their own. Getting pregnant is a matter of choice or should be if a woman is responsible. If one chooses to have children, one must suffer the consequences.

But why should women have to suffer the consequences? And why should the consequences be so dire – single motherhood seeming to be a one-way ticket to poverty and married mothers always one divorce away from single motherhood? Why should human females be punished for completing their life cycle? No such stricture is put on human males – or females of any other animal species, for that matter. The severe consequences attendant upon the human female’s choice(?) to reproduce is not “natural” but a direct result of the way patriarchal society is structured – which is to say around male lives and male needs. And, why should feminists, who should be working to promote the best interests of women, choose to support patriarchy in this way?

In spite of all the negativity and devaluation associated with childbearing and childrearing, however, women do continue to choose to have children – even when they have the choice not to. Some women spend thousands of dollars and go through quite unpleasant medical procedures to have a child. And why shouldn’t they? Although this may be a very unpopular concept in some circles, having a child is one of the most joyful and deeply satisfying things a woman can do – right up there with making partner. And it’s something only women can do. For women to deny themselves one of life’s richest, most significant and satisfying experiences in their quest for equality means that the patriarchs win.

Not being able to bear children themselves, patriarchal males have made a virtue out of necessity and doomed women to a second-class status, based on their reproductive role-– which, up until the pill – pretty much defined what it meant to be female. For women to buy into and assist in this devaluation of womanhood, to the point that some women deny themselves the joys of motherhood, while others feel demeaned or defensive if they have children, means a complete capitulation to patriarchal values. But, having bought into the definition of a human being as one who has free will and the reason to exercise it (when any critical look at the real lives of most men would quickly disabuse any thoughtful person of this ridiculous notion), liberal feminists have painted themselves into a corner.

But there is a way to paint ourselves back out of it. We don’t have to accept the delusional patriarchal definition of humanity which privileges men to the detriment of women. I argue that it would be far smarter to reject the patriarchal definition of humanity on the grounds that it doesn’t accurately describe the human species – male or female – and that it is especially pernicious for women. We should then construct a new definition which at least appears to be more realistic and which includes both men and women – making room for differences rather than trying to shoehorn everyone into the same “male” mold. That would be a pretty radical step, I agree, because it would strike a major blow to the foundations of patriarchal culture. But isn’t that what feminists want? And given the totally corrupt state of patriarchal culture today, isn’t it what everyone should want?

All things considered (George Bush, the Iraq war, global warming, hurricanes, etc.), I think the time is ripe to take a critical look at our cherished self image and the culture it has generated. Do humans, even powerful, white, male humans, really exist out side of nature? Are we really transcendent non-gendered, asexual minds floating above our lowly bodies? Based on my own experience as a human, I maintain that the human species resides squarely within nature, regardless of how thick our bank accounts, how powerful our military, how innovative our technology, how many floors or levels of concrete we put between ourselves and the earth – or how high our private jets fly. And we forget this to our peril.

Like all other mammals, we are born, we mature, we spend our lives playing the game of survival, and we die. Survival and the needs for food, shelter, and the continuation of the species drive us in much the same way they drive other animals. We are no more free from our biological demands than any other animal. As to reason, it is merely a tool – and a very good tool at that – which humans use to satisfy emotions, which are manifestations of the drive to survive. And that’s OK. Emotions and appetites are good things. They keep us alive.

As a woman, I am not afraid of the idea that my intellect arises from the workings of a female brain and not some liberal feminist idea of a genderless (but really male) mind. I like being a woman, and I like differences. I am depending on women being different from men. Our lives depend on the injection of some fresh, new values and approaches to structuring society and interacting with each other and nature. I think women have a lot to offer – but we won’t if we continue to waste our energies trying to be men. But let me be clear, I am not arguing that women should not participate in the full range of human activities; I am arguing that women should do it unashamedly as fully female. Instead of accepting the ridiculous constraints placed on women’s lives when they dare to reproduce, women should demand a complete restructuring of the male world, workplace, etc. to accommodate the exigencies of women’s lives.

We should never buy into the patriarchal idea that biological determinism is somehow a bad thing – it is a natural thing. Nor should we ever believe that men are somehow free from biological determinism, while women are not. Neither men nor women are free from biological determinism. And, it’s OK. To continue down this delusional path of belief in human transcendence is the surest road to the extinction of the human species. Revisioning human beings as a part of nature is an idea to be celebrated, not reviled as reductionist. And I am depending on women, especially ecofeminist women, to lead the way. Human beings should be proud to take our places– among the beauty and infinite variety and power of nature – from the delicate structure of a butterfly’s wings to the explosive grandeur of a supernova. We need to “get over ourselves.”

The significant difference between the human animal and the non-human animal is not that one resides within nature and one without, but that non-human animals are biologically determined to be genetically constructed, while human animals are biologically determined to be culturally constructed. Human infants arrive on the scene without the inborn survival programs that guide other animals, therefore we must rely on culture to give us the information and strategies we need to survive. We are no more free from cultural constructs – of one kind or another — than non-human animals are free from their genetic programs. For culture constructs human consciousness in the same way that genetics structure the consciousness of non-human animals. The difference is that when one set of cultural constructs is threatening our survival, humans can construct an alternative cultural value system. But, just as human beings and human consciousness are part of nature’s creation, so culture, too, is as natural a construct as a beaver dam.

In order to survive, humans must be able to function collectively, and must have a shared perception of reality, and they get this shared perception of reality from their cultural institutions. Where other animals are born with their genetic programs already installed, our brains and our thought processes are programmed by our culture and these cultural programs make up the “collective unconscious” of a society. What a culture takes as “reality,” such as the patriarchal definition of humanity as a “male humanity which has free will and the reason to exercise it,” is nothing more or less than a cultural construct which means that it is subject to change. And a cultural construct must change when it is threatening the survival of the culture which created it – at which point it emerges from the shadows of the unconscious into the light of consciousness – so we can see it for what it really is. It is hoped that this essay will assist in that process.

So, are women human and do we want to be. If by human you are referring to the patriarchal definition, my answer is “No.” For this is a definition which is responsible for a whole host of patriarchal evils – from the oppression of women to the destruction of the earth. But, if by human you mean the species which is biologically determined to be culturally constructed – with all the biologically determined freedom of radical rethinking which that implies, well, count me in.

I listened to your show today (on WFSU) with great interest — as I do most of your shows — but I couldn’t understand why you can’t understand the sense of anger and betrayal felt by so many supporters of HRC.  It’s not so much that she lost, but how she lost.

Just to put my remarks in context, I have been a Democrat for many years.  Like many Democrats, I was very pleased with the Democratic  lineup at the beginning of the primary season.  I wasn’t leaning toward any particular candidate, but did send some money to the Obama campaign.

I have always believed that “my” Democratic party was friendly to feminists and would, therefore, be hostile to misogyny directed against one of their candidates, just as they would — and did — readily condemn racism, even where it didn’t exist.

Therefore, when the deluge of incredibly destructive and ugly misogynistic invective directed at Hillary Clinton began to pour fourth from every media outlet (including NPR — e.g., Ken Rudin), I expected both the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party to quickly step forward and point it out.  Instead, there was a deafening silence, which I found almost incomprehensible.

The Clinton campaign was certainly on notice on racism — even though no one has worked harder to overcome it; and I fully expected the high-minded Obama to step forward and say something or do something when his opponent was being so unfairly and disgustingly attacked.  But, he did nothing.  And, I suspect he did nothing because he knew without the sexism directed against his opponent he would not win. So, he sat back and let the media do his dirty work for him — and they did.

Political candidates have to be able to “take it,” but white male candidates are attacked on their policies or their personal lives, they are not attacked because they are either white or male.  Hillary Clinton was relentlessly attacked over and over because she was female, thus all women were being attacked. However, sexism is so much a part of our culture, that it is still invisible to many — even women.  But it is there and it is ugly — and it does — and did — a great deal of harm.  I understand that an organization called WomenCount has gotten language inserted into the Democratic platform to ensure that the party will no longer tolerate sexist language.  Too bad this didn’t happen before the primary. But, who knew?

Ask yourself if the DNC or the Clinton campaign could have survived if they had stood by and done nothing if similar racial garbage had been aimed at Obama.

As to Hillary’s speech, I thought it was great. She just gets better and better.  She has the passion Obama lacks. We had our chance –  but we blew it.  If the party and the Obama campaign had done the right thing and condemned the misogyny (as they expected the Clinton campaign to condemn racism) and Obama had won fair and square, there would be much less rancor. But that didn’t happen.

Anyway, that’s my take on why HRC supporters are so hurt and angry and feel so betrayed. And Obama still has said nothing.  I think if he would at least acknowledge the fact that sexism exists, that it was a factor in the campaign, and that something needs to be done about it, it would go a long way toward healing the wounds.

It is a shame that Pollitt can go on Book TV and say things which many will believe because of who she is; after all Book TV was devoting a whole afternoon to her.  Why is it so hard for people like Pollitt to believe that real men and women who really are/were Democrats and are supporters of Hillary Clinton are so outraged that they might refuse to vote for Obama — and that refusing to vote for Obama has nothing to do with any Republican agenda?

To save the human species from self destruction, we must learn to value both women and the earth. Hatred of women in addition to being wrong in itself is poisoning society. By continuing to construct obstacles to women’s (especially single mom’s) access to resources we are creating an undereducated, impoverished underclass which threatens the social stability of all humans. In much the same way, trashing the earth is poisoning our air, water, and soil, and therefore poisoning all humans who live on this earth. But learning to value women and the earth is such a radical notion that it threatens western civilization as we know it. Of course, you might say, that’s the point. But we must understand that to fully embrace both feminism and environmentalism is to remake our cultural value system, and that includes remaking our image of ourselves and redefining our relationship to nature, the earth, and each other. This is a tall order.

Feminism and environmentalism possibly are incompatible with capitalism. Capitalist profits have depended on the untrammeled trashing of the earth, which is why conservatives have been so opposed to environmentalism. Capitalist profits also may be dependent on a large segment of the population (e.g., women) either donating their work to society by working for nothing in the home or working for less than adequate wages in the workplace. No matter how you look at it, it is clear that capitalism has been dependent on the existence of an underclass – and women make up a big part of it. Where would the profits go if all workers were paid a living wage or industry cleaned up its act? I am not saying that it is a sure thing that capitalism is incompatible with feminism and environmentalism; I am saying that capitalism as we know it, the capitalism which assumes as its right and depends upon the exploitation of the earth and women’s bodies and minds, is.

Feminism which seeks to see women as equal to men also is incompatible with traditional marriage, the basic building block of western society. Feminism, itself, then could be seen as a threat to social stability. Feminism completely rewrites the relationship between the sexes. Many women as well as men are not ready to write off traditional marriage and the dominant independent male/dependent submissive female roles. These husband/wife roles are deeply embedded in our cultural and individual psyches and when they work, we can derive great emotional and erotic satisfaction from them. (But, more and more, they don’t work.) In addition, from a practical standpoint, society still assumes these roles and has made little or no accommodation for women raising children outside of a traditional marriage – making it extremely difficult for women to raise children on their own.

Feminism and environmentalism are also incompatible with any one of the transcendent patriarchal, Abrahamic religions – whether Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Transcendent patriarchal religions, especially Christianity, are essentially anti earth and anti woman as they are centered around a transcendent male deity. Maleness and transcendence are sacred. And if maleness and transcendence are sacred, it follows that both earthly immanence and woman are profane.

So, all you feminists and environmentalists, are you ready for a complete overhaul of yourselves and the culture you live in? Are you ready to come up with some sort of alternative economic system? Are you ready to abandon traditional marriage? Are you ready to leave the religion you grew up in? But what is the alternative? Continuing down a path to self destruction. Folks, this is not going to be easy.

At that time I didn’t “get” Obamamania.  I thought Obama was OK.  No big deal.  He seemed like a nice enough guy, well meaning and smart. But as the campaign progressed, I began to actively  dislike him.  My cognitive dissonance meter began to go off almost every time I heard him speak.  I didn’t like his smug, pompous delivery of empty slogans of hope and change.  I was unimpressed by his debate performances and his weak grasp of the issues.  I didn’t like the fact that Obama, who was claiming to run a different sort of campaign, was doing nothing/saying nothing to condemn the relentless media barrage of Hillaryhate.  I didn’t like his fake “son of a single-mom on foodstamps” narrative.  I didn’t like the fact that he wrote a book about his father who had abandoned him shortly after birth, but said little about the mother and grandparents who had raised him – except to misrepresent them. But,  I soon learned it was best to keep these feelings to myself if I wanted to keep my friends – who would brook no criticism of Obama – and who acted as if there were an unpleasant odor in the room if a kind word was said for Hillary.

One day, I tried to explain my doubts about Obama to a longtime friend,  I tried to tell her how deeply injured I felt by his sins of omission in the sexism department, only to be told that supporting Obama was a “sacred cause,” – that if I couldn’t respond to his rhetoric I clearly had no aesthetic sense, and furthermore she was shocked and surprised at my support of Clinton,  her opinion of me had “lowered.”  She hung up.  Just like that.  A 30 year friendship had ended.  Just because I dared support Hillary Clinton.  Just because I wanted to explain my support.  It’s enough to make one doubt one’s perception of reality.  But,  I know it’s not my perception that’s flawed.  And I know those of us who supported Hillary did not treat the Obama supporters this way.  Which is a commentary on the Obama campaign all by itself.

Now that the campaign has ended, I look back on the last few months and wonder what on earth got into these Obama supporters.  And I think a couple of things were going on.  For one thing,  Obama with his vague  rhetoric about hope and change was more or less like a blank screen that people could project their hopes and dreams on.  Secondly, the media loved him  (remember, this is the same irresponsible media that brought you George Bush and the Iraq War): he was elegant,  he was graceful, he wore his suits well,  he was handsome, he was smart, and he had such a romantic – “only in America” — narrative – black candidate for president, son of single mom on foodstamps – only she wasn’t.  And, there was that great picture in the NYT with his Kenyan grandma – only she wasn’t. And he was very lucky in his opponent – as he has been in past campaigns.   He recognized and was able to leverage  the vast reservoir of misogyny out here in America in his favor.  In addition,  all the disappointment and animosity which should have been reserved for George Bush, which should have been motivating a vote in Congress for Bush’s impeachment, was redirected at Hillary Clinton, who to hear the Obama supporters tell it, was singlehandedly responsible for the war – and every other problem the country is having.  And to top it all off, just as Bush supporters had swiftboated the true war hero Kerry, the Obama campaign used race baiting to damn one of the best friends civil rights ever had.  The Obama campaign: A tour de force, a virtuoso performance,  and a  real tragedy for the American  people who in 2008 are left with two really bad candidates for president.  We had our chance and we blew it.

I had always believed that the fourth estate was a necessary component of democracy; after all they are our representatives at the events which shape our national and economic existence – all those events we cannot attend personally so we could make up our own minds. So we are utterly dependent on them to act responsibly, for our country’s (and our) well being depend on it. But, hold on, this is the media that beat the drums for the Gulf War and invited us all to come along and have a (non-alcoholic) beer with that oh so likable George Bush. This is the media that sneered at the sighing Al Gore and jeered the wind surfing John Kerry. And now they are bringing us our new personal savior Barack Obama! And folks are buying it!!??

Ironically, he who promises “change we can believe in,” fits smoothly into one of the oldest and most powerful cultural narratives around: the narrative of St. George slaying the Dragon or Beowulf offing Grendel’s Mother – or Christ overcoming Death on the cross. Throughout the history of western civilization, we have looked to young shining male heroes to save the day – to exploit for human gain the chthonic powers of nature – often depicted in myth as “the great mother goddess” or Tiamat –and in fairy tales as a wicked witch. And, unfortunately for us, young man Obama’s metaphorical slaying of mature woman Hillary Clinton fits the pattern exactly. Three-thousand years ago this might have been characterized as change we could believe in , but today, it is the same old shit. And it is this same old patriarchal shit that has been getting us in deeper and deeper trouble – in the areas of degradation of the earth, ceaseless macho warmongering, and the deliberate creation and maintenance of an underclass, primarily populated by women and children.

The loving creation and maintenance of the underclass is direct result of sexism — a sexism so powerful, so deep, and so unconscious that most of us don’t even know it is there until someone like Hillary Clinton comes along and scares the pants off the good old boys, who then resort to all sexist hate all the time in their so-called “political coverage.” However, should anyone call attention to this sexism, these charges are met with ridicule, trivialization, or outright denial. But sexism is real and it is everywhere and it is not trivial. And combined with racism, it is even more deadly. If you have forgotten what sexism is, let me refresh your memory with a few examples:

Sexism is punishing young single uneducated mothers by refusing a helping hand, sentencing them and their children to lives of poverty and crime.

Sexism is creating an environment which promotes the physical abuse of women.

Sexism is wife and girlfriend battering.

Sexism is the trafficking in young women’s bodies; young women who have no better offers because we live in a society which punishes women for being women – and the poorer they are, the more extreme the punishment.

Sexism is men raping women.

Sexism is the serial murder of women – which we find so titillating on Larry King, or in the tabloid news or when it is dramatized on screen.

Sexism is the real murder of women for entertainment.

Sexism is keeping the wages of work traditionally associated with women so low that no one can live on them.

Sexism is making sure that the children of women get substandard education.

Sexism is the ridicule of women who do not measure up to some artificial standard of physical perfection.

Sexism is the creation of an environment which leads women to believe that to be valued in our society they must have boob jobs and face lifts.

Sexism is the organizing of the work day and work week to make it almost impossible for young mothers to both work and responsibly take care of their children.

Sexism is paying women less and men more for the same work.

Sexism is barring women from promotions because they are female.

Sexism is attacking Hillary Clinton because she is a woman seeking the presidency.

Sexism is a serious problem which is tearing our country apart from the bottom up and the top down.

Barack Obama doesn’t seem to see sexism; he seems to be unconscious of it. Barack Obama wrote a book called “Dreams of My Father” when it was his mother and grandmother who raised him. Barack Obama publicly condemned his white grandmother for racism in the face of the fact that she had raised a biracial grandson. And Barack Obama sat by and smiled beatifically as the media used every sexist ploy in the book to trash his opponent. As Tennessee Guerilla Women (http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com) said, this is not “change you can believe in,” it is “change you can choke on.”

[I]n Dawkins’ precise [sic] definition, religion entails “believing in some kind of supernatural, intervening consciousness. If you let go of the supernatural, then it is not religion.” (Chris Floyd, A Trick of the Light: Richard Dawkins on Science and Religion, in Science and Spirit)

But why should we take Dawkins’ definition seriously. By his own admission, he knows nothing about religion. He has not taken the time to study it – either religion in general or the particulars of his own culture’s specific religious system (Christianity) — the one, by the way, which has provided the worldview which has made science possible and which has had a hand in forming his own psyche. But in his infinite arrogance born of infinite ignorance, he, Richard Dawkins, can tell us exactly what religion is (a belief in “some kind of supernatural, intervening consciousness”) and what it is not (“if you let go of the supernatural, then it is not religion”).

Of course, there have been many religions which had no belief in the supernatural, but Dawkins wouldn’t know that; he’s never looked into it. All pagan religions, for example, more or less understood creation as a birth from the womb of an immanent nature – the creation being “of one substance with the mother.” The move from a worship of immanence (material reality) to transcendence was one of the big hurdles the Hebrew cult had to get over. And no Christian theologian has ever been able to explain how a Spirit God created a material world. They just gave up and declared that He did it – ex nihilo.

At any rate, most theologians and other students of religion define religion very differently from Dawkins: For example, in an effort to explain communism as a type of religion, Paul Tillich defined religion as one’s “ultimate concern.“ Others define religion as a system of belief or a set of morals. Still others as a “worldview.” At any rate, since all human societies we know anything about have had religious systems at their core – whether or not a supernatural entity was or is involved – it should be obvious that religion plays a critical, if yet unknown, role in the formation and establishment of human social systems, making it a far more complex and challenging subject of study than Dawkins is willing to admit.

Given the fact that humanity is causing so many problems in the world and human nature is still such a mystery to us humans, God and religion, both being artifacts of human nature, could therefore provide keys to its mysteries. It seems to me a forgone conclusion that both religion (and God) should be taken seriously and looked into, not cavalierly dismissed. Given the number of its adherents and the zeal with which people believe, religion is still possibly the most powerful social and psychological force at work in the human species. Therefore, it would seem the rational approach would be to want to understand religion; it would seem that that famous scientific curiosity would drive scientists not to dismiss religion, not to ridicule it, but to understand the source of its power – and in doing so, perhaps learn a little about themselves and their culture. But, I’m afraid, something less noble is at work.

The fact that scientists such as Dawkins are acting so irrationally, so unscientifically, leads one to believe that they have a dog in this fight – that it is not humanity’s propensity to generate systems of values which they disagree with, but a particular system of values, a system of values which threatens their own beliefs, which enrages them. Bottom line, the whole controversy comes down to a matter of power and control. For science itself and scientists themselves want to be the new priests, the new uberdeciders of what is right and what is wrong and how humanity ought to live. This, in spite of the fact that science has almost nothing to offer us in the realm of human relationships – whether it be male female relationships, relationships between rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless, intercultural and international relationships, the relationship between the human animal and non human animals, or the relationship between humanity and the earth.

In the past, the rules for human relationships have been the proper province of morality – and morality has been the province of religion. However, because of dramatic changes in the human social and physical environments, the moralities of yesterday no longer offer any help in solving today’s problems. On the contrary, they seem to exacerbate them. It is therefore clear that we need a new system of values to help us get ourselves out of the mess we have created. And science just might be able to offer us some help along the way. But if science, the self-proclaimed avatar of logic and reason has so little desire “to know itself” –to understand human behavior – and so basic a human behavior as religion – how can we trust it to be our guide?

In addition, Dawkins, in is righteous indignation, needs to be reminded that science is as frequently wrong as it is right – and it, too, like religion has done incredible harm. Think Hiroshima and Nagasaki, think Dresden and Cologne, think napalm, think climate change, think hormone replacement therapy. Without science, there would be no nuclear weapons, no weapons of mass destruction, no global warming, no air, water, and soil pollution – and if I had believed in the conventional wisdom of medical science and taken HRT when it was offered to me 15 years ago, I might not be alive and writing this today – but just another breast cancer statistic (but, fortunately, I have a strong sense of self preservation and I am skeptical of both science and religion). And it is not the fault of science itself which has brought these horrors into being, but the ignorant arrogance of scientists who make the mistake of religious leaders and actually believe that they alone are dealing with ultimate reality, when they, like the religious leaders they condemn, are only and always merely dealing with their limited, human, perception of reality at a given time and place. To dismiss religion out of hand as not worth their time or energy is not uncharacteristic; neither is it likely to expand their horizons.

Richard Dawkins — and his flying spaghetti monsters — is doing us all a great disservice. With some 85% of people in the world taking part in one kind of religious community or another, and the powder-keg effects of globalization (itself an artifact of science and technology) provoking explosive confrontations by bringing together opposing societies with opposing world views and opposing value systems, Dawkins, on his soapbox, calling all religious people idiots is not a positive or productive force in the world – and I am disappointed in him. I expected better.

Note: And just because you, dear reader, or I (or Richard Dawkins) no longer consciously buy into the prevailing religion in our society only demonstrates the success with which religion has so thoroughly distributed and integrated its values into all our social institutions. Our psyches have been so completely infiltrated that our social values are second nature to us. We therefore no longer need the authority of the church or an archetypal symbol like God the Father to make us toe the line.

And why would Nature choose to create a species which is biologically determined to be culturally constructed? Because, although depending on extrinsic rather than inborn patterns of behavior to meet our basic needs for human survival is pretty risky (it significantly widens the margin for error in the game of life), our reliance on extrinsic sources of information increases our species’ ability to survive through adaptation (by providing generalized cultural patterns, rather than specific, locked in biological programs).

Take our biologically determined need, hunger. In terms of satisfying this need, members of the human species have improved their chances for survival by developing a broad range of cuisines which are adapted to the part of the world they find themselves in — from whale blubber to yucca. Although these food choices may be geographically influenced, they are not biologically determined. No one is biologically determined to eat egg rolls in the way that a horse eats grass or vultures eat carrion. However, we are biologically determined to eat something and to look to culture to tell us what that something is. Today, culture is falling down on the job, as it is telling us to eat stuff which may look like food, but is really a collection of chemicals a mile long. But, I digress.

We are also biologically determined to look to culture to tell us how to get access to the necessities of life. Do we conquer other peoples? Do we corner the market on arable land and other natural resources? Or, do we find ways to share the water hole? We are not biologically determined to be bellicose or diplomatic. The choice is cultural and pragmatic. It is based on reason – or should be. That is, ideally it is based on what makes the most sense in terms of survival. When reason no longer prevails and nothing is making sense any more, it is time for a change.

In terms of how we understand our relationship to the source of the necessities of life (nature and the earth), do we cherish nature? Or do we exploit its riches until we have completely used them up and fouled our nest in the process? Our cultures decide for us and tell us what to do. When we are getting bad information, it is time for a change.

Because humans are biologically determined to need cultural constructs, and because our survival depends on these cultural constructs, they have hooks deep within our psyches. So powerful are they it is as if different cultures construct different kinds of human beings – a sort of culture-specific human nature. The result is that each culture assumes its survival strategies – its “values” — are right – and everyone else is wrong. We even go so far as to judge the actions of other peoples as “going against human nature” when they differ significantly from our own. We even go so far as to go to war with people.

Understanding the fundamental and deep-seated nature of our differences should help us recognize why it is sometimes so difficult to accept other peoples and other cultures. They are not just like us – only dressed differently. They are different. Really, fundamentally, different. And so are we. Recognizing and honoring our differences, we should take the time and trouble to understand each other. It is both demeaning to other cultures – and dangerous to us — to believe they are “just like us.” (This does not mean that we should accept or condone practices within other cultures which are cruel and work against the well being of all, any more than we accept those practices in our own culture. For example, honor killings or corporate greed.)

But the fact that our human natures are culturally constructed means we have a way out if our culture is leading us down the path of destruction. If we have constructed a culture (which in turn has constructed us) whose values and strategies no longer make any sense in the world we live in, nature has given us the latitude to construct a different culture which will in turn construct a new human nature. As I said at the beginning of this essay, Nature is pro-life, she is on our side. She wants our species to survive. In spite of everything we have done to her. We, like the rest of the natural world, have a strong advocate in our corner.

But I don’t want to think about — much less to go into — what I went through to avoid pregnancy all those years leading up to those happy days. I came of age pre-pill and pre-Roe, and for a middle class girl of my generation to get pregnant was the shame and tragedy of a lifetime – and provided the plot for many potboilers. Of course, the tragedy both fictional and real usually revolved around the damage done to the career prospects of the accidental young father; the girl –“damaged goods”– was usually tossed aside on the trash heap of life. In fiction , it seemed a fitting fate that the fallen woman conveniently die in childbirth — or as a result of a “back alley, coat-hanger abortion.” In real life, it was off to the Florence Crittenden Home with the hopes that friends and family would buy the “six-month visit to Aunt Kate’s” story.

Let’s just say it’s a miracle that I wasn’t permanently psychologically scarred by the fear and loathing my family instilled in me at the very prospect of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Or permanently scarred physically by my contraception of choice. For, like hundreds of thousands of clueless women, I risked permanent sterility when I opted for the Dalkon Shield to delay pregnancy. Of course, who knew back then what damage those little plastic thingies with the sharp points were doing inside a woman’s uterus? And, who really cared? All I knew was that I bled like a stuck pig every month – so much so that I couldn’t leave the house — and when it came time to think about getting pregnant, well, the Dalkon shield had done its damnedest to make me sterile. But finally the babies came – and how I have loved being a mother.

This is the experience of motherhood I would wish for all women who want to have children. But it is increasingly rare. For a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, we live in the only mammalian society I know anything about which deliberately sabotages the whole process of motherhood. For example, what other species prohibits females from feeding their young in public? Our culture is so perverse that we find breastfeeding offensive! Imagine! (While we hardly turn a hair as we watch Iraqis daily being blown apart on the nightly news.) I write this as my foal nurses to her heart’s content while my mare peacefully grazes in the pasture surrounding my house. But a human infant nursing at a human female’s breast? Oh my god! This in a world where breasts are thrust at us from every screen and billboard, etc. Go figure!

Even more insane, what other species deliberately prevents females and their young from getting access to food and shelter? Yet our species denies females access to resources at every turn. For example, it was an unwritten rule in the company I worked for to discourage the hiring of women with small children. And even if women are lucky enough to find work, just trying to work the required 40-50 hour workweek while maintaining the semblance of being there for her children creates an impossible conflict for any mother. And most jobs young, uneducated women can get only pay minimum wage – a minimum wage she must turn around and pay to the day-care worker, netting her exactly $0 to keep body and soul together. In the rural county where I live, poor working women frequently have their children taken away from them because they do not make enough money to support them. Then the mothers are required to pay child support.

Our deeply disturbed patriarchal society is constructed specifically to punish the females of the species for reproducing (a function which is absolutely necessary for the species to continue to exist) - – unless the reproducing is completely under the control of some male. Even then, depending on the male, the vulnerability a woman assumes when she gets pregnant and has children can and often is used against her. And we believe the human species is superior to other animal species!

What kind of species are we that we make the female reproductive role so difficult? Unless a woman is financially independent, having a child – whether it be planned or unplanned, whether she be single or married – means increasing one’s vulnerability in every department. Increasingly, the norm is that women are facing motherhood alone – or in unstable relationships — without the resources necessary to bring up a healthy happy child, much less to be able to enjoy the experience. But our society continues to maintain the illusion that the norm is Mom, Dad, Buddy and Sis. All that is needed to set everything right is a man in the house – and it is the woman’s responsibility to make sure she has one. But as all readers of Flannery O’Connor know, a good man is hard to find. It is my opinion, however, that single motherhood is here to stay – and society is going to have to adjust to the realities of the new norm – just as I did.

Although my situation as a mother had started out conventionally, things soon changed, and a few years later I became a single mom; but because I was well educated and had work experience, I was able to find a good job which enabled me to adequately support my children – and by that time they were in school and did not need me 24/7. But at least I had been able to be with them during those precious early years – and at least when I needed to go to work I was able to. My relationship with my children continued to be close and loving – and, from my perspective, our homelife actually improved. No more arguments, no more seething anger, no more living on the edge of a violent outbreak. I am here to say that single parenthood need not be a nightmare. It can be rewarding and fulfilling and fun. But more often than not, it’s a nightmare – not because there’s no daddy in the house, but because our society can’t seem to get real concerning what motherhood demands of a woman. And it’s almost always a nightmare if that single parenthood is accidental. Which brings us at long last to the topic of abortion.

In our society, an unplanned pregnancy is frequently a trainwreck. It is, therefore, one of the possible life events that the majority of women in their childbearing years fear most. I still remember all too vividly the terror I experienced if my period was late. Being forced to bear an unwanted child can destroy a woman’s life. It can destroy any chance she has for a full and happy life — a full and happy life which includes planned pregnancies and wanted children. Being forced to bear an unwanted child can precipitate a descent into poverty for both the woman and her child. As a result, most women take birth control medication, risking stroke and cancer (and in my case unwittingly risking permanent sterility) in order to avoid the risk of unplanned pregnancies and their attendant social ills and personal miseries. But occasionally, a woman will find herself accidentally pregnant, no matter how hard she tries to prevent it, because to tell the truth both nature and society conspire against us. And this is the ugly truth of why unplanned pregnancies happen in the first place.

Although most adults and young people know an unplanned pregnancy can spell personal, social, financial, and psychological disaster for both mother and child, our society values above all things “real men,” and it is the mark of all real men from puberty onward to try relentlessly and ruthlessly to get into some girl’s pants, regardless of the serious consequences a girl may face for a moment’s gratification – generally not hers. Making matters worse, in our society, a woman knows that her worth is directly tied to her ability to arouse sexual desire in a male, specifically to incite him to choose her pants to get into, regardless of the negative consequences to her of his invasion. Since unwanted pregnancies are the result of men getting into women’s pants, since men never let up in their desire to get into women’s pants, and since a woman doesn’t feel worthy unless some man is trying to get into her pants, is it any wonder that unplanned pregnancies happen? Until our society really values male restraint as a manly virtue and female freedom as a woman’s right, the ability to terminate an unplanned pregnancy (abortion) is often a last-ditch and only chance a woman has to have some measure of control over her life.

At issue in the abortion debate then is not if we are pro or anti “life” or at what point life begins, it is whether or not it is in the best interests of women, in particular, and society, in general, for women to have some measure of control over their lives – which means enabling them to terminate an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy.

It is therefore resolved that it is in the best interests of women and society for women to be able to terminate an unplanned pregnancy. Those taking the “yes” position must show how planned pregnancies and wanted children are in the best interests of women and society. Those taking the “no” position must show how unplanned pregnancies and unwanted children are in the best interests of women and society.

Really, folks, is there any argument?

Not to be too Henny Pennyish, but I think the end times are upon us – not the end of all times, but the end of western civilization as we have come to know and love it – and, from my point of view, it’s about time. If we don’t accept and promote this end – and look for a new beginning, a radically new way of being in the world, we or our grandchildren may be facing the end of the human species altogether.

From my point of view, the place to start in changing our ways is with the way we think about religion in general and Christianity in particular. One of the ways we liberals think about Christianity is that it is a collection of silly stories and superstitious beliefs which only complete fools could believe in. Another way we think about religion is that the stories are not meant to be taken literally, for it is the morals of the stories, not the stories themselves, which form the kernel of religious belief.

Perversely, I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with both approaches: I do not dismiss the Bible or Christian doctrine as being fundamentally silly or superstitious; but, along with the Richard Dawkins’s of this world, I do believe that anyone who takes the stories literally is more than a little off base. Like the liberal Christians of this world, I do believe it is the moral of the story, not the story itself which is where the message is; however, I no longer believe in the message, having come to the conclusion that, due to unintended consequences, the moral itself has become immoral – promoting death and destruction rather than life and the well being of all.

So if I believe in neither the story nor the moral, why don’t I just get on with my life and abandon religion altogether? Because I believe that Christianity is too powerful and dangerous a force in our culture to be cavalierly dismissed. To me, religion is not just one aspect of culture, it is the essential shaper of culture and cultural institutions. Religions, when they are functioning properly, have an evolutionary purpose: religious symbols are the carriers of cultural value systems which in turn generate cultural worldviews which ultimately promote social stability and individual survival.

The JudeoChristian God is the symbol which carries the value system of western culture. From my perspective, Genesis is not the story of the creation of the world, but the story of the creation of our worldview. God The Symbol is the creator of our psychological reality, the shaper of human consciousness within JC society, signaling what is important, what is not important, what is good and what is bad, what has value and what has no value.

In the ANE, the priestly editors who put the Bible together created a new kind of deity, God the Father, for a new kind of religion, transcendent patriarchal monotheism, which served the interests of a new world order. This God generated a worldview which served the interests of burgeoning empire — a far-flung, but urban-centered empire, dependent on the acquisition of territory and the subservience of others. Over the centuries, The JC worldview has done its job well – serving emperors and emperor want-to-be’s from Constantine to George Bush, providing a moral justitfication for military conquest, the exploitation of nature, and a hierarchical social and economic organization which promotes the subordination of women.

The JC God’s relationship to humanity symbolizes the social contract where a leader of fatherly mien vows to protect and save his people in return for abject obedience and loyalty. The many give up their power to the few – or the one – with the understanding that as long as the many hold up their part of the bargain, the few will use their power to protect them. God the Father is the symbolic model for the one person or one group who holds the power and has the will to use it responsibly.

As Christian doctrine evolved, God the Son became the symbol for the many who sacrificed their labor and their lives –believing that even if they experienced earthly life as a vale of tears, a heavenly reward was waiting. God’s relationship to humanity symbolically provided the political formula for social – and individual — survival within the setting of an urban-centered empire, and it has worked pretty well up until now.

But today, is the JC worldview still working? Is it promoting our survival or threatening it? And if it is truly threatening us, as I believe it is, why is it so difficult to make substantive changes? It is that difficulty I wish to address and it goes to my understanding of human nature.

As far as I can tell, the difference between human and non-human animals lies in the fact that, although both human and non-human animals share the inborn drive to survive, survival behaviors are genetically programmed in non human animals and culturally programmed in human animals. As Clifford Geertz says in his book Interpretation of Culture, without humanity there would be no culture, but without culture, there would be no humanity. What this means is that human brains require cultural programming in order to function. Put another way, the human animal is genetically programmed to be culturally programmed. Just as Noam Chomsky has proposed a deep structure for language, I am proposing a deep structure for cultural values.

Cultural programming provides a culture-specific worldview, which orders and filters what William James called the blooming, buzzing mass of confusion otherwise known as reality. Without a common worldview there can be no collective action which means there can be no society. Cultural programming is performed through the use of symbols. The symbols which are the most significant to the process of cultural programming are religious. Through religious teachings, church services, etc., religion inculcates belief in the worldview it is creating. The worldview is then extended throughout society through non-religious, social institutions – it is even reflected in the built environment – reinforcing the idea that what we take for reality is reality itself. Our worldview literally shapes our consciousness and our world. Therefore, if you are a member of this culture, you have absorbed a cultural value system which is directly traceable to Christianity – specifically to the Christian concept of God — even if you have never been inside a church, even if you believe that you have come by your values as a result of logical, reasonable, and independent thought.

To use a computer-related analogy by way of explanation, a cultural worldview is the “functional user interface” installed in the human brain by outside sources. The better a worldview filters out the noise, the more accurately a worldview selects for those aspects of environmental, social, and psychological conditions which we must deal with in order to survive — the more successful it is, the more it is “transparent to the user.”

But precisely because it is transparent to the user, a cultural worldview is taken as reality, as the natural order of things. Which is as it should be. Unless of course, reality diverges from the worldview in significant ways – in ways which threaten our survival. Then, it is time to raise the alarm and our consciousness; then it is time to generate a new worldview. This is where I think we find ourselves today.

By any measure, Christianity, and its spin-off — “enlightenment values” — has been a resounding success. It has created the most powerful and influential culture on the planet today – but one which seems in danger of self-destructing – and taking everyone and everything else with it. On almost every front, significant changes in our surroundings are seriously throwing our world and our worldview out of kilter. With population densities straining earth’s carrying capacity, the Christian admonition to “Go forth and multiply” seems like a recipe for disaster. Toxic air and water call into question the whole idea of the advisability of man’s dominion over the earth. With our cultural guidance system on the blink, we find ourselves in a sort of limbo – characterized by a general breakdown in cultural values.

But, when the worldview is no longer accurate, it is only logical that the values associated with that worldview no longer make any sense. We cannot unlearn what we have found out; we cannot undo what we have done. There is no going back, but we haven’t a clue how to move forward. As a result, we are in a world of hurt. Social and environmental changes coupled with the accompanying disintegration of our value system doubly threaten the survivability of the human species. As there is no returning to conditions which no longer exist, we must fare forward in search of a new, more accurate understanding of reality. But, faring forward places us in liminal space which is always dangerous territory – making us fearful, making us want to retreat, making us watch Fox – and sending us in droves to the safety and authority of evangelical churches.

To aid us in our transition out of the old mindset, we need to thoroughly understand what no longer works and why. We need to psychoanalyze the collective unconscious – or the unconscious of the collective, i.e., all those cultural attitudes and beliefs which are so ingrained in us that, as a culture, we take them for granted as the natural order of things. For, unless the part they are playing in our cultural disintegration is understood and acknowledged, they will continue to ensnare us and prevent us from finding our way out of the perilous situation we are in. The best place to get a handle on the old, out-of-date worldview is to go back and take a closer look at the religion which established it.

The editors of the Bible and the purveyors of Christian doctrine very deliberately described their God as Creator, as One (even when he is three), as Transcendent Spirit, as Male, as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and a resident of heaven. They did such a good job that in the “Does God Exist” debate no one questions the JC God’s attributes. From the most rabid fundamentalist to the most atheistic scientist, it seems that both sides tacitly agree, that if there were a god or if there were no god, the God to argue for or against, the God to believe or disbelieve in is this powerful, authoritative, spiritual, transcendent version of a human male. I mean, no one is going to waste ink or words disproving the existence of Kali or some other heathen god or goddess. But why is a many armed goddess any more absurd than an old man who lives in the sky and has genocidal tendencies. Regardless of how silly or frightening the image of the old man in the sky is, at a very deep level, what the image symbolizes, whether we are aware of it or not, still apparently makes some sort of psychological sense to a great many of us which is why it is so dangerous.

So, to get a better understanding of our culture and ourselves, let’s analyze a few of God’s attributes which are the building blocks of our worldview. I would like to focus on just three: transcendence, oneness, and maleness – because these attributes both model and define JC man’s relationship to nature, other people, and subordinated groups within our society.

The term transcendence has very positive connotations in our society. It suggests an image of humanity where soaring intellects are freed from the constraints of our earth-bound, death-bound bodies. To transcend is to move beyond – to rise above. Genesis’ creator God, unlike the nature deities of the ANE, transcends the material world in every way. He is essentially different from creation, he is essentially superior to creation. Read symbolically, the JC God symbolized a sophisticated Iron Age humanity’s new relationship to nature and other less technologically advanced peoples. Through the use of agricultural and military technology, iron-age humanity had lifted itself out of nature in order to control it. A society which imaged itself as empowered by science and technology so as to control nature and other peoples (rather than being controlled) had a much greater chance at success and survival.

God’s transcendence continues to represent man’s image of himself as separate from and superior to nature, freed from the enslavement of nature’s biological programming, and apparently immune to the dangers posed by a polluted environment. We talk about Man and Nature as if they were two separate entities, rather than imaging a humanity within nature. But is this a true picture? Or wishful thinking? I think our cherished image of ourselves as a special species, as beings set apart, as the pinnacle of the evolutionary process has allowed us to exploit and poison earth with no thought as to the repercussions to our health and well being. This image is not only false, it also is a threat to our survival. However, we cannot seem to disentangle ourselves from our cultural programs which continue to tell us we are transcendent. If we continue down this path, we may soon find ourselves extinct –an experiment of nature gone terribly wrong. Therefore, as an environmentalist and as a member of this endangered species we call humanity, I find the whole notion of transcendence deeply troubling.

As a woman who has always had issues with authority and who celebrates diversity, I also have a problem with a God who is one and number 1. In the JCT, much is made of God’s oneness – a oneness which was greatly at odds with the many gods and goddesses of pagan societies. God’s oneness represents the viewpoint that our worldview is Number One. Only one worldview, ours – is correct. Within the JCT, there is no toleration for beliefs in other gods. This attitude is reflected in the hegemonic, colonialist nature of western culture. We’ve got it right; and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world recognizes the error of its ways. And, if they don’t, we’ll lend them a hand.

God’s oneness also represents a strong cultural belief in the concentration of power in the executive – and respect for the authority which that concentration of power represents. Regardless of evidence which would lead us to doubt the wisdom of placing absolute trust in absolute power, our desire to want to trust authority figures is great. It is thus “unpatriotic” to question the authority of a president, disloyal to question the authority of a CEO, disrespectful to question the authority of a teacher or a parent, and outrageous to question the authority of science.

As to God’s maleness, it has created – and continues to create — endless problems for women. As a woman, I consider God’s maleness absolutely unacceptable. God’s maleness means that the standard for being human is the male human. Therefore, being born female in our society means never being recognized as fully human – and having to prove ourselves time and time again should we dare to enter the man’s world. Be that as it may, God’s maleness is so taken for granted and so deeply ingrained that we hardly even take notice of it – unless of course we are feminist theologians. And, for many, it seems positively unnatural to use anything other than the pronoun “he” in referring to God.

But to characterize the source of life as male and transcendent instead of female and immanent was hugely significant and aberrant in the pagan ANE. God, as male creator of the universe and sole source of all life, symbolically reflected the revolutionary scientific belief, held by Aristotle among others, that the male seed was the sole source of human life. The corollary to this belief was that woman’s womb was nothing more than an incubator. Perhaps this explains the latest Supreme Court ruling concerning women’s reproductive rights. (This belief has only relatively recently been scientifically disproven with the discovery of the ovum in 1827. Perhaps this scientific discovery gave the suffragettes the psychological boost they needed to fight for their rights. )

Thus, through the offices of God’s maleness, a now disproven scientific fact created a worldview in which the intrinsic biological and social value of the male was assumed, justifying and rationalizing male dominance in every sphere of human activity for over 2500 years. Perhaps it’s time to bring our wordview more in line with what we now know about reproductive biology. Symbolically, recognizing the significant biological role played by women in the survival and maintenance of the species would translate into recognizing the immense social worth of women and women’s work. Consider how the lives of children at home and in day care, the lives of the sick at home and in hospitals, and the lives of the elderly, at home and in nursing homes depend entirely on work traditionally associated with women. Our lives, our children’s lives, our parent’s lives are literally in the hands of women. Isn’t it time to acknowledge our worth?

So to answer my earlier question as to why it is so hard to make substantive changes in our behavior, it is hard because we see the world through a glass darkened by transcendent patriarchal monotheism. And it is no easy matter to initiate a culture-wide change in consciousness. For, if my hypothesis is correct that the human brain cannot function without a value system, then we cannot delete one system without having another to take its place. And if we delete the current value system, can we consciously and deliberately choose a replacement – or do we wait until the new one percolates up from the unconscious?

I think we can turbo-charge the whole transition process by becoming conscious of the flaws in our image of ourselves and making the appropiate changes. For example, in your mind’s eye, juxtapose the ideas of a human being (yourself) and nature. Do you image yourself as firmly rooted in this earth, interconnected with the other species of this earth – both plant and animal? Or do you see yourself floating hydrofoil-like, a few feet off the surface? If it is the latter, cool you jets and settle down. I promise you, your homecoming will be welcome and welcoming. Or say to yourself the word “Man” or humanity and see what image springs to mind. If it is always the image of a male human, try substituting a female and see how that affects you. You may be surprised at your mind’s resistance. But, it can be done. As for authority and hegemony and dominance and all that other stuff, would’t it be nice if we could just relax and not have to be number 1. Think about it. I do, everyday. Just ask my long suffering friends.

To conclude, the transcendent flagpole we’ve been sitting on for the past 2000 years is getting pretty wobbly. I recommend that we climb down from our airy perch and take our place in nature, rejoicing in being a part of such wonder and beauty and diversity. Through a growing consciousness – a sometimes painful awareness — of our newly discovered kinship with all things, we will develop an understanding at the deepest layers of our being that interdependence not dominance is the key to survival – that we, too, are part of the web of life.

According to folks of a conservative bent (and many others who have not given the subject much thought), there is a natural order of things, and this natural order is reflected in the way things are – that is, the way things are is the natural order of things.  Therefore, if you are critic of the way things are – e.g., if you are an environmentalist, or a feminist, or a pacifist, or in any way not happy with the way things are, you are in conflict with the natural order of things. You are out of touch with reality. Get with the program and stop whining. This is the “modern” position.  That is, there is a single reality about which enlightened humans know – or can know — almost everything, which enables them to make such absurd pronouncements.

As a woman, if I accept that the way things are is the way things ought to be, it puts me in an awkward spot. Because I have to face the fact that I am, by virtue of my sex, truly inferior to men.  I have to believe that any attempt to “rise above my biological station” is as futile as a redbird trying to be brown (Oh, they are?  You mean the females.  Does that count?) I would have to accept as fact that anyone who is gay is against nature. I would have to accept that the human greed which results in the exploitation and degradation of nature and the militarism which results in the needless slaughter of a whole lot of folks are true attributes of an immutable human nature.  In short, I would have to lose all hope.

Or, I can choose to believe that the way things are is NOT the natural order of things. I can believe, instead, that we live in a culturally constructed reality, which – because it is constructed – can be changed.  I can be a postmodern.

It’s not that I abjure all universals. I don’t. In fact, it is my belief in one universal which  — in conjunction with my belief in constructed realities — raises my spirits.  I believe that the one drive which unites all life forms, including humans, is the drive to survive.  I believe that the number of people who are beginning to realize that tripping down the current primrose path is leading us to self-destruction and species extinction is reaching the critical mass necessary to blow the current paradigm sky high, where it belongs.  I believe that the drive to survive coupled with the realization that the reality we live in is dooming us to destruction will motivate us to construct a new reality – which hopefully will be Pro-Life.

Many years ago,  during the Viet Nam war,  I took a brief excursion into the world of the Defense Department – for no better reason than a job was offered to me that gave me the opportunity to experience life in the big city — in our nation’s capital to be exact.  One day, as part of my work,  I was invited to a briefing which  was conducted by an admiral and had something to do with weapons.

Up there in front of the room with his pointer and white board,  the admiral was the very soul of cool reason, talking about kill ratios and numbers and percentages.  And there I was,  the only woman in the room,  acting – or thinking – just like a woman,  busily converting these numbers into people and these weapons into wounds . And, I kept thinking how cold and calculating and deliberately murderous this military man was being. And  I kept thinking, what if he came right out and used the words which would have more accurately  reflected  what he was really saying?  Could the meeting even have continued if we had had visual aids, showing us graphically the bodies of men, women, and children being burned to a crisp or blown to smithereens? At that moment, I thought a little emotion was in order and that the world would be a better place  if we were all forced to feel the impact of our actions – instead of converting children and injuries to numbers and percentages and then performing logical, reasonable, actions on them.

Over the years,  as I have returned again and again to this scene in my mind, I have come to see that although he never raised his voice, never shed a tear, never broke into laughter or song, never did any of the things which we associate with the expression of emotion, the admiral in his logical, reasonable delivery was doing just that – expressing emotion.  The logic and reason he was displaying were mere servants of the national emotions of fear and anger and the drive to power.  These emotions are so prevalent and have made themselves so at home in the psyche of western culture that we no longer are aware of them.The emotions I was feeling were  compassion and empathy and anger at the abuse of language which was leading in a direct line to the abuse of the Vietnamese.  I don’t think I should apologize for the emotions I felt. I think the world would be a better place if we all were encouraged to feel compassion and empathy.  Logic and reason are always tools of our emotions. We need to understand that and recognize the power of emotion.  But there are good emotions and bad emotions.  If we followed the trail of our logical and reasonable actions back to the originating emotion, we might be appalled at ourselves; we might even be able to make some significant changes.