-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/saharasia.html
AHP PERSPECTIVE June/July 2000 Table of Contents SAHARASIA: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex Repression, Warfare and Social Violence in the Deserts of the Old World By James DeMeo, Ph.D. Greensprings, OR: Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory, 1998. Reviewed by Paul Von Ward Today, we see too few big books with big ideas. If for no other reason, James DeMeo's magnum opus deserves the attention of all concerned about the roots of violent human behavior. As the title suggests, he attempts to pin down the origins of institutionalized violence, the source for so much pain in society and a conundrum for the field of psychology. Some of his big questions should titillate your questing mind. Are humans innately violent, due either to "original sin" or "faulty genes." Are truly peaceful societies possible? With so much media attention to sex, why is there so little profound sexuality in modern society? Why are overtly religious nations so violent? How do politics and business contribute to social violence? There are additional compelling reasons to spend time with this broadly researched and provocative volume: DeMeo reminds us of the relevance of Wilhelm Reich's largely unknown, ignored, or suppressed contributions to developmental psychology. DeMeo's (and Reich's) hypothesis stimulates re-examination of currently competing theories of personality development. Documentation of "patrist/armored/patriarchal/dominator" behavior patterns versus those of the Yin polarity in world cultures is very well presented. He makes clear just how repressive and anti-human most societies, including our own, remain, as we begin the 21st century. His findings suggest that our modern concepts of social control and jurisprudence only reinforce the historically rooted, violent traditions we allegedly abhor. In other words, our self-serving, repressive institutions and social values cause the violence-youth and adult-that we pretend is beyond our understanding and control. DeMeo believes his work supports Reich's thesis that "human armoring," a defensive personality, results from painful social and physical environmental factors. Thus, he concludes, that the apparent correlation of repressive, abusive, and violent behaviors in societies undergoing harsh environmental shifts millennia ago confirms a geographic basis for such human behavior. The focal point of his work is the region he calls Saharasia, the primarily desert area that encompasses most of North Africa, the Near East and Central Asia. Truly a "Renaissance Man" with graduate training in geography, DeMeo assembled data that tracks the Saharasian transition from a fertile, nurturing environment to its current harsh, arid state. Describing Saharasia around 10,000 BP, he says it possessed a relatively moist and lush environment, thick with grasses, trees, lakes, rivers, swamps, and a plethora of large and small animals. Neolithic hunters ranged over it, engaging in animal herding and limited agriculture. The region began to experience extreme droughts five or six thousand years ago and, over time, turned into the desert we know today. With archaeological and anthropological data, DeMeo pinpoints the appearance of what he calls "patrist" cultures in this region. He theorizes that these violent, sadistic cultures arose in reaction to the increasingly harsh environment, where resources became scarce and the basic necessities of life were difficult to come by. He suggests the "biometeorological effects" of drought and famine, with the trauma of competition for food and water, could have led to irritability and conflict. From this plausible assumption, he extrapolates the assertion that such disturbed cultures therefore developed formal patterns of violence, including genital mutilations, sacrifice, torture, etc. These formal patterns in "patrist" cultures, or subcultures in a larger society, include: * repressive patriarchal institutions and deities, * castes and classes that may include slavery, * low attention to infant needs, and * painful male and female initiation rites. These societies punish sexual expression, subordinate females, inflict pain and trauma on the young, murder widows and female infants, and torture and execute criminals. The resulting authoritarian society suppresses healthy pleasures, creating guilt-ridden, repressive personalities that are violence prone. Individual members manifest what Reich called "armored character structures." Such people direct their violence not only at established victims (children, females, submissive males) in their own group, but toward outsiders whom they perceive as different. (These attributes apply just as much to modern, industrial cultures as they do to more traditional ones. And the suppression of natural pleasure-seeking emotions may be done by force, rules, or drugs-as is now shown in British research on the use of Prozac.) A "matrist" culture, in contrast to "patrist," includes: * low levels of adult violence, * more democracy and egalitarianism * gentle child treatment norms, and * healthy sexual relations. DeMeo believes "matrist" cultures are the normal developmental path for humans, and that human violence has appeared only at specific times and places in human history. He describes cultural distribution patterns that tend to support his thesis. He concludes "that 'patrism' originated first and only within the harshest of hyperarid desert environments, and then only around 6,000 years ago." He further believes subsequent "patrist" societies outside Saharasia resulted from the invasion by "patrists" of adjacent temperate and wetland regions. The spread of such values by people inured to violence and hardship enabled them to impose their cultural patterns on more peace-loving peoples. DeMeo describes how "powerful nomadic-warrior cultures of Central Asia and Arabia have played a prominent role in the genesis of kingly states, military allegiances and political history in both Saharasia and its moister borderlands." The existence of "matrist" societies in other harsh climates-parts of the Himalayas, deserts of southern Africa and North America, and the Andes mountains-poses questions about the validity of his theory. But other explanations will have to encompass DeMeo's data. While one may offer alternative hypotheses to DeMeo's Saharasian origins, there is no escaping the importance of his descriptions of the links between certain culturally accepted practices and individual violence. Though it may not be necessary to return to lush tropical conditions to encourage a more "matrist" orientation, there is little question that the abnormal level of violence in modern society is fueled by pent-up emotions that appear to the perpetrator to have no other outlet. The answer lies in recognition of the biological need all children (and the child in all of us) have to experience sensual and emotional pleasure. To the extent that adults filled with "pleasure anxiety" (anxious about their own biological sexual impulses) thwart this drive through repressive religious and legal controls or drug regimes, they contribute to the neuroses and psychoses of violent acting out. Neither Reich nor DeMeo, nor I for that matter, advocate the view that all forms of trauma must be avoided in childhood to raise psychologically healthy adults. Obvious controls are necessary to protect life and limb while growing up, and some challenges are necessary for robust personality development. (The Hermetic Principle of Polarity implies that certain constraints are necessary for the development of constructive uses of freedom, but "patrist" cultures, including our own, demand unhealthy, extreme controls.) In contrast to DeMeo, I believe violence-based controls, beyond the preservation of life and family, were originally more a function of belief systems than reactions to external circumstances. If that is true, we need to search for the etiology of the beliefs. Unfortunately, most of them come from "patrist" religions that are the creations of men who would control others for their own pleasure. The most obvious self- and pleasure-denying are the supernatural religions that blossomed in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. One implication of Saharasia-that no consensus exists on the origins of antisocial behavior-helps us understand why we have made no progress in developing answers to the question of why the United States has the highest level of violence among all so-called "developed societies." We social scientists have been unable to persuade leaders of our institutions that the problem is linked to flaws in the very essence of our society. Thus, advocates of popular solutions to school violence, physical attacks and murders, road rage, domestic and workplace violence, hate crimes, etc., only propose more stringent application of their favorite tactics of repression that caused the problem in the first place. People who believe violence results from a devil or evil force that captures human souls harangue nonbelievers more forcefully, urging adherence to their favorite creed. Those who think violence results solely from natural chemical imbalances market their unnatural drugs of choice. Others believe the way to eliminate antisocial behaviors is to further ostracize the troubled individuals by kicking them out of families, schools, and communities, even locking them up in harsh prison environments that require such behaviors to survive. Those who think rules and punishment for infractions will curb the natural, including violent, expressions of repressed emotions create even more repressive laws. People who believe troublemakers need to be "civilized" try to forcefully educate or train people, using fear-based techniques that only exacerbate the resentment from earlier repression. Until there is a general understanding of the links between pent-up anger or rage and unnecessary repression of natural human needs for creative expression, emotional affection, and sexual pleasure, positive change will be impossible. The Esalen Institute recently sponsored a character transformation (from armored to flowing) workshop using Reich's technique of character analysis with breathwork and direct intervention in the body armor. While useful for a few individuals, such efforts cannot lead to the dramatic shift in assumptions our society must undergo to break out of its self-perpetuating spiral towards greater alienation and acting out. We need a strategy for society-wide rethinking of our beliefs about human nature. Saharasia and the work of DeMeo's institute can make significant contributions to the conceptual underpinning of a society conducive to the growth of loving, self-regulating, and robust personalities. I highly recommend this books and getting on the institute's e-mail list. PAUL VON WARD, MPA and MSc, can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] AHP PERSPECTIVE JUNE/JULY 2000 Table of Contents AHP Perspective Editorial Guidelines Advertising Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Association for Humanistic Psychology 45 Franklin Street, Suite 315 San Francisco, CA 94102 Phone: 415-864-8850 AHP e-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Copyright ©1996,1997 by Association for Humanistic Psychology unless otherwise noted in the article. All rights reserved. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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