Andre said to Ant, dmb, Ron and all: I find it interesting to note that Plato has thus a two principled idea of the 'Good' and that he labels the 'aesthetic' as the 'female principle' and demotes it in relation to the male principle. I still do not understand why this was done (translated into various religious/ social/ economic PoV's). Was Plato influenced by Eastern philosophy or philosophers? (still Eastern philosophy has incorporated the female principle (e.g Yin/Yang).
dmb says: That's very interesting and it raises a fascinating question. I'd guess that Plato's denigration of the feminine is part of a larger cultural shift away from female earth goddesses and toward male sky gods. Joseph Campbell says that goddess worship had faded by 1750 B.C.. This happened all over the Western World to greater and lesser degrees. Female gods remained within the Egyptian, Greek and Roman pantheons but you see an almost total elimination or demonization of women in Islam and Judaism. I guess Christianity, being Greek-Roman and Jewish, is somewhere in between. You know, chicks are okay as long as they're sweet little virgins. This is in stark contrast with the religion and politics of ancient Sumeria, for example. Back in the days before Kings had any real power and Queens ruled over a class of super sexy priestesses it was practically illegal to be a virgin. Every would-be bride was required to stand outside the temple and offer herself as an amateur temple prostitute. Before she would be allowed to marry, she'd have to sell her virginity to the first stranger who asked and the money he paid was donated to the temple. In this culture, there was nothing degrading about this exchange. Women and their sexuality were central to the political power structure. In fact, the Kings would only rule for one year at a time, at the end of which they were killed in a form of ritual sacrifice. You see the vestiges of this in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In that story, the Queen thinks he's hot and says, "Why don't you come up and see me some time, big boy". "And end up dead like the last twenty guys you married? No thanks." Speculation is that this parallels actual historical events. At some point, some King refused to be sacrificed. He probably had the army behind him and went down something like a palace coup. You see this in the stories of King Minos too. He's the one that refused to sacrifice the bull, probably a symbol of his own kingship, and instead sacrificed seven Greek virgins at regular intervals. There is a repression of sexuality that seems almost synonymous with the rise of cities, armies and written laws. In short, it must have been part of a cultural transition from life based on the cycles of nature to one based on the borders and walls and rules imposed by civilization. I think this is related to that line in ZAMM that says scientific truth has done amazing things but it comes at a cost. It has made us enemies of nature, a force to be mastered and subdued. You see this in the stories of monster-slayers, which must have been far more plausible when the world was much more populated with large predators. You see this in the way Romans dragged lions and bears into the arena for sport. Never been to a bullfight, but I suppose that's the underlying theme there too. I mean, your question is really quite huge, I think. It seems that Plato's denigration of the feminine crystalized what was already happening on a large scale. You could say intellect was born in this context, when mastery and control were the dominant cultural values. I can't help but suppose this is part of the reason why the idea of "truth" came out so one-sided and out of balance. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has a new way to see what's up with your friends. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_WhatsNew1_052009 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
