The Ever-Present Origin - Michael Goodnight - Editor

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that structure itself. Orestes' actions bring on the collapse of one worldand the dawn of another with the full force and attendant circumstances ofsuch cataclysms.The temporal relationships in cross-section 14.a have been in ourestimation sufficiently explored above, and the same is true of those incross-section 14.b. We wish, nevertheless, to make some additionalsupplementary remarks concerning patriarchy. We noted earlier theconnection between the patriarchal and emphasis on the "right," directedthought, and "rights" and law-giving in our discussion of Lycurgus andSolon (who, incidentally, was the first to have coins minted). It is themental structure which first places emphasis on the principle ofmasculinity, and there is a causal connection between Solon's legislationand the matricide documented in the Oresteia which even touched therealm of the gods: Zeus devoured a mother, Metis, who was pregnant withAthena.Or, stating another way, both legislation and matricide proceed from thesame-newly-forming consciousness structure. The tremors and shockunleashed by this murder must have been overwhelming; they can be feltin Greek tragedy, in Aeschylus' trilogy of the Oresteia as well as in theaftershocks that appear even today. Indeed, the consequences are todaymore distinct than ever before.Matricide is synonymous with the elimination and collapse of matriarchy.Yet we must not forget that matriarchy had by then become deficient.Bachofen, for instance, has written, "Mankind has not forgotten that thetime of feminine dominance visited experiences of the bloodiest kind overthe earth." The matricide extensively reduced, although not quitedestroyed, what was once the sanctity that had turned into atrocity withinthe once-valid mythical structure, along with the remaining foundations ofthat structure itself. Orestes' actions bring on the collapse of one worldand the dawn of another with the full force and attendant circumstances ofsuch cataclysms.A downfall of the soul such as man then experienced must have beenhorrendous, particularly as the new structure could not fully unfold beforethis collapse. The demands and the pains placed upon man by thisemergent structure are reflected in the exertions and struggles of theancient heroes to assert themselves in the world. The demeanor ofOdysseus - or of any other Greek hero - which manifests his boastfulnessand self-adulation, is symptomatic of his compulsion to bridge the gap rentby matricide, as well as to assert himself.Those vainglorious monologues of the Greeks, which have always seemedembarrassing because of their boastfulness and exaggeration, areaccordingly an expression of the mania and compulsion of these heroes toregard themselves as seriously as the already emerging mutationdemanded. Only a man still unsure of himself is given to boasting as theonly way of establishing his status; this is why the ancient Greek had to48
assure himself by swaggering: he had destroyed the security of hismaternal world and stepped outinto the diurnal brightness of the columnarsolar temple.What was then taking place in moderation, counterbalanced by the cultsof Demeter and Artemis (and later by the worship of the Virgin Mary),became increasingly and perilously one-sided with the onset of rationality.It is almost as though the material-crazed man of today were the ultimatevictim of the avenging mother - that mater whose chaotic immoderation isthe driving force behind matter and materialistic supremacy. Besides, aworld in which only the man or the father(or his representative, the son)has status and worth is ultimately inhuman.Here lies the root of the most dangerous phenomenon of the so-calledhumanistic age: militarism. Patriarchal inhumanity exists particularlybecause the father is viewed only as, and nothing but, father; theemphasis is on his paternity and not on his humanity. The woman of thisage, to the extent that she has any status at all, is seen correspondinglyas only a woman and not as a human being. The "humane" age, notablythe era beginning with perspectivity, is most likely the least human, andthe most inhumane ever.Yet despite this assertion we do not wich to join Mereschkowski orBergmann in proclaiming a return to a new matriarchal world. This wouldbe tantamount to turning back the wheel of time. What must happen israther a change in attitude by the male, who will have to forego many ofhis presumptions such as the arrogance that everything, including wifeand child, belongs to him. He will have to give up this presumption inorder that a world can come to be without maternal or paternaldominance, that is a non-masculinized world where man and womantogether honor the human, and think not merely in terms of the humanbut of humankind in its entirety. This would mean that as matriarchy wasonce succeeded by patriarchy, patriarchy should be succeeded by an"integrum," as we haue designated it. In this integral world neither mannor woman, but rather both in complement as human beings, shouldexercise sovereignty.Negligent propagandists of Heraclitus' phrase "War is the father of allthings" - such as the power-obsessed paternalistic militarists andpoliticians, and some interpreters of Heraclitus infected with this samementality - have failed to realize because of their one-sided patriarchalismthat the sentence might well be only fragmentary. It has neuer occurred tothem that - as in the case of all statements by Heraclitus - the phrasemakes sense only when completed by its polar complement. What wehave is apparently only a fragment of a larger writing that is not extant,and it is symptomatic that only this part has survived. The partialsentence, "War is the father of all things," may, in one version or theother, have been originally completed by such words as "Peace is themother of all things." And even if this or any other complementary thoughthad never been written by Heraclitus, such a complement was still present49
Page 5 and 6: deficient forms which have become a
Page 7 and 8: they could not reach their intent w
Page 9 and 10: identity, or with his being equated
Page 11 and 12: was especially influential on Greek
Page 13 and 14: anticipated by Pope Sabinus, who in
Page 16 and 17: discovery of Augustine's words. "I
Page 18 and 19: concretion of space, our epoch is c
Page 20 and 21: While plumbing the hidden depths of
Page 22 and 23: With Leonardo the perspectival mean
Page 24 and 25: perspective, had become common prop
Page 26 and 27: not an avenue. Although man's horiz
Page 28 and 29: order to obtain a sequential view o
Page 30 and 31: the truly unrepresentable become ev
Page 32 and 33: apparent in the development of aper
Page 34 and 35: characteristics of the structures,
Page 36 and 37: Structureaugmentation, a loss or a
Page 38 and 39: "silenced music" of which St. John
Page 40 and 41: meantime the integral perception an
Page 42 and 43: homogeneity of the viscera, as well
Page 44 and 45: Archaic — OriginaryMagicempathy a
Page 46 and 47: IntegralCreed)Method(Divinity)(Eteo
Page 50 and 51: in its silent meaning, for he dedic
Page 52 and 53: directed way, and to a mythical dem
Page 54 and 55: Even though we may be unable to do
Page 56 and 57: of arational possibilities which ar
Page 58 and 59: chapters 5, 6, and 7, we would like
Page 60 and 61: presupposes in any event the mental
Page 62 and 63: capability is being formed in him w
Page 64 and 65: At the moment when consciousness be
Page 66 and 67: temporal aspects enumerated. We are
Page 68 and 69: understanding the phenomenon of tim
Page 70 and 71: temporal forms which co-constitute
Page 72 and 73: crystallizing in a new perception o
Page 74 and 75: dream-like and somnolent aspects an
Page 76 and 77: ealization now manifesting itself a

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