From: tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Mythopoetic ritual (a possibly Very Weird topic)
Date: 8 Jan 1993 22:09:39 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

I apologize, but I'll have to quote an awful lot for context.

>>>>Me again, on the subject of reclaiming sexuality.  In the book
>>>>"Women Respond to the Men's Movement" p. 4, Ursula LeGuin writes
>>>>about a gathering she was at where Robert Bly told her, "The
>>>>Men have raised a Great Phallus farther up the river. ... I'd
>>>>show you, but it's off limits to the Women...."  When I read

>>>The "women aren't allowed" comment seems quite childish, and sadly,
>>>quite in character for Bly.  There was no point in telling her about
>>>it if she wasn't invited to participate.  But that's so typical of
>>>him.

(Here's where I came in)
>>It is quite in keeping with the exclusive nature of the initiation
>>rituals of primitive peoples, both for males and females. Do you have
>>a well thought out opinion that they are childish too? Or do you just
>>not know what you're talking about?

(Janis Cortese writes in response:)

>Are you honestly saying that we are equal in every respect to a
>culture -- "primitive" or "nontechnological" depending on how
>ethnocentric you want to seem -- that sees no constant barrage of
>violence every time they turn on the TV, that has no access to violent
>pornography, that doesn't talk about "sexual surrender," that has a
>frequently polytheistic religion with role-model divinities for each
>sex?  Come ON -- there is a huge difference between early agrarians
>and food foragers and what we are now, and I can't buy your attempt to
>equalize us so facilely.

No, of course I'm not saying that we are equal in every respect -- and
I do not think that my earlier statement entails such a belief.

I understand you to be saying that sex-exclusive rituals are categorically
bad in contemporary American culture -- or, at least, female-exclusive
ones are. I would not feel comfortable making such a sweeping statement.
Clearly, there is a great difference between ourselves and the peoples with
whom Robert Bly has worked. However, he believes with Carl Jung that certain 
psychological archetypes are universal. I see no reason not to believe this.
While cultural effects will vary widely, effects of ritual on individuals
seem to be surprisingly similar across cultures.

Whether bringing those effects to pass among individuals in this particular
culture is worth doing is a topic which has not yet been addressed here. 
I'd be interested in hearing substantive comments.

>What is good for one culture is not good for another.  One of the most
>basic tenets of ANY social science is that the beliefs and activities
>of a culture must be examined within that culture's framework to see
>how it holds up with whatever else they do.  You CANNOT logically
>attempt to prove the merits of an activity in modern American culture
>by appealing to the tenets of another nontech culture.  They are
>valuable role models that expand our ideas of the possible in human
>behavior, and we may take from other cultures and attempt to integrate
>their values into our system, but to evaluate our activities according
>to their values is like attempting to prove a theorem in hyperbolic
>geometry using the postulates of Euclidean -- senseless.

You are concerned with the cultural effects; I cannot argue with any
of your statements. Again, I am inclined to believe that the effects 
of the initiation rituals on the individuals who participate are
surprisingly similar across cultures. 

>People that have initiation rituals in nontechie cultures have any of
>a variety of other things -- sexual equality, genital mutilation from
>infibulation to subincision, freedom of sexual choice, complete
>rigidity in sexual choice, homosexuality phobias to encouragements,
>mass media to none of this . . . the list goes on.  Are you honestly
>saying that the initiation rituals in ALL of these cultures function
>identically and have identical value to the people in each culture?

I'm afraid that I don't understand how such a statement would follow
>from my comments.

I'd be willing to listen to a detailed summary of why rituals such
as the one originally described are categorically, incorrigably bad for 
contemporary American society. I'd much prefer such a summary to sniping 
about what is "typical" of Robert Bly, who apparently nobody actually reads.

>There exists also (I think it's in a Margaret Mead book) an account of
>an initiation ritual for young boys by which they are required to
>drink what they call "fathers' milk" -- they are required to perform
>fellatio on all older men of the tribe because by doing this, they
>believe that they ingest a mystical substance that will nourish their
>budding manhood.  

I believe you are in error, and are referring to the practice of feeding
the young men on blood drawn from the older men's bodies, frequently
>from the subincision wounds in their penises -- blood, not semen.
Collected in bowls, not mouths.

>I'm sorry -- you can't just adopt this K-Mart attitude towards other
>cultures' practices.  

I do not wish to adopt such an attitude as the one you lampoon. Trust
me, I hate such shallowness at least as much as you do. But I don't wish to
adopt an attitude towards my scholarship which causes me to make sloppy
errors (using second-hand information, hearsay) and prevents me from
understanding what's going on out there since it doesn't fit my overarching
theory. I want to start from my ignorance, not my anger.

>Janis C.


      Tom Price   |    tp0x@cs.cmu.edu   |   Free will? What free will? 
 *****************************************************************************
  plutoniumsurveillanceterroristCIAassassinationIranContrawirefraudcryptology



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