ONLY CHALLENGING DOMINATOR STRUCTURES CAN CHANGE SOCIETY

ONLY CHALLENGING DOMINATOR STRUCTURES CAN CHANGE SOCIETY

1. MANY PROGRESSIVE IDEAS CHALLENGE SYMPTOMS, NOT THE PATRIARCHAL ROOT Riane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, 1995, page 164.

During the nineteenth and into the twentieth century other modern humanist ideologies--abolitionism, pacifism, anarchism, anticolonialism, environmentalism--also emerged. But like the proverbial blind man describing the elephant, they each described different manifestations of the androcratic monster as the totality of the problem. At the same time, they failed to address the fact that at its heart lies a male-dominator, female-dominated model of the human species.
2. ONLY TWO WAYS EXIST TO STRUCTURE SOCIETY: DOMINATOR OR PARTNERSHIP

Riane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, 1995, page xix.

If we stop and think about it, there are only two basic ways of structuring the social relations between the female and male halves of humanity. All societies are patterned on either a dominator model--in which human hierarchies are ultimately backed up by force or the threat of force--or a partnership model, with variations in between. Moreover, if we reexamine human society from a perspective that takes into account both women and men, we can also see that there are patterns, or systems configurations, that characterize dominator, or alternative, partnership, social organization.
3. A JUST AND BALANCED SOCIETY REQUIRES PARTNERSHIP

Riane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, VOICES ON THE THRESHOLD OF TOMORROW, Edited by Georg and Linda Feurstein, 1993, page 128.

On the one side lies a dominator future, a future in which the blade--amplified a millionfold by high technology--still holds sway, a future that most probably takes us to an evolutionary dead end. On the other side is a partnership future, a future in which the chalice and not the blade will once again hold sway. However, this better future for ourselves and our children will continue to be a utopia rather than a pragmatopia unless we recognize that a more just and balanced society requires for its foundations a more just and balanced relation between the two halves of humanity: women and men.
4. FEMINISM IS THE ONLY CHALLENGE TO THE DOMINATOR MODEL

Riane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, 1995, page 164.

The only ideology that frontally challenges this model of human relations, as well as the principle of human ranking based on violence, is, of course, feminism. For this reason it occupies a unique position both in modern history and in the history of our cultural evolution.
5. POSITIVE CULTURAL EVOLUTION DEPENDS ON OUR REJECTION OF DOMINATION

Riane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, 1995, page 28.

The view of power symbolized by the Chalice--for which I propose the term actualization power as distinguished from domination power--obviously reflects a very different type of social organization from the one we are accustomed to. We may conclude from the evidence of the past examined so far that it cannot be called matriarchal. As it cannot be called patriarchal either, it does not fit into the conventional dominator paradigm of social organization. However, using the perspective of Cultural Transformation theory we have been developing, it does fit the other alternative for human organization: a partnership society in which neither half of humanity is ranked over the other and diversity is not equated with inferiority or superiority. As we will see in the chapters that follow, these two alternatives have profoundly affected our cultural evolution. Technological and social evolution tend to become more complex regardless of which model prevails. But the direction of cultural evolution--including whether a social system is warlike or peaceful--depends on whether we have a partnership or a dominator social structure.

DOMINATOR SOCIETIES MISUSE TECHNOLOGY

1. TECHNOLOGY IS NOT BAD EXCEPT IN A DOMINATOR CONTEXT

Riane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AN]) THE BLADE, 1995, page xx.

If we look at the whole span of our cultural evolution from the perspective of cultural transformation theory, we see that the roots of our present global crises go back to the fundamental shift in our pre-history that brought enormous changes not only in social structure but also in technology. This was the shift in emphasis from technologies that sustain and enhance life to the technologies symbolized by the Blade:

technologies designed to destroy and dominate. This has been the technological emphasis through most of recorded history. And it is this technological emphasis, rather than technology per se, that today threatens all life on our globe.
2. DOMINATOR TECHNOLOGY WILL ALWAYS BE MISUSED

Lane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE PARTNERSHIP WAY, 1990. page 32.

The same technological base can produce very different types of tools: tools to kill and oppress other humans or tools to free our minds and hands from dehumanizing drudgery. The problem is that in dominator societies, where ‘masculinity” is identified with conquest and domination, every new technological breakthrough is basically seen as a tool for more oppression and domination.
3. HISTORY SHOWS THE RISE OF THE DOMINATOR PARADIGM CORRUPTS TECHNOLOGY Lane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, 1995, page 61.

Our social and technological evolution can--and, as we saw, did--move from simpler to more complex levels under first a partnership and later a dominator society. However, our cultural evolution, which directs the uses we make of greater technological and social complexity, is radically different for each model. And this direction of cultural evolution in turn profoundly affects the direction of our social and technological evolution. The most obvious example is technology. Under the cultural guidance of the partnership paradigm the emphasis was on technologies for peaceful purposes. But with the rise of the dominator paradigm, there was the vast shift to the development of technologies of destruction and domination that has steadily escalated over the centuries into our own endangered nine.

Lane Eisler, J.D., former professor at UCLA and Immaculate Heart College, Cofounder of the Center for Partnership Studies, THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE, 1995, page 201.

Since technologies of destruction would no longer consume and destroy such a vast portion of our natural and human resources, as yet undreamed (and presently undreamable) enterprises will be economically feasible. The result will be the generally prosperous economy foreshadowed by our gylanic prehistory. Not only will material wealth be shared more equitably, but this will also be an economic order in which amassing more and more property as a means of protecting oneself from, as well as controlling others will be seen for what it is: a sickness or aberration.