Patrilineage

[dragonflydreams]

The fact that the USA holds Columbus in such high esteem is one measure of the degree to which brutality informs "our" nation at the most fundamental level.

Dixon

Dixon,

i am also on my 57th revolution around Sol...

back in July you made fun of Debra's post about 2012, and you made a foolish bet that stipulated if you won you would teach her how to 'think critically'... whereas you may 'think critically' on some deeply conditioned concepts that most others blindly believe without questioning (i.e. patriotism), there are other even more deeply imprinted and inane concepts that you swallow hook, line and sinker - no questioning, no critical thinking, nothing but blind faith mixed in with some denial (and we'll see exactly how much denial when you respond to this post)...

you have seen through one of the most deeply imprinted conditionings - patriotism - and i heartily congratulate you for your movement towards critical thinking... i wonder if you've also seen through the official story of 9/11 - but we'll leave that for another time... as you may have already grokked, patriotism (allegiance to the fatherland) is simply one of the many deranged spawn and tools of patriarchy (father rule)... perhaps you've noticed patriarchy and patriotism both have the same etymological root - pater (father)...

unfortunately, your critical thinking hasn't been able to penetrate another, even more deeply imprinted, patriarchal tool known as patriliny - tracing the lineage through the father (i.e. Wragg)... patriliny goes to the very heart of patriarchy and breathes new life into it every day you walk around with your father's lineage stuck on you... patriarchy is the ROOT of all the insanity that passes for normalcy in the world today, and patriliny perpetuates the patriarchal mind set at a very deep, unconscious level... once you get the people to accept the immoral insanity of patriliny, you can get them to buy into almost anything... patriliny is one of the primary, fundamental examples of the normalization of evil... interestingly enough, those who have written extensively about the normalization of evil unquestioningly supported patriliny (Hannah Arendt, who very clearly saw through patriotism and wrote A Report on the Banality of Evil; and Edward S. Herman, The Triumph of the Market)...

when i ask otherwise conscious mothers why they stuck the father's lineage on a child they (the mother) created, the standard reply is a look of resentment followed by "Because i couldn't have done it without him." WOW! What reasoning! What a massive display of logic! The vast majority of those who see the idiocy of patriotism cannot allow themselves (denial) to see the idiocy of that inane statement. When i then ask these same mothers "Who created your physical vehicle" (on a biologbical - not divine - level) 99 out of 100 will say "My parents"...

the Mother is doing the creating, although the father takes the credit because he spent a whole 5 seconds injecting his DNA into her - simply activating her reproductive/creative power... if you flip on a light switch, who/what is actually creating the light - you or the light bulb... the light bulb of course... the light bulb can't light the room without you flipping the switch - but the light bulb should get the credit for creating the light after you flip the switch... if you don't believe me - unscrew the light bulb and then flip the switch on... shoot some sperm into an empty bottle and stand back and behold the amazing creative power of sperm...

i'll give you another metaphor to help you see the process more clearly...

imagine a woman has a canvas, easel and paintbrush - these are hers and they represent her reproductive system... this woman also has 5 different colors of paint and they represent her DNA... her husband comes along and gives her 5 more colors of paint and they represent his DNA... so now she takes her canvas, easel and paint brush, and using all 10 colors of paint (hers and his) she spends nine months painting a masterpiece... now remember that she needs all 10 colors of paint to create this masterpiece and so she could not paint it without her husband's 5 colors - i.e. she couldn't have done it without him. So now everyone supporting patriliny should understand why she then very carefully paints her husband's name in the bottom right corner of the painting she just created - because she couldn't have done it without him (his 5 colors of paint)... now if any woman actually did this with a painting she created she would be considered quite loony, but when a mother does this with her children no one even blinks - in fact they congratulate him...

the above example points out the immoral aspects of patriliny - there are still the illogical aspects to consider...

you can realistically only use one of the parents' lineages for the children - if you give the children both parents' lineages, after a few generations the surname becomes too long and unwieldly... if you have to choose between using the mother's lineage or the father's lineage for their children, doesn't it make sense to use the one parent in which there is no question of the actual parentage... i.e. there can always be a question of who the father is - and in fact most of us are probably tracing our lineage through some man who we have no genetic connection to...

if you go back far enough in most lineages (and you may not have to go beyond your own mother) it is highly likely that you would find a female ancestor on your father's side who made wooppee with a neighbor or traveling saleman etc. while hubby was out in the fields or off fighting a battle etc... if she got pregnant and gave birth to a boy, and if she didn't tell anyone about the secret tryst and the husband thought it was his son - then that son and all of his descendents (including you) are tracing their lineage through someone they have absolutely no genetic connection with (this is precisely the reason chastity belts were invented)... you may think you're half German and half Italian when in fact you're half Spanish and half Greek... now of course in the Bigger Picture you're simply an Earthling and that is all that really matters... but if you have a 9/16 wrench - shouldn't it fit 9/16 nuts? if you have a system to trace a lineage - shouldn't it trace the lineage accurately?

if the whole point of lineages is to be able to accurately trace your lineage (your genetic line), it is completely illogical to do this through the 'father'... the only way to do it accurately is through the mother - because you always know who the mother is (unless of course you give birth in an american hospital and you let them put your child in the 'nursery' where she gets mixed up with another child - and this has happened more than once)...

prior to patriarchy's arrival 7,000 years ago, all human lineages on Earth were matrilineal - i.e. traced through the mother... and indeed, the Original Inhabitants of Turtle Island were still matrilineal when the European colonists showed up and occupied this land... and the first thing that happened to these Indigenous Ones once they had been herded onto reservations was they were given 'christian' names and they were told the lineage was henceforth to be run through the father... the rest of us had our true lineages disappeared in the early stages of patriarchy thousands of years ago...

the interesting thing is that almost all 'liberated feminists' will defend this insane, immoral, illogical, patriarchal practice of patriliny to the death...

and of course if you decide to drop your patrilineal name you cannot simply take your mother's maiden name because that is her father's name - it's still partriliny... to walk away from patriliny, you (and your partner) must choose a new lineage (hopefully an Earth-based name to reconnect you with your planetary Mother) and then, if you have children, teach them to trace their lineage through the mother...

[ThePhiant]

boy, oh boy
are you still trying to kick up a stink?
if you continue to spew so much nonsense, good old Dixie will make minced meat (that is carcass-ticly) out of you



the Mother is doing the creating,I'd like to hear an expose on HOW the mother is creating.
the mother, my dear, is merely a vessel with no power whatsoever on how the end result is going to be.

.
if you flip on a light switch, who/what is actually creating the light - you or the light bulb... the light bulb of course... the light bulb can't light the room without you flipping the switch - but the light bulb should get the credit for creating the light after you flip the switch... if you don't believe me - unscrew the light bulb and then flip the switch on...you've got to be friggin out of your bored mind to state the above.
I tried your little experiment and you know what nothing happened either way, WHY? because the power was off! LOL
so it is the electrickity that creates the light
if you don't believe me, take your thumb out of your mouth and stick it in any outlet, if that doesn't make a bulb go off in your head, nothing will.

Love
LuLu

[dragonflydreams]

[QUOTE=ThePhiant;39116] boy, oh boy are you still trying to kick up a stink? if you continue to spew so much nonsense, good old Dixie will make minced meat (that is carcass-ticly) out of you

i'm trembling...


[QUOTE=ThePhiant;39116] I'd like to hear an expose on HOW the mother is creating.

you've never seen a pregnant woman Lulu? can you spell D-E-N-I-A-L?


[QUOTE=ThePhiant;39116] the mother, my dear, is merely a vessel with no power whatsoever on how the end result is going to be.

i can't think of a better example of ignorant, inane, backwards, patriarchal, sexist hogwash... this is the type of 'thinking' that led the Church in the Dark Ages to pontificate upon the absurd notion that male semen had whole, complete, minitature bodies in it and the mother's womb was nothing more than an incubator in which to keep the fetus warm as it grew... hey Lulu, you aren't a Catholic priest by any chance are you?


[QUOTE=ThePhiant;39116] you've got to be friggin out of your bored mind to state the above. I tried your little experiment and you know what nothing happened either way, WHY? because the power was off! LOL so it is the electrickity that creates the light if you don't believe me, take your thumb out of your mouth and stick it in any outlet, if that doesn't make a bulb go off in your head, nothing will.

if it is electricity that lights the room and not the light bulb, as you say - try this very simple experiment that even you should be able to pull off: make sure your power is ON this time (is your power OFF frequently? have you called PG&E?), unscrew the light bulb and flip the switch ON... make sure you do this at night and tell us how much light from the electricity floods the room...


remember this: the relative size and power of the female egg to the male sperm is comparable to that of our sun, Sol, and Earth... the female egg just sits there radiating CREATIVE power, and when the male sperm are released into the female yoni they make a frenzied, irresistable dash towards the egg like a pile of metal shavings being pulled to a powerful, HUMUNGOUS magnet - they know where the juice is... the egg just calmly and patiently sits there, like the sun, pulsating energy and waiting for the microscopic sperm, each one hoping to be the fortunate chosen one, to come thither...

it is not necessarily the first sperm to reach the egg that fertilizes it - as we've been taught in our indoctrination centers called 'schools'... the egg allows 12 sperm to penetrate its outer shell, and then after scanning the unique DNA of each of the 12 sperm the egg chooses which one of the 12 sperm is allowed to continue into the inner sanctum, depending upon the karmic needs of the incoming soul which the egg has already been in contact with, and the sacred dance of conception begins... the egg is in total control of the entire process - the sperm are utterly powerless to act without the egg's consent and are truly racing around like chickens with their heads cut off, hoping to be the chosen one...

although women have the innate ability to consciously control whether an egg is fertilized (CONSCIOUS CONCEPTION), this ability has atrophied due to modern womens' disconnection with their bodies - and conception is now largely unconscious...

see attached files below...

[purplepig]

This conversation compels me to ponder the wisdom of the egg in Barbara Bush. What a scene that must have been. When did eggs start giving up their power? I feel like cooking an omelet.

[ThePhiant]

OK, now I got it!
i've got to go s-l-o-w, real slooooooooowwwwwwww
when I explain some thing to you
denial is your favorite word, and that is a good start
have I ever seen a pregnant woman? well I do have 2 kids, and it doesn't sound like YOU have any, ( we count our blessings)
and you know what, I had NO, NONE, NADA influence on the process whatsoever!!!!!
couldn't even tell my body to make it a boy or a girl. are you in denial about that?
just as with the lightbulb, it is not one thing that creates light or life, it is a combination of things. and maybe you are in denial about this too, but one can't work without the other.
according to your science "the egg is in total control of the entire process - the sperm are utterly powerless to act without the egg's consent "
so who is in charge of the egg??????????????
is the egg an alien invader acting on its own???????????????????





I'd like to hear an expose on HOW the mother is creating.

you've never seen a pregnant woman Lulu? can you spell D-E-N-I-A-L?


[quote=ThePhiant;39116] the mother, my dear, is merely a vessel with no power whatsoever on how the end result is going to be.

i can't think of a better example of ignorant, inane, backwards, patriarchal, sexist hogwash... this is the type of 'thinking' that led the Church in the Dark Ages to pontificate upon the absurd notion that male semen had whole, complete, minitature bodies in it and the mother's womb was nothing more than an incubator in which to keep the fetus warm as it grew... hey Lulu, you aren't a Catholic priest by any chance are you?


[quote=ThePhiant;39116] you've got to be friggin out of your bored mind to state the above. I tried your little experiment and you know what nothing happened either way, WHY? because the power was off! LOL so it is the electrickity that creates the light if you don't believe me, take your thumb out of your mouth and stick it in any outlet, if that doesn't make a bulb go off in your head, nothing will.


if it is electricity that lights the room and not the light bulb, as you say - try this very simple experiment that even you should be able to pull off: make sure your power is ON this time (is your power OFF frequently? have you called PG&E?), unscrew the light bulb and flip the switch ON... make sure you do this at night and tell us how much light from the electricity floods the room...


remember this: the relative size and power of the female egg to the male sperm is comparable to that of our sun, Sol, and Earth... the female egg just sits there radiating CREATIVE power, and when the male sperm are released into the female yoni they make a frenzied, irresistable dash towards the egg like a pile of metal shavings being pulled to a powerful, HUMUNGOUS magnet - they know where the juice is... the egg just calmly and patiently sits there, like the sun, pulsating energy and waiting for the microscopic sperm, each one hoping to be the fortunate chosen one, to come thither...

it is not necessarily the first sperm to reach the egg that fertilizes it - as we've been taught in our indoctrination centers called 'schools'... the egg allows 12 sperm to penetrate its outer shell, and then after scanning the unique DNA of each of the 12 sperm the egg chooses which one of the 12 sperm is allowed to continue into the inner sanctum, depending upon the karmic needs of the incoming soul which the egg has already been in contact with, and the sacred dance of conception begins... the egg is in total control of the entire process - the sperm are utterly powerless to act without the egg's consent and are truly racing around like chickens with their heads cut off, hoping to be the chosen one...

although women have the innate ability to consciously control whether an egg is fertilized (CONSCIOUS CONCEPTION), this ability has atrophied due to modern womens' disconnection with their bodies - and conception is now largely unconscious...

see attached files below...

[dragonflydreams]

This conversation compels me to ponder the wisdom of the egg in Barbara Bush. What a scene that must have been. When did eggs start giving up their power? I feel like cooking an omelet.

purplepig (somewhat appropriate name): i have a feeling this is gonna be so far over your head that you won't even notice it, but here goes: you are playing a bit part in a great cosmic drama... George Bush got one of the juicier roles in this particular scene... he's playing a mass-murdering psychopathic global terrorist and he's doing such a great acgting job you actually believe it (do you also run up to the screen in a movie theater and yell at the 'bad' guy?) this drama is unfolding in utter PERFECTION... get used to it, sit back, enjoy the ride and learn to THINK while you're here...

since everything is an illusion
perfect in being what it is
having nothing to do with good or bad
acceptance or rejection
one may burst into laughter :lol2:
-Longchenpa

[dragonflydreams]

[QUOTE=ThePhiant;39147] just as with the lightbulb, it is not one thing that creates light or life, it is a combination of things. and maybe you are in denial about this too, but one can't work without the other.

yes Lulu, you're right - it is a combination of things, and the light bulb metaphor is not a perfect one... there were a combination of factors and people that influenced Einstein to propose the theory of relativity - but it's still known as Einstein's Theory of Relativity...

if you stop at the store on the way home from work and buy some cake mix and give it to your wife when you walk in the door and then she combines a bunch of other ingredients with the cake mix and pops it in the oven and spreads icing all over it when it comes out (while you're watching a baseball game on TV) and you have friends over for dinner and after dinner when your wife brings out the cake one of your friends asks "Who made the cake?" who do you say? YOU? because you got the cake mix and she couldn't have done it without you? perhaps the oven made it because that was part of the process... or how about the guy at the store you sold you the cake mix - she couldn't have created it without him? actually your wife made it, regardless of all the different people that were part of the process...

you spent 5 seconds squirting some sperm into your wife - you activated her creative power... she then took that sperm and mixed it with her egg and then took nutrients from her blood stream and combined all those within her body for 9 months and then went through the birth process that would have killed you (unless she got talked into a cesarean because her doctor had a golf match he had to get to) and then she nursed her child with her breasts for at least a year (unless of course she went with the patriarchal alternative - formula - like most 'american' mothers)... SHE created her children - but just like the cake mix, she couldn't have done it without you...

to make such an inane statement as "the mother is merely a vessel with no power whatsoever on how the end result is going to be" simply shows how deeply in denial you are... and yes, denial is one of my favorite words - because 'americans' are cemented into an epidemic of denial...


[QUOTE=ThePhiant;39147] according to your science "the egg is in total control of the entire process - the sperm are utterly powerless to act without the egg's consent " so who is in charge of the egg?????????????? is the egg an alien invader acting on its own???????????????????

who the ____ do you think is in charge of the egg????????? who created the egg?????????? i could stroke your ego and say that of course you are in charge of the egg, since in the patriarchal mind set you are so immersed in that's the way it has to be... or i could say that the egg is an alien invader acting on its own... or we could make up any number of absurd scenarios about "who is in charge of the egg" as long as none of them mentioned the obvious one who created the egg... in times past, women were in conscious control ("charge") of the egg; nowadays most women are so disconnected from their bodies it's all unconscious control ("charge")...

you are still swallowing an obsolete belief system where the man has to be in charge of everything and the woman is nothing without the man - it's called patriarchy... get over it...

[purplepig]

Dear Mr. Or Ms Dragonfly.
I would feel sorry for you if it wasn't for my realizing that your so perfect.

[ThePhiant]

Ok, dream boy,
maybe if I talk to you at a middle school level of understanding , you might be able to grasp what I am hinting at.
since you like metaphors so much, if I were to stick an acorn in the ground, and a tree grows out of it, tell me who created the tree???
was it you, the acorn, the rain, the earth or maybe the sun????
following your logic, it must be the earth since it is the vessel and it gives the nutrients and protection?

I'm sorry dreamboy, but MY children didn't come from me but through me, they are a gift and not a creation of me or my partner

NO WHERE do I claim that a man is in charge in the creation of life, but you seemed to be stuck on that thinking. Are you trying to make amends for all you have done to women???

you sound like one of those males who came up to me to lecture me about the benefits of nursing, while I was nursing.
did your mommy not nurse you?

[Willie Lumplump]

the egg allows 12 sperm to penetrate its outer shell, and then after scanning the unique DNA of each of the 12 sperm the egg chooses which one of the 12 sperm is allowed to continue into the inner sanctum, depending upon the karmic needs of the incoming soul which the egg has already been in contact with, and the sacred dance of conception begins... the egg is in total control of the entire process - the sperm are utterly powerless to act without the egg's consent and are truly racing around like chickens with their heads cut off, hoping to be the chosen one

Oh, good grief! Can we get on with the business of saving the planet and each other without getting our brains scrambled? The number of sperm that penetrate egg's outer membranes is variable because it doesn't always take the same number of sperm to secrete enough hyaluronidase to break down the membranes. In any case the egg has no way of counting sperm. Neither does the egg have any way of choosing which sperm makes it through the egg's nuclear membrane to complete the process of fertilization.

I grant that people are entitled to believe in karma, sacred dances, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting, but I don't believe that people are entitled to believe in things that are demonstrably untrue. And this nonsense about 12 sperm and choosing one is just that--total nonsense. I suggest that rather than indulge your penchant for fanciful tales about karmic needs, mathematically inclined eggs, and wandering sperm, you should crack open a basic biology text and go to the effort of studying it. I'm convinced that many of the weird beliefs so widespread today are ultimately based in laziness. It's harder to read and understand what's known that it is to sit in your rocker (or off your rocker) and make stuff up.

I'm also a little miffed at your appropriation of the name of the dragonfly. Dragonflies are a noble lineage that stretches back many tens of millions of years. And they have not come down to the present by counting sperm and choosing among sperm candidates.

[theindependenteye]

Friends—

I'm following this thread I guess with the same fascination we have for car crashes. I guess it started with a question about whether Dixon was enlightened enough to realize he was a patriarchal sinner. I can't speak to that; I just know him as a nice, funny guy.

Then it had to do with whether we should give kids their father's surnames. I think probably Dragonflydreams is right that it doesn't make much sense, but I don't share the feeling that it's a hideous injustice or that one damn thing would change if we named kids after their mother, the President, or the dog. Language *does* matter. It just doesn't matter as much as ideologues think it does. That's generally one of the favorite ways Progressives have of tearing each other to pieces and playing More Enlightened than Thou. It's much easier to impugn someone's purity of thought than to dismantle the Pentagon.

>unscrew the light bulb and flip the switch ON... the relative size and >power of the female egg to the male sperm ...

Then it had to do with whether men have anything to do with having babies or do nothing more than a 5-second spermification. I guess you'd have to ask Elizabeth, but in my opinion our kids were born out of about 10 years of an intense relationship that involved sex, creative work, paying the bills, and a huge amount of mutual support & growth & pain & hard, beautiful living. She did tremendously important things for me, and she's told me I did important things for her in her evolution.

When our kids came along, at the worst/best possible moment, we gave them my surname. She hadn't then found her own birth name, Elizabeth Fuller, which she now bears, but even if she had we probably wouldn't have done things differently, I dunno. In this case any actual effects of symbolic action, beyond a million conversations to explain that, no, I'm not Elizabeth's second husband, that I am the actual father, would seem to me to be very problematic.

Then it had to do with how do men know they're the actual fathera. Well, our son looks like me, our daughter looks like my mother, and at that time we were working too hard for Elizabeth to have any time for extracurricular activities. Plus the fact that, believe it or not, it *is* possible for a man and a woman to be honest with one another. Never easy, but possible.

Then, I recall a statement about women having the innate ability, now atrophied, to consciously control whether an egg is fertilized. That sounded like the kind of thing the Pope might come up with, but I'm curious how anyone could possibly know that to be a fact. It seems to require a knowledge of prehistory far beyond even the evidence that's been marshalled to hypothesize prehistoric matriarchy. Very interesting idea, but then I myself have all sorts of interesting ideas that have no basis in fact.

What finally moved me to write, though, was this:

>if you stop at the store on the way home from work and buy some cake >mix and give it to your wife when you walk in the door and then she >combines a bunch of other ingredients with the cake mix and pops it in >the oven and spreads icing all over it when it comes out (while you're >watching a baseball game on TV)...

My wife rarely makes cakes, but if she does she doesn't use any fucking cake mix. She does it the right way, and she sure as hell doesn't spread icing all over it. Nor do I watch baseball games on TV; in fact I don't watch TV at all. While she's cooking I'm usually working, unless I'm procrastinating by writing a post like this. Beyond that, if somebody asked who made the cake, I'd say that she made the cake but that the cake bears very little resemblance to a baby. Nor do we eat our babies. I hate being stereotyped by someone using stereotypes stereotypically.

So, back to the beginning: I think Dragonflydreams' point about matrilineal naming makes sense but that (s)he undermines it by what's to me a vehement, almost Thomistic obsession. In Aeschylus' EUMENIDES, (5th Century BCE), the Athenian court acquits Orestes of murdering his mother, who had murdered his father, on the grounds that the mother is not a true parent but is only the vessel of the seed. Flipping it the other way doesn't seem to me to make any better sense.

Besides being there for Elizabeth's own birthgiving (32 hrs. for our son, and no, she didn't have a Caesarian because of the doctor's golf date, as DFD suggests, but because she would have died otherwise), I've done interviews for our radio show with about two dozen women on their childbirthings, and to my mind there's nothing more heroic on the face of the Earth. So I'm easy to convince. I just wish that the case could be made very, very differently.

Peace & joy—
Conrad

[Valley Oak]

.

Thank you, Conrad! I laughed out loud several times as I read you post.

Blessed Be the Lady,

Edward



Friends—

I'm following this thread I guess with the same fascination we have for car crashes....

[ThePhiant]

well, I guess that makes you patriotic!


Friends—

I'm following this thread I guess with the same fascination we have for car crashes. I guess it started with a question about whether Dixon was enlightened enough to realize he was a patriarchal sinner. I can't speak to that; I just know him as a nice, funny guy.

Then it had to do with whether we should give kids their father's surnames. ...

[dragonflydreams]

I'm following this thread I guess with the same fascination we have for car crashes....Then it had to do with whether we should give kids their father's surnames. I think probably Dragonflydreams is right that it doesn't make much sense, but I don't share the feeling that it's a hideous injustice or that one damn thing would change if we named kids after their mother, the President, or the dog.

Well Conrad, you must have a secret fascination with car crashes to voluntarily walk into this one... you sound like a somewhat reasonable person - just not very bright, aware or honest (although you do have your Greek tragedies down pat - and i bet you even have a degree!)... oh sure, you're probably brighter and more honest and aware than the average 'american' - but that's nothing remarkable... just because you don't share the feeling that patriliny is a hideous injustice doesn't mean it isn't - it just means that you might actually be in (are you ready?) DENIAL regarding it... you have supported patriliny all your life, you're walking around with your father's fraudulent lineage stuck on you as i type, and you passed the fraud on to your children - it's certainly no surprise you can't bring yourself to admit it's as insane as putting your name as author on the cover of a book Elizabeth wrote, and giving a copy to everyone you know... to shrug it off and rationalize continuing to support because you don't want to be bothered explaining why you walked away from it "a million" times belies the sense for justice i feel hiding behind your words (which i didn't sense in Lulu's words)... maybe that's just what it will take to open peoples' eyes to it - a million conversations... hmmm, i wonder if MLK had a million conversations about integration and the injustice of racism - and it's a good thing that Rosa didn't feel that not one damn thing would change if i don't stand up...

200 years ago Quakers were as as far ahead of their time in demonstrating truth, equality, justice and cooperation as you are compared to the average 'american' Conrad - and yet, unbelievably (or is it very believably), many of those devout Quakers owned slaves and couldn't bring themselves to admit slavery was a hideous injustice... how could they? they'd owned slaves all their lives, just like you have supported patriliny all your life... some of them even secretly questioned slavery, but they couldn't take that next step asnd actually free their slaves - just like you realize patriliny makes no sense - but you sure aren't gonna take that next step and ACT on that realization (what a bother!)... their fathers owned slaves and their fathers before them and to walk away from it, to free their slaves would be to admit they had all been wrong... for some reason, most humans just can't let those words "i was wrong" slip out of their mouth - you have to pry them out with a 4 ft crowbar... that was also DENIAL back then Conrad - it's been around a long time and it is even more deeply embedded in our psyches now... denial goes hand in hand with human rights injustices that are 'legitimized' by the word 'custom' (“Custom reconciles people to any atrocity.” -George Bernard Shaw), injustices we're very comfortable with because we've lived with them all our lives - while in denial the entire time...

i can almost hear you saying "i don't feel slavery is a hideous injustice, just ask my slaves - they love me" 200 years ago with your stable of slaves behind you... it's also called DENIAL now, Conrad... you can't bring yourself to admit the insanity of patriliny for the same reason those Quakers couldn't admit the insanity of slavery, and for the same reason most so-called 'conscious' parents can't admit they've stolen their sons' sex lives by genitally mutilating them ('circumcision') - to do so would admit you fucked up, you supported an obvious fraud, that you weren't thinking critically or questioning the staus quo... and most people just aren't honest enough for that... by the way Conrad, did you and Elizabeth involuntarily mutilate your son(s) genitals (amputate their foreskin), and if you did - when you finally came to your senses later (how long did it take?) did you explain to him/them that you and Elizabeth were temporarily insane and did you apologize to him/them? if, on the other hand, you did not participate in that atrocity, i bow to you for seeing through at least one of the patriarchal frauds...

and to say it wouldn't change one damn thing is of course simply expanding upon the denial... just like the guy driving the Hummer saying it wouldn't change one damn thing if he were riding a bicycle instead... how do you know it wouldn't change one damn thing Conrad? of course that's what someone who has supported it all his life is gonna say... since when does righting an injustice not change anything? oh, i get it, patriliny just "doesn't make much sense" but it's not an injustice worth changing...

if 10% of humanity dropped their fraudulent patrilineal names, chose new Earth-based names and went back to matriliny - there would be immense change, and this ancient Mother Right would spread like the concept of freedom has spread... and that's why if 10% of 'americans' walked away from patrliny and legally changed their name to a real name - it would be made illegal... you want to dismantle the Pentagon Conrad? a good way to start is to dismantle injustice disguised as harmless 'customs'... dismantle the foundation the Pentagon is built on - patriarchal Power-Over, dismantle all the forms of exploitation (patriliny is just one of many forms of partriarchal injustice and exploitation) that the Pentagon is there to protect - terrorism masqerading as war, have/have-nots masquerading as capitalism, civilization masquerading as evolved humans, democracy masquerading as freedom, power-over masquerading as equality, involuntary genital mutilation masquerading as circumcision, patriliny masquerading as a harmless custom that just doesn't make much sense...
---------------

"Language *does* matter. It just doesn't matter as much as ideologues think it does. That's generally one of the favorite ways Progressives have of tearing each other to pieces and playing More Enlightened than Thou. It's much easier to impugn someone's purity of thought than to dismantle the Pentagon."

'ideologue' - an adherent of an ideology, esp. one who is uncompromising and dogmatic
'ideology' - visionary speculation, esp. of an unrealistic or idealistic nature

there's some rampant hypocrisy in that statement Conrad (and i'm not a 'progressive' as you want to pigeonhole me into)... you're doing what you're accusing me of doing... one man's 'unrealistic' is another man's truth... if i really strain my ears i can almost hear Conrad, as a slaveowner, calling me, an abolitionist, an "ideologue" because ending slavery is unrealistic (not to mention problematic)... let's see, calling them derogatory names - that's about stage 1.5 on Schopenhauer's 3 stages of truth... somewhere between ridicule and violently oppose - but definitely before accepted as being self evident... hmmm, Conrad, could someone say you're an 'ideologue' when it comes to dismantling the Pentagon? John Woolman, a Quaker who dedicated his life to ending slavery, fits the definition of 'ideologue' to a T... i think Martin Luther King and Ghandi could also be called ideologues - their 'uncompromising' visions were all 'unrealistic' - until, unbelievably, they actually happened... imagine that (they did)... you referred to me as "obsessed" at the bottom of your reply (and i admit i am) - i think you could say each of these above men were also obsessed (to the point of dying for it) with their 'uncompromising', 'unrealistic' visions...

-------------

"In this case any actual effects of symbolic action, beyond a million conversations to explain that, no, I'm not Elizabeth's second husband, that I am the actual father, would seem to me to be very problematic."

so because you don't want to be bothered explaining to people why you dropped your fraudulent name - you just keep it... i can almost hear you as a slaveowner saying "slavery doesn't make much sense, but i don't want to have to go around explaining why i freed all my slaves - the actual effects of such a symbolic action, beyond a million conversations to explain why, 'no, I'm not an abolitionist now', that I just freed my slaves, would seem to me to be very problematic... terribly problematic, not to mention bothersome - can you just imagine the tediousness? why, having to explain it a million times might actually jog a few others into questioning it - and even walking away from it"

---------------

"but in my opinion our kids were born out of about 10 years of an intense relationship that involved sex, creative work, paying the bills, and a huge amount of mutual support & growth & pain & hard, beautiful living."

well, in my opinion you've just stated that both you and Elizabeth "birthed" your kids - talk about womb envy... just what part of birth don't you understand? mother's get pregnant - and mothers birth children... didn't you learn that in school? did you go to school? maybe you don't have a degree after all... in truth, your kids were born out of Elizabeth's womb - get used to it... what was born out of your "10 years of sex, creative work, paying the bills, and a huge amount of mutual support & growth & pain & hard, beautiful living" was your relationship with Elizabeth... stop confusing babies with relationships - two different animals...

--------------

"Then it had to do with how do men know they're the actual fathers. Well, our son looks like me, our daughter looks like my mother, and at that time we were working too hard for Elizabeth to have any time for extracurricular activities. Plus the fact that, believe it or not, it *is* possible for a man and a woman to be honest with one another. Never easy, but possible."

can you really be that dense Conrad? have you never taken logic? yes, some mothers do know without a doubt who the father(s) of their children is/are because they know they never had sex with anyone else in the previous months of their pregnancy - and i'm sure Elizabeth is one of them... does it then follow that all mothers have only had sex with their husband in the previous months of their pregnancy? groannnn... that's known as illogical Conrad... can you say with any certainty that not one of your female ancestors on your father's side ever had a secret tryst while your alleged male ancestor was away? can you even begin to imagine how many children are walking around with the wrong lineage stuck on them because their mothers or female ancestors on their father's side did have time on their hands and they weren't in an honest relationship (which, by the way Conrad, defines the vast majority of what passes for 'relationships' in the U$)? no, i don't think you can imagine it Conrad - you can't count that high... no problem for you though because you know Elizabeth didn't jump on the Fuller Brush man when you were at work - too bad it's not that way all around... so you just play the 'see no philandering/hear no philandering/speak no philandering' game and slip-slide into denial that there's any problem...

-----------------

"Then, I recall a statement about women having the innate ability, now atrophied, to consciously control whether an egg is fertilized. That sounded like the kind of thing the Pope might come up with, but I'm curious how anyone could possibly know that to be a fact."

very simple Conrad - because there are women walking around who have learned how to reconnect with their eggs - and women who have had the ability from their first menstruation (because their mothers had it and taught it to them)... what do you think the ancient women in the menstruation huts were doing in there for three or four days - exchanging recipes? in spite of the Inquisition, the knowledge and practice never died out completely, it was passed on underground... it's not as simple as taking a pill - it's a profound reawakening of women's power and Mother Right... just because Elizabeth never reconnected with her eggs doesn't mean other women haven't/can't... imagine - women don't have to rely on men for birth control, just as they don't have to rely on men (and their formula) for feeding their infant, just as they don't have to rely on men to 'deliver' their child (mothers deliver - men just catch)... you see (actually you don't see) men want to take over every phase of motherhood - birthing, delivering, feeding (could the preponderonce of pot bellys on men be pregnancy envy?)... so fathers like you "birth" their babies through their "relationships", and doctors 'deliver' babies by catching them after the mother delivers them (unfortunately laying down instead of squatting)... and the vast majority of cesareans are completely unnecessary - there are numerous studies which reveal this fact - but the doctors will make it sound like it's a matter of life and death... and my dear Conrad, that is the absolute LAST thing the Pope would say, you couldn't torture that statement out of him - you think he's gonna say something that actually empowers women? that was the reason the Popes unleashed the Inquisition - to dismantle women's power...

-------------------

"My wife rarely makes cakes, but if she does she doesn't use any fucking cake mix. She does it the right way, and she sure as hell doesn't spread icing all over it. Nor do I watch baseball games on TV; in fact I don't watch TV at all. While she's cooking I'm usually working, unless I'm procrastinating by writing a post like this. Beyond that, if somebody asked who made the cake, I'd say that she made the cake but that the cake bears very little resemblance to a baby. Nor do we eat our babies. I hate being stereotyped by someone using stereotypes stereotypically."

and you actually have a radio show? is it for the morons in Sonoma? do you twist all your guests' words and ideas around so grotesquely? and girl, you sure get upset at the idea of cake mix - somewhat of an ideologue about cake mix aren't you?... what you got against Betty Crocker? but i digress - the baking of the cake was an analogy Conrad... you never heard of an A-N-A-L-O-G-Y? a thing that is comparable to something else in significant respects, such as: works of art can be seen as an analogy for works of nature...the cake was not supposed to resemble a baby Conrad... the concepts - let me repeat that word, CONCEPTS - resemble each other... Elizabeth baking a cake (from scratch, so you don't have a coronary) and you (or Lulu) believing that you made it it because you brought home the eggs she used in it (or you believing you made it because you've been in a 10 year relationship with a lot of sex, creative work, paying the bills, and a huge amount of mutual support & growth & pain & hard, beautiful living - whatever) RESEMBLES the demented belief that your children came through you because you spent 5 seconds shooting sperm into Elizabeth (or because you've been in a 10 year relationship with a lot of sex, creative work, paying the bills, and a huge amount of mutual support & growth & pain & hard, beautiful living - whatever)... you may not "eat your babies" but you do fraudulently take credit for something Elizabeth created... the simple analogy obviously went way over your head...

----------------------

So, back to the beginning: I think Dragonflydreams' point about matrilineal naming makes sense but...flipping it the other way doesn't seem to me to make any better sense

HUH? you remind me of my father (a retired doctor) who finally admits (after reams of undeniable evidence i gave him written by doctors and shrinks) that circumcision is unnecessary - but in the same breath he claims he had the 'right' to amputate my foreskin without my informed consent regardless (ok - the cat's out of the bag)... he's as cemented in denial as you are (and don't interpret that i'm saying you support involuntary genital mutilation as he does - although at this point it would not surprise me - i'm saying you are both in denial about different beliefs)... you obviously don't understand my point about patriliny in the slightest - it makes all the sense in the world to someone who isn't grasping at straws to defend it while admitting it doesn't make sense...

you admit that a system that traces a lineage through someone who you can't be sure of the lineage doesn't make sense, but "flipping it the other way" and tracing the lineage through the one who you do know the lineage "makes no more sense to you"?

or are you simply too stupid to really truly see the illogicality of a system that traces a lineage through someone who you can't be sure of the lineage?

or is it just simple denial? or perhaps a combination - Lulu's big on combinations...

if ignorance is bliss - denial is ecstasy

:heart:

since everything is an illusion,
perfect in being what it is,
having nothing to do with good or bad,
acceptance or rejection,
one may burst into laughter :lol2:
-Longchenpa

[Braggi]

Well Conrad, you must have a secret fascination with car crashes to voluntarily walk into this one... you sound like a somewhat reasonable person - just not very bright, aware or honest ...

DragonFlyDreams,

I really think you would be making more points with your readers if you turned down the hostility and stuck with your facts. You're getting hostility back because you're being pretty caustic in your presentation.

I won't go point to point with you. But I will say you're really picking on the wrong man if you're going after Conrad. He's VERY well educated and has never stopped educating himself just because he got an advanced degree. He's also very articulate, as you've no doubt guessed from his writing. You've probably heard him on the radio. He's also one of kindest, most gentle, helpful, generous, hard working, thoughtful, considerate, Goddess worshipping, spouse loving and supporting men you'd ever want to meet. His children are beautiful, brilliant and comfortable to be with which speaks well of his abilities to share parenting with his very powerful and beautiful wife.

Nobody deserves the right to talk down to Conrad. He's earned more respect than that.

-Jeff

[Valley Oak]

Right on, Jeff! I support everything you said in your post 100%. I can vouch for it myself because I know Conrad personally and he is one of the most loving and beautiful men I have ever known in my life.

Conrad deserves only kindness, respect, and appreciation.

Edward





"Well Conrad, you must have a secret fascination with car crashes to voluntarily walk into this one... you sound like a somewhat reasonable person - just not very bright, aware or honest ..."

DragonFlyDreams,

I really think you would be making more points with your readers if you turned down the hostility and stuck with your facts. You're getting hostility back because you're being pretty caustic in your presentation.

I won't go point to point with you. But I will say you're really picking on the wrong man if you're going after Conrad. He's VERY well educated and has never stopped educating himself just because he got an advanced degree. He's also very articulate, as you've no doubt guessed from his writing. You've probably heard him on the radio. He's also one of kindest, most gentle, helpful, generous, hard working, thoughtful, considerate, Goddess worshipping, spouse loving and supporting men you'd ever want to meet. His children are beautiful, brilliant and comfortable to be with which speaks well of his abilities to share parenting with his very powerful and beautiful wife.

Nobody deserves the right to talk down to Conrad. He's earned more respect than that.

-Jeff

[Barry]

Well Conrad, you must have a secret fascination with car crashes to voluntarily walk into this one... you sound like a somewhat reasonable person - just not very bright, aware or honest Whoa, there Dragonflydreams. Please mind your manners! Here, take a couple of these: :chillpill::chillpill:

[ChristineL]

I agree that Dragonflydreams' basic point is valid, I also agree that all that hostility doesn't contribute to making anyone see it or really think about it. As far as the painting analogy is concerned, I can only wish that it took that much talent and thought to make a baby. ThePhiant is correct, the woman has no control over the process. Almost anyone can get pregnant and deliver regardless of their readiness to have children, their ability to support them as well as their ability to bring them up to be "good citizens of the earth". Looking around me, I'm much more concerned about how children are being brought up than whose last names or lineages they carry.

I know I'm going to get some flack for this one.......Although I agree pregnancy and delivery can be hard work......again almost anyone can do it. I've always felt that the congratulations should be given when the child is past the age of five and it can be seen how good the parenting is.

In addition, sorry, but I don't feel Matriarchy would be a huge improvement over Patriarchy......I don't like extremes in any form. I find there are as many screwed up women with questionable values as there are men and I don't think hostility and blaming leads to progress. It's true the only fool-proof way to trace lineage is through the matriarchal line, and...........what matters is how children are cared for and nurtured regardless of who their biological parents are and how their lineage is traced.....Parents need to work in partnership in all aspects of their relationships and child rearing. In my "ideal" of progress, these things should not matter and the focus should be on the family being healthy and nurturing no matter who's baking, shopping, or delivering. Today, some gay men are using surrogates to have children of their own, gay women are using sperm donors.........is the lineage more important than children being wanted and nurtured?

Lastly, yes the need for men to be sure of who fathered the babies has led to a lot of abuse of women......all geared to keep them confined and out of the reach of other men......However, I still feel that taking the pendalum from one extreme to the other is not a positive solution.

Think about one thing........if lineage is strictly matriarchal.......how do we make men pay child support? Hold them responsible for their part of the process?

[Zeno Swijtink]

Yes, patrilineage is the Woman's Carrot to entice the Man to stay with Her and form a Family. :):

[ChristineL]

Yes, patrilineage is the Woman's Carrot to entice the Man to stay with Her and form a Family. :):

A generalization that puts down both men and women. Some men want families and some women don't. I've been married, but purposely had no children as I knew I would not be a good mother......I've known men whose greatest pain in a break-up was the loss of the woman's children (not his biologically). I have not needed to have children to entice a man to stay with me. I've also known men who wanted a "marriage", but no children. I married one.

[Willie Lumplump]

A generalization that puts down both men and women. Some men want families and some women don't. I've been married, but purposely had no children as I knew I would not be a good mother......I've known men whose greatest pain in a break-up was the loss of the woman's children (not his biologically). I have not needed to have children to entice a man to stay with me. I've also known men who wanted a "marriage", but no children. I married one.

Your own experience is anecdotal and says nothing, or rather very little, about general patters of behavior in the human species. The fact is that most women do want to have children, and those are the women who pass their genes to the next generation. All of us are descended from women who did want to have children (with occasional exceptions), we have their genes, and those genes tell us to want to have children. Culture may override some genetic instructions, but that is not the general tendency. A woman doesn't have children to entice a man to stay with her; she entices a man to stay with her because she has children. And by far the most important enticement is sex.

[Valley Oak]

Zeno's intention was to criticize the cultural system in which we live and the institution of marriage is part of that system. He did not intend to put down both genders; indeed, that is not what he did but people will interpret things differently. If I'm wrong in what I'm saying then I hope that Zeno will do us all a favor by correcting me. I would certainly appreciate it if that's the case.

Of course women don't consciously entice men through patrilineage but that is the overall mechanism that has been a fundamental part of our present form of civilization for a few thousand years now. Before then, there were Pagan/Goddess religions and women were thought to possess the power of creating life. People didn't understand that birth was the result of sexual activity between a man and a woman.

Since that discovery, men have imposed their rules onto women and exacted a price for partnership and marriage: the children had to be his and his alone. Thus, monogamous marriage was born, along with the possession of women as property and their subsequent status as second class citizens and near slaves, often without the legal or cultural right to own property, or vote (1920 US Constitutional amendment, less than a hundred years ago), work, earn and/or keep money, divorce, and so on.

If anyone cares to make a breakthrough against patrilineage then we have to be brazen enough to challenge and change many of the most fundamental principles we use to carry out our present day lifestyles, such as marriage between a man and a woman, marriage at all, sexual fidelity (that's a big one right there that goes straight to the point), and try to implement more alternative lifestyles such as collective marriages or contracts, polyamory, intentional communities, and so on.

People like to believe they are free but the truth is that we are very, very far away from it. Just think of all of the constraints I mentioned above and many more that I have not listed. Houses are built and designed almost primarily with a nuclear family in mind. Look at the floor plans of just about any home ever built anywhere. There is always a "master bedroom" for mommy and daddy (certainly not daddy and daddy or mommy and mommy or daddy, daddy, and mommy). This list is a lot longer but I'll stop here.

Edward

<hr>{ In WaccoBB.net, Christine wrote:}


Yes, patrilineage is the Woman's Carrot to entice the Man to stay with Her and form a Family. :):

A generalization that puts down both men and women. Some men want families and some women don't. I've been married, but purposely had no children as I knew I would not be a good mother......I've known men whose greatest pain in a break-up was the loss of the woman's children (not his biologically). I have not needed to have children to entice a man to stay with me. I've also known men who wanted a "marriage", but no children. I married one. [/quote]

[ChristineL]

Your own experience is anecdotal and says nothing, or rather very little, about general patters of behavior in the human species. The fact is that most women do want to have children, and those are the women who pass their genes to the next generation. All of us are descended from women who did want to have children (with occasional exceptions), we have their genes, and those genes tell us to want to have children. Culture may override some genetic instructions, but that is not the general tendency. A woman doesn't have children to entice a man to stay with her; she entices a man to stay with her because she has children. And by far the most important enticement is sex.

You're assuming I'm being merely anecdotal. In my profession, I talk with hundreds, maybe over a thousand people a year. Unfortunately, I can tell you more women than you would like to think have a child to entice a man to stay with them. Yes, there are women who would go to any lengths to produce a child, including surgery, countless miscarriages and fertility drugs. I don't know how genetic that is. Today, in the US, many women choose not to have children. They don't want them. In many European countries, Germany for example, the birth rates have become extremely low. Birth rates are very high in countries where cultural, religious and/or economic and educational factors deny women access to birth control. Maybe other factors are at work than genes telling us to want to have children. As for most of us descending from women who wanted children, our female anscetors were not given the choice. Marriage was expected and sex resulted in children...wanted or not. A lot of our female anscetors would have at least preferred to have less children. I doubt women feel a biological emperative to have a child a year and ruin their health in the process. Anyway, why is it mostly men who have the most to say about a woman's need to have children?

[ThePhiant]

Anyway, why is it mostly men who have the most to say about a woman's need to have children?women can't believe the callous, presumptious ignorance that is coming out of that willie

[Willie Lumplump]

women can't believe the callous, presumptious ignorance that is coming out of that willie

Surely, madam (or sir, as the case may be), you don't refer to me. I have nothing to say about linearity, whether it be patri or otherwise. One rule that I hold fast to is that I must actually speak before being accused of callousness, presumptuousness, or ignorance.