That patriarchy, the triology

My man thought I had "prepared" the "part deux" patriarchy response 'cuz I was late (read: forgot about) posting it... Welp, he wasn't right about that, and all the same here's the 3rd installation in the patriarchy series. Make sure to catch up with "That patriarchy tho'" and "That patriarchy, part deux" if you missed them. Let's get it...

So, before issued my 3rd response, I did a lil' backtracking & reiteration, then proceeded with the conversation, and it went a lil' sumthin' like this:

(again, my response only appeared "prepared" because of its delay...moving on, however) I hear you L., and I do see where you are going in your thought, I believe. Let me try to address what I see, thus far and attempt to continue to address the original query... Humanism, strictly speaking, is exactly the antithesis of how you've described it. It does, in fact, center the human enterprise above all else. And, if above all else is not the current notion of god (variations noted), I really don't know what else is. Humanism at its core does not acknowledge Nature aside from our part in it - it is seen through the human lens as a part of the human experience rather than the other way around. Human needs supersede all else in "nature." If this is not a godlike status, I don't really understand the god thing, then. I practiced with a certain meditative spiritual organization that insisted it was not a cult. But, it was a cult - it walked like a cult, it talked like a cult, and it vehemently denied its cultism. Humanists deny that they worship our brand of consciousness as a god. I heartily disagree. What I see is a worship of the human, no matter how they deny it, no matter how they try to say it ain't so. It is a movement to replace god worship and it succeeds by dressing down its god and dispensing with formalities of worship, but it is the same trope, the same urge, the same religiosity put in a different frock. I am NOT attacking you or even addressing you personally in this observation, Lewis. This is what I have observed of this movement and philosophy in my experience with it. Tertiarily, humanism may address nature, but only as a tool to address "human problems." It is focused on the "greater good of humanity." This is from their own mouths. My point is that a homo-centric focus (call it humanist or no), this purview on life leads us to where we are now. No matter what form we put an anthropocentric focus in, no matter the vehicle of delivery, it leads us to where we stand at this historical moment - disconnected from our larger body, seeking in many ways to amputate the bits we don't want or like because we don't realize it is Us. To your next point, I definitely don't think there is something wrong with Black men, at essence. But can we admit that they, like Black women, like Indigenous Peoples, like whipipo, like all of us at this point having endured antrhopo-partriarcho-imperialist realities for so long do, indeed, have something wrong with us? We are soul-sick because of the emotional environment and psychic climate we have created for ourselves that has now spread world-wide. Demons, like "Black men" exist in the minds of men. There is nothing demonic in Black men any more than there is anything demonic beyond the definitions our languages allow. These are linguistic tricks, fun games, perhaps. Black men, whipipo, Black women, the Indigenous - these are language efficiencies. Like the equator, or inches, or borders, they don't exist, but they are really convenient ways to talk about and sometimes describe our world. What is wrong is precisely located in our definitions and how we too-often wield them as weapons against ourselves and our world...not the bodies, the minds, the hearts that act it out on this stage of life. Those bodies, those minds, those hearts are the casualties; they are the collateral damage of oppressive philosophies. My main and only point: all oppression is connected. Period. Whether you pronounce it with an -ism or an -archy, all oppression leads to oppression. A fire burnin' on your stove on low, will still burn you and, untended, can burn your house down. We stand amid the flames of oppression in all its forms, matured and full-fledged and able to snuff out the entire human enterprise leaving the planet to sigh and heave forward a new iteration of herself, conscious and full of promise and hopefully not so proud. Our best efforts from every civilization have brought us to this place. Civilizations across the globe have found ways to hijack each other, and they've risen and fallen in the process of living out their hubris. Systems built on oppression do not deserve our support, in my opinion, for the simple fact that they do not support us - all of us, any of us - not for long and not without bringing us to lethal imbalance. We stand on the verge of collapse and the final act for humanity and all it's -isms, -archys, and attempts to control this world. We act to set a stage for this world, we participate in the energies and vibrations (as Nikolai Tesla said) that give rise to this world, but we do not control it. And, it's imperative that we stop trying. Even as that urge shows up in oppressing one another for having a vagina or having darker skin or living in a different way or praying to a different god or sleeping with people you don't choose to sleep with. We cannot continue to espouse beliefs that someone other than the sovereign individual should lead. Leadership should be negotiated as a delicate dance of the requisite talents and skills fit for a moment in time and at their need called forward and recessed when no need exists. A flow, like water, as Bruce Lee has said, and never forgetting that water indeed can flow or it can crash. We will know that we are in the presence of the last leaders when they tell us you never needed leaders, you are free to lead yourselves. We do not need more men ( or women ) wrestling with the wrong questions. We don't have time. And, to my mind one of the biggest "wrong questions" we are still asking is "is it OK for Black men to lead the revolution? "We need more than "a leader" or “leaders” right now, and we need more than a revolution. We need an evolution that takes each and every clear-headed person ready and willing to follow the best ideas and well-laid plans – no matter where they come from, but especially if they come from women – to the next and inevitable phase of human life on Earth. Women are the most consistently and brutally oppressed of any group throughout human history, and if anyone knows this monster of oppression and how to kill it finally and permanently, it will be the women. They know what it is inside out. They have the requisite skills and talents to help us at least try to right this ship. We will not escape death. Death is but a door to new horizons and we have binged on human supremacies enough to bring us to the threshold. So, now, I say the question is do we die in a pool of our own petroleum-soaked vomit, or do we pick ourselves up, make our ablations of this hegemonic anthropocentric cancer, do right by the Earth – our mother – do right by each other as the same flesh, do right by the other people on this planet who do not wear the human vestment, and walk boldly through that door of transition? And…what does that look like?

#culturalmyths #anthropocentrism #patriarchy #freedomfighters