Power Bases and The New 7

Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the Overlook Hotel
until May the first! Does it matter to you – at all –
that the owners have placed their complete confidence and trust in me, and that
I have signed a letter of agreement, a contract,
in which I have accepted that responsibility?
Do you have the slightest idea what a ‘moral and ethical principal’ is?!

– Jack Torrance ranting to his wife
when she suggests they take their strangled child to a doctor
in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

In Part 3 I set out three essentials of the Sintashta culture, noting that the fourth essential was difficult to ascertain. I said how Mitra (of the Indo-Europeans’ Mitra-Varuna pairing) was a god of contracts, and that, despite that this identification was made by a prominent scholar, Wikipedia’s article (based on a questionable source) dismissed it. This entry will try to show how this culture developed according to the sublimation of the cultures that the Aryans invaded. For brevity, I’ll focus on three civilizations – The ancient city of Ebla, Classical Greece, and the British Isles of the “Dark” Ages.

In Part 2 of this series I discussed Ebla as one of the first civilizations that Indo-Europeans (in this case, Hittites) destroyed¹. I noted the subsequent disappearance of (and confusions surrounding) the two most important Ebla male gods, gods of an Anatolian city that had an advanced culture before the Aryan invasion. I’ve mentioned Ebla a couple times on this blog, and I think it has much to say about the pre-Arian-dominated cultures of the world. One of these entries discussed the importance of twin gods in this city. Ebla’s pantheon “included pairs of deities [that] can be separated into three genres,” and an important pair, a set that was shared in most societies, was of morning and evening perspectives of Venus. In Ebla, Shahar was the morning, and Shalim, the evening star.² One of Ebla’s oldest myths (really, a description of a ritual,) involved Inara – a version of Shahar. Here, she assists the god, Teshub (a manifestation of “father” time,) in defeating a monster that turns out to be an incarnation of “himself.” After a more aggressive tribe conquered the city, its literature replaces her with a more selfish version, Inanna (Shalim, later called Ishtar.) Inanna, however, meets her match in a goddess of the underworld, named Ereshkigal. Inanna’s servant revives her and releases her from Ereshkigal’s prison, but the escapee needs to find a replacement for herself to secure her freedom. She finds one in her consort, Tammuz, whom she discovers, after her return, amusing himself with slave girls. Luckily for him, his sister, Gestinanna³, not only endures torture to help him evade capture, but when he is caught, agrees to spend half of the year in the underworld with Ereshkigal while he is allowed to spend that time with the repentant Inanna.

My “go-to” for myths as astronomical narratives (Cogniarchae, with the caveats I mention earlier in this series) can help unravel the meaning of this story and its characters. I learned from this website that the sun crosses the Milky Way – which he identified as the river that crosses to the other world (Styx) – at the Spring & Fall Equinoxes. Orion, as the first constellation of this “river,” is the psychopomp that guides souls through this crossing. This guiding is the function of many gods in ancient myth, among them, Mercury. Thus, stories of gods and goddesses of the underworld – and the unconscious, such as the wine god, Dionysus – often refer to this constellation. Since Virgo disappears in the fall and reappears in the spring (around Easter,) goddesses of the dawn (or its harbinger, the morning star,) are often represented by Virgo (astrologically “ruled” by Mercury,) and most of these goddesses have names, such as Ishtar, with the same root as Easter. However, as with Inanna/Ishtar, there is more complex dynamic involved. Remember that there are other godly “twins” in the Eblan culture, and this duplicity is also true of the ancient Greeks.

In a well-known myth, Zeus takes the form of a swan to seduce Leda. Leda then bears four children – Castor & Pollux (a/k/a “the Dioscuri,”) Helen of Troy (who “started” the Trojan war when Paris took her from her husband, Menelaus), and Clytemnestra. Two of these children are mortal, and two immortal. One of them, Clytemnestra, has her lover help her kill her husband. Interestingly, the mother of Diana and Apollo, the other famous twins in Greek mythology, was named “Leto.” We’ve shown on this blog that two stories involving this pair are intimately related to astronomy, and that one of these stories features Apollo’s need to keep Diana from loving another man. In contrast to the pair that represent “jealousy,” the Dioscuri demonstrate true brotherly love when the mortal Castor dies and his brother, Pollux, shares his immortality – like Gestinanna, he inhabits the underworld for half a year and Castor, like Ereshkigal, lives in the heavens during that time. It is well known that the Dioscuri represent the constellation, Gemini (also “ruled” by Mercury.) If we look at the symbol for this astrological sign below, it suggests affection (We can see it as two people with their arms on each others’ shoulders.)

I would propose that Diana and Apollo represent the constellation, Pisces, whose symbol suggests a pair struggling to free themselves from, yet bound (contracted?) to, one another:

This entry is getting long, so, despite there being further interesting Greek connections to discuss, as well as the Celtic discussion I promised, I’ll only mention one more thing for now – The “Age of Pisces” started with the birth of Jesus, a name that, along with Isis, is derived from this constellation’s name.

¹ The first, apparently, was the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture – but that’s for another entry.

² Stieglitz, Robert R. (2002a). “Divine Pairs in the Ebla Pantheon”. In Gordon, Cyrus Herzl; Rendsburg, Gary (eds.). Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language. Vol. 4. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-060-6.

³ The Wikipedia page about this goddess follows almost every claim about her character with a counterclaim. It follows almost each counterclaim, (as of 12/29/23, 6:27), with reference to a “Nicole Brisch.” The page also references Brisch to undermine that Geshtianna was the one who replaced her brother in the underworld for half a year. Although pages of results appeared when I searched Wikipedia for this reference, she has no entry of her own. It seems that she is closely linked to John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s “Oriental Institute,” part of his father’s University of Chicago. A book with her contributions put out by a controversial publisher, itself owned by a business intelligence firm, calls her an “independent scholar” from the University of Michigan.

I should also note here that a reference, to a “Daniel Schwemer,” that the goddess is only included in some texts because she was “the personal deity of one of the authors,” leads to a German text which cannot be translated by Google.

A third reference is to a “Diana Katz”, (Self-published author of? Contributor to?) a Library of Oriental Texts, the original series having been published under what appears to be a Nazi title. (When I first Googled it, the third result down was to “A New Library of Oriental Texts Die Inschriften der …The University of Chicago Press: Journals: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu › doi › abs by DD Luckenbill · 1927. Today (12/31/23, 7:40am EST) it is the fifth down. I saved a PDF of these results in case the 1927 reference is pushed even lower. For now, the first result is to Brill Publishers, a Dutch company. Although their Wikipedia article has many qualifying claims, it is clear that it had cooperated with the Nazis. I also saved a PDF of the Wiki pages that mention this cooperation in case these pages get edited.

I’d encourage any of my readers with a stronger stomach than I have to look deeper into these resources. – Viola

⁴ Feliu, Lluís (2003). The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria. Translated by Watson, Wilfred G.E. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-13158-3.

Power Bases and The New 5

I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—” (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?

– Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

After I sent my friend a copy of the entries in this series, he suggested we look into Chinese history. According to a map in his history book¹, Indo-European languages stretch across China to its East Sea (and into Japan.) Another of his books² revealed that the first Chinese dynasty that could be verified archaeologically was the Shang culture (from about 1600 BCE.) The book describes its people as “aristocratic” and warlike. The culture initiated taming of the water buffalo, invented horse-drawn chariots, had a coherent administrative structure, practiced the worship of ancestors, kept harvest records, used bronze weapons, mastered writing, and highly valued tin and mother of pearl. Another interesting fact in view of our theory is that the first Shang king was referred to as “Tang the Perfect”³

I then searched “Shang culture,” and a Sintashta-related term, “Kurgans” on Google and found research with references that apparently confirm my suspicion that this culture had been influenced by the Aryans. One reference is Christoph Baumer’s The History of Central Asia: The Age of the Steppe Warriors,⁴ and another is The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe.⁵

Looking deeper into the cultural factors, I consulted, from my own collection, a frequently-used book of symbols. Perusing it recently, I had found an interesting entry on “pearl” (in Chinese symbolism,) an object which, with a dragon, symbolizes “the moon, which the dragon of light swallows, or” which is “belched forth by the dragon of the sky.”⁶

Could these two dragons have anything to do with the brothers of Indian myth, Vritra and Vala, creatures whom I had discussed in “Alternatives to ‘Cancel Culture,’ Part 38” and connected to myths about Temporal Zeus, and later Sensual Apollo? These myths have earlier manifestations, as this entry mentions:

Just as the Typhonomachy can be seen as a sequel to the Titanomachy, a different Hittite text derived from the Hurrians, The Song of Ullikummi, a kind of sequel to the Hittite "kingship in heaven" succession myths of which the story of Teshub and Hedammu formed a part, tells of a second monster, this time made of stone, named Ullikummi that Teshub must defeat, in order to secure his rule.

I looked to my astrological go-to site, Cogniarchae, which connected Asian dragons to constellations Draco and Cetus, so I searched dragon lore and astronomy in Chinese mythology. I found the two dragons referred to as “Chu Yung” (Rain Master) and “Mang” (God of the East Sea.) What is more interesting is that these names and titles came from a myth of the Shang (also called Yin) culture. In a later myth, (Kou) Mang is demoted to “Tree god” in Late Chou/Zhou and Han periods, when its “East” dominion is appropriated by a god named “Fu Hsi,” a name sometimes translated as, “Silent Sacrificial Victim.”⁷ This “tree” designation brings to mind Ovid’s myth of Apollo and Daphne, which I discuss in the Bohemian post on “The Hunter Gracchus”.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s return to Cogniarchae, which lists a tree as one of the four main “characters” in the Asian Mid-Autumn festival – “one of the two key events of the Asian lunisolar calendar.” (the entry further notes that this festival started “at least” by the Shang/Yin dynasty.) This tree represents – as it has in cultures worldwide – the Milky Way, and the other characters represent constellations in the same area of the night sky near⁸ the fall equinox. These important characters were: Chú Cuội (Lord Archer) represented by Orion; Chang’e (Sister Hằng, a/k/a “Returning Maiden”) by Virgo; and The Moon Rabbit (commonly seen in the crater configurations of the moon,) by Lepus. The last thing I want to mention from this site is that this festival involves sacrificial “moon cakes.” To give a sense of how ancient this tradition is, Cogniarchae tells us that pre-Columbian Mexico had a similar tradition on their “Day of the Dead” festival, a celebration “dedicated to the goddess known as the ‘Lady of the Dead’.” For those interested in the many fascinating connections in this article, I’ll put a link here.

Bringing the Greek myths back into this, remember the stories about Apollo’s tricking his sister, (virgin) Moon-goddess, Diana, into killing her friend, Orion⁹, in a river (the Milky Way,) as well as about causing her priestess to be turned into a tree? Don’t all these myths suggest a more visceral sacrifice?

I mentioned in the first post of this series that Zizek’s book could inform this subject. I think the below quotes work well here:

“By attributing self-doubt to God, God is humanized/finatized, caught in a radical despair which undermines his very divinity. … for reasons explained elsewhere in my writings, I also claim that direct atheism is not possible – to arrive at it, one has to pass through God’s destruction.” ^[10a] To understand the second half of this quote requires reading ahead to the meaning of sublimation. Through sublimation, The Integral, having endured this helplessness, “elevates” an ordinary object (unreachable for “him”) “to the level of the impossible thing.” ^[10b] In this god’s resurrection as a community of believers, ^[10c] “symbolic castration and immortality (death drive)” become “two sides of the same operation.”^[10d]

Cogniarchae points out that Alice in Wonderland uses many of the symbols from the rituals described above, including the (possibly hallucinatory) cakes and drinks. Tom Petty’s 1985 video below for “Don’t Come Around Here No More” uses these symbols to powerful effect.

¹ Braudel, Fernand. A History of Civilizations. Translated by Richard Mayne. (New York. Allen Lane,) 1994, p. 13.

² Blunden, Caroline, and Mark Elvin. Cultural atlas of China. Equinox (Oxford) Ltd. (1983), p. 54

³ (Per a [Wikipedia reference] to, “Theobald, Ulrich (2010-11-13). “Hetu luoshu 河圖洛書”. Chinaknowledge. Retrieved 2023-05-02)”

⁴ Baumer, C., The History of Central Asia: The Age of the Steppe Warriors, 2012, p.90.

⁵ Fowler, C. ed., The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, 2015, p.113.

⁶ Cooper, Jean C. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia Of Traditional Symbols. Thames & Hudson, 2013, p. 128

⁷ Birrell, Anne. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction. The Johns Hopkins University Press (1999)

⁸ The moon is also taken into account in scheduling this festival.

⁹ Full quote re this story:

Orion so pleased Diana that she was all but wed with him; but Apollo bore it ill, though his continued scolding bore no fruit. So one day when Orion was out swimming, his head only above water, and that far from shore, Apollo wagered with Diana that she could not send her shafts so far as to hit that black spot out at sea there: and she, desiring ever to be known the mistress of her art, without peer, let fly her shaft and pierced Orion’s skull.

- Hyginus, De Astronomia

(The Wikipedia “Orion” article, somewhat gratuitously, comments, “Modern scholarship holds that” neither of the books on astronomical myth attributed to Hyginus are his original work, “but latter condensations: a teacher’s, possibly a student’s, notes.” According to Oxford Professor Matthew Robinson, in The American Journal of Philology, however, most scholars believe the author was Hyginus. Contrary to the implication of this comment, moreover, I see no suggestion that anyone claimed that the summaries in his texts were incorrect.

¹⁰ Žižek, Slavoj. Freedom: A Disease Without Cure. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. a: p. 79,
 b: p. 88, c: p. 76, d: p. 89.

Power Bases and The New 4

But when [Apollo] came and sent Themis … the child of Earth, away from the holy oracle of Pytho, Earth gave birth to dream visions of the night; and they told to the cities of men the present … and what will happen in the future, through dark beds of sleep on the ground…

– Chorus, from Iphigenia in Tauris, written by Euripides between 416 BC and 412 BC

Our last two entries discussed how Aryan tribes had destroyed more peaceful cultures, and our “Outgrowths from Essentials” post gives the motivation – those who would leave the oppressive patriarchy of these tribes must be shown the power of their masters to destroy any alternatives. This blog’s “4 ‘D’s’ of Neoliberalism” series gives a clue to the method of this destruction. We can see the dramatic result of the first major effort to finalize the destruction in the Late Bronze Age Collapse, a collapse that sparked the Greek Dark Ages. The cause of this collapse is riddled with (surprise!) controversies. The resulting severely reduced literacy and the mythological changes¹, however, tell a story we can cover later.

For now, I had promised to use the insights of Slavoj Zizek’s new book, Freedom: a Disease without Cure, to inform the topics of this series. One thing that struck me when reading the text was that some of Zizek’s ideas matched things I had picked up from Alfred North Whitehead. It seemed that this had happened before, since I had looked for a reference to that earlier philosopher in other Zizek works, and had never found any. The current book had none, either. Reflecting on this lack, I remembered that Whitehead had been influenced by crypto–imperialist – William James. Considering all the time I had spent trying to understand Whitehead’s texts, I hoped that he had escaped the unfortunate effects of James’ influence. However, a passage from Freedom got me to look beyond my partiality. The quote, which Freedom takes from Terry Pinkard,² is succinct, and I think I should copy the whole passage:

Hegel is one of those thinkers just about all educated people think they know something about. His philosophy was the forerunner to Karl Marx’s theory of history, but unlike Marx, who was a materialist, Hegel was an idealist in the sense that he thought that reality was ultimately spiritual, and that it developed according to the process of thesis/ antithesis/ synthesis. Hegel also glorified the Prussian state, claiming that it was God’s work, was perfect, and was the culmination of all human history. All citizens of Prussia owed unconditional allegiance to that state, and it could do with them as it pleased. Hegel played a large role in the growth of German nationalism, authoritarianism, and militarism with his quasi-mystical celebrations of what he pretentiously called the Absolute.

Just about everything in the first paragraph is false except for the first sentence.

What is even more striking is that it is all clearly and demonstrably wrong, has been known to be wrong in scholarly circles for a long time now, and it still appears in almost all short histories of thought or brief encyclopedia entries about Hegel.3

I had written on this blog about how James had indulged in such misrepresentation, so I did a search for “Hegel” in Whitehead books that are available on-line. One I found was in Process and Reality (1929)*, which deplored Hegel’s “evolutionary monism.” The preface to this book acknowledges Whitehead’s philosophical debt to Henri Bergson, William James, and John Dewey. Further, Whitehead’s 1926 book Religion in the Making, according to Wikipedia (12/11/23, 4:15 pm EST,) caught the attention of numerous philosophers and theologians at Chicago’s Divinity School (of Rockefeller’s University of Chicago):

In 1927, they invited one of America's only Whitehead experts, Henry Nelson Wieman, to Chicago to give a lecture explaining Whitehead's thoughts.[91/4] Wieman's lecture was so brilliant that he was promptly hired to the faculty and taught there for twenty years, and for at least thirty years afterwards Chicago's Divinity School was closely associated with Whitehead's thought.[89/5]

I confirmed that 1927 was the year that Dewey, then a professor at this University, published The Public and Its Problems in answer to Walter Lippman’s Public Opinion (1925). As I wrote earlier in this blog, Dewey’s book is a tepid answer to Lippman’s challenge, a defense qualified by the provision that democracy (and the public) not get in the way of capitalism.

Noting how little Whitehead’s texts say about – and how badly they misrepresent – Hegel, I must conclude that Whitehead depended on these pragmatists (OK, we’ll call Bergson a “quasi-pragmatist”) for almost all of his philosophical ideas, merely applying them⁶ to what he knew about science.

I thought the below image, from The Collector, illustrates the destructive forces we’ve been discussing as well as hints at the efforts trying to efface them, so I’ll end with that.

¹ Remember the changes in the Temporal father’s myths and appropriation by Sensual manifestations, especially Apollo. According to Chair of Berkeley’s Classics Department, Joseph Fontenrose, there is evidence of priests from Delos subsequently appropriating the Oracle of Delphi from (Potential) Gaia and (Integral) Themis. See: Fontenrose, Joseph (1959) Python. A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, (Berkeley) ISBN 9780520040915.

² Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University

³ Terry Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. VIII-IX.

* For those who want to check, this is on page 320. – Viola, 4/3/24

^[91/4] Gary Dorrien, “The Lure and Necessity of Process Theology”, CrossCurrents 58 (2008): 320.

^[89/5] Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity, 1950–2005 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 123–124.

⁶ I had supposed that he had read some Buddhist texts, but now think it more likely he got this influence through James’ writings on the subject.

Power Bases and The New 3

“Growing up isn’t so much. I’m not a man, and I can do anything! You can’t.“

– Charlie X to Captain Kirk, after making Yeoman Janice Rand vanish – Star Trek TOS

My last post established that the Aryans had moved The West to demote The Temporal in its pantheons. I then looked into where this people had originated. The first paragraph of Wikipedia [(as of 12/8/23, 9:36am EST,)] on the Sintashta culture tells us that this it…

...is widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Iranian languages[1][2][3] (Indo-Iranic languages in non-ambiguous terms[4][5]), whose speakers originally referred to themselves as the Arya.[6][7] The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare.[8][9][10][11] Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture.[12] Among the main features of the Sintashta culture are high levels of militarism and extensive fortified settlements, of which 23 are known.[13]

Returning to the system that began this series, we can thus establish their military (Sensual) power base in their extensive fortifications and the innovation of chariots; and …

That a large part of their economy (Potential) base was in their mines. Further down, the Wikipedia article notes that their economies “heavily exploited domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats alongside horses with occasional hunting of wild fauna”.^[14]

Their politics (Temporal) base can safely be called hierarchical in the importance to them of the military and in the “extravagant sacrifices seen in Sintashta burials…Higher-status grave goods include chariots, as well as axes, mace-heads, spearheads, and cheek-pieces.”

Their culture (Integral¹⁵) is somewhat more difficult to ascertain, looking at the controversies surrounding even the meaning of one of their most important God’s names.

I found that Antoine Meillet (according to Encyclopedia Britannica, “one of the most influential comparative linguists of his time,”) had interpreted the name of this deity, Mitra (one of a proposed dyad, Mitra-Varuna), as “contract.” I saw this god in Britannica’s entry for Ancient Iranian Religion described as an “ahura,” a “lofty sovereign deity,” closely associated with the highest god, and who presided over covenants. This would seem to confirm Meillet’s translation. However, Wikipedia dismisses this translation based on the work of French comparative philologist and mythologist Georges Dumézil. Although he has no individual entry in Britannica, his Wikipedia entry is quite long and complimentary, despite that he has been accused by many people of “crypto-Fascism.” I’ll put the rest of this controversy into a footnote^[16] to avoid getting off track here.

I just want to finish by emphasizing the importance to these Aryans of mining. This blog has discussed this form of extraction often – its physical destructiveness as well as its effect on dialogue and growth. I should mention here that the Romans, whom we designated in the last entry of this series as the “people supposed to know,” were great innovators in mining.

This is a page (I count 13, though pages are unnumbered,) from the first issue of Alan Moore’s brilliant text, Promethea. The student in distress is researching for a paper about a the titular character, who had appeared several times throughout literary history.
I’ll link a website about this issue here.

¹ Mallory, J. P.; Mair, Victor H. (2008). The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500283721.

² Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-05887-0.

³ Lubotsky, Alexander (2023), Willerslev, Eske; Kroonen, Guus; Kristiansen, Kristian (eds.), “Indo-European and Indo-Iranian Wagon Terminology and the Date of the Indo-Iranian Split”, The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited: Integrating Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 257–262, ISBN 978-1-009-26175-3, retrieved 2023-11-16.

⁴ Rowlett, Ralph M. “Research Directions in Early Indo-European Archaeology.” (1990): 415-418.

⁵ Heggarty, Paul. “Prehistory by Bayesian phylogenetics? The state of the art on Indo-European origins.” Antiquity 88.340 (2014): 566-577.

⁶ Schmitt 1987: “The name Aryan is the self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran who spoke Aryan languages, in contrast to the ‘non-Aryan’ peoples of those ‘Aryan’ countries.”
My Note: This footnote had no reference or outside link, but I Googled and found a link. – Viola.

⁷ Anthony, David W. (2007).

⁸ Chechushkov, I.V.; Epimakhov, A.V. (2018). “Eurasian Steppe Chariots and Social Complexity During the Bronze Age”. Journal of World Prehistory. 31 (4): 435–483. doi:10.1007/s10963-018-9124-0. S2CID 254743380.

⁹ Raulwing, Peter (2000). Horses, Chariots and Indo-Europeans – Foundations and Methods of Chariotry Research from the Viewpoint of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. Archaeolingua Alapítvány, Budapest. ISBN 9789638046260.

¹⁰ Anthony, David W. (2007).

¹¹ Holm, Hans J. J. G. (2019): The Earliest Wheel Finds, their Archeology and Indo-European Terminology in Time and Space, and Early Migrations around the Caucasus. Series Minor 43. Budapest: ARCHAEOLINGUA ALAPÍTVÁNY. ISBN 978-615-5766-30-5

¹² Hanks, B.; Linduff, K. (2009). “The Sintashta Genesis: The Roles of Climate Change, Warfare, and Long-Distance Trade”. In Hanks, B.; Linduff, K. (eds.). Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia: Monuments, Metals, and Mobility. Cambridge University Press. pp. 146–167. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511605376.005. ISBN 978-0-511-60537-6.

¹³ Semyan, Ivan, and Spyros Bakas, (2021). “Archaeological Experiment on Reconstruction of the ‘Compound’ Bow of the Sintashta Bronze Age Culture from the Stepnoe Cemetery”, in EXARC Journal Issue 2021/2, Introduction. https://exarc.net/issue-2021-2/ea/reconstruction-compound-bow-sintashta

¹⁴ A. R. Ventresca Miller, A. Haruda, V. Varfolomeev, A. Goryachev & C. A.Makarewicz (2020): “Close management of sheep in ancient Central Asia: evidence for foddering,transhumance, and extended lambing seasons during the Bronze and Iron Ages,” STAR: Science &Technology of Archaeological Research, DOI: 10.1080/20548923.2020.1759316, p. 2.

¹⁵ This is the member of The Four I hadn’t described in my last entry. I’d start with “The Divine Feminine, Reimagined.” – Viola

¹⁶ The linked discussion of linguist Antoine Meillet’s interpretation of Indo-European god Mitra as the personification of contracts has five references, but all of them (as do many other references in this article) go to “Mitra-Varuna Georges Dumézil.” The bibliography of Dumézil works provides two titles, – as far as I can tell, neither specify “Mitra-Varuna,” and one of these books is in French. Looking on Google and Jstor, I haven’t yet found any translation (at least, in English,) of Meillet – or anything by his defenders – that presents his arguments about Mitra, just arguments against it by authors predisposed to argue with him.

As to Dumézil, his page’s section on criticisms of him appears to mostly accuse his accusers. The main source defending Dumézil is Covington Scott Littleton, member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Indo-European Studies, a journal founded by, among others, white supremacist Roger Pearson. The article references another founder of this journal, University of Texas Professor Edgar Ghislain Charles Polomé, as well as an editor, Dean Arthur Miller (author of The Epic Hero, a book which might suggest glamorization of the warrior class.)

An ambiguous source is Bruce Lincoln. Early in Dumézil’s article, he seems to be defending Dumézil, whereas further down, it is suggested Lincoln attacked him from “a Marxist perspective.” Oddly, Lincoln’s entry (as of 12/10/23, 6:47am EST) shows no indication that he was a Marxist: from the Maria Carlson article linked in the Wikipedia entry, Lincoln’s work seems have presented Dumézil’s work through numerous perspectives, finding it a major promoter of Aryanism as against “the other” – groups that this people had displaced. (2/25/24, 7:38am EST: Even more oddly, the article tells us not to cite it without the author’s permission – with any luck, my link will still lead to it when this entry is published.)

If any of my readers want to do further research on this issue, I’d be interested in their findings.

Power Bases and The New 2

Zeus smiled, that the [infant Apollo] so quickly came to ask for worship that pays in gold. He shook his locks of hair, to put an end to the night voices, and took away from mortals the truth that appears in darkness, and gave the privilege back again to [the child god], and to mortals confidence in the songs of prophecy at the throne visited by many men.

– Chorus, from Iphigenia in Tauris, written by Euripides between 416 BC and 412 BC¹

My last entry spoke of how a Wikipedian suggested that the former Soviet Union was being “eugenicist.” This suggestion, and my reading of Trotsky’s monism, brings me to a website that I’ve used often on this blog: Cogniarchae. Although I will continue to use insights I find there, I feel I should warn my readers that this page is promoting Aryans as “Übermensch” – in its view, however, Slavs are the true Aryans. I would say, in bringing attention to overlooked Slavic contributions to world culture, that the site is right for the wrong reasons. In fact, this website’s promotion of Slavs reminds me of what “Shots in the Dark”² wrote about men in the televised frontier. Cogniarchae implies that Slavs “…were not just in control; they were responsible for all accomplishments and, indeed, all significant actions.”

To establish the cultural factor as one of the essentials of national power bases, this series has to analyze how our idea of patriarchy has manifested throughout history³. I think the three roles in a patriarchal structure that I named in my “4 ‘D’s’ of Neoliberalism” entry can be of use here: the “Person Supposed to Know,” (PSK) the “Person Supposed to Believe,” (PSB) and the “Person Supposed to Feel (PSF).”

Research for my series on Bohemia pointed to the “Ubermensch” (according to most readings, Germans) as “people supposed to believe.” Romans, in their praise for them, and the Roman Catholic church, in its protection of them after WWII, would be the “people supposed to know.” To reclaim and hold on to their “people supposed to feel,” these patriarchs have labeled various groups as “Untermensch” ever since: Jewish people as well as Gauls, Slavs, and beyond.

Interestingly, the three categories seem to conflate the patriarch of what I consider The Four – The Temporal – with The Sensual⁴ (PSK) and/or The Potential (PSB.) This “Original patriarch,” represented by the Greeks as an aspect of Zeus, seems to have been absorbed in both Indian and Roman mythologies. In the Rigveda (1500-1000 BCE,) Indra ended up taking the place of Brihaspati. As to the Romans, as we saw in our Bohemian series, they modeled the inviolability of their city, as sacred to Jove, on the inviolability of Delphi, as sacred to The Sensual, jealous Apollo, rather than to Jove’s counterpart, Zeus.

To give justice to the subject of this demotion of The Temporal, we need to begin with the first Indo-European migration – to Anatolia. This land mass, now mostly the domain of Turkey, had been the home of numerous advanced civilizations before the Aryan invasion migration. We’ve touched on some of these civilizations on this blog in its “Alternatives to Cancel Culture” series – among them, the proto-city of Çatalhöyük and the city of Ebla, as well as on Thrace and the Hattian and Hurrian people.

My research indicated the common worship in this area, since Neolithic times, of a storm god whom the Hattians called, “Taru,” a god to which his worshipers often sacrificed a double-axe (called a labrys) and a bull – a god which was prominent there during the “Age of Taurus”: This deity had been worshiped in the proto-city of Çatalhöyük (a large dwelling consisting of a labyrinthine network of rooms) as early as the eighth millennium BC.⁵ This form of dwelling and worship easily led to the Greek myth of The Minotaur. An ancient city that also worshiped this god (under the name Hadda⁶) was Ebla – a city with four gates, each named after one of its major deities. This city was destroyed around 2,000 BC, when the Third Kingdom of Ebla arose, ruled by an Amorite king. According to Wikipedia, “During the third kingdom, Amorites worshiped common northern Semitic gods; the unique Eblaite deities disappeared. Hadad was the most important god, while Ishtar took Ishara’s place and became the city’s most important deity apart from Hadad.”

I can’t, however, find any distinction between Hadda and Hadad, both of them being variations of Taru. I do note that city’s final destruction was by the (Aryan) Hittites.⁷

A couple more things I want to note before ending this post:

1. Zeus and Jove, who are associated with the number four, are also associated with storms, the planet Jupiter (as is the Indian god, Brihaspati,) and bulls – Zeus took this form when capturing Europa, and Jove, or “Jupiter Dolichenus,” drives a yoke of bulls;

2. Excavations at Çatalhöyük, according to Wikipedia, found that “Some skulls were plastered and painted with ochre to recreate faces, a custom more characteristic of Neolithic sites in Syria and at Neolithic Jericho than at sites closer by.”⁸; and

3. During the switch from the Age of Taurus to that of Aries, the Aryan peoples invaded India, and Ramessesi became Pharaoh of Egypt.

“Set Theseus Fights With the Minotaur Statue,” from Etsy

¹Dates according to Professor of Greek Matthew Wright

²“Shots in the Dark: Television and the Western Myth” in Montana The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Spring, 1988), pp. 72-76 (5 pages)

³ The link goes to the “Outgrowths of Essential Concepts” entry in this blog, the post that has a brief overview of the history of (my idea of) patriarchy. – Viola.

⁴ The Sensual is a complex concept, thus the many links. I would start with my series, “The Question of Evil,” here. For The Potential, I would use the link I gave about The Four above.

⁵ Renfrew, Colin (2006). “Inception of agriculture and rearing in the Middle East”. Human Palaeontology and Prehistory. 5: 395–404

⁶ Archi, Alfonso. “Studies in the Pantheon of Ebla.” Orientalia, vol. 63, no. 3, 1994, pp. 249–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43076169. Accessed 5 Dec. 2023.

⁷ The disappearance of the two most important Ebla male gods, Kura and Hadabal, is also interesting with respect to our topic, as is the number of controversies and confusions around their functions.

⁸ The significance of this point may become clearer later, but the world’s move towards Monotheism (later to Monisms, such as Social Darwinism — Please see my brief history in “Outgrowths from Essentials,” linked above) began with Judaism, and the “ownership” of the location of Jericho is disputed to this day. I should say here that Wikipedia gives an ambiguous citation for this point, and it doesn’t look easy to access the source that appears most likely. I have, however, saved a PDF of the page with this quote. – Viola

Power Bases and The New

Hogwarts School Deputy Headmistress McGonagall: When I call your name, you will come forth, I shall place the sorting hat on your head, and you will be sorted into your houses. Hermione Granger.

Hermione: Oh, no. Okay, relax. [She goes up]…

Sorting Hat: Ah, right then…hmm…right. Okay…Gryffindor!

[(Cheering from crowd.) Hermione jumps off with a smile.]

McGonagall: Draco Malfoy.

[Draco saunters up proudly. The tattered hat nearly freaks before touching down on Draco’s head.]

Sorting Hat: SLYTHERIN!…

McGonagall: Susan Bones.

[A small redhead goes up…]

Sorting Hat: Let’s see…I know…Hufflepuff!

McGonagall: Ronald Weasley.

[Ron gulps and walks up. He sits down and the hat is put on.]

Sorting Hat: Ah! Another Weasley. I know just where to put you…Gryffindor!

[Ron sighs. (Cheering from crowd.)]

McGonagall: Harry Potter.

[Everything goes silent. Harry walks up and sits down.]

Sorting Hat: Hmm…difficult, very difficult. Plenty of courage I see, not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh yes, and a thirst to prove yourself. But where to put you?

Harry (whispering): Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin.

Sorting Hat: Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure? You could be great, you know. Its all here in your head. And Slytherin will help you on your way to greatness! There’s no doubt about that! No? [Harry whispers: “Not Slytherin…anything but Slytherin.”] Well, if you’re sure…better be…GRYFFINDOR!

[(Immense cheering from crowd.) Harry goes to the Gryffindor table.]

– Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

After having read my last entries on the mythology of the Old West, with their references to The Cold War, a friend of mine let me read a paper that he had written in early preparation for his master’s thesis. His paper discusses three “pillars” of the power bases of nations: the military, the political, and the economic. I found this an interesting way to analyze history itself, if we add one more essential (“pillar” suggests too inert a quality) – the cultural.

One example of a cultural factor in The Cold War was the Soviet idea that they were creating a “New Man.” The Wikipedia entry on this ideal was written almost exclusively by authors who oppose it. The entry further took just enough of a Leon Trotsky quote to make it look as if the author was endorsing eugenics. Although I have my own reservations about Trotsky’s book, however, the quoted text, “Revolutionary and Socialist Art¹,” contains nothing that suggests this measure – whereas, three years after Trotsky’s book was published, US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote the Court’s decision for Buck v. Bell, a decision that declared forced sterilization constitutional. Moreover, although subsequent rulings undermine Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court has never expressly overturned it – and we know, since Roe v. Wade was repealed, that those who seek to control reproductive rights can revoke them despite decades of precedent.

Be that as it may, I believe that Trotsky’s mistake in formulating this ideal is that he based it on monism (an orientation he admits in this chapter and which our blog has argued against often) and that he misunderstood “the unconscious.” Slavoj Zizek, who’s work has always involved addressing the issues of psychology and human progress, has published a new book which clarifies his positions on these issues.

I think these themes – the “four power” essentials and the aforementioned ideal – informed by the insights of Zizek’s new book, would be a fruitful subject for a new series. The below Harry Potter scene should put across the sense of the four as well as that of ideals:

¹ Chapter 8 of Literature and Revolution (1924). So far, at least (11/30/23, 2:48PM EST,) the Wikipedia entry on this book clarifies Trotsky’s stance. – Viola

Outgrowths from Essential Concepts

As I look over my blog, I keep getting ideas to add to the seven essential concepts from earlier this month – and thinking about how they relate to each other. I decided to write another entry, trying to make summaries that would be sufficient in themselves to explain them and why I chose these particular concepts as important – but also providing links for readers who want to go deeper.

Critical Gender Theory is a phrase I invented to analyze the fierce controversy on how people identify themselves and ask to be addressed. I wrote that the qualities generally associated with “masculinity” and “femininity” designate the ability to manage fear and pain, respectively. The thread I titled with this phrase links to an earlier thread worth quoting here:

Although such abilities can be cultivated in either gender, some people more easily exercise one, some the other. … However, some can cope with both challenges equally (we can call this “an androgynous” quality”) or change depending on circumstances (we can call this “gender fluidity.”) Of course, people can be afraid of different things or find different things painful, which, along with the relation to sex-as-body-parts, the cultural attitudes of those who possess them, and the surgery and other modifications to bring sex and gender into alignment, could account for the many other categories of gender.

I recently used the ideas developed under this concept to suggest initiations that might…

...provide the benefits of healthy children and responsible adults simultaneously. One thing a society needs is fidelity – citizens who resist temptations to “forget,” right from wrong out of fear or loneliness. 

I had written that proof of this quality could be provided on those who identify as female by their bearing a child. For those who cannot conceive, I suggested technology based on Mirror-touch synesthesia, a condition that allows vicarious physical experiences. Research has shown that such a condition can develop, thus it should be possible to induce it. For one who identifies as male, he …

...would be expected to achieve feats of daring and courage and to pledge to provide the means to care for at least as many children, from their birth to adulthood, as he brings into the world. If the self-identified male cannot inseminate, he would pledge the means to provide for at least one child.

For those interested, I wrote more details on this suggestion here. I would put the foregoing ideas under the essential ones of “Prime Ideals” (those we want to develop in our community) and “Primates” (Showing the initiates what it means to take responsibility for the “least of our siblings” – the lives they bring into the world.)

___

I came up with three ideas that fall under the concept of “The Great Conversation”

Aesthetic Of Care: Art, in its ability to stir emotions and determine cultural memory, has always been susceptible to misuse. I developed the above concept when thinking about how capitalist hegemony has created an “aesthetic of consumption.” The new concept is meant to express how artworks should be evaluated – by how they help us remember our Principle and our Primary Ideals (and motivate us to pursue them) as well as to continue adding to and broadening The Great Conversation. I wrote more about how such an idea could be used here.

Context Culture: Another controversy of our time is “cancel culture” – an attempt by some academics to pull down statues and other memorials (and even censor works of literature) that might offend oppressed groups. It seems much more useful to put such memorials in context by, for instance, a plaque admitting the harm that these former “heroes” had done. As to literature, I wrote a great deal on western mythology, from the ancients through Latin Author Apuleius (c. 124 – after 170) to Dante (c. 1265 – 14 September 1321.) I’m hoping that these series can provide examples on how to proceed in other areas. With some care given to the level of development at which people could have access to what context, such work should also add to and broaden The Great Conversation in accordance with our Principle.

Critical Class Theory: Culture battles are also fought over “Critical Race Theory,” a set of teachings about the wrongs our country has done to people of color. Again, the idea of Context Culture would be helpful, as well as the current idea – Racism has always been used to divide oppressed classes to keep their attention away from their true oppressors. I wrote more here for those interested.

___

“Radical Contingency”: This concept expresses the infinite number of possibilities in the universe, thus the impossibility to attain any full understanding of its workings or perfection in anything. For those interested I wrote a couple entries on this idea here and here. The idea comes from the essentials of Prehenson and The Four, as ideas of the multiple points of view in the universe. One important application of this concept is to the…

…Question Of Evil: In a series on evil I argue, based on the essentials of Prehension and The Great Conversation, that a demand for (or appeal to) “perfection” is one of the main aspects of evil:

Attributing “perfection” (from the Latin word for “finish”) to a society’s God1 — especially to a society that believes such a God also omnipotent and omniscient — enables the deity’s priests (or other mouthpieces and their enforcers) to set a limit on growth and dialogue. Thus this belief impoverishes its members in the necessities of sentience.

The second aspect is a kind of laziness – the refusal to see one’s own shortcomings, or limitations. As I write here, “People (or groups) who are both lazy in the above sense and perfectionistic see any ability others have that they themselves lack as a reproach. The resulting frustration drives them to acquire the products of such ability and to possess the means for others to use this ability.”

I believe that the first manifestation of such frustration is what I call patriarchy, the incestuous drive to maintain lifelong control over the females in one’s family. Such desire would explain the need to promote one’s own features and coloring as “ideal,” as can be seen in works as old as those of Ancient Egypt. Such desire further drives such patriarchs to acquire the means of production – this process removes hope from women, hope that they can escape to those who can provide for them through work rather than force. This is the basis of classism, which has morphed into capitalism, a system I’ve called “the project of … removing dignity from work.” I’ve written a great deal about the history of this project, most systematically under my prosperity gospel series, but I think it’s worth highlighting and expanding a bit on these here.

As I wrote (see “Viola” post) on a message board:

Segregation of "races" came from another attempt to maintain the elites' dominance through a monistic ideology. Those Western thinkers who replaced natural laws of a deist God for religious authority maintained this ideology by subsuming the sensual realm to these "laws." To maintain a sense of "perfection," they had to rationalize every observable injustice. I found an interesting article that traces this process. In the 19th Century, American anthropology and social Darwinism provided the rationalization many people, especially racists, still use for these injustices – anyone suffering was “unfit” for the struggle of survival, and any attempt to limit the power of the wealthy to help citizens (thereby allowing the “unfit” to live and reproduce,) interfered with the “natural order of things.” Herbert Spencer, the leading proponent of this view, saw the State as “nothing more than a large partnership,” and the contract as “the supreme mechanism for maintaining social order with the absolute minimum of compulsion and coercion.”

For those that could not conceivably be blamed in terms of failing to meet the demands of a contract, a different tactic was needed.

British Israelism, the belief that the English were the lost tribes of God’s chosen people, gave their American colonists and their descendants the idea that they were destined to expand their “living space” at the expense of first nations people, and American Anthropologists such as Josiah C. Nott gave the slavery apologist and confederate vice president Alexander H. Stephens the conviction of “science” to make his “Cornerstone Speech.” After the Civil War, Social Darwinism briefly held sway until philosopher William James inspired fellow Scots-”Irishman” John D. Rockefeller² and other elites to appropriate the media and educational systems and create the illusion of dialogue that is our two-party system. After World War II, as the Soviets showed their ability to become a world nuclear power and the second Red Scare mostly was confined to our own country, our government allowed a “golden age” of education to emerge until it found a way to initiate the collapse of the communist “evil empire.³” During the 1970’s and 80’s, as evidenced by The Powell Memorandum, (David Rockefeller’s) Trilateral Commission report, “Crisis of Democracy,” and other texts, the country rolled back the gains of the civil rights movement, enfeebled our educational institutions, and removed the fairness doctrine. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the US accelerated this rollback as the “Project for a New American Century” brought us into middle eastern wars. Throughout this period, culture wars intensified between the right wing, fueled by the Christian dominionist movement⁴, and the remaining progressives, who were led toward Islamophobia by the “new atheism” movement and who were being divided by identitarianism. This last strategy merits a bit of discussion on its own, to which I’ll give the name that Marxist author Mark Fisher coined, the …

…Vampire Castle: From its beginnings as “political correctness,” this form of renaming traditionally oppressed groups and common terms to make them less offensive to these groups has been an effective way of keeping more educated and less indoctrinated citizens under control. More aggressive (and/or angry) upper class students are given the power to say what speech is acceptable to the professional-managerial class, especially in law and academia, keeping the rest off-balance and undermining their getting substantial, satisfying work done. The anger of the majority is turned inward and/or toward these dupes. Such a strategy is especially effective if the dupes are members of a traditionally oppressed group, which group then becomes an object of resentment and distraction, even for those drawn to Marxism.

¹ I believe that this attribution, which I broadly term “monism,” has wreaked havoc since pre-historical times. I first mention it in the reboot entry of this blog, “The 4 ‘D’s’ of Neoliberalism.”

²I want to point out here the importance to capitalism – from its beginnings to today – of wealth extracted from the earth. This fact has surfaced often in my research for this blog and earlier writings. For those interested, the most systematic treatment of this subject is in the series I wrote near the beginning of this blog’s reboot.

³Such as goading them to invade Afghanistan. (I have written on this subject using a Wikipedia article which has since been edited, possibly due to our escalating antagonisms with both Russia and the Muslim world. – Viola 10/13/23)

⁴Wikipedia defines dominion theology as, “a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation that is governed by Christians and based on their understandings of biblical law.” For those interested, I wrote on this movement and other events mentioned in this summary in my three Prosperity Gospel series.

Illustration from Types of Mankind,
reproduced in the Center for the History of Medicine website.
(I notice that the picture I had linked to the message board has since been removed.)

The Question of Evil, Part 5

“Perfect is the enemy of good.” – English aphorism, commonly attributed to Voltaire

People of the Lie discusses narcissism to explain how laziness turns into evil. Satan, in a Mormon parable the author uses, cannot accept God’s favoring Jesus’s plan for humanity over his own, and his narcissism makes him unwilling to accept the imperfection that caused him to come up with an inferior plan. Thus, for Peck, evil comes from lack of submissiveness before God (the father’s) perfection. Again, I think it more helpful to consider the problem in terms of room to grow. Awareness that there are other sentients who have abilities we don’t is enough to recognize we aren’t perfect – We all have limits. Such awareness doesn’t call for “submission” but rather appreciation and dialogue. Our jealousy does not require fear of submission, but can easily cause the desire for others to submit to us. Such desire is what causes the need to appear perfect, and the effectiveness of using images of a single perfect, omnipotent, omniscient God¹ in satisfying this desire has undermined our growth as a species for millennia.

Knowledge that different people inherently have different abilities can lead to exploitation, but knowledge that we all have room to grow can allow a symbolic order to rise above this tendency. I wrote earlier, for instance, about those who more easily develop their critical thinking skills finding their more authentic “voices” in text than in the more ostensive community-building of those who more easily develop empathy. Before then, I discussed Viktor Frankl’s ideas on how people can develop abilities from having to overcome the worst adversities.

In my Kabbalah series, I had separated the response to these adversities on the “critical thinking” side to creation and cultivation. I should point out here that cultivation, from the Indo-European root, “kʷel,” can itself lead to perfectionism. This danger calls for the need for all who participate in an order that would transcend the current one to follow the principle formulated here: “That which facilitates self-conscious dialogue and growth therefrom.”

“Horse Power” by Stephen Stephen
From Pinterest

¹ I discuss this “monist” orientation throughout this series, beginning with “The ‘4 D’s’ of Neoliberalism.” – Viola

Alternatives to “Cancel Culture,” Part 33

Never has such a lust for goddess or mortal woman flooded my pounding heart and overwhelmed me so. Not even then, when I made love to Ixion's wife who bore me Pirithous, rival to all the gods in wisdom . . . not when I loved Acrisius' daughter Danae—marvelous ankles—and Perseus sprang to life and excelled all men alive . . . not when I stormed Europa, far-famed Phoenix' daughter who bore me Minos and Rhadamanthys grand as gods . . . Not even you! That was nothing to how I hunger for you now—irresistible longing lays me low!"

Teeming with treachery noble Hera led him on: "Dread majesty, son of Cronus, what are you saying? You are eager for bed now, burning to make love, here on Ida's heights for all the world to see? What if one of the deathless gods observes us, sleeping together, yes—and runs off to the rest and points us out to all? I have no desire to rise from a bed like that and steal back home to your own high halls—think of the shocking scandal there would be! But if you're on fire, overflowing with passion, there's always your own bedroom. Hephaestus built it, your own dear son, and the doors fit snug and tight . . .There we can go to bed at once—since love is now your pleasure!"

- The Iliad, Homer: Book 14 (translation from University of Baltimore) (emphasis mine)

Part 28 of this series mentioned the relationship between Jupiter and the Hindu god Brihaspati (who had freed cattle from Vala.) That entry also pointed out that Agamemnon’s mother was from Crete, home of the Minotaur. My last post, bringing up Cogniarchae’s linking Diana and Cybele to the constellation Orion, brings us to the importance of the nearby constellation – Taurus. The above passage is the first mention of the Europa* myth in literature. I believe that this myth is key to the change from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries. This change, around 2,000 BC, was when the Hurrian capital of Ebla was destroyed and the Third Kingdom of Ebla arose, ruled by an Amorite king. According to Wikipedia,

During the third kingdom, Amorites worshiped common northern Semitic gods; the unique Eblaite deities disappeared. Hadad was the most important god, while Ishtar took Ishara's place and became the city's most important deity apart from Hadad. (scholarly citations omitted.)

Cogniarche, as usual, provides much useful information here on Minoans as bull worshipers. Also as usual, though, this research is undermined by the author’s monotheism and apparent desire to assert Slavic prominence in world history. The site rightly shows Indus Valley seals depicting bull jumpers and makes insightful observations about the labyrinth. It, however, neglects important information on these topics.

The Neolithic proto-city of Çatalhöyük, which Cogniarche does mention as having drawings of the Labrys, also has Bucranium. Wikipedia has a page about this decoration: it** is “generally considered to originate with the practice of displaying garlanded, sacrificial oxen, whose heads were displayed on the walls of temples, a practice dating back to … Çatalhöyük.” Wiki’s page on this subject describes this site: “The inhabitants lived in mudbrick houses that were crammed together in an aggregate structure. No footpaths or streets were used between the dwellings, which were clustered in a honeycomb-like maze.” Lastly, Wikipedia describes a burial practice there of plastering and painting skulls – “more characteristic of Neolithic sites in Syria and at Neolithic Jericho than at sites closer by.”

Other ways this area resembles Taurian-age Syria: “The Hattian [a people for which Çatalhöyük was a center] pantheon of gods included the storm-god Taru (represented by a bull)…” This elemental god is the source of such gods from Europe to India, an early one being Teshub. Further, “The Hittite [and Hurrian] legends of … the serpentine dragon Illuyanka [mentioned in our last post] found their origin in” the Hattian civilization. This civilization includes ancient Phrygia, where Cybele (a goddess Cogniarche identifies with Ariadne/Diana) was worshipped.

I want to end here by mentioning two other related areas. One is the Hattian territory Sidon, which worshipped both Europa and Astarte (The latter, mentioned in my last post, was a Near-Eastern goddess closely related to Ishtar.) The other is the continent which gets its name from the subject of this post. According to Wikipedia, “The name Europe, as a geographical term, was used by Ancient Greek geographers such as Strabo to refer to part of Thrace below the Balkan mountains.”

The Rape of Europa by Titian (1562)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA
Copied from Wikipedia

* I wanted a translation that specifically names Europa as one of Jove’s lovers (Butler’s only supplied descriptions.) – This was the first one that came up in my search. Unfortunately, the page doesn’t say who the translator is or connect to where I can find out. I also need to mention that I deleted some of the names Jove lists after Europa, a deletion that is not obvious, since ellipses were already in the original where I could put them to show this deletion.

**I know the Wiki article says, “the name is generally considered…” but this consideration would also apply to the decoration.

The 4 “D’s” of Neoliberalism

Dictate, Dissemble, Delegate, and Disavow

D1: The “bully” phase, using brute force to impose arbitrary, often contradictory orders;

D2: Most people (or sentients,) naturally disapprove of such a tactic, so the dictator must disguise or efface evidence of doing this. Most tactics an individual (or two) can use for this purpose have been exposed, requiring …

D3: …a fairly sophisticated system of assigning roles to each other. Zizek identifies these roles as: “Person Supposed to Believe,” “Person Supposed to Know,” and “Person Supposed to Feel.”

1. The “Believer” is the ostensive ruler, an “alpha” type who can fall, if necessary, to allow the …
2. Person Supposed to Know to keep the system going. This “power behind the throne” is more malicious than the “Believer,” and keeps a close watch on the …
3. Person (or people) Supposed to Feel. The “Knowers” must keep these last sympathetic toward their “own kind” and divided from an “other,” selected by the Knowers for easy identification and scapegoating. Selections have often been by religious beliefs, the “rightness” or “wrongness” of which are impossible to prove or disprove. Artistic “Feelers” can manufacture fervor in their comrades for defending or attacking some theological point. The Knowers use an effective tool to guide this process – the idea of one God: perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient¹. Such a God served the upper classes of Europe from Constantine, through the fall of Rome, up to the Black Plague.
   
   This trinitarian God, as opposed to that of the “heretical” presbyter Arius, allowed some freedom by letting Christians believe in separate Godly consciousnesses, while Arianism put them in a strict hierarchy.
   
   When the Black Plague showed the ineffectuality of this God, many turned toward the idea of a more mysterious, powerful creator — first using the Arian concepts with which to read the Bible, then abandoning the book for a more “scientific” approach of a Watchmaker with an invisible hand.
   
   Such a God led to the social darwinism of the nineteenth century and the fascism of the twentieth.
   
   With the devastation of two World Wars, “Western” civilization started to turn toward a more egalitarian worldview.

D4: Neoliberalism emerged in response to this change. The creativity of younger minds, freed from traditional parental restraints, allowed an attack on the idea of Truth itself (expressed by Postmodernism) by Knowers, aided by techniques to more closely monitor their artistic charges. The information gleaned thereby allowed the dictators’ simultaneous acceptance of any accusations leveled against them, while distancing themselves from this acceptance using their accusers’ own caricatures of them – a technique Jacques Lacan called “Disavowal.”

¹ This idea has taken many forms – it is usually called “monotheism,” but more recent manifestations are better named by the broader term, “monism.”