Witchcraft-and-the-Gay-Counterculture-1

and from comparison with existing Stone Age cultures, there wascommunal ownership of property by the tribe or the clan, governmentby voluntary consensus without any hierarchical superstructure,an absence of class domination and no rigid division of labor(Hawkes, 265 ff.). Of course, it is tempting to dismiss this as a utopianfantasy since we are so accustomed in our own society to selfaggrandizement,government repression, class domination and rigidsoul-killing division of labor that is either idiotic or based on yearsof zombie-like institutionalization (“education”). We have become soconditioned through universities, factories and offices to be feelingless,brain-dominated, self-seeking billiard balls that we cannot conceiveof a society run otherwise. But the evidence will not go away.Human beings once lived differently.Women had a very high status in the Stone Age, as we haveseen. Archeology, myth and comparison to still-existing nature societiesall point to their dominant position. “There is every reason tosuppose that under the conditions of the primary Neolithic way oflife, mother-right and the clan system were still dominant [as theyhad been in the Paleolithic period], and land would generally havedescended through the female line. Indeed, it is tempting to be convincedthat the earliest Neolithic societies throughout their range intime and space gave woman the highest status she has ever known”(Hawkes, 264).Around 4000 B.C. an extraordinary change took place, beginningfirst in the Near East and spreading gradually from thereinto Europe. At this time there emerged a new era – the Bronze Age,which involved much more than the making of bronze implements.For the first time in history, social groups came into existence thatwere controlled by males and were based on military exploits. In theStone Age, humans had survived by foraging, farming and hunting.Now came people who survived by warfare.The political and economic life of the human race was completelyupset by these male invaders (Woolley, passim). In place of theearlier tribal communalism, a new institution came into being: thestate (Woolley, 360).The new states lived off the labor of agrarian people andeconomically exploited them. Class divisions developed, and slaverywas imposed where formerly there had been free labor. People becameseparated from the immediate, direct life of nature, and intellectualactivity was stressed at the expense of emotional gratification.Most important of all, the status of women fell, as did the greatimportance of the mother goddess. “Urban life, the strengthening ofintellectual powers and of individuality and self-consciousness, malerulers and priests, military conquests, were to combine to lower thestatus of the goddess in all her manifestations in the centers of ancientcivilization” (Hawkes, 343) .42in a twelve-by-twelve closet opening out on an anonymous world ofcity streets” (Ellul, 321).Industrialism continues to teach that humans are superiorto animals and that “civilization” consists in getting as far away aspossible from our animal nature. Wilhelm Reich correctly believedthat the rise of fascism in industrialized countries was dependenton the repression of our animal nature within the bourgeois family.“The theory of the German superman has its origins in man’sefforts to disassociate himself from the animal” (Reich, 334). Whenalienated from their animal nature, people come to view it as evil,and then look for an outside authority-figure to keep it repressed.‘’The Leader,” whether political or religious, suppresses from withoutwhat is feared from within. The Nazis associated homosexualitywith animal behavior (which, like all sexuality, it is). They violentlypurged their own party of known Gay people, destroyed the earlyantecedents of the Gay Liberation Movement, and sent masses ofGay people to the gas chambers (Lauritsen). Similar attitudes couldbe found among Russian Stalinists (whose overriding obsession wasto industrialize Russia as fast as possible).The industrial system has made us forget how to live. Naturepeople know how to make their own houses, food, medicine,clothes, religious rites, humor, and entertainment. These skills keepthem from becoming enslaved by money. Since people always retainthe skills of survival, it’s very difficult for an aristocracy of money toget control of their lives. The people don’t need money to survive. Inan industrial society, however, we are never taught the skills of howto live. We become totally dependent on money for meeting our everyneed. If the money runs out, we have nothing to eat, nothing towear, nowhere to sleep. As a result, we become totally dependent onthose who control money. In capitalist countries, these are the hugebusiness monopolies. In communist countries, it is the state.Industrialism has degraded both labor and leisure. Mostpeople in industrial societies are in fact wage slaves, working fortyhours a week or more at monotonous, hateful “jobs” for the solepurpose of making enough money to live and enjoy life. When theycome home debilitated from such alienated labor, they have nothingleft to their souls except alienated leisure: television, movies, newspapers,all of which indoctrinate with industrial values. Like schoolsand universities, these media are part of the general anesthesia.Workers in industrial societies tend to work longer hoursthan people in nature cultures. And industrial work is far less interesting.Industrial workers are kept at their jobs through their dependenceon money and through constant indoctrination by institutions.“The natural tendency of man, as manifested in primitive [sic] societies,is almost certainly to work until a given consumption is achieved.Then he relaxes, engages in sport, hunting, orgiastic or propitiatingceremonies or other forms of physical enjoyment or spiritual better-131