Witchcraft-and-the-Gay-Counterculture-1

existence. Consider the way we, as industrialized people, relate toour environment. Everywhere we see huge cities, highways, factories,universities, airports. Everywhere the trees, the plants, the animalshave been slaughtered. In 1969, the Atmospheric Sciences ResearchCenter reported that there was no longer any uncontaminated airanywhere in North America (Roszak, 16). In 1970, Thor Heyerdahlcrossed the Atlantic in a handmade boat. He reported that he couldnot find one oil-free stretch of water during the entire crossing (Roszak,lac. cit.). What kind of people are we that we do this to theenvironment? “Only those who have broken off their silent innerdialogue with man and nature, only those who experience the worldas dead, stupid, or alien and therefore without a claim to reverence,could ever turn upon their environment and their fellows with thecool and meticulously calculated rapacity of industrial society” (Roszak,168).We have seen in past chapters how the triumph of Christianityand the emergence of the industrial system resulted in theobjectification of nature. What we must now realize is that this objectifyinghas resulted in the deadening of our feelings. Nature peopleeverywhere believe that the earth, the trees, the moon are livingpersonalities who talk to us and with whom we can communicate.We laugh at them and call them savages. Could they be right, afterall? If so, when they talk to us about these things they must feel likepeople with vision trying to explain color to someone who is blind.Another loss of the industrial system is art. There are veryfew of us left with any artistic skills at all. Artists are considered rarebirds, slightly bizarre, and not at all normal like everyone else. Theartistic skill that remains has been co-opted by industrial institutions,either for selling toothpaste (as in the West) or socialism (as inthe East). So rare indeed is art in our lives that art objects are keptlocked up in special institutions (museums) which we go to view onspecial occasions. No doubt in a few more generations there will alsobe tree museums.But how could the situation be otherwise with art? In anindustrial society, we no longer make things for ourselves. We buythem as consumers. Art is part of the process of making. In naturesocieties, people make everything for themselves. As a result, everyinch of their environment is filled with art. Museums are unknown.Wherever industrialism has triumphed, art has disappeared from thelife of the people, and museums have taken its place.Industrialism has killed the animal within us. We becomeindoor people, surrounded by concrete and plastic, working hourson hours as factory workers, bureaucrats, academics, living in ourskulls and dead to our bodies. “Man was created to have room tomove about in, to gaze into far distances, to live in rooms which, evenwhen they were tiny, opened out on fields. See him now, enclosed bythe rules and architectural necessities imposed by over-population130Many scholars believe these male-dominated warrior groupsevolved from Stone Age hunters (usually male). By some process,the male hunters in certain of the earlier societies developed into aseparate caste devoted not to hunting but to warfare. The change,once made, became self perpetuating: peaceful Stone Age tribes wereeither conquered by the new militarists or were forced to becomemilitaristic to defend themselves.In the new social order, private property made its first appearancein history (possibly as the seized booty of warfare; Engels,passim). Strict hierarchies, always characteristic of military societies,emerged, as did a new sense of morality characterized by obedienceand self-discipline. The beginnings of class warfare lie in this period,as the new order of warriors tended to constitute an urban-basedaristocracy that held sway over the peasants.The older Stone Age traditions that had existed time outof mind eventually reasserted themselves against the Bronze Age innovations.The new military class was too small, and the old peasantculture too large and old, to allow for the annihilation of Stone Ageways. The conquerors tended to be absorbed into the customs ofthe conquered. An equilibrium was eventually reached, and societiesstabilized into new forms that embodied practices and beliefs of boththe older Stone Age and the new Bronze Age. Such, for example,were the ancient civilization of Sumer and the oldest kingdoms inEgypt. There, even though organized warfare had now come into being,“it was exceptional and of a rudimentary type” (Dawson, 238).Although the status of women was lower than in the Stone Age,women still maintained a position far higher than they do under theprimitive conditions of modern industrialism (Davis, passim).Bronze Age civilization still retained much of the old loveof sexuality, especially in religion. Archeological evidence is abundanton this point, both from the new cities and from the countryside.For example: “In searching for some positive features of BronzeAge religion our attention is caught by the strange phallic figuresin the rock-carvings of Northern Europe. Whatever the meaning ofthese figures may be, they unquestionably show that sexuality playeda great part in that cult and belief of which they are expressions”(Runeberg, 247). In literary evidence from Bronze Age Egypt, homosexualbehavior is idealized as an activity of the gods (Licht, 449).Nearly everywhere the worship of the Great Mother and the hornedgod continued right along side that of the new militaristic deities.One very important example of Bronze Age civilization isthe culture that emerged in Crete. From 3000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.waves of immigrants from Asia Minor mingled with the local StoneAge people of Crete and created a new civilization called Minoan,named after the legendary King Minos.Minoan civilization reached its peak in the periodfrom 2000 B.C. to 1600 B.C. During this time, women had a very43