Every culture regards sexuality as important, which is why they all regulate it in some form or fashion. Indeed, we can see what the left's sexual deregulation over the past 50 years has wrought: abortion, divorce, perversion, sexual conflict and confusion, and unhappy women in particular (probably because the deregulation is more congenial to the male's primitive nature than to the female's; indeed, most of the regulations were there to protect women and children from the predation and selfishness of men).
People like to blame Augustine for the West's ambivalent attitude toward sexuality, but it seems to me that Augustine simply latched on to and accentuated an ambivalence that is already there. But as Schuon says, "nothing that is human is bestial by its nature," although "it is necessary that our attitudes should be integrally human, in accordance with the norm imposed upon us by our deiformity." So, man can surely become bestial, but the bestiality is accidental and not essential.
Which raises an interesting question: is our fall accidental or essential? In other words, does it deform only the surface, or reach all the way to the core? For Schuon it is ultimately the former, even if all men are nevertheless fallen: "the human body, male or female, is a theophany, and remains so in spite of the fall." And "by loving one another, the spouses legitimately love a divine manifestation, each one according to a different aspect and a different respect."
In fact, the first thing that occurred to me upon familiarizing myself with Pope John Paul II's theology of the body, is that he was essentially explicating a kind of Christian tantric yoga, the point of which is to perceive the other as a divine manifestation. At the very least, marriage, being a sacrament, is a formal relationship that invites the ingression of vertical energies -- all the way into the body and down to its most intimate physical expression. In this regard, it is completely orthodox to view divine and sexual love as having the identical source and telos: "Fundamentally, every love is a search for the Essence or the lost Paradise."
It seems that Eve is the archtypal expression of an ambivalent attitude toward female sexuality, and why not? Eve is a message, as it were, to both men and women, albeit in different ways. For man is weak when it comes to being seduced, and woman is weak (although it masquerades as power) when it comes to seducing.
Dennis Prager often points out that from an early age, men are taught to deal with their innate weaknesses and faults, which revolve around violence and sexual predation. But it is politically incorrect to discuss the intrinsic weaknesses of women. If we could talk about them, we would certainly highlight how the gender gap in voting inevitably results in the election of feminized liberals and the growth of the swaddling state -- of the proliferation of wimps and bullies, often in the same person. Thus, so many of our societal problems are a direct consequence of unchecked and untutored female instinct.
It is as if man and woman must compensate for the reciprocal weaknesses of the other. Or, to put it conversely, there is a kind of "reciprocal superiority" on the spiritual plane, each assuming a "divine function" for the other.
Man stabilizes woman, woman vivifies man; furthermore, and quite obviously, man contains woman within himself, and vice versa.... Man, in his lunar and receptive aspect, 'withers away' without the woman-sun what infuses into the virile genius what it needs in order to blossom; inversely, man-sun confers on woman the light that permits her to realize her identity by prolonging the function of the sun. --Schuon
9 comments:
"It is as if man and woman must compensate for the reciprocal weaknesses of the other. Or, to put it conversely, there is a kind of "reciprocal superiority" on the spiritual plane, each assuming a "divine function" for the other."
A "reciprocal superiority"... that's an interesting perspective to look through. Hmmm.
But it is politically incorrect to discuss the intrinsic weaknesses of women.
And what a shame. Much suffering is wrought when girls are not taught how to deal with their innate weaknesses and faults - how to function in life without resorting to manipulative tears and tantrums, how to respect themselves and their femininity, and how to take joy in their particular strengths without being ashamed that they aren't "gender neutral."
If we could talk about them, we would certainly highlight how the gender gap in voting inevitably results in the election of feminized liberals and the growth of the swaddling state -- of the proliferation of wimps and bullies, often in the same person.
When the state is your husband/father/provider/protector then it makes sense when they say the government is the only thing we all belong to. It is also your master, in that case. The deception of feminism results in slavery.
Precisely! There is nothing liberating about being a feminista. You must be a perpetual victim and a slave, it's a prerequisite to joining their cult.
They cannot appreciate the beauty in real femininity so they seek to destroy it.
And somehow become stronger by being victims, and liberated from the freedom of genuine feminism.
That will show the patriarchy illuminati, lol,
Bob, someone nominated you as a living genius on Bruce Charlton's blog. I tend to agree. Although someone put Chomsky in the mix too :p.
I'm not as bright as I was 25 years ago, and I was an idiot then, so I'm skeptical.
This blog to me is one of the most consistently insightful things on the internet. In addition, I can't count the number of other insightful things it has pointed me to. As you know, I live in academia, and let me tell you, it's not the Insight Factory it's cracked up to be. Often, it's very much the opposite.
But go ahead, be humble. : )
"many of our societal problems are a direct consequence of unchecked and untutored female instinct"
This is so un-PC that, if expressed at a university, it would lead to explosions of uncontrollable rage -- which means that it places a finger directly on something true and bruised. My own experience as a married man confirms it: my wife is a 100% good egg, a wonderful, wonderful mother, but she also works full-time as an academic and is, as she'd tell you herself, torn deeply in terms of time, and therefore in terms of emotion. When she feels she's taking on too much of the typically male things, she wigs out. Down deep, she wants to be cared for and protected. She desperately wants to live in that archetypal position.
But I could also say: "many of our societal problems are a direct consequence of unchecked and untutored male instinct"
Look at Islamic societies. They suppress, repress, enslave the female archetype. The result is homosexuality, female rape, genital mutilation, lack of economic development, the list goes on and on. "Islamist" is just the flip side of "feminist." And in my own case, when I get isolated, man-cavish, absorbed with work, bring down the hammer with kid discipline, and let my own ambitions or selfishnesses get in the way of family and/or married life, it sometimes takes my wife to check and tutor me. I accept that, just as I expect her to accept my checks and tutoring.
When male and female face each other in love, the result is creativity, balance, and happiness. "Reciprocal superiority" captures it perfectly.
Nobody said it was easy, though.
Magister, beautifully said.
Without my wife I would be in danger of being a brain on a stick.
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