Friday, June 02, 2006
"In another land, dut da dah!" .... or, our "Image of the Day"
Today's "Image of the Day" comes from a parallel Universe just three doors down from our own. It's a matriarchal Universe and there exists therein a small speck of a planet where the followers of the prevalent religion consider themselves "Kristins".
Named for their savior, it's a world devoid of war, which I suppose is good. But Kristins suffer--much as all religions universally--from extremist elements on their fanatical fringe.
While often accused of suppressing open and free thinking among adherents, they are also credited with the peace enjoyed by citizens of their planet. It is thought this stems from the universally implicit threat to any male child or man caught playing with plastic toy soldiers, tanks, or possessing models of F-16's, who play with their missiles, or who are caught enjoying video war games or with "Soldier of Fortune" magazines under their mattresses. Such discoveries are dealt with by harsh retributions. Castration!
While seemingly extreme, one must admit there are currently no innocent men, women, children born--or unborn--being slaughtered needlessly anywhere in Kristindom. That's because there are no Kristin priestesses advocating the compassionate massacres of non-Kristins in the name of Kristin's mother, "Goddess."
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7 comments:
That's one strange image, dada. An interesting assortment of out-of-place legs & hands & things under that suspended table. So, the 3rd universe over seems to still revere a 12 apostle theme (sigh). Your Kristindom reminds me of an SF story (not sure of title but I think the author was Theodore Sturgeon? maineiac may know) about a society of women who had eradicated all taint of male influence (war, violence, etc) by surgically altering male babies at birth. They felt it was kinder than waiting for the inevitable later-in-life castration-demanding discovery. The resultant future citizens were taught that they were all female & therefore acceptable. Of course in a strictly-controlled prison-type environment, they had to let a few males of each generation reach maturity for obvious reasons. After making the required deposits to the sperm bank, each young man was given a choice of castration or death. Only a very few chose castration and eventually these became the subject of the story, because they were found to be secretly plotting to change the female order of things. I believe the point was that castration alone does not remove man's ingrained tendency toward domination & violence. Oh, and the few females who also displayed these traits were not even given the choice of castration, only death. Harsh rules that had given them a peaceful society until the old toothless lions decided to roar. Or maybe I've missed the point of Kristindom. D.K.
nope, that storyline doesn't ring a bell, and there's no reference in my thin collection of Sturgeon's writings (2 novels, 3 books of short stories)...
"man's ingrained tendency toward domination and violence"...those qualities might be inherent in the sense of the cultural world-view of present-day civilization, but fortunately not rooted in human genetics...in a book I am reading now ("The Beauty Path: A Native American Journey into One Love"), the author presents the theory that recorded history begins with the rise of the city/states of Sumeria, with their competitive economic and political structures...what he calls "competitive culture"...a culture whose world-view is based on commerce, separation and war...the world is viewed through the lens of separation...separate from the Creator of the Universe, separate from the natural world, separate from other humans...this world-view values conquest and enemy-thinking, believing they must conquer the land, the wilderness, the oceans, the desert, the elements, even space...and it's a patrilineal society...
"competitive culture" is contrasted with "co-operative culture", with a world-view based on harmony, unity and peace...co-operative cultures saw themselves as "one"...one with their creator, one with their environment and one with other humans...this world-view lasted for for 200,000 years before the beginning of recorded history and the last vestiges of it were evident in the culture of the native north americans...which was a matrilineal society...
in a very metaphorical sense, Armageddon may refer to the demise of "competitive culture", a short-lived experiment in evolution...it's very ironic to see the potential for Armageddon in the place where competitive culture got started...ancient Mesopatamia and Sumeria, current-day Iraq and the Middle East...one can only hope and work toward a shift to the world-view of a co-operative culture to avert such a catastrophe, or, failing that, the survival of remnants of humanity with such a world-view...
Get up on the wrong side of the newspaper this morning dada?
lol. Wouldn't that be great? Have any of you read the Hyperion/Endymion cantos by Dan Simmons? The Catholic church takes over the universe and their army is called "The Pax". It's very interesting and scary.
Have a lovely weekend all.
Nina
BTW, maineiac, I saw that book on the indian website you sent us to. I am very interested in it. I'm reading a book written by the Dalai Lama (or however you spell it) called How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life. It's a wonderful little book, and I highly reccomend it.
NINA!!
Welcome back! Hope your summer's going well. (You have started your summer, right?)
No, I haven't read Hyperion/Endymion cantos by Dan Simmons. Catholics make me nervous (altho baptized one myself) (except for those Catholic "Communist" ones--and the Catholic "Communist" nuns--both fermenting 'revolution' in Latin America).
But Nina, are you SURE you're just a kid in high school, and not really some 54 yr. old adult mensa wannabe, like Alec Trebek. I mean, "How do you KNOW all this stuff?!!"
Nina:
BTW, I was pleased to see that you--despite belonging to Mensa--also have difficulty spelling Dally LLamma.
wonderful! book recommendations from another intelligient and respected source...not much else to do on this rain-sodden weekend besides laundry and housework...thanks, Nina!
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