when people think of paganism, the only kind that come to mind is the
Dionysian or the Aresian. this is due to the judeo-christian bias
against paganism which would have us believe that there is no moral
component in paganism. we've been told for 1000s of years by jewish
and christian tradition that pagans are without values or core moral
beliefs. pagans only bash heads or indulge in debauchery. think of
the stories of sodom and gomorrah. think of stories of roman goons
whupping jewish and early christian ass. when hebrews of old
assimilated with pagan folks or adopted pagan values, they were
condemned by the jewish community as sell-outs, traitors, or corrupted
by filthy goyim. though jews learned to co-exist with pagan folks in
most cases, there was mutual antipathy between the groups. generally,
the jewish antipathy was stronger for jews felt MORALLY superior to
pagan folks. jews did business with pagan folks but didn't want to be
'contaminated' by pagan gods, values, mores, practices, etc.
jewish 'respect' for pagan folks was pragmatic--'we can do business'--
or morally tolerant at best(stressing that since jews had suffered as
minorities, jews should be humane to minorities among the jews. but,
this applied to pagans under jewish control than pagan who had control
over jews.) it got truly dangerous for pagan folks with the coming
of christianity, which was essentially a watered down universalist
form of judaism for goyim.
because of its universalist doctrine, christianity sought to convert--
thru persuasion and force--everyone, even jews. in the early yrs of
christian rule, roman christians were harsher on jews than on pagans,
but eventually christianity was more hostile to paganism than to
judaism. though jews were seen as christ-killers, they were still
regarded as people of the Book who wor****pped the same one-and-only
god and would be redeemed one day. but, pagans were seen as no better
than animals. pagan gods, rituals, values, etc, all had to go. the
'cultural revolution or genocide' against pagan culture was truly
horrifying in europe.
throughout this process, pagans were depicted by christians in two
ways. (1) debauched orgy ****gies (2) brutal, murderous thugs. there
was some truth to this. romans liked to ***** a lot and not always
discreetly. this was true of both the rich and the poor. and roman
gladiatorial fights were brutal indeed. and romans warred against
whole bunch of peoples. and when christian rome fell to pagan
barbarians such as germanic tribes and huns, it was pretty hellish.
and, there were a whole bunch of pagan beliefs and rituals which
combined ***ual excess with violence--at least according to hollywood
movies.
anyway, if intolerant jewish moralism applied only to jews and made
peace with pagans with different values and practices, intolerant
christian moralism sought to change the beliefs and practices of
people all over the world. christianity was racially tolerant but
morally intolerant. same was true of islam, another religion that
grew out of jewish moralistic tradition. (in the recent book 'how
jesus became christian' by barrie wilson, the conflict between
pluralistic/pagan pax romana vs jewish community sounds similar to
today's pluralistic/liberal pax america vs muslim culture. like jews
of roman-occupied jerusalem, it's possible that many muslims feel they
are occupied by modern day pagan romans in the form of yank
'imperialists'.)
so, the judeo-christian bias shaped how people came to see paganism.
even in modern times, countless peoples all over the world got their
history lessons from cecil b. demille movies where jews are moral and
decent while pagans are ***ually debauched and/or always thuggish.
(and even during the Renaissance, a time of rebirth of pagan thought
and art, the older styles of architecture were called 'gothic' than
'christian' though goths and other barbarians had nothing to do with
the design and construction. because of judeo-christian bias against
paganism, even what was deemed ugly in christian art was blamed on
pagan/gothic influences.) one wonders how pagan civlizations were
held together for so long if all pagans ever did was swing their dicks
and clubs. '10 commandments' would have us believe that anciet egypt
was funded by jewish slave labor while egyptians themselves just sat
around sipping lemonade(similar to the canard about american slavery
when, in fact, the vast majority of white slave owners worked in the
fields alongside their slaves. most whites who owned slaves were
certainly NOT lazing around sipping lemonade as liberal jews on PBS
would have us believe. actually, communist jews were the ones who
enjoyed privilege while millions of christian slavs were ground to
dust in the USSR. at least, most black slaves were fed, clothed, and
housed adequately, but can that be said of countless people dragged
off to gulags? but, of course, liberal jew dominated PBS will never
run programs on that subject.)
so, even today, people have a very simple notion of paganosity. we
think of dinoysian excesses of partying, ***ual licentiousness, drug
use, hedonism, and mindlessness. or, we think of nazi thugs of recent
history or viking marauders of ancient times and middle ages.
in today's context, paganism is either jim morrison of The Doors or
the Hell's Angels. or, it's Goth music, afro-paganism of hiphop, neo-
teutonic heavy metal idiocy, or satanism. to be sure, satanism falls
under judeo-christian worldview because it posits that anything not of
god is of satan. in paganism, there is no pure good nor pure evil.
wor****p of nature combines both appreciation of nature's beauty and
fear of nature's power. fear of god is im****tant in judaism and
christianity, but god is always said to be angry for moral reasons.
in contrast, there is an amoral--as opposed to immoral--aspect in
paganism's respect for nature. paganism doesn't say what is not
clearly moral is immoral as is the case with judeo-christian
tradition. there is wide zone of mysterious amorality in paganism.
satanism accepts the judeo-christian idea that what is not moral or
godly must be immoral or satanic; the only difference is that
satanists side with the forces of darkness than with light.
sensual paganism is dionysian. warmongering paganism is ares-ian. to
be sure, there is no clear boundary between the two as out-of-control
hedonsitic anarchists can become destructively aggressive while brutal
head-ba****ng militant hordes can lose themselves in an orgy of
bloodletting(as in the Rape of Nanking where killing and raping became
a gladiatorial celebration.) but, there is more to paganism than
these two.
after all, greeks had many deities and several major gods. most of
these pagan gods were not into headba****ng or debauchery. they were
about maintaining order and social stability. barrie wilson--and many
others--have written that jewish religion offered people a moral
vision of a ordered universe while the pagan worldview was amoral,
anarchic, and chaotic. zeus, for instance, acted out of self-
interest. many other gods acted out of jealousy and pettiness. in
contrast, the jewish god was about good and evil, about setting forth
laws for people to follow. there is substantial truth to this, but
it's not so simple.
for starters, the jewish god also acted out of vanity, jealousy, fear,
and other human passions; or his punishment was so harsh that one
wonders about its moral value. after all, even Yahweh was ashamed of
having gone overboard with the Flood business. and, god's #1
insistence that his flock wor****p him and only him and bow down before
him is not a very noble trait. god comes across as a possessive jewish
mother, which should make us wonder if yahweh is really a he or she.
but, more im****tantly, there is a great sense of balance and order in
the hellenic mythic universe because the many gods balance eachother
out. take the trojan war where the major gods were, more or less,
divided half and half between sup****ting greeks and trojans. this is
also true in the stories of many heroes. some gods help them, some
oppose them. there is great social and psychological insight in all
of this. and, there is a sense of heroic freedom because even if some
gods oppose you, you can be sure that other gods sup****t you. so,
it's not total anarchy. there is an 'ecological' balance of forces in
the greek universe. barrie wilson says the jews introduced the idea
of freedom in the spiritual/moral universe, and there is much truth to
this in the sense that god gave people free will to choose either the
righteous path or the evil path. there is no fate in the jewish
spiritual/moral universe. if you obey god, you will be blessed. if you
disobey, you will be punished. in contrast, pagan greeks and romans
believed that the gods had their own agendas and set forth no clear
moral rules for humans; and, the fate/stars determined the lives of
people. still, greeks and romans were not passive people who just
awaited their fate in an unfree and pointless world. because of the
lack of clear moral laws set forth by god, pagans felt greater need to
practice freedom in exploring what is truth. greek philosophy and
roman literature was far more 'liberal' and opeminded in discussion of
the nature of the universe, society, virtue, and whatnot. also, even
if fate determined our lives, no one could know what the future had in
store for us. so, there was a heroic sense of setting off on a life
journey of discovery, adventure, and realization regardless of what
the fate may be. also, since there was no single god that had all the
power, individuals could manuever between gods like henry kissinger
played off chinese and russians. so, there was a different kind of
moral freedom in the pagan world rather than no moral freedom.
anyway, the kind of paganism that has long been forgotten is athena
paganism. athena was far from perfect. like zeus or jehovah(and even
jesus), she too could be vain, petty, ruthless, etc. but, what she
represented was something other than simple militarism/thuggery/might
or hedonism/sensualism/wantonism.
in a way, she represented the birth or at least the dawn of messianic
consciousness within paganism itself. she was born from zeus's head;
she was created by an idea as an ideal. there is much that is
idealized about apollo but he's a simple golden boy compared to
athena. apollo is a very male archetype whereas athena is neither
wholly female nor male. in this sense, she shares something with
jesus and ****va, whose ***uality is also ambiguous. by ***ual
ambiguity, i don't mean homo***uality or bi***uality but, rather, meta-
***uality.
****va is considered a male god but having female-ish aspects.
jesus was unmistakably male--once even a carpenter--but he forsook the
social role of most jewish males(patriarch, elder, warrior, etc), took
up 'unmanly' pacificism, and in many cases, was closer to women than
to men--except his disciples who followed him like his wives. also,
jesus had only one human parent according to christian myth. though
born only of female flesh, he was conceived as a starchild by god.
some folks have this image of god using artificial insemination to
implant his supersperm inside mary's womb, but that would be no
different than zeus impregnating human females thru seduction and/or
rape. as John suggested, jesus was born of an idea, or The Word. so,
god planted the word inside mary. so, jesus, rather than being the
product of god-sperm and human egg, was the product of the Holy Word
or Ideal placed within the womb. indeed, even mary's egg may not have
been involved in this process; perhaps ONLY her womb was borrowed.
this makes jesus a very different kind of man, prophet, rabbi,
messiah, savior, god-man, or whatever. even if he's a god, he was born
purely of an Idea.
in the greek tradition, perhaps only athena--at least among big gods--
share this quality.
most gods were created from male/female god-*****ing. aphrodite was
said to have risen out of lopped off balls but that's still very
***ual and biological, a creature appearing from an ***ual organ.
even apollo was born of ***, i believe between zeus and hera.
but, athena was born of zeus alone. actually, she wasn't born but
burst out of his head--rather than his dick or balls. and, she
appeared full-grown, fully armoured, fully aware, and fully ready to
carry out her duties--atop a chariot no less.
what does this signifiy? i have no idea as i'm not a classical
scholar, but we can guess. it's said that zeus had major migraines
and sought relief; being a god, he needed something more powerful than
bayer or tylenol and implored apollo to crack his head open. (is this
where 'splitting heachache' came from?) apollo did so and athena
burst out, the most perfect and magnificent of all gods and
goddesses. beautiful, powerful, wise, proud, courageous, dignified,
and so on. the most perfect image/idea of god ever created. though
zeus and apollo were said to be more powerful, athena was nobler. zeus
represented the simpler idea of power--elder male as patriarch, ruling
the world with force and might of his thunderbolts. apollo
represented brightness, clarity, order, and such--the concept of male
principle as just ruler and sage to some degree. but, what was
athena? there were goddesses who represented female stuff-- aphrodite
was the goddess of love, hera was the goddess of motherhood, and etc.
but, what athena represented in her time were as male than female. to
be sure, there was artemis the hunteress but she was very female in
her PMS sort of way, going nuts every month; greeks understood that
aspect of womanhood as we do today.
so, why did the greeks come up with athena?
like jesus, athena could only have been conceived as an idea. of
course, there was a real historical jesus whereas there was no person
named athena(though her conception was surely inspired by beauty of
real women, nobility of real warriors, wisdom of real philosophers,
talent of real artists--as she was a master of weaving), but it must
said that the mythical jesus we know is not what the historical jesus
was. the jesus of christianity is a purified and idealized version
of the historical jesus--just as attenborough's movie gandhi is not
the real gandhi and the mythical martin luther king the magic negro is
not the real martin luther king who loved to have orgies screaming
'i'm *****ing for god', beat up women, and later brag about it. the
mythic jesus was transformed into an idealized figure, rather like
athena. he was said to have been born of the holy spirit or the word
planted within a virgin womb and later was resurrected from death.
christians like to say jesus was the ONLY perfect man that ever lived.
(i find this rather amusing because even if we go by every mythic word
of the gospels, jesus is often irritating, even insufferable at
times.)
athena was never considered a perfect goddess. but, it could be argued
that she represents man's seeking of the perfect unity of all things.
remember when zeus had a massive headache. that's the sort of things
guys get after much partying, boozing, womanizing, and such. though
zeus could be noble at times, he sure loved having fun. but, he
reached a point where all this excessive behavior made him feel
remorse, shame, and such. he felt the tension between his base
passions and noble imagination. so, the pain building up inside his
head could be intepreted as conscience and moral doubt or the will to
conceptualize an idea of godliness beyond the all-too-human. he's
abused his power, he's exploited too many gals, he's been a poor
father to his god-kids, he's been a cheating husband, and he's been
nasty at times to human folks. notice that the jewish god becomes more
and more conscientious as time goes by too. initially, yahweh's
seething with anger and throwing fits. he punishes mercilessly and
sometimes almost arbitrarily. but, as time goes by, he becomes more
mindful of his power, his abuses, his temper tantrums. so, he feels
real bad about what he did with the flood. so, he tells abe not to
kill isaac after all. but, there was still much contradiction between
good god and crazy god in the Old Testament, and this culminated
finally with the coming of jesus who was said to set it all straight
as the perfect man and as the perfect manifestation of godly power.
it never went that far with athena, but we can understand her appeal
to many greeks. she was not only zeus's favorite but also the
favorite among many greeks. for one thing, most greeks preferred
athena while looking down on ares(at least according to edith
hamilton).
now, think of the elements associated with athena, how they sublimely
fuse together, and what they signify. she is both shadow and light,
more like the moment of daybreak and sunset than darkness--hades--or
brightness--apollo. she's mobile, adventurous, and well-traveled but
not as flashy, rootless, and gay like mercury. she's powerful but also
beautiful. she's wise but also ruthless when need be, and vice versa.
she can be vain and even evil but not without remorse. (after
puni****ng arachne, athena turns her into a spider to weave beautiful
webs for eternity; that may not sound like much of a consolation but
let's recall many mortals ended up much worse at the hands of gods.
also, arachne had been filled with hubris in the beginning of the
story. in the trojan war story, athena, though siding with greeks,
punishes a bunch of them with a ****pwreck for raping/slaughtering some
trojan women at the base of an athena statue. so, there is moral
consciousness in athena; she will not forgive everything her side does
anymore than the US military will forgive its militarymen of war
crimes. in a way, the remarkably moral aspect of the Iliad is the
extent to which it sympathizes with the trojans. some of the noblest
characters are trojans while some of the most heinous are greeks.
also, there is a sense that greeks have no monopoly on the spiritual
order of things; not all gods will side with greeks. in contrast, the
jewish bible hardly empathizes, let alone sympathize, with gentiles.
it's always us-vs-them. we jews are good, them goyim suck. also, god
is for the jews, favors the jews only, and will whup goyim to make the
world better for jews. greeks defeated the trojans but later came up
with plays like 'trojan women' that deeply empathized with the other
side. can one imagine ancient jews writing plays which saw reality
from the side of canaanites who were slaughtered by israelites? so,
while it can be said that jewish culture and religion was more
moralistic, it wasn't necessarily more moral. similarly, osama is
more moralistic than americans, but that doesn't mean he's more
moral.)
what is the significance of athena being female? traditionally, men
saw women in strictly womanly roles--as wife, daughter, mother, whore,
and such. female beauty--the kind that men obsessed about most--was
something to possess, control, get ***** over, buy or sell, or
whatever. hera is a mother. aphrodite is a babe. artemis too is within
the range of female stereotypes; she's nature child, a woman out of
control--as many women are. athena is different in that her essence
fuses (1) masculin warrior power--and ruthlessness-- (2) feminine
beauty--and guile-- and (3) transcendental wisdom.
in athena, there is an idea of feminity and beauty beyond the social,
material, or ***ual. it's an idealization of beauty beyond the needs
of the flesh and society. it's beauty almost as an abstract cosmic
principle. fused with warrior power, it's implied that there is power
beyond brute power--as represented by ares. brute power or bully power
was regarded by greeks as less worthy and even despicable, which is
why ares wasn't respected as much as other gods. a bully picks on the
weak and flees from the powerful; in the trojan war, ares like to
whup human weaklings, but when athena clobbered him he ran like to
zeus crying like a baby--he acted like the chuck connors character in
the movie "Big Country". in athena, there is an idea that power must
not only be for power but serve and defend an higher purpose. this is
the difference between afro-pagan rappism/teutonic heavymetalism/
punker soccer hooliganism AND fascism. they are all obsessed with
power but in the current youth culture, power is for power-sake. the
strongest punkass mofo prowling the streets commands the most respect
irrespective of how stupid, mindless, thuggish, and crazy he be.
fascism, on the other hand, was about using power--even ruthless
power--to uphold the highest ideals of civilization. but, fascism went
wrong when it resorted to aresian fascism more than athenaean
fascism. mussolini and hitler expressed contempt for weaker nations
and generally like to bully little guys--though hitler took a major
gamble--brave or just crazy?--with the soviet union. worse, both were
lacking in wisdom and caution and were filled with hubris which
brought mayhem and destruction all around. and, if athena had
sympathy for the trojan females brutalized by greek attackers, hitler
didn't care about the monstrous bloodbaths committed against civilians
by the german army.
the figure of jesus fused the idea of man and god together. in the
process, both concepts were further abstracted than ever before.
jesus's concept of son-of-man was ideally more perfect than any man.
and jesus's lofty concept of son-of-god implied that god was a lot
better and just than the contradictory master of the universe in the
Old Testament. Old Testament has many great men but their warts are as
big as their hearts. and though God is supposed to be all wise and
whatever, he often comes across as a nasty old man. thru jesus, both
the concept of man and god was changed. jesus perfected the idea of
sainthood. man can be near-perfect in THIS world by following jesus's
example. and, if the Son of God is about love, then God, his father,
must be pure love than the cranky and aloof Old Testament god.
thru mankind's history, the central problem/question for moralists has
been, 'why, if a just god rules the universe, is evil so widespread
and even dominant at times?' how come the good guys lose so often?
some cultures argued that the universe was not all that good; god or
gods were not moral but simply powerful and greedy, and that's why the
world is as it is. aztec religion thought so; so did the gods of
assyrians. so did the amoral god of genghis khan. so, did the corrupt
bureaucratic gods of chinese popular religion. and, there were many
greek and germanic gods who were not so good either. the egyptians had
a more just and transcendant spiritual culture, perhaps due to the
cyclical regularity of the nile river which illustrated that the
rulers of universe--manifest thru the god pharaoh--favored order and
stabilty over chaos and lunacy. for this reason, those people who say
mankind needs god or gods to have a moral order are only half correct.
it all depends on the kind of god or gods man creates for himself. if
mankind creates evil or amoral gods, the social moral order can be
even crazier and uglier than without god or gods. but, if the god or
gods are conceived in a, more or less, moral way--as with the jews--,
then spirituality can be a boon to moral order and stability. it's
like having a good parent can lead to good kids, but having a totally
rotten parent can be worse than growing up an orphan. thru religion,
man created for himself the cosmic parental figure. some cultures,
for various reasons, came up with a just father/mother figure while
other cultures created father/mother figures who were downright crazy--
especially the mesoamerican tribes.
the judeo-christian-islamic order devised a spiritual order in which
god was perfect, all-wise, all-knowing, and such. and, to some degree,
this faith--and laws ordained by god--made for great, stable,
longlasting, and moral civilizations. but, it also led to anger and
frustration. if god is all wise and all good, how come so much in the
world sucks? how come the bad guys often win? jews were especially
bothered by this question as they were always outnumbered and being
clobbered left and right by pagan goyim. but, christians had a major
problem too. supposedly, the perfect son-of-man/god jesus came to
earth and saved man's souls. he was the messiah. the world has been
saved. then, how come the world--and much of mankind(including
christians)--still sucks so bad? muslims too were baffled by this,
especially today. if muhammad was the final and the most perfect
prophet, how come much of his prophecies didn't come true? how come
dinky little israel is the richest, most powerful nation in the middle
east and has kicked arab/muslim ass time and again?
to be sure, it's less frustrating to be a muslim than a christian in
at one im****tant aspect. a perfect christian is not supposed to get
angry, is supposed to love all his neigbors, turn the other cheek, and
give away all his wealth, but we know almost no christian does that
****. in contrast, muhammad said it's okay to be rich as long as you
pay taxes, it's okay to kill your enemies, it's okay to use the sword
to conquer the world, etc. muslims are less vulnerable to the charge
of hypocrisy than christians are. the more christians are compelled
to act christian, more their power is slipping away in the world.
white western man, who used to be proud and tough, has been castrated
by christian morality into a wimpass *****boy like john edwards. for
most of western history, white man preached christianity but never
really practiced it except as an insurance policy. today, secular
western man preaches the gospel less but tries to be more christian in
action. the result? pussified faggoty white boys losing their empire,
lands, women, and wealth to others.
anyway, it has been the dream of moral spiritualists that the world be
like an hollywood movie, where the good guy always beats the bad guy.
but, the fact is the 'bad guy' with more material power usually won.
and so christians came up with the concept of resurrection. though
defeated in flesh, jesus triumphed in spirit. the romans whupped and
killed him real good, but jesus rose to heaven and returned to inspire
us to spread his gospel. the christian message was popular because it
was less self-condemnatory than the jewish idea.
in the jewish idea, god's justice is measured, to a large extent, by
worldly goods. so, those loved by god shall be showered with power,
wealth, milk, honey, and other goodies. if jews obey god and his laws,
jews shall be given a promised land, they shall be fruitful and
multiply, they shall make a ****load of money whereever they go.
but, jews oftentimes found themselves in bad straits. who was to
blame? the jews couldn't blame god as god was All-knowing and All-
good. so, jews argued that if bad **** happened to jew, it must be
because jews did bad ****. so, if jews were enslaved, they were being
punished by god for doing bad ****. so, if a plague hit the jews, god
was puni****ng them for acting wicked. so, a people's virtue was tied
to their material fortunes in THIS world. but, this got tiresome after
awhile. there were many good virtuous jews who got clobbered just the
same. if god loves, protects, and blesses the virtuous, then how come
good people get it in the neck too? so, we have the story of Job
which asked this question but couldn't really answer it. all that was
left was faith that god would be bestow justice IN-THE-END. and,
this is what prophets played on, ultimately culminating in jesus.
instead of the simple god-loves-and-takes-care-of-good-people, there
was the idea that IN THE END, the good will prevail over the bad. so,
jesus said all those good people who were unjustly killed today shall
be resurrected, blessed, saved, and rewarded in the future when god
dealt the final hand in the End-of-the-World poker game. so, don't
worry about losing your ****rts today. in the end, god will rake in the
entire pot and share it with those who had faith in his powers all
along.
of course, mankind will always wonder why good people get clobbered
while evil folks triumph in this world. why is it that power is as
often evil as good? shouldn't the world be like an hollywood movie
where good guys always win over the bad guy? whatever the nature of
reality, the longing to associate goodness with power is an ideal that
makes possible whatever moral order we have. when this ideal breaks
down--as in the black innercity where might-is-right prevails over
right-is-might--, there can be no moral order. might-is-right
(dis)order is based on whoever is the baddest mofo around; it is an
idi-amin-ian system. this might be called the cu***onga paganism.
there are no higher ideals or values. it's the dog-fight mentality
where the bigger-meaner dog is king. and, this mentality is rife
among blacks, which is why so many of them are hard to work with.
because there is only a weak link between power and morality in the
black community, blacks judge 'goodness' by muscle flexing and vocal
volume. how loud you can shout is more im****tant than what you
actually say. and, because of this might-is-right-ism, blacks have
little regard or respect for western culture which may guide them
towards social improvement. blacks just see white people and culture
as *****ass, wimpass, faggoty, etc. they think students who do their
homework are 'acting white' and acting all faggoty and ****.
in the natural order of things, nothing guarantees that good = might.
such is just an ideal held by man--and also to justify the actions or
advantages of current power(like the concept of divine right of kings
or mandate of heaven). accepting the amoral nature of the universe
doesn't necessarily mean that one is amoral; existentialists weren't
necessarily nihilists but sought to develop their own human moral
values within the cosmic chaos. just because the world is amoral
doesn't mean that one has to abandon oneself to the amorality. in the
movie Rashomon, one guy figures, 'since the world is amoral, i shall
be immoral'. but, another guy figures, 'precisely because the world is
amoral, i must try extrahard to be moral'. and, so he takes the
orphaned baby. the recovery of japan after WWII proves that a people
can be moral and improve their values even without religion. most
japanese after the defeat didn't become christians. many were lost in
a kind of modern existential limbo. many had lost faith in their
traditional god--the divine emperor. but, guys like kurosawa,
kobaya****, and ichikawa made some of the most morally serious movies
ever. to be sure, they were deeply impacted by western humanism which
was deeply shaped by christian values(as well as b pagan ideas), but
japanese proved that one can be morally serious without the actual
belief in the one-and-only god. meanwhile, people like pastor wright,
farrakhan, osama, and many others have amply proved that religion is
no guarantee to a sane moral order. bad people are bad, religious or
otherwise. same with good people.
anyway, it's because of our ideal wish to see good as being synonymous
with power that we've created and maintained the moral order. we use
the powers-that-be to enforce the good over the bad. this concept was
both weakened and strengthened by christianity. in the christian
order of things, the Good will ultimately prevail over the bad. the
world will be redeemed. but, this must be left to god. all man can do
is be helplessly good in this world and be pushed/slapped around by
bad people. vengeance is god's. so, there is a powerful sense that
the good will ultimately prevail in THIS world. BUT, until that day
comes, christians are not supposed to try to use power to do good but
just be good. let the evil ones grab power, use power, and such.
good people should only be faithful to god, holy schmoly, and such.
the greek religious order wasn't as moralistic as that of the jews.
but, this doesn't mean that greeks--and later the romans--were
necessarily less moral than jews. in some ways, this made the
helleniks more morally searching. take socrates when he argued with
one of the fellars. socrates would ask 'what is good?' and the other
guy would 'what the gods ordain'. but because greeks had many gods,
socrates asked, 'which gods are right and which ones are wrong?'
because there is no one single all-knowing god laying down one perfect
system of justice and law, greeks felt obliged--and free--to discuss
and argue those matters. so, they came up with the dialogue-ical or
dialectical system of thinking.
jews, being pushy and wily, loved to argue too, but their system of
thought was interpretative than dialectical. as jews believed that
there was only ONE god and that the mosaic laws were god's perfect
commandments, jews dared not argue against god, about god, and etc.
they were even afraid to mutter 'yahweh'. so, the rabbinical scholars
could only argue among themselves about the meaning of god and god's
truth, not challenge god or god's truth.
anyway, the point is the dialectical approach to morality isn't
necessarily inferior to the interpretative approach. the greeks
sought moral truth thru free debate whereas jews practiced moral truth
thru energetic, albeit reverent, interpretation.
here's a 'chicken or the egg' question. what came first? jewish
personality or jewish god? was the jewish god an all-knowing,
intolerant, and arrogant being as a projection of jewish personality,
or did the jewish personality become all-knowing, intolerant, and
arrogant(at least among radicals who are not rare in jewish community)
as a result of wor****pping an intolerant god?
(if jews were interpretative and greeks were dialectical, it might be
said the asians were obedientistic. the orient was obedient. though
there were various schools of thought in asia, almost all of them
stressed obedience and submission before the leader. applied to
politics, the central morality was blind obedience to one's master no
matter what. remember the scene in Shogun where toranaga tells his son
to kill his children, and the son obeys. or, consider the movie Hero
where the leading character chooses the highest virtue by finally
submitting to the power of the great emperor. people are ants in
this moral universe; their role is to obey and submit to the power and
glory of the emperor or ruler. even today, china is an emperor-
centered society. even ordinary chinese side with the government
against other chinese in the idea that an empire can be ruled only be
powerful emperors. when chinese government suppresses protesters,
many people in china side with the government because the emperor is
doing what is necessary for the stability of the entire nation. you
can't make dog soup without killing some dogs. the emphasis on loyalty
is so strong that reciprocity isn't im****tant in asian culture. it
doesn't matter if you're not rewarded for obeying and submitting. the
goodness is in submitting selflessly and without any reward in
mind(the reward comes later when you gain power and can lord over your
underlings just as mercilessly). this is why asians have no problem
killing dogs. the only reward is the Power of the State or Kingdom
which the people may share in terms of national pride. the ONLY
reward is in being part of something Bigger than yourself. because of
its emperor-centric order, chinese government--and people--see the
world only in terms of foreign governments/leader, not in terms of
foreign peoples. it's far simpler to deal emperor-to-emperor than
people to people. there is much emphasis on submission in the Old
Testament but also a great leeway for interpretation and discussion
among the rabbis. also, though jews called for obedience to god, there
was much less of that stuff in obedience to worldly leader. so, even
jewish kings never expected to have total power. there was separation
of power--and checks and balances--between the king and temple. also,
jews were simply of a more creative racial personality and debating/
arguing came more naturally to them than to the timid, slavish, tongue-
tied asiatic.)
if jesus represents power = good = love, athena represents power =
good = beauty. there is an aesthetic dimension in the athena cult.
in the jewish tradition, there isn't much indication that beauty =
good. not that the jews believed that ugly = good(though hollywood
would have us believe that sarah jessica parker = beautiful when she's
ugly as sin), but there was the idea that real goodness was spiritual
and could only be manifested in the real world thru moral values. in
the jewish worldview, adam and eve's disobedience led to the fall of
the world. jews looked upon the world morally. jews saw that nature
was nasty, with animals eating animals, beasts fighting beasts. it was
immoral or, at best, amoral. there wasn't much to appreciate in
nature, so man had to rely on god and His moral laws. also, the
jewish god was a jealous god and couldn't tolerate the jews
wor****pping or valuing stuff other than his highfaluting self. so,
idolotary--much of artistic expression in those days--was banned by
the jews. so, jews grew distrustful of beauty. perhaps, this had
something to do with the fact that most jews weren't exactly lookers.
but, more im****tantly, it was the only way the jews could maintain
their specialness and survivability. as jews wandered from place to
place, they had to forsake attachment to material stuff. their
culture and values had to be ****table, something they can carry easily
from place to place. it was easier to carry around a bunch of scrolls
than monumental sculpture and architecture. also, jews felt that if
they got to admire pagan stuff--archiecture, art, and ****kse--, jews
would abandon the moral gruel of judaism for the more exotic and
colorful tastes of paganism. so, moses had to whup the golden calfers
who were into revelry and stuff. just as god got pissed when adam
and eve turned to wor****p of nature over him, moses--as god's top dog--
got pissed when some jews chose the golden calf over the stone tablet.
perhaps, this is one of the reasons why the jewish law said a jew must
be born thru a jewish mother. without such law, most jewish men might
have gone and found a hot ****kse bimbo for mate. jewish women, in
most cases, had to stick to jewish men because women back then enjoyed
no ***ual or social freedom. so, it's not like a jewish woman could
have chosen goy man over jewish men, secure in her knowledge that if
her child was born of a jewess he was a jew. but, if jewish law had
said, 'any kid born of a jewish father is jewish', then many jewish
men--who had more social freedom than the women--would have gone out
and found themselves ****kse babes. one wonders if a jewish woman had
a hand in coming up with such law. maybe harold bloom is right about
a jewess being behind the first five books.
greeks were different than the jews and were beauty nuts. the idea of
beauty = good existed long before athena, of course. all cultures
often told stories of beautiful heroes/heroines facing evil/ugly
monsters and villains. and hollywood movies often have pretty good guy
vs ugly bad guy, a timeless narrative convention. but, this idea was
more powerful in athena because she reprsented an higher ideal. also,
she wasn't just good(wise) and beautiful but very powerful. only zeus
and apollo were more powerful than she. in some ways, she was even
more formidable than apollo for she wore the aegis and kept zeus's
thunderbolts.
the male consciousness thru the ages has had conflicting images of
womanhood. there was woman the destructive temptress or femme
fatale. there was the woman the skankass whore. there was woman the
milkfaced domestic partner. there was woman the nurturing mother.
there was woman the adorable daughter. generally, the woman was
idealized as an inferior. even the mother is inferior to her son
because the mother devotes her life to raise him into the leader of
the household. the powerful temptress didn't fit into this design but
she too was an inferior because, for all her beauty and charms, she
was a moral monster.
so, man was used to seeing woman as the inferior. either the social
inferior obedient to man or moral inferior who upset the social
order.
but, there was something in male consciousness that was gaga about
certain kind of feminine beauty. most women are plain-faced, and some
are pretty. but, some women are truly beyond words. their beauty is so
astoni****ng that guys wanna believe it's divine, godly, sublime, and
etc. such beauty is rare but exist in the world. such beauty is so
powerful and outstanding that what guys feel in its presence is more
wonder than lust. most babes make guys go pant pant and eager to roll
in the hay. but, certain beauty is so strange, striking, rare,
mysterious, and such--blend of both ethereal and eternal--that they
have an hypnotic and magical power over the fellars. they are
reluctant to imagine stripping off her clothes and banging her like a
skankass ho. they don't wanna reduce her to animalish stuff. they
wanna behold the beauty that seems beyond this world. they see her as
a burning than a wet bush.
it's possible that greeks were onto this idea more than other peoples.
some of their artworks don't just show pretty or attractive people but
almost impossibly, painfully, jaw-droppingly beautiful figures. maybe,
there was a gay element in this as well. hetero men see women and get
all ***** and neanderthal. gay men see women as beautiful objects
than objects of desire. if so, athena could partly be the product of
gay sensibility. but, only partly, because many hetero men also prize
feminine beauty that is beyond the mere boner-popping. this is the
difference between madonna and stevie nicks. madonna is a skankass ho
whereas stevie nicks truly possesses something goddessy. most guys
wouldn't feel bad if they imagined using madonna as an inflatable ***
doll, but most decent guys would feel ashamed to abuse stevie nicks'
image that way.
of course, we should never mistake reality for ideals, which is why
there can never be an athena in the real world. she is and must
remain an ideal. jesus was a real person who tried to live up to a
divine ideal and look what happened to him. first of all, he was
mentally kinda funny which explains his many delusions. and, his son-
of-man/son-of-god schtick where he tried to overcome flesh for
spirituality was not a pretty sight. jesus showed that trying to be
spiritually beautiful can lead to material or physical ugliness. by
the time the romans got thru with him, he was torn and battered and no
sight for a woman or child to see. if aesthetics is involved in
christianity, it seems to indicate that goodness = spiritual power =
physical ugliness. not only did jesus favor the poor, diseased, and
badly dressed, he ended up beaten to an ugly pulp. the example of
jesus takes jewish anti-idolatryism to extremes--though, ironically,
the image of beat-up jesus was idolatized endlessly. there was some of
this ugliness in the book of Job where job got bashed real bad too,
but god eventually restored all the material goodies to Job. in
contrast, jesus got whupped in this world and resurrected into the
next. there is something about THIS world being redeemed only in the
FUTURE in christianity but only through everyone rejecting this world
in the first place. only when all the good people reject this world
totally will jesus return to earth and kill off all the irredeemable
baddies and turn earth into a paradise that is, once again, something
akin to the garden of eden. it's as if to say the first garden of eden
failed because adam and eve were innocent and easily tempted by the
world around them. but, in the future, there may be good people
redeemed by the wisdom of jesus. they will not only be good but
spiritually wise--as opposed to naive adam and eve who were merely
good--and the new paradise shall never all like the garden of eden
did. this is very strange if you think about it. adam and even got
punished for wanting to know the Truth. so, they and their descendents
were made to suffer a lot. man was not supposed to know god's secret
truth. but, jesus is sent to earth to share the secret of god--love
and peace--with mankind so that a new garden will be restored. man is
punished for seeking The Knowledge in the garden but later is promised
with a restored garden if he accepts The Knowledge as revealed by
jesus? does god want us to know the Truth or not?
the trinity of beauty, power, and wisdom in athena is different than
the christian trinity. her warrior armour and lance suggest that
goodness can and must materially triumph in this world thru righteous
force. her magnificence suggests that civilization isn't just about
the morality but also about beauty.
in some ways, muhammad represents something similar, the unity of
sword and justice. but, being rooted in jewish and christian
tradition, islam too is anti-beauty. just as christian folks during
the middle ages wore heavy dark robes, hid their faces, flagellated
themselves, and suppressed all sensuality, many muslims do such ****
today. this is the very opposite of how greeks and romans practiced
and perfected their arts, athletics, and such.
there are im****tant moral lessons to be learned from the jewish/
christian tradition, and it certainly should not be rejected or
belittled as some secular and neo-pagan folks do. but, there is much
to learn from the pagan way too--and not just the partying or
headba****ng kind.
there is, of course, new age-ism but that is innocuous, banal, bland,
flaky fluffy duff. it's granola version of buddhism mixed with some
crystal gazing--and pot smoking.
athena consciousness is probably genetically programmed somewhere in
the western man's psyche. even if all memory of the past and
civlizations were wiped out and if western man had to start from
scratch as primitive folks, western man--thru wor****p of nature and
reflection on his socially created world--would probably come to
imagine something akin to athena consciousness after many millenia of
lesser and simpler forms of mythic/moral/aesthetic consciousness.
every race has its own inner music, own inner visionary form, own
rhythm, etc. hiphop is essentially afro-pagan despite the fact that
black music has been greatly influenced by western music. and, there
is something of the asiatic soul in japanese music and american indian
music. different races developed different cultures based on their
different inner archetypes. even when a certain race fell under the
influence of another race/culture, the newly adopted culture was
reshaped and reordered according to indigenous racial archetypes. so,
even though western man came under the influence of christianity--a
near eastern religion--, western christianity was markedly different
from those of other peoples. we can see this among blacks too. black
churches read the same bible and wor****p the same god but the racial
style of wor****p(and celebration) has reverted to the old african afro-
pagan ways. there is some truth to what pastor wright said about how
different races wor****p differently, and it's rooted in biology. he
stated it crudely, which makes it easy for 'sophisticated' or
politically correct people to just dismiss him. but, the evidence is
overwhelming.
it is for this reason that western culture cannot survive without the
western/white race. though culture isn't same as race, it arose from
and was shaped by race. non-blacks could not have come up with jazz
or hiphop on their own. it's doubful that asians could have come up
with beethoven or wagner. of course, we can all share and learn from
one another and that's all to the good. but, every race has its own
genius, uniqueness, and power. of course, much of western culture
didn't originate in the west. the west took ideas from the near east
and even from the east. but, they were reshaped by western/white
biological consciousness. western christianity is not middle eastern
christianity or african christianity. suppose all whites were
removed from europe and replaced by black africans who took up
european culture. would europe still be western? no, because western
culture could not have arisen in the first place had europe been ruled
by black africans who didn't have the intellectual, emotional, and
visionary qualities of europeans. and in time, blacks would REVERT to
their african biological ways--as they're doing so in the US. for a
long time, blacks tried to emulate white society but since the 60s,
they've naturally felt and accepted that a black man just feels and
thinks differently and must act differently.
same is true if we were to reverse the equation. suppose we remove all
blacks from nigeria and replace them with white russians. suppose
these russians were made to speak nigerian languages, wear nigerian
clothes, sing nigerian songs, etc. would it be the same as original
black nigeria existing? or would it merely be a sham white mockery of
nigeria? could white folks have come up with uniquely black aspects of
african culture? does the white man have the emotional or visionary
qualities in his psyche that could have produced wonderful african
music or sculpture? no, the white man had different visionary
archetypes--as we see on viking engravings. (and notice that much of
primitive chinese art is very similar in visionary quality to that of
mesoamerican folks who were also of asiatic origin.)
or, suppose we remove all japanese from japan and fill japan with
pakistanis. suppose pakis-in-japan are all made to learn japanese and
live culturally japanese lives. culturally, it would still be japan,
but is it really japan? is race really just a myth or social
construct? that is baloney.
all races have much in common, and there is much to be gained by
mankind learning and emulating other folks all over the world. also,
it's wishful thinking that there shall be no migration and immigration
of peoples. but, each land has its own people, own culture, own
heritage, and own racial roots. that's something all folks should be
proud of.
athena consciousness is probably the highest spiritual consciousness
reached by western man based on indigenous origins(despite what martin
bernal says). athena consciousness lost out to jesus consciousness
with the coming of christianity, but the elements are still there
within the corridors of western consciousness.
we must make a distinction between the adaptive/adoptive and the
inherent personality. adaptive and adoptive personality is the
cultural personality you adhere to either out of admiration or
pressure. for example, a white kid who's into black culture may want
to be black and try to think/feel/act black. he may sincerely try to
internalize blackness, and it may be effective to some degree, but the
personality will still not be natural or inborn. he or she's trying to
emulate or adopt something Other. in the US, we have many white,
hispanic, asian, and middle eastern kids trying to Adopt the black
personality because it's seen as cool, powerful, hip, etc. obama's
appeal is his halfway quality--or bridge--between whiteness and
blackness. it's whiteness adopting blackness, and blackness being
smoothed around the edges to make it palatable to whiteness. he's milk
chocolate. so, we have arab-american kids using rap music to rail
against jews, and we have zionist kids using rap to rail against
arabs. it's as though using the black style is more empowering,
badass, manly, and cool. but, it's not very convincing no matter how
sincere the effort because a gimpass jew is not a negro, and neither
is a stupid raghead. it's for this reason that most black kids are
not impressed by jewish rap, arab rap, hispanic rap, or jap rap. they
are seen as pale imitations by non-blacks without the emotional
thrust, physical prowess, or rhythm of the Real Niggaz.
if Adoptive personality is when a people try to emulate another people
out of admiration and envy, Adaptative personality is when people
change their external personality to fit in under duress or pressure.
so, even a white guy who's not into black culture may have to pretend
to 'act black' and be into black culture if he's living in a largely
black community. The Adaptive is sometimes conscious and sometimes
unconscious, or a bit of both. any overwhelming external environment
has an impact on its inhabitants. so, even a snobby english
aristocrat having to live among the lower cl***** will take on the
lower class social personality, if only to 'survive'. even whites who
hate blacks will become blackish if the former have to spend a great
deal of time with negroes. and a wild ass negro who's suddenly dropped
into an all white community will change his behavior. he knows he
can't do the jiveass **** and get away with it among many whites.
like obama said in his book, among white folks blacks must not make
'sudden moves'. that is the adaptive approach. similarly, for a white
guy to win street cred among the negroes, he's gotta act like michael
pfleger who screams and hollers about 'white folks'. of course, he
wasn't good at it as he had a thin white voice than a thick negro
voice. (ever notice that pfleger has the same kind of look/personality
as the crackpot leader of Scientology Church?)
because of the flexibility--either thru adaptism or adoptism or
combination thereof--of human behavior, there's this orthodox notion
that human personality is entirely cultural or environmental. but,
this isn't true. a determinism that says a person is locked within a
personality is, of course, also false. like intelligence, personality
is somewhere between genetics and environment. everyone is born with
a root/basic personality but it can be molded in many different ways.
a naturally shy person can be made--thru pressure and practice--to be
socially active; a naturally wild person can be made to be cautious
and inhibited. this is true of dogs as well. a shy dog can be made
to be more social, and a wild dog can be made to be more obedient.
but, there is a natural root personality that always remains. take
dan quayle, naturally a shy and timid person. because of his family
background, he was groomed for political life and he learned to make
speeches and stuff, but he never looked natural doing it. in his
debate with Al Gore, he went wild but the strain/effort really
showed. and, bush II tries to be like reagan but what came easily to
reagan doesn't come easily to bush II. in the movie Pumping Iron, we
see the natural difference between arnold schwarzenegger and mike katz
or lou ferrigno. schwarzenegger is naturally sociable and likable.
katz and ferrigno are naturally withdrawn and even a bit shy. due to
the nature of the s****t, katz and ferrigno learned how to mingle with
other people, but we know they can never attain the ease with which
schwarzenegger charms the crowd.
can we speak of RACIAL personalities? isn't every race made up of
different individuals with different personalities? yes, there is a
wide range of persoanlities within any race. not all negroes are wild
and not all japanese are timid. but, because members of any
particular race share much common dna--as a kind of biological
family--, every race is likely to have more of certain kinds of
personality traits than other races. there are all kinds of jews but
jews are more likely to have people with chutzpersonality of people
like chomsky, mailer, dershawitz, or mamet or the smooth weasely
personality of people like mayor bloomberg, woody allen, jerry
springer, steven spielberg, or some such. asiatics--asians, american
injuns, south american indians, etc--have a more rigid racial
personality. the stereotpye of jap peasants bowing down slavishly,
samurai lords moving stiffly, or american indians raising their palm
and gruffy muttering "how" is surely simplistic but there is a kernal
of truth in the stereotype. though divided in time and space, notice
the marked similarity between many american indian folks and asiatic
folks.
none of these have anything to do with good or evil. a person can be
wild and evil, wild and good, shy and good, or shy and evil.
traditionally, we tended to associate evil with wildness than with
shyness because (1) wild evil was more likely to show its face than
shy evil and (2) rulers wanted a docile population and so defined
goodness for the m***** as submissiveness.
but in democratic--and increasingly demagogic(thanks to negro
craziness, jewish nihilism, white trash boori****ness, and talk radio)--
America, there is this notion that wildness is closer to goodness than
shyness is. this may be why many white americans distrust hispanics
and asians more than they do blacks. because negroes always be
talking and shouting, they mus' be speakin da truth. but, since
asiatics and many hispanics are not really involved in politics, maybe
they are all like ming the merciless cooking up some crazy plot or be
*****ass.
anyway, inherent or inborn personality does matter, especially in
isolation. suppose we take 10,000 whites, 10,000 nigerians, and
10,000 japanese and put them on different islands. suppose they are
all in their primitive states and haven't developed any civilization
yet. in time, they will develop more sophisticated cultures, ideas,
arts, etc. of course, each racial group has a range of
personalities, but each group will have more of one kind of
personality traits than others. there will be far more uninhibited and
wild folks among nigerians. there will be far more stiff/rigid/timid
people among japanese. there will be far more in-between people among
the whites. the culture and institutions--and the level of
achievement--will be significantly determined by the dominant inherent
personality within each group. because of the wildassness among
negroes, it's doubtful that nigerians will come up with social system
beyond the tribal; and because of their emphasis on physicality and
jiveassness, it's doubtful that nigerians will come up with profound
philosophy or religions. but, due to their natural rhythm, they'll
come up with great jungle beat and their musicality will also shape
their visual arts which will abound in imagistic syncopation. this may
be why african sculptures be so wild and strangely creative. they be
musical.
the japanese may be able to form wider and more complex--and
hierarchical--social orders than the negroes in due time. and, there
may be some spiritual sages since some asiatics--like lao tzu--of
china had the calmness and concentration to think 'deep' thoughts.
but, due to the slavish nature of this race, it's hard to imagine them
coming up with concepts of individualism and democracy all on their
own.
it's possible that whites came up with both the ideals of order and
freedom because they were, for the most part, neither totally wild nor
totally slavish. of course, whites could be murderous barbarians and
sack cities and rape and pillage. but, when we compare white
thuggishness with black thuggishness, there's a difference in
degrees. vikings would enter towns and kill, rape, and pillage. but
they didn't, like liberians and other crazy africans, do funky dances
and shake their booties in the melee. the teutonic knights and nazis
were more sober as mass murderers as didn't act like zulu warriors or
liberian thugs who danced the hiphop disco to the mayhem. just notice
the difference in church choir or marching band styles between white
and black. though it can be argued that black marching bands took
the peformance further, that kind of peronality style couldn't have
created a civilization that would come to produce marching bands.
it's like a totally out-of-control psychopath--like tony montana of
scarface--may squeeze more bullets out of a gun than a sane person,
but such crazy people cannot create social order that can make
technology and industries possible to invent, design, and manufacture
such guns. it's funny how our civilization has produced many great
things--musical instruments, guns for defense, cars, etc--but we
celebrate the most maniacal abusers of such things whose actions are
corroding away civilizational structures. in nazism, we had ares-
paganism than athena paganism. today, america has afro-paganism than
athena-paganism. christian moralism cannot stand up to this. in the
black community, even the church has come under the domination of the
afro-pagan ugabuga style. black churches spew tribal hate,
aggression, wildness, and jiveassness than spiritual calm, love,
forgiveness, introspection, and self-criticism. in many black
churches, the idiots in the pews bark and howl like rabid dogs at the
rantings of hatefilled preachers who make hitler sound like mister
rogers.
many whites churches aren't much better, closer to rock concerts than
spiritual services.
as for western dionysian paganism--which isn't as mindless and
murderous as afro-paganism--, it certainly has its time and place in
our lives. why shouldn't fun, pleasure, and letting loose once awhile
be a part of what we are? but, that cannot be the core of
civilizational thought and values. we cannot have an healthy
civilization for long when kids grow up regarding the likes of jeff
spicoli(fast times at ridgmont high), adam sandler, or kurt kobain as
heroes. even primitive societies have little use for such lowlifes.
indeed, it is our economic success and abundance that have allowed
many of us to indulge in leisure, lunacy, and leniency. unfortunately,
many people have come to see leisure as the essence than as the fruit
of our work driven civilization. many western youngsters--even among
the poor--have come to take the 'good life' for granted. they see
leisure as more appealing than work--for obvioius reasons--and think
that people enjoying leisure should be rewarded more than those who
work. so, businessmen are s*** while artists and intellectuals--who
indulge in 'following their bliss'--should just be given more power
and authority. most intellectuals in universities don't wanna 'dirty
their hands' in business or in economic affairs. they just wanna do
'fun' stuff like reading books and dreaming up big ideas. but, they
don't have any money to fund these Grand Schemes, and so they rely on
political demagoguery to get their kind elected who will then raise
taxes on the productive people in society to fund these Grand Schemes.
some dork wrote a book called 'what's the matter with kansas?' but the
book we really need is 'what's wrong with intellectuals?' if they
want to help the people, why not create jobs and wealth for the
m*****? why just read and write books and come up with plans where
other people must be forced to take care of other people? how easy.
what western folks need is athena consciousness. it represents the
dawning of a new kind of western consciousness that was never
fulfilled as greeks destroyed themselves thru internecine warfare,
lost out to the romans, and then roman civilizaton came under heavy,
stuffy influence of judeo-christian moralism. it's still unfinished
business, a work in progress, which makes it still so tantalizing and
exciting.
there's a variation of athena myth that has her encountering jesus in
one of the obscure ancient texts still being debated within a society
of classical scholars. in the prologue, athena is told of a prophecy
where her family of gods will be exiled or destroyed by the coming of
a new god. she asks who this new god is. she is told it is some
jewish guy in the near east. she finds this hard to believe. athena
had never much liked the romans. she appreciated the romans' wor****p
of her as 'minerva' but felt the romans watered own, distorted,
gargantuanized, and vulgarized too many things. still, the idea of
some raggedy jew bringing down the mighty roman pagan order sounded
ludicrous to athena. but, she was interested and went to the near east
to meet this fellow.
jesus challenges her by saying the pagan gods don't care for the
people but only use them as pawns for their own vanity. and, jesus
tells her that she's not a goddess but just another manifestation of
satan, just another dirty trick by devil himself.
athena is offended and is happy to see jesus killed. but, his courage
and nobility in suffering and death leave an impression on her. and,
she's affected by the resurrection and the loyalty of his followers.
is what jesus said true? here was a god who chose to live as man,
suffer as man, share the agony of man, to redeem mankind. in
contrast, her kind had often manipulated man, exploited man, tricked
man. even in their sympathy with man, her kind has never dared to
share the pain, agony, and fear. so, like in Superman II, athena
chooses to give up her godly powers against zeus's wishes. she is
banished from olympus and goes to live among mankind. she's neither
safe among greeks, romans, jews, nor other tribes. she feels all the
human emotions of fear, weakness, pain, terror, etc. a war ensues
and there's destruction everywhere. all she can do is seek shelter.
nearby, a couple of huddling children are about to be crushed by a
toppling wall. she races to their side and tries to hold up the wall.
she begs her father zeus--and to jesus--to give her strength to hold
up the wall. she feels her power returning but it's not enough. she's
crushed along with the children. and that's the end of athena.
this story was discovered by 19th german scholars, and one of them
wrote an extension. this story is still debated by scholars. the
story goes... after nearly 2000 yrs--in the late 19th century--,
athena heard a voice calling out to her. she had been trapped in the
rubble all these yrs. the bones of two kids had become fossilized
under the rubble. athena's flesh has faded away but her spiritual
essence remains in mummified state. the voice calling out to her is
that of her father zeus. he tells her the gods had been banished long
ago from the world of men. they now reside in the constellations
above--which too will fade away from the eyes of man with great many
lights flooding the cities of man. (prometheus's fire burned the
earth and modern lights shall extinguish the stars.) zeus tells
athena to join him and her brothers/sisters. they no longer have
their old powers but have a place amongst the stars and still
indirectly control the lives of western man thru dreams and the arts.
athena weeps and confesses that she has no right to return to her
family; she has lost confidence in what she had been and faith in all
values. she shall stay forever in her frozen state. but, zeus gently
says she's still loved and there is a way. a lesser deity athena has
banished long ago shall dance for her and her steps will recreate the
lost olympus for a night. and athena's glory shall be restored, and a
chariot will take her to the stars. but, all of this must be done
before daybreak. otherwise, she will remain on earth forever. athena
says she's proven her uselessness to men and unworthiness to be among
gods, as she disobeyed zeus long ago. zeus says it's all forgotten
and forgiven, he misses her, she's still his favorite, and her place
is with the gods in the stars. also, she was never meant to be among
men but to guide man. as such, she must be their superior.
athena then hears a tune and the sound of dancing feet. the ruined
wall above her rises and she's free once again. she gazes upon the
bones of the children and then walks to the shoreline and gazes at the
sky filled with stars and streaked with icy clouds. the music
trans****ts her to a place where the deity dances to recreate the lost
olympus which grows ever more magnificent with every step. she sees
walls around her rising and glory restored. as she walks into one
temple, her tattered and worn clothes are replaced with the ****mmering
gown of the goddess, and her skin ****nes again like ivory. her pride
and confidence are restored. before her, there is the aegis which she
dons over her shoulder. then she picks up a lance and holds it up in
the air. she places the spear end to the ground and rests her head on
the lance near the radiant tip.
as she leaves the temple, she sees horses appear. among them is her
favorite whose name i forget. from above the chariot materializes and
the horses are magically hooked up to the chariot. athena mounts the
chariot and it starts racing to the edge of the cliff. over the edge,
the chariot races toward the stars. in the distant horizon, the sun
begins to break. did athena make it to the stars or didn't she? did
her chariot fall back to ground or vanish into the air? no one knows
except the gods. it's a matter still debated by scholars.
anyway, it'd be nice for western man to bring back the celebration of
athena day or athena's birthday. i hear there was a recent book on
this subject. what better way to restore to western culture a sense of
pride, glory, and confidence so lost in these anti-western 'multi-
cultural' times?
finally, some have argued that athena is a patriarchal figure because
she reprsents the anxiety of father losing his daughter--or at least a
pretty one. a father is probably to happy to have the ugly ones be
married off and leave home. but, some girls are extra-special--
beautiful, intelligent, and wise. there is a strong father/daughter
bond in such cases. this bond can never be ***ual for obvious
reasons. so, it's a kind of spiritual bond. the father is amazed that
he played a role in creating this wonderful child. and the girl is
happy to be close to the father she respects and loves as the perfect
man. so, the prospect of 'losing' this child to some guy is galling
to the patriarchal consciousness. the father wants the daughter to be
his side, to be loyal to him and him only. he almost wants her to be
like a son with the key to the castle.
but, this feeling can be mutual. the daughter may prefer the special
position she enjoys in her father's company and realm than be
relegated to junior partner and ***ual mate to another man. there was
some of this consciousness also in King Lear and Babette's Feast. for
regan, marriage is almost like a punishment. and, it's a big thing in
Wagner's Opera where wotan hates to punish his daughter brunnhilda for
her disobedience. anyway, he punishes her--and himself too, in a way--
by giving her to a mortal man(though he sweetened the humiliation by
making sure it was a brave fearless lass who would be stupid enough to
ride his horse thru fires).
anyway, there is a subconscious wish for a father to turn his
specially beautiful/intelligent daughter into an ironclad virgin
goddessy type too great for any mortal man jerk.
and, there is an anxiety of the daughter who enjoyed special freedom,
privilege, favoritism, and love from her father to give up all of that
and become a wife/mother. suppose zeus had given athena's hand to
some male god. athena would have freaked. so, athena is a strange
figure. she's both a symbol of patriarchal power and female
independence. she is subordinate to her father but to no other male
figure. she represents the essential tension in western thought
between preservation of order and will to freedom.
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