Part III: truth and consequences
A new/old World Order: 1, 2 , 3, 3a, 3b, 3c, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8, 8a, 8aFR, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14
After Part II centred on religious texts, this ends this 3-part mini-series.
The parent series continues that men & women shall never be the same. And the next episode & its last here shows how trans abuse in sports really messes things.
A chat within our Quaker Coffee Group at All Saints Garden (above) brought out something interesting: a former Kings College, London, student recalled how one of the students’ residences voted overwhelmingly against co-ed, which was becoming the vogue in the 1970s. Before you get started this wasn’t misogyny, it was simple common sense from the college’s perspective: women must be treated with respect, and unfortunately that meant protecting them against perps — the frequency of female murders in London today underscore that — which would result in first locking gates at night and second locking them early — ideally before dark that’s problematic wintertime the bulk of term time— which meant hiring more porters and night security, and generally instilling a police-like atmosphere. Remember bobbies and Metro police didn’t wear firearms, because violence begets violence, and bobbies worked on community cooperation not confrontation… And free movement in college housing of typically unruly students minimises disruption, as gates and fences just move rowdiness into the neighborhood!
Did you know that Cambridge railway station was put far away from colleges, in order to minimise student travel to London… and keep rowdiness local? Another reason was the industrial estates developed adjacent to colleges, in a centuries-long tradition of academia-industry cooperation — gunpowder and firearms in the Middle Ages, small engine then electronics thru Industrial Revolution, computers and IT last century and biomedicine and genomic research today — shuttle yards nex to the station attest to its former function, as industrial estates are slowly converted to residences as manufacturing has moved abroad.
This goes to say that past institutions aren’t necessarily misogynist, they’re just past of a natural order that’s been the topic in this series. It doesn’t mean, however, that women haven’t been held back by men— viz. women’s votes only awarded last century, or British royal succession only just stopped female siblings from being passed over by male siblings (in the news of late with Elizabeth II passing, RIP) — but rectifying egregious cases doesn’t give us license to ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’.
Another example: while Communist downfall has rightly been celebrated, no-one remembers workers’ rights — men, women and children — that were upheld and are nowhere to be seen today in neo-con regimes, never mind autocracies: childcare, women’s careers around family, large parks and boulevards allowing outdoors activity and safe passage, just to name a few. So while we dance on those regimes’ graves, let’s watch out how deep below we dance ourselves!
So let’s recap a few items and their interrelationship, which came into clarity and focus in communicating with others:
- authority is but the other face of service, and service must be put first
privilege come with duty, but position of authority make it easy to abuse - the natural downflow of decision-making isn’t the problem (start here):
God → Man → Woman → Child → Animal → Plant → Earth - the problem is lack of concomitant upflow toward proper husbandry:
Earth → Plant → Animal → Child → Woman → Man → God - that will keep checks and balances in place that avoid millennial abuses
those came from abuses in processes as in 1st point, not from structures per se - society started in small groups where that wholistic balance existed
small Pacific Island nations and Amazon Jungle tribes are examples - catastrophes upset that balance and moved flat groups into hierarchies
flood survivors occupied high ground, their stored grain needed protection - owning class elevated few working class to new middle class to manage
educated out of their class, they knew they can be returned for any dissent - organising resulted in efficiencies that lead to surplus and commerce
middle class freed from land & privilege became agents of science & commerce - religions initiated to address the supernatural faded with such advances
priests’ original cosmology to predict seasons was overtaken by formal science - organised societies fragmented tasks and alienated people from roles
science, technology and commerce enabled that thru education and language - oppression has no direction or meaning, it emerges via such dynamics
self-organised, led by aggressive not benign forces, it favors destroy over build - nationalism & religion that restored identities were (ab)used politically
ending colonial and soviet entities slowly led to the recovery of local identity - moving everyone away from nature to cities decoupled Man from Earth
the spread of industrialisation led to the decline of agricultural infrastrucure - thus came nature’s destruction, first pollution now climate breakdown
not confined to Industrial Revolution, it happened among many civilisations - so gradual over millennia that all the science won’t shake us into action
example of the frog immersed in water heated to boiling vs. being dropped in
So the issue is not whether man and woman are or should be equal: the challenges lie instead in many interlocking processes that lead to the current social inequities and climate emergency. And man vs. woman is part of the solution, but by keeping in perspective the roles each excel in, and fixing the governance of such roles: levelling-up basically proposes we throw out governance to equalise genders! That is mad, as it throws out all the intelligence we garnered over millennia to manage the complexities of governing processes interlocking all of societies’ parts.
Let me share a recent experience in a support group I’ll keep anonymous. The man-woman balance was 50–50, which surprised many in a women-led group — the fact its supreme leader was a man, however, reflects social inequity — but rather than celebrate that achievement beyond perfunctory comments, one woman in fact exclaimed: “WTF are men doing here anyway?”… nervous giggles and no-one called her out, showing that if women dominate men are given short shrift: levelling-up not only doesn’t work, it also tips right away to the other side.
The wholistic view is the only way out of gender and climate issues, but by being smart not retrograde about it… and this is nothing new, so it’s absolutely crucial it be adressed while we’re still around!
Thanks to a community class in Re-evaluation Counseling near Cambridge UK, to address issues around the climate emergency, for setting this in motion. Thanks also to a South Korean Quaker friend’s far-ranging discussions in cafés.
