“Dominator”
vs. “Partnership” Cultures: A Profound Re-Telling of Human History
Jan 14, 2015 20 comments
“In
sum, the struggle for our future is . . . the struggle between those who
cling to patterns of domination and those working for a more equitable
partnership world.”
—
Riane Eisler
Recently, I’ve written a couple of essays
about the present global situation. One of those essays focused
on the sociocultural dysfunctions of America and the other elaborated how
the 500-year history of Western colonialism and imperialism that birthed our
modern world has rendered the “problems of America” inextricable from the
problems of the human race.
I consider myself a
collector of lenses—mental models I can employ at any time to make sense of the
world and my place in it. Yesterday I happened to remember one such lens—a
truly remarkable one, I think—that I overlooked in the
aforementioned essays. Nonetheless, this lens seems to me a kind of
keystone that further contextualizes and reinforces my arguments in those
essays and has tremendous implications for the predicament we face in the
present historical moment.
A Story of “Dominator” and “Partnership”
Cultures
Riane Eisler,
a world-renowned Austrian-born American systems scientist, writer, and social
activist, has proposed that we ought to understand human cultures and societies
in terms of two fundamental categories: “dominator” and “partnership.” In her
landmark work, The Chalice
and the Blade: Our History, our Future, she suggests that our
conventional social categories—religious vs. secular, right vs. left,
capitalist vs. communist, Eastern vs. Western, and industrial vs. pre- or
post-industrial, etc.—are insufficient to describe the whole of a society’s
values, beliefs, and institutions.
Eisler argues that these categories overlook
the fact that, historically, many societies in all of the aforementioned categories have
been unequal
and
violent, whereas some societies—the majority of which existed
millennia ago—have been much more equalitarian and peaceful. Eisler points out that we lack a frame of
analysis that encompasses the differences between these
latter societies/cultures and the vast majority of societies/cultures that
are prevalent today. Thus Eisler turns
to the historical and archaeological record to argue that throughout human
history, sociocultural systems have existed on a continuum between the extremes
of “dominator” and “partnership” systems. A couple of passages from her website seem
a worthy starting point for understanding the definitions and profound
implications of these categories:
In
the domination system, somebody has to be on top and somebody has to be on the
bottom. People learn, starting in early childhood, to obey orders without
question. They learn to carry a harsh voice in their heads telling them they’re
no good, they don’t deserve love, they need to be punished. Families and societies are based on control
that is explicitly or implicitly backed up by guilt, fear, and force. The world
is divided into in-groups and out-groups, with those who are different seen as
enemies to be conquered or destroyed.
In contrast, the partnership system supports
mutually respectful and caring relations. Because there is no need to maintain
rigid rankings of control, there is also no built-in need for abuse and
violence. Partnership relations free our innate capacity to feel joy, to play.
They enable us to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This is true for individuals, families, and
whole societies. Conflict is an
opportunity to learn and to be creative, and power is exercised in ways that empower
rather than disempower others.
I’m guessing that you, like me, see your own
society reflected in the description of the dominator system. Most societies existing today are
paternalistic, disciplinarian, materialistic, and hierarchy-based. Judgment from
peers, guilt over one’s actions, the threat of force, and fear of
alienation or punishment are among the primary dictators of most people’s
behavior. Groups of people are labeled, marginalized, and discriminated against
based on surface-level characteristics.
Many people tend to believe that these socioultural
norms are simply an expression of “human nature” or just “how life is.” Eisler is offering an astonishing and
radically different narrative. She’s turned to history, archaeology,
anthropology, mythology, and other fields to conduct cross-cultural
comparisons and argues convincingly that for the majority of the last ~37,000
years, humans lived primarily in partnership
societies, in a global partnership culture—a
state of affairs nearly unimaginable today.
For
approximately 30,000 years, Eisler argues, partnership was the norm. She points to numerous societies across continents and
throughout (pre-)history that appear to have been devoid of inequality in
social relations and without war for many centuries at a time. These societies
seem to have cherished the force that gives,
rather than takes, life and worshipped the “Great Goddess,” a feminine deity
representing fertility, nourishment, and the miracle of creation.
In part because of this recognition of the
life-giving feminine, it seems that neither men nor women were considered
superior or inferior to one another in these societies. Eisler holds that this
most fundamental relationship—between man and woman—formed the basis for all
other relationships and institutions in these societies, and thus that people
were “linked” by their differences rather than considered “above” or “below”
one another. Eisler argues that these various societies were
representative of a many-millennia-spanning global trend toward partnership
culture.
Rise
of the Dominator
Around 5000 BC, though, a new model of
social organization began to, well, dominate. In an exceptional article on Vice (highly
recommended for further study of this topic) regarding Eisler’s work, Tao Lin
explains Eisler’s findings:
“It wasn’t until ~5000 BC that the dominator
model appeared in the form of “nomadic bands” from peripheral areas that
attacked the preexisting civilizations, which were all partnership societies.
Defense mechanisms like trenches and ramparts—previously nonexistent—gradually
appeared.
‘These repeated incursions and ensuing
culture shocks and population shifts were concentrated in three major thrusts,’
wrote Eisler, calling these ‘Wave No. 1’ (4300-4200 BC), ‘Wave No. 2’
(3400-3200 BC), and ‘Wave No. 3’ (3000-2900 BC). ‘At the core of the invaders’
system was the placing of higher value on the power that takes, rather than
gives, life,’ observed Eisler.
As the dominators conquered, they also began
to suppress the old way of living, which meant suppressing worship of the
Goddess, which meant the marginalization of women in general. The Goddess,
and women, Eisler claimed, ‘were reduced to male consorts or concubines.
Gradually male dominance, warfare, and the enslavement of women and of gentler,
more ‘effeminate’ men became the norm.'”
Eisler argues that cultures based on
domination arose somewhat spontaneously, probably during a period of relative
chaos. This period may have been caused by rising populations, scarcity of
resources, natural disaster, or a number of other possibilities.
Partnership societies, unprepared in terms
of both attitude and technology, were naturally conquered, destroyed, and
suppressed by dominator peoples/societies.
The cause of the rise of the dominator
system is less important than its implications for the world that would develop
over the next 7,000 years (and still exists today)—a world in which the
partnership model has been all but forgotten, in which war has become the norm,
in which women, poor people, various races/ethnicities, and numerous other
groups have been systematically subjugated and oppressed, in which the very
possibilities of human life have been greatly restricted by the idea that
everyone must “know his place” and submit to authority, or else.
Though the historical dominators have tended
to be male (and more recently, on the global stage, white), Eisler holds that
her theory of dominator/partnership cultures is not ideology-, gender-, or
race-specific. In essence, any human
has the propensity to dominate other humans under certain conditions. For Terence
McKenna, an American philosopher who praised Eisler’s work, this was an
important point:
“I don’t see it as a male disease. I think everybody in this room has a far
stronger ego than they need. The great thing that Riane Eisler, in her book The Chalice and the Blade,
did for this discussion was to de-genderize the terminology. Instead of talking about patriarchy and all
this, what we should be talking about is dominator versus partnership society.”
McKenna,
who famously coined the meme, “Culture
is not your friend.,” also said this of Eisler’s work:
“Her position is that it is the tension
between these two forms of social organization and the over-expression of the
dominator model that is responsible for our alienation [from nature, from
ourselves, and from each other]. I am in complete agreement with Eisler’s view.”
Re-Imagining
Indeed, Eisler argues that the dominator model of social organization
permeates all aspects of life and experience, causing inconceivable pain,
repression, and alienation that we take to be normal aspects of the human
experience. She asserts that the only
way to remedy this situation is to devise social structures and belief systems
based on partnership instead of domination:
“We know the pain, fear, and tension of
relations based on coercion and accommodation, of jockeying for control, of trying
to manipulate and cajole when we are unable to express our real feelings and
needs, of the tug of war for that illusory moment of power rather than
powerlessness, of our unfulfilled yearning for caring and mutuality, of all the
misery, suffering, and lost lives and potentials that come from these kinds of
relations.
Most of us have also, at least
intermittently, experienced another way of being, one where we feel safe and
seen for who we truly are, where our essential humanity and that of others
shines through, perhaps only for a little while, lifting our hearts and
spirits, enfolding us in a sense that the world can after all be right, that we
are valued and valuable.
Our
human yearning for caring connections, for peace rather than war, for equality
rather than inequality, for freedom rather than oppression, can be seen as part
of our genetic equipment. The degree to
which this yearning can be realized is not a matter of changing our genes, but
of building partnership social structures and beliefs.”
For me, Eisler’s re-telling of history is
marvelous and also deeply troubling. Ponder the implications of this work, and
you’ll realize that the war, genocide, slavery, oppression, discrimination, and
unbounded accumulation of material wealth that have characterized much of
recorded history can be traced to this period ~7,000 years ago when the human
race began to transition from partnership models of social organization to
dominator models. That’s not to say that humans have ever been or could ever
be totally non-violent—just
that we could arguably be significantly
more
peaceful, free, and equal than we presently are.
Look around, and in every area of our
societies—the family unit, the government, the military, the school system,
religious institutions, business organizations—you will find
hierarchy-based, authoritarian systems in which some people are considered to
be “above” other people. Observe how
people tend to interact with or talk about other people, and you will find
gossip, judgment, belittling, and manipulation—constant leveraging for a
fleeting sense of power and control. Think for a moment about how openly loving,
caring for, and being kind to other people is often considered a sign of being
“soft” or “weak,” whereas showing little affection, acting “macho,” and never
needing another’s help or tenderness is glorified as the image of strength and
heroism.
We are living on a planet in which the
dominator model of social organization has become ubiquitous throughout
most of the human race, shaping our fundamental assumptions about how to design
institutions, how to act, and how to treat one another. This is a
frightening and tragic situation that has driven our species to the brink of
extinction and planetary destruction.
Thankfully, we seem to have managed at least
temporarily to quell our urges to drop city-melting warheads on each
other, and large-scale war may actually be disappearing. However, environmental catastrophes yet loom
on the horizon, and, even if the disasters can be averted, who wants to live in
a world where inequality, manipulation, conflict, exploitation, alienation, and
violence are so commonplace that we often hardly notice them? Not this human.
Hope -- We might be in luck, though. Eisler argues that the last three hundred
years or so have seen a strong trend toward a re-discovery of partnership
values, and that there may be hope for a kind of renaissance:
“The last three hundred years have seen a
strong movement toward partnership. One
tradition of domination after another has been challenged – from the rule of
despotic kings and male dominance to economic oppression and child abuse.
But this forward movement has been fiercely
resisted, and punctuated by periodic regressions. That is the bad news.
The good news is that we do not have to
start from square one. Though we still have a long way to go, in bits and
pieces the shift from domination to partnership is underway.
There is also strong evidence from
archeology and the study of myth that the original direction in the mainstream
of our cultural evolution was in a partnership direction. So much that today
may seem new and even radical, such as gender equality and a more peaceful way
of life, has ancient roots going back thousands of years, before the cultural
shift toward domination about 5000 years ago.
During much of recorded history, rankings of
domination – man over man, man over woman, race over race, nation over nation,
and humans over nature – have been the norm. But in our time of nuclear and
biological weapons and high technology in service of the once hallowed
‘conquest of nature,’ high technology guided by an ethos of domination could
take us to an evolutionary dead end.
In sum, the struggle for our future is not
between East and West, North and South, religion or secularism, capitalism or
socialism, but within all these. It is
the struggle between those who cling to patterns of domination and those
working for a more equitable partnership world.
Each one of us can contribute to the
partnership movement. We can change by
example, education, and advocacy. We can
shift our relations from domination to partnership – starting with our
day-to-day relations all the way to how we relate to our mother earth.”
If you pause and reflect, you’ll note that
in a little over 150 years, the United States has seen the end of slavery, the
attainment of suffrage for all citizens, legislated equality for all genders
and races/ethnicities, major strides toward legislated equality for all sexual
orientations, paradigm-shattering environmental initiatives, and major steps
toward the legalization of cannabis and a saner drug policy generally. The Occupy Movements have challenged systemic
economic and social inequality worldwide, and in many places ideas such as
universal health care, free higher education, and a Standard Basic Income have
been implemented or are taking hold. I take these facts to be indications that
a renaissance of partnership values is presently occurring on this planet—that
the human race has begun collectively to realize that it now faces an
ultimatum: cooperate with each other and the planet, or self-destruct.
Pushing this movement forward begins
with each of us—with the day-to-day, unglamorous decisions we can make to treat
people as equals, to show respect and kindness, to try to imagine the lives of
others, and to openly express and demonstrate love and affection. We can have
candid, gentle conversations with others about these ideas. We can support humanitarian projects and
political reforms that aim for a more equal, compassionate, open, sustainable
society. We can create videos, blogs,
music, social media content, and other art or projects that challenge the
status quo and contain messages of love and togetherness. The Internet can help us and might just be the
supreme tool for greatly accelerating this transition/renaissance. In
these ways, we can continue to re-orient the collective human enterprise away
from division, inequality, alienation, and domination toward unity, equality,
openness, partnership, and love.
If this process is indeed occurring and will
continue to occur, it will be a slow one. We shouldn’t conceive of it as something that
will occur in our lifetime, but rather, as a revival that began centuries ago
and will continue indefinitely into the future. We must think in terms of what one special
professor I was privileged to work with calls the “long now”—a term referring
to the long-term resonances, amplifications, and ripple effects that can result
from the smaller-scale work we are able to do in this moment.
Rather than feeling discouraged by the
timescale of this reclamation of partnership values, we ought to feel
privileged to be living in the midst of such revolutionary changes, to be
working to re-direct several thousand years of cultural momentum, to be
contributing to monumental and exciting changes in the human enterprise. Signs abound that this renaissance in human
thinking is happening and accelerating, and I for one feel that
contributing to its potency and reach is about the most important thing any of
us can do.
Note: This summary of
Eisler’s work is necessarily reductive and incomplete. I tried to touch on the main premises of her
argument, but I’ve hardly scratched the surface of her work. If this topic is of interest to you, I highly
recommend further study. Start here:
