Why Do We Need a Critical Theory of Patriarchy?

1 BOOMERANG - Journal for the Critique of Patriarchy -Updated version 5-22-15- Editorial Why do we need a critical theory of patriarchy? We have been discussing launching a journal for some time now, and it’s finally here: The Journal for the Critique of Patriarchy. It has been a long time coming, because: It is increasingly difficult to find any serious discussion about questions we consider relevant, namely discussions about world developments, crises, and the imminent threat of war that have eclipsed all other worldly events. There is a form of ubiquitous destructiveness, the gravity of which is becoming increasingly apparent in a more widespread way, but which is not yet clearly understood. It has taken on a noticeably planetary dimension. It touches on everything, including the natural world, cultural diversity, living conditions, the workplace, income, democratic and human rights, health issues, and future possibilities. There is no adequate discussion of this destructiveness at the political level, or in the media, at congresses, or in academic journals or books – even publishers present roadblocks to this necessary discussion. “Intelligence” appears to be literally drying up, in what is a systematic process of dumbing down. With so-called “reforms,” the universities have completely distanced themselves from thinking itself, especially from critical thinking. The left openly supports “internationalism” in the form of globalization, which is to all intents and purposes imperialism. Furthermore, most of the “alternative” movements have sold out and have so narrowly reduced their focus, that no actual common works remains possible. In many of these groups, you find new 2 options for the continuation of patriarchy that reach beyond both capitalism and socialism. A sort of “backlash” which one could refer to as neo-patriarchal tendencies, has become apparent, especially among the women who are rising to power in these groups, and who choose as models the shining examples of women operating in the social power structure: government officials, ministers of war and bank or corporate leaders. The remnants of the critique of patriarchy have for the most part been squashed, even though these critiques themselves have failed to get to the root of the problem. For example, it is almost impossible to say anything at this point about “women” or “mothers”, especially in circles of so-called “emancipated women.” “Gender” is the single politically correct topic. The German matriarchal movement’s main journal, MatriaVal has ceased publication. This journal was not limited to matriarchal concerns; it also published critiques of patriarchy and, at a time of intense patriarchal rage, addressed the question of whether or not renewed matriarchal relationships were even possible. It seems there is no place for our more extensive understanding of patriarchy in the context of the matriarchal scene’s new “positive thinking.” At this point, men working in the context of the “alternative scenes” have at long last also begun to concern themselves with patriarchy, and even with matriarchy. Nonetheless, no theoretical framework that can be distinguished from that of the past is apparent (Hercksen 2010). At this point, when a writer cannot avoid the terminology, what one reads might be described as “patriarchy light” or “matriarchy light.” These approaches remain fundamentally patriarchal and have little to do with the actual search for the matriarchal relationships that were forcibly destroyed and obscured by patriarchy. Wherever you look, you find an attitude bent on preserving the system – a narrowness of thought, feeling and behaviour, as well as corruption, division, a head-in-the-sand policy, and the doubletalk of the saviours of both modernity and patriarchy. As well, you find an esoteric dabbling with concepts of the supposed development of planet earth and humanity to a higher level, while what we are experiencing is its continuing destruction at the hands of earth’s inhabitants (Bertell 2011). You also come face to face with increasingly bold prevarication (Ulfkotte 2014) that serves to conceal Western war- mongering. We are living in time when things of a previously unknown magnitude are occurring in a situation unlike any that has preceded it, and we are beginning to put life on earth and the planet herself at risk (Bertell 2013b, 2014). Earlier feminist movements, previous critiques of globalization and patriarchy, feminist ecology, “deep” ecology, anti- consumerism, subsistence economics, matriarchy and earth-based spirituality – none of these were genuinely successful in countering these tendencies. Most of the movements emerging in the last twenty-five years of the 20th century did not even recognize the developments that are now coming to light. This failure, however, has yet to impact the consciousness of those involved, and this is the result of a failure to understand these developments and to underestimate the danger they present. 3 New movements have arisen, and, as part of an effort to address the new dimensions of reality, they are trying to determine how and why the old movements failed. Part of this reality is the deliberately produced natural catastrophes that result from “geo- engineering,” weather wars, and experiments with nuclear and post-nuclear military technologies, all of which have been subjected to field trials for decades, and all of which can be employed without any previous declaration of war (Bertell 2013a). This is why we founded the “Planetary Movement for Mother Earth” (PBME – www.pbme-online.org) in 2010. The theoretical branch of our ongoing effort to understand the today’s world in a new, timely and – for the first time – comprehensive way has found a home within the “Research Institute for Patriarchal Criticism and Alternative Civilizations” (FIPAZ), which was founded in 2007. This theoretical approach is the paradigm developed by the so-called “Critical Theory of Patriarchy” (the KPT, or Innsbruck School). So, from our base in Tirol, Austria, we are now launching this new, yet long overdue, and timely project, as a logical conclusion to our efforts to date: “BOOMERANG – Journal for the Critique of Patriarchy.” We want to address the existing gaps, errors and points of confusion in the debate about our time and demonstrate first of all the inversions – like those one finds in Orwell’s novel “1984” – that allow war to appear as peace or reaction as reform. These inversions create a terrible confusion about what is really happening. Wherever we are, we have to get down to the proverbial “nitty-gritty,” as we are increasingly caught up in the history of our own civilization: the history of patriarchy as a BOOMERANG. This is the precise reason for the journal’s title: the word BOOMERANG is a metaphor for a period of time in which we are confronted with distortions that have yet to be recognized for what they are, and which have now begun to catch up with us in some serious ways. The boomerang has turned back upon us, so to speak. Central to this is our new concept of PATRIARCHY, which is filled out, extended and supported by a comprehensive criticism of technique and technology that goes back to antiquity and fills what has been a ubiquitous gap until this point. In the context of this new concept, what was once called “ALCHEMY,” viewed from a new perspective, plays the pivotal role of a world-transforming, and thereby world-destroying, method or “procedure” (Werlhof 2010a, 2011, 2012). Only when seen from the perspective of the critique of patriarchy can the alchemy of antiquity be accurately understood and defined in its further development and comprehensive growth in modern Europe, which is to say, as a generalized “method” (Werlhof Man.). From our point of view, this new definition of patriarchy, which encompasses “alchemy,” provides the key – the key being the symbolism of alchemy, as such – that unlocks the door to the myths, the systems of violence, the secrets, the unrecognized (ir)rationalities, the taboos, and that which is unspeakable in the civilization that we all were born into. For, it is this civilization, with its self-evoked kyndiagnosia, the programed “incapacity to recognize danger,” that is dragging us into the abyss. 4 In the form of “modernity”, we see in this civilization the most recent and most intense phase of a global, thousand-plus-year-old, and now “capitalist,” patriarchy, in which so- called “socialism” must also be included. This “capitalist world system” has, in our view, taken on the character of an “alchemical system of war,” of a generally operative “destruction via procedure.” This process is, however, presented to us as the “creation” of a “better world” by means of the modern alchemy of progress and technification. The development of a new and comprehensive definition of patriarchy that goes far beyond the description of “patriarchy” as a system of male rule over women would not have been possible without the more recent research into matriarchy. This examination showed matriarchy to be a civilization free of domination, where “in the beginning is the mother” – mater arché – (Göttner-Abendroth 1988). This opened a new way to look at patriarchal civilization – pater arche´ – where “in the beginning is the father.” With that perspective as a starting point, the outrageous disgrace of patriarchal civilization as a negation of matriarchal civilization becomes clear. It also makes obvious the extent to which both of these civilizations constitute end-points of a continuum

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