An intrusion of matriarchal consciousness

Introduction

In this essay the much contested terms matriarchal[1] and patriarchal are employed in an attempt to explain the different natures of civilisation, also in modern times. Regardless of the obvious ethical and economical aspects of immigration, it represents an inroad of matriarchal consciousness into patriarchal culture, with forbidding consequences. The mixture of different ethnic groups plays a role in this development. It can be met by heightened awareness of the psychological diversity between ethnic groups. This could enable the individual to discover and to accept his own nature, and allow him to strike root in his own culture in a more decided way.

A backside of the ongoing mingling of cultures is the lowering of the general level of consciousness, and how it more and more tends toward the matriarchal end of the spectrum. By this is implied a psychology which, for better or worse, is rooted in a collective mother complex. This will lead to a split psychology, such as decadent aspects of modern American culture, which still honours patriarchal principles of emancipation and freedom, yet allows free rein to opulence, status, power and prestige.

In order to meet the challenges of the future it is necessary to prevent a regress of modern consciousness and to remain at a patriarchal level. It follows that the painful question of race can no longer be circumvented. The notion of a constitutive "gradient" (or inclination) of consciousness might help to explain the difficulties that varying ethnicities encounter in trying to adapt to societies foreign to their own mentality. However, the fact that patriarchal Western culture has ruled the roost in the latest millennium does not bespeak the superiority of the "Caucasian race". Matriarchal cultures, in historical India and Egypt, for instance, were once in the forefront. In history, the tables are always turning.


Human evolution and epigenetics

Right now a revolutionary paradigm shift is undergoing in the science of genetics. It is called epigenetics. The term "epigenetic" refers to heritable traits that do not involve changes to the DNA sequence. The DNA sequence is only part of the genome. The rest, which was earlier viewed as redundant rubbish, is now termed epigenome. Some epigenetic features are inherited from one generation to the next. Multigenerational epigenetics is today regarded as another aspect to evolution and adaptation. An example of this is the paramutation observed in maize. In humans, epigenetic changes have been observed to occur in response to environmental exposure, that is, a sort of Lamarckian inheritance (vid. Pembrey et al. 2006).

This is a most remarkable turnover in favour of depth-psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Despite the controversy over his ideas, Freud refused to cede with his "Lamarckian" notions. Carl Jung also received much critique for his idea that the collective unconscious has acquired traits over the millennia. Genetics has been regarded a much slower process. For instance, in Jung, an important argument is that man's experiences during medieval time affect us strongly today, and is the foundation on which we stand as modern people. The medieval world, and classical antiquity, is part of our unconscious. However, other ethnic groups, such as African tribes, lack this layer, says Jung. Other people still, such as the Chinese, have a different configuration of the collective unconscious, although the foundational layer is the same for all people on earth. The cultural forging of our unconscious nature is crucial to Jung's theory of archetypes.

The young science of epigenetics would be able to corroborate such notions. Not only climatological, epidemic, and nutritive experiences can be transferred to coming generations. Culture is the most fundamental force that has shaped man's life through the aeons. Its effect is, in all likelihood, established in the genome in a few generations.

The concept implies that genes have a 'memory'; what you do in your lifetime, and what you are exposed to, could in turn affect your grandchildren. Epigenetics proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn genes on or off. The things that people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans. The switches themselves can also be inherited. This means that a 'memory' of an event could be passed through generations. A simple environmental effect could switch genes on or off, and this change could be inherited.

According to the above article in Discover magazine (here) "...the epigenome can change in response to the environment throughout an individual's lifetime." Hence, I propose that culture is very likely to play a role. The notion that factors of epigenetics could determine a person toward the animation of certain archetypes is consonant with this. I hypothesize that the individual could become more warlike in cultures which have historically been involved in conflict.

The article continues:

Apparently, the psyche of the rat is altered by an epigenetic switch, which can be turned on at will by the mother. In light of this, it's not far-fetched to propose that certain ethnicities, partly due to epigenetic factors, can become more heroic and ambitious, while others will tend toward the matriarchal spectrum.

In the field of traditional genetics, too, new facts have surfaced that question old preconceptions. According to recent findings (Dunham 2007, here), human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years. Today, we are quite different from people living a few thousand years ago. The new findings also show that the human genome in the different continents have diverged and continue to do so. Although this research is still in its infancy, it seems to corroborate notions of constitutive racial differences, and the breakneck speed in which they develop.

Furthermore, in a process called 'biased gene conversion', there is an increase in the rate at which certain mutations spread through a population, regardless of whether they are beneficial or harmful (ScienceDaily, here). Factors of accelerated genetic evolution, factors of epigenetics, rapid cultural and dietary changes, and local ethnic interbreeding, all contribute to the rapid establishment of new racial characteristics. Yet, it seems today that we are bound by an unfounded homologous view of humanity, and that our present view of cultural and genetical evolution implies a resignation to fate. In the light of the recent findings, it's becoming more and more obvious that humanity must start cultivating its character and put greater emphasis on aspects of heredity.


The Issue of Race

The recent progress in genetics has ramifications in the area of racial and ethnic diversity. Intellectual people have an extraordinary distaste for notions of racial characteristics, because it brings with it a bad historical odour, and it reminds Americans of the race laws. But those laws will not return just because we discuss the issue of race. In point of fact, the greater plasticity of hereditary traits, and the acceleration of human evolution, implies that the biological divergence of races must be regarded an ongoing reality, but it also means that elitist notions are passé. Race is not such a fixed category as Alfred Rosenberg thought, and a certain race is not predestined to success, thanks to a fixed set of ancient genes. Paradoxically, this means that we are finally relieved of the fanatical forms of hereditarian elitism.

C.G. Jung, discussing the race issue, says:

What is causing this fear of "going black?" What is implied by the relative inability of black men, and other ethnicities, to adapt to Western culture? Let's view it in terms of a psychic gradient. Broadly speaking, there is in the "white" culture a strife toward higher accomplishment, an advancement of consciousness, a movement of emancipation. But among certain ethnic groups one can detect a general movement toward the other end, namely to belong in an unconscious community, to swim with the tide. The psychic gradients, I would argue, go in different directions.

In traditional psychological terms we can, among certain ethnic groups, speak of a collective mother complex, i.e., a constitutive psychological dependency that gear them toward collective adjustment, whether it's the small group or the overarching society. This overall tendency is weaker among other ethnic groups, where the individual has an incentive for independency.

A case in point are the ancient Egyptians who would want to remain in the warm embrace of the unconscious, where life was regulated according to Maat, the eternal universal law, and everything was cyclically created anew. In later civilisations where emancipation of consciousness is the underlying motif, we have abandoned cyclical time and adopted finite linear time.

A Swedish journalist related how she gave an expensive watch to a helpful Egyptian young man, but he got angry and threw the clock out of sight. He wanted to remain unknowing of time, and, as far as possible, live in the embrace of the unconscious. Rural people in India are often the same, they do not want to advance their consciousness. They entertain their polytheistic cult which serves the purpose of remaining in a blissful state of unconsciousness. They have no wish to kill their gods by integrating the archetypes which they stand for. Instead they elevate them in worship.

Comparatively, our white culture will always tend to disrupt the gradient toward unconsciousness. I, as a white man, would tend to challenge, to question, to disrupt any attempts toward accomplishing a "steady state" of consciousness, i.e., a mind at comfortable rest, as it were. The notion of "democracy", in itself, demands of its practitioners that they develop their consciousness in continual conflict. But people at the other end of the spectrum prefer a universe which is delineated from the beginning, like the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat, the primordial divine law.

In this context, emancipation would be understood foremostly as a psychological process. A psychologically emancipated person can think what he likes, and can direct his energy in any way he wants, independently of the surrounding collective. So I'm not foremostly discussing economical emancipation and education, etc., although there is certainly a connection.

The gradient of consciousness, its direction, might be a powerful factor in causing segregation, and might explain why some ethnicities have difficulties blending in with society. A matriarchal consciousness, i.e., a characteristic gradient of consciousness, is not appropriate for a Western European patriarchal culture. Hence a particular individual, an immigrant possibly, will tend not to individuate, but remain in a psychological backwater. Had he lived in a traditional environment, suitable for his psychological makeup, then he could individuate according to the premises of that culture. It's a different form of individuation, but he will come to maturity.

An important difference between patriarchal and matriarchal cultures is the level of differentiation in the principles of eros and logos. Marie-Louise von Franz says:

Man in our civilization is ahead of woman in the civilizing process. In South India, the humanizing of woman, and of eros, seems to be ahead of the West. There women are proud of their femininity, and there is a more differentiated attitude to eros. In the West, there is toughness, vulgarity, and lack of differentiation of the eros level, and far greater logos differentiation than in the East (1993, p.26).

Ethnic unconscious

The previous account would rhyme with notions of a racial or ethnic unconscious. It's true that C.G. Jung, when discussing the collective unconscious, does not want to talk of "race-specific contents". However, there is in Jungian psychology a notion of a "cultural complex" which originates with Jung's early work on complex theory, and his discussion of ethnic and racial psychological characteristics.

Jungians have always subscribed to a notion of a "group unconscious" and even speak of it at the family level. When a child has problems, it might really derive from the family unconscious. The child cannot be cured if the family isn't cured.

Likewise, an ethnic group can be possessed by an ethnic complex. The typical individual is to a great part a collective being. While he is an individual in his conscious domain (and must be respected for that), in his unconscious he is in great measure a collective being. Therefore, an individual cannot only be analysed as an isolated entity, but we must also look for a sickness in the collective, possibly a cultural complex.

A certain cultural complex, which is helpful for adaptation in an individual's indigenous culture, might become an impediment if that person migrates to another culture (or that culture migrates to him). His cultural complex could then become a factor of neurosis. It is becoming more and more obvious that cultural complexes are more "hardwired" than we earlier thought.

Joseph Henderson, a colleague of Jung, discussed the notion of a "cultural unconscious", which he introduced in an address at the 2nd International Jungian Congress in Zürich in 1962 (vid. Singer 2002). This idea has received much attention lately in the Jungian world (vid. Singer 2004).

Henderson situates the cultural unconscious topographically between the collective unconscious and the personal unconscious. Michael Vannoy Adams has his own take on this. He says, "I redefine the 'collective unconscious', it comprises not only archetypal factors but also stereotypical factors, which include apparently 'racial' factors (collective attitudes and behaviors that are really ethnic factors)." He has forcefully criticized the negligent attitude of the human and social sciences to racial and ethnic issues from a perspective of the collective unconscious (cf. Adams 1996).


An heroic consciousness

The way in which white African farmers describe the black workers serves to illustrate a certain "gradient of consciousness". Farmers typically portray them as good men and women, who work during the day, and then sit down by the fire at nights, telling stories and having a good time. But they just don't seem to have any aspirations in life, they are somehow lacking in ambition.

Compare with the typical Westerner, who tends not to be lacking in ambition, even if he has little schooling. At least he intends to start some business in car repair, or whatever. It seems like they have an "upward gradient" of consciousness, whereas many an African has a supremely gifted talent at "feeling good in his neighbourhood", even if nothing essential happens during his entire life. It is wholly logical. The social consequences are painful enough for the ambitious individual who attempts to break lose from collective identification.

I have also noted that, among Africans, Arabs, Syrians, and other ethnic groups, there is a strong tendency to keep to themselves, to socialize with people who look like themselves. Certain ethnic groups tend to put much emphasis on the microsocial perspective, and the individual is to a great extent carried by the collective.

This social principle could be explained psychologically by a "leveled gradient", which implies that there is no impetus toward individual emancipation. The foremost principle is instead to be carried by the collective, as opposed to having ambitions and to journey somewhere in life.

In my country, when white kids are put into a major school, they seem to adjust to ethnic variety, while the black kids, and other foreign ethnicities, tend to bunch up and surround themselves with familiar faces. They have a higher level of anxiety, and they more often react with fear and aggression. The situation in the U.S. seems to be very similar.

It seems like the "tribal consciousness" is more pronounced. The individual and the tribe are one. Comparatively, Western culture is more "heroic". It reflects on the achievement and the emancipation of the individual, which, in a Hollywood film, also proves to be a great boon to the collective. Compare the centrality of the hero myth in historical Western society versus African cultures.

What, then, will happen if the "heroic" European consciousness is allayed in a melting pot where racial amalgamation, including social and cultural assimilation, is taking place? The level of consciousness of a people is the foundation of its cultural region. Beethoven, Matisse, Edison and Einstein have all managed to evolve their inner talent because Western culture is, at its core, supportive of individual emancipation and growth.

Comparatively, Islamic cultures tend to be paternalistic, not patriarchal, while behind the facade the mother principle rules. Everything tends to revolve around the ideal of the mother, including the motherly boons of safety, nourishment, and comfort. There is no marked heroism in such cultures.

How does our occidental humanism compare with the non-reflective and more encompassing culture of Islam? Would the named individuals have been able to flourish in the Islamic circle? Instead of resorting to crude concepts of racial superiority, I have proposed the idea that the accomplishments of successful individuals must partly depend on our way of individual emancipation, our "hero cult", a cultural factor which also has taken root in the genome of the general Westerner.

The creative Western individual is heroic in the sense that he strives to become a true individual able to choose his own path, something which releases the creative force inside. But, while the emancipated person embraces a true individuality, he also becomes problematic, not given to an African outlook of "feeling good among one's neighbours". This is borne out by the biographical record.

Ethnic differences dispose people toward different societal systems. Some ethnicities can never comply with, or feel at home in, our Western patriarchal and heroic culture. The homologous view of humanity adopted by politicians and columnists flies in the face of empirical facts. The average member of a certain ethnic group can only do himself justice in a culture that recognizes his constitutive capabilities. If the culture encourages it, one can grow to maturity according to constitutive premises.


Matriarchal consciousness

A gradient toward individual accomplishment, perhaps triggered by epigenetic or evolutionary factors, could play a role in socialization. Certain ethnic groups would fare better in a collective project when his intelligence and zest awakens. The people who today live in Cairo are the descendants of the pyramid builders, something which many Westerners find it hard to perceive.

In the historical perspective, I have no illusions of "racial superiority". Comparatively, where were we Europeans at 1500 BC, when the Olmecs started building impressive cities in Central America? The Olmecs had a written language, and the oldest written artefact yet found, a stone tablet, is from about 900 BC. Over the centuries tables are turning. In a millennium or two Western culture could again be in demise.

I propose that those ethnicities that are deficient in an emancipative gradient would do themselves much better justice in a matriarchal culture, a modern equivalent of pre-Columbian Central America, where people were enveloped by society on all sides. Those societies were constituted like a great Mother goddess, an advanced collective thought-process, as it were. The intelligence of the Toltec, Maya, Aztec, etc., comes to expression in their vast knowledge about mathematics (they knew about the zero), astronomical exactitude, and their architectural achievements.

By comparison, our modern patriarchal societies do not envelop the individual, but instead expect initiative and commitment from him. Advancement depends to a higher degree on the individual. An emancipative type of consciousness in the general population will give rise to a patriarchal culture. If this is correct, then culture is, to a higher degree than expected, determined from within, and not only from environmental factors.

The conclusion is that certain ethnicities, due to a different unconscious structure, would fare much better in a society that honours matriarchal principles. If this is true, then the building of an African civilisation according to Western patriarchal principles could be counterproductive. The result is only discouraging. Both the individual and collective society are rendered impotent and deprived of vitality.

By way of illustration, a matriarchal consciousness could be likened to a moonlit night, when things appear blurred. A patriarchal consciousness, on the other hand, functions like a bright cone of light. It sees all the details, but outside the cone everything is black, due to a contrast effect. This makes it smaller in scope, but more precise, something which finely illustrates the scientific mind.


An ongoing regress

In ancient cultures, such as the Maya and the Egyptian, the leading principle was the material and the tangible, such as worldliness, prosperity, beauty, social status, etc. This is ameliorated by the matriarchal consciousness itself, while it naïvely experiences that matter is spirit, too, or at least nearly so. In ancient Egypt the corpse, after having been turned into a mummy, was also the god Osiris. What we moderns view as the most revolting material object was actually the highest spirit.

Luxuriousness and well-being were the ideals, because this life was simultaneously a life in the spirit. There is a crux. In order to maintain a matriarchal frame of mind, it necessitates a low level of consciousness, a constitutive naïveté which allows the subject to actually find meaning in his worldly endeavours, collecting riches and objects of status, such as a beautiful house, etc. The worldly thing is spirit to him. The modern patriarchal consciousness, on the other hand, has lost that naïveté. At this level, it makes no sense to waste your life chasing after glistening "glass pearls", in whatever form.

I have argued that the tendency toward an archaic level of consciousness not only derives from a divided genetic makeup, but also from the purely psychological tendency of "going black". Americans, as a case in point, make a curious impression while they seem much engulfed in matters of success and material wealth that they more and more make the appearance of an ancient matriarchal culture. Today, in the U.S., the Christian prosperity movement preaches wealth and opulence as the very goals of a life in the spirit: "Jesus wants you to be rich" [and the] word of God is the gateway to the world of wealth." (CNN 2006, here). According to TIME magazine, 61 percent of Christian Americans believe God wants people to be financially prosperous (cf. Biema 2006). Similar to aboriginal peoples Americans have this strong penchant for anything that sparkles; anything which endows its owner with status, whether it's titles, big cars, Nobel prize medals, or maybe even a more splendid barbecue than the neighbour. Many Americans, like the aborigines, still put great value in "glass pearls", as it were.

Most revealingly, it is becoming more common among Americans to believe that a rich person is morally better than a poor person, and that the latter deserves no better. This is an unmistakable sign of an encroaching matriarchal consciousness, while it employs essentialistic social hierarchies, as exemplified by the ancient Minoans. The Cretans, for instance, thought that if a person was prosperous and handsome, then he had greater value than other people, because the gods smiled at him. So the prosperous man is being taken care of by a good Mother, which is his matriarchal universe. Thus he remains a privileged child, maintaining an undeveloped personal morale. In this way the regress to relative unconsciousness brings with it the ambivalent and amoral qualities of the unconscious.

The ongoing backslide to a matriarchal level of consciousness is an ominous sign. A collective consciousness on the downgrade combined with a highly technological civilisation is not a reassuring combination, especially not in the face of today's religio-political and climatological crisis. The individual in this context cannot easily gear down and make less demands on opulence and well-being, something that will have destructive environmental consequences. Due to his constitutive naïveté he might be practically unable, like a child, to see factual problems beyond the horizon. In fact, only the visible is regarded as real. The weak consciousness of the ego creates the danger of being overhauled by a collective unconscious phantasmagoria.


The patriarchal conception

The patriarchal conception originated with the formulation of monotheism, and reached a peak with Plato, Jesus, and St Paul. According to the patriarchal thinkers, it's not the visible and tangible which is the leading principle, it is the invisible life in the spirit which means something. What really counts are the properties and characteristics that transcend the world. Plato declared the equality of women, despite the fact that they appeared to be the weaker sex. In the ideal state, he said, women would take up 250 seats of 500 in the parliament. It would have caused one or more raised eyebrows among fellow philosophers.

St Paul reasons in a similar fashion. While it's invisible nature that counts, "[t]here is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 03:28).

As a result the poor man has equal status before God as the rich man, and this is what underlies today's egalitarian principles in Western society. According to the patriarchal conception, the poor man has even better chances of passing through the "needle's eye" while he is not being exposed to corruption by money and societal status. This is emphasised by Jesus when he says, "...many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first" (Mat 19:30).

This is this advanced thoughtway that Western civilisation is now receding from. The principle of the equality of all men (that we are spiritually of equal value) comes to expression in equality in legal proceedings, medical treatment, etc. Americans, especially, have more and more come to sidestep the patriarchal principle, which represents a tremendous achievement by medieval man. It gradually took root in the souls of people, and not only in institutions, and in roman law. Today, the matriarchal regress undergoing in modern man generates compensations from the unconscious, as in the following dream of a forty-five year old woman:

Conclusion

The falling away from the conquests of original Western consciousness and acculturation is a process that must be stemmed, otherwise future will strike back with a vengeance. We cannot solve the problems of the world only by way of diplomacy and politics. A high level of consciousness must be maintained and revitalized in the general population.

The upsurge of matriarchal reasoning ought to be resisted and criticised because responsibility for the world cannot be entrusted to a people at an archaic level of consciousness. It is necessary to relieve the general Westerner of his empty materialistic aspirations. He needs to gear down, and begin to "think small", not the least for environmental reasons.

If our beautiful earth is going to survive, as is often argued, we are dependent on advancing our technology and hard sciences. But the question of level of consciousness is more urgent. Consciousness must be elevated to include the constitutive nature of mankind, including the wisdom of the unconscious. A regress in the collective will not further science and engineering.

Much of this boils down to morality. How is a people who is stuck in an adolescent stage going to take responsibility for the world, as in the urgent matter of global warming, for instance? So where does the general Westerner stand today, in terms of level of general consciousness and grade of maturity? This is a cause for concern.

The difficulties created by the mingling of cultures give rise to overcompensations in the form of a naïve belief in the boons of a multicultural society. Among the politically correct, there is a puritanical unwillingness to confront the issue. Due to an unconscious dissonance in society, an indigenous evil risks growing stronger and stronger, while the assurances that we are on the right path become more and more zealous and one-eyed. But it's only the well-known tactics of the ostrich, namely to bury one's head in the sand.



Mats Winther, Jan 2008.

Notes

(1) There exists no agreement as to the meaning of patriarchal and matriarchal. Wikipedia says: "Though some modern anthropologists and sociologists assert that there are no known examples of human matriarchies from any point in history, there is no consensus about this question [and due] to a lack of any clear and consistent definition of the word 'matriarchy' the term 'matrifocality' has begun to be preferred by several anthropologists to refer to societies with focus on women and especially mothers though not necessarily dominated by women or mothers."
I, however, make use of the term "matriarchal" from a psychological point of view. Even if society is seemingly ruled by warlike men it could be ruled by a woman anyway, namely the mother goddess. The mother complex could be in ascendancy. Anthropologists and feminists tend to look at the outer relations, that is, whether it's matrilineal, factually ruled by women, etc. What they don't seem to appreciate is that the society can be ruled by the "woman in the unconscious", namely Magna Mater.

References

Adams, M. V. (1996). The Multicultural Imagination: "Race", Color, and the Unconscious. London and New York: Routledge.

Biema, D. van, Chu, J. (2006). 'Does God Want You To Be Rich?' TIME magazine, Sep. 10, 2006, here.

Franz, M. L. von (1993). The Feminine in Fairy Tales. Shambala. (orig. publ. 1972.)

  ---------      (1999). Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche. Shambhala.

Singer, T. (2002). 'The Cultural Complex and Archetypal Defenses of the Collective Spirit'. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal. Vol. 20, No. 4, 2002 pp. 5-28, here.

Singer, T. (2004). The Cultural Complex: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives on Psyche and Society. Brunner-Routledge.

Pembrey ME, Bygren LO, Kaati G, et al. (2006). 'Sex-specific, male-line transgenerational responses in humans'. Eur J Hum Genet. 2006 Feb;14(2):131-2 (abstract here.)

Post, L. van der. (1978). Jung and the Story of Our Time. Penguin Books.

Watters, E. (2006). 'DNA Is Not Destiny. The new science of epigenetics rewrites the rules of disease, heredity, and identity'. DISCOVER magazine 11.22.2006, here.


See also:

Dimitrova S. 'The New Image of the Self in a Multicultural Perspective' here.

Dunham, W. (2007). 'Rapid acceleration in human evolution described'. Reuters, Mon Dec 10, 2007, here.

CNN: American Morning. Aired September 26, 2006 - 08:59 ET. See here.

ScienceDaily. 'Natural Selection Not The Only Process That Drives Evolution?'. Retrieved January 31, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090126203207.htm (here).

Winther, M. (2009). 'Symbolic Poverty' (here).

© Mats Winther, 2008