Dissecting the Past

As a lifelong comparative mythologist, I was thinking about archaeology and anthropology and how we put together a jigsaw to understand the past. I have a couple of books on ancient Mystery Religons as this is a subject that has fascinated me for years. The paucity of material is tragic but perhaps the fact that the puzzle is incomplete is one of the reasons it contains to intrigue me. The entire structure of worship of some of these gods is based on no more than a statement of accounts as to what materials were purchased one month or a document relating to a court trial for abuse of the religion by a sex fiend! So what does this mean in terms of future understanding of OUR time?

Writers obviously have a tremendous advantage in terms of shaping future understanding of any period. One simply needs to look at the way Shakespeare's hideous propaganda with respect to pre-Tudor English history dominated centuries in order to see the power a good writer wields for better or for worse! Shakespeare was not an historian. He was a dramatist and yet his work shaped the fundamental premises of future historians far more than any serious historian until quite recently.

'Dry' facts are boring to most people. Cinema defines the perceptions of the majority far more than any history book. History in any case never has been a matter of 'fact' but rather of interpretation. The old adage that 'history is written by the victors' holds true. One need look no further than the 'history' of the Second World War to see this sad truth in action. The history of the Second World War currently is defined by Jewish interests far more than by any impartial reading of the 'facts'. This tends to polarise the participants in this War far more than impartial reality would. In particular, the German people have been demonised to an extent that is unwarranted objectively. When writers are able to declare that German people ethnically are contaminated intrinsically by racism and evil in perpetuity without being denounced universally for such a bizarre claim, one can see how far this subjective propaganda reaches. Anything that occurred over half a century ago should be relegated to 'history' but the Second World War is kept alive by Zionist interests in the attempt to justify ongoing crimes of humanity committed against the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately, whenever any one declares this simple fact, it is tantamount to heresy and I expect that anything I write hereafter will be 'tainted' by my refusal to accept the 'official view' of history that is being force-fed to Western 'civilisation'.

(Let me say here that I subscribe to the view of a close friend of mine with respect to Jews. She declares: 'Let the Jews simply join the human race and cease to believe that they somehow are special, different or superior to every one else. Let them subscribe to the general laws of humanity and justice like every one else. Any wholesale slaugher is a holocaust. There is no such thing as 'The Holocaust'. There should be no 'Holocaust' museums anywhere unless they include every genocide committed in history against ANY people anywhere. It is particularly shameful when a group attempts to claim that genocide committed against them in the past exonerates them from genocide they commit in the present.)

Go further back in history and you find little impartial history in evidence there either. When Rome was the 'centre of the world', history for the most part depicted the 'glory of Rome' and the inferiority of the 'barbarian' cultures that threatened it. Writers nonetheless countered this through the centuries in waves of 'romanticism', depicting the Celts as noble freedom fighters, allowing the pendulum of public opinion to swing back and forth. One wonders when the pendulum will swing again in Western civilisation.

Politics is not the topic of this musing, however. I was thinking more about the nature of contemporary culture and how an anthropologist in the future might see it based on writings from our time. It really would depend partly on the capricious working of fate. What would survive? Often Nature herself has the last word, determining that a tedious statement of accounts of monies spent on a festival would survive when doubtless hundreds of beautiful poems and ritual dramas were destroyed.

It was only a couple of decades ago that the tablets of Ras Shamra discovered, ancient city of Ugarit, giving us access to the ancient religion of Canaan. Ironically, our only knowledge of that religion previously was based more on the diatribes by Hebrews against it included in the Old Testament than anything positive! A greater irony lies in the fact that much of Hebrew religion and ritual was stolen or 'borrowed' from older religions. In any other religion, this is perceived as natural but again, it is heresy to suggest such a thing. Is God not more immense than any one tribe or even any one 'religion'? If God indeed is infinite, than He/She would not be restricted or limited to any human definition! The concept of a 'chosen people' is ludicrious. Why would an Infinite Being designate one small group as superior to every one else.

If God indeed is Infinite and truly Divine, then the existence of Jesus as a man born to a woman of any particular ethnic background is entirely accidental and therefore meaningless. Jesus himself declared that he was the 'son of Man', not the 'son of a Jew'. The life of Jesus is an example for all of humanity. No one pretends that any other great saint or religious icon is defined by his/her ethnic background. Buddha is not an example solely for India. Dionysus in fact avowed himself to be a 'wanderer' with a mandate to affect the lives of people throughout the world. Some writers believe that Jesus traveled in the same fashion from continent to continent. Whether or not he did so in physical form, he certainly has done so in terms of his influence.

Religion, however, is not the topic of this musing any more than politics. To return to the original premise, I was thinking about the accident of survival, how one document manages to survive a catastrophe or the simple erosion of time where another is destroyed. What if, in future, the only document an anthropologist or historian is able to uncover is a mystery by Val McDiarmid?

Val McDiarmid is one of my favourite mystery writers. Although I have little knowledge of her personal life, apart from the short biography that is given on the inner cover of her novels, I believe that she must be a lesbian, on the basis of the old adage for writers to 'write about what you know'. Every single book she writes has at least one gay character in it. Even when the protagonist is not gay, some one is and usually not only ONE character, but quite a few. Take her recent book about a murder committed at St. Andrews University in the 1970s. (Actually, the murder is not committed AT the University but it does involves four students from the University.) I was interested in it not only because I love the writer but because I was at University in the 1970s and I thought it would appeal to my nostalgic sense of that period. It is true that one's University days have a romance to them that never quite is extinguished by life.

I noted a few errors immediately in terms of anachronisms. She did talk about 'cassettes' or 'tapes' when every one still had records, which is a common error among writers when they attempt to return to the 1970s. The music was spectacular but it was played on phonographs, not on Walkmans!

That is a petty matter, however. The reason I am singling out this writer and this book is because one of the four protagonists was gay. O.K. That's what she is, and she made it a gay guy rather than a gay girl to make it more 'universal'. I suppose there is a natural desire to proselytize. (I don't believe she has written a single mystery that does not contain at least one gay character.) After that, however, she made the wife of one of the protagonists bi-sexual. Is this going a bit too far? That really makes it seem as though 50% of the population has gay tendencies and acts upon them. Is that really true?

Moving beyond Val McDiarmid, however, one finds that many contemporary films and television shows include at least one gay character as a main rather than subsidiary character. In the same fashion, they include at least one inter-racial relationship between a Black guy and a White girl. (I am not certain those words are PC but I am bewildered by the constant changes in terminology, so I am using the simplest terms here.) Does this reflect reality or a political message? Is it fact or propaganda?

Based on this, however, a future historian or anthropologist might very well conclude that bi-sexuality or homosexuality was as common as any relationship between members of opposite genders and that 50% of relationships were inter-racial in nature. Many academics do predict that there will be no more than a single race in a century, but at present, this is not the reality. As far as sexuality is concerned, however, media propaganda does not represent reality by any means.

I do not believe that 50% of the population is gay or bi-sexual. What I do believe, however, is that it is natural for adolescents to exhibit affection and even sexual desire towards their own gender. This is something that is NOT acknowledged by the media. In fact, there is a tendency to define such relationships as indications of bi-sexuality or homosexuality when in fact they represent nothing of the sort!

The other day, I was thinking about how kids nowadays accuse their classmates of being 'gay' when they are more affectionate towards a member of their own gender than they are towards the opposite sex. In the past, that was considered natural, especially in boarding schools. Girls often had passionate crushes on other girls and a boy's first sexual experience often involved another boy rather than a girl. Does that make them 'gay'? I don't think so. I think it is natural to trust a member of your own gender at that age far more than it is to go to 'the other' for experimentation in sex. Moreover, same gender sexual experimentation carries no dangers of responsibility in terms of pregnancy.

A kid who is thirteen shouldn't be having sex with a member of the opposite sex but if he or she practices kissing or even fondling with a good friend of the same gender, that shouldn't brand him/her as gay! This is where American Puritanism rears its ugly head. Moreover, I believe that it pushes these adolescents into a category that does not represent their true sexuality. Some of them may be 'gay', but not the majority.

Our culture denies our children the natural outlet of innocent sexual experimentation but militantly attempts to create a 'gay' sub-culture among adolescents. This is neither ethical nor fair. I think that adolescents should feel that it is natural to experiment a little with members of their own gender. I do not think that sexual intercourse is appropriate at a young age, but surely kissing a bit of fondling is. Teen pregnancies would be less common if more teens resolved their sexual curiosity and needs with members of their own gender.

Most ancient civilisations acknowledge the strong bonds between two members of the same gender. In fact, until the U.S. became the dominant world 'civilisation', most European cultures acknowledged schoolboy and schoolgirl 'crushes' and relationships as well as the very strong friendships that developed naturally between males in the armed forces. Profound friendships between two members of the same gender have been the subject of some of the greatest fiction and poetry ever written. This was NOT equal to homosexuality, however.

Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' probably has more tales that involve same-gender passions as tales of passion between male and female. I think that these tales represent universal sexuality to some extent without making a political song-and-dance about it.

Understand, please, that I am not denouncing homosexuality or bisexuality here. I simply feel that it is not the tendency of the majority. Without making a philosophical judgement as to what is 'natural' or unnatural', in biological terms, a relationship between two individuals of opposite genders is more natural as this is the natural means of procreation. Moreover, the old philosophy of Man and Woman as two halves of a Whole Being is fairly universal. That does not mean that all human beings should feel constrained to accept this premise in their own lives, but I do believe it should be recognised as an universal truth, among OTHER universal truths that may conflict with it to some extent.

Finally, I do believe that most human beings have some bi-sexual urges and that these should not be discouraged. For the most part, our natural affections are not limited to one gender and physical and spiritual demonstrations should not be limited either. Why should a woman who wishes to kiss another woman passionately be defined as 'gay'? A man who is able to kiss another man passionately may be a better lover to a woman and indeed a better human being if he were allowed to fulfill this desire without feeling he then would be defined as homosexual! This is a case where political and social propaganda is defeating its purpose if indeed its purpose is to liberate sexuality and make it more 'honest'.

There is a wistful desire deep within my own soul for this sort of honesty. Throughout my life, there have been girls who were attracted to me sexually and who made their desires known. One great (or small) tragedy is that I always felt compelled to rebuff their advances. I always felt that I would 'become' a lesbian somehow if I were to surrender to any female overtures. What rubbish! (I felt I was compelled to repel the advances of boys as well, in the interest of 'saving myself' for the future 'love of my life'... that old 'romantic' idealism... a rigid adherence to worship at the altar of chastity and virginity that ultimately cost me the opportunity to know what it would have been like to enjoy sexual union with the 'love of my life' as he was blown up by a bomb before we had a chance to create a life together.)

One can't relive the past in this life. Perhaps reincarnation is a reality and one will have a chance to live another life, but there is no guarantee that one will learn from past mistakes. It is no great matter in the eternal scheme. I really do believe that sexuality should not be made a god, nor should it has its hands upon the reins of one's life. On the other hand, it should not be repressed completely. Pardon, Dionysus, if I cannot be a wholehearted worshipper at your Altar. In any event, the ultimate aim of the Dionysian is to rend life to bits with one's own teeth, consuming raw flesh in a primal ecstacy. That usually is the mark of a 'thrill killer' in our society and not to be encouraged socially!

If any one bothers to read this post and is utterly confused as to the subject, I probably should make it clear: The subject of this musing is the conviction that our culture is making an enormous error in following the dictates of Puritanism by refusing to acknowledge the NATURAL tendency of adolescents to find their first expression of sexuality with members of their own gender instead of members of the opposite gender without forcing adolescents to declare themselves as members of one sexual 'party'. I dearly would love to explore this idea with Val McDiarmid! Having used a book of hers as an example, let me make it quite clear that I admire and respect her tremendously. I do not argue with her right to include as many homosexual characters in her books as she likes. My only thought was the possibility that some anthropologist in the future might mistake her vision of contemporary civilisation for reality. Not that it is her vision alone. As previously stated, I do see that homosexual characters have proliferated in the media recently. From 'Six Feet Under' in the States to 'Mile High', there is at least one homosexual melodrama in almost every series. Give me 'Wire in the Blood' every day... I am not fond of 'soap operas' in any guise.

Next, I will explore the relative merits both of pantheism and monotheism... I have no doubt but that my views on religion will be as generally unpopular as my views on sexuality and politics. I make no apologies to any one. In my opinion, a 'free thinker' should be any one who feels he/she is free to be true to himself/herself.