Naming the Cultural Forces That Push Us Toward War

Abstract

Anthropology and archaeology have demonstrated that human societies can pass hundreds and even thousands of years in peace. Patriarchal cultures, however, go to war rather regularly. Militarism and warfare are continual features of a patriarchal society because they reflect and instill patriarchal values and fulfill essential needs of such a system. Men under patriarchy must prove dominance and control, must distance their character from that of "lowly" women, must survive the toughest violent initiation to enter full manhood, must shed the sacred blood of the hero, and must collaborate with death in order to hold it at bay. Such patriarchal pressures on men have traditionally reached resolution in ritual fashion on the battle-field. Unless peace efforts address the cultural pressures as well as the economic and political factors pushing us toward war, we will be unable to build a lasting peace.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bliss, S. Between men. (Review of a film on basic training.) Peacework Journal of the American Friends Service Committee of New England, September 1981. (Available from United Documentary Film, P.O. Box 315, Franklin Lane, NJ 07417.)

Capps, W. H. The unfinished war: Vietnam and the American conscience. Boston: Beacon, 1982.

Eisenhart, R. W. Flower of the dragon: An example of applied humanistic psychology . Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1977, 17(1).

Fasteau, M. F. The male machine. New York: Delta, 1975.

Gerzon, M. A choice of heroes: The changingfaces of American manhood. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

Gimbutas, M. Goddesses and gods of Old Europe, 6500-3500 B. C. London/Berkeley: Thames & Hudson/University of California Press, 1974.

Gimbutas, M. Old Europe in the fifth millennium B.C.: The European situation on the arrival of Indo-Europeans . In Proceedings of the Conference on the Indo-Europeans in the Fourth and Third Millennia, University of Texas, February 1980. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma, 1981. (Abridged as Women and culture in goddess-oriented old Europe. In C. Spretnak [Ed.], The politics of women's spirituality: Essays on the rise of spiritual power within thefeminist movement. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982.)

Greider, W. Women vs. Reagan. Rolling Stone, August 19, 1982.

Lapp, R. The Einstein letter that started it all. New York Times Magazine, August 2, 1964.

10.

Lifton . Home from the war. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972.

11.

Meredith, N. Veterans for whom the war still rages. California Living Magazine, San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, May 30, 1982.

12.

National Public Radio . All things considered. July 4, 1982.

13.

Sanday, P. R. Female power and male dominance: On the origins of sexual inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

14.

Scheer, R. With enough shovels: Reagan, Bush, and nuclear war. New York: Random House, 1982.

15.

Stern, A. How much is enough? (Film on the nuclear arms buildup shown on PBS national television network as part of the Crisis to crisis series.) August 6, 1982.

16.

What Vietnam did to us: Survivors of Charlie Company relive the war and thedecade since. Newsweek, December 14,1981. (The reunion was also filmed andtelevised nationally as a CBS Special Report, December 12, 1981.)