disinformation | riane eisler

Welcome to Disinformation | July 06, 2003

Abuse Your Illusions - the follow-up to Everything You Know Is Wrong & You Are Being Lied To is in the store and every bit as essential. The long-awaited Disinformation DVD is in too!
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U.S. Weighs Military Intervention in Liberia
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What The European Papers Say
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Violence Mars Nigerian Strikes
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Religion in the News: June 2003
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riane eisler
by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - October 02, 2001

Riane Tennenhaus Eisler is one of the most challenging, intelligent, and provocative scholars alive today who write on Cultural Transformation models. Her inter-disciplinary research blends together anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology to reveal the coercive and double-binding structural patterns underlying global civilization's repressive and violent history.

Drawing upon the archaeological research of Marija Gimbutas, Ashley Montagu, and others, Eisler's influential book The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1987) explored early matrilineal and matriarchal societies and polytheistic Goddess worship.

Eisler proposed that much of history has been the battle between Dominator (Androcratic) and Partnership (Gylanic) societies: the destructive Blade has often been exalted over the life-giving Chalice. Although criticized by some analysts for promoting a Golden Age of supposedly equalitarian agrarian village life that they claim never existed (and who note that Eisler's continuum is still hierarchical in nature), Eisler's book offers many insights into gender equality far beyond its contemporaries: the development of High Civilizations; the destruction of Goddess worship by monotheistic Judeo-Christianity; and Minoan Crete as a possible model for cultural transformation.

The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning (2nd Edition, Holistic Education Press, 1998), co-written with David Loye and originally published in 1990, offered an International Partnership Network and a collection of self-development exercises designed to explore non-violence and stimulate awareness of environmental, multicultural, and gender issues.

In her next book Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body (San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1995), Eisler directly confronted the reasons for linking Sex and Violence, from anthropological studies of Neolithic/Paleolithic societies to contemporary media eroticization and sacralization of pain. Well-researched, wide-ranging, and passionately argued, Sacred Pleasure surpasses Eisler's earlier work, and continues detailing the Chaos, Gaia, Eros trinity detailed by Ralph Abraham, Robert Anton Wilson and others. This book shatters more misconceptions about gender relations and human sexuality than any other feminist/cultural studies oriented study.

With Tomorrow's Children: A Blueprint for Partnership Education in the 21st Century (Westview Press, 2000), Eisler turns her attention to regenerating the education system into an innovative one that harnesses individual creativity, stimulates collaborative problem-solving strategies and exalts needs-centered values over moulding the student to 'best-fit' mythic-membership society.

Through the Pacific Grove, California based Center for Partnership Studies, Eisler and Loye continue to explore the possibilities for sustainable societies through consulting, lecturing, research, social activism, and teaching.

Riane Eisler's open-ended worldview has influenced many aspects of contemporary cultural debate, most notably stimulating interest in Wicca and Goddess-oriented religions; countering the Killer Ape and Selfish Gene models of human development; and offering a more embracing Feminism that isn't blame or guilt-oriented.

Center For Partnership Studies
The official site for Riane Eisler and David Loye's Center For Partnership Studies, including excerpts from Eisler's best-selling books; Partnership curricula; the International Partnership Network; international resources; research papers; applications to business management, economics, education, gender studies, and more. A highly recommended site! English and Spanish versions available.

Alliance For A Caring Economy
A joint initiative of the Center For Partnership Studies and the Global Futures Foundation, this well-designed and informative site for the Alliance For A Caring Economy offers resources and an expanding international network of businesses and individuals who are applying Eisler's Partnership Way model to their everyday lives.

Changing The Rules of The Game: Work, Values, and Our Future
This 1998 article written by Riane Eisler for the Alliance For A Caring Economy is an excellent summary of geo-economic issues and building sustainable futures for our children.

Spiritual Courage
This 1998 Riane Eisler-penned essay explores spirituality not just as a moral or ethical imperative, but as a path "of love, not in some abstract way but in action. I think of what I have called spiritual courage: trusting our impulse to reach out to others, to help others, to challenge injustice - not out of hate, but out of love."

Superstar Theater: Riane Eisler
"SuperstarTheater.com presents a brand-new webcast featuring Dr. Riane Eisler, who will speak about "The Battle of the Sexes -- Or Partnership?" The world-acclaimed author will discuss the issues of dominance and the timeless jousting for position within hierachies between men and women, as well as between adults and children." Presented by Tibor Rudas. RealVideo and Windows Media Player. 60 minutes (two parts). Transcripts also available.

Sex, Spirituality, and Evolution: Are We Victims to The Beast Within?
This interview conducted by Mark Harris for Conscious Choice: The Journal of Ecology & Natural Living (February 1999) highlights Riane Eisler in Cultural Historian mode, debunking Richard Dawkin's Selfish Gene hypothesis; the War of the Sexes as a highly dysfunctional system; and the need for open-ended and evolving systems to harness the forces of Change and Creativity: " Historically this has never worked, I'm sorry to say. There have always been people who thought, if you just work on yourself, become a better person, and if enough of us do this, the world will be transformed. But what brings change is when systems change, systems that make it possible for us to express ourselves more fully, to give and receive more love, to be less humiliated, less degraded, to not be tortured or killed."

Making Sex A Sacred Pleasure
This illuminating Full Moon interview, conducted by Jotsna Sreenivasan, focuses on how to teach children healthy, responsible sexuality in an era of guilt-ridden - verging on pathological - repression. "Sexual experimentation will happen whether parents talk about sex with their kids or not. The key is to give children a new ethic, a new morality, of sexuality. It isn't immoral to have sexual desires. It is highly immoral to pressure someone to have sex against their will," states Eisler.

Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, And The Politics Of The Body
This Magical Blend interview (January 1996), conducted by Jerry Snider, focuses upon the Dominator versus Partnership society continuum; the semantic interlinking of Sex and Violence; eroticism and mystical literature; Goddess worship and dysfunctional civilizations; the 1960s Sexual Revolution, and more. Provocative, witty, and intelligent.

Toward A Partnership Society
This interview conducted for At Work magazine (January/February 1998) focuses upon applications of the Partnership Way worldview to geo-economics, post-industrial society issues, early psychohistorical patterns of the Dominator Culture, and more.

Three Myths About Partners
This article originally appeared in the popular business magazine Fast Company (November 1998) and debunks some commonly held myths about the 'P' word.

Raising The Chalice
Riane Eisler and David Loye are interviewed regarding how to develop the "consciousness of caring" and the Partnership Way model of society that both Eisler and Loye have researched and written widely about. Topics include civilization blueprints as underlying tectonic templates; the Dominator versus Partnership model; the importance of human growth needs; the freedom of Polytheistic religions, and more. In-depth and provocative thoughts from a pioneering couple.

Toward A Dynamic Partnering Cosmology
This essay by Veronika Kauffmann presents a multi-referential open system of cosmology focusing upon the 'I-Thou' relationship (Martin Buber) and the writings of Riane Eisler and Ralph Abraham. Includes very helpful graphic representations of the dynamic systems envisioned. Note that the basic unit is a 'holon' (Arthur Koestler).

Complex Adaptive Systems, Evolutionism, And Ecology Within Anthropology
Published in the Georgia Journal of Ecological Anthropology (1998) Vol. 2, 6-29; this essay by Tom Abel is useful background material for understanding the interdisciplinary approach of Riane Eisler to anthropological and social research.

The School for Violence
This LA Weekly article (September 28-October 4, 2001), by Helen Knode, interviews Riane Eisler about the cultural context of terrorism and how violence can transform nations and societies.

Ecotech III: Speakers: Riane Eisler
This Riane Eisler bio for the third Ecotech conference highlights her pioneering Human Rights work.

Goddess Worship
The anthropological study of Goddess Worship and lunar calendar-based societies is prevalent throughout many of Riane Eisler's writings. This page from the Religious Tolerance.org site will provide you with further references and background contextual material.

The Domain of Patriarchy
Self-annointed 'Chief Patriarch and Oppressor-General' Robert Sheaffer devotes his time to debunking what he perceives as falsehoods and myths about supposedly 'non-patriarchal societies' and 'godddess pseudo-history'. Useful for considering an alternate perspective on many of the issues that Riane Eisler writes about.

Pleiades Book Review: The Chalice And The Blade
This collection of book reviews concerning Riane Eisler's The Chalice and The Blade (1987) offers an insight into how Eisler's seminal book is perceived by its general readership.

Utne Visionaries: 1995
Riane Eisler makes an Utne Reader compiled list of socio-cultural visionaries.

Riane Eisler's 'The Challice and The Blade'
This reviewer of Riane Eisler's The Chalice and The Blade (1987) points out some flaws in her Dominator/Partnership model, including the existence of hierarchies; and skewed sampling of Androcratic (Dominator) societies. The reviewer concludes: "I think she should be careful that a partnership model is just that, where masculinity and femininity are both valued and not ranked as superior and inferior."

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