The sacredness of the power formed through society reveals itself most clearly in magic. Magic is society's attempt to gain strength.

The existing level of consciousness can be put into practice only in the form of magic. Magic is also the mother of science. The woman who constantly observes nature and knows birth, in which life finds expression, is the sage of this form of society. The fact that magicians are predominantly women expresses this truth. By virtue of the practice of life, it is woman who best knows what takes place in natural society. The mark of woman can be seen in all the sculptures remaining from this period. The clan is a unity formed around the mother-woman. Giving birth and caring for children compel her to become the best gatherer and provider. The child knows only the mother. Man does not yet exert an influence over woman as his property. Just as it is not known by which man a woman became pregnant, it is clear to which woman the children belong. This natural necessity also reveals the power of a sociality based on woman. The predominantly feminine character of the words conceptualized in this period is another proof of this truth. Man's later development of belligerence and domination also stems from his role in hunting powerful animals during this period. His physical characteristics compel him more strongly to seek game at a distance and protect the clan from danger. These non-determining roles also explain why man remained in the background. Private relations have not developed within the clan. What is obtained through gathering and hunting belongs to all. The children belong to the entire clan. Neither man nor woman has yet become individualized. It is because of these fundamental features that this form of society is called primitive communal society.

In conclusion, the clan form is the ground for the birth of society, its first memory, and the development of the basic concepts of consciousness and belief. What remains from it is the truth that a healthy society rests on the natural environment and the power of woman, and that humanity's mode of existence was realized through a strong solidarity free of exploitation and oppression. Humanity is, in a sense, the sum of these fundamental values. It is absurd to suppose that this social experience, which lasted millions of years, has vanished. Just as nothing in nature disappears, this tendency preserves its force even more strongly in the mode of social existence.

An important matter established by science is the fact that a later development also contains the development preceding it. It is not true that opposites develop by destroying one another. What this rule of dialectics means is that thesis and antithesis continue their existence in the synthesis, within a richer formation. All evolution confirms this rule.

The development of clan values also continues within new syntheses. That the concepts of equality and freedom still retain the status of the most fundamental values today is owed to the reality of clan life. Before equality and freedom were conceptualized in consciousness, they lay concealed in the clan's way of life in their natural state. When equality and freedom are lost, these concepts, living concealed in social memory, will voice themselves at an ever-increasing pace and once again impose themselves as the fundamental principles of a society developed at a higher level. As society evolves toward hierarchical and state institutions, equality and freedom will relentlessly pursue them. What pursues them in essence is clan society itself.

In the previous section, we tried to explain within what definitional framework we may call humanity's first communal condition “natural society.” We also set out our paradigm for approaching the universe. It lies in the nature of clan-style social organization to spread across time and space and gradually gain diversity and volume. The available data indicate that discontent developed on the male side of the community as it grew around the mother-woman and perfected its identity. The children gathering around the mother-woman, and the men to whom she gives greater favor so that they may assist her, provoke the jealousy and anger of other men. More importantly, the mother-woman develops the domestic order. She obtains food, clothing, and other instrumental equipment from this domestic order. Through her observations she also attains the position of the woman-magician and acquires wisdom. The more children and friendly (close) men she binds to this domestic order, the stronger a mother-woman she becomes. An unrestrainable cult of woman is developing. The evidence at hand—the more widespread religious order of the goddess, the feminine elements in language, and the sculptures—are clear signs of the mother-woman's rising power. A significant section of men naturally remains distant from this order. Those whom the mother-woman does not consider useful, predominantly the elderly, can remain outside this system.

This contradiction, very weak at first, gradually develops. As hunting advances, it reveals man's military power and increases his knowledge. On this basis, the excluded elders move toward developing a male-dominant ideology. The religion of “Shamanism” in particular confronts us strikingly with this phenomenon. Shamans largely represent the prototype of male priests. They seek to develop a highly systematic countermovement and a rival domestic order against women. Whereas man had previously sheltered in simple huts, living almost half-wild in the face of the mother-woman's advanced domestic order, with Shamanism he can establish a countervailing domestic order. The alliance between shamans and elderly, experienced men is an important development. Through the ideological power they establish over certain young men admitted into their ranks, their position within the community grows steadily stronger. The character of man's acquisition of power assumes still greater importance. Both hunting and the defense of the clan against the outside are military in character and rest on killing and wounding. This is the beginning of the culture of war. When life and death are at stake, adherence to authority and hierarchy is required. The most capable person becomes the one whose word and authority rank highest. A different culture begins to develop its superiority over the cult of the mother-woman. This development of authority and hierarchy before class society constitutes one of history's most important turning points. It differs qualitatively from the culture of the mother-woman. Gathering and the later production of plants, which predominate in that culture, are peaceful activities that do not require war. Male-dominated hunting, by contrast, is an activity based on the culture of war and harsh authority. The result is the taking root of patriarchal authority.

The hierarchical and authoritarian structure is fundamental to patriarchal society. The concept of hierarchy denotes the first example of an administrative understanding based on authority joined with the shaman's sacred authority. This institution of authority, which will gradually rise above society, will transform into state authority as developments toward class formation intensify. Hierarchical authority is mostly personal; it has not been institutionalized. It therefore lacks the degree of domination over society possessed by the state institution. Compliance is half voluntary. Allegiance is determined by the interests of society. But the process that has begun is open to giving birth to the state. Primitive communal society resists this process for a long time. A person who accumulates products in his hands receives respect and allegiance for his authority only if he shares them with members of the community. Accumulation is regarded as a grave crime. The best person is the one who distributes what he has accumulated. The conception of “generosity,” still widespread in tribal societies, finds its source in this powerful historical tradition. Even festivals began as a kind of ceremony for distributing the surplus. From the outset, the community regards accumulation as the most important threat directed against it and makes resistance to it the foundation of its understanding of morality and religion. It is not difficult to see strong traces of this tradition in all religious and moral teachings. Society approves hierarchy only when its usefulness and generosity bring it something. Hierarchy of this kind plays a positive and useful role.

This quality of the hierarchy based on the mother-woman is also the historical foundation of the concept of “mother,” which is still acknowledged as a source of great respect and authority in all societies. For under the most difficult conditions, the mother is the predominant element who both gives birth and nourishes. The culture, hierarchy, and authority formed on this basis will naturally command great devotion. The fact that she forms the basis of social existence is the true explanation for the power of the concept of “mother” down to the present day. Contrary to what is supposed, this does not arise from an abstract biological capacity to give birth. “Mother, mother-goddess” must be understood as the most important social phenomenon and concept. She is entirely closed to the phenomenon of the state and bears within herself all the qualities that prevent its birth.

Within this definitional framework, it is realistic to regard natural society as the initial thesis of human existence. Humanity began its existence on the basis of this thesis. What preceded it was animal life. What followed was the development, in opposition to it, of hierarchical and statist society. The antithetical character of this period stems precisely from its continual suppression and regression of natural society. As a thesis, natural society prevailed throughout all areas of human settlement and, in temporal terms, remained the predominant and effective social system until the end of the Neolithic period (approximately 4000 BCE). In a suppressed form, it continues to exist in all the pores of society down to the present. This continuity is also evident in basic social concepts. The family, tribe, mother, fraternity, freedom, equality, friendship, generosity, solidarity, festivals, valor, sacredness, and many other phenomena and concepts are legacies of this social system. The opposing hierarchical and statist society most strongly perpetuates the quality of driving this system backward and suppressing it. It derives its position as antithesis from this quality. The interpenetration of the two social systems is also entirely consistent with the fundamental laws of dialectics.

Another important point requiring attention here is that our dialectical understanding develops not in the form of thesis and antithesis destroying one another, but with the character of “suppression and regression.” As in all nature, social systems carry one another within themselves when they become thesis and antithesis. Their struggle undoubtedly leads to important developments. The thesis never remains in its old state, but neither does the antithesis, as an omnipotent force, devour its predecessor. It can develop itself only by feeding on it.

At this point it is useful to elaborate a little further on dialectics. During the period of dogmatic Marxism, thesis and antithesis were interpreted in society as destroying one another. This form of interpretation is in fact one of the most fundamental theoretical errors committed. The feature observed in all sciences, especially biology, is the importance of the mutually nourishing aspect in the development and transformation of phenomena. Conditions resembling destruction are exceptional. What predominates is that thesis and antithesis nourish one another. Its simplest expression is the child-mother duality. The child develops in contradiction with the mother, but from this we cannot infer that the child destroys the mother. At most, it can be evaluated as the continuation of the generation through mutual nourishment. An extreme case is the snake-mouse duality. Even here, what occurs is the preservation of balance between the excessive reproduction of mice and the infrequent reproduction of snakes. Perhaps without snakes, mice would play a more devastatingly destructive role than the dinosaurs. It is understood better with each passing day that beings in nature are not meaningless and that each possesses a certain ecological meaning. Nevertheless, the concepts of the “extreme point” and “absolute limits” may remain valid, at least as concepts, within a very restricted segment. It is now a feature recognized by all sciences that the fundamental law of nature develops in the form of mutual interdependence.

The first victim of hierarchical society was the domestic order of the mother-woman. Woman may well stand at the head of those segments oppressed within the social system. That this process, lived extensively in prehistory, has found no place in the social sciences also arises from the entrenched values of a deeply rooted male-dominant society. Woman's step-by-step incorporation into hierarchical society and her loss of all powerful social qualities constitute the most fundamental counterrevolution realized in society. Even when the condition of woman in a poor working family is examined today, it is impossible not to confront with horror the continuing dimensions of this oppression and deception. Man's monopoly over so-called honor killings and crimes of love for the simplest reasons is only a small indication of what has taken place. To attribute this process to biological differences would be a fundamental error. The role or laws of biology cannot apply in social relations. At most, the reciprocal relations of masculine and feminine characteristics can be assessed, and this is a matter valid for all species. The cult of the mother-woman was subjected to domination essentially for social reasons. The oppression and ideology applied to it are entirely for this reason. To try to explain this through sexual instinct or psychology is a grave distortion.

The strong man, strengthened through hunting and organizing a group around himself, gradually took control of the mother-woman's domestic order after becoming fully aware of his power and compelling its recognition. This process continued until the founding of the first city-states. We see its most magnificent explanation in the Sumerian city-states. The written tablets recount this reality in strikingly poetic language. The Epic of Inanna, the goddess of Uruk who inaugurated the Sumerian city-state, is particularly striking. Reflecting a period when the cult of woman and patriarchal culture still stood in balance, the epic voices the memory of a fiercely contested process. As the goddess of Uruk, Inanna goes to the palace of Enki, the god of Eridu, takes possession by various means of the 104 “me” that had previously belonged to her, and carries them away to Uruk. This plays a key role in explaining the period. The “me” signify the fundamental inventions of civilization. Inanna insistently emphasizes that these inventions belong to woman, the mother-goddess; that the male god Enki played no role in them; and that he stole them from her through force and cunning. Inanna's entire effort is directed toward reclaiming this cult of the mother-goddess.

It can be estimated that these epics were recited around 3000 BCE. This was still a period in which the power of the mother-woman remained in balance. After these dates, this cult and culture receded step by step and were subjected to such cruelty that woman later found herself in the “musakkatin,” the brothel of Nippur, the center of civilization of the age—the New York of its day. On the one hand, the Sumerian priest established a harem for himself in the ziggurat; on the other, a brothel was created for the people. In the Enuma Elish Epic, written around 2000 BCE, the goddess Tiamat is now a terrifying witch and represents the woman who must be torn to pieces. A horrific discourse reflects the subjugation that was accomplished. What follows is completed by the monotheistic religions and by the sweet-voiced, ornamented woman whom the bourgeois social system has confined in a cage. The status into which woman was placed in historical social systems was subjected to such intense ideological propaganda that woman's own mind can now call it destiny and regard fulfilling its requirements as demanded by fate. The monotheistic religions regard it as God's command. Greek philosophy presents woman as an agent of weakness. Every degrading approach is deemed fitting for her: a crude mass of matter, a field to be plowed by man.

TO BE CONTINUED…