Barbara K. Richardson
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The End of Patriarchy: Peacemakers Not Game-Players

8/25/2011

2 Comments

 
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We are seeing the end of patriarchy. It has taken itself to its preposterous cruel end. The insanity you move through that is called contemporary history, these current events that pile on suffering and seem so incontestable, or contestable but unstoppable, are the ruin of a ruinous social system. Does knowing this give any cause for comfort?

Understanding phenomena while you’re in the midst of them does offer strength and detachment. Just enough detachment to know that your values and actions—unlike the global aggressive, destructive, acquisitive swarm—are not prey to the swarm. When the only real freedom is personal, take it. Stand different. Witness your direct line with good. Adore the world still sending its beauty up through you. Reframe the so-called debate of living.

The Navaho call it “The Beauty Way.” Bill Cunningham, eccentric street fashion photographer in New York says: “He who seeks beauty will find it.”

If every one of us fell to the earth in gratitude each day would we be so odd, really?

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What if you listened to dirt for one minute, every day? When was the last time you smelled soil? Get on your belly, it’s your inheritance, your support, our own kingdom come.

Society is largely lunatic. Individual wisdom arises continuously. Every one of us can put down the gun.

P.S. The idea of the end of patriarchy was planted in my brain by Paul B. Ferrell, a behavioral economics columnist for Market Watch/Wall Street Journal, who writes:
It is clear that patriarchy — male dominance of world culture, politics and economics throughout history — has failed, bringing the world to the brink of total destruction. Why do male leaders fail? Jeremy Grantham’s firm GMO manages $108 billion. He predicted the 2008 meltdown and now warns: Male leaders are emotional, “impatient ... management types who focus on what they are doing this quarter or this annual budget.” Leadership “requires more people with a historical perspective who are more thoughtful and more right-brained.” Yet “we end up with an army of left-brained immediate doers,” which guarantees that “every time we get an outlying, obscure event that has never happened before in history, they are always to miss it . . . ”

In the coming post-capitalism America, Grantham’s research suggests that women leaders will naturally emerge not just because the male brain is a short-term saboteur. The bigger reason is that women’s brains have evolved naturally as superior long-term thinkers. Brain researchers tell us 75% of men are short-term left-brain thinkers, while 75% of women tend to have strong right-brain traits as forward-thinkers, more aware of the future, the big picture, with a sense of future consequences, peacemakers rather than gamer-players.

P.P.S. I know it is "stand differently," but standing alone is awkward, so the grammatical oddness seems right.
2 Comments
salahuddin tahir
2/17/2012 03:02:44 am

why do you believe you are better than men?

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Barbara Richardson link
2/17/2012 04:33:00 am

Hello, Salahuddin. I do not believe I'm better than men. I love both men and women. I think our system of governance is out of balance. We can all contribute to greater kindness and fairness and peace.

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