Fault Lines, The Sixties, The Culture Wars, and The Return of the Divine Feminine
REVIEWS, 26 May 2014
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
Gus diZerega, Fault Lines, The Sixties, The Culture Wars, and The Return of the Divine Feminine (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2013)
The 1960s is the period during which many of us still involved in research and action for the resolution of armed conflicts and more just economic relations among countries moved beyond academic life to try to have a direct impact in international political life. There were, it seems to me looking back, three fields where independent voices tried to be heard, voices that moved beyond the realist-”national interest” framework of most international relations writing in the 1950s. The 1960s also saw the start of what is now called Track II diplomacy− non-official meetings trying to develop common policy positions, or at least, a deeper understanding of the roots of particular conflicts.
- Although the Cold War was often described as an “East-West” conflict or a “Communist-Capitalist” one, it was basically a USA-USSR conflict but with implications for other countries. Therefore, voices from many countries were active, concerned with arms control and conflicts which could spread such as those in Indochina.
- The impact of newly independent countries, especially those of Africa, their entry into the United Nations. In 1964 the first UN Conference on Trade and Development was held in Geneva, setting the stage for proposals for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) which came to the fore in the 1970s.
- A wide-spread concern for psychological development – human potential, often spoken of as New Age, the transition from the Piscean Period to the Age of Aquarius. It is this last trend which is the focus of Gus diZerega’s book, but his academic field is political science so that the political implications of psychological development runs through his treatment of the culture wars of the 1960s.
The 1960s was the period when the shift to the New Age — the Age of Aquarius — became more obvious to many and manifested in social and political movements. The 1960s was one of the “Great Awakenings” — a period of enhanced social and spiritual concern and increased personal spiritual experience. Whatever the causes, many of the people who helped shape the sixties possessed strong spiritual motivations.
Gus diZerega focuses on trends and events in the USA, but the 1960s was the time of the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia. Although crushed, it was the start of the end of Soviet power. The 1960s saw the process of Vatican II in which the Catholic Church entered a time of greater openness and concern for the poor. May’68 changed the French educational system in radical ways, and education philosophy was modified in many countries toward a greater understanding of other cultures.
As diZerega notes, the sixties “forms a psychocultural unity. Increasingly its cultural and spiritual trends reflected feminine yin values rather than the masculine yang ones, coming together as a style of relating with the world and others that was receptive, intuitive, connective, sensuous, nonlineal and experiential.” There was a shift to honouring the feminine. “Spiritual interest increasingly emphasized personal experience rather than theology, ritual rather than sermons, the sacred in the world rather than a transcendent deity.”
Many held that spiritual truth was located within the self, waiting to be discovered or awakened by opening up to the individual’s natural intuitive capacity to recognize the divine. This openness led to re-evaluating traditional religious views toward women, the feminine, and the sacred. Spiritual life is represented as getting into harmony with the sacred rhythms of the life cycle and the seasons rather than a linear progression toward salvation or enlightenment.
However, the New Age is not welcomed by all. diZerega has an important section on the “cultural warriors”, those still holding to some of the values of the declining Piscean Period. He quotes from President Nixon’s advisor and speech writer Pat Buchanan who finally became aware of trends and said in a 1999 outburst “In politics, conservatives have won more than they have lost, but in the culture, the left and its Woodstock values have triumphed. Divorce, dirty language, adultery, blasphemy, euthanasia, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, cohabitation and so on were not unknown in 1960. But today, they permeate our lives…The culture war is at its heart a religious war about whether God or man shall be exalted…With those stakes, to walk away is to abandon your post in time of war.”
The Piscean cultural warriors know that the sand of time is running against them, and they strike out violently, killing themselves in an effort to kill more as we see with the Islamic suicide bombers. The new yin/yang balance of the Aquarian Age frightens them as it upsets long periods of patriarchy rule. As diZerega stresses “No man is composed of purely masculine qualities, just as no woman is purely feminine. Man can embrace and honor their capacity to be open to others and to the world, just as women today are often coming to embrace their personal strength and drive. Thereby both come into greater balance with who they actually are.”
As has been pointed out, the seeds of a significant improvement in the quality of human life have already been sown and are ready for cultivation by individual human beings who have the required combination of knowledge, trust, diligence and patience to give expression to their authentic selves and openness to fresh ideas about the interconnectedness of all life forms. These attitudes lead to a confidence in the Inner Light from which the individual may draw inspiration and guidance rather than from the external texts, traditions, or religious authorities which had marked the Piscean Period. The Inner Light is a source of compassion and is attuned to the rhythms of the natural world. From the Inner Light arises a sense of wholeness and gives the individual a sense of participating in his or her own well-being, a sense of harmony with other people and their physical surroundings. This sense of wholeness leads to transformation on both the personal and collective levels.
It is inevitable that with the passing out of the Piscean Period and the coming in of the Aquarian Age, some “cultural warriors” stage a “last ditch fight” against the incoming values and energies. However, there is a mysterious cycle in human events as diZerega points out through the fault lines of the 1960s. To some generations, much is given. Of other generations, much is expected. Our generation is the generation which has entered into the Age of Aquarius. Therefore, the Gates of the Future must now open, no longer to the advanced guard but to an advance of all, all together.
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René Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of World Citizens. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 26 May 2014.
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