Its sources include cross-cultural anthropological and sociological surveys, and studies of individual societies as well as writings by historians, analyses of laws, moral codes, art, literature, scholarship from psychology, economics, education, political science, philosophy, religious studies, archaeology, the study of myths and legends and data from more recent fields such as primatology, neuroscience, chaos theory, systems self-organizing theory, non-linear dynamics, gender studies, women's studies, and men's studies. Drawing from a trans-disciplinary database, it applies this approach to a wide-ranging exploration of how humans think, feel, and behave individually and in groups. The study of relational dynamics is an application of systems analysis: the study of how different components of living systems interact to maintain one another and the larger whole of which they are a part. In contrast to earlier studies of society, this method concerns what kinds of social systems support the human capacity for consciousness, caring, and creativity, or conversely for insensitivity, cruelty, and destructiveness. The method of social analysis in the book is multidisciplinary in its study of relational dynamics. No utopia is predicted rather, a way of structuring society in more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable ways is envisioned. Female values offer a partnership alternative with deep roots in the pre-Patriarchy paradigm of cultural evolution. Briefly her thesis is despite old narratives about an inherently flawed humanity, more and more evidence shows humanity is not doomed to perpetuate patterns of violence and oppression.
The book is now in 26 foreign editions, including most European languages as well as Chinese, Japanese, Urdu, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish. These challenge conventional views about cultural evolution up to the time of the book's publication. The book closes with two contrasting future scenarios. She traces this tension in Western culture from prehistory to the present. Eisler proposes tension between these two underlies the span of human cultural evolution.
3 New perspective on cultural evolutionĮisler highlights the tension between what she calls the dominator or domination model and the more naturally feminine partnership model.Precedents in history as well as in the imagination. Or culture and that the hope for a more egalitarian future has Their thesis suggests that patriarchy is not rooted in human nature Indo-European invaders who established a domineering, violence-prone
"civilization of the goddess" was obliterated by the Marija Gimbutas and others believe that this egalitarian Think of as the "dawn" of Western civilization. The Chalice and the Blade, by Riane Eisler (Harper San Francisco,ġ988), gathers evidence for the existence of a peace-loving, highlyĭeveloped culture in the Mediterranean area prior to what we normally This past year, I read a number of books I think will The books I read for mental stimulation are usually not au courant because I like to wait until the initial hoopla has subsided before I Joseph Martos is a professor at Spalding University, Louisville, The Chalice and the Blade." Retrieved from
#Chalice and the blade free
MLA style: "The Chalice and the Blade." The Free Library.