The other day, in "
No Drugs, No Democracy", I introduced the brilliant and iconoclastic Dr David Hillman, and his book, “
The Chemical Muse – Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization”.
Now he returns as a "Guest Blogger" on this site, Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-christian-lens-why-goddess-worshiping-greeks-had-no-pornography, writing on
The Christian Lens: Why Goddess Worshiping Greeks Had No Pornography.
David is a buddy, who loves to provoke, and he's very good at it. But he makes a very important point: we all have a tendency to understand and judge other historic periods and other cultures in the light of our own assumptions in our own times. And this can lead us to make grave errors of understanding. As I understand it, it is these misapprehensions that David devotes himself to challenging, whether it's reading the Greeks' use of hallucinogenic herbs, or interpreting sexual imagery in Roman frescoes.
The only picture I've been able to find is this - wish he had a bit more of a twinkle in the eye; perhaps he can supply another photo?
I'm happy to allow David Hillman to explain himself, as he very capably does here:
The Christian Lens: Why Goddess Worshiping Greeks Had No Pornography by Dr. David Hillman
Scholars, particularly feminist academicians, have misled you, once again. What did they do this time? How have they missed the boat entirely? And why should you care? If you have any interest in the veneration of the sacred feminine, you will want to know why.
As you well know, you live in a society that is permeated by a masculine conception of a monotheistic, universal divinity; the Greeks didn’t. You live in a world dominated by the idea that drug use is bad, particularly recreational drug use; the Greeks didn’t. You occupy a social matrix that teaches you the ills of pornography as a mechanism of exploiting women; the Greeks didn’t. In short, your cultural lens is the creation of Christianity, and you do not share the social outlook held by the founders of democracy and the scientific method; nor do you share the same values as the women who invented poetry, dance and medicine. (Yes, women invented all three--much to the chagrin of feminist scholars who would have you believe the history of women is a terrible story of oppression and failure.)
Why can’t we look at the historical facts as the Greeks saw them--through the eyes of goddess worshipers?
Forced to consider the medical texts and classical poetry that is saturated with drug references, scholars are now beginning to acknowledge the widespread use of mind-altering substances in the Greco-Roman world. With this under their belts, they will soon be forced to come to an understanding of why there is no word in ancient Greek for “junkie,” “hop-head,” or “stoner.” In other words, they will have to reconcile the fact that the Greeks wrote a great deal about potent drugs, their uses, and even the treatment of overdoses, but they did not develop a vocabulary to stigmatize the use of drugs. For example, with all the prevalent drug use in the ancient world, there is absolutely no concept of “addiction” (habituation, yes, addiction no). There were no drug laws, no cartels, no drug-related violence, and no treatment centers--but enough street drugs to impress the likes of even Charlie Sheen.
Scholars of the last century were avidly opposed to the idea that founders of western civilization were drug users, because they viewed the world of antiquity through their own cultural lens--a product of Christianity that imposed a heavy scaffolding of transgressive victimization, upon which all of history was built What’s that mean? Exactly what I was told by the head of my former academic department: The Romans didn’t have recreational drugs, because....well....”they just wouldn’t do such a thing.”
According to the Christian lens--all anti-drug movements in the West begin with the rise of Christianity as a state-sanctioned power--drug use creates victims. Drug users therefore become victims of those who perpetuate drug use; once it was Satan--the great perpetrator, and now it is anyone criminal or immoral. Stated simply, drug use involves a victim and a perpetrator. Dealer, perpetrator, user, victim. It’s a pretty simple philosophy.
Pornography is no different. Today, through the Christian cultural lens, we see pornography in the same social terms as drug use...and feminists advance this idea more so than any other group of so-called scholars. They write about ancient “pornography” but they are reticent to tell us that the concept is not Greek. (Don’t let this trouble you; the same folks teach us that “homosexuality” was commonplace in antiquity, but fail to tell us that the word “homosexuality” never made it into the ancient vocabulary--yes, it too is an invention of the Christian world--the Greeks thought same-sex intercourse was just intercourse.) Pornography, as you and I recognize it, was entirely absent from the Greek speaking world.
See a pattern? Find some genitalia in a vase painting from antiquity, and suddenly you’ve got a group of victims and perpetrators. It’s a modern paradigm, and you can find it in scads of pages of published nonsense. It’s funny. Villa of the Mysteries, with naked butts? Porn and the subjugation of women. Wall paintings at the brothel in Pompeii (which is right next to the ancient pharmacy, by the way) picturing people having intercourse? Porn and the subjugation of women. Anal intercourse on pottery? Porn and the subjugation of women.
Well I’ve got news for the feminists. The artistic renderings in the Villa of the Mysteries celebrate the god Dionysus, who happens to have been worshiped by roving bands of women; gender exclusive groups that used drugs to regulate their menstruation--and were allowed to beat the dickens out of any men they caught trying to spy on their proceedings. And the Roman brothels? Who do you think invented the pharmaceutical knowledge of birth control used by the average Roman woman? And what about all the boobs and butts on all of those vases? That’s pornographic, right? Well, if that is pornographic, then the feminist scholars should probably start talking about all the victimized athletes in antiquity who ran around naked in “pornographic” performances. Oh, wait, don’t do that, because we happen to know now that the earliest athletic contests in classical antiquity were probably established by women and had female divinities as their patrons.
The sexual degradation of the female form in modern artistic media (be it photographs, movies etc.) is the exclusive product of Christianity. That’s right. Any scientific study of modern pornography, or sex in artistic rendering, will reveal a significant shift in thematic focus from depictions of sexually related activities in antiquity. Victimization only became possible when the act of sexual intercourse was given a moral status; just like drug use was once something women pioneered, but under Christianity became something for which the same group of women could be burned alive.
What’s that all mean? You can’t truly appreciate goddess worshippers unless you can give the feminists a slip; until you cut through the Christian lens, you will not see the world through the eyes of an ancient Greek woman whose freedom allowed her to embrace the sacred feminine.
