I have been reading

I have been reading some feminist critiques of the "men's" movement. I have adopted some of the Jungian notions found in many parts of the men's movement into the parlance of Chinese medicine recently, mostly because I think about them as effective symbols. People are welcome to interpret this stuff as they will, and I don't have any particular agenda in regards to the oppression of the male outside of the fact that it seems to me the "mature masculine" has been lacking in our society in recent times. The polemic between "feminists" and the "men's movement" seems to revolve around who is more oppressed, and secondly, curiously enough, whether there is any difference between men and women. In the spirit of Buddhism (or at least what I think of as Buddhism) I think it is fair to say if one of us is oppressed all of us are oppressed. As to the difference between male and female: it seems evident that there are differences between men and women, and the roles and stories we have around being male or female in this (or any other) society. Are these roles inherent? Healthy? Fixed? These are moot questions in my mind... they are what we have, seem largely instinctual, and I doubt any amount of rationalization, as appealing as it is, will somehow transform the sexes or change our perceptions of these roles in a meaningful way. I think the logical thing to do is examine the positive and negative qualities of the roles and seek to exploit their useful aspects and recognize and avoid their negative aspects.

The idea of maturity is something that we don't see discussed much these days, but there seems to be a movement towards "responsibility" which will do in a pinch. I think that many of the challenges we face as a culture derive from a lack of personal responsibility, and a concurrent failure to recognize the world as it is. Partially this is due to the perception of the world as a more dangerous and chaotic place, which leads one to invest in fantasy and ritual as secure places for the mind to rest. While a level of ritual is important to bolster a decent sense of self the dominance of ritual eviscerates the experience of life.

Ritual is yin and in keeping with metal phase. In our culture many aspects of the wild and rambunctious are marginalized and medicated... ranging from our children's "ADD" to the use of neuroleptic drugs to essentially lobotomize the "insane". The problem is we rob shao yang of its force to open and transform... the leads to a loss of expression of tai yang, the heart fire which illuminates and brings awareness that helps to manage ritual so it is not empty.

The apparent reaction of the "men's movement" is the "wild man" who embodies a sort of Id with legs that does what it likes without constraint. I think this is a negative expression of shao yang, boiling over in the face of an insult from metal... however, it leads to a breakdown in tai yang, which in the Jungian archetypes is the magnanimous King. Without the conscious leadership of the Confucian uberman (or uperperson if you care) society devolves, and we seek solace in more ritual repeating the cycle.

The bottom line is that I am exploring personality traits as expressed through the yin yang four movement model because they are informative, speak to my sensibilities, and happen to coincide well with my own, perhaps greatly flawed, view of the world... enjoy.