Dear all,
I don't know so much about Bert's recent point of view - haven't seen him
for a while. But I was following closely the debate there was on this famous
sentence. It's a recurrent one. I never heard any variants. In German it
goes:
"Die Frau folgt dem Mann, und der Mann dient dem Weiblichen."
so it's
"The woman follows the man, and the man serves the female."
I think we should not use the word "feminine" since it sounds (at least to
me and I'm not a native speaker) like socially constructed gender, which
Bert does mean. He is talking about the archaic forces, and he defines them
somehow in this phrase, and I don't see much reason to think what he points
to finally comes down to a familiar ying-yang conclusion. Although ying-yang
is a beautiful metaphor and makes a lot of sense on its own, no doubt.
So here is my interpretation: Only the woman can give birth, and as s mother
she is absolutely crucial to the baby-child. This gives them an incredible
weight. In order to balance the man-woman relationship, so they can be truly
equal, the man has to furnish a huge service as well. A big as risking his
life for giving birth to a child, which was very dangerous until very
recently. So he has, in this archaic equation, to guarantee the safety and
wellbeing of woman and children to give as much as she gives by being a
mother. This is very difficult, and not to make it any harder for him, she
is supposed to follow him where he can do it best - where he can be of the
greatest service to the nurturing and potentially life-creating power of the
female, but not necessarily service to a potentially capricious feminine
will. Just like "following" is not meant in the sense of hierarchical
submission - both partners are equal if they equally give and take.
Best wishes,
Martin
On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 1:18 AM, Dan Booth Cohen <danbcohen@xxxxxxx> wrote:
David and All -
Compiling the insights gained from Constellations works well on what Eva
Madelung calls the systemic plane, but is best avoided on the biographical
plane.
There's a famous thought experiment in moral psychology that considers a
case from the Korean War. A group of about 30 villagers was hiding out in
the basement of a house. In order to prevent the group's discovery by
enemy
soldiers nearby, and certain death for everyone, a mother smothers her
crying baby. The moral question is about the mother's choice to kill her
baby to save the group as opposed to sacrificing them all in service to
maternal love. Psychologists have designed sophisticated tests to study
moral behavior in such extreme situations.
Systemically, Constellation facilitators can ask a different question
entirely, one that research psychologists cannot touch, but which we can
answer. What would the baby choose in such a situation? Our answer comes
from the experience of many Constellations: We see children unequivocally
sacrifice themselves to save their parents. In this sense, our experiences
give us insights into the hidden architecture of love.
On the practical level, if we begin a Constellation with such a
preconception locked into our minds, if we think we know the answer from
the
start, the Constellation is ruined before it begins. In Constellations
revolving around issues of men, women, and relationships, what I see
defies
categorization and generalization. The individuals and couples that come
to
my circles are struggling to endure their relationships. As a facilitator,
I am rarely concerned with who leads or serves, but simply trying to allow
them to experience a feeling of relief that unfreezes whatever has seized
them.
Research psychology is committed to quantitative methods. The psychologist
Kerlinger wrote, "Scientists are not and cannot be concerned with the
individual case. . . . The unit of speech in science is always the set,
the
group . . . The existential individual, the core of individuality, forever
escapes the scientist. He is chained to group data, statistical
prediction,
and probabilistic estimates."
By this definition we are not scientists, but systemic philosophers. We
can
say, "Facilitators are and must be concerned with the individual case. The
unit of speech in Constellations is always a particular person and their
place in the family system."
Dan
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