A Crisis and a Discovery
Crisis. There
is a crisis of intimacy which is reflected in the endless
warring which is the defining characteristic of the Big
Story that has dominated human culture for the last five
millennia. In this Big Story of the Warrior’s
Quest, endless war makes real and manifest the vision
of other people—the Other: you—as
an Intimate Enemy. In this vision, you as Intimate
Enemy are someone to be feared and eventually dominated and subjugated.
Tellingly, even the most intimate, interior and private sexual space
is defined as an arena where a “war between the sexes”
is waged.
This is a crisis anchored, moreover, in the almost
unimaginable fact that there are enough nuclear bombs
to blow the Earth to smithereens and, in so doing, vaporize
every human being and every living thing.
To grasp the Earthfolk Big Story’s
vision of sensual preciousness is, in part,
to understand the connections and
disconnections between our understanding of intimacy and the
Warrior’s Quest vision of the endless war with its Intimate Enemy
and nuclear bomb.
The Warrior’s Quest imagination
is grounded in a Big Story vision which seeks to exercise
dominion over all peoples, all living things, including the Earth, itself.
It is a vision of the individual hero whose quest is
to overcome, vanquish or slay an Intimate Enemy.
The Warrior’s
Quester makes present and manifest this vision through the practice
of “living as if you are my Intimate
Enemy.” For the Warrior’s Quester, “you”
is any Other who stands to thwart the Quest. The reward,
as the Warrior’s Quest ends, is individual victory, enlightenment,
or salvation.
Continue—Crisis
