The Editorial By Scot Rhoads A Deep Thought It is ironic that in WWII, part of our country's fight against the Nazi's and Imperial Japan involved interning Americans of Japanese descent—just the kind of thing we were fighting. A country priding itself as the most free, in its fight for freedom foolishly perpetrated the kind of act it stood against. Today we recognize this as a very unfortunate part of our history and so it shall remain. But this does not define our country's future character if we learned from the mistake. Certainly we must look to a country's past to predict its future, but negative acts need not foretell further disasters. When we learn from the past, it can be a cure for hubris and help guide us to a better future. The best lesson is that we are not as different from other humans as we might want to believe. Once we learn that, then we can learn from others' mistakes so that we don't have to make so many of our own. More important, such experiences remind us that we are all together in this life thing and we must avoid the temptation to feel that we are better or worse than others are. Education vs. Attack Witches, yet another defamatory flick, still seems to be stirring up some action in the Wiccan community. Many seem to feel that this film is about as easy to accept as the anti-Semitic Eternal Jew. It is tiresome to see the same negative stereotypes year after year, century after century. Shouldn't these people know better? Well, I say they should not. I was out of college when I first learned anything accurate about Witchcraft. Even today most people seem as unaware as I was. This is not discrimination; it is lack of information. Discrimination may have been responsible for destroying and perverting the information, but once that's done, you can't assume that ignorance is discrimination. Sure, there are many that want to discriminate and would do so just as effectively with the most accurate information. But most people I see oppose discrimination and I expect that they would avoid it if they were aware of it. This means that the focus of our efforts against movies like Witches should be education, not protest and attack. We look silly enough to most people as it is; we look even sillier when we act as though they should know better than to make fun of people that they couldn't know were real. We should save the protest for those who really should know better (like the Pope, and those Fundies who do know the difference between Satanism and Wicca). But when defamatory movies come out of Hollywood, or any other font of ignorance, we should use the occasion to educate rather than protest. The movie itself should not be an issue, we should instead use the attention it gets to draw attention to us, so that we can inform people what Witches really are. If we do not treat people as though they would be on our side if they understood, then we set up an adversarial atmosphere and risk alienating many potential allies. Protest gains nothing that we can't get through education, and it threatens to lose us credibility and potential allies. So, What are Men For, Anyway? From the most mechanistic point of view, the goal of life is future generations. We have about a billion years of history (since the invention of sex and mortality) strengthening this process. Those species that were not as good at leaving fit progeny are not with us anymore. Some question the need for the different sexes (there are some species of higher animals that prove that two sexes are not necessary), but the success of the sexual species argues against any mechanistic questions about the fitness value of sex. It is more useful to study why it works rather than hypothesize why it should not (though both can be fun). Beyond its own survival (which comes first since the dead cannot do much), a creature's core concern is the survival of its progeny. Children, representing the future, are central—those creatures that didn't care enough are not with us anymore. Around children, protecting and nurturing them, are the women. Their investment in the children's fitness is larger than the males', thus they are closer. Around women, protecting and serving them, are the men. They are on the outside in this model because their genetic relationship to the children is more ambiguous (they can never be as sure as a mother of their relationship to a child) and because they are more expendable. Losing 90% of the males can be less of a threat to a tribe's fitness than losing 10% of the females. The males are a tribe's ablative armor, the sacrificed God. What does this mechanistic behavioral model tell us about ourselves? Well, it tells us nothing, in the sense that we have free will—even a billion years of evolution does not compel us to fit into any narrow mold. However, it does suggest a point of view that might help us organize our values. To me, the most significant is that the focus of our lives (though not necessarily the focus of every day) should be the well being of children. Native Americans would plan seven generations ahead—that sounds like a good mark. This model also points out that life is a continuing process (there is no Millionaire Acres at the end of the board), which demands sustainable ways of life. Anything else is detrimental to future generations. These two points are already well in the consciousness of our society, even though there is far to go in addressing them and even a risk that we will not succeed before we suffer disasters. But the ideal relationship of men and women is less clear. It is clear that we need to change. Throughout the world, women do most of the work, for a fraction of the rewards. They are disenfranchised, enslaved. We have all heard the lists of intolerable statistics. But change to what? We may want to look to the above mechanistic model for ideas about how to change. Or we might not. This is a soulless model. We need something that addresses more than the tiny part of our being comprising cold intellect. And we need a form of intuitive guidance that will allow us to retain our individuality and freedom—two of the most beautiful aspects of our culture. A corollary of the behavior model is the idea that these models are within us. Just as millions of years of spiders puts the web inside each spider, millions of years of mammals puts the Mother and Father inside each of us. We can find them in the form of the Goddess and God. We can look to Them, our ancient wisdom, for guidance in determining what will make the world healthy or unhealthy. There are, of course, many paths to wisdom, but this magazine is about Wicca, so it should be no surprise that I suggest Wicca can play a large role here. In that context, we find that though the God may do many things, His existence is dependent on the Goddess. In a sense, the meaning of His existence is service to the Goddess. Women and others in touch with the Goddess aspect may look within this archetype to find that they want to dedicate themselves to children or the well being of others. Similarly, men and others in touch with the God aspect may find that this archetype inspires them to protection, self-sacrifice and dedication to the Goddess. When we look to the Wiccan archetypes, we find the patriarchal tyranny of these last few millennia unacceptable and out of tune with what it really means to be male (in the healthy, happy, sustainable, fitness maximizing sense). We can find service and selflessness more rewarding than selfishness. We need not (there is always free will), but we can; and there can be a sense of joy and liberation in finding a comfortable role that has a positive, reinforcing role in the process of life. We are not required to follow any particular model, no matter how old it is; as witnessed by the variety of societies we have had over the ages. Nor are we required to follow our urges literally. But a look to the past can suggest ways that we can be true to our nature in ways that best serve everyone. OK, why is this article still going on? The previous paragraph should have wrapped things up. But there is a hidden issue: Some people seem to think that Goddess religions represent dominating men. I know of one man who seeks out Wicca to fulfill a desire to be dominated and I expect there are many more. I also expect that there are women who would seek to dominate. The undercurrent is there. But is dominance really a foundation of Goddess-worship? Dominance is now a dirty word, thanks to our culture's disastrous experience with it (that we have only barely started to address). In our understandable desire to avoid dominance, there is the risk of seeing it when it is not there. I agree that equality is ideal, but I suggest that need not mean equality of position. When a woman is pregnant, people recognize (if only subconsciously) her role. She has dedicated her fitness to future generations, making her self more vulnerable. It is the role of those around her to help her, keep her safe, recognize her vulnerability and get her chocolate ice cream with anchovies. When there is a sense that you must cater to the will of another, that is domination (or when we insist upon helping someone who doesn't want it). But most of us recognize a desire in our selves to help a pregnant woman because we want to (probably because of such a tendency selected for in thousands of previous generations), rather than because pregnant women inherently dominate us. We should not allow the superficial nature of a relationship to define its character for us. In the patriarchy, all relationships involving service are seemingly based on domination; but that does not mean that service must be based in domination. I suggest that if we look to the God we will find ways in which we want to be of service and can find fulfillment in it. The vaunted equality of the sexes (and everything else) manages to reenter the picture because we are not locked into sex roles. Men can connect with the Goddess and women with the God—whoever with whatever, since we all contain everything. But we contain different things in different proportion, and those of us who manifest as men are more likely to resonate more with the role of the God. Statistically, this puts men in a role of service to women; but I hope I have made clear that statistics are not requirements and service is not servitude. Since we are still so far under the influence of patriarchy, we should remain vigilant. It is dangerously easy to form relationships based in dominance. But we should not let vigilance turn to fear of service. Equality (equal opportunity) does not equal Egality (equal position). It need not challenge our ideal of equality to suggest that the God serves the Goddess and that men can find fulfillment in manifesting this relationship in their own lives. All we need to remember is that anyone (not just men) may manifest this and that it must be in accord with free will. Then we can find a role in accord with our nature and all our highest ideals. Blessed Be | 
