Nosferatu is a vampire.

But you are asking what reasons there could be for hiding an after- or other- life. It could equally be in terms of Greek or Roman gods playing tricks on us, or something else. Or it could be a voluntary affair of eternal beings playing at mortal life for entertainment. The major point being that the reason for the hiddenness is likely to be part of what is hidden. You ask a religious question, and then complain when you get religious answers.

Alright. Can you tell me some things that go into the archetypes? — fdrake

In relation to Chinese thought, this is rather like asking a computer scientist which things are 1 and which are 0.
And if they cannot tell you, it's a false distinction?

No. But I think it makes sense to be able to provide one, if you've got an account of masculinity or femininity. Like why do the gals go for sushi and the guys go for burgers bro. I find it difficult to believe the sheer degree of affectation that goes into gender derives from any cosmic principle. — fdrake

I have an account of such, in the process of identification. I am told that I am a boy, and that big boys don't cry; therefore I must learn not to cry. Having grown up and learned not to cry, I become a model of masculinity to the next generation, and anyone who questions the mantra that big boys don't cry is impugning my masculinity and is liable to be thumped, hard.

Thus 'pink' has become the colour of femininity and blue, by simple contrast, that of masculinity. Who even knew that one was expected to have a favourite colour, let alone that it was sexually determined? Personally I like my sausages brown and my cabbage green, but if you want to go for pink or blue ...

Which properties go in the archetype, the essence, and which don't? And how can you tell? — fdrake

I don't think you can always tell, because the culture becomes embedded so as to be indistinguishable from nature. But cross-cultural and historical comparisons can sometimes make things clear. It's a difficult maybe impossible question to answer definitively, but that doesn't' make the distinction meaningless.

Long and short hair are not part of the archetypes, but beards perhaps are.

You can ignore politics, but politics won't ignore you...

On the general topic of prehistory, mythology, language development, and such, I commend to you all The White Goddess by Robert Graves, who also wrote I, Claudius, Claudius the god, and other fancy stuff, including a work of science fiction , Seven Days in New Crete.

It will not suit those who like all their I's dotted and T's crossed, but the psychology is interesting. The White Goddess gives an account through mythology of the transition from matrilineal to patriarchal society.

:100:

Yeah, not completely, and a complex issue. And everything in between

In the Bronze Age, the most important commodity, food, was not private property. Land wasn't. People worked in the fields and brought their produce into the temple to be divided by the priests. It's called a temple economy. — frank

Citations? I can't find much, myself.

Mesopotamian empires period (2350-1750 BC). Reforms towards more inclusive political institutions were accompanied by a shift towards stronger farmers’ rights on land and a larger provision of public goods, especially those most valued by the citizens, i.e., conscripted army.

https://ehs.org.uk/the-origins-of-political-and-property-rights-in-bronze-age-mesopotamia/

Nothing much for Britain, but some indications here: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/dssg-agriculture/heag238-agriculture-ssg/

Yes I agree with you, there were some careless comments there. It's a video, not a scientific paper. But then I don't think anyone is suggesting we are heading for 10 degrees of warming any time soon. I have seen 6 suggested but 3 or 4 is more often the figure.

Suppose patriarchy won out by a kind of natural selection? It offered some advantage? If that's true, and we're now transitioning to some other scheme, we might want to think about what we're losing when patriarchy declines. — frank

Can you actually make that argument rather than asking us to assume it?

Suppose instead that cultures are in a prisoner's dilemma situation such that in a competition between a Celtic society and a patriarchal Roman society, the patriarchy wins, but is itself unstable in the long term because when the whole world is patriarchal, the conflict turns inevitably inwards. We might rather think about all that we have lost from our lack of restraint. I think history can be read in this way, as a sequence of martial triumphs followed by decay and collapse.

Recent article from LiveScience:
Ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria — the birthplace of Cleopatra — is crumbling into the sea at an unprecedented rate: By Jess Thomson published March 4, 2025
Key point: Coastal erosion from rising sea levels has led to the collapse of 280 buildings across Alexandria, Egypt, over the past two decades.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/ancient-egyptian-city-of-alexandria-the-birthplace-of-cleopatra-is-crumbling-into-the-sea-at-an-unprecedented-rate

New peer-reviewed paper in AGUPubs:
Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations
First published: 12 February 2025
Link: https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883

Parts of San Francisco and Los Angeles are sinking into the sea — meaning sea-level rise will be even worse: By Patrick Pester published February 13, 2025
Key points: A study led by NASA and NOAA has found that California is sinking in some areas, which means the projected sea level rise for parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco has doubled.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/parts-of-san-francisco-and-los-angeles-are-sinking-into-the-sea-meaning-sea-level-rise-will-be-even-worse

Link: https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.ads8163

Yeah this stuff is relational and gender stuff tends to come in man:woman dyads, if there's a shitty man thing there's a corollary shitty woman thing. I really like Audre Lord on this, her book "Sister Outsider", she describes having made the choice to raise her boy as a patriarch - showing little to no interest in his emotional development -, without realising it. It took her a lot of effort to make other choices and raise him non-standardly {this was 1970-1980s}. Bell Hooks writes similarly about her implicit demands for the flavour of maleness she's spent her career criticising from her partners, and wrestling with it. — fdrake

We've been frequenting the same library! We are (hopefully) in transition, and not all at the same speed, so all these hypocrisies and contradictions, social and psychological are to be expected.

I don't know. — frank

I don't know what you don't know. If I have said something you disagree with, based on the article you linked, then perhaps you can clarify, taking account of that DNA evidence that I think supports and justifies my position.

People do as they are taught, and if you teach kids to idolize petty criminals then that's what they'll desire and aspire to be like. — Tzeentch

Of course. We are not very much in control of our lives or our identities. But if you want change, you have to take responsibility.

The pattern of strong female kinship connections that the researchers found does not necessarily imply that women also held formal positions of political power, called matriarchy.

But it does suggest that women had some control of land and property, as well as strong social support, making Britain's Celtic society "more egalitarian than the Roman world," said study co-author and Bournemouth University archaeologist Miles Russell.

"When the Romans arrived, they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power," Russell said.

Frank's link.

It suggests very strongly a matrilineal society at least, and in such a system a man's loyalties are to his sister's children, not to those he may have fathered. This is quite difficult to understand from here. It means there is no reason to control female sexual activity. This is the radical biological inequality I mentioned earlier - that women automatically know their off-spring whereas men do not. And that indicates that matrilineal society is the more natural way to organise society.
One has to cast off notions of the virtue of monogamy and virginity to begin to get an understanding of such a world, because these, and particularly the control of women's sex lives by men are the absolutely necessary ingredients that make a patrilineal system possible.

I think you've put a lot of ideas into a very small space. — fdrake

I can certainly plead guilty there; I don't like writing, so I try to be brief, and make every word count. Also on this topic my thinking is unconventional in some ways, and liable to rub everyone up the wrong way who wants me to be either on their side or on the 'other' side. Thus I am against the patriarchy, and capitalist society in general, but I blame women equally if not more than men for it. Like 'what do you expect, girls, if that's what you go for?'

I have a seriously hard time figuring out whether you're being sarcistic or not, and/or exactly whose argument you're responding to. — Tzeentch

It seems you're not alone there. I'm not sure if my thoughts are too complex or merely incoherent. But can you see the commonality between the 2 quotes that I was responding to?

Yeah I agree with Jamal's comment. It's a long way from psychological angle you took though right? I'm mostly reacting to "Men are pitiful", it doesn't seem like the kind of idea you just stumble into as a bloke. Though I did read it as wordplay, as in "to be pitied" {sardonically} and "pathetic". — fdrake

Yes, I was pointing out the rather strange way that supposedly naturally dominant men complain about being dominated by their inferiors. Must be them damn commies again, taking over the humanities.

Niet, danken. My charisma suffices.

Sorry, think like what?

Edit:
Conveniently, here, from another thread is about what I think:

I thought it was widely known that civilization, meaning a sedentary society built on intensive agriculture and characterized by social stratification and state institutions, has usually resulted in an oppression of women much worse than they experienced in hunter-gatherer societies. It happens that way for various reasons, including property and inheritance, which requires the control of reproduction. Even if men were dominant in many cases in earlier societies, in civilized society this was intensified and institutionalized.

I mean, this seems to be the most common view among anthropologists and in associated disciplines, so assertions to the contrary probably need some kind of support, rather than just intuition. — Jamal

Men who are overly preoccupied with pandering to women are hardly ever taken seriously by their male peers. The classic "white knight" / "pretty boy" is seen as dainty, vain and well, useless - not manly. — Tzeentch

You misunderstand me. Women prefer gang members. They don't choose pretty boys, they choose fighters. Women have bloodlust; look at the audience for men's boxing to see it.

And if they should change their preference, then they are "destroying the core of masculinity”.

Notice the knot in the complaint, there. Women dominate because they choose to be dominated and if they should choose not to be dominated they are trying to dominate. Men are pitiable, either way.

Can anyone explain to me how the fear of (else the roundabout concern that) “women are taking over and are destroying the core of masculinity” is in fact not a communal projection of personally held aspirations by a certain male faction in society, one composed of individuals that themselves desire to be domineering over all others - women very much here included as those whom they deem themselves entitled to subjugate? Entitled by Nature, by God, it doesn't much here matter. — javra

"if women stopped wanting to date gang members, guys would stop joining." That's obviously a bit simplistic, (men also join for the status they receive from other men), but I think her point had some merit. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here some illustrations of the general thesis that masculinity is defined by women. It is not even controversial in bio-evolutionary circles; the mating ritual quite frequently following the general pattern of male performance and female judging and prize-giving.

Can anyone explain to me how the male desire to dominate is other than a performance intended to attract a mate?

And I also can't play the violin.

Lest I should start to imagine I can play the guitar ...

Scientific article: phys.org from March 11, 2025
Permian mass extinction linked to 10°C global temperature rise that reshaped Earth's ecosystems
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-permian-mass-extinction-linked-10c.html

Great Wikipedia information on "Extinction Events":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

Great Wikipedia information on "Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction Event'":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event

One could assume — Outlander

Can you explicate a little the difference between 'assume' and 'imagine'?

I do find the idea of some place where inequalities naturally exist to be slightly worrying without more flesh on the bones. — Tobias

Here is a natural inequality: a woman knows her own offspring with a certainty that a man cannot match. This much is inescapable biology, that any social gender construction must take account of.

The significance is a matter of inheritance. So it has importance for the propertied classes in the first place. For a propertied male, "faithfulness" becomes the prime virtue of womanhood, and 'the bloodline' must be protected by her subjugation. Hence, erstwhile Prince Charles could not marry his love, Camilla, but must instead marry a certified virgin. Well, you know the story.

Of course the biological story we are told is the inverse, that it is the woman who rejects casual sex because of some need for 'support', poor little thing and the huge investment she makes into the child relative to the male. Or is that the propaganda? It really is hard to tell.

Especially when the likes of Gregory are keeping themselves 'pure', as virginal men, whilst denigrating women as the great manipulators, to ends we can only guess at.

Every tale demands a suspension of disbelief; every game requires an acceptance of made up rules. every mathematical construction begins with axioms. Whether the universe is an educational toy or mere entertainment for us eternal beings, it naturally works best on its own terms without prior and post knowledge. For instance, if everyone knew in advance that virtue will be infallibly rewarded and vice punished in the afterlife, then it would be mere common self-centred sense to act virtuously and avoid vices, and thus no sign of virtue at all. Likewise, an exam where the answers are provided with the questions provides no measure of students' attainment, but becomes a copying exercise.

Do you wish you never existed? — Truth Seeker

I never did exist. Or perhaps my wish was granted.

There's not going to be martial law — RogueAI

Well not today, but once those invasion plans are firmed up for Panama, who knows ...?

Can it be that it it is the concept of "beyond our grasp" that is beyond our grasp?
(My old friend Ludvic suggested this to me.)

-

I'm sure you agree that 15 year olds stabbing each other with machetes is degenerate? — Tzeentch

Of course I do; I'm an old hippie, but sometimes it's the other way about, and the orthodoxy is violent and the rebellion is peaceful. My point is that my attitude, which aligns with yours in this matter, was considered degenerate by the previous generation. These things are values by which we judge others. As far as I can see, you are defending your values, which is fine, but then you accuse those who attempt to make a balanced analysis of such values of, in effect also being degenerate. That's not so ok.

It's like you know, as none of us other contributors do, what 'masculine' human nature is beyond social and cultural influence, and everyone who disagrees is wrong and degenerate. No doubt you also then know, as I certainly don't, those circumstances if any, when violence is justified and virtuous.

The promotion of senseless violence is a problem very particular to certain scenes - gangster culture and football hooliganism, for example. Both have been glorified by pop culture, even though the vast majority of society recognizes these scenes as degenerate. — Tzeentch

When I was young, the youth culture was all about flower power, giving peace a chance, peaceful protest against the Vietnam war, and nuclear weapons. And that was generally considered degenerate.
Youth culture is always inclined to be rebellious and the old guard is always inclined to find it degenerate.

I also don't agree with that. I think there are public rejections of violence and aggression, which are seen as stereotypically masculine traits, but you do receive social sanctions if you don't behave enough like a man. If no one no longer needed or wanted, ie no longer enforced, the straitjacket of masculinity the expectation to behave that way would dissolve. — fdrake

The new man of power and the new man of violence is a drone flying nerd; the hard drinking hard fighting Russian type real man cannot compete. When I say 'must change' I mean change or die. It is an evolutionary pressure if you like.

Of course, 'after the collapse', that pressure may reverse.

Men are going to be masculine no matter how hard society tries to mould them into something else. — Tzeentch

Hard to disagree with that, barring mass castration. But also very easy to disagree with as soon as one considers the (surely purely social) division of gay men into 'butch' and 'fem'. Or even just the cliche of the hen-pecked husband.

If we are talking about the spectrum of men, on almost every measure, there is a good deal of overlap with the spectrum of women, even to the extent that men can lactate and breastfeed. But we are not really talking about the reality of human diversity, but about the ideas and ideals that are prevalent and the identifications that are made and the social pressures to conform to this or that image of what a man versus a woman is or ought to be.

Also very much in agreement, yet what I miss in many discussions on this subject is exactly this two way street. We are right now in a time in which is not self evident how and with what man should identify. The general consensus on the left seems to be that man should change and that since they are the problem they should figure it out while the general consensus on the right should be that men should reassert their classical role as the 'head of the table' so to speak. On the one hand, masculinity is being unreasonably problematized, on the other hand it is being reinforced by certain political groups and social media. — Tobias

Masculinity is problematised in a very different way in mainstream discourse than femininity is problematised. Masculinity's associated with violent crimes, sexual crimes, domestic abuse, posturing, financial risk, overwork, selfishness, lack of community spirit, emotional inflexibility and poor communication skills, and thus is a problem. Femininity's problematised as part of an oppressive system of norms that confines women's conduct and renders them less powerful and less capable of self expression, it is thus seen as posing problems to women. — fdrake

"... that man should change ..." is a value. It is, in its total vagueness, the value of the left, having abandoned the class war because of the loss of the mass workplace. Although 'left and right' are terms of the ancien regime, and what predominates now is the second dimension of political leaning, between 'authoritarian and liberal' as here, for example. Left and right has become up and down, because the economy is becoming emancipated from human and political control.

The myth of the very stable genius has replaced the myth of the lonesome cowboy. Not so much 'should', the facts are that man has changed because he must change. His masculinity is now cosmetic drug induced muscle that hides a complete lack of moral integrity. There is nothing behind the performance. He has indeed become the bicycle that every fish no longer needs or wants. Politics is insane because it no longer governs. It's the economy, stupid, follow the money; but the money out-runs us.

Men are simply way too violent. It's still a huge problem. — RogueAI

The solution to the violence of men has always been the hero as protector, one's very own violent man. More defence spending, more guns. It used to be that there was nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose; but now, or very soon, that man will be replaced by an AI drone, that cares naught if it loses everything and can hit you from the other side of the street.