Interview to Riane Eisler

Interview to Riane Eisler
edited by Dr.ssa Alessandra Bracci*
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Riane Eisler, JD, PhD (hon), is a systems scientist, futurist, attorney, and macro-historian whose work has transformed the lives of women and men worldwide. She is president of the Center for Partnership Systems (CPS), Editor-in-Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies at the University of Minnesota, and author of Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future (co-authored with anthropologist Douglas Fry; Oxford University Press, 2019), showing how the social and biological sciences, specially neuroscience, support the findings from her research. Her other books include The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future (now in 57 U.S printings), Sacred Pleasure, Tomorrow’s Children, The Power of Partnership, and The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, hailed by Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu as «a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking». Eisler authored over 500 articles for outlets from The Christian Science Monitor, the International Journal of Women's Studies, and Business Insider to Quartz, The Human Rights Quarterly, and numerous presses. She keynotes conferences internationally and consults for governments on the partnership model; pioneered the expansion of human rights theory and action to include women and children; and received many awards for her work for human rights, peace, and the foundations for a better future.

"Everything in my life had prepared me for this moment". Do you agree with that? What is the question your research is based on?
Certainly my life experiences prepared me for my work and mission.
I was a child refugee with my parents from Nazi Austria. I saw insensitivity, cruelty, and violence on Crystal Night (so called because of all the glass shattered in Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues), when a gang of Gestapo men broke into our home and dragged my father away. But that night I also witnessed what I today call spiritual courage: the courage to stand up against injustice out of love. My mother displayed this courage. She recognized one of the Nazis as a young Austrian who had been an errand boy for the family business and furiously asked him how he could do this to a man who had been so kind to him, demanding my father’s release. Many Jewish people were killed that night. But by a miracle my mother was not, and by another miracle my father was returned to her (some money passed hands of course), and by still another miracle we were able to escape my native Vienna, at night with only what we could carry. My parents had been able to purchase an entry permit to Cuba, one of only two places in the world at that time admitting Jewish refugees from the Nazis. But until my parents got back on their feet again, we were very poor. So I grew up in the industrial slums of Habana, where I experienced and observed another injustice: the huge gaps between haves and have-nots in Cuba at that time.
These kinds of experiences led me to questions many of us have asked: When we humans have such a capacity for consciousness, caring, and creativity, why has there been so much insensitivity, cruelty, and destructiveness? Is this, as we are often told, inevitable, or are there alternatives? If so, what are these alternatives?

How did you discover your vocation?
I did not start my multidisciplinary, cross-cultural, historical study of human societies to try to answer these questions until many years later. That was after university (including the UCLA School of Law) and jobs such as working for the Systems Development Corporation (an offshoot of the Rand Corporation, where I was introduced to systems analysis), after marriage and motherhood, after involvement first in the US civil rights movement and then in the women’s movement, after writing two books based on my legal experiences, including The Equal Rights Handbook, the only mass paperback on the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution, where I predicted that if the ERA failed it would usher in a massive political regression, which is exactly what happened.
When that simple amendment, which only said that neither the US federal government nor any US state could discriminate on the basis of sex, was defeated, I realized that, as important as changing laws is (I worked hard for that), a cultural transformation is needed. That took me back to the questions of my childhood and  led to a fundamental question: a transformation from what to what?
I realized that there have been repressive, violent regimes in every one of our old social categories, whether secular rightist, such as Hitler’s Germany or secular leftist like Stalin’s USSR, or religious regimes (Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern, such as Khomeini’s Iran or the Taliban, etc. So the question of what kind of social system supports our human capacities for consciousness, caring, and creativity rather than for insensitivity, cruelty, and destructiveness clearly could not be answered looking at social systems through these old lenses. By then I was also aware that not only our conventional social categories but also our conventional studies of society marginalize or ignore nothing less than the majority of humanity: women and children. So in my study of social systems I used a new method of analysis that includes the whole of humanity, both its female and male halves (and everyone in between), as well as the whole of our history (including the long period we call prehistory), and the whole of our lives (including our family and other intimate relations).
This new method, the study of relational dynamics, made it possible to see patterns: social configurations that keep repeating themselves across cultures and across time. There were no names for these social configurations, so I called one the domination system and the other the partnership system.
Unlike conventional categories, the new holistic categories of the partnership system and the domination system make it possible to see connections that are otherwise invisible. We can see the link between the status of women and children, on the one hand, and, on the other, whether a society is equitable or inequitable, peaceful or warlike, and whether or not we live in harmony with nature. Not only that, these new categories provide the frame for the evidence from archeology, linguistics, mythology, and DNA studies that for millennia in our prehistory human societies were more equitable, gender balanced, and peaceful (that is, they oriented more to the partnership side of the partnership-domination scale).
These data show that the old story we have been told that humans are inherently warlike, male-dominated, and inequitable is false: that war (and warlike male-dominated, exploitive domination systems) are only 5,000 to 10,000 years old. Knowing this is vital, especially at this critical time in human technological evolution when an ethos of domination – of man over man, man over woman, race over race, religion over religion, and humans over nature – is taking us to an evolutionary dead end.

What is at the heart of your mission?
At the heart of my mission are three goals:
1. Demonstrating that we can move to a better future, knowing that for many thousands of years, as documented in The Chalice and the Blade and other works, human societies were more equitable, gender-balanced, peaceful, and lived in harmony with nature;
2. Helping us look at the whole of social systems through the lens of the partnership-domination social scale and leave behind conventional categories (and thinking) -- including terms like matriarchy and patriarchy, which semantically provide no partnership alternative;
3. Showing that, while we have moved somewhat toward partnership in the last several hundred years, to build solid foundations for a more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable future and avoid recurring regressions to authoritarian, male-dominated, violent systems requires a shift from domination to partnership in four key social cornerstones: childhood, gender, economics, and narratives and language.

Considering the Corona virus both an individual and a collective event, which synthesis is possible to express taking into account the following two communicative methods: the segnic (related to the way the virus moves in the organism) and the symbolic one (related to the alterations of the symbolic code, the expression of the individual and collective unconscious)?
This pandemic is one more sign that domination systems are unsustainable in our time of nuclear and biological weapons, climate change, and increasing global viral outbreaks such as Covid 19. However, the dislocations caused by the Corona virus are not only a crisis but also an opportunity for fundamental changes in consciousness, and with this, in beliefs, policies, and socio-economic structures.
The study of relational dynamics uses a methodology based not only on systems analysis but on disciplines, such as self-organizing, chaos, and non linear dynamic theories, showing that complex living systems (which social systems are) can fundamentally change during periods of great systems disequilibrium. The cultural transformation theory (CTT) introduced by my work is grounded in evidence from archeology, mythology, linguistics, and DNA studies showing that during such a period of great dislocation in our prehistory the mainstream of social systems shifted from a partnership to a domination direction; that is, to systems characterized by generally inequitable relations, rigid male-dominance, and the use of fear and force to impose and maintain top-down rankings (man over man, man over woman, race over race, religion over religion, man over nature). CTT also shows that as the industrial revolution gained steam (another period of great disequilibrium), many progressive movements challenged entrenched traditions of domination: from the “divinely ordained rights” of kings to rule their subjects, of men to rule women and children, and of a “superior” race to rule “inferior” ones -- all the way to the once idealized conquest (dominion) of nature.
These movements brought some alternation of domination symbolic codes (e.g. changes in such normative ideals as fealty and obedience to equality and democracy). But these movements primarily focused on dismantling the top of the domination pyramid: politics and economics as conventionally defined. This largely left in place the foundations on which domination systems – whether secular or religious, Eastern or Western, Northern or Southern, capitalist or socialist – keep rebuilding themselves. My most recent book, Nurturing Our Humanity (Oxford University Press, 2019) -- which details findings from neuroscience that these foundations are childhood, gender, economics, and narratives stories -- provides a roadmap to a better future.
We hear a lot about returning to “normal” after the Covid pandemic – but in that “normal” millions of people worldwide had barely enough to eat, and even in the wealthy United States no less that one quarter of all children lived in poverty. Our job is to create a better partnership-oriented normal.

The Corona virus is a pandemic going further into the health crisis although critical and extended it may be at a global level. It is a pandemic having its roots in a world where the actual and dominant “reductionism” typical of our economic, political and educative systems ignores limits of the real biological capacity of our planet exploiting in a capricious and prodigal way the vital resources, while using still insufficiently, the human capacities. What is your opinion about that?
I do not believe the problem is reductionism per se, but the entrenched belief that we have to dominate nature. In domination systems, there are only two alternatives: you dominate or you are dominated. This belief is key to domination thinking, be it man over man, man over woman, race over race, religion over religion, or man over nature. There is in this domination thinking no partnership alterative, so trying to somehow live in harmony with nature requires a cultural shift. And that shift must pay attention to the majority of humanity: women and children.
Children first learn to fit into domination systems in domination-oriented families. We know today from neuroscience that children’s brains develop in interaction with their environments. So in domination environments, their brains become prone to accept, and even want, a world of top-down rankings. In these punitive families, disobedience is not tolerated and children are told their caregivers have a moral right to cause them pain, emotional, physical, or both. This denial that the people on whom children depend for survival are responsible for causing them pain becomes a mental habit, facilitating climate change denial, election result denial, Covid 19 denial, and the blaming of “out-groups” that authority figures tell them are causing all their troubles. So it is not coincidental that for the most repressive, violent, regimes of modern times (Western secular ones like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR, Eastern religious ones like Khomeini’s Iran, the Taliban, ISIS, or Western religious ones like the rightist/fundamentalist/populist alliance in the US), a top priority has been imposing or maintaining an authoritarian, highly punitive, rigidly male-dominated family.
In these authoritarian, rigidly male-dominated, highly punitive families children not only learn that the word of their authority figures is law but also to equate the difference in form between male and female with superiority/inferiority, dominating/being dominated, being served/serving. So very early on, before their brains, much less their critical faculties are formed, they internalize this way of regarding relations, which is then applied to any difference, whether racial, religious, etc.
We have to look at the whole social system to see that both capitalism and socialism are based on a gendered system of values in which anything stereotypically associated with women and the “feminine” -- like caring, caregiving and nonviolence -- is devalued. This is why leaving behind domination gender stereotypes and the ranking of “masculine” conquest and violence over the “soft” or feminine caregiving and nonviolence is key to moving to a new economics that works for people and the planet, as detailed in my book The Real Wealth of Nations.

Einstein recalled how he imagined chasing after a beam of light and that the thought experiment had played a memorable role in his development of special relativity. What is the role of imagination in the creation of new scenario on future?
Imagination is essential. Einstein also said that we cannot solve problems with the same thinking that created them. The new categories of the partnership system and the domination system are vital to create a new scenario of the future. Linguistic psychologists tell us that the categories provided by a culture’s language channel our thinking, so it is almost impossible to imagine different alternatives. We need new language to imagine and build a better future.

Beyond any religious “divisions” and many “faiths”, what is the importance of the spiritual dimension and how is it possible to make it concrete in our everyday?
Spirituality in partnership systems means putting love into action in our personal lives as well as in our socio-economic system. We must sort our spiritual teachings using the partnership/domination lens, working to leave behind the ones added to impose and maintain domination systems and strengthening the ones such as caring, nonviolence, and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” that are partnership teachings.

“Be the change” can be on one side an exciting concept rich of potential, but on the other an extremely touching one dealing with profound fears. If the transformation of the totality implies an inner change on a scale many have not yet experimented, are we really ready for such a change? Which are the capacities and the knowledge that at individual and collective level, are necessary to develop and strengthen to contribute to a more authentic comprehension of life and to discover who we really are and what we wish to become as a society?
I think I have already responded this question above; it is hard to change for people who as children learned through their experiences and observations that it is very painful to question authority, no matter how unjust. Studies show that the parts of our brains that help us recognize and effectively deal with change are less developed in such people. This is why childhood is one of the four cornerstones for either domination of partnership oriented systems, including education for changing from violent and authoritarian to non-violent authoritative parenting, as described in Nurturing Our Humanity and other works.

The change able to make the difference occurs in the depth of our hearts. According to you, how much is that true? How is this process possible?
I think of this process as changing consciousness, of waking from what I call the “domination trance” and realizing that there is a much better partnership alternative. Today’s many movements – from Me-Too, Black Lives Matter, the Women’s Movement to the Environmental Movement, the movement to recognize and end the pandemic of violence and abuse of women and children, etc. - challenge traditions of domination. Awareness is the first step, action follows, not only on the personal level but also on the social and economic level. Socio-economic systems are human creations. We can shift to a partnership system.

Finally, I am also asking you to describe “GAIA AS IS & TO BE” using words and images to symbolize it. In other words, according to your personal view, which images could describe our Planet in present and future time that you hope for it?
In domination systems nature is “raw in tooth and claw” so it has to be dominated. Partnership systems recognize and celebrate in nature the cycles of life and death, of regeneration. We can, and must, think of our planet more as it was seen in prehistory. We see there images of our Mother Earth: of a Great Mother from whose womb all of life ensues, like the cycles of vegetation, to be once again reborn. I write of this in detail in my works, including Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body.  We need images honoring the life-giving- and- sustaining powers of our world inherent in our own bodies. Policies that reward the essential work of caring for people, starting at birth, and caring for nature will accompany this change in consciousness about our relations with one another and with nature.

Bibliography
Eisler R., (1987). The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future. New York: Harper & Row
Eisler R., (1990). The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning, Healing Our Families, and Our World. San Francisco: Harper
Eisler R., (1996). Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body. San Francisco: Harper
Eisler R., (2000). The Gate. iUniverse
Eisler R., (2007). The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economy. Oakland:Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Eisler R., Douglas P. Fry, (2019). Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future. Oxford: OUP USA
Eisler R., website: www.rianeeisler.com and www.centerforpartnership.org

*Dr.ssa Alessandra Bracci - Manager at an automotive multinational company and winner of national and international prizes in the marketing field. Editor-in-chief of the ANEB magazine MATERIA PRIMA - Magazine of Ecobiopsychological Psychosomatics. Author of scientific publications.