Transcript Mary Daly 1928-2010

Mary Daly 1928-2010
Mary Daly and Radical Feminism
• As long as God is male, the
male is God = sees religious
authority excluding women
and exalting men
• Reclaims and reinterprets
words like “crone,” “witch,”
and “lust”
• Recenters women, decenters
men
• Controversial life, career and
writings
Mary Daly and Radical Feminism
• Cosmological critique of
patriarchy centers on how the
sacred has been reified, and
how death has been prized
over life.
• She theorizes that Goddess is a
Verb, Be-ing, a process that is
bio-philic (life-loving).
• She sees resistance to
patriarchy in border dwelling
– Don’t let oppression define you
Mary Daly and Radical Feminism
• Her analysis of women’s
oppression in religion
maintains that women should
not remain in, or try to
reform, existing religions
• She thinks that ontological and
cosmological questions –
explicitly evaluative ones –
should be raised to counter the
existing necrophilia
Patriarchy can imagine nothingness
• The ontological question, the question of
being-itself, arises in something like a
"metaphysical shock"—the shock of
possible nonbeing. This shock often has
been expressed in the question, “Why is
there something; why not nothing?” –
Tillich’s restatement of Heidegger’s
question, quoted in Pure Lust
Daly says, to imagine nothingness is
to not recognize Be-ing
• when reading the question "Why is there something;
why not nothing?" a Wonderlusty woman might
imagine that the question thus posed corresponds to
her own ontological experience, to her Lust for Being. She might imagine that the ontological question
thus posed expresses an attitude identical with her
own Wonder and gratitude that things are.
Daly says, to imagine nothingness is
to not recognize Be-ing
• Caught up in this Wonder, she might fail to notice
anything suspect about the second half of Tillich's
question: "why not nothing?" Musing women would
do well to ask ourSelves whether this question
would arise spontaneously in biophilic consciousness.
Daly says, to imagine nothingness is
to not recognize Be-ing
• Thought that starts with the noun, being, cannot go
behind it—cannot transform/transfer itself into
Realms of Metabeing. Such thought is stuck,
fixated, fixed and thus does not actively participate
in Powers of Be-ing. It is terrified of these Powers.”
• From Daly’s Pure Lust
Negative and Positive Shocks
• So while I do not pray for anybody or
any party to commit outrages, still I do
pray, and that earnestly and constantly,
for some terrific shock to startle the
women of this nation into a self-respect
which will compel them to see the abject
degradation of their present position...
• Susan B. Anthony, quoted in Amazon Grace
Mystical Gratitude for Be-ing
• The Terrific Shock of encountering and
Realizing Be-ing is utterly unlike the
foreground shocks which keep us imprisoned
and circling the masters' mazes. The Shock of
meeting Be-ing is simple and direct. It is
absolutely surprising and joyous. It is Selftransformative and changes Everything. It is
unforgettable. It opens pathways that go on
and on. It makes one Realize how Lucky she
is. The Prayer that comes to mind is "Thank
you! Thank you!"
Participation in Be-ing
• “All Wild creatures and Other realities
participate in Be-ing, by which I mean
"Ultimate/Intimate Reality, the
constantly Unfolding Verb of Verbs
which is intransitive, having no object
that limits its dynamism.”
Creativity and Ontology
• "the woman who has met the ontologically articulate
clover blossom (or pebble or blade of grass or tree or
piece of ice in the snow) gradually is enabled also to
meet the foreground shocks in a different way. Having
encountered Background Reality that is everywhere in
nature, Be-Speaking in the Chorus of Be-ing, she
becomes more Adventurous. She is surrounded by
Natural Friends, as she follows her own apath. She is a
creator. When it is necessary she confronts the evil
foreground world, taking on the attackers and
oppressors of women and nature with confidence and
Daring.”