The Brotherhood of Man
I just reread a recent facebook thread about... well, it's a bit hard to know what it was supposed to be about. It was a quote from Crowley, and several of the responses centered on whether the quote was racist, but according to the poster it was disappointing to see that because that wasn't the point at all. I have absolutely no idea what the point was supposed to be.
Here's the quote:
"White men and women must choose between these alternatives: Will they yield, content to be the black man's slave, after having been his master? Or will they stand to, and reply by an energetic spiritual reaction, which will restore the threatened equilibrium of the races?"
One of the responses said "Is this racist? I can't tell." I responded to that, although I almost never post on facebook, saying that separating people by race was racist by definition. That's not completely true - the official definition requires that you also rank those races, with one on top. This quote totally fulfills that criteria, and blatantly. That people, some anyway, did not see that or weren't bothered by it was unnerving. But it was this response that clarified the issue, and helped me understand what my gut has been trying to tell me for awhile: Why it matters so much that we stop pretending Crowley wasn't both racist and sexist. That response:
"and anyways what if it IS racist? Crowley didn't give a fuck what some nancys thunk of him... he WAS a racist motherfucker and he dares you to try to match him in this lifetime."
Why it matters. If we take this stuff as a viable part of Crowley, and Crowley is Thelema, as so many are insisting of late, well, then this stuff is us. Part of what we represent and promote. And attract, and then get to call Frater et Soror.
It matters because when we excuse, ignore, and deny glaring problems, we make them part of the total Crowley package. People must either find a way to live with this stuff, or leave. A few, god help us, are actually attracted by it. Crowley was awesome, but not perfect. He had many failings and he displayed his full self, so we see all of him. There's no shame or disloyalty in saying yes, he had flaws and failings, but we are talking about a human being after all. Acknowledge the small sad bits and move past them, there is so much else and it's so worthwhile.
But I don't see that being said. I see a lot of excusing, mostly around "Crowley was a product of his times, in context he's not that bad at all". And denial, usually around "It's symbolic, you just don't get it." Plus various ways of claiming he didn't really mean the awful things he said, or didn't mean them the way they sound. Or saying he was mean to everybody at some time of other, so ranting against women and blacks wasn't significant.
I'm going to say, straight up, that this is bullshit. All of it. And harmful - most especially, harmful to O.T.O.
I'm not going to argue whether or not Crowley's prejudices were common to his generation, because it doesn't matter. We are people of THESE times. By refusing to reject the bigoted part of him, we just keep dragging it along with us. Yuck, and no thanks.
What I will debate is the question of what he meant. Using male and female, as well as black and white, as occult shorthand is long established, and I'm not referring to the writings that use that symbolism. I'm talking about letters, diary entries, and essays about people and organizations - informal writings that display personal attitudes. Without question Crowley hammered on men, but he disparaged individual men, or ‘mankind' as a catch all for human society. He actually wrote about Men in glowing and rapturous terms. He wrote about Women, often, as universally low, disgusting, and irredeemably ignorant. He isn't joking. Reading those passages feels like being kicked in the gut and spit on, repeatedly.
Our current Thelemic culture prefers (or insists on) glossing over these things. I'm convinced that's a big part of the reason we have such a gender imbalance in the order. It's not a lack of Thelemic-minded women, or a failure of the system, the Work, or the Order. It's our inability to admit that our Prophet wasn't perfect. When we refuse to make that simple acknowledgment we make every small and unworthy thing he ever said part of who we are.
Crowley also displayed more egalitarian attitudes than many of his day (or now), making his organizations open to all, taking women as students and collaborators, and creating a hierarchy that empowers women as fully as men. This isn't in contradiction to what I'm saying, its part of it. The majority of what we have from Crowley is excellent, there is so much of it, and we should be focusing on it. The only way we can move past the mud is to say we aren't of it, and we can't say that as long as we pretend it doesn't exist.
I say all of this based on the premise that bigotry and misogyny is unacceptable, even when it comes from people we like. I actually do realize that isn't a universally agreed to premise, but honestly, I'm not talking to people who judge based on race, or think there's something ‘un-intellectual' about women, or whatever.
Fuck that noise.