2

Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution

Psychosocial Attractors and Human Well-​Being

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Riane Eisler

Editors’ note: Have you read the celebrated Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler?
If so, you got a peek at truly egalitarian society, integrating evolutionary history
and including peaceful goddess cultures of the past. Here Dr. Eisler puts this in a
crucial NDS perspective.
Chapter 2 moves directly to situating our work as social scientists at the level of
human cultural evolution. She presents a systems theory view of human develop-
ment and culture that manifests nonlinear and multivariate forms of causality, and
shows patterns (Theme 3), both stability and seeming equilibrium, as well as insta-
bility. Change can be discontinuous. This is related to the NLD concepts of seeing
emergence (Theme 2), bifurcations, and catastrophes.
Dr. Eisler explains two psychosocial attractors—​the partnership and the dom-
ination model—​and shows how these manifest in large-​scale cultural structures
and small-​scale social and psychological phenomena, such as childrearing, with
similar structures across scales.
The notion of cultural attractors—​places where cultures may tend to linger and
go, types of societies toward which where history may seem to take us—​also leads
to the need for us to engage in choosing nonlinear practice (Theme 5), to try to
make the human world a better place, and to sustain it as a place at all.
Dr. Eisler emphasizes how causality in the evolutionary context operates both
top down and bottom up (and also sideways). Culture influences psychology, and
psychology can change society; important influences also operate within the so-
cietal or social levels. She stresses how patterns in interactions repeat, recapitu-
late, and regenerate across scales of time and space, highlighting the importance
of parent child interaction in both mirroring and determining political structures.
This second chapter sets the bar for us in this volume: The stakes are high for
sustaining a partnership model, and it is in our hands, as Fred Abraham will show
us later in Chapter 7, to be part of a system that can choose its own attractors.

Riane Eisler, Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution In: Chaos and Nonlinear Psychology. Edited by: David Schuldberg, Ruth Richards,
and Shan Guisinger, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190465025.003.0003
42 Riane Eisler

Nonlinear Dynamics Biography

My intense interest in psychology and sociology is rooted in my early childhood,

when my parents and I had to flee Europe from the Nazis. Eventually, I began to sys-
tematically re-​examine psychosocial patterns from prehistory to modern times.
By then, I had experience in systems analysis and realized that dynamic systems
are more than the sum of their parts. I was also acquainted with chaos and complexity

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theory, self-​organization theory, and the study of nonlinear dynamics—​disciplines
that show that complex systems cannot be understood in terms of simple causes and
effects (Abraham & Shaw, 2005; Csanyi, 1982; Emery & Trist, 1973; Jantsch, 1980;
Loye & Eisler, 1987; Maturana & Varela, 1980; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984). Instead,
we must consider interactive dynamics such as mutual or reciprocal causality,
multivariable influences, and nonlinear relationships between the magnitudes of
causes and effects. I became particularly interested in the concept of “attractors,” espe-
cially in the role of human agency, both conscious and unconscious, in determining
the strength of what I call psychosocial attractors (Eisler, 1987).
I developed a new method for analyzing human societies: the study of relational
dynamics (Eisler, 1987, 1995, 2014). This method encompasses both top-​down and
bottom-​up causal influences, focusing on two critical questions:

1. What kinds of microscopic or local and macroscopic or global psychosocial

relations—​from intimate to international—​does a particular social system
support?
2. How do key components of social systems relate to one another to maintain, or
change, the nature of these relationships?

The study of relational dynamics led to cultural transformation theory (CTT),

which introduces the new perspective on our past, present, and the possibilities for
our future, first described in my book The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our
Future (Eisler, 1987). CTT proposes a complex course for cultural evolution charac-
terized by the tension between the partnership model and the domination model as
two psychosocial attractors emerging from interactions of both macro institutional
causes acting downward and local political, social, and familial factors acting upward.
It further proposes that periods of great disequilibrium make shifts from one model to
the other possible (Eisler, 1987, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2014).

Seeing Signs of Nonlinearity in Large-​Scale Social Systems

(Theme 1)

The study of relational dynamics draws from a database spanning the whole of our
history, including prehistory; the whole of humanity, both its male and female halves;
and the whole of our lives, not only the public sphere of politics, education, and ec-
onomics but also the private sphere of family and other intimate relations. Similar
structures reproduce themselves across scale (e.g., from family to nation, and vice
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 43

versa), and this self-​similarity is a further indication of the nonlinear dynamics un-
derlying components of larger scale social structures.
Academic sources for the study of nonlinear dynamics include anthropological and
sociological studies of individual societies (e.g., Abu-​Lughod, 1986; Benedict, 1946;
Fry, 2013; Giddens, 1984; Min, 1995) and cross-​cultural anthropological surveys (e.g.,
Coltrane, 1988; Sanday, 1981, 2002; Textor, 1969). Sources also include art, literature,
psychology, history, law, economics, political science, philosophy, religious studies

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(including pre-​Christian “mystery cults”), archeological studies (primarily Western
prehistory because of greater availability of materials, but also Indian and Chinese
prehistory), the study of myths, and data from more recent fields such as neurosci-
ence, primatology, and gender studies (for sources, see, e.g., Eisler, 1987, 1995, 1997,
2000, 2007, 2013, 2014; Eisler & Levine, 2002).
This multidisciplinary approach led to identification of two underlying psychoso-
cial configurations: the partnership model and the domination model. These config-
urations transcend conventional social classifications such as ancient versus modern,
Eastern versus Western, religious versus secular, capitalist versus socialist, rightist
versus leftist, and so forth. This approach also made it possible to see the tension be-
tween these two models or attractors throughout human cultural evolution (Eisler,
1987, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2007, 2013, 2014; Eisler & Fry, 2019).
I first saw evidence of a shift away from a more partnership-​oriented cultural di-
rection in prehistoric art, which expresses deeply held beliefs or myths about the na-
ture of the world and our place in it. The prehistoric art I examined most closely is
Western, though similar patterns can be found in other world regions (Min, 1995).
If we closely look at European cave art going back 30,000 years, we see that the
focus is on the living world: animals and plants. We also find highly stylized, often
pregnant, female figurines, as well as vulvas and phalluses, sexual images related to
giving rather than taking life. Then, starting approximately 6,500 years ago in the late
Neolithic and continuing into the Bronze Age, we begin to see images of warriors and
battle scenes. These are themes notable for their virtual absence in the earlier art of
the Paleolithic and most of the Neolithic, as well as the Bronze Age civilization of
Minoan Crete (Leroi-​Gourhan, 1971; Marinatos, 1993; Mellaart, 1967; Platon, 1966),
and reflect a shift from imagery focusing on the creation and renewal of life to images
depicting the taking of life.
Archeological sites also reflect this cultural shift. For example, a number of late
Neolithic sites show signs of destruction through warfare (Ferguson, 2013; Gimbutas,
1982; Haas & Piscitelli, 2013; Mellaart, 1967). In Europe, evidence of war appears
to coincide with the arrival of Indo-​European herders, who, as archeologist Marija
Gimbutas wrote, literally worshiped the lethal power of the blade (Gimbutas, 1982;
Mallory, 1989). We also see the disappearance of once ubiquitous female figurines,
and, in contrast to the early Neolithic’s generally equal size of houses and grave goods,
there are now signs of strongman or chieftain rule and rigid male dominance—​for in-
stance, burials of men with sacrificed horses, women, and children (Gimbutas, 1982;
Hodder, 2004).
44 Riane Eisler

Discontinuity and Emergence (Theme 2)

Religious records also reflect discontinuity in cultural evolution; for example, in the
Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets called the Hymns of Inanna. (Note that discontinu-
ities in system behaviors suggest that nonlinear relationship, at several levels, may be
in play in producing these phenomena.) Here we read that Inanna, the Sumerian god-
dess of love and procreation, has the power to give and renew life. This power is also

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attributed to other ancient female deities, such as the Egyptian Isis, who brought her
beloved Osiris back from the dead, and the Greek Demeter, who with her daughter
Persephone seems to have been a key figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries (Eisler, 1995).
A central theme in Inanna’s Hymns is her marriage to the king/​god Dumuzi. In
an allusion to earlier times before nomadic herders took over the more fertile lands
around the Mediterranean, Inanna tells us she wanted to marry a farmer but her
brother forced her to marry a herder. So by the time the Hymns were written, Innana
was no longer able to make her own decisions, indicating that the shift to the domina-
tion system was underway. But Dumuzi still had to marry her to rule, a legacy from a
more partnership-​oriented time (Eisler, 1995). Such simultaneous coexistence of two
distinct norms during periods in a transitional state often precedes a bifurcation into
one or the other forms of organization.
The Babylonian Enuma Elish also provides evidence of cultural discontinuity. In
this myth, a new war god, Marduk, creates heaven and earth by dismembering the
body of the goddess Tiamat, illustrating how re-​mything was used to justify the shift
to male dominance and violence.
Changed myths came along with changed realities. As the Sumerologist Samuel
Noah Kramer wrote, the rise of rule by the “lugul” or big man in the Fertile Crescent
reflected the shift to a domination system backed up by fear and force (Kramer &
Maier, 1989). Such relationships of fear, distrust, and coercion again are manifested
and recapitulated at different scales across levels of social organization, as both asym-
metric intra-​familial relationships and as larger societal/​political dynamic patterns
that in turn act “downward” on family life.
Further evidence of cultural discontinuity comes from linguistics. In Europe, the
only remaining pre-​Indo-​European language is Basque. Ensconced in the rugged
Pyrenees mountain range between France and Spain, the more partnership-​oriented
Basque traced descent through mothers until the imposition of the Napoleonic Codes
in the 19th century. Mothers, as heads of family, owned the land, which was man-
aged by their husbands but passed to their daughters when they died (Frank et al.,
1990). Significantly, despite the shift to patriliny and male primacy, even today we
here find remnants of a more partnership-​oriented heritage, such as the Mondragon
Cooperative, famed for its economic egalitarianism. Mondragon was founded by a
Catholic priest whose goal was social transformation, but that it took strong root in
this region is due in part to the earlier egalitarian Basque ethos. While the Mondragon
Cooperative has a mixed record on gender equity and its employment of foreign
workers, it has been successful in reducing economic inequality (Bamburg, 2017).
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 45

Recognizing Configurations and Deeper Meanings in Data

(Theme 3)

When we look at societies through the lenses of conventional social categories such
as ancient versus modern, Eastern versus Western, religious versus secular, rightist
versus leftist, capitalist versus socialist, Northern versus Southern, or industrial versus
pre-​or postindustrial, we see disconnected bits of data. This is because these cat-

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egories focus on isolated aspects of a society, such as location in time or space, ideo-
logical orientation, economic policies, and level of technological development.
None of these categories tells us how a society constructs male-​female roles and
power dynamics as well as parent–​child relations, and how this is turn is related to
how it constructs political and economic relations. By contrast, the categories of the
partnership model and the domination model focus attention on the cultural con-
struction of the relationships children first experience and observe. These initial,
small-​scale rules and norms of interaction, experienced and observed within the
“psychosocial interior” of the family, have a disproportionately large nonlinear effect
on subsequent development. They guide future interactions and are hard to change,
and are in turn affected and enforced by the society at large (Eisler & Fry, 2019).
Yet our conventional social categories, which emphasize what is taught and en-
forced by the larger society, fail to take into account findings from psychology that
what children experience and observe directly impacts what they grow up to believe
is normal and moral in human relations. By contrast, the categories of the partnership
system and domination system highlight these connections, additionally taking into
account findings from neuroscience on the impact of these early experiences on the
brain (Eisler & Fry, 2019).
As will be detailed later, these two new categories provide an integrated perspective
that connects data at different scales and levels of psychosocial analysis that otherwise
seem random and disconnected.
The domination model has four interactive and mutually influencing core
components:

1. Authoritarian top-​down rule in both the family (local) and the state or tribe
(more global)
2. The male form of humanity is ranked over the female form; gender roles are
rigidly differentiated; and traits and activities stereotypically associated with
women or the “feminine,” such as caring, caregiving, and nonviolence, are de-
valued—​be it in individual women or men or in large-​scale social and eco-
nomic policy
3. Abuse and violence, ranging from child-​and-​wife-​beating to pogroms, lynch-
ings, public executions, and chronic warfare, maintain hierarchies of domina-
tion—​man over woman, man over man, race over race, religion over religion,
tribe over tribe, nation over nation
4. People are taught that relations of domination and submission are inevitable,
normal, and moral. As noted, these intimate norms and rules can serve to “tip”
larger scale social phenomena one way or the other, in an interactive two-​way
dynamic
46 Riane Eisler

Societies as diverse as Hitler’s Nazi Germany (a Western totalitarian rightist secular

society), Khomeini’s Iran and ISIS (Eastern authoritarian religious societies), the pre-
colonial Maasai and Idi Amin’s Uganda (African tribalist societies), and Stalin’s Soviet
Union and Kim Un Jong’s North Korea (totalitarian leftist secular societies) orient
closely to the domination model.
The partnership model configuration consists of the interaction of the following
four core components:

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1. Democracy and equality are the norm in both the family and the state or tribe.
There are rankings, but rather than hierarchies of domination they are hier-
archies of actualization: more flexible hierarchies where power is not defined as
power over but as power to and power with (Eisler, 1987, 1995, 2007, 2014).
2. There is equal partnership between women and men, together with a high val-
uing in women and men of qualities and behaviors such as nonviolence, nur-
turance, and caregiving denigrated as “soft,” “feminine,” and “unmanly” in the
domination model.
3. Abuse and violence are not culturally accepted or idealized; this does not mean
there is no abuse or violence, but they do not have to be built into the system
since they are not needed to maintain rigid rankings of domination.
4. Beliefs about human nature support empathic and mutually respectful relations.
While insensitivity, cruelty, and violence are recognized as human possibilities,
they are not considered inevitable, normal, or moral.

Again, societies orienting to the partnership configuration transcend conventional

categories. For example, the Teduray of the Philippines, a tribal society studied by
anthropologist Stuart Schlegel (1998), the Minangkabau of Sumatra, an agricultural
society studied by anthropologist Peggy Sanday (1981), and technologically advanced
Western societies such as Sweden, Finland, and Norway orient to the core configura-
tion of the partnership model (Eisler, 2007, 2014).
Moreover, the bonobos, one of our two closest primate cousins, have a social or-
ganization that is much more partnership-​oriented than that of the common chim-
panzee, our other closest primate relative. As I will discuss further, bonobo social
organization suggests that small-​scale relationship features (e.g., female-​female alli-
ances) can have enduring and wide-​ranging effects on social structure (Smuts, 2006),
with far less violence across the board.

Simple Models and Complex Systems Dynamics (Theme 4)

Over thousands of years in the more fertile regions of our globe societies tilted more
to the partnership side of the partnership/​domination continuum. This early orien-
tation toward partnership is the norm in most contemporary gathering-​hunting cul-
tures, and seems to have been the norm for millennia in early human and hominid
groups (Eisler & Fry, 2019; Fry, 2013).
However, during a period of massive disequilibrium in our prehistory there was a
shift in cultural direction. As detailed elsewhere (Eisler, 1995), this was a time of great
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 47

desertification and mass migrations/​invasions from harshly arid regions of the globe,
bringing global patterns of “strongman” rule, male dominance, and chronic warfare.
After this, and for most of recorded history, cultures oriented primarily to the dom-
ination model. Still, there were periods of partnership resurgence, though they were
followed by regressions to the domination side of the continuum, corresponding to
transitions back and forth, ebb and flow, between these two social attractors.
For example, the 1st century CE, as dramatically illustrated by the partnership

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teachings of Jesus, was a time of such resurgence. But while the early Christian com-
munities were generally more egalitarian, peaceful, and gender-​balanced, when
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it, too, became author-
itarian, violent, and male-​dominated (Eisler, 1987, 1995). Again, perturbations in the
system (in early Christian history, the teachings of Jesus) moved societies toward the
more egalitarian partnership attractor. But the changes were not deep enough, and
traditions of domination prevailed even in the Church itself, which now persecuted
those who did not follow its dictates.
The Industrial Revolution ushered in another period of great disequilibrium. By
the 18th century, this technological shift was in high gear—​and ideas that did not fit
domination systems began to be popularized. In the Middle Ages, St. Augustine had
maintained that a top-​down social order was divinely ordained—​as he famously put
it, that for anyone to want to change their station in life was like a nose wanting to be
an eye (Baumeister, 1987, p. 169). This very metaphor suggests preordained intrinsic
forms (a nose cannot become anything else), when in fact social relationships emerge
in various forms; but by early modernity, ideals such as freedom, equality, and democ-
racy began to replace the domination ideals of fealty and strict obedience.
All this was the result of human agency, often the small-​scale toil, choice, and
struggle of people in their everyday lives, as well as of organized social movements.
Indeed, although conventional historians have not made these connections, starting in
the 18th century, and accelerating after that, one mass social movement after another
challenged traditions of domination (Eisler, 1995, 2007, 2014; Eisler & Fry, 2019).
During the 18th-​century Enlightenment, the “rights of man” movement chal-
lenged the “divinely ordained” rule of kings over their “subjects.” The 18th-​, 19th-​,
20th-​, and 21st-​century feminist, women’s liberation, and women’s rights movements
challenged the “divinely ordained” rule of men over the women and children in the
“castles” of their homes. The 19th-​, 20th-​, and 21st-​century economic justice move-
ments challenged top-​down economic control and exploitation. The pacifist and
peace movements, and more recently the movement to stop traditions of family and
other intimate violence, as well as the MeToo movement against sexual harassment,
challenged the use of force to impose and maintain domination. The environmental
movement challenged the once hallowed conquest and domination of nature (Eisler,
2007, 2014).
In short, underneath the seemingly random events of modern times is the escal-
ating tension between the partnership model and the domination model as two un-
derlying human possibilities manifested in two powerfully compelling attractors. As
first the Industrial Revolution, and now the rapid move into the postindustrial tech-
nological era, destabilized existing beliefs, behaviors, and institutions, the movement
toward partnership accelerated. However, this movement has been punctuated by
48 Riane Eisler

periodic regressions to authoritarian, rigidly male-​dominated, violent regimes and

would-​be regimes (Eisler, 2007; Eisler & Fry, 2019), representing oscillations between
movement toward two different social attractors.
Significantly, wherever we look—​be it at secular Nazi Germany and the former
Soviet Union in Europe or religious Iran, ISIS, and Boko Haram in the Middle East
and Africa—​we find the foundations on which domination regimes and would-​be
regimes keep rebuilding themselves: traditions of domination in parent–​child and

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gender relations.

Finding Patterns and Facilitating Emergence (Theme 5)

This leads to findings from neuroscience about the impact of children’s experiences
and observations on how the brain develops. This is not the place to detail these find-
ings, except to note that, rather than being born with developed brains, our imma-
ture neonates’ brains develop in interaction with their environments; thus, the impact
of these environments is especially powerful during the first years of life (Narvaez,
Panksepp, Schore, & Gleason, 2013; Niehoff, 1999; Perry, 2002; Repetti, Taylor, &
Seeman, 2002). Therefore, the kinds of environments children grow up in directly af-
fect the kinds of beliefs and behaviors they develop (Narvaez, Panksepp, Schore, &
Gleason, 2013; Niehoff, 1999; Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002; Perry, 2002).
That children’s early environments are major factors in how they act as adults has
long been known from psychology. However, most studies of society have not paid
attention to the connections between the cultural construction of family relations and
how politics, economics, and other social institutions are culturally constructed.
A few studies note this connection. For instance, social psychologists Michael
Milburn and Sheree Conrad found that people who had harsh childhoods are often
drawn to political leaders who advocate punitive social agendas such as capital pun-
ishment, heavy investment in prisons, punishment of “immoral” women and gays,
and military force (Milburn & Conrad, 1996). Having been brought up in domination
families, these people have learned to deflect their pain and anger against those who
punished them when they were dependent on them as children to those who deviate
from what these internalized authorities taught them is normal and moral.
This dynamic is further highlighted by Milburn and Conrad’s findings that punitive
political attitudes and support for “strongman” politicians are especially pronounced
in men who were severely punished as children. They attribute this to a gendered
socialization where boys are taught to suppress “soft” or “feminine” feelings such as
fear, pain, and empathy for the “weak”—​who should be punished (as they were as
children), rather than helped through healthcare, childcare, and other “soft” policies
(Milburn & Conrad, 1996).
We see these dynamics in action even in a democracy such as the United States in
the support for a president like Donald Trump, who constantly appealed to fear and
anger with racism, xenophobia, abusive language, macho posturing, and calls for vi-
olence against anyone who disagrees with him. Globally, we see these dynamics more
starkly in the rise of religious fundamentalism—​which, if we look more closely, is ac-
tually domination fundamentalism.
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 49

Fundamentalist leaders—​be they Eastern or Western—​focus on maintaining or re-

instating family and gender relations based on domination and submission. Whether
Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Christian, for them a top priority is return to a “traditional
family” where men dominate women and where children learn never to question or-
ders, no matter how painful or unjust. Fundamentalist leaders recognize that these
kinds of families are the foundations for their repressive political regimes or would-​be
regimes, so they also promote authoritarian, punitive treatment of children.

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We see this in the infamous madrassas, where boys are brainwashed to view vi-
olence as honorable and to join terrorist organizations. In less vicious forms, some
religious parenting guides in the United States instructed parents to force 8-​month-​
old babies to sit still with their hands on their high chair trays—​conditioning them to
submit to domination as adults (Gershoff, 2002).
That fundamentalist leaders fiercely oppose reproductive freedom for women even
at this time, when overpopulation is a major factor in resources depletion and pollu-
tion worldwide, is also not coincidental. Male control over women’s sexuality is char-
acteristic of rigid domination systems (Eisler, 2013). Neither is it coincidental that
“honor” murders of girls and women suspected of defying this control (for example,
by marrying without their father’s permission) are condoned in fundamentalist na-
tions, or that these nations demonize “enemy” groups and honor terrorists who ran-
domly kill and maim. Yet these patterns are invisible through the lenses of old social
categories.

Teaching a New Worldview and Intervening to Promote

Cultural Well-​Being (Theme 6)

In Tomorrow’s Children (Eisler, 2000), my book on education, I suggest that teaching

pattern recognition skills from preschools to graduate school is essential, especially in
our increasingly complex world. But we are still not taught these skills through cur-
rent pedagogical approaches.
Recognizing the interactive patterns of the partnership model and the domination
model is the first step toward a better understanding of what is needed for cultural
well-​being. We can do this by “looking up” from local life to governing structures,
and also “looking down” from ideology to child rearing. Then we can take the next
step: strengthening the psychosocial attractor of the partnership model and weak-
ening that of the domination model.
We especially need interventions in four areas that are key to the strength of either
the partnership model or the domination model as psychosocial attractors. Each of
these areas powerfully affects whether a social system orients to the domination or
partnership end of the social scale on both the micro and macro levels. My focus is
on how, as each area shifts from domination to partnership, new attitudes, behaviors,
norms, and structures emerge that shift the entire system in a partnership direction.
In other words, while each area is important in its own right, the cumulative effect of
their interaction is what brings about cultural transformation.
50 Riane Eisler

Childhood Relations

As we saw, the domination model can be a powerful psychosocial attractor for people
who grow up in “traditional” authoritarian families where obedience (including con-
formity to rigid gender stereotypes) is exacted through fear and force. This process
involves deflection of anger from those who cause one pain to out-​groups, and, as
was required for survival in childhood, a tendency to give allegiance, even love, to

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punitive, authoritarian figures—​ psychological dynamics first identified by Else
Frenkel Brunswick’s studies of highly prejudiced people (Adorno, Frenkel-​Brunswik,
Levinson, & Sanford, 1964). As we also saw, it involves learning to deny reality—​a
psychological dynamic that can become habitual, as in denial of climate change, the
Covid 19 pandemic, or election results.
Since the neural pathways of our brains are not set at birth but formed in interac-
tion with a child’s early experiences and observations, findings from neuroscience in-
dicate that our childhood experiences affect nothing less than how our brains develop
(Perry, 2002; Niehoff, 1999; Narvaez, Panksepp, Schore, & Gleason, 2013; Eisler & Fry,
2019). Therefore, although people can, and do, change throughout life, early relations
are critical.
An important aspect of the movement toward partnership is that many pediat-
ricians and children’s rights activists point to the damage of fear-​and-​force-​based
childrearing and recommend more partnership-​ oriented parenting styles. Such
small-​scale, local, quotidian changes in the dynamics of child rearing can have large-​
scale systemic consequences, and there are today resources to learn skills for parenting
that is caring rather than coercive, authoritative rather than authoritarian (e.g. Rando,
2015). There are, in addition, some positive developments on the macro level—​and
micro and macro changes interact. For instance, Sweden, which has moved toward
partnership in all four key components of this model (as described earlier), led the
way in making physical discipline of children in families illegal. Moreover, largely due
to intensive pressure from children’s rights advocates, the United Nations Declaration
on the Rights of the Child also condemns violence against children.
Nonetheless, violence against children is still accepted by a majority of people and
regularly practiced worldwide. Thus, many children learn a lesson basic to domina-
tion systems maintenance: that violence is a legitimate, even moral, means for one
person or group to impose their will on another (Eisler, 2013). Leaving behind tradi-
tions of violence in childrearing is therefore essential to dismantle the foundations on
which domination systems keep rebuilding themselves (Eisler & Fry, 2019).
Also essential is ending the low priority given to caring for people, starting in early
childhood. This takes us to another way domination systems have maintained them-
selves: the devaluation of women and the “feminine.”

Gender Relations

A fundamental difference between the partnership model and the domination model
is how gender roles and relations are constructed. Male dominance has sometimes
been attributed to the fact that in most of the great apes, males dominate females;
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 51

adult males are significantly larger than females and they use their size advantage to
batter and control females. For example, when adolescent male chimpanzees are big
enough they systematically assault adult females in order to insure control and sexual
access.
However, there are two striking exceptions to the large size differences between
females and males in primates. Among humans and bonobos, the size difference
between males and females are smaller. And, in contrast to chimpanzees, among bo-

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nobos male dominance is not the norm.
We do not know the gender relations for the last common ancestor of these three
species, but for Homo sapiens partnership was likely the norm for the million years
our ancestors lived as hunter-​gatherers. In The Chalice and the Blade (Eisler, 1987) and
other works (Eisler, 1995; Eisler & Fry, 2019), as well as in this chapter, I have also de-
scribed evidence that partnership was likely among farmers in early Neolithic com-
munities. Moreover, as noted earlier, partnership models have continually reemerged
throughout human history and as we see today in Nordic countries.
I want to here briefly return to the bonobo, because this great ape has been even
more successful than humans in creating partnership societies (de Waal, 2013; Eisler,
1995). Primatologists know of no bonobo societies where males dominate females.
How did bonobo females accomplish this feat? When a male pesters an unwilling
female for sexual access or for food, her female friends band together to back him off.
Primatologist Barbara Smuts (2006) described how this may have evolved; the pos-
sible scenario involves behavioral ecology and the bonobos’ consciousness. Bonobos
live in an area without gorillas, an important factor that allows females to forage to-
gether in friendship groups. In chimpanzee troops just across the Zaire River, gorilla
competition for tenders shoots means food is more dispersed and requires chim-
panzee females to forage widely from each other.
Both chimpanzee and bonobo females leave their natal colony to reproduce, while
adult males are surrounded by family. This can be a factor leading to vulnerability to
being dominated by males. However, that is not the case among bonobos. Here, an
immigrant female makes a passionate friend with an influential female in the new
group. Then, when a male bothers the new member, her girlfriends discipline him.
Yet, despite their lack of dominance, life is less stressful for male bonobos than
for male chimpanzees. There is little aggression and abundant sex is used as a social
lubricant.
Marveling that the bonobos are the only example of such a social system in the an-
imal world, Smuts wondered if, like humans, bonobos have a capacity for conscious-
ness, and they imagined that by banding together they could free themselves of male
harassment. She wrote,

New behavioral dispositions on the part of individuals and groups can in turn have a
downward casual effect on subsequent genetic evolution. . . . Once the environment
changed in a way that allowed proto-​bonobos to reveal their potential for female-​
female alliances, then any genetically based variation in female tendencies to form
alliances that was previously “hidden” could now be subject to natural selection.
(Smuts, 2006)
52 Riane Eisler

In human domination systems, socialization plays a large role. Beginning with the
difference in form between male and female—​children are taught to equate differ-
ence with superiority or inferiority, dominating or being dominated, being served or
serving.
This template for relations not only directly affects gender relations: It can be ap-
plied to a different race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Moreover, in
domination-​oriented systems, traits and activities associated with femininity—​such

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as caring, caregiving, and nonviolence—​cannot be given policy priority. All this ad-
versely affects the quality of life not only of girls and women, but of everyone.

Women, Men, and the Global Quality of Life

A study based on statistics from 89 nations conducted by the Center for Partnership
Systems found that in significant respects the status of women can be a better pre-
dictor of general quality of life than gross domestic product (GDP), the conventional
measure of national economic health (Eisler, Loye, & Norgaard, 1995). Newer studies,
such as the World Economic Forum’s annual Gender Gap Reports, also confirm the
correlation between the status of women and a nation’s economic success.
With movement toward partnership has come some blurring of gender stereo-
types. As women and the “feminine” are more valued, men are nurturing babies at the
same time that women are entering economic and political leadership. But even many
people who consider themselves progressive still view the movement toward gender
equity as secondary to “more important matters.” For them, gender inequity is “just”
a women’s issue, rather than part of the top-​down, unjust system they want to change.
Since many of us are socialized from early childhood on to accept a model of our spe-
cies in which control by men and masculinity are givens, they fail to see that gender
equity or inequity is a vital matter.
Indeed, the power of the domination model or the partnership model as a psycho-
social attractor is directly affected by how a society constructs the roles and relations
of the female and male forms of humanity. As we will see in what follows, it is actu-
ally a critical variable in the social construction of all social institutions, including
economics.

Economic Relations

How resources are allocated and which activities are valued directly impacts survival.
It also impacts politics in the sense of how power is defined and exercised, be it in fam-
ilies, tribes, or states. So how economic relations are culturally constructed is a major
factor influencing which model, partnership or domination, is the stronger psychoso-
cial attractor.
There is much criticism of unregulated capitalism, but this type of economics is
only the latest iteration of domination economics. Be it ancient or modern, Eastern
or Western, monarchist, feudal, or tribal, this is an economics of top-​down control,
in which—​as in today’s supply-​side or trickle-​down capitalist economics—​those on
bottom are socialized to content themselves with the scraps dropping from the opu-
lent tables of those on top (Eisler, 2007, 2012).
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 53

A major reason current economic systems—​whether capitalist, socialist, or com-

munist—​are proving incapable of meeting our escalating economic, environmental,
and social challenges is that the theories on which they are based came out of more
rigidly domination-​oriented times. Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx accepted a gen-
dered system of values in which anything associated with women or “femininity”
is devalued. So both relegated the “women’s work” of caring for people, starting in
early childhood, to what they called reproductive labor rather than productive labor.

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Moreover, just as they devalued the “women’s work” of keeping a clean and healthy
home environment, for both Smith and Marx, caring for nature was basically invis-
ible. And even today it is classified as just reproductive, not productive (Eisler, 2007,
2012; Kabeer, 2003).
With the shift to the postindustrial knowledge/​service age, we urgently need a new
way of thinking about economics—​not only for human and environmental reasons,
but for purely economic ones. Creating the “high-​quality human capital” economists
tell us is required for this new technological era requires recognition of what both
psychology and neuroscience tell us: that whether or not we have this capital largely
depends on the kind of care and early education children receive (Eisler, 2007, 2012;
Eisler & Fry, 2019).
Strong policy support for the caregiving work performed in both the market and
the household economic sectors is also urgently needed to cut through what are oth-
erwise intractable cycles of poverty. Women still do the bulk of care work for low
wages in the market and for free in homes—​which in large part accounts for the fact
that women and children are the mass of the poor and the poorest of the poor world-
wide. Even in the wealthy United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, women
over 65 are almost twice as likely to live in poverty as men of the same age (DeNavas-​
Walt & Proctor, 2015). A major factor is that most of these women were or are care-
givers (Eisler, 2007, 2012).
Most West European nations offer monetary assistance for caregivers, such as paid
parental leave, high-​quality childcare, and caregiver tax credits, especially for home
care of the elderly or disabled. New economic indicators are also emerging, such as the
Center for Partnership Systems’ Social Wealth Economic Indicators (SWEIs). Unlike
current measures of economic health such as gross domestic product (GDP) and
gross national product (GNP), which came out of more rigid domination times when
the devaluation of women and anything stereotypically considered feminine was even
more deeply entrenched than today, SWEIs demonstrate the economic value of the
work of caregiving in homes (Ghosh & Eisler, 2014). For example, a recent Australian
study found that if the unpaid work in households were included, it would constitute
50% of the reported GDP (Ghosh & Eisler, 2014; www.centerforpartnership.org).
But even as millions of jobs are being lost to automation, robotics, and artificial in-
telligence, most proposals for a new economics still ignore the value of care work. As
I detail in my book The Real Wealth of Nations, to accelerate the movement toward
the partnership model, a caring economics that redefines productive work to include
caring for people and nature is an essential building block for a more equitable and
sustainable future (Eisler, 2007, 2012; Eisler & Fry, 2019).
54 Riane Eisler

Stories and Language

We humans live, and all too often die, by stories—​as almost happened to me because
of stories that Jews are subhuman and must be killed. Many stories we inherited from
earlier times teach us that our only alternatives are either dominating or being domin-
ated. These stories are often taught to children before their critical faculties are devel-
oped through fairy tales and religious teachings.

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Classic fairy tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty present royalty as supe-
rior to “common people,” and teach girls to passively wait for men to rescue them.
Religious stories about “original sin” and secular stories about “evolutionary impera-
tives” also maintain domination systems by depicting humans as innately sinful and
violent—​supporting the belief that we must be rigidly controlled (Eisler & Fry, 2019;
Loye, 2007).
Scientific findings provide a very different picture of “human nature.” While hu-
mans have the capacity for cruelty and violence, we are actually “wired” more for em-
pathic and caring relationships (de Waal, 2009; Eisler & Fry, 2019; Eisler & Levine,
2002). For example, studies show that the pleasure centers in our brains light up more
when we share than when we win (Rilling et al., 2002).
Yet even the language we inherited maintains domination systems by failing to pro-
vide words to describe their alternative. For example, words such as matriarchy and
patriarchy describe only two versions of the domination model.
A hopeful sign is that we are increasingly seeing stories and art telling a different
story about human nature (see Chapter 12). Slowly the new language of the part-
nership model and the domination model is also beginning to spread. And there is
growing recognition, as Einstein famously noted, that we cannot solve problems with
the same thinking that created them.
A change in worldview toward more systemic level thinking that acknowledges the
key social importance of micro-​level factors (such as parenting styles and gender roles
and relations), and how these can produce larger scale phenomena will help in un-
derstanding more partnership-​based approaches to human relationships, and how to
achieve them. But again, I want to emphasize that micro-​to-​macro changes are not a
matter of one-​way causation. Macro-​to-​micro dynamics also play a vital role; that is,
changes in social norms about parenting styles and gender roles and relations bring
about changes in family and other intimate relations. In short, once we use the analyt-
ical lens of the partnership-​domination social scale, it becomes evident that what we
are dealing with are interactive processes in which the micro and the macro are inex-
tricably interconnected.

Conclusion

The struggle for our future is not between religion and secularism, right and left, East
or West, or capitalism and socialism. It is between those who want to maintain and re-
impose traditions of domination and those who want to leave these traditions behind.
It is between the partnership model and the domination model as two underlying
psychosocial attractors.
 Nonlinearity in Cultural Evolution 55

The shift from domination to partnership in childhood relations, gender relations,

economic relations, and stories and language is essential to generate the beliefs, be-
haviors, and socioeconomic structures needed for human well-​being. Interventions
in these areas weaken the domination psychosocial attractor and strengthen the part-
nership psychosocial attractor.
At our level of technological development, these interventions are more urgent
than ever before. Nuclear war, biological terrorism, climate change, and other global

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threats call for fundamental cultural change.
Cultures are created by human agency, be it consciously or unconsciously. By fo-
cusing on the interventions that decrease the attraction of the domination model and
augment that of the partnership model, we construct foundations for a more peaceful,
equitable, and sustainable future.
Ours is a period of great technological, environmental, social, and economic dise-
quilibrium. This gives us the opportunity to strengthen the partnership model as the
primary psychosocial attractor and weaken the pull of the domination model. Our
future hinges on whether we take advantage of this opportunity.

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