This was originally posted on Sept 23, 2011
“The driver…falls back like a racing charioteer at the barrier, and with a still more violent backward pull jerks the bit from between the teeth of the lustful horse, drenches his abusive tongue and jaws with blood, and forcing his legs and haunches against the ground reduces him to torment. Finally, after several repetitions of this treatment, the wicked horse abandons his lustful ways; meekly now he executes the wishes of his driver, and when he catches sight of the loved one [i.e. his master] is ready to die of fear.”
I can’t seem to get this image from Plato’s Phaedrus quoted in Val Plumwood’s Feminism and the Mastery of Nature out of my mind or my body these days. The other day I tried to read the above passage to a friend and my body became so tense that I accidentally cut off the phone connection—twice. Now while I am writing my muscles are tight, and I am beginning to get a headache. I cannot get the image of the black horse out of my mind because “she” (I know that Plato’s horse was a “he”) has lived in my body for as long as I remember. She probably first took root in my body when I began to fear my father’s discipline. She became bigger and stronger every time someone or something in culture told me that my body and the feelings of my body were bad, that I as a girl or woman was unworthy, that the things I cared about were not important, that my thoughts were wrong.
I ask you to read this passage aloud and to register how it makes you feel. Does the black horse live in you too?
Plato intended this image as an allegory for the relation of mind or soul to body and nature. Feminists and ecofeminists are well aware that the hierarchical dualism enshrined in this image is one of the main roots of sexism, racism, colonialism, and the environmental crisis. Plumwood asks us to notice the violence inherent in the relationship between mind or soul and body or nature as posited by Plato. She tells us that this is model of “radical exclusion” in which the “other” is violently subdued and its powers to do anything other than submit to and be used by the “master” are “negated.”
The charioteer symbolizes reason which must overpower nature. Plato does not picture this relationship as “natural” but as one that can only be achieved by force, violence, and fear that are sometimes coded as “love.” The horse and charioteer also represent that struggle within “man” to control his own body and the feelings and passions that arise from it. Plato tells us that this too is not a natural state of affairs: the mind must beat and subdue the body into submission. Plumwood asserts that in this image Plato is alluding to the procedures of “military discipline” which through fear and humiliation root out a young man’s natural desires for “life” and “love” including sex and replace them with a desire to “serve” and to ‘kill.” As many of us know all too well, military discipline becomes a model for child-rearing practices that scare or beat children into submission. Ascetic traditions which Plato admired idealize violence against the body (self-flagellation) as a way to ‘beat” the body into submission. The horse and charioteer also represent the relationship between man and woman in patriarchy and the ever-present threat that women who resist their roles can be beaten and raped into submission. Finally the horse and charioteer also represent the relationship between master and slave. Slaves in Greece often came from Asia Minor or Africa and were darker-skinned. In this image we see the demonization of everything black or dark, of blackness itself. The bruised and bleeding black horse represents all that can and must be controlled by the mind of the dominant man.
I have often asked myself how western philosophy got it so wrong, and why these ideas continue to perpetuate themselves. Plumwood suggests that “The great accomplishment of Plato and the key to the enormous influence his system exerted was the creation of an intellectual framework for an otherworldly identity which claimed to cancel death.” I would expand this profound insight and say that Platonism offered an otherworldly identity which claimed to cancel finitude or limitation, dependence or interdependence, and death. Platonism offered the illusion of complete control over life.
Feminists, ecologists, and people of color sometimes quarrel over who was the first oppressed and who became the model for the oppression of others. As I struggle to comfort and to free the battered and bruised black horse in my own body, I begin to realize that the first oppressed was not the other but the self. Platonism offered dominant males the devil’s bargain: subdue, repress, and root out your own feelings and you can control anything, you can even beat death. The kicker is that once you have lost your ability to feel, the power to dominate others seems like a good deal.
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WOW – why isn’t every woman responding to this radical post? AS usual Carol nails the genesis of violence – it begins with the oppression of the FEELING body – the home of feeling- our hatred of our bodies continues unabated on a cultural level – the need to control them in every way – I could barely read the paragraph she asked us to read because I felt so sickened – ill – oh I know that BLACK HORSE well, and ‘he’ (for me he is a he) still controls my body unconsciously whenever I am at my most vulnerable. I call him the dark man and whenever he is in control I am forced to endure some kind of assault on my psyche or somewhere else in my body… I know he is not me but I cannot find a way to banish this evil force – it still lives through me – two things that help are knowing that I carry the awareness of being taken over by the ‘not me’ – this force that is a product of personal and cultural ABUSE…. AND that if I can just stay as conscious of what is happening this force will pass….Why is it these days that a few people ‘like’ these powerful posts (what the hell does ‘like’ mean anyway?) BUT ALMOST NO ONE COMMENTS…. what is this saying about us?
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“BUT ALMOST NO ONE COMMENTS…. what is this saying about us?” Sara asks us this question regarding Carol’s powerful archival piece. I cannot respond for all of us, however, I can say that many of us are exhausted from being outraged o’er and o’er again. For me it began when Trump was elected president in 2016. Day after day, outrage followed outrage with his mean-spiritedness that ignited so many followers. Send “them” (immigrants) back to where they came from. Today, there is that poor woman who Texas who needs to go out of state to get an abortion her doctors say is necessary to preserve her health. There seems to be little outrage with that. I’m amazed at the number of woman I counsel (wanting an abortion) who need to travel out of their own state yet don’t connect the dots between their oppressive leaders and their need to travel for medical care. Using our bodies as an example–how often can a nerve be irritated and eventually smashed before there is no feeling at all?
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Oh, I am sure that you are correct – it takes so much endurance to keep on in the face of so much killer energy – trump’s reign destroyed my capacity for listening to the news forever… but we must not give in …my outrage has no bounds – but it always ends up in the same place – as GRIEF – it’s the grief that drives me now.
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we cannot afford to stop FEELING no matter what…
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For me personally this quote doesn’t resonate at all. It is too far removed from my own body perception. That’s why I didn’t read on – and I reply now because of Sara’s strong call!
Even in my rigorous dance training which was definitely ‘mind over body’ a lot of the time, I’ve never perceived it as a dark horse! Don’t know if it’s cultural, continental, generational, or if I’ve been lucky to craft a supportive relationship with my body as an expression of the beloved…
There seem to be too many metaphors wrapped up in this passage. We’re looking at personal body image; cultural perceptions toward body and feelings (and nature and the wild things); and about abuse of power. I think it’s important to tease these out in the process of healing. Even if they are, unfortunately, all too intertwined.
I work with an image of ‘the horse and rider becoming one’ inspired by Sabrina Dearborn, a gifted soul reader. This signifies an alignment of the incredibly power of our mind and soul to give direction, and shape perhaps too, to our physical life force, an intentional co-creation with life and the body, rather than working against ourselves, internally. So perhaps the image of horse and rider can also be approached in another, more positive and empowering manner.
To all your magnificent bodies – they yearn for your loving!
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You are, of course correct – there is a horse that works with us as well through positive embodiment – a reality that you are familiar with and a wonderful thing because you and your body are one. I think Carol’s reference to the black horse is about the “dark side” that is highlighting being cut away from our bodies (roots) through abuse. Thanks for responding!!!
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Yeah, I understood… and I know this is a reality for all too many of us – I think women and men both! Reminds me of the tarot card the chariot – which is often pulled by a white and a black horse – as the polarities we all hold inside – and an invitation to integrate the apparent extremes!
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