Animal Husbandry, Tragedy, and the Patriarchal Psychosis

Abstract

In this article Sylke Rene Meyer traces the historical derivation of tragedy as a patriarchal cultural achievement. To this end, she organizes the pertinent developments, and shows how tragedy came into being with the transition from nomadic to sedentary agrarian societies, principally through the onset of livestock farming in the Mediterranean. Tragedy in this context is the reinterpretation of pre-patriarchal myth in the mindset of this new way of life, and can be seen as developing in response to the male guilt complex in early patriarchal society, serving as a non-religious exculpation instrument and collective therapy. Until today, the dramatic form consolidates power by privileging an ideology of change (that is, drama) that individualizes conflict as an opportunity for personal growth, and in so doing, distracts from the systemic conflict that can be solved only by subverting the dominant social order. Sylke Rene Meyer is Professor of Screenwriting and Dramaturgy at the International Film School in Cologne. She works as a writer and director in theatre, film, and mixed media works, some of which have received significant awards.