Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress

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Pangloss even goes on to provide optimistic explanations for what might not otherwise appear material from the best of all possible worlds opinion – you know, like his being hanged for heresy by the inquisition.

In a paean to attachment parenting, he describes numerous anthropology studies showing that babies born into egalitarian bands are given near-constant attention and soothing. The implication being that early humans were essentially sort of orangutans, living alone and only coming together to mate. The problem is caused by the inequality itself: it triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few.

We currently have bushfires burning along the length of the New South Wales coast and summer has only just started.

While civilization and progress are far from being as great as authors like Steven Pinker (or Jordan Peterson, for that matter) often advertise, it doesn’t mean it has only brought sorrow and pain.But in the decades since Freud, accumulating evidence has shown that foragers almost never join civilization willingly, and they flee it as rapidly as they can—even when it means retreating into the harshest environments on the planet.