Domesticating History

By Greg -
When in history, which has really just begun, have we ever, as a global civilization, despaired of its trajectory? Civilization, which we define as the domestication of nature, has only in the last 50 years or so became global. There had been, until recently, perfectly well-adapted cultures occupying worlds of their own and operating without the "benefits" of financial markets, industrialization, corporate agriculture, and private property. Increasingly efficient means of subjugation and control, in transportation, communication, and weaponry, provided the State's missionaries, in the form of blundering tourists, anthropologists, misguided NGOs, and paid scientists scouting for exploitable natural (and human) resources, with the means to domesticate the planet. So, the answer is no; there has never been a period in history when the steady march of civilization was paused so we could consider our options. There were certainly individuals who, as history was unconsciously destroying their worlds, understood what the civilized could not. But their wisdom was in languages the State had forbid, and their warnings were laughed off as the pathetic whimpers of a broken pride.

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