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Bertrand Russell, “History of Western Philosophy”:

“The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by prudence, or to use a slightly wider term, forethought. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant. This habit began to be important with the rise of agriculture; no savage would work in the spring in order to have food next winter…”

“Civilization checks impulse not only trough forethought, which is a self-administered check, but also trough law, custom, and religion … On the one hand the purposes of the community are enforced upon the individual, and, on the other hand the individual, having acquired the habit of viewing his life as a whole, increasingly sacrifices his present to his future…”

“…prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshipper of Bacchus reacts against prudence. In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of every-day preoccupations. The Bacchic ritual produced what was called “enthusiasm,” which means, etymologically, having the god enter into the worshipper…”

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Ger Groot, article Trouw (translated from Dutch), “Het oerwoud huist nog in ons”:

“The system is based on the idea that everything has a purpose, is rationally explainable and contributes to growth. This is called ‘homogenous thought’. But the human mind also consists of a heterogeneous domain. Here there is no thought, just feeling and action. It is what Freud calls the subconscious…”

“To me the riots made me think of the potlatch, this is a term that is used for gatherings between rival Indian tribes. During such gatherings property was ritually demolished and food was wasted. In all kinds of cultures there was and still is an existence of destructive rituals or festivals, where the existing order is temporarily abandoned…”

“In all cultures where destructive intoxication had a ritual form, the rituals were aimed at protecting rationality against the underlying urge of the desire, the heterogeneous. By admitting to the beast every once in a while, worse outbursts were prevented. Thereby the system was not affected, and could be sustained. We see the same now. High sanctions have been imposed, securing the moral system once again. After the outburst normal life is resumed, almost as if nothing had happened.”

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Nathan Sherrer, “Probing the Relationship Between Native Americans and Ecology”:

“The transition from animistic religions (i.e., Native American and Pagan religions) to modern religions such as Christianity has had a profound ecological effect. Lynn White, Jr., arguably the father of the modern ecological movement, puts it best: “Popular religion in antiquity was animistic. Every stream, every tree, every mountain contained a guardian spirit who had to be carefully propitiated before one put a mill in a stream, or cut the tree, or mined the mountain”. When Christianity became the dominant religion of the western world, the religions in which spirits permeated the world were lost and forgotten. This had the effect of demystifying nature, removing nature gods and left the land devoid of spirit or importance. From then on, the world was seen as something that man could take advantage of and exploit to fit his own needs. From then on, nature was simply regarded as the backdrop on which humanity carried out its will.”

“Converting to a Native American style of life is an ideological dream but it is one that would never work. The world’s population has long since past its carrying capacity for the environment to sustain. We now rely on technology and agricultural improvements to sustain the six billion people that are alive today.”

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