“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Sunday, April 24, 2011

We Are Living in a Medieval Fantasy


Consumerism is a modern syndrome but the form that fuels it is derived in part from Medieval fantasies, such as the Land of Cockaygne. Just look at Brueghel's painting (above). It's like something out of Eraserhead, with pigs and eggs running around with knives inserted into them.

Scratch a Puritan work ethic-er and you will find the passivity of Brueghel's figures.

The search for the spice islands that jump started commercial capitalism was based on the premise that the spice islands really existed: they had never been seen before they were “discovered.” It was very much like the space race, only with spice.

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