The history of civilization is the history of beer. In every era and area untouched by civilization, there has been no beer; conversely, virtually everywhere civilization has struck, beer has arrived with it. Civilization – that is to say, hierarchical social structures and consequent relationships of competition, unbridled technological development, and universal alienation – seems to be inextricably linked to alcohol. Our sages, who look back and ahead through time to see beyond the limits of such pernicious culture, tell a parable about our past to explain this link:
Most anthropologists regard the beginnings of agriculture as the inception of civilization. It was this first act of control over the land that brought human beings to think of themselves as distinct from nature, that forced them to become sedentary and possessive, that led to the eventual development of private property and capitalism. But why would hunter/gatherers, whose environment already provided them with all the food they needed, lock themselves in place and give up the nomadic foraging existence they had practiced since the beginning of time for something they already had? It seems more likely – and here, there are anthropologists who agree – that the first ones to domesticate themselves did so in order to brew beer.
This drastic reorganization for the sake of intoxication must have shaken tribal structure and lifeways to the root. Where these “primitive” peoples had once lived in a relaxed and attentive relationship to the providing earth – a relationship that afforded them both personal autonomy and supportive community as well as a great deal of leisure time to spend in admiration of the enchanted world around them – they now alternated periods of slavish hard labor with periods of drunken incompetence and detachment. It’s not hard to imagine that this situation hastened, if not necessitated, the rise to power of masters, overseers who saw to it that the toilsome tasks of fixed living were carried out by the frequently inebriated and incapable tribespeople. Without these chiefs and the primitive judicial systems they instituted, it must have seemed that life itself would be impossible: and thus, under the foul auspices of alcoholism, the embryonic State was conceived.
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The Anarcho-Primitivist case for Straight Edge: Against His-Story, Against Alcoholocaust! [via]
anarcho-primitivists!
idk i guess the idea that its basically impossible to have enough excess grain to cook down and use as a base for alcohol (also: a pretty decent way of storing calories so they don’t spoil) without having some sort of organized cultivation of said grain wasn’t an interesting enough topic for a crimethinc. pamphlet! We obv moved out of the idyllic hunter/gatherer lifestyle only because of the raging alcoholic statists amongst us. Its not like human beings/other animals would have developed reward systems that would encourage us to repeatedly engage in pleasurable behaviors (e.g. consuming alcohol) in that beautiful period before we were domesticated.
