...and da myth go *BOOM* *poof* *tinkle*tinkle*tinkle*
*tinkle*tinkle*tinkle*
expect this fella to next be seen carried down the street by tenured professors—covered in tar
Two billion war deaths would have occurred in the 20th century if modern societies suffered the same casualty rate as primitive peoples, according to anthropologist Lawrence H Keeley, who calculates that two-thirds of them were at war continuously, typically losing half of a percent of its population to war each year.
...Why is it that the modern public revels in a demonstrably false portrait of primitive life? ... stories of wise and worthy native Americans, African tribesmen, Brazilian rainforest people and Australian Aborigines…
the overwhelming consensus in popular culture holds that primitive peoples enjoy a quality - call it authenticity - that moderns lack, and that by rolling in their muck, some of this authenticity will stick to us. Colonial guilt at the extermination of tribal societies does not go very far as an explanation, for the Westerners who were close enough to primitives to exterminate them rarely regretted having done so. The hunger for authenticity surges up from a different spring.
His conclusion is unusual and interesting.
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