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In our cultural mythology we see ourselves as having left tribalism behind the way modern medicine left the leech and the bleeding bowl behind, and we did so decisively and irrevocably. This is why it's so difficult for us to acknowledge that tribalism is not only the preeminently human social organization, it's also the only unequivocally successful social organization in human history. Thus, when even so wise and thoughtful a statesman as Mikhail Gorbachev calls for "a new beginning" and "a new civilization," he doesn't doubt for a single moment that the pattern for it lies in the social organization that has introduced humanity to oppression, injustice, poverty, chronic famine, incessant violence, genocide, global warfare, crime, corruption, and wholesale environmental destruction. To consult, in our time of deepest crisis, with the unqualified success that humanity enjoyed here for more than three million years is quite simply and utterly unthinkable. Beyond Civilization

New book from Daniel Quinn! If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways "One of the most troublesome questions I've been asked--and it's been asked hundreds of times--is: 'Where do these strange ideas of yours come from?' In the beginning, I thought it was just the usual where-do-you-get-your-ideas? question that all authors receive. My readers soon set me straight. Read more ... Excerpt 1 Excerpt 2 Excerpt 3

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UNIT 7 The Best Way To Live

The author says many young people tell him they'd like to disappear into some wilderness and forage for their food or that they'd like to live with a hunting-gathering people. What about you? Do you have any doubt that growing all your own food is the best way to live?

Figure out all the steps it takes "to put three ounces of corn in a can of water on your supermarket shelf."

Let's say you walk ten minutes to buy a bunch of bananas at a store. Let's also say a forager walks ten minutes to pick a bunch of bananas off a tree. The difference between the two of you is that you have to have some money in your pocket to buy the bananas. How much money would you need for, say, four bananas? How long would you have to work to get that money?

See if you can estimate how many calories the forager spends and gains in the example above. Then see if you can estimate how many calories you'd spend and gain. Are the results similar to those the author gives here?

On a map of the Americas, locate the homelands of the New World peoples mentioned here.

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