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The God of the Abrahamic tradition began to concern himself in the affairs of men just a few thousand years ago. Before that, we must assume, he was occupied elsewhere. Or perhaps he looked down on our ancestors and said, "Yechh! What lowbrows! I snub them! I will have nothing to do with them." He turned up his nose at Homo habilis, at Homo erectus, and even at Homo sapiens for hundreds of thousand of years. Even Homo sapiens sapiens he wouldn't touch at first: ten thousand generations of people every bit as smart as you or I went down to death ignored by God. But finally, just a few centuries ago, God looked down on man and said, "At last man is worthy of my attention. For three million years, I have let him welter in ignorance, error, and despair, but now I'll begin to talk to him." Well, of course, I began by rejecting this priggish god. Providence

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 11 Pyramid Builders

Do you feel it's true that everybody wants you to think you're the luckiest kids on earth? How do people react when you express doubts about the future (if you do)?

Under communism as Marx envisioned it, what would happen to Bill Gates's "pyramid," Microsoft? [Presumably it would belong to the workers who built it, rather than to Bill Gates.] How does this square with Quinn's description of Marx's "idea of breaking chains"?

Why wasn't the meme civilization must continue at any cost and not be abandoned under any circumstance lethal to pharaonic Egypt or to Han China or to medieval Europe? [See earlier sections on lethal genes and memes.] Do you agree that it has become lethal to us?

Quinn says "We must destroy in ourselves and in the people around us the meme proclaiming civilization to be an unsurpassable invention." How do you "destroy" a meme? Has this meme been "destroyed" in you?

Can you think of any memes that seem to have been destroyed or are in the process of being destroyed in our society? [Thirty years ago, it was considered the citizen's greatest privilege and highest duty to vote in elections. Some meme seems to be at risk here.]

Do you know any of those "rare" individuals who just "love" dragging stones?

Back to UNIT 10 Lost Civilizations and Missing Memes

Up to Table of Contents

Ahead to UNIT 12 Lifestyle, Social Organization, and Culture