GRE, practicing to take the economics test Book

This review is rambling, and a bit angry, but I'm not re-writing it again...

This was a very depressing read and reminded me of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." This is a history of the development of human society told from the point of view of the wiped out native cultures, pagans, witches and homosexuals.

As a gay man I've often been alienated from the domesticated, bourgeois homosexuality of modern society. This stems from both the suffocating force of HIV/AIDS which has haunted gay sexuality for decades and made sex a rendezvous with Thanatos, and the emergence of "corporate pride" and our desperate seeking of respect and inclusion from a society that hates us. This book is a call for the stark rejection of that.

Paternalistic societies became increasingly militaristic, and many disfunctions follow from that. In his chapter on Rome it's easy to see parallels to today; the military consumes most of the resources, dictates what leaders can do, enforces a "cult of discipline" throughout society, and creates a top-heavy strangulation of local life entirely out of touch with the needs of the people. Christianity came to dominate, "Ascetic religion became an opiate for the pain, enabling people to stifle their real needs and feelings, and thus avoid the suffering of constant frustration. The government was well-disposed to ascetic religion because it kept people quiet and obedient." He goes on to make a fairly compelling argument for how this set the stage for the later Industrial Revolution.

This is quite an eye-opening account of the history of Christianity we never hear about, particularly the early sects of Christianity. Evans goes into detail about the Cathars for example who engaged in orgies and homosexuality, rejected marriage and held a downright antinatalist view toward bringing new life into the world. Others, such as the Gnostics are covered too.

Homosexuality aside, Evans talks about the persecution of women, the erasure of maternal societies and abortion. The idea of witches engaging in child murder and molestation in underground caves and tunnels is also mentioned. If that sounds familiar it's because during the McMartin pre-school trial during the Satanic Panic people were convinced child molestation was occurring in vast tunnels underneath the school. Qanon fools still think it's happening today. (Well, Jeffrey Epstein and his elite billionaire pals are an exception, I've no doubt they're all goat head-wearing psychopaths). Class is a recurring theme here, the powerful urban elites adopting ascetic Christianity while the rural poor cling to their pagan ways.

Christianity is a history of repression, hierarchy and alienation from nature and one's own body and sexuality. Evans even touches on things like long hair on men and hallucinogenic drugs. This self-denial is so common and totalitarian in our lives, we don't even see it by comparison to societies that had nature-based religions.

Evans' chapter on America is great. He notes how the settlers coming to America arrived with no respect for nature left in them, paganism having died out long before in Europe and so they saw the country as a capitalist enterprise from the start. That's likely a clue as to why there's no class consciousness in America and the poor see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and are punitive to those poorer than themselves. This is ironic considering the average person is infinitely closer to the homeless man on the curb than the corporate titan raping children in a tunnel. The United States government was formed to protect the rich against the poor and wage war, destroying native cultures, imposing paternalism and extracting resources. At home the tentacles of the military-industrial complex are embedded throughout American society and create a militarized atmosphere that suffocates the appreciation for nature, creation of art and enjoyment of sex.

One of the most depressing aspects was how much worse things are in several respects than they were 40 years ago when this was written. He mentions the Vietnam War as the longest running American war and of course we've been in Afghanistan even longer and are dropping bombs on the heads of people in countries Americans have never heard of daily. Once Obama was elected the anti-war movement dissipated like frost in the morning sun and then Trump was elected and liberals lost their minds over Russia for three years at the expense of real concerns of people who are increasingly unable to afford children and are taking their own lives in increasing numbers. Then, after Putin Fever blew up in their faces liberals have embraced the neo-conservative ghoul architects of the Iraq War and the Intel community, which helped bring us Trump in the first place. It's all a depressing daisy chain clusterf---, without the sex. Evans ends the book with a passionate call for a return to inclusive tribal collectives, a return to nature and magic, and sex without shame. It's all rather sad and naive in light of the dark tunnel society is headed down.

Besides feeling a bit outdated, some conclusions Evan's reaches feel a little far-fetched, especially in etymology for example.

Arthur Evans died in 2011, I can only imagine he watched as his predictions of gay domestication came true. "You'll be accepted if you're a bourgeois striver and emulate middle class values, we'll turn a blind eye to what you do in your own bedroom, even though we still despise you, and make a joke of you behind your back." (My quote.)

"The whole industrial system is like one great night of the living dead where the entire populace has been reduced emotionally to the level of zombies. It has deadened us to our environment, deprived us of art, sterilized our animal nature, robbed us of the skills of survival, degraded our labor and leisure, and decimated our sexual lives. And so it has made us like the living dead — dead to nature, dead to each other, dead to ourselves."