re: the narrative of Fredy Perlman’s “Against His-story, Against Leviathan!”

If we date “human” from the evolutionary emergence of the homo genus, the lifeways were aboriginal (the “Old Ways”) for millions of years. There was a radical shift in the wake of the Neolithic Revolution to the “New Ways,” characterized by the rise of states, empires, wealth accumulation, class division, and labor. Peoples subjected to such were limited to isolated pockets at first, but the aberrant, pathological “developmentalist” dynamic was aggressively expansionist and over a period of five thousand years all the Old Ways groupings were obliterated.

The New Ways are oppressive for the vast majority. Uprisings are a regular occurrence throughout history, but power elitism generally dominates.

Sixteenth century: Circumnavigation of the world becomes possible with modern transportation and communication. The pathological lifeways become globalized.

Seventeenth century: Capitalism is wealth accumulation, expansionism, and developmentalism run amok.

Eighteenth century: Correctives are broached by Enlightenment thinkers. But with the onset of industrialism the aberrant civilizational trajectories go parabolic.

Nineteenth century: The labor and socialist movements propose alternatives. Reforms mitigate some of the systemic oppression, but the vision of social transformation is inchoate.

Twentieth century: Recognition of the unsustainability of the trajectories — and a growing sense of alarm re: the depth of the modern crisis — motivates the “greening of society” movement.

Twenty-first century: The inevitable consequences of millennia of going in a pathological direction begin to be evident. A more comprehensive appreciation of the problems and the solutions is deliberated.