Totalitarian Agriculture

Description

Daniel Quinn, in The Great Forgetting, an excerpt from The Story of B:

"Many different styles of agriculture were in use all over the world 10,000 years ago, when our particular style of agriculture emerged in the Near East. This style, our style, is one I call totalitarian agriculture, in order to stress the way it subordinates all life-forms to the relentless, single-minded production of human food. Fueled by the enormous food surpluses generated uniquely by this style of agriculture, a rapid population growth occurred among its practitioners, followed by an equally rapid geographical expansion that obliterated all other lifestyles in its path (including those based on other styles of agriculture). This expansion and obliteration of lifestyles continued without a pause in the millennia that followed, eventually reaching the New World in the 15th century and continuing to the present moment in remote areas of Africa, Australia, New Guinea, and South America.

Totalitarian agriculture is more than a means of getting what you need to live, it's the foundation for the most laborious lifestyle ever developed on this planet. This comes as a shock to many readers, but there isn't any question about it: No one works harder to stay alive than the people of our culture do. This has been so thoroughly documented in the past 40 years that I doubt if you could find an anthropologist anywhere who would argue about it." (http://www.davidsheen.com/b/b1.htm)

Discussion

"One particular style of agriculture. One particular style that has been the basis of our culture from its beginnings 10,000 years ago to the present moment -- the basis of our culture and found in no other. It's ours, it's what makes us us. For its complete ruthlessness toward all other life-forms on this planet and for its unyielding determination to convert every square metre on this planet to the production of human food, I've called it totalitarian agriculture.

Totalitarian agriculture was not adopted in our culture out of sheer meanness. It was adopted because, by its very nature, it's more productive that any other style (and there are many other styles). Totalitarian agriculture represents productivity to the max. You simply can't outproduce a system designed to convert all the food in the world into human food." (http://www.davidsheen.com/b/b2.htm)

More Information

1. Jared Diamond: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race: Why the adoption of agriculture was 'a catastrophe from which we have never recovered'.