From the day when we first learned how to breathe and how to keep himself alive, through the discovery of fire and right up to the invention of the atomic and thermonuclear devices of the present day, Man has never – save only when he reproduces himself – done other than cheerfully dismantle million upon million of structures and reduce their elements to a state in which they can no longer be reintegrated. No doubt he has built cities and brought the soil to fruition; but if we examine these activities closely we shall find out that they also are inertia-producing machines, whose scale and speed of action are infinitely greater than the amount of organisation implied in them.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude: Tristes Tropiques (1955)

  • sedentary
  • civilization
  • destruction
  • selfdestruction
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