civilization

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

from the nation.com by David Graeber and David Wengrow, review by Daniel Immerwahr

Protest speaks a language of forceful insistence. “Defund the police,” “Build the wall”—the unyielding demands go back to Moses’ “Let my people go.” So it was curious when the July 2011 issue of the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters ran a cryptic call to arms: a ballerina posing atop the famous Charging Bull statue on Wall Street, with the question “What is our one demand?” printed above her in red. The question wasn’t answered; readers were only told, “#OccupyWallStreet. September 17th. Bring tent.”

Clothes

from nudism as illegalism

In the legend of the Garden of Eden, the original humans, Adam and Eve, were unashamed of their nakedness. Then they ate fruit from the tree of knowledge and God cast them out. At some point, either after the fruit or after leaving the garden, they became ashamed of, at minimum, their “private parts” – and thus they covered up. Thus were clothes born, thus did humans come to know something called modesty, and thus was nudity made into sin.

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