Destruction and the Sacred

By: Andrew Sakach

Other Class Readings: 3

In Human Adaptation we read the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The book discusses how our societies views of the world are as utility and have no sacred or intrinsic values attached with it while other societies have existed for thousands upon thousands of years living in relative harmony with the rest of the world.

It seems to me very interesting how other cultures tie the sacred into almost every aspect of life where we, in America have this notion of separation of church and state and of the secular and profane. this division has probably caused us most, out of all the destructive cultures within the past 100,000 to be the most destructive.

The ancient Greeks used a method of 5 criteria in order to see if something was to be used within their society, the ones I remember were the beautiful, sacred, useful, good and something. If we only had checks like these in whether or not something should be part of our society it would be better for us all. However we cannot and maintain such a large population under one government, even now with one group of people making all the rules for a vast amount of differing people is rather ludicrous.