In many ancient societies, people employed "both/and" thinking far more than "either/or" thinking.
Symbols had multiple meanings, context mattered at least as much as content, and questions had multiple "right" answers.
Modern people can really learn a lot from this.
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Do you think our materialist perspective is at the core of our transition to such strong duality? What other aspects seem strongly relevant here?
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I think agriculture and the onset of ownership created a need for either/or thinking. Either you owned the land, or someone else did. Before that, no one owned nature.
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Not sure if this argument is entirely as correct as it is compelling.
As for simple societies (correct dichotomy, IMO, is simple vs. complex, not ancient vs. modern - complexity is unevenly distributed across history and even today), a lot of them seem pre-discriminatory.
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Viruses (seem to) exhibit this level of agency, but this is inherent to their effect on the organism, and relies on hijacking the right bodily functions.
By what mechanism would grains induce humans to form monarchist societies?
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Yes, but what you are describing doesn't rely on any complex behavioral manipulation. Eating and shitting is sufficient.
Viruses do what they do because they target specific vectors. Unless you're saying the plants need to manipulate you to shit in viable soil?