Intelligence in Nature - Jeremy Narby [69]
Â
P. 26: ATHEISM IS THEISM DENIED
Gray (2002) writes: âUnbelief is a move in a game whose rules are set by believers. To deny the existence of God is to accept the categories of monotheism. As these categories fall into disuse, unbelief becomes uninteresting, and soon it is meaningless. Atheists say they want a secular world, but a world defined by the absence of the Christiansâ god is still a Christian world. Secularism is like chastity, a condition defined by what it denies. If atheism has a future, it can only be in a Christian revival; but in fact Christianity and atheism are declining togetherâ (p. 126â27).
CHAPTER 3
P. 31: SHAMANISM IS TRANSFORMING
Townsley (2001) comments on the waning of shamanism among indigenous people: âClearly the central momentum of the last few hundred years of history has been away from indigenous communities, their worldviews, and the things like shamanism that are part and parcel of them. As we all know, in many parts of the world these have been violently trampled under foot. In others, where indigenous people are trying hard to join what they perceive to be the exciting world of the future, shamanism begins to look like old-fashioned hocus-pocus and is quietly forgotten. In one way or another, the arrival of modernity and its paraphernalia is usually the death knell of these different, primitive, animist, whatever you want to call them, worldviews. The interesting reflux of that central current of history is that just as âprimitiveâ worldviews die out in the hinterlands of the new global system, they take root at its center. To the urban middle classes, already saturated with modernityâs paraphernalia and bored with the world bled of meanings they seem to entrain, shamanism, voodoo, witchcraft, all things primitive, suddenly seem extremely appealing. It is an interesting historical crisscross. To the so-called primitive, marginalized, and usually powerless, the promise of the modern is things, ease and security. To the so-called modern, the promise of the primitive is the one thing he or she lacksâmeaning. This primitive rush for the modern and the modern rush for the primitive is one of the weird but well-recognized features of the current cultural landscape of our world. Many of us spend our lives traversing itâ (p. 50). See also Leclerc (2003).
Â
P. 33: AMAZONIANS VIEW NATURE RELATED TO HUMANS
Across the Western Amazon indigenous people commonly consider plants and animals as persons living in societies of their own and endowed with knowledge, agency, emotions, intentions, and the capacity to exchange messages with themselves and with members of other species, including humans. Descola (1999) writes: âAmazonian Indiansâ¦. have integrated the environment into their social life in such a way that humans and non-humans are treated on equal grounds. Most of the regionâs cosmologies do not operate clear-cut distinctions between nature and society, but confer the main attributes of humanity to a good number of plants and animalsâ (p. 220). Arhem (1996) writes about the Makuna of the Colombian Amazon: âThe Makuna describe animals as âpersons.â Game animals and fish are endowed with knowledge, agency and other human attributes. They are said to live in malocas in the forest and the rivers, in saltlicks, hills and rapids. When animals roam in the forest or swim in the rivers they appear as fish and game, but as they enter their houses they discard their animal guises, don their feather crowns and ritual ornaments, and turn into âpeopleââ¦. Indeed, each species or community of animals is said to have its own âculture,â its knowledge, customs and goods by means of which it sustains itself as a distinct class of beingsâ (p. 190). He adds: âThe Makuna stress the continuity between nature and society, and ultimately the essential unity of all life, as manifest in