Primitive Society Quotes

“If the patriarchal system, when compared to primitive systems, seems to represent a “lesser” degree of structuralization, then Western civilization since the decline of the patriarchal system can be said to have been governed by a principle of decreasing structuralization or destructuralization during the whole of its historical course—a tendency that can almost be seen as an ultimate aim. A dynamic force seems to be drawing first Western society, then the rest of the world, toward a state of relative indifferentiation never before known on earth, a strange kind of nonculture or anticulture we call modern.”
― René Girard, Violence and the Sacred

“Society would govern itself spontaneously if it didn't contain sensitive and intelligent people. You can be sure that they're the only thing that hinders it. Primitive societies were happy because they didn't have such people.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet