4 Against His-story, Against Leviathan

192 Pages·2015·0.94 MB·English

containMesopotamianUmma,Ur,LagashandErechaswellas
allthecitiesalongtheroadstotheLevant.
Sargon,whostartedhiscareerastributecollector,knowsas
wellasanyPharaohorLugalwhatthewormdoesbest.Iteats Against His-story, Against
tribute,notonlytofeedtheLugalandhisEnsis,whonowhave
Leviathan
Semitic names, but above all to feed the increasingly violent
gods in the Temple, gods as dead as the Leviathan itself, and
justashungry.
***
Fredy Perlman
The feats and fates of Urukagina, Lugalzaggizi and Sargon
arethesubjectofwhatwecall“history.”MaryJaneShoultzhas
demystified the word. When we speak of real History, of His-
story,wemeanHis-story.Itisanexclusivemasculineaffair.If
womenmaketheirappearanceinit,theydosowearingarmor
andwieldingaphallusshape.Suchwomenaremasculine.
The whole affair revolves around phallus shapes: the spear,
the arrow, the Zigguat, the Obelisk, the dagger, and of course
later the bullet and the missile. All these objects are pointed,
andthey’reallmadetopenetrateandkill.TheMesopotamian
ZigguatandtheEgyptianObeliskman-mademountainswhich
point at the sky, forecast the day when males will tear the at-
mosphere’sozonelayerandpropelthemselvestoairlessspaces
whereonceonlygodsflew.
Many, from Euripides to Bachofen, Shoultz, Grass and
Turner, will ask why His-story is so exclusively masculine.
Theywillrememberthestud-likecharacterofthehumanmale
in the state of nature and will wonder if the Leviathanic feats
thatconstituteHis-storyarethemale’srevenge.
WiththeriseoftheLeviathans,womenaredebased,domes-
ticated,abusedandinstrumentalized,andthenscribesproceed
to erase the memory that women were ever important. Dia-
mond says that literacy, which Shoultz calls Maleliteracy, is
ideallysuitedtoerasethepastfrommemory.Intheoldcommu- 1983
nities, what one elder forgot another was likely to remember,
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whichhisSemitic-speakingsubjectstranslateasKingofKings
andLordofLords.
But the days of even this Almighty are numbered. Just as
SumerianspeakersarenolongerallpriestsandEnsis,Semitic
speakers are no longer all zeks. By way of marriage, physical
prowess or toadying, grandchildren of zeks are in the palace
and in the Temple. Those in the Temple presume to give the
names of long-forgotten Semitic deities to the Sumerian gods,
give the vulgar name Ishtar to the daughter of the Moon.
Sumerian-speaking priests no longer seem to care; many
of them must know that the Sumerian gods are no longer
anything more than names. Besides, many of the brothers
of the Semitic-speaking priests are Ensis — so many, in fact,
that it would be imprudent to insist that Ishtar’s real name
is Inanna. Furthermore, in the outlying cities along the road
from Sumer to the Levant and the Sinai, there are not only
Semitic-speaking Ensis but even a few who presume to the
officeofLugal.SuchaoneisSargontheAkkadian.
Sargon is Sumerian in everything but his language. He ap-
parently began his career as an Ensi to the Lugal of Ur, for
whomhecollectedtributefromaLevantineprovince.WhenUr
felltoLugalzaggizi,SargonnamedhisprovinceAddadandas-
sumedthepostofLugal.HehasbeenobservingLugalzaggizi’s
fat Leviathan, something we will call an Empire, for a whole
generation. Suddenly he figures out something that even Lu-
galzaggizi doesn’t know; his scribes say Ishtar told it to him.
Sargonknowsthatthephallus-headoftheLeviathanisforall
thepowerful,notonlySumerian-speakingpowerful.
All the powerful who have felt the least bit slighted find
a champion in Sargon. Following Lugalzaggizi’s lead, he cap-
tures his mentor and sweeps through the cities that gave rise
tothefirstLeviathans.
A single Leviathan, as long as the Nile and several times
wider,nowsprawlsovertheentireFertileCrescent.Itsentrails
55
ThefirstUrlugalpresumedtoknowthehierarchyofthegods
andgotawaywithhispresumptionbecausethegodswereal-
readyweakanddying.
Urukaginadoesn’tgetaway,becausethesegmentheattacks,
Contents
althoughbydefinitiondead,isnotweak.Retributiontakesthe
form of an invasion from Umma. Urukagina is swept out of
officebyLugalzaggiziofUmma.Urukaginaiskilled,soarehis
liberalEnsisandmostoftheirzeks,andLagashisrazedtothe 1 5
ground.
2 21
The town of Umma is not known either for its power or
itscourage,anditdoesn’tsuddenlyacquirethesequalities.Its
3 40
strongmanLugalzaggizidoesnotinvadeLagashwithUmma’s
forces.The necessary forcesas wellas the technology needed
4 64
for an invasion are in the segment Urukagina attacked. Lu-
galzaggiziistheinstrumentofthereformer’sdownfallnotbe- 5 81
cause he champions the powerful, but also because he knows
somethingUrukaginadidnotknow. 6 94
Lugalzaggizi understands that the head of Leviathan is not
7 101
whereitwasayearoragenerationago,norwhereUrukagina
thinksitoughttobe.JustastheLugal’sgodisalwaysthegod
8 108
in the phallus-shaped Ziggurat, so the Leviathan’s most pow-
erful segment is always its head. Such is Leviathanic justice,
9 122
and Lugalzaggizi, not Urukagina, is the true champion of the
worm. 10 134
Lugalzaggizi’schampioningofthepowerfulgiveshimallies
inallofSumer’scities.Perhapstheyareallbesetbyreformers 11 146
nostalgicforanearlierLeviathanicorder.Lugalzaggizi’sforces
12 157
overrunallofthem.
Before all the corpses are buried, Lugalzaggizi is Lugal of
13 165
Umma, Lgash, Ur and Erech. His scribes describe him as the
Man of Erech, the One and Only. The Tigris-Euphrates valley
14 180
is occupied by a single Leviathan. Sumer is one for the first
time. The worm has eaten all its predecessors. Lugalzaggizi’s 15 201
scribesalsodescribehimastheLugalofLugals,anexpression
16 215
54 3
17 233 Abusinessmanisahumanbeingwhoselivinghumanityhas
been thoroughly excavated. He is by definition a person who
18 251 thrivesin,andon,theLeviathan’smaterialentrails.Peoplere-
ducedtothingsareamongsttheobjectsinthebeast’sentrails
19 264
andareobviouslyfairgametothishunterofprofits.Thebusi-
nessman’saxiom,longbeforeAdamSmithwillpublicizeit,is:
20 288
Everymanforhimselfandthegodsagainstall.
21 306 We’vealreadyseenhowtheSumerianbusinessmanreduced
a community of foreigners to debtors, then defaulters, finally
22 323 zeks. He now applies the same economic wisdom to foreign-
ers inside Sumer, and at last he stops distinguishing between
23 339 foreignersandSumerians.
The reduction goes so far that by the time of the reign of
24 362
Urukagina, even the Lugal is bothered by it. And this Lugal
decidestodosomethingaboutit,oratleastpublishesatablet
statingsuchanintention.
This Urukagina, who assumes the office of Lugal of Lagash
at a time when his southern neighbors have already adorned
the banks of the Nile with the first pyramids, may not be the
first reformer. He’s the first documented reformer. He is the
first of many who will put the wellbeing of the entire worm
aheadofthewellbeingofasegment.Hecanseethatthegreedy
profit-seekers,whoareameresectionofthewhole,havebeen
distortingthecadaverscoherence,itsveryabilitytomove,by
eatingupallitsentrails.Heproclaimsthatthevipers“shallnot
gather fruit in the poor man’s garden,” they shall not reduce
Sumerianstozeks.
By placing the welfare of the entire worm above that of its
swelledsegment,thisreformingLugal,likemanyofhisliberal
successors, unleashes forces which overwhelm him. Relying
on his memory of earlier stages of the worm’s existence, he
presumes to know the best, or most just, arrangement of the
worm’ssegments.
4 53
off with it. There’s still a human face below the mask, just as
there’sstillapotentiallyfreebodybelowthearmor,butmerely
airingthemtakesalmostsuperhumaneffort.
And as if all this weren’t bad enough, something starts to
1
happentotheindividual’sinnerlife,hisecstasy.Thisstartsto
dryup.Justastheformercommunity’slivingspiritsshriveled
and died when they were confined to the Temple, so the
individual’sspiritshrivelsanddiesinsidethearmor.Hisspirit Andwearehereasonadarklingplain
can breathe in a closed jar no better than the god could. It Sweptwithconfusedalarmsofstruggleandflight
suffocates. And as the Life inside him shrivels it leaves a Whereignorantarmiesclashbynight.(M.Arnold)
growing vacuum. The yawning abyss is filled as quickly as it
Hereonecanneitherstandnorlienorsit
empties, but not by ecstasy, not by living spirits. The empty
Thereisnotevensilenceinthemountains
spaceisfilledwithspringsandwheels,withdeadthings,with
Butdrysterilethunderwithoutrain…(T.S.Eliot)
Leviathan’ssubstance.
*** The darkling plain is here. This is the waste land: England,
America,Russia,China,Israel,France…
The once-free human being increasingly becomes what
Andwearehereasvictims,orasspectators,orasperpetra-
Hobbes will think he is. The armor once worn on the outside
tors of tortures, massacres, poisonings, manipulations, despo-
wrapsitselfaroundtheindividual’sinsides.Themaskbecomes
liations.
the individual’s face. Or as we will say, the constraint is in-
HicRhodus!Thisistheplacetojump,theplacetodance!This
ternalized. The ecstatic life, the freedom, shrinks to a mere
isthewilderness!Wasthereeveranyother?Thisissavagery!
potentiality.Andpotentiality,Sartrewillpointout,isnothing.
Doyoucallitfreedom?Thisisbarbarism!Thestruggleforsur-
This reduction is most visible in the cities of Sumer,
vival is right here. Haven’t we always known it? Isn’t this a
Leviathans which are amazingly modern in this respect as
publicsecret?Hasn’titalwaysbeenthebigpublicsecret?
well.ItbecomessovisiblethattheSumeriansthemselvesstart
Itremainsasecret.Itispubliclyknownbutnotavowed.Pub-
to notice it. It is not the increasingly stupefying ritualization
liclythewildernessiselsewhere,barbarismisabroad,savagery
of the Temple’s activities that bothers them, nor even the
isonthefaceoftheother.Thedrysterilethunderwithoutrain,
evermore noticeable inner emptiness of the Ensis and their
the confused alarms of struggle and flight, are projected out-
families. All this seems to be accepted as a consequence that
ward, into the great unknown, across the seas and over the
follows the need for a dependable supply of water and zeks.
mountains.We’reonthesidewiththeangels.
What bothers them is that descendants of the first Sumerians
are themselves being reduced to zeks. The main instrument
Ashapewithlionbodyandtheheadofaman,
of this reduction is trade, or as we will call it, business. The
Agazeblankandpitilessasthesun,
Sumerian city, more than any other early Leviathan, is a
Ismovingitsslowthighs…(W.B.Yeats)
heavenforbusinessmen.
52 5
…ismovingitsslowthighsagainsttheprojectedwilderness, worm’s segments, become increasingly like the springs and
against the reflected barbarism, against the savage face that wheelstheyoperate,somuchsothatsometimelatertheywill
looks out of the pond, its motion emptying the pond, rending appearasnothingbutspringsandwheels.Theyneverbecome
itsbanks,leavinganaridcraterwheretherewaslife. altogetherreducedtoautomata;Hobbesandhissuccessorswill
InawonderfullylucidbooktitledBeyondGeography,abook regretthis.
which also goes beyond history, beyond technology, beyond Peopleneverbecomealtogetheremptyshells.Aglimmerof
civilization,FrederickW.Turner(nottobeconfusedwithFred- liferemainsinthefacelessEnsisandzekswhoseemmorelike
erick Jackson Turner, the frontiersman’s advocate) draws the springsandwheelsthanlikehumanbeings.Theyarepotential
curtainandfloodsthestagewithlight. humanbeings.Theyare,afterall,thelivingbeingsresponsible
Others drew the curtain before Turner; they’re the ones for the cadaver’s coming to life, they are the ones who repro-
who made the secret public: Toynbee, Drinnon, Jennings, duce,weanandmovetheLeviathan.Itslifeisbutaborrowed
Camatte,Debord,Zerzanamongcontemporarieswhoselights life;itneitherbreathesnorbreeds;itisnotevenalivingpara-
I’veborrowed;Melville,Thoreau,Blake,Rousseau,Montaigne, site;itisanexcretionandtheyaretheoneswhoexcreteit.
LasCasasamongpredecessors;LaoTzeaslongagoaswritten The compulsive and compulsory reproduction of the ca-
memorycanreach. daver’s life is the subject of more than one essay. Why do
Turner borrows the lights of human communities beyond peopledoit?Thisisthegreatmysteryofcivilizedlife.
civilization’s ken to see beyond geography. He sees with the Itisnotenoughtosaythatpeopleareconstrained.Thefirst
eyesofthedispossessedofthisoncebeautifulworldthatrests capturedzeksmaydoitonlybecausetheyarephysicallycon-
onaturtle’sback,thisdoublecontinentwhosepondsemptied, strained, but physical constraint no longer explains why the
whosebankswererent,whoseforestsbecamearidcratersfrom children of zeks stick to their levers. It’s not that constraint
thedayitwasnamedAmerica. vanishes. It doesn’t. Labor is always forced labor. But some-
thing else happens, something that supplements the physical
…avastimageoutofSpiritusMundi constraint.
Troublesmysight… Atfirsttheimposedtaskistakenonasaburden.Thenewly
capturedzekknowsthatheisnotaditch-repairman,heknows
Focusingontheimage,Yeatsasked,
that he is a free Canaanite filled to the brim with ecstatic life,
for he still feels the spirits of the Levantine mountains and
Andwhatroughbeast,itshourcomeroundatlast,
foreststhrobbinginsidehim.Theditch-fixingissomethinghe
SlouchestowardBethlehemtobeborn?
takes on to keep from being slaughtered; it is something he
merelywears,likeaheavyarmororanuglymask.Heknows
ThevisionisascleartoTurnerasitwastoYeats:
hewillthrowoffthearmorassoonastheEnsi’sbackisturned.
But the tragedy of it is that the longer he wears the armor,
Thedarknessdropsagain;butnowIknow
the less able he is to remove it. The armor sticks to his body.
Thattwentycenturiesofstonysleep
The mask becomes glued to his face. Attempts to remove the
Werevexedtonightmarebyarockingcradle.
mask become increasingly painful, for the skin tends to come
6 51
deities, but it seems they cannot support Leviathans any bet- Seers of old returned to share their visions with their com-
terthanpeoplesupportplagues;godsareamongthecadaver’s munities,justaswomensharedtheircornandmentheirhunt.
firstvictims;thebeastisdeicidal. Butthereisnocommunity.Theverymemoryofcommunity
The death of Egypt’s gods is recorded. After two or three isafoggedimageoutofSpiritusMundi.
generationsofPharaoh’sprotection,thefiguresontheTemple Theseerofnowpourshisvisiononsheetsofpaper,onbanks
walls and pillars no longer jump or fly; they no longer even ofaridcraterswherearmoredbulliesstandguardanddemand
breathe.They’redead.They’relifelesscopiesoftheearlier,still the password, Positive Evidence. No vision can pass by their
living figures. The copyists are exact, we would say pedantic; gates. The only song that passes is a song gone as dry and ca-
they seem to think that faithful copying of the originals will daverousasthefossilsinthesands.
bringlifetothecopies. Turner, himself a guard, a professor, has the courage of a
A similar death and decomposition must pale the songs Bartolomé de Las Casas. He storms the gates, refuses to give
and ceremonies as well. What was once joyful celebration, thepassword,andhesings,herants,healmostdances.
self-abandon, orgiastic communion with the beyond, shrinks The armor comes off. Even if it is not merely worn like
tolifelessritual,officialceremonyledbytheheadofStateand clothes or masks, even if it is glued to face and body, even
his officials. It all becomes theater, and it is all staged. It is if skin and flesh must be yanked off with it, the armor does
no longer for sharing but for show. And it no longer enlarges comeoff.
the participant, who now becomes a mere spectator. He feels Of late, many have been storming the gates. Only recently
diminished, intimidated, awed by the power of Pharaoh’s one sang that the net of factories and mines was the Gulag
household. Archipelagoandallworkerswerezeks(namelyconscripts,in-
Our painting, music, dance, everything we call Art, will be mates,laborgangmembers).AnothersangthattheNazislost
heirs of the moribund spiritual. What we call Religion will be thewarbuttheirneworderdidn’t.Rantersarelegionnow.Isit
another dead heir, but at such a high stage of decomposition abouttorain?Isitthetwilightofanewdawn?Orisitthetwi-
thatitsonce-livingsourcecannolongerbedivined. lightinwhichMinerva’sowlcanseebecausedayisalldone?
***
***
Turner,Toynbeeandothersarefocusingonthebeastthatis
While the ecstasy of the former living community lan-
destroyingtheonlyknownhomeoflivingbeings.
guishes within the Temple and suffers a slow and painful
Turner subtitles his book, “The Western Spirit against the
death, the human beings outside the Temple’s precincts but
Wilderness.” By Western Spirit he means the attitude or pos-
inside the State’s lose their inner ecstasy. The spirit shrivels
ture, the soul or spirit of Western Civilization, known nowa-
upinsidethem.Theybecomenearlyemptyshells.We’veseen
daysasCivilization.
that this happens even in Leviathans that set out, at least
TurnerdefinesWildernessthesamewaytheWesternSpirit
initially,toresistsuchashrinkage.
definesit,exceptthatthetermispositiveforTurner,negative
Asthegenerationspass,theindividualswithinthecadaver’s
fortheWesternSpirit:WildernessembracesallofNatureand
entrails,theEnsiaswellasthezeks,theoperatorsofthegreat
allthehumancommunitiesbeyondCivilization’sken.
50 7
InAStudyofHistory,ArnoldToynbeeexpressedenthusiasm and Technology, for the Leviathan itself, have not been born
forhistoryandforcivilization.Afterseeingtheriseandfallof yet. Perhaps the cities of Sumer, amazingly secular cities,
the Nazi Third Order and all the refinements it brought in its already contain precursors of modern progressives, but even
train,Toynbeelosthisenthusiasm.Heexpressedthislossina therethegodintheZigguratcomesfirst.
bookcalledMankindandMotherEarth.Thevisioninthisbook InEgyptthereisnotevenaglimmerofprogressiveenlight-
iskintoTurner’s:MankindisrendingMotherEarthasunder. enment,andtherewon’tbeforatleastahundredgenerations.
Toynbee’stermMankindembracestheWesternspiritaswell There the aim of all violence, of the capture of foreigners, of
asthehumancommunitiesbeyondCivilization’sken,andhis therendingofcommunities,istopreservetheoldcommunity,
MotherEarthembracesalllife. to defend Life against the great cadaver. All the killing of the
I’llborrowToynbee’stermMotherEarth.She’sthefirstpro- raids,invasionsandwarsissacrificialkilling.Itisdoneforthe
tagonist. She’s alive, she’s life itself. She conceives and births sakeofLife,forthesakeofthespiritsoftheanimals,theplants,
everything that grows. Many call her Nature. Christians call theriver,theunderworldandthesky.
herWilderness.Toynbee’sothernameforherisBiosphere.She Buttheworldofthespiritsshrinks,asithadinSumer,and
isthedryland,thewaterandtheearthenvelopingourplanet. becomes confined to the Temple, which in Egypt is also the
She’sthesolehabitatoflivingbeings.Toynbeedescribesheras Pharaoh’shousehold.
athin,delicateskin,nohigherthanplanescanflyandnolower UnfortunatelyfortheEgyptians,Lifecannotbepreservedin
thanminescanbedug.Limestone,coalandoilarepartofher asealedjar.Itatrophies,andatlastitdies.
substance, they are matter that once lived. She selectively fil- This sad, slow death can be seen in Egypt’s paintings, its
tersradiationfromthesun,preciselyinsuchawayastokeep sculptures,initslore,initsshrines.
life from burning. Toynbee calls her an excrescence,a halo or The earliest painters and sculptors clearly still breathe the
rust on the planet’s surface, and he speculates that there may airofthecommunityPharaoh’shouseholdintendstopreserve
benootherBiospheres. intact. These people are still in touch with women who leave
Toynbee says Mankind, human beings, in other words We, their bodies and visit the underworld, with men who extend
have grown very powerful, more powerful than any other themselves toward the sky and fly, with people who actually
living beings, and at last more powerful than the Biosphere. speaktotheJackalandtheIbex,forthegodsstillminglewith
Mankind has the power to wreck the delicate crust, and is thepeople.Pharaoh’searlycraftsmenstillknowsuchseers,but
doingit. notmany,andthenextgenerationknowsevenfewer.
Therearemanywaystospeakofatrap.Itcanbedescribed There are still seers who have visions and revelations, but
from the standpoint of the self-balancing environment, of the who knows what foreigners inspired them? Ultimately only
trapper, of the trapped animal. It can even be described from Pharaoh’s visions can be trusted, and Pharaoh takes care to
thestandpointofthetrapitself,namelyfromtheobjective,sci- confinehimselftothevisionsoftheoldones.
entific,technologicalstandpoint. Thegodsstopminglingwiththepeoplefromthedaywhen
ThereareasmanywaystospeakofthewreckingoftheBio- Pharaohundertakes todefend andpreservethe gods.And de-
sphere.Fromthestandpointofasingleprotagonist,Earthher- spiteallPharaoh’sefforts,thegodsdie.Isuspectitisbecauseof
self, it can be said that She is committing suicide. With two hiseffortsthattheydie.Idon’tpresumetoknowmuchabout
8 49
accord,sublimelybeautifulwallsandpillarsandshrines,with protagonists, Mankind and Mother Earth, it can be said that
surfaces covered by sculptured and painted motifs rich with WearemurderingHer.Thoseofuswhoacceptthisstandpoint
meaningtoeveryoneontheNile. andsquirmwithshamemightwishwewerewhales.Butthose
But a permanent division of labor is compulsory simply by ofuswhotakethestandpointofthetrappedanimalwilllook
being permanent, and compulsion is soon as common on the forathirdprotagonist.
banks of the Nile as on those of the Tigris. What was done Toynbee’s protagonist, Mankind, is too diffuse. It embraces
voluntarily by one generation is expected of the next, and is allcivilizationsandalsoallcommunitiesbeyondCivilization’s
imposed.Egyptisnolongeraplacewherepeopleshareways; ken.Yetthecommunities,asToynbeehimselfshows,coexisted
itisnowaplacewheresomeimposelawsonothers.Wayswere withotherbeingsforthousandsofgenerationswithoutdoing
alwayslivingways;lawsarenotwaysoffreepeople.Lawsare the Biosphere any harm. They are not the trappers but the
Leviathan’sways. trapped.
ThetasksperformedforPharaoharenotfreelychosen;they Who, then, is the wrecker of the Biosphere? Turner points
areimposedtasks,forcedlabor. attheWesternSpirit.Thisistheherowhopitshimselfagainst
Andlikealivingwormthatreconstitutesitselffromamere theWilderness,whocallsforawarofexterminationbySpirit
segment, a complete Leviathan is excreted by the Pharaoh’s againstNature,SoulagainstBody,TechnologyagainsttheBio-
household. The builders and craftsmen are no longer invited. sphere,CivilizationagainstMotherEarth,godagainstall.
Pharaoh now leads armies northward to Sinai and the Lev- Marxists point at the Capitalist mode of production, some-
ant,southwardtoNubia.Hereturnswithcaptives.Heimposes timesonlyattheCapitalistclass.AnarchistspointattheState.
heavy tribute on those not captured and leaves tribute collec- CamattepointsatCapital.NewRanterspointatTechnologyor
tors in distant garrisons. Like the Lugal, he now has scribes Civilizationorboth.
who keep track of the tribute, and he sends punitive expedi- If Toynbee’s protagonist, Mankind, is too diffuse, many of
tions. theothersaretoonarrow.
Pharaohtoohasanartificialmemorynow,adatabankaswe The Marxists see only the mote in the enemy’s eye. They
willcallit.Hisscribeshavedevisedascriptoftheirownashave supplant their villain with a hero, the Anti-capitalist mode of
scribes in distant Mohenjo Daro on the Indus. The characters production, the Revolutionary Establishment. They fail to see
and the materials are different, but the aim is the same. And thattheirheroistheverysame“shapewithlionbodyandthe
Pharaoh’s scribes, like the Lugal’s, have devised an artificial head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.” They fail
year,acalendar,theearliestformofclock,tobeabletoforesee to see that the Anti-capitalist mode of production wants only
thedayswhenthetributecropsturnripe. tooutrunitsbrotherinwreckingtheBiosphere.
Howsad!Allthisisbeingdonetoprotecttheoldwaysfrom AnarchistsareasvariedasMankind.Therearegovernmen-
theonslaughtofabeastwith“agazeblankandpitilessasthe talandcommercialAnarchistsaswellasafewforhire.Some
sun.” All this is being done for the sake of the spirits of the Anarchists differ from Marxists only in being less informed.
valley,fortheancientcommunity’sgods. They would supplant the state with a network computer cen-
We must remember that enlightened progressives who ters, factories and mines coordinated “by the workers them-
woulddoallthisforthesakeofproductiveforces,forScience
48 9
selves” or by an Anarchist union. They would not call this ar- Persianplains,there’sMariandEblaandothersintheLevant,
rangementaState.Thename-changewouldexorcizethebeast. and there’s talk of a Guti Leviathan somewhere in the moun-
Camatte,theNewRantersandTurnertreatthevillainsofthe tains.Thebravefighterssucceedindefeatingonlythemselves.
MarxistsandAnarchistsasmereattributesoftherealprotago-
***
nist.Camattegivesthemonsterabody;henamesthemonster
Capital,borrowingthetermfromMarxbutgivingitanewcon- Thosewhowallthemselvesinfallintoasimilartrap.
tent. He promises to describe the monster’s origin and trajec- Communitiesbuiltwallsbefore,atJerichoforexample.But
torybuthasnotyetdoneso.TheNewRantershaveborrowed they built a wall once. Wall-building was not an institution
lightsfromL.Mumford,J.Ellulandothersbuthavenot,tomy among them. The hostiles camped outside were not Urlugal’s
knowledge,gonefurtherthanCamatte. undying army. They were another community who either
Turner goes further. His aim is to describe only the mon- moved to another site, or who found husbands and wives
ster’s spirit, but he knows it is the monster’s body that amongthoseofJericho,andceasedbeinghostiles.
destroys the bodies of human communities and the body of Thisisnolongerthesituationfacedbythebuildersofwalls
Mother Earth. He says much about the monster’s origin and onthebanksoftheNile,bythoseraisingthewalledMohenjo
trajectory, and he speaks often of its armor. But it is beyond Daro on the banks of the Indus, by those who would slightly
hisaimtonamethemonsterordescribeitsbody. laterenclosethemselvesinfortressesinCentralAnatolia.
Itismyaimtospeakofthebeast’sbody.Foritdoeshavea TheLeviathanicintrudersarenotcommunitiesoffreemor-
body,amonstrousbody,abodythathasbecomemorepowerful tals. They are emissaries from something that neither leaves
than the Biosphere. It may be a body without any life of its nor dies. Even their memories are not human but are stones
own. It may be a dead thing, a huge cadaver. It may move its carriedinpouches.Jericho’swallswillnolongerdo.Thewalls
slow thighs only when living beings inhabit it. Nevertheless, have to be high and strong, and they have to be repaired as
itsbodyiswhatdoesthewrecking. oftenastheditchesofErech.
If the Biosphere is an excrescence on the planet’s surface, The seasons pass and the generations pass, yet the walls
thebeastthatiswreckingherisalsoanexcrescence.TheEarth- muststillbemaintained.Andmaintainedtheyare,generation
wreckerisarustorhaloonthesurfaceofahumancommunity. aftergeneration.
It is not excreted by every community, by Mankind. Toynbee The seeress who dreamt of the need for these walls has ex-
himselfputstheblameonatinyminority,onveryfewcommu- periencedherlastimportantvision.Fromthatdayonherkin
nities.Perhapsthecadaverousbeastwasexcretedbyonlyone havepaidherscantyattention;they’vebeenhoveringaround
communityamongthemyriads. her brother, Pharaoh, who in his person combines the offices
ofSumerianpriestandSumerianLugal.
***
Wallscannotbepermanentlymaintainedwithatemporary
The cadaverous beast excreted by a human community is divisionoflabor.Atfirstfreecultivatorsofthesoilareinvited
young,itisatmosttwoorthreehundredgenerationsold.Be- to help build the walls, in exchange for stimulating visions as
fore turning to it, I’ll glance at human communities, for they well as grain plundered by Pharaoh’s men from other cultiva-
aremucholder,theyarethousandsofgenerationsold. tors. And the free peasants do build, apparently of their own
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