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Praise for Future Primal
“Who can doubt that we need a new paradigm for planetary civilization? Our economic models are projections and arrows when they should be circles. To define perpetual growth on a finite planet as the sole measure of economic well-being is to engage in a form of slow collective suicide. To deny or exclude from the calculus of governance and political economy the costs of violating the biological support systems of life is the logic of delusion. In Future Primal, Louis Herman offers a way out, a vision of a new kind of politics for a new era of humanity. Drawing on his time among the Kalahari Bushmen, the lessons of his service as a soldier in the Israeli army, and his experiences as a Jewish lad living through the darkest years of apartheid in South Africa, he has written a seminal book that bears witness to the folly of all those who say we cannot change, as we know we must, the fundamental manner in which we inhabit this planet.”
— WADE DAVIS, National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence and author of Into the Silence and The Serpent and the Rainbow
“Future Primal is a masterpiece. It braids together admiration for early societies, respect for science, and profound faith in our ability to create better collective lives on this endangered planet. Louis Herman merges the very old and the very new, the empirical and the mystical; he brings forward artists, shamans, dancers, hunters, and tricksters to beckon us toward a politics more respectful of humanity, of difference, and of the earth. Lively and learned, this book is written with the engaged hand of a practiced teacher. It will be a hit with students who long for Herman’s combination of practical examples and sweeping vision.”
— KATHY E. FERGUSON, professor of political science and women’s studies at the University of Hawai‘i and author of Emma Goldman: Political Thinking in the Streets
“Future Primal is an urgent, adventurous, and glistening work. Louis Herman makes a powerful case that in our historical advancement we have lost something deep and fundamental in how we relate to one another, the world around us, and life as a whole. With a rich narrative that mixes the personal, the philosophical, the anthropological, and the spiritual, Herman points to a politics of the future that will be informed by the beauty and power of shamanic and tribal insights that our abstract world has left behind — at our peril.”
— WAYNE CRISTAUDO, chair of the politics department at Charles Darwin University, Australia, and author of Power, Love and Evil:Contribution to a Philosophy of the Damaged
“Louis Herman’s Future Primal demonstrates that political science has not completely degenerated into the meaningless accumulation and analysis of empirical data. His book reconnects us with visions of the good life that have been foundational to human existence since the Paleolithic beginnings of humanity in southern Africa. Herman refuses to accept the doctrinal answers of religious orthodoxy and the sterile responses of neo-Marxism, postmodernism, and neoliberalism. His book is a groundbreaking work of creative scholarship and philosophical vision that transcends all civilizational, religious, and political boundaries. It provides a compelling narrative that weaves our new understanding of the origins of human life and the larger community of being into an original vision of the good life that has the philosophical truth quest at its core.”
— MANFRED HENNINGSEN, political philosopher at the University of Hawai‘i
“The author’s powerful story of his search for truth over decades in South Africa, England, Israel, and Hawai‘i is integral to the fascinating and bold tale he is telling, at once ancient and contemporary, of a cosmos of faith, and of love, and of hope that draws from the best that historical and natural sciences have to offer. A thought-provoking challenge to any philosophy of politics and history.”
— PAUL CARINGELLA, visiting research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and trustee of the Voegelin Literary Trust
“Louis Herman has brought together a rich life journey on several continents with penetrating perspectives from political philosophy and contemporary cosmology. This work is a unique contribution to rethinking our collective story, from a common past out of Africa toward a shared future on our endangered planet. To sink into this perspective is to see with fresh insight how we truly belong here — such a gift!”
— MARY EVELYN TUCKER, cofounder and codirector of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University
Copyright © 2013 by Louis G. Herman
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Grateful acknowledgment is given to Christopher Henshilwood at the Institute for Archaeology, History, Culture and Religion in Bergen, Norway, for the use of the Blombos ochre image on page 160; to David Lewis-Williams, senior mentor at the Rock Art Institute of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, for the sketches of cave art on pages 251, 254, 255, and 256; and to Craig Foster for the photographs on pages 172 and 281 and the cover.
Text design by Tona Pearce Myers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
First printing, March 2013
ISBN 978-1-60868-115-0
Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper
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To my daughter, Danielle, and her generation,who face unprecedented challenges but also extraordinary opportunitiesto create a flourishing planetary civilization in balance with nature
CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY BRIAN THOMAS SWIMME
CHAPTER 2: Abandonment of the Quest — A Path with No Heart
CHAPTER 3: Recovery of the Quest, Part I — Anamnesis:Searching with My Life
CHAPTER 4: Recovery of the Quest, Part II — Politics of Mystery
Part II — Where Do We Come From?