The Nomadic Alternative – Page 53

civilization returned its benefits, its standard of living or
life-style, Maat, or Truth, the Egyptians called it. The Way of
one civilization becomes a fervently held cult; any other way
exists on a sub-human plane. The American Way of Life spread from
East to West like the torch of Christianity or the Path of the Sun.
Hell was Europe. America was the New Eden, the mechanized paradise
over the western horizon. "Heaven or Europe?" the saying went, and
one 19th Century European sceptic described as religion "civilization
as inflicted on the lower races at the end of a Hotchkiss gun."

"But when I search for man in the style and technique of Europe",
wrote Franz Fanon, "I see only a succession of negations of man,
an avalanche of murders."

The social and economic pyramid is the prerequisite of The City;
and, though archaic vestiges of barbarism may prevent the power
complex getting out of hand, no civilization is cohesive without
one. The author of Ecclesiastes patronisingly points out that the
ploughman, the carpenter, the seal-engraver, the metal-smith seared
by the heat of the furnace, the potter turning his wares by number,
all these specialists "trust to their hands; and everyone is wise
in his work." But these workers have no time to develop their intel-
lect. "They shall maintain the state of the world, and their desire
is in the work of their craft." "Without these cannot a city be
inhabited", but they shall be kept down, numbed under the pyramid
of power. "They shall not dwell where they will, nor go up and
down... They shall not be sought for in publick counsel, nor sit
on the judge's seat, nor understand the sentence of Judgement."
Only a specialist in government can activate the wheels of government.

"The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure; and
he that hath little business shall become wise." Labour controlled
is freedom denied. Internal passports assist the smooth functioning
of a centralized industrial state.

The art of writing and mathematical calculation flourished with
the emergence of the Pyramid. Writing distinguished the scribe from
the proletariat. "Put writing in your heart", an Egyptian father
counselled his son. "You will then protect yourself from any sort