M. Earth

Most of us have a conception of "civilization." It usually includes hierarchical political and economic institutions and cultural activities like writing and reading books. We have a hazier conception of "precivilization," of the world before hierarchical states, corporations, and books. Our picture of human beings before the advent of civilization often shows them to live diminished lives. Finally, we tend not to think very much about the relationship between our five thousand years of civilization and the at-least thirty thousand years of precivilization. M. Earth takes up the two great orders of human life, civilization and precivilization, so as to correct their definitions, and relates the two orders to each other in order correctly to situate our own time in the course of history and to suggest a humane way forward. These aims are pursued in three forms: in a play, in two stories, and in three essays.