The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live—how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die—in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (Booklist) book. Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending—balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren’t. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the “progress” defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease. Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Christopher Ryan questions, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges, such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process? Civilized to Death “will make you see our so-called progress in a whole new light” (Book Riot) and adds to the timely conversation that “the way we have been living is no longer sustainable, at least as long as we want to the earth to outlive us” (Psychology Today). Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backwards to find our way into a better future. Product DetailsISBN-13: 9781451659115 Media Type: Paperback Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster Publication Date: 08-11-2020 Pages: 304 Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)About the Author Christopher Ryan, PhD, and his work have been featured just about everywhere, including: MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Times of London, Playboy, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Outside, El Pais, La Vanguardia, Salon, Seed, and Big Think. A featured speaker from TED to The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House to the Einstein Forum in Pottsdam, Germany, Ryan has consulted at various hospitals in Spain, provided expert testimony in a Canadian constitutional hearing, and appeared in well over a dozen documentary films. The author of Civilized to Death and the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Sex at Dawn, Ryan puts out a weekly podcast, called Tangentially Speaking, featuring conversations with interesting people, ranging from famous comics to bank robbers to drug smugglers to porn stars to authors to plasma physicists.Table of Contents Table of Contents Introduction: Know Thy Specks 1 Part I Origin Stories 1 What We Talk About When We Talk About Prehistory 17 Of Capacities and Tendencies 20 A People's History of Prehistory 23 Noble Savages, Savage Noblemen, and Straw Cave Men 27 2 Civilization and Its Dissonance 35 The Empirical Strikes Back 35 Through an Unremembered Gate 39 "The Best People in the World" 53 The Art of Not Being Civilized 58 Malthusian Miscalculations and Hobbesian Horror Shows 65 The Functions of Fear 70 On Primitive Power 77 Part II Apocalypse Always (The NPP in the Present) 3 The Myth of the Savage Savage (Declaring War on Peace) 91 Primate Evidence 92 Anthropological and Archaeological Evidence 95 4 The Irrational Optimist 101 Mo Better Blues 103 On the Health of Nations 105 Food for Thought 110 Longevity Lies and the Price of Paradise 112 Part III Reflections in an Ancient Mirror (Being Human) 5 The Naturalistic Fallacy Fallacy 127 6 Born to Be Wild 131 7 Raising Hell 143 8 Turbulent Teens 149 9 Anxious Adults 161 Good Work, If You Can Get It 161 The Price of Money 168 How to Lose by Winning 172 Rich Asshole Syndrome (RAS) 176 Drunk on Dollars 184 Part IV A Prehistoric Path into the Future 10 All's Well That Ends Well 193 11 In the Absence of the Sacred 205 The Many Voices of God 210 Turn On, Tune In, Get Better 217 On Holy Ghosts 232 Past Progressive 236 Conclusion: A Necessary Utopia 241 The Upside of Armageddon 242 The End of All Our Exploring 246 Acknowledgments 253 Notes and Further Reading 255 Index 273 Show More