aefenglommung (aefenglommung) wrote,
aefenglommung
aefenglommung

Theorem

The most fundamental aspects of human society predate civilization.

(Which means, they predate laws, too, for Law is a product of a more complex society; therefore, trying to write laws which change fundamentals of human society is tricky at best, and probably futile and/or harmful.

And what are the fundamental aspects of human society which predate civilization? Well, these are the ones I could think of:

marriage and child-rearing;
coming of age (both biologically and what it means to be an adult);
social identity (one's sense of who "us" is);
the concepts of shame and taboo;
veneration of the supernatural;
art, literature, music, technology.

All of these were set before modern humans even appeared on the scene. Homo sapiens shares these fundamental social realities with his Neanderthal cousin, and his Habilis and Erectus forebears.
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