History as Necrophilia

The distinction between prehistoric man and his historic successors is that prehistoric man escaped from nature by turning within the tribe or group that he belongs to, while man from the historic era uses his individual ego to isolate him from nature. Prehistoric man did not need an historical identity as a fixed definition that made him separate and special because prehistoric man had a special place within a tribe that, in turn, had a special place in the universe. His life might ebb and flow, but the specialness of his group and his contribution to that specialness survived by promising him an island of immortality in the swirling sea of flowing time.

The man without a nation, clan, family, tribe, or individual ego is isolated from everything but nature, and, faced with the terror of the all-destroying nature, must either join one of these units in their war on the universe or he must have the courage to accept his role in the flow, finding his immortality in being part of the flow itself. For all but the few, perhaps an occasional Lao Tzu, Buddha, or Jesus, men have needed to belong and acquire a history.

While nature, with its dynamic flow, is immortal, the man of the prehistoric tribe or the historic memory creates only mortal death.