Weekend Reading
Friday morning, middle of February. I can’t jump to conclusions, but I’d be surprised if this butterfly’s progeny are yet en route from Mexico. There is still time left in the Appalachian winter, so let us remain calm.
There’s no snow on the ground right now, but these hills fill their creeks for summer by rain in winter, and they are busy about doing it just now. If there will be a sunny day in all the month of February no one can say which one it will be.
Two recommendations today for interesting weekend reading:
Above the Treeline about travel along the Northwest Passage by Teva Harrison at Granta.com, and
How Hunter-Gatherers May Hold the Key to our Economic Future by James Suzman at evonomics.com.
•••••
My Finnish ESL (English as a second language) wife once accidentally grafted the portmanteau “grandiotic,” just testing it, not sure if it was a word. I don’t think it is a word, but it’s descriptive. Grandiose and idiotic.
“How Hunter-Gatherers May Hold the Key to our Economic Future” sounds grandiotic, but it shouldn’t. It leads into an interesting field of thought about the fundamental nature of work, how work works, and a question: if we employ people nowadays in soul-shattering jobs just to get their forty hours a week, well, should we?
Suzman’s article compliments the well-reviewed new book Against the Grain by James C. Scott, which proposes a newer theory of the transition from hunter-gatherers to, as the author calls it, sedentism. On the topic of humanity’s deep past, see also The Old Way by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade. Together they help frame pre-agricultural society against whatever is coming at us in the age of automation.
Last night I started a clickable collection of articles on this topic under the heading “Future of Work” that you can find in the Categories sidebar. There are more links there that comprise way more than a weekend’s reading.
Enough for now. Have a lovely weekend.
