manchester news
Friday, 21st October 2005
Chorlton writer finds his Utopia 6,000 years ago
Miles Skinner
AN ACADEMIC from Chorlton has discovered Utopia — but unfortunately he says we’ve missed it by 6,000 years.
Steve Taylor, who teaches at Manchester University has written a new book called The Fall which charts how mankind fell from a paradise without war and oppression.
And his answer as to why? The weather. He blames dramatic changes in the climate in central Asia and the Middle East for more difficulties in survival that led to people killing each other and organising themselves into social or religious groups.
The lecturer, who once toured Germany with a folk band called The Dostoevskys, said: “I’ve tried to show what went wrong, why warfare and the oppression of women and other groups came into being.
“It is not ‘natural’ for human beings to kill each other, for men to oppress women, for individuals to accumulate massive wealth and power, or to abuse nature. The worldwide myths of a Golden Age or an original paradise have a factual, archaeological basis.”
Transition
The Fall places the transition to around 4,000 BC.
But it’s not all bad, Steve concludes by pointing to signs that we are entering a new historical phase, where more egalitarian relationships between men and women, health awareness and concerns for nature provide some hope for the future.
The Fall has received some high praise from other authors. Colin Wilson has written more than 50 books on subjects ranging from mysticism, to criminology.
He said: “The Fall is an astonishing work, full of amazing erudition, all brilliantly organised and argued.
“The argument that human beings have not always been - and do not have to be - such a psychological mess is presented with a beautiful inevitability and logic. The book is a remarkable feat.”
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