[Quiet Man Cometh]

Crake on what causes problems with civilizations. From Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.


“Watch out for art, Crake used to say. As soon as they start doing art, we’re in trouble. Symbolic thinking of any kind would signal downfall, in Crake’s view. Next they’d be inventing idols, and funerals, and grave goods, and the afterlife, and sin, and Linear B, and kings, and then slavery and war."