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society

Two long reads (one in Dutch at de Correspondent and one at Eurozine) that can be read very well together. They concern the origin of inequality which is often related to the ‘invention’ of agriculture and the new role of property and the consequence to society. De Correspondent finds that prevailing Hobbesian views (man is naturally evil) should be replaced with Rousseau’s view that society is the source of all that’s bad. Eurozine argues that neither are correct, and that most thinkers keep repeating an incorrect story of how societies developed as homo sapiens arose: we did not use to be more violent, we had hierarchies before agriculture, we most likely have been having complex societies for as long as we exist.