ABSTRACT
Herman points out that early hunter-gatherer societies, immersed in an unpolluted wilderness on which they depended absolutely, recognized the critical importance of a primal resonance between the natural world and human consciousness. The most recent leap in human awareness has been accomplished through industrial capitalism, inspired and guided by the political philosophy of liberalism. Politics, economics, religion and philosophy were inseparable. Future Primal then presents a model of what Herman calls the truth quest as an archetypal dynamic of the human search for order, which itself becomes the core of a new political practice. Hominids slowly developed the self-reflective, creative consciousness capable of language, art, religion and politics. Today the majority of Americans regard politicians as morally equivalent to prostitutes, while many hold rigid ideological and religious beliefs in which bizarre individual interpretations are taken as divine certainties. Religious and political wisdom passed into the hands of scribes, bureaucrats and professionals.
