ABSTRACT
The origin and nature of the state is a subject peculiarly appropriate to cultural anthropology, for states first arise through the transformation and obliteration of typically primitive institutions. Thinkers of the most diverse backgrounds and intentions have throughout history grasped this cardinal fact of state formation. Lao-tzu, Rousseau, Marx and Engels, Maine, Morgan, Maitland, Tonnies and many contemporary students of society have understood that there is a qualitative distinction between the structure of primitive life and civilization. Plato's modest proposal for initiating the republic, can be seen in both a revolutionary and a cultural-historical perspective. Plato's opposition to the drama and the dramatist is directly associated with the class and ideational structure of the Republic. At its root, this is also an opposition to the primitive, not merely with reference to the old tie between artist and magician but, more comprehensively, in connection with the form and meaning of the primitive ritual drama.
