Civilized to Death
The Price of Progress
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Ryan
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By:
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Christopher Ryan
About this listen
The New York Times best-selling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live — how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die — in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (Booklist) book.
Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending - balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Well, maybe we are, and maybe we aren’t. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the "progress" defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease.
Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Christopher Ryan questions, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process?
Civilized to Death “will make you see our so-called progress in a whole new light” (Book Riot) and adds to the timely conversation that “the way we have been living is no longer sustainable, at least as long as we want to the earth to outlive us” (Psychology Today). Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backwards to find our way into a better future.
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So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.
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Just great
- By Kristi Strong on 12-14-21
By: Maggie Nelson
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The Human Swarm
- How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall
- By: Mark W. Moffett
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
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In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.
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Worthless
- By Richard on 11-24-19
By: Mark W. Moffett
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Bozo Sapiens
- Why to Err Is Human
- By: Michael Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Our species, it appears, is hardwired to get things wrong in myriad different ways. Why did recipients of a loan offer accept a higher rate of interest when a pretty woman's face was printed on the flyer? Why did one poll on immigration find the most despised aliens were ones from a group that did not exist? What made four of the Air Force's best pilots fly their planes, in formation, straight into the ground?
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A tour de force
- By Ivan on 07-05-11
By: Michael Kaplan, and others
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Our Political Nature
- The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us
- By: Avi Tuschman
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Our Political Nature is the first book to reveal the hidden roots of our most deeply held moral values. It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests.
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A Trivial Version of Haidt's "The Righteous Mind"
- By Curt Doolittle on 10-29-13
By: Avi Tuschman
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The Spirit Level
- Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger
- By: Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
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Renowned researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett offer groundbreaking analysis showing that greater economic equality-not greater wealth-is the mark of the most successful societies, and offer new ways to achieve it.
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An Important Book
- By Stephen Schoenberg on 12-19-11
By: Richard Wilkinson, and others
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Humankind
- A Hopeful History
- By: Rutger Bregman, Erica Moore, Elizabeth Manton
- Narrated by: Rutger Bregman, Thomas Judd
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
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If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.
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He’s correct but he misrepresented the data
- By Andrea Allen on 02-09-21
By: Rutger Bregman, and others
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The WEIRDest People in the World
- How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
- By: Joseph Henrich
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
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In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church.
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Lots of mispronounced words
- By Phillip Falk on 10-24-20
By: Joseph Henrich
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Giving the Devil His Due
- Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
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Who is the "Devil"? And what is he due? The devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety's sake, because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn't you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence "unpleasant" ideas, what's to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times best-selling author and skeptic Michael Shermer.
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Flawed Audio
- By Private on 04-10-20
By: Michael Shermer
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The Mind Club
- Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters
- By: Daniel M. Wegner, Kurt Gray
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.
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Who is the self in me? Am I part of something bigger?
- By Philomath on 03-24-16
By: Daniel M. Wegner, and others
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Breaking the Spell
- Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
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For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma.
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Great Reader Actually Enhances A Great Book!
- By Don Caliente on 07-14-14
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
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For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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If It's Bad for Humanity, It's Good for Business
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"What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another, this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance.
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Great book; didn't love the reading
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The End Is Always Near
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In The End Is Always Near, Dan Carlin looks at questions and historical events that force us to consider what sounds like fantasy; that we might suffer the same fate that all previous eras did. Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.
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Hardcore Histories Greatest Hits
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What listeners say about Civilized to Death
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Andrew in Ohio
- 10-08-19
I couldn't stop listening.
Thanks to Chris Ryan for writing this.
You confirmed deep suspicions in my psyche that something was off about how I was raised, how life is planned, and how I relate to others. I don't need drugs or therapy to numb me out. I need the kind of therapy, relationships, and lifestyle that brings me closer to my natural state. As I've been doing this over the past couple years, my depression has waned, my anxiety has lessened, my discontent has subsided more and more. I am much happier eating an avocado than crembule. Happier with a beach bonfire than a loud club. More at peace with a hike than with the treadmill. We need the message in this book of simplicity, of acceptance of our nature, and the acknowledgement of our animal nature. These don't need to be damned, but understood and celebrated. Hopefully we all take the wisdom of taking a step back from all this "progress" to see what we have lost in the process.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Captain Jake
- 12-15-19
Please read this book!
Please listen to this book. It's important for more people to hear this. It will hopefully get you riled up enough about the traps of modern life to do something about it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Scott
- 12-10-19
loved it until the second to last chapter
I loved the book, the assumptions it challenged, and the presentation. it really made me think about whether we are living in a false paradise and what might be better for us now and in the future.
I only gave a 4 because of the chapter on psychedelics. The chapter went from a worthy note about one way that hunter gatherers handled the divine and spirituality into a political rant about the injustice and politics of which drugs are legal or not. I don't see the relevance of the Vietnam war and the drug politics that surrounded it to the premise of mankind being better when closer to nature.
overall, I loved the book, but one chapter made me question the validity of the remainder.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jake
- 03-09-20
Excellent
A wonderfully refreshing breath among a field littered with dusty old tombs written by equally dusty and old sheep-men with cataract brains.
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- Amber B.
- 09-30-20
Amazing!
This book provides profound insight into the fine mess we are in as a society.
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- Bianca
- 10-22-20
Life changing book
This book should be required reading for anyone concerned about where we are headed as a species. The insight that you can find sonething closer to happiness and a fulfilling life if we choose to replicate hunter gatherers' life principles was especially interesting and one I will take to heart.
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- A.C.
- 02-07-20
Mind blowing
So much of what I have felt or thought or knew but was un able to express is expressed in this book. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the effort the author put into making this a veryMeasured and pleasant book.
It’s been said “ people know the truth when they hear it”
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- Nivrot
- 09-12-20
I knew it!
I too always use the term "the good old days".
Now I know why - "development" goes in the wrong direction. Not that I needed this book to figure that out, it's a gut feeling, an a glaring part of modern life, but it explains WHY I feel like this. We are driving and digging us further away from our species' natural environments, needs and social structures.
This book is a proper gut punch - crystal clear, logical and honest yet very helpful and uplifting in these deeply troubled times we find ourselves. It is illusion crushing and very informative. Thanks a lot Chris Ryan for your efforts and excellent views. I will read this again very soon and share it with my friends. Now lets change our ways for the better!
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- Darrell Newkirk
- 12-31-19
Must Hear!
Please allow your brain to dedicate your ears to this audio masterpiece and pivotal tool along the journey of enlightenment and understanding.
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- Heidi
- 10-03-19
Thank you for writing this book!
Everyone needs to hear this!!!
Fantastic!
A must listen
A new paradigm worth paying attention to
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