‘The conditions of the civilized modern have turned all societies into vicious distorters of man’s true potential. The self-created conditions in turn create populations of preta–hungry ghosts, with giant appetites and throats no bigger than needles’.

I think Snyder is really onto something here, except that it’s much worse than he says.

We automatically push these preta off into some category of their own, some pile of Others who aren’t Us. This is a natural defense mechanism. Perfectly understandable.

I think that the Conditions that make preta thrive, boiled down to the essence, amount to a singular thing, and that we can safely call it:

Domestication.

At some point in the past, there was no such thing.

Everything was Nature, and everything in nature was Wild.

Back in the Magdalenian, there may have been some early signs of trouble involving certain canine and feline species–be a good dog and help us with the hunt, instead of hunting for yourself, and we’ll throw you a dependable bone and toss in some simulacra of love and affection on the side.

Later on similar things would happen with sheep and goats and cows and, uh, comfort lizards, but first, in the time of the dawn of agriculture and the civilized, we made the worst mistake of all.

We domesticated ourselves.

We collectively offered each other a deal very close to the one we offered those hunting dogs.

We collectively made that bargain, and we said: It Was Good. We still say that. Oh Lord, look at the miracle of medicine, and longevity; behold the glory of centralized heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

Look at my beautiful truck and what it lets me do–pay no mind to the climate meltdown it helps cause, or the fact that I need piles of something called money to pay experts to maintain it.

Thus we become, to greater and lesser extents, preta ourselves.

But oh! you mean and despicable man, look here at the sweet pet dog we feed and care for, to say nothing of the many cats, indoor and outdoor, that you care for yourself, hypocrite!

It’s okay.

You’re right.

About those specific things.

And wrong about so many unspecific ones.

And I have been too.