Where are we going, where is civilization taking us? Maybe we should have stayed savage?

The word need not be pejorative. European ¡°discoverers¡± of America in the 15th and 16th centuries conquered, massacred and pitilessly enslaved the ¡°subhuman¡± ¡°Indians¡± ¡ª ¡°Indians¡± because Columbus thought he was in ¡°the Indies¡± ¡ª but accorded them too a grudging respect out of which grew the concept of the ¡°noble savage.¡± Columbus wrote of them, ¡°They are so ingenuous and free with all they have, that no one would believe it who has not seen it; of anything that they possess, if it be asked of them, they never say no; on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their hearts went with it.¡±

Cannibals they may have been, some of them, but French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) found himself more appalled by his fellow Christians who burned heretics alive at the stake: ¡°I think there is more barbarism in eating men alive than to feed upon them being dead; to mangle by tortures and torments a body full of lively sense, to roast him in pieces... under pretense of piety and religion, than to roast and eat him after he is dead.¡±