Barrillon, Michel <br/><br/>
Of the need to exit the false dilemma of primitivism vs. progressivism 

 -  2016.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 14 
<br/><br/> Slaughters, genocides, ethnocides, ecocides. . . The modern West has used all possible means to establish its world hegemony. And few indigenous peoples have withstood the “triumphant chariot of progress.” If “history is itself the dispenser of justice,” then everything would lead one to believe that it sanctions the “winners’” efforts. Yet, in the very West, encountering the primitive Other very early on gave rise to questions about the “human species,” the relative nature of customs, the direction of history, etc. Dissenters of Western civilization thus dreamed of a “golden age” to be found elsewhere or in a primordial past. It is nevertheless possible to reject progressivism without succumbing to the pipe dreams of primitivism, while drawing lessons from the concrete experience of primitive peoples as regards ecology, economy, politics, ways of life, etc.