the struggle between chaos and cosmos

"...No matter what explanation we give to the origins of organized violence, clearly warfare changed the arena in which manhood was to be won. For the farmer, life was a struggle between chaos and cosmos [grand order, meaning]; the theater within which manhood was to be exhibited was the natural world. The challenge was to harmonize the forces of nature sufficiently to survive. The habit of warfare replaced the theater of nature with the theater of politics. Henceforth the drama of manhood was a battle not against chaos but against an enemy of the tribe who had been defined as the incarnation of evil.

...Once war became the established social habit, the values of agricultural society were turned upside down. The ethic of cooperation was replaced by the ethic of conquest. The quest for harmony was replaced by the search or control. The dominance of the senses was replaced by the discipline of willpower. The realm of the sacred was no longer to be found in the nearby fields, rivers, and glades, but in the remote heavenly dwelling of the the transcendent God. The business of God was more in the realm of politics than agriculture. He was better at commanding his people to go on crusades and sanctifying genocide than he was at dancing around the maypole or growing crops. " -- Sam Keen "Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man"