“He sees Icarus, his wings melting, plummeting into the waves. It was Daedalus who invented the wings and made the the first flight, he more circumspect than his son: scraping above the labyrinth bobbing over walls, skimming the ocean so low his feet were wet. But then as he rose on the breeze, peasants gaped upwards, supposing they were seeing gods or giant moths; and as he gained height there must have been an instant when the artificer knew, in his pulse and his bones, This is going to work. And that instant was worth the rest of his life.”
“What has not been recognized is that the witch-hunt was one of the most important events in the development of a capitalist society and the formation of a modern proletariat. For the unleashing of a campaign of terror against women, unmatched by any other persecution, weakened the resistance of the European peasantry to the assault launched against it by the gentry and the state, at a time when the peasant community was already disintegrating under the combined impact of land privatization, increased taxation, and the extension of state control over every aspect of social life. The witch hunt deepened divisions between women and men, teaching men to fear the power of women, and destroyed a universe of practices, beliefs, and social subjects whose existence was incompatible with the capitalist work discipline, thus redefining the main element of social reproduction.”
— Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation- Silvia Federici
