This tendency to assume that the golden age was in the past, and that change was very likely to be threatening and harmful, is particularly strongly associated with socjeties that depended on farming as their main energy source. Without a scientific understanding of weather, crop fertility and disease, the annual variation in crop outputs tended to be understood as being controlled by a god or gods. As with athletes wearing the same pair of lucky socks in which they set their personal best, farming societies tended to repeat formulas that had worked in previous years: we made sacrifices in the temple and had a good year, so if we interfere with either the sacrifices or the temple, how are we to know that our fortunes will not change for the worse?

— Architecture by Barnabas Calder (Page 53)