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Summarize world history without help - Bill the Piper - 03-31-2019
A challenge from Personality Cafe. I'd be glad to see how you'd do it
My attempt:
History on the Earth begun about 100 000 BC, when humans first achieved the status of basic sophont. Humans originated in Africa, but soon they spread throughout the planet, assimilating related hominid species. For tens of thousands of years, people lived in bands of 50-150 individuals. Life in this era was mostly about satisfying basic survival needs. Art existed in a rudimentary form, the prevalent form of religion was worship of nature spirit and ancestors. There was a lot of violence, though it was disorganised, without states there was no possibility of orderly warfare. This is the lifestyle the human species is biologically adopted to, there are still people who retained the Paleolithic lifestyle in Africa and South America.
Eventually, about 10 000 BC in the Middle East humans learned to purposefully cultivate certain plants and domesticated species of animals like dogs, horses, cows and pigs. Agriculture was born. This guaranteed better supplies of food, although hunger remained a menace for a long time. Still, for the first time a few people could devote most of their time to something else than survival. Division of labour appeared. The result was development of more complex arts, as well as further progress in practical abilities. This progress was however very slow. People still lived in small tribal communities, though perhaps they were slightly better organised than during the hunter-gatherer period.
Only about 3000 BC human beings started to create larger and more integrated communities known as states. First states appeared in Egypt and Iraq, then about 2000 BC the same thing happened in China and India. Since that time, political organisation started dominating Eurasia and northern coasts of Africa, while the rest of the world was stuck on tribal level. This form of organization made life more peaceful, since tribal warfare was no longer possible. It was good for culture. However the early states had an important drawback. They were autocratic. They tyrants and their acolytes guaranteed themselves a relatively high standard of living compared to their subjects. To prevent the subjects from rebelling, the tyrants had to use brutal physical punishments. They also claimed descent from gods, necessitating a more sophisticated theology, although the basis of religion remained nature worship. But religion did not stay this way for ever. About 1500 BC, two monotheistic religions appeared, venerating a single God as the creator of all reality and supreme lawmaker: Echnaton's in Egypt and Abraham's in Israel. Echnaton's system died off within a generation, while Abraham's one remained confined to one small ethnic group, the Jews. An important practical achievement of the era of early states was metallurgy, at first working on bronze, and later iron.
From 500 BC to 0 AD civilized humans' relationship with the universe was revolutionized. In Greece, India and China philosophy was invented, more or less at the same time. Its beginnings were naive but eventually it developed into more reasonable systems of thought. Plato's philosophy in Greece, Gautama Buddha's doctrine in India and Confucius' one in China were among the most influential schools of philosophy, and stayed relevant for many centuries. In Israel, Jesus enriched Abraham's monotheistic religion, teaching that God represents not only creative power and justice but also universal love. For His teachings, Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion, but the new faith could not be erased. He started to be regarded as God Incarnate and originated the most successful religion in human history. Greek medicine, science, mathematics, poetry and sculpture of this era also achieved heights unknown to any earlier human civilization. The Greeks, as well as Romans who imitated their civilization, were the first to conceive a democratic political system, though it did not last very long.
In the meanwhile, the most successful political structures: the Chinese Empire in the Far East and the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean have dominated very large areas and achieved levels of prosperity unknown before. The spiritual revolution was complete when Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and declared it state religion, resulting in development of hierarchical Catholic Church. Eventually both empires faced barbarian invasions. The Romans were defeated completely, while the Chinese responded to the invasions by developing an isolationist attitude. It should however be noted that China continued to progress and remained for many centuries the most cultured nation on the planet.
Cultural achievements of Greece and Rome were preserved by the Catholic Church, which has by the time of the invasions assimilated them. Despite this fact, Europe suffered a period of cultural regression known as the Dark Ages, which lasted for several centuries. During the era of eclipse, a militaristic and theologically simplified form of Abraham's monotheism, known as Islam, inspired a nomadic nation known as the Arabs to invade large parts of northern Africa and southwestern Asia. The nomad's way of life was considered the only one approved by God. For a long time, this Islam remained a threat to more developed peoples, although its adherents sometimes adopted a more civilized way of life derived from Christianity and Greek philosophy.
About 1500 AD, another revolution happened. European scholars rediscovered Greek science, leaving to an intellectual movement known as Renaissance. The Catholic Church, who had at this time wielded political power, tried to suppress it, but these persecutions were not brutal enough to stop it. Scientists of the Renaissance defined basic laws of physical reality and humans' place in the Cosmos. Copernicus discovered that Earth revolves around the Sun. Newton described fundamental principles of mechanics. Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. This resulted in a wave of colonization. Soon European states governed almost the whole globe. Europeans spread their cultural and technological achievements, but they also committed many acts of violence and injustice. They caused the native population of America to die off by introducing new diseases to the continent. In Africa, they started kidnapping the natives and forcing them to work as slaves on new plantations in America.
After 1700, a new intellectual movement appeared, known as Liberalism. It called for rational thinking and rejected the authority of tyrants and the Church, which has by this time fragmented into three major branches. These authorities were to be replaced by democracy. In America, British settlers rebelled against the rule of Britain and set up a new nation known as the United States of America, whose laws were based on Liberal principles. This new nation attracted settlers from the whole world. In Europe, the process of democratisation was longer and only after a few generations tyrants were removed completely. During this period, science continued to unravel the mysteries of the Cosmos. Darwin explained the development of life including the origin of humans. Einstein described relativistic phenomena. Progress of astronomy enabled human civilization to realize the immense size of the observable universe.
During the same era, Feminist movement, one of the offshots of Liberalism, demanded treating women as equal to men. Women's position in society indeed improved, though the process was quite slow.
There was also a dark side to Liberalism. It rejected Jesus' ethos of universal love and put in its place the idea of rational but innately selfish individual. This resulted in growth of economic competition between wealthy men, which made technological progress speed up, but left the working masses in miserable conditions. Democratic states tried to mitigate the effects by introducing systems of state charity, but many workers thought they were doing too little.
New political movements started to appear, promising the workers a more equal distribution of material goods by means of total government control of all economic activity. After 1900, these movements succeeded in two countries: in Russia there were the Bolsheviks and in Germany the Nazis. The Bolsheviks tried to undermine the power of Liberal governments and businessmen by inciting workers of the world to violent uprisings. The Nazis, whose ideology was more militaristic and tribalistic, attempted a worldwide military expansion, causing the greatest war in the planet's history. They also murdered millions of Jews, accusing them of being worse exploiters of the German working class. The Nazis were eventually defeated by combined effort of Bolshevik Russia and democratic states led by America, but the war was so brutal that its traumatic effects were visible in human culture for many decades. The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism.
Science however continued to develop, the two greatest achievements of the post-war period were invention of computers, which revolutionized both communication and entertainment, and a manned expedition to the Moon. Development of effective contraceptions made it possible for humans to enjoy real sexual freedom. In the same period European powers abandoned their colonies in Africa and the Middle East, creating a power vacuum soon filled by tyrannies inspired by either native traditions or Bolshevism. Some of these states supported terrorist attacks against America and its European allies. Before 2000, Bolshevik Russia collapsed under the weight of its own economic incompetence, making America the dominant political power in the world, although its position is contested by China. Culturally and economically the planet is heading toward full unity, although the process is disturbed by some tribalistic movements.
RE: Summarize world history without help - pbrower2a - 04-01-2019
The world has changed greatly in its technologies, with economic and cultural consequences that few could predict. I think of the title of William Manchester's book A World Lit Only By Fire, about the Middle Ages, and recognize that the world as late as 1879 was lit only by fire. Trying to read or write by the light of a fireplace, candle, or even the oil lamp was unproductive. With Edison's incandescent light we could have daylight at night. Such could lengthen working hours -- for good and ill. But with this I get ahead of myself.
I think of the first mass society that Humanity ever known, the Roman Empire. It seems on the brink of modernity, yet it missed out. They could have had steam power which could have powered ships and created horseless travel. Would steamships and railroads fit Rome? They had wine presses, and all that it would have taken to start printing was movable type. (Paper would have been nice, but they had papyrus). A steam engine was introduced in Rome, but its inventor bragged that it would replace lots of slaves. A critic responded, "What will we do with all the slaves?" -- and that killed that potential innovation. Steam power and printing would have created the first modern society, and the Romans missed out. Figuring that Imperial Rome was a basket case by AD 300, it would take another millennium for the opportunities to arise anew.
Let us be clear: even with windmills, sailing ships far better than those of Antiquity, perspective in painting (which made possible analytic geometry and the calculus), water power, paper, steel, and printing, the world of George Washington was more like that of ancient Rome than like ours. Steam power, the Jacquard loom, the cotton gin, the assembly line, mechanical reapers, the telegraph, and electricity would make the world modern. That is before I discuss electric lights, motor vehicles, refrigeration, the telephone, and wireless transmission -- or aluminum, plastics, semiconductors, aircraft, transistors, and nuclear power.
Technology cannot defer one problem: the rise of elites with their ability to both expand and go decadent. Those who can force change through some brilliant innovation can reap huge profits honestly, but over time those elites become increasingly large in number (despite no need for their numerical expansion), more demanding, rapacious, and corrupt while they lose the characteristics that made them great. They become less innovative and less competent -- and unable to keep general conditions from going sour. Such characterizes all aristocracies, and even the bureaucratic elite of the Soviet Union and other 'socialist' states who did not own the means of production could take on characteristics of a bad aristocracy.
RE: Summarize world history without help - sbarrera - 04-02-2019
The gold standard for this kind of project is Jawaharlal Nehru's Glimpses of World History - letters he wrote from prison in the 1930s, with no reference materials to aid him. I have a fun project going on where I kind of replicate this (but I cheat with an occasional Internet search).
Great writing challenge idea!
RE: Summarize world history without help - Eric the Green - 04-02-2019
See my approach at http://philosopherswheel.com/planetarydynamics.html
(although partly based on spiral dynamics, so had some help....)
"The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism."
LOL There you go Bill. That's where you and other boomer-knockers miss the boat
And you say this was a reaction to a war that we never experienced?
RE: Summarize world history without help - Bill the Piper - 04-03-2019
(04-02-2019, 11:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism."
LOL There you go Bill. That's where you and other boomer-knockers miss the boat
Yes it wouldn't happen without WW2. The war made many people question the ideas of rationality and progress. Hippies merely put this into practice, but the theoretical ideas existed as early as 1950. See Ray Bradbury's stories. His philosophical underpinnings are similar to what radical students of 1968 believed. And he was born in 1920!
Ayn Rand claimed the hippies were most conformist among all boomers, since they did what the post-war intellectual establishment preached. I'd add: some of this stuff goes back to the radical, Jeffersonian wing of the American revolution. But without the post-war disillusion, counterculture would be a fringe movement at best.
The same attitudes were present after WW1, but because it was another phase of the cycle, they didn't gain so much currency.
RE: Summarize world history without help - pbrower2a - 04-03-2019
(04-03-2019, 06:03 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(04-02-2019, 11:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism."
LOL There you go Bill. That's where you and other boomer-knockers miss the boat
Yes it wouldn't happen without WW2. The war made many people question the ideas of rationality and progress. Hippies merely put this into practice, but the theoretical ideas existed as early as 1950. See Ray Bradbury's stories. His philosophical underpinnings are similar to what radical students of 1968 believed. And he was born in 1920!
The progress of recent times had introduced the greatest potential for swift, irreversible, and unavoidable destruction. After the Second World War everyone feared the atom bomb, but before that was apocalyptic destruction of cities such as Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo with 'conventional' bombing with incendiary weapons. Add to this, the GI generation preferred a sort of anesthetic culture of comfort with few intellectual challenges except on the job (for which they were paid). Even GI cuisine was insipid by current standards.
It's hardly surprising that the kids saw such as empty, and wanted something more organic and sensory.
Quote:Ayn Rand claimed the hippies were most conformist among all boomers, since they did what the post-war intellectual establishment preached. I'd add: some of this stuff goes back to the radical, Jeffersonian wing of the American revolution. But without the post-war disillusion, counterculture would be a fringe movement at best.
Boomers had different ways of conforming, depending upon which direction they went. Aside from being confrontational and contrarian, I could make the case for the Religious Right being the most conformist of American Boomers. The Religious Right has been anti-intellectual in the extreme, even denouncing science when it contradicts a literal interpretation of the Bible. "6000 years ago, all in one week, there had to be a worldwide Flood, and believe it or burn in Hell).
Quote:The same attitudes were present after WW1, but because it was another phase of the cycle, they didn't gain so much currency.
Undeniably so with pacifist movements.
RE: Summarize world history without help - Eric the Green - 04-03-2019
(04-03-2019, 06:03 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(04-02-2019, 11:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The generation born after the war was especially prone to selfish hedonism and naive mysticism."
LOL There you go Bill. That's where you and other boomer-knockers miss the boat
Yes it wouldn't happen without WW2. The war made many people question the ideas of rationality and progress. Hippies merely put this into practice, but the theoretical ideas existed as early as 1950. See Ray Bradbury's stories. His philosophical underpinnings are similar to what radical students of 1968 believed. And he was born in 1920!
Ayn Rand claimed the hippies were most conformist among all boomers, since they did what the post-war intellectual establishment preached. I'd add: some of this stuff goes back to the radical, Jeffersonian wing of the American revolution. But without the post-war disillusion, counterculture would be a fringe movement at best.
The same attitudes were present after WW1, but because it was another phase of the cycle, they didn't gain so much currency.
Being a boomer and a semi-hippie, of course, I disagree. That's not how it happened at all. Not having experienced the war, hippies did not have many thoughts about it. What they responded to was the spirit-death of the post-war world. That is what the war helped to create among those who preceded the Boomers. So it was a very indirect factor, and quite normal according to the saeculum cycle. The spirit-death of the post-war world helped prepare the way for boomer and others' questioning of rationality and progress from the mid-60s on, and so did our observation of where the world was going; toward depersonalization, nuclear war and ecological destruction. An "anesthetic culture of comfort with few intellectual challenges"; that's well-said too.
But the hippies discovered alternative realities, partly inspired by psychedelics, partly due to the saeculum turning and the other cosmic cycles in play; so a general mystical awakening happened among the people. Mysticism, we discovered, is true, and materialism is false. Not being awakened yet, many millies don't realize this fact. That does not make us naive; it makes you guys naive. Sorry to be so blunt, but sometimes it seems necessary. It's up to you guys what your world view needs to be. I can't impose it on you; it's your life journey; just to be clear
Materialist and spirit-dead worlds cannot continue without either dying or spawning an awakening. Cycles happen. Since the post-war West and USA was a prosperous materialist society that believed in material (but not other kinds of) progress, it was not dying materially, but was already dying spiritually; so an Awakening naturally occurred, and hippies and many others discovered different ways of thinking and living.
There was more hedonism, and no doubt some mystical ideas were naive. Naivete happens among all stripes of opinion. But overall, this awakening was not simply naive or hedonistic. It was an Awakening much like previous ones. Like the last 2 or 3 of them, non-traditional forms of spirituality appeared, as we had progressed in our cultural awakening beyond traditional Christianity. But like previous awakenings, traditional forms also were revived during the Awakening-- generally not for the betterment of society in this case.
Ayn Rand, being a total idiot, has nothing worthwhile to say. I disagree fully with that paragraph. The post-war intellectual establishment in the USA was gung-ho for materialism and progress. University philosophy departments had been reduced to linguistics and positivism. Scientism was predominant there totally. Progress was our most important product. The space needle of 1962 celebrated science's great achievement in the space race. Hippies were the greatest non-conformists in history, and their new life in the 1966 period was spectacular.
Again, there was NO post-war disillusion in the USA. Your view on that is mixed up. WWII was a victory that left the USA as the only standing world power. The post-war was upbeat. The dominant songs were "Get Happy" and "Accentuate the Positive". Strauss and Howe are definitive on this. Young Boomers were upbeat too, not disillusioned; they just looked around in their boring and useless classrooms and factories and realized there's a lot more to life than the standard American Dream. They saw the limitations of many of the worldviews of the time too, and thus feminism, ethnic liberation movements, and gay liberation movements happened, as well as the movement against environmental destruction, and against a totally unnecessary war that was killing not only American youth, but millions of others in a foreign land for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It was not World War Two which spirited young boomers, hippies, yippies and many others of all ages protested against in the late sixties. It was the Vietnam-American War! And they were totally correct, and eventually they became the first Americans and maybe the first people anywhere in history to stop a war.
Thanks for the opportunity to re-tell your story as it really was, as I see it instead.