Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 1 An artist’s idealized view of the Acropolis of Athens. The golden age of Athens lasted for only a generation, but it has fi red the imagination for 2,500 years We are about to embark on a journey from the dawn of civilization to the dawn of the modern world. In some ways, these essays will be a bit like riding through the Louvre on a motorcycle. We will see many familiar things that will cause us to say, “oh so that’s why that’s like that.” For Sherlock Holmes, the fi rst principle of detection was to begin with the obvious, however, we are going to begin by standing Holmes’ methodology on its head and begin with what is not THE HORIZON GAZETTE Western Civilization Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 2 so obvious. As such, we are going to begin by re fl ecting on the following words: • Western • Civilization • Foundations In other words, the overarching theme of these essays will be what do these words mean? What do these words imply? In attempting to answer these questions, lets begin with the West. What is the West? How should we proceed to de fi ne the West? One possible answer to this question is cultural. For example, the West is characterized by the free and open participation in political institutions. We might also say that the West is characterized by capitalist economies which permit individuals to exert a large degree of control over their own lives and allows them to make personal choices. We might also say that the West can be characterized by a tradition of religious tolerance, and the ability to accommodate a wide variety of different and sometimes opposing belief systems. The West can also be de fi ned by a spirit of rational inquiry, as we apply our minds to the world around us and accept only the answers that are achieved by the process of rational enquiry, as a re fl ection of the world as it actually exists. The West can also be de fi ned by its innovative spirit and its willingness to try new things and make new departures. We can continue on, but I think you see the Portrait of Isaac Newton, 1699, by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton is considered one of the founders of modern science and is regarded as emblematic of the western tradition of rational enquiry. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 3 point, which is that it is possible to de fi ne the West in many different ways. For example, it is possible to de fi ne the West as a cultural phenomenon. We are also able to de fi ne the West in geographical terms. We could say that we are going to de fi ne the West as a cultural tradition that began in Mesopotamia, moved into the Mediterranean Basin, crossed into Western Europe and from there globalized itself at the dawn of the modern world, and wound up being everywhere. Any de fi nition of the West poses its own form of controversy. For example, the West has simultaneously had freedom and slavery. What does the West stand for? Does the West stand for freedom or oppression? Or does the West stand for liberation from oppression? It must be said that over the course of its history, women in the West have had fewer opportunities and possibilities than men have had. What are the The London skyline at sunset. London is the capital of Great Britain, the fi nancial capital of Europe and a capital of world culture. The history of the West has been shaped by cities such as London. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 4 implications of this for how we think about the West? The West has created enormous material wealth, but it is distributed very unevenly. Some people in the West have enjoyed unimaginable richness, while others have experienced grinding poverty. We must consider these realities as well. De fi nitions also bring paradoxes. For example, western civilization began in what is now Iraq, which the ancients called Sumer. However, you might have a dif fi cult time today in making a case for Iraq as western. Today Japan, which is in the far east, seems more western than parts of the West, at least on economic and technological grounds.Think for a moment about some of the curiosities of t h e C o l d W a r , s u c h a s i n t h e Mediterranean world, where we will spend much of our time over the course of these essays. Türkiye, which is in the east, is more western than Libya, which is in the west. So where is the West? As we attempt to answer this question, over the course of these essays, we will have to be very conscious of where we are. As we have seen thus far, de fi ning the West is not easy, but what abut civilization? Civilization is not any easier to de fi ne than the West. The word civilization is derived from the Latin root word civ . It is from this word that we get words such as civics , citizen , civil , civility and city Civility means to be polite and to behave like a person from a city, like a John D Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and a stereotypical 19th Century Robber Baron. The history of the West has been characterized in part by vast disparities in wealth. The ruthless methods used by John D Rockefeller to build Standard Oil is one example of this. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 5 citizen . These words seem to sneak something into our consciousness about civilization, about what civilization is or should be. For example, civilization must have cities. Greek vocabulary is much the same. The Greek term for city is polis . It is from this word that we get words such as politics , police , politician and political The Greek word for a constitution is politeia . Once again, we are left with a sense of a whole vocabulary with a whole culture lurking behind it is rooted in the idea of cities. In order to form any sort of understanding of civilization, we need to build cities. How do we do that? Cities emerged as a result of what archaeologists call the Neolithic Revolution . It is believed that the Neolithic Revolution began sometime around 10,000 BP. By around 5,000 BP, the Neolithic Revolution had generated cities and the fi rst civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt. What was the Neolithic Revolution? The word neolithic comes from the Greek words neos , which means new , and lithos , which means stone . If we think for a moment in metaphorical terms about the Neolithic Revolution, it means much more than the period in which people began to fashion tools and weapons with A recreation of a late Neolithic farming settlement in A ş ikli Höyük, Türkiye. The Neolithic Revolution was characterized by the emergence of agriculture and sedentary communities. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 6 which they began to exert control over their environment, as opposed to being controlled by it. This eventually led to the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Because of this it is possible to see real changes in the kinds of things that groups of people were now able to do. The Neolithic Revolution unfolded slowly over thousands of years. Whether we think about the Neolithic Revolution in symbolic or concrete terms, but in either case it produced cities, then civilizations. Extracting food from arid regions is what lies behind the story we are going to tell. Civilization arose in river valleys. Civilization arose along the banks of the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia, the banks of the Nile in Egypt, the Indus River Valley in India, the Yangtze An ancient Egyptian wall panel depicting milking a domesticated cow. Animal domestication was one of the unintended side e ff ects of the Neolithic Revolution. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 7 River in China and the Congo River in Africa. In some of these cradles of civilization, the climate was very different, for example in Africa, where the climate in hot and humid, as opposed to the dry, desert climate of Egypt and Mesopotamia. How, then do we extract life from a dry, arid environment? This was a signi fi cant problem of human organization that required social cohesion and co-operation. The primary process for achieving this was irrigation. If we have a river next to a dry fi eld and we want to water our crops, how can we achieve this? Once we begin to develop an increasingly elaborate system of dykes, channels, dams and pumps, we have something rooting us to where we have built all that infrastructure. By building an irrigation system, we are able to grow not just more food, but also more kinds of food, this leads to an increase in the population over time. However, as the population increases, as a result of a stable and predictable food supply, problems of a socio-political and organizational nature begin to manifest themselves. To paraphrase the language of the Bible, there must be hewers of stone and drawers of water. This means that as society becomes increasingly complex, specialized labour begins to emerge. Who decides this? Is this done on the basis of social class, or some other mark of privilege or aptitude? How are these distinctions in labour made by the very earliest civilizations determined? In any case, An artist’s depiction of an animal powered irrigation system in Upper Egypt, from 1846. One of the long term e ff ects of the emergence of sedentary agriculture was a steady rise in population, which lead to the need for the development of irrigation systems, such as this one. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 8 someone is needed to tend the fl ocks. While others tend the fl ocks, someone is needed to work on the irrigation system. Eventually there will be craftspeople in addition to people w i t h r e l i g i o u s o r p o l i t i c a l responsibilities. This is known as the s p e c i a l i z a t i o n o f l a b o u r T h e specialization of labour places us on t h e l e a d i n g e d g e o f p o l i t i c a l differentiation. On one level, it is possible to say that is relatively simple and that this is society providing for its basic needs. If we control the fi elds, we can grow our own food and not have to be responsible for foraging for whatever happens to be readily available. If we tend our fl ocks, it is possible to get renewable resources, such as wool to make clothing. From cows, we can get dairy products, a reliable food supply, in addition to beasts of burden, but one way or another, by managing these animals, we are able to manage the kinds of things that we are able to provide for the bene fi t of the community. If we take a step or two beyond this, as civilization becomes increasingly sophisticated, arts and crafts being to emerge. Arts and crafts are one possible way for people to differentiate themselves by wearing slightly different jewelry from the person next door. They may decorate their houses with slight different products. They may adorn their towns, temples and palaces with the products of human invention A blacksmith’s shop at the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railson, in Topeka, Kansas, in 1943. Blacksmithing is an example of the specialization of labour, Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 9 and skill. Finally, we have the emergence of writing. With the emergence of writing, we can see one of the most remarkable achievements of the Neolithic Revolution. In so doing, we cross a horizon from prehistory to the historical period, for now we begin to have durable forms of evidence that allow us in the present to eavesdrop on the doings and thinkings of people in the past. Written records allow us to watch them telling us what they did. We also get to watch them manage how future generations will think about them, thus, history as a dual process of discovering what happened, and of re fl ecting on all the different re fl ections about what happened was born almost simultaneously. Virtually all civilizations seem to be characterized in some form by these key elements Our focus will be on how these elements shaped western civilization. This does not imply that other civilizations do not exist. It is perfectly possible to speak of African civilization or Chinese civilization. On a more granular scale, we might study Maya civilization or Aztec civilization. In discussing some of these civilizational foundations, it will be our contention that the West is unique and distinctive, and that there are things about the West that make An example of Cuneiform writing, dating to 2600 BCE. The advent of writing allowed early civilizations to articulate more complex thoughts and to preserve their beliefs, culture and history for the bene fi t of future generations. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 10 it different. However, what we will not be doing is cheerleading for the West. We are here to learn and understand. Civilization arose approximately fi ve thousand years ago. Let’s take a moment and get some perspective. Earth is believed to be almost four billion years old. Homo sapiens sapiens , evolutionarily modern humans, are believed to be 46,000 years old. The fi rst direct human ancestors emerged a hundred thousand years ago, while the fi rst hominids evolved approximately a million years ago. This puts the emergence of civilization into some perspective. Let’s imagine four billion years as a calendar where everything beings on January 1. If we want to study the history of human civilization, t h e n w e s h o u l d b e g i n w i t h t h e understanding that everything that has ever happened in human history has occurred in the last two minutes before midnight on December 31.This perspective is humbling, but however humbling it may be, we are going to press on and discuss that civilized period in the West. The concept of the West is messy. The concept of civilization is to a certain extent less messy, but still relatively complicated. What about foundations ? If we are going to talk about foundations we need to clarify what we are interested in. Are we interested in origins? Are we interested only in origins? Are we only interest in A pair of evolutionarily modern humans. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 11 how everything started? Do we have no interest in its life and vitality, its span over time? Everything grows, evolves and changes over time. Nothing stays the same. Origins certainly have a place in our understanding of the West, but origins and foundations are not necessarily the same thing. We might also say that durability is important. Some things have real staying power, however, durability is also tricky. For e x a m p l e , t h e o l d e s t c o n t i n u o u s l y functioning institution in the western world is the head of the Catholic Church, however, only 20% of the world’s population is Catholic. In its highest manifestation, the city state of Athens lasted for less than a century. The golden age of Athens lasted for less than a generation, but it has fi red the imagination for 2,500 years. The greatest achievement of Roman civilization was Roman law. The Roman legal system is perhaps the most in fl uential legal system ever created in human history, and today very few people live under Roman law. So what does durability mean? Foundations also seem to us to be connected to revivals. In other words, something that was there at the start is the foundation and is revived from time to time. One example of this is the Greco- Roman classical revival architecture seen during the period of the American Revolution. During the American Revolution, and afterward during the early republic, classical revival architecture was very prominent. The Pope Leo XIV, the current occupant of the o ffi ce of the Papacy. The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, one of the world’s largest religions. The Papacy is the oldest continuous institution in the Western tradition. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 12 reason for this was because it made a clear and powerful ideological statement and represented an attempt to attach the new nation to an older history and ancient traditions, and to say that we are not something brand new, we are the best manifestation now of what was richest the old. Post-modern architecture often takes modernist geometric forms and adds classical detailing onto it, in an attempt to echo an earlier time. The West has had a succession of great movements that are fundamentally about the past. The Renaissance was about revitalizing the past and going back to our roots. In the 16th Century, a succession of religious reformers believed that they were recapturing primitive Christianity and not creating something entirely new. Foundations may also be related to traditions: however, traditions can be both invented and discarded. The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, 1484-1486. The Birth of Venus is a representative work of art from the Italian Renaissance, which was characterized by the rediscovery of classical humanism and philosophy. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 13 Traditions are a very complicated matter. An example of this are so-called ancient Scottish clan tartans. In actuality these are an invention of the 18th Century, as a result of the in fl uence of the Scottish poet Robbie B u r n s . R o b b i e B u r n s , a n d h i s contemporaries, wrote after, and in response to the Act of Union, which merged England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, in 1707. The Scots wanted to make sure that there was a separate past for them. Over the course of these essays, we will proceed through approximately 4,500 years of history. We will begin in the ancient Near East and end with the western world, as it begins to globalize. What themes will we follow? What questions will we ask, not necessarily in every essay, but often. We will examine ecology, geography, climate, and in so doing, we will study where people lived and what the natural world around them was like. These factors are not always deterministic, but sometimes they are important. We will also discuss the visible structures and the invisible ideologies that supported them. What did governments and societies look like, and how were they perceived? What did people think they were doing and how did different civilizations compare to each other? We will also discuss the various religions of the ancient Near East, such as the pagan religions of Egypt, Greece and Rome, in addition to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Also, we will ask how did people live? How did they earn A portrait of Robbie Burns from 1787, by Alexander Nasmyth. Robbie Burns and his contemporaries created a mythologized past for Scotland in response to the Act of Union in 1707. This mythologize past continues a ff ect how Scotland is perceived today. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 14 a living? What did marriages look like? What kind of houses did people live in? What were their customs l i k e ? W h a t w e r e t h e i r families like? How did they spend their spare time? In addition to these questions, we will also explore certain philosophical questions on their own terms and for their own right, so that we can begin to understand what Plato thought, or what the Stoics thought, or what St. Thomas Aquinas thought on a fundamental level. We will also be asking why did those people think those things in those places and at that time? In addition to our discussion of the great works of philosophy, we will also examine a number of great works of literature, as well as the ideas they express, and the forms in which they express them. In other words, we will consider them as great works of art, however, we are also going to consider them as things that tell us two things above all else. The fi rst is who were they made for? The second is who has been the audience for those works from the time in which they were made down to the present? Why do they continue to matter? We will also study the A photograph of a Sauk family from 1899. The lives of individuals and their families have also shaped and been shaped by the Western tradition. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 15 evolution of art and architecture as the most visible and public manifestation of the Western tradition. Along side these concrete issues, we will also attempt to tease out perspectives on certain more thematic and fundamental issues, such as the difference between celebrity and distinction. Think of today, and how we talk about the latest hot rock star, athlete or actor. Ask yourself, how many of these people will still be remembered in a decade? How many of these people will be in your grandchildren’s school books? How many of these people will be distinguished, as opposed to merely famous, in fi ve hundred years? We will also explore the difference between values and virtues, between things that seem to be irredeemably true for everybody, and the values that are social compacts that are made at any time, and are changeable. It is possible to change your values, in the way you change your socks, but is it possible to change your virtues so often? What have people in different civilizations thought about that problem? In addition to this, we will also try to understand the evolution of aesthetics, or as the Greeks put it, the good, the true and the beautiful, as well as the complementary and competing roles of faith and reason. In addition to this, we will study the evolution of the relationship between the individual and the community. What rights do I have against those with whom I live, and what rights do they have against me? These are some of the basic themes and questions that we will examine over the course of these Will we still remember Robert Downey Jr. in fi ve hundred years? Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 16 essays. We plan to end our examination of the West at 1600 AD, when many of the major features of the modern world have come into view, and most of the essential components of the Western tradition have been fi rmly anchored, and attained a certain kind of maturity. In the fi rst place, two backward looking movements, the Renaissance and the Reformation, anchored the past into the present and made the past the way through the present and into the future forever for the western world. These kinds of revivals have happened before, and have now become an operative dynamic of how we think. A uniform Christian civilization was never fully realized, but was the ideal for almost a thousand years, and became permanently fractured in 1600 as a result of the Protestant Reformation. By 1600, a set of interlocking power relationships between the great nations of Europe was in place, and the diplomatic and military history of the modern world, from 1600 to the 1990s, left this system in place. The scienti fi c revolution, which began in the 16th Century, and matured in the 17th Century, had begun to alter ancient balance between what people had previously called science and wisdom. New modes of authority, and new places to seek truth began to displace long standing ways of fi nding authority and truth. These then are the themes, the issues and the A Portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder, dated to 1528. Martin Luther was the progenitor of the Protestant Reformation, which permanently fractured Western Christendom. problems that we will explore as we study the foundations of Western Civilization. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 17 Human Prehistory W h i l e h u m a n prehistory encompasses a period of approximately two million years. The story of human history really begins six million years ago with the evolution of the earliest hominids in East Africa. From here, human pre- history covers a huge span of time, culminating in the emergence of the earliest literate civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa about fi ve thousand years ago. Human prehistory can be thought of as a story-a narrative of prehistoric times- which until relatively recently, was not able to be told. The reason for this is because archaeologists simply didn’t know enough about this archaeological period in different parts of the world to tell this story, the story is incomplete; however, it is possible to assemble a preliminary account of the earliest human history. The ability to begin piecing together the earliest period of human history was not possible until after the Second World War, when the technique of radiocarbon dating was developed. Additionally, the post-war period has seen an explosion in the number of trained An Australopithecus Africanus skull without teeth and mandibles, dated to 2.1 million BP. Australopithecus Africans is the oldest direct evolutionary descendant of modern Homo Sapiens Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 18 archaeologists world wide. It has been estimated that prior to World War II, there were perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fi fty archaeologists in the world. As a result, there has been an explosion in archaeological research in many previously unexplored parts of the world. As a result, since the 1950s archaeologists and researchers have learned more about human evolution and the earliest period of human history,, than at any other point in time. How do archaeologists tell this story and what evidence do they have? The word “prehistory” means the history of humankind before the advent of written records, there are no archives, diaries, books or political speeches to work with. The only evidence of human Gobekli Tepe, Türkiye, dated to 9500 BCE, is a large Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia. Gobekli Tepe is one of the oldest permanent human settlements in the world and has played a key role in the debate over the link between the adoption of agriculture and the emergence of sedentary human civilization. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 19 prehistory exists in the form of physical artifacts. The study of prehistory is rooted in a wide variety of academic disciplines. Some scienti fi c disciplines that in fl uence the study of human p r e - h i s t o r y i n c l u d e archaeology, oral history, written records from the earliest civilizations, biology and zoology. The study of human pre-history does not consider mythology or religious scripture as part of its narrative because the construction of human prehistory is based on science and scienti fi c research. As a result of this cutting-edge research, the knowledge of the human past that has been acquired over the last thirty years helps to make the earliest period of human history seem vibrant and alive. This on-going research has revealed how people lived and behaved in unexpected ways over the last two and half million years. Stories of the lost continent of Atlantis, or aliens colonizing Earth thousands of years ago are simplistic explanations formulated by people who are more interested in a good story and do not have the patience for the slow, painstaking minutiae of archaeology. The science of human prehistory has its own distinct viewpoint. Many people in the west tend to view the past in linear terms. Why is this? The reason, at least in part, for this linear perception of A map claiming to show the location of the lost continent of Atlantis. Stories of Atlantis, or that Earth was colonized by aliens thousands of years ago are interesting to think about, but have no basis in scienti fi c reality. Issue 1 longstorypress.blogspot.com The Mentat Institute 20 the fl ow of time is because our watches and calendars are o r g a n i z e d f r o m a l i n e a r perspective. As a result, western science has constructed its perspective of human pre-history with this linear narrative in mind. This narrative has been built from a vast jigsaw puzzle composed of excavations, archaeological surveys and scienti fi c dating methods. This linear chronology provides a narrative framework for the story of human pre- history. Every historical epoch begins at the beginning and goes through time until it gets to the end. This linear view point is very different from the cyclical conception of time found in many ancient and traditional societies. Cyclical conceptions of time are often driven by events, such as the passage of seasons; spring is the period of renewal, growth and rebirth; summer is the time in which crops grow to maturity; fall is the time of harvest; and winter is the season of quiescence and death. The endless passage of the seasons is closely associated in many traditional cultures with the cycle of humanity’s birth, growth, maturity and death. This cyclical viewpoint offers a perspective into the world views of individual societies, as a result, many of The Wheel of the Year is one example of the cyclical conception of time.