Brad said:
Needham's orientingWhen Kazantzakis wrote out the "story" to explore these questions in
question was: Why, when China was in many ways more
advanced than Europe even in the 1500s, did Europe "take
off" but China remained in feudalism? His answer,
which he did not like, was that Capitalism seems
to have been the engine which drove not just
the West's economic exploitation of the whole world,
but also the great flowering of genuine
Enlightenment in the West.
Odysseus a 20th Century Sequel he came up with the answer that it
was war that did it.
"I praise you Helen for your heaving thighs that lit in slothful men
a
raging war that opened minds and widened seas."
Einstein made the same point, more politely, in his essay.
I think you could ask what "needs" the Europeans "had" that made
them finally use the printing press, an earlier import that sat
for a good while before Europe broke forth with books for the common
man. You could also remember the problem with the first
Millennium
being that the Spanish Catholics didn't understand zero or Al Jabaar
until they had expelled the Moors and the Jews just prior to the
1500s and translated their books.
After expelling the above there was ample reason to get
these violent and disruptive folks out of the country and into some
safe activity like murdering the Inca for gold to cover the ballrooms
of Europe. But, I think it is a mistake to mislabel the
intent as profit.
No one wanted Cortez or Pizarro around in Spain. The same could
be said for Ceasar and Rome. Better that they fight "out there."
See what happened when he stayed home too long! If
El Cid
had lived, he would have been off to America in no time at all.
The violence behind the ethnic cleansing, that had taken 700 years
of constant warfare, lent itself to conquest and Empire.
The bankers
were the economic structure of choice but certainly not the motivation
or the intent for all of that murder and pillage that spread around
the
world, including China, by the Hunter/Gatherers from the Europe of
the time. (See the NYReview of Books URL mentioned later.)
As to Needham, the real question for me and my tradition, is why
a
"sedentary China" is considered less advanced than a predatory Europe?
Braudel not withstanding, the Europeans allied their businesses with
their Navies and in China's case made today's drug cartels look positively
virginal. The trade routes of Gengis were no more
violent than the
opening of Hong Kong. The case has been made that the Hordes
that
so traumatized Europe were actually more beneficial, and liberal in
their
tolerance of all but fealty issues, than the Spanish and Brits on any
level in their Empires. Again Einstein makes the point:
"most of the major states
of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples
established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged
class of
the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of
the land
ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks.
The
priests, in control of education, made the class division of society
into a
permanent institution and created a system of values by which the
people
were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their
social
behavior."
This is pure European. Gengis and his relatives enjoyed war but
treated
their subjects well and Gengis' Shamanism, even today, has a taboo
against predatory spiritual proselytization (PBS History Channel
Series
on Gengis Khan and his Army, so this is not cutting edge heresy.)
I found the Einstein article gratifying on many different levels not
the
least being his justification for the Arts in the life of the society.
"Memory, the capacity to make combinations, the gift of oral
communication have made possible developments among human
beings which are dictated by biological necessities. Such developments
manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations;
in
literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works
of art.
This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence
his life and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting
can play
a part."
This is pure Herbert Read. His Education Through Art made
the same
points but with a serious analysis of how it happened and what the
implications were for development of the young. (Univ. of London
1941)
Read's work got him knighted and his many books on art and culture
were the stuff of intelligent conversation of the day.
Education Through
Art was written while the country was at war with Hitler.
I wonder how both Needham and Einstein would
adjust their outlooks given the current environment?
An interesting "take" on this can be found in the archives of the
New York Review of Books website. Below is the URL then search
for the article "Family Values."
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/archives.html
Dec 16, 1999 Robert Skidelsky: "Family Values"
The House of Rothschild:
The World's Banker, 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson
The House of Rothschild:
Money's Prophets, 1798-1848 by Niall Ferguson
For a "take" on progress that grew from the "Enlightenment" consider
the following Kimon Friar synopsis of Odysseus' musings on the
morning's massacre to come:
"As Odysseus walks along the river toward the harbor and a young
boy and girl proffer him flowers, he is seized with pity that
even such
innocents must perish in the general massacre, but when he sees
his
god hovering near him in the form of a pitiless vulture, he steels
his
heart. He learns that in the holocaust of old values, many
who are
innocent and blameless, or simply victims of circumstance, of
heredity and environment, must also perish."
What a pity that the art of working out various scenarios is so poorly
supported these days. i.e. fiction and the performing arts. Instead
we
"act it out" on the world stage and discover our flaws only in defeat
or
the death of a rival. We've come a long way from the Greeks,
just
listen to the Western Church coveting India's millions (but not Bengal,
they have to fix the wells first. Who needs all of that grief?
);
the Baptists coveting the Jew's intelligence and international success;
the RC's fear of Mexican peasant affluence; and the need for
a
philandering Clinton to make both sides follow the Prince of Peace
in Northern Ireland; or the fear of syncretism in Brazil spoken from
the lips of those whose every move is stolen from someone.
They say: "But these folks," like the young British painter in Brooklyn
with his dark Madonna, "are not like us". "They are insulting
and
prejudiced against us." How can there be a
future of work when there
is so little rhythm, concept of team, or knowledge that the entire
list of
fragments is far from explaining the whole of the future to the powers
that
be?
Yes Ed, perspective had everything to do with it. The violent
use of the
implications of gunpowder, zero and algebra in a vast population expansion
was mirrored in the art. Visual perspective set up
the modern profession
of engineering and that fueled technology even more than the speculative
money and greed in the banking community. Brad says the
Chinese had
it too but they used it for other things. I wouldn't
be surprised if he is
right.
As for banking and speculation as motivation, Skedelsky makes
the
point in his article: their sense of importance was inflated
and lucky for
them that it was, for if they had the responsibility and power that
they
claimed the bigots would have had a point. Even the "simple"
act of
throwing Wagner in debtor's prison was a catastrophe. As
William
Buckley never tires of saying, the rich are really terribly vulnerable,
and what remains unsaid is that it often makes them poor in their
judgement.
Ray Evans Harrell,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
