The Importance of Implications
Ernie: The Girard article is suggestive of any number of ideas worth pursuing. Again, there are significant problems with the piece but it is valuable, regardless. Girard made an issue out of the rise of Western science. That is certainly a worthwhile observation. Why did the West outstrip the world in the sciences and, shortly after science became important among savants, the West surged ahead in technology. But to read Girard, the article anyway, there was no competition in this realm, everyone else was mired in superstition and backwardness. Trouble is that this model of history is flat out wrong or no better than terribly misleading. The facts are: Proto-science began in Mesopotamia, viz, the wheel, invention of alcoholic beverages (although maybe beer came from Neolithic Anatolia), the shovel, mosaic tile, early forms of glass, early abstract mathematics, and on and on. The West was still the realm of cave men and migratory hunters / gatherers. The Romans (and Greco-Romans) were on the verge of a scientific revolution by some standards. Many inventions arose, including the pipe organ (a primitive version was actually produced in Egypt before then) and modern concrete, indeed, one type of Roman concrete still keeps its secrets, a form that can set under water and stay solid forever; remnants still survive -under water- at Caesarea in Israel. But this false dawn of science came to an end no later than maybe 300 AD or thereabouts, partly the result of barbarian invasions, partly other causes, but in any case it ended. Something akin to proto-science also arose among the Maya, and Toltecs, an observation that has led to consternation because it is so odd. But there were screw top containers, an early form of concrete (usually made from black volcanic ash), toys with wheels, systematized manufacturing of such items as obsidian knife blades and of decorative religious objects, and so forth. For maybe 300 years the Mid East was clearly ahead of Europe, maybe with as much as a lead of 150 years in some fields. Which took place under Muslim aegis even if many (probably most) of the "scientists" were Christians (plus some Jews) living as large minorities or even local majorities in some areas. But by around 1300, the eve of the Renaissance, that all came to a halt. In approximately one lifetime the Mid East was no better than on a par with the West and in another lifetime it had fallen behind -and kept falling further behind. And there were the Chinese -who led the world in just about everything that can be called a form of science for at least 500 years, only ending in the 15th century. So the real question id why all these promising starts did not last while the start in the West, maybe 1500 AD is a good date to use, maybe even 1400, not only continued but exploded in the 19th century and became utterly magical in the 20th century -a time when the West had begun to become post- Christian. What explains all of this? Which is a question you cannot even ask if you do not know the relevant history. --------------- I'm working on a new theory about implications. We make progress when we see the implications of things / events / ideas / unusual phenomena, and so forth. We understand complex ideas far better when we can "tease out" their implications. But to do this is helps a lot (but this is not an absolute) to know even more relevant history This implies a question about history itself that was suggested inadvertently by a woman associated with the Atlantic who spoke on C-Span on Friday. Some things machines (electronic or otherwise) simply cannot do, like show empathy. And empathy is a valuable commodity it turns out. Think of the growing need for care-givers for the elderly. Then there was a comment by a male panelist about Philippine Airlines, which adopted an automated phone system only to drop it after a flood of customer complaints, and return to human operators who could empathize with people's needs. But also think of the necessity of "special empathy" on the part of managers and other high level business people; without it the are guaranteed to be failures. History should also have market value, its worth should be visible in some way. But this is obscured by emphasis on STEM education. Not to short shrift STEM, its value ought to be totally obvious, but there was a reason that a black astronaut coined STEAM as a better acronym, the "A" standing for all the Arts, plus communication. Let me suggest STREAM, even though there really could be nearly a whole alphabet of letters to actually hit all the bases to best effect. The "R" stands for Re-thinking -of just about everything. Which, as maybe you can guess, is where RC could make a huge difference because, after all, that is what we do as Radical Centrists. We re-think everything. ------------------------------------------------- There are many other matters that might be discussed in this context. Why do some societies regress? Why did the Tasmanians, who had been on a par with 'mainstream' Aboriginals, become culturally retarded, so to speak, losing a range of skills during the course of their history? Why did the city-building Mayans revert to simple village life? Why did the achievements of the Harrapans mostly vanish in India after the downfall of that civilization? And something similar happened in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. On a more modest level, why are some groups like the Amish and the Haredim grounded on the past and eschew almost everything modern? Indeed, there is a tradition among Christians of reversion to a simpler time, one version of this being the Benedict Option. --------------------------------------------------------------- All of these comments started with a reaction to something Girard said, even if, on one level, what he said was factually incorrect. But how could Girard see the implications of his own insight? He could not because, as a scholar, as a thinker, he privileges Christianity and, accordingly, spent very little of his time examining the record of non-Christian peoples, in the process not even being aware of all kinds of important evidence. The non-Christian world, for far too many people in the West, has very little value, and that is the Achilles heel of the contemporary West. And of Christianity per se. Want to be objective? As objective as possible, anyway? Then stop privileging Christianity, or privileging the Bible. This does not mean jettisoning either Christian faith or the Bible. For me, the whole process has given me new respect for both. But it does mean that to become objective you have to want to become objective and want to do what is most needed in order to reach this goal. This is the crux of the value of Truth itself. How does anyone stop privileging one's faith or one's scriptures? Actually by continuing to privilege each but keeping that preference within bounds; this means allowing yourself to think freely outside those bounds. Within the bounds is a safe harbor against the storms of life. What one learns outside the bounds then allows you to expand those bounds -carefully, one step at a time, or one paradigm at a time. Everything was, when I think about it, implied in Durkheim's Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, which I first read in about 1965. Needless to say, this was not clear in 1965, not in 1985 either, although things were getting clearer by then, but by the early 2000s it all became very clear. In case you are interested. Billy -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
