The early Modern World: Me too

I found it interesting how the tactics of the Jesuit missionaries in China, at first, were different then other missionaries in the way that they developed more of a relationship with the Chinese, instead of just bulldozing them into Christianity. The Chinese were too established in their way of thinking and living for that to happen; they had a strong foundation for their identity and beliefs to root in and really felt they they did not need the Jesuits or Christianity. They took from them what they found useful and interesting, like map making. My favorite part of the reading, which came after the Pope had to act un-evolved, controlling and insecure, came when the Chinese were ending their relationship with the Jesuits and some of them viewed the Holy Communion as a form of cannibalism. I have always wondered about that act of eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood; I realize it is a symbolic act, but I too feel that it is cannibalistic and in a way harkens back to so called "barbarianistic" rituals of human sacrifice and blood worship. I enjoyed reading that other people felt that ritual was a bit disconcerting too. (wc 194)

The Early Modern World: The Hope for Fertile Ground

The words of Girolamo Cardano are prevalent today: "The most unusual circumstance of my life is that I was born in this century in which the whole world became known... " I think that were are in a time of another great coming together of the "whole world". We can communicate and share ideas with the whole realm of humanity with the technology of today. It is allowing us to have a new conception of the world and our place in it, which is on a larger scale, but parallel to the experience humans, especially Europeans were having during the 15th and 16th centuries. I do feel as if once again certainties are being exchanged for uncertainties. it is a vulnerable time for us as a human community, because we are now again a human community. As I wrote about in a past entry, we have come back together after much time, travel and experience. We have come back together and we can choose how we want to progress into the future. Do we want to remain hyper competitive and dominate with and within our environment and ourselves? Or do we want to evolve on an emotional level becoming more empathetic, understanding, cooperative, collaborative, and unifying as a species? I believe that we have this capability and I do not think that it will take the usual extended period of time evolution usually take to transform ourselves. Will this create a new species of human? Homo emotinalis? Maybe? That might really give homo sapiens someone to bully... Back to the time of change and uncertainty. As was true for the people of the 15th and 16th centuries, this change and uncertainty created a rich and fertile ground for the scientific revolution (as stated in the book). So, I am so curious what kind of ground will this time of change and uncertainty create? Right now many people think our ground is no longer fertile, we have blanched it and therefore it will soon be completely sterile. I am more hopeful than that. Perhaps I am ignorant and the innate need to find the silver lining is blinding me to the fact that it is already over. Like in the movie Jacob's Ladder when the palm reader is looking at his palm and tells him, "Baby, you're already dead." I am still clinging to the silver lining that our uncertainty will bring us together as a species instead of ripping us apart. Maybe I sound a bit like my ancestors, they were so inspired by this change and thought that these new ideas would bring them closer to god or the truth and eventuality to themselves. At the time they could not imagine the death and destruction this new technology would bear future generations 400 or so years later. (wc 467)

Accelerating Connections: Adapting to Challenging Enviornments

In Cassidy's essay he states that behavioral ecologists say that an important aspect to humans is their unbelievably quick ability to adapt to challenging conditions. "This human ability to innovate during periods of heightened environmental stress is one of the hallmark characteristics of our species and has been central to our ability to enter and expand throughout the entire breadth of the New World since the last Ice Age." (Cassidy 22) This aspect of our ability to adapt to challenging environmental landscapes reminded me of the way the pastoralists were able to adapt to the lands which were inhospitable to agriculture. It gave me hope that we too as contemporary humans have the ability to adapt to our changing landscape. Yes we are accustomed to a certain way of life, but we too can adapt and change our relationship to the land and our environment. Hopefully we can do this before the situation becomes toooo challenging.

(wc 156)

Accelerating Connections: Love and Fear; Threat and Envy

One ought to be feared and loved, but it is difficult for the two to go together... I do not agree that one ought to be feared and loved, but I do agree that it is difficult for the two to go together. Does or can love exist without fear? It seems that for most of  humans, I presume, that love does not exist without some degree of fear attached to it. We fear rejection, loss, death, unfaithfulness, our own vulnerability, and honesty. Those are just some of the fears that go along with the way we understand and practice love. But it seems that most people, as individuals, choose to love regardless of the seemingly unavoidable element of fear which goes along with it. So why do most governments choose to be feared instead of loved? Is it as Machiavelli states on page 347, "Fear is maintained by dread of punishment which never fails..." Do we need to be governed by the fear of punishment? Are we as a species unable to govern ourselves by utilizing our own power of personal responsibility? Our we so covetous of gain that we are unable to guide ourselves morally in our interactions with other peoples? It seems that we are unable to guide ourselves, individually, morally without deviating into some sort of power struggle. Even the San peoples needed their society to have rituals in place which kept the individual in check. Just the fact that they have the process of insulting the meat leads me too believe that it was a needed act to keep a hunter from thinking to highly of themselves which then leads to the misunderstanding of use of power. 

The difficulty of being loved and feared at the same time feels similar to me as feeling both threat and envy simultaneously. As Strayer states on page 392, that the first societies in Western Europe and North America to experience the modern transformation became both a threat and a source of envy to the rest of the world. It reminds me the phenomenon of those who were once subjugated that once they earn freedom become the subjugator themselves. How we can feel threatened by something and someone and at the sometime feel envy of them/it seems a strange and dubious ability in the nature of humans, and also to be the source of the ebb and flow of power which has continuously occurred throughout our 250,000 year existence as Homo sapiens. 

(wc 415)

Defining a Millennium: Where are we at in our larger cycle as Homo sapiens?

Where are we at in our larger cycle as Homo sapiens? That has been a question that keeps coming to me as I read these chapters. I'm not exactly sure why, it could be just pure ignorance, but I really did not realize that we have been exhibiting so many of the same character traits for some many millennium: competition, hungry expansion, globalization, hunger for power, dominance of ourselves and other species, control of goods and services, classism, neglect of our responsibility to our natural surroundings, slavery, etc. I really thought that globalization was a modern notion: how wrong could I be. This ignorance could also be a result of never having this historic world view which has allowed me to see our species in the broadest of views.

So where are we in our larger cycle a Homo sapiens? It does seem as if we exist in cycles. Looking at the Chinese, they have ebbed and flowed through times of unity and times of discord. I think we are at an important time in our larger cycle. I think this because we all started out on on continent, Africa, and started the slow journey around the globe. The ice age ended and separated us again. Over the next 12,000 years we have slowly been coming back together. We are at a high time of global connectedness. We have all come back together. I wonder if we can unite as a species at this moment and evolve into something more than our past. It seems as if we have perfected that way of living with each other and our planet. We know how to compete against each other and feel like we have won. But the reality is that we have not won, we are losing. I wonder if we can take this grand moment of global unity and cooperate on a massive scale to see what we can become. I wonder if we are able to evolve, once again.  (331)

Defining a Millennium: We are speeding up, not time

If one of the products of contact with strangers is change, technological advancement, evolution even then we are in an age right now of a monumental surge in the amount of contact strangers have with each other. The internet could be comparable to the Silk and Sand Roads and the Indian Ocean Trade Routes of the third wave civilizations. All of these readings have made me start to wonder that it is not time speeding up or going by faster than it used to, we are speeding up. We are the ones that are going by faster. When I think about how long it took the Paleolithic people to create change, 240,000 years to advance stone tools, and even the Neolithic people moved at such a slower pace than we do today. It is the the fact that our technology is changing so rapidly that leads to the illusion that time is speeding up.
(155)

The Classical Era in World History 500 B.C.E – 500 C.E

The Classical Era in World History 500 B.C.E – 500 C.E

     Can an Empire foster security, artistic endeavors, exchange of goods and services, mix cultures, expand ideas, and foster ingenuity without violence, oppression and exploitation? (Strayer 99) The Persians were known for the brutality of their God appointed kings, but then they were able to comprehend the value of respecting different cultures under their power. The example given in the book is that of Cyrus allowing the exiled Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuilt their temples. (Stryer 100) How is it that we can in one moment exhibit the insight of the power of the common good, and then at the same time want to conquer as many peoples as possible? Why do humans want to be better than each other? Where does that destructive competitive drive come from? It might seem that is started with the concept of mine and yours, but the San people of Southern Africa understood that concept of mine, and they also understood the destructive power it could foster if not held in check. Their technique of insulting the meat was useful in keeping the human ego in a healthy state. Is it a possibility that once people moved into civilizations and then empires they lost the ability to keep their egos in a healthy state? Did the beginning of the ability to conquer nature with agriculture also lead to the incessant desire to conquer others as well? I guess we as Homo sapiens concurred the other Homo species, but we do not have a record of how that happened. We do however have a record of how humans have treated each other at the start of the agricultural era and now through the second and third wave of civilizations.

     Back to the question of is it possible for an empire not to be an asshole? There is an example in the book of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka. He started out in the usual emperor fashion, but was able to see another way of ruling after witnessing much bloodshed. There was growth and ingenuity under his reign and he practiced peace. Too bad after his death, human nature returned to its destructive ways. (Strayer 120)

     Is the fluctuation of order turning into disorder to then becoming order again a necessary natural fluctuation in which growth occurs? The information on page 88 on shows how there was not any new technological or economic breakthroughs during these second and third wave civilizations for a few reasons: the land owning elite were cool with their reaping, peasants did not want to make anymore than necessary because it would just be stolen by the elite, and the merchants, the best chance at making change, were dominated and made to look suspicious. So, there was not much disorder to become order again. There was a status quo being upheld and everyone kind of played along. Spartacus had a good idea, but it was not for social change, just personal change. So, that could be a lesson right there: For things to change in life they must be attempted for more than just yourself.

     I don’t know is an empire or civilization for that matter has the ability to rule and prosper without exploiting people, land, resources, and other life along the way. The Empire of the United States surely is unable to.  (word count 564)