Outline of History (IV)

-Common name of Greek tribes: Hellenes
-Ancient Greek speech variations: Ionic, AEolic, Doric
-'Ancient' Greece (7th B.C): Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Samos, Miletus
-Tradition of unity between all Greeks, based on a common language and script, epics, continuous intercourse between the states, religious bonds, the Olympic games

Greek Citizen and the State

-3 forms of government:

• an Oligarchy mode of government of which the nouveaux riches became members of the ruling class 
• the tyrant was recognized as a monarch
• Democracy: 'government by the commonalty...it was government by the whole body of the citizens' -- but the concept of 'citizen' was exclusive: the slave, the freedman, the stranger / migrant were excluded

- the patriotism of the 'privileged people', the class of citizens, took an intense form

- Athenian Empire - other Greek city states retained their own governments, but the institution of an 'international' law / Athenian law, meant that justice could be administered between citizens of different states 

Poetry, art and philosophy

- 'Hellenism' - simplicity of life, sobriety of thought, abolition of torture, emancipation of the individual 

- the founding of overseas settlements familiarized men with the idea that a community could be constructed

- Plato and the Republic

- Aristotle -- born during the Macedonian monarchy under Alexander -- the events of the times drove men back towards the desire for stability and unification. Monarchy 'was a conceivable government for millions'

- Limitations of the Greek mind:

•  the idea of the city as the Ultimate city state, in which empire follows empire, each greater than its predecessor  --> the need for unification against outside forces was disregarded
• domestic slavery --> slavery shuts off one's sympathy and puts the slave-owner into an 'elect tribe', a class above others 
• a lack of knowledge -- of history, of geography beyond known lands, astronomy, science 

Alexander's Empire

- Ptolemy set up a Museum in Alexandria -- a 'secular intellectual process' to research and document information, set up a standard of professional knowledge, set up a Library 

- 3 types of mind: 'the clear-headed criticism of the Aryan Greek, the moral fervour and monotheism of the Semitic Jew, and the deep Mediterranean tradition of mysteries and sacrifices'

- fusing of the Gods (theocrasia) -- worship of a trinity of gods: god Serapis + goddess Isis + child-god Horus

- the idea of immortality became a central idea

Buddhism

- Siddhata Gautama: 3 forms of 'evil' human cravings: 1) the desire to gratify the sense 2) the desire for personal immortality 3) the desire for prosperity -- Nirvana (the serenity of the soul) is reached when one renounces these personal aims

- the Indian mind was shaped by the idea of cyclic recurrence 

- Gautama's teachings were reinterpreted into the idea of 'renouncing active life' -- instead of a personal salvation, it became the salvation from misfortunes and sufferings, and Buddha was represented as the saviour 

- early Buddhist sculptures interwoven with figures of Serapis, Isis and Horus -- Isis resembled / interchanged with Hariti, Kuan Yin, Kwannon (Japan) 

- Buddhism spread through Central Asia and intermingled with doctrines of Confucianism and Lao Tse = Three Teachings: 'a Way, a Path, a Nobility' --> personal philosophy of life and not doctrines of a church or a general rule

- differences between Buddhism and Judaism: the intolerance of the Jewish mind kept its faith clear and clean. 'The idea of a Promise...made Judaism historical and dramatic' -- it presented a clear direction and aim; Buddhism stagnated and corrupted for the lack of that directive idea 

--- it's easier to believe in, and rely on an external being than to completely renounce the self based on one's own efforts 

The Outline of History (III)

Aegean Civilization (around the Aegean sea)

- Phoenicians and their colony of Carthage became the greatest martime power then
- Carthage - land trading with Central Africa
- reflected a sense of quality and quantity in marketable goods -- barter trade, iron became the first currency

China

- Chinese writing 'created a special reading class..the ruling and official class. Their necessary concentration upon words and classical forms, rather than upon ideas and realities, seems...to have greatly hampered the social and economic development of China...' --> too laborious and inflexible to meet the modern need for simple and lucid communication

Temples & the move from priestly to secular governments

- 'the desire to propitiate unknown forces, the primitive desire for cleansing and the primitive craving for power and knowledge'
- shrine and entrance faced the same direction, often east, facing the sunrise on Mar 21 & Sept 21, the equinoxes
- the earliest governments were essentially priestly governments -- but the 'incapacity for efficient military leadership and their inevitable jealousy of all other religious cults' led to the rise of secular kingship
- the court became a centre of writing and records
- the conquest of any city included the subordination of its god in the temple of the conquerer's
- Cyrus set up the Persian Empire in Babylon with the blessing of Bel-Marduk 539 B.C
- In Egypt, the Pharaoh is treated as a god, with power and importance exceeding that of any priest
- Egypt - the great god Ammon Ra

Social and political developments of emerging civilizations

The social and political development of Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations:

1) Priesthood and the temple
2) Court system
3) 'tillers of the soil' : free peasants, serfs, farmers
4) Artisan class
5) Herdsmen
6) Merchants - shipowners, traders
7) Retailers
8) Independent property owners
9) Domestic servants
10) Gang workers - prisoners of war, debt slaves
11) Mercenary soldiers
12) Seamen

The social and political development of Indian civilizations:

1) Royal and aristocratic class                  
2) Mercantile class
3) Artisans
4) Farmers
5) Herdsmen

Caste system:

1) Brahmins: teachers and priests
2) Kshatriyas: warriors
3) Vaisyas: herdsmen, merchants, land-owners
4) Sudras
5) Pariahs: outcasts

The social and political development of Chinese civilization:

1) Literary class
2) Farmers
3) Artisans
4) Mercantile class

-- difference would be the landowners as land and possessions are divided among his sons

Old Testament

- sacred literature of the Jews who had returned to their city Jerusalem after being recently deported to Babylon
- position of Judea and Jerusalem is between the Mediterranean (west) and the desert beyong Jordan (east) ; through it lies the road between Hittites, Syria, Assyria, Babylon (north), Egypt (south) --commentary on the history of the people around it
- first 5 books, Pentateuch, begins with the Creation of the world and mankind
- what is Palestine today was at the time the land of Canaan, inhabited by the Canaanites
- when the Hebrews under Joshua pursued their subjugation of the land, they came against the Philistines in the south, the Canaanites and Phoenicians in the north -- the Hebrews are not victorious and desert the worship of their god Jehovah -- they mix their races with the Philistines
- book of Kings begins with King Solomon (960 B.C) - Solomon builds a palace for himself, a temple for Jehovah where the Ark of Covenant abode, and appointed priests to guard the ark --> created a central sacred abode
- for the Jews who returned, it was 'an age of historical inquiry and learning in Babylonia'
- they developed leading ideas that:

1) 'all the people were pure-blooded children of Abraham'
2) a promise made by Jehovah to Abraham that he would exalt the Jewish race above all others
3) Jehovah was the greatest and most powerful of tribal  gods, and the 'only true god'
4) the Jews, as a people, were the chosen people of the one God of all the earth
5) the coming of a saviour who would realize the promises the Jehovah

The Outline of History (II)

Study of the races

- Northern European: blond and dolichocephalic (long skull)
- Mediterranean, Iberian (Spain, Portugal): Dark-haired and dolichocephalic (larger skull)
- Alpine (central Europe): brachycephalic (relative short, broad skull)

Development of the Neolithic culture, also called the 'heliolithic culture' (sun worship) included: 1) circumcision 2) couvade 3) massage 4) mummification 5) monuments 6) artificial deformation of the heads of the young 7) tattoos 8) religious association of the sun and the serpent 9) use of the swastika as a symbol of good luck

Language groups marked by differences in root words, ideas of relationships, grammar

1. Indo-European / Aryan (Germanic, Danube, South Russia)
2. Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic)
3. Hamitic (ancient Egyptian, Berber languages of North Africa, Ethiopic group in East Africa e.g. Gallas, Somalis)
4. Turanian / Ural-altaic group (Siberia, Finland, Turkey, Mongolia)
5. Chinese
6. American-Indian
7. Dravidian (South India)
8. Malay-Polynesia
9. Basque (Pyrenees / Northen Iberian)

Spreading of Aryan Speakers:

-to the West and South, it encountered the Basque language and various Hamitic languages
-to the East, Aryan-speaking tribes used a distinctive dialect Slavonian, leading to Russian, Serbian, Polish, Bulgarian
-other variations over Asia Minor and Persia came to be Armenian and Indo-Iranian (Sanskrit and Persian)

Early Aryan Writings

-earliest written record of the Greek Iliad 700/600BC - later attributed to Homer, the bard (sliepac = blind man)
-Greek Epics reveal that early Greeks had no knowledge of iron, without writings, and they conquerers of a land that had been held by a darker people, a 'Mediterranean' people allied to Iberians

-Primitive neolithic life developed along 2 directions (4000 B.C):

1. Nomadism: Central Europe and Central Asia
2. Civilization: Mesopotamia and Egypt
-- consider Civilization as 'the settlement of men upon an area continuously cultivated and possessed, who live in buildings continuously inhabited with a common rule and a common city'

Sumerians 

- one of the earliest civilizations in southern Mesopotamia (Southern Iraq)
- conquered by nomadic Semitic tribes called Akkadians -- but Sumerian writing and language prevailed
- conquered by Semitic Amorites that set up Babylon
- conquered by Semitic Assyrians, who captured the capital Ninevah, and Babylon
- conquered by Semitic Arameans, whose chief city was Damascus (capital of Syria)

Egypt

- divided into a succession of Dynasties
- internal conflicts between competing capitals, religions, before ultimately being conquered by the Persians, and Alexandra the Great 332 B.C


*Cephalic: related to the head
*Bering Strait: strait between Alaska and Russia

The Politics of Empathy

'The Baby in the Well', http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/20/the-baby-in-the-well

'Why do people respond to [certain] misfortunes and not to others?' Take the case of Baby Jessica who fell into the a well and triggered a huge rescue operation that captivated the entire nation. In comparison, glaring problems such as starvation of children in Africa, or homicide in the US, are regarded as background noise. Going further into what has been called 'the identifiable victim effect', when subjects are asked to donate to develop a drug to save a child's life, versus being shown a picture and information of the child itself, the donations instantly increased in the latter. When one reads about 2000 people who have died in an earthquake in a remote country, we recognize the numbers as significant due to Reason, not Empathy.

Empathy can be problematic when it comes to policy-making as people often see or want to see only the immediate outcomes, rather than the lasting effects of their actions. Statistics matter less than the 'victims who have names and stories'. [We see the negative consequences of 'Empathy' in the 2016 U.S elections when the media kept emphasizing on the 'real, hardworking American white working class' and their personal stories of struggle. Not to say that one should not empathize with them, but rather than focus on issues such as the decline and relevance of their industry,  or even look at how overall employment rates have increased, or at the working conditions of other ethnic groups, these stories tend to mislead, enlarge and overlook the core issues that should affect the election results]

'Moral judgment entails more than putting oneself in another's shoes...A reasoned, even counter-empathetic analysis of moral obligation and likely consequences is a better guide to planning for the future than the gut wrench of empathy.' Appreciate the fact that 'even if we don't empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love'.

The Outline of History (I)

The earliest sedimentary rocks:
- frequently called Azoic (lifeless) Rocks, or Archaeozoic (primordial life) --> it is asserted that these substances require the activity of living things for their production, therefore supposing that the first life was soft living matter with no shells or skeletons, and that its chemical influence caused the deposition of graphite and iron oxide - e.g. marks made by worms
- Proterozoic (beginning of life) Rocks
- Palaeozoic (ancient life) -- show evidence of a diversity of shellfish, crabs, worms, seaweeds, fishes
- Mesozoic (Middle life) Rocks -- fossil-bearing rocks, including bones of giant reptiles
- Cainozoic (recent life) Rocks

Causes for changes in the world's climate:
1. '...the earth does not spin in a perfect circle round the sun. Its path or orbit is like a hoop that is distorted...elliptical...slowly distorted by the attractions of the other planets' --> when the orbit is most nearly circular, the earth must be consistently getting the same amount of heat from the sun; when the orbit is most distorted, then there will be a season in each year when the earth is nearest to the sun (Perihelion) and a season when it will be at the farthest from the sun (Aphelion)

2. the change in the seasons is due to the fact that the equator of the earth is inclined at an angle to the plane of its orbit

3. the precession of the equinoxes: the slow wabble of the pole of the spinning earth takes 25000 years

-- when it happens that at the same time, the orbit is most nearly circular, spring is at perihelion and autumn at aphelion, the climate will be warm and uniform and there will be least difference of summer and winter

4. Forces within the world itself - particularly, the influence of vegetation, especially that of forests

5. Appearance of human communities

Cainozoic period divided by its climate changes:
1. Eocene (dawn of recent life): an age of exceptional warmth
2. Oligocene (little of recent life): climate was still equable
3. Miocene (living species still in minority: general temperature was falling
4. Pliocene (more living species): climate still at its present phase
5. Pleistocene (great majority of living species): long period of extreme conditions --> The Ice Age

The development of mammal from the Lower Palaeozoic Age
- Fish, a vertebrated animal that breathes by gills and can only live in water
- Amphibian - a fish that has developed the power of breathing air, and limbs in place of fins
- Reptile - an amphibian that passes through its tadpole stage; from the beginning, it breathes in air
- Mammal - a sort of reptile that has developed a protective covering and retains its eggs in the body until it hatches
- Hair was the earliest distinction of mammals from the rest of the reptiles
- The mammal is a family animal which seeks for a continuity of experience / life

The development of the sub-human
- Heidelberg man (Homo Heidelbergensis), about 600,000 -200,000 years ago
- Neanderthal (Homo Neaderthalensis) discovered near Dusseldorf
-- distinguishing feature: Piltdown jaw-bone - 'has the broad, flat symphysis of the Apes'
- Tasmanians
- Late Palaeolithic Age: 1) Cro-Magnon race, 2) Grimaldi race
- Main features: human fore-brain, human hand, and an intelligence
- no trace of intermixture between the races
- hunting people who lived largely in the open (Neanderthals lived mostly in caves)

Neolithic (Stone Age ~ 10,000 BC) man
- characterized by: 1) the presence of polished stone implements esp. the stone axe; 2) the beginning of agriculture; 3) Pottery and proper cooking; 4) Domesticated animals 
- cultural fundamentals: 1) the fear of the Old Man --> Taboos and the ideas of forbidden things; 2) the idea of Uncleanness and of being cursed
- the development of speech and language = the development of thought, the capacity for systemizing things
-with agriculture = rise of religion --> ceremonies, sacrifices, 'purified class of people'

*Zoic: relating to (animal) life
*Cene: denoting a geological period
*Lithic: relating to stone
*Equinox: when the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the sun - generally March and September, when the Earth experiences nearly equal lengths of day and night
*Equator: the imaginary line around the middle of the Earth, halfway between North & South Poles