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Thread: The Greatest Cycle-Rebirth Of A Civilization - Page 4







Post#76 at 01-23-2005 01:17 PM by Tom Mazanec [at NE Ohio 1958 joined Sep 2001 #posts 1,511]
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I'm still voting for nanotechnology! :lol:







Post#77 at 01-23-2005 03:41 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
I point out a technological development that led to very radical change in the last 50 years--birth control pills. This development wrought immense change. The world of today is at least as different from that of the 1950's as the 1950's was from that of the 1900's. Look at changes in family structure.
No, this is just not true. The world of 1950 is far more like 2000 than either is like 1900.

In 1900, America was a rural nation (though urban in psychology in many ways already), and something like half the labor force was occupied in raising, transporting, or otherwise handling food. It was also a profoundly local nation, though the train companies had started the ball rolling toward 'nationalization' (I use the word here in a different sense than usual) in the late 1800s.

There used to be a song that went:

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking
Said his wifey dear
Now that all is peaceful and calm
The boys will soon be back on the farm
Mister Reuben started winking and slowly rubbed his chin
He pulled his chair up close to mother
And he asked her with a grin

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'
How ya gonna keep 'em away from Broadway
Jazzin around and paintin' the town
How ya gonna keep 'em away from harm, that's a mystery
They'll never want to see a rake or plow
And who the deuce can parleyvous a cow?
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'

Rueben, Rueben, you're mistaken
Said his wifey dear
Once a farmer, always a jay
And farmers always stick to the hay
Mother Reuben, I'm not fakin...


The song is vintage World War I, and though its thrust is humorous, it captured a real concern of the time, the social and psychological transformation the War was bringing. This was in 1918, mind you.

Henry Ford contributed more to the change in the status of women between 1900 and 2000 than the entire feminist movement and the inventors of the Pill did, together. He did this by invienting the first economically viable automobile (he didn't invent the car, he just made it practical), and by (in a related vein) establishing the basic pinciples of mass industrial production as we know them.

This made is possible for the former, purely local lifestyle to be transformed radiically while everyone kept on eating. It widened the practical horizons for the individual by two orders of magnitude in some cases (it became as thinkable to take time for a 2000 trip as it had formerly been to take a 20 mile trip**), and it put people in easy physical contact with each other over distances that formerly meant only a relative handful of people were in such contact.

It also made the World Wars what they were, in a very real sense, and thus enabled the socio-economic transformations they brought.* Not only did the automotive technology provide some of the basis for the new art of tank warfare, but the i.c. engine and mass production enabled the advent in World War I of aerial warfare as well, and mass production worked to make WW I the first mass war, though the American Civil War had provided a foretaste.

Of course, the gargantuan infrastructure that underlies the automotive revolution also changed the scale of politics, by stitching together the oil fields of Texas and Arabia, the iron and coal mines of Pennsylvannia, the nascent labor movement, the resurgant corporatism of the post-WW II years, and the advertising power of Hollywood and Madison Avenue into a single phenomenon, the American car obsession.

Easy birth control only accelerated social changes already well underway as a result of mass production technology and mass transportation (i.e. Ford's automotive revolution). The large-scale entry of huge numbers of women into the work force during World War II also contributed to this change at least as much as the Pill did. There just wasn't any need for half the population to be engaged in food work anymore, and the practical opportunities of the new mass communication/mass transport world were at leaast potentially as open to women as men. It was only social barriers in the way, not physical ones as had largely been the case before 1900.

Most of the social changes of the last 50 years would have happened anyway, even if birth control pills had never happened.

*Other technologies were just as vital in these changes, of course. The advent of radio brought bigger changes, relatively speaking, than did television.

**This is another example of what I mean when I say the effects of technological change have slowed. In order to produce the same relative effect as the automotive revoluton, a new transportation technology would have to make trips around the world as trivial, routine, and cheap as a 5-mile trip from one town to the next in the Western nations.

Likewise, to produce the same relative effect as the jump from couriers and post to electronic communication that the telegraph and the telephone brought, a new communications technology would have to be something as profound as perfect telepathy, or the like (even magical faster than light communication would not be as big an effect, in a limited-scale venue such as one planet).







Post#78 at 01-23-2005 03:46 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
There used to be a song that went:

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking
Said his wifey dear
Now that all is peaceful and calm
The boys will soon be back on the farm
Mister Reuben started winking and slowly rubbed his chin
He pulled his chair up close to mother
And he asked her with a grin

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'
How ya gonna keep 'em away from Broadway
Jazzin around and paintin' the town
How ya gonna keep 'em away from harm, that's a mystery
They'll never want to see a rake or plow
And who the deuce can parleyvous a cow?
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Paree'

Rueben, Rueben, you're mistaken
Said his wifey dear
Once a farmer, always a jay
And farmers always stick to the hay
Mother Reuben, I'm not fakin...


The song is vintage World War I, and though its thrust is humorous, it captured a real concern of the time, the social and psychological transformation the War was bringing. This was in 1918, mind you.
BTW, you can learn a lot about the mindset of past periods by observing the songs and other entertainments that 'move' them.

Anybody who thinks, for ex, that the ant-war movement was birthed in the 60s should consider the song "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be A Soldier", which was big in America in 1915. It doesn't express any thoughts that weren't expressed during the wars between the Greek city-states.







Post#79 at 01-23-2005 03:52 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec
I'm still voting for nanotechnology! :lol:
It might, especially since the line between biotechnology and nanotechnology is fuzzy (living things arguably are examples of nanotechnology in action). It's almost certainly not going to be anything close to what Drexler was raving on about, though. There are any number of practical problems with much of his visions.







Post#80 at 01-23-2005 04:58 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
In 1900, America was a rural nation (though urban in psychology in many ways already), and something like half the labor force was occupied in raising, transporting, or otherwise handling food.
In 1905 about 35% of the labor force was involved in agriculture. By 1955 this had fallen to about 10% and today its about 2-3%. In 1855 it had been about 50-55% and in 1805 more than 80%.

Henry Ford contributed more to the change in the status of women between 1900 and 2000 than the entire feminist movement and the inventors of the Pill did, together. He did this by invienting the first economically viable automobile (he didn't invent the car, he just made it practical), and by (in a related vein) establishing the basic pinciples of mass industrial production as we know them.
How did Ford's automotive innovations transform the lives of women? My understanding has been that women did not become an important fraction of drivers until after WW II with the development of the automatic transmission, which was not Ford's doing.

It widened the practical horizons for the individual by two orders of magnitude in some cases (it became as thinkable to take time for a 2000 trip as it had formerly been to take a 20 mile trip**), and it put people in easy physical contact with each other over distances that formerly meant only a relative handful of people were in such contact.
Ford's automobile didn't do that. It was massive highway building from the 1930's onward that had made long-distance travel by automobile convenient by the 1960's. Long before then trains made long-distance travel quite possible. My father-in-law grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, went to school in Washington state and got a job with GE in New York after college. In those days he traveled by train to make visits home. He met his wife in New York and lived out his life there, except for a two year stint in Oklahoma when his job sent him there. My father grew up in Connecticut, joined the Navy in 1946, attended college in Indiana in the late 1940's on the GI bill, dropped out and joined the CIA in 1950. He met my mom in Ammon Jordan in 1956 and married in Jan 1957. They first moved to Connecticut, then New York and finally Milwaukee (where I was born in March 1959). There they raised a family and lived out the rest of their days.

Before they were in government service, they had never been on an airplane. And neither was I, like my father, it was the US Navy that paid for my first flight. Yet my kids had flown lots of times before they turned 18. So horizons have widened a great deal in even the last 30 years. For example, long-distance dating was unheard of when I was 20, today it is commonplace.

There is a huge difference between when a technology is first commericalized and when it transforms society. Look at video. It was around in the late 1950's, as was cable TV. Microwave ovens were around in the 1960's. But these technologies did not change our lives for another 20-30 years.

And PCs and the internet is simply amazing. It has totally changed my life. When I first got a PC I simply used it to write and run BASIC programs. Basicaly it was a fancy calculator. Then in 1985 I made an aquaintence with a Macintosh with its vysiwyg interface and the Excel program and have been a software user ever since. Over the years I wrote fewer and fewer programs until after the early 1990's I have written none (except a tiny bit of C coding I did in my "mudding days" in the mid-1990's). Today I am engaging in an engrossing hobby involving economic and financial analysis, which even pays a modest income and all of it made possible by the PC and internet.

With the net it is possible for me to become moderately conversant on a huge array of topics in a very short period of time. The net is like a "brain extender" and that is a very transformational thing.







Post#81 at 01-24-2005 01:42 PM by Tom Mazanec [at NE Ohio 1958 joined Sep 2001 #posts 1,511]
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We have passive nanotechnology now, in growing force. Active nanotechnology is entering the R&D stage. The coming Crisis will accelerate this like WW2 accelerated nuclear technology. Then the progressiveness of the High will complete the progress. We will have Drexlerian nanotech by the next Awakening, when the Millennials are Elders (as always, if we get through the 4T).







Post#82 at 01-24-2005 02:11 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec
We have passive nanotechnology now, in growing force. Active nanotechnology is entering the R&D stage. The coming Crisis will accelerate this like WW2 accelerated nuclear technology. Then the progressiveness of the High will complete the progress. We will have Drexlerian nanotech by the next Awakening, when the Millennials are Elders (as always, if we get through the 4T).
The trouble with Drexler's vision is that while a lot of it is theoretically possible, actual engineering is always fraught with problems and considerations that theory doesn't consider. I have no doubt we'll see a technology of the nanoscale over the next several decades, the first hints of it are appearing now. Some of what will come of it will be completely unexpected and surprising.

But Drexler's vision is almost sure to end up being like the 'gee whiz' projections about nuclear engineering or space flight from the 30s and 40s. Note that some of those old visions may yet have their real-world day, too, but it's taking far longer than expected.

I'm not, for example, even slightly worried about the gray goo problem.







Post#83 at 01-24-2005 02:30 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59
Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
In 1900, America was a rural nation (though urban in psychology in many ways already), and something like half the labor force was occupied in raising, transporting, or otherwise handling food.
In 1905 about 35% of the labor force was involved in agriculture. By 1955 this had fallen to about 10% and today its about 2-3%. In 1855 it had been about 50-55% and in 1805 more than 80%.

Henry Ford contributed more to the change in the status of women between 1900 and 2000 than the entire feminist movement and the inventors of the Pill did, together. He did this by invienting the first economically viable automobile (he didn't invent the car, he just made it practical), and by (in a related vein) establishing the basic pinciples of mass industrial production as we know them.
How did Ford's automotive innovations transform the lives of women? My understanding has been that women did not become an important fraction of drivers until after WW II with the development of the automatic transmission, which was not Ford's doing.

It widened the practical horizons for the individual by two orders of magnitude in some cases (it became as thinkable to take time for a 2000 trip as it had formerly been to take a 20 mile trip**), and it put people in easy physical contact with each other over distances that formerly meant only a relative handful of people were in such contact.
Ford's automobile didn't do that. It was massive highway building from the 1930's onward that had made long-distance travel by automobile convenient by the 1960's.
There wouldn't have been any massive Federal highway construction during that period except for the existence of Ford's automobile.

The trains did have revolutionary effects on society, as I noted above. They weren't quite as huge as the car, but they were close. World War I, for example, went down the way it did in much because of the existence of the train networks that transported the troops and materials. The technology even constrained the political responses, because of the difficulty of changing the plans once they were in motion due to the limiting factors of train schedules and availability.

The automobile, trains, mass production, instantanous communication in the form of the telegraph and the telephone, air travel, and topped off by atomic weapons, all were part of a technological revolution that occurred at about that time. The military and economic effects of that revolution reshaped the world in a way nothing since has even approached.

Before they were in government service, they had never been on an airplane. And neither was I, like my father, it was the US Navy that paid for my first flight. Yet my kids had flown lots of times before they turned 18. So horizons have widened a great deal in even the last 30 years. For example, long-distance dating was unheard of when I was 20, today it is commonplace.
Those horizons were widened by the technological revolution of the previous period, however. It was the effect of that revolution that produced the results you're talking about.

It also doesn't change the truth of my statement that 1950 was more like 2000 than 1900. Much more.

For example, except for the trivial difference of speed laws, a 1950 Chevy and a 2000 Chevy will get me from NYC to St. Louis in exactly the same amount of time. Both enable me to control my course and the other factors of my trip individually, freeing me from dependency on train schedules. The 1950 Chevy might me more likely to break down, but it's also easier to field-repair. The gas mileage will be much better in the 2000 Chevy, though.

The improved ease of travel and communication between 1900 and 2000 are staggering. The improvement since 1950 is modest, most of the improvements to personal transport tech since then have been the line of evolutionary refinements like pollution control and comfort. Even such toys as GPS navigation and the like are just refinements.


There is a huge difference between when a technology is first commericalized and when it transforms society. Look at video. It was around in the late 1950's, as was cable TV. Microwave ovens were around in the 1960's. But these technologies did not change our lives for another 20-30 years.
1. I didn't say the revolution always came immediately. As I noted, much of the effect of the technological revolution of 1880-1945 was seen in the 50s and 60s. But the technology was developed earlier.

2. Microwave ovens are a minor thing in terms of societal effect. TV and air conditioning are much more influential, but neither compares to the effect of the car and the telephone.


And PCs and the internet is simply amazing. It has totally changed my life. When I first got a PC I simply used it to write and run BASIC programs. Basicaly it was a fancy calculator. Then in 1985 I made an aquaintence with a Macintosh with its vysiwyg interface and the Excel program and have been a software user ever since. Over the years I wrote fewer and fewer programs until after the early 1990's I have written none (except a tiny bit of C coding I did in my "mudding days" in the mid-1990's). Today I am engaging in an engrossing hobby involving economic and financial analysis, which even pays a modest income and all of it made possible by the PC and internet.

With the net it is possible for me to become moderately conversant on a huge array of topics in a very short period of time. The net is like a "brain extender" and that is a very transformational thing.
But how has that revolutionized society, nationally or globally, or how will it, realistically? Where is the revolutionary effect of any technology developed since 1950 that compares to the effect of what was developed from 1880-1945?

Mind you, we've seen effects from the Internet and the PC, no question. It's altered politics and the way information is distributed, and I've commented myself often on the way it's transforming the news media, but none of that quite compares to the staggering effects of the technical revolution from decades ago.

It should also be noted, too, that the the basic elements of the pc were based on technologies brought into existence in the 1940s and 1950s. There hasn't been any revolutionary breakthrough in computer technology since the integrated circuit and the GUI, both many decades old now. They've been extremely refined, and miniaturized to a marvelous degree, but where's the new elements?







Post#84 at 01-24-2005 02:35 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Henry Ford contributed more to the change in the status of women between 1900 and 2000 than the entire feminist movement and the inventors of the Pill did, together. He did this by invienting the first economically viable automobile (he didn't invent the car, he just made it practical), and by (in a related vein) establishing the basic pinciples of mass industrial production as we know them.
How did Ford's automotive innovations transform the lives of women? My understanding has been that women did not become an important fraction of drivers until after WW II with the development of the automatic transmission,
You don't have to directly use a technology to be tremendously affected by it. The car and the related development of mass production technology transformed the economy is ways that made it feasible for both sexes to take part in the workforce fairly equally. It wasn't only Ford, of course, but Ford and the transformation that flowed from his work (he didn't invent the automatic transmission, no, he merely created the world in which such a device was relevant) was a big part of why our modern world is the way it is.







Post#85 at 01-25-2005 07:40 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
But how has that revolutionized society, nationally or globally, or how will it, realistically? Where is the revolutionary effect of any technology developed since 1950 that compares to the effect of what was developed from 1880-1945?
Well how long has it been here, ten, fifteen years. You mentioned railroads and WW I. Well that was ninety years after trains were first commercialized. You mention how Ford's car (actually it wasn't his car that was revolutionary, but his production methods) led to the interstate of the 1950's. Thats a 40+ year span between the two.

Mind you, we've seen effects from the Internet and the PC, no question. It's altered politics and the way information is distributed, and I've commented myself often on the way it's transforming the news media, but none of that quite compares to the staggering effects of the technical revolution from decades ago.
Compare apples with apples. How much had Ford's Model T transformed American life in 1917? How much had development of the electronic computer transformed American life in 1960? How much had electricity transformed American life in 1892?

It should also be noted, too, that the the basic elements of the pc were based on technologies brought into existence in the 1940s and 1950s. There hasn't been any revolutionary breakthrough in computer technology since the integrated circuit and the GUI, both many decades old now. They've been extremely refined, and miniaturized to a marvelous degree, but where's the new elements?
The technological details are not relevant. Sure the PC is based on the same sort of technology as minicomputers and even mainframes before them. What makes the PC revolutionary was what it was used for.

When the computer was invented in the late 1940's, was it accompanied by a host of bold new innovative corporations that had first commercialized it? Nope. From the start, established business machine companies made and sold computers as extensions on their existing lines of business machines. Computers were seen as more efficient devices for carrying out operations already peformed by existing machines. Government scientists adopted electronic computers to perform computations previous performed by mechanical computers. Business machine companies like IBM, NCR, and Burroughs got into the business as a logical extension of the business they were already in. Although the technology behind the computer was revolutionary, how they were used was not.

When computer technology advanced to the point where it became possible to put computer power into the hands of consumers, existing computer companies failed to see the opportunity here. The big players failed to move into PCs and left it open for startups like Apple and Microsoft. That these new companies came to dominate the business shows that the PC was a startling new development (unlike the original computer). So even though the technology of the PC is an incremental technical change, it is a radical change in terms of how it is used.

As for the impact, you note there already has been some--but its still very early. We can compare the PC to the car. Here the development of the microprocessor in 1974 can be seen as roughly equivalent to the development of the Otto engine in 1885. Ford's Model T came along 22 years later or about 1996 on the PC timeline and might be considered analogous to the internet. Today would be roughly equivalent to 1916. How much had the automobile transformed American society in 1916?

You point out that driving long distances is not radically different in 2000 than it was in 1950. I would respond that today driving is not the first choice for traveling long distances--flying is. One did not seriously think of traveling 1000 miles for a weekend visit back in 1950. Today people do it all the time. In 1950 you would make it a week trip at least. So traveling is considerably faster today than in 1950 when you consider how people actually traveled tehn and now. Mail order is also faster today. Thirty years ago it took 4-6 weeks to get anything by maill. Today you can get it in a few days or a week or overnight if you rush it.

So the movement of people and things is quite a bit faster today than it was fifty years ago.

But movement of things isn't where the big changes have happened. It's been in the movement and processing of information. For example, we still write memoes, but they don't serve the same purpose as they once did. In 1950 a memo would go out in a day or two and serve the purpose of diseminating information. Today the memo merely serves to document, the information was already disseminated and commented on and refined by e-mail before the memo was even written.

Look at how Walmart has dramatically changed our world. Today things are no longer the limiting factor in material culture. Today what separates rich from poor or elite from ordinary isn't that the former have more or nicer things. Anyone can afford nice things today (you can get them for cheap at places like Walmart or even cheaper at places like Goodwill or Salavation Army). And there will be plenty of nice stuff at Goodwill because so much is bought new at places like Walmart. There is plenty of stuff for everybody. In fact, too much, as our overstuffed bodies, closets and homes testify.

I think you are taking too narrow a view on what is innovation or even technology. Obviously the practical rate of speed at which we travel cannot rise indefinitely. But there is more to advancement than just crude measures like speed or energy consumption.







Post#86 at 01-27-2005 05:27 PM by Arkham '80 [at joined Oct 2003 #posts 1,402]
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Quote Originally Posted by Sabinius Invictus
Quote Originally Posted by Tim Walker
Let us suppose that WWI/WWII could be described as a time of troubles for the West. The Millenial Saeculum would be a rally, and the European Union a constitutional experiment.
I'm more inclined to see NATO as the West's nearest approximation of the 'Universal Empire' phase, and that with the breakdown of NATO, the West is moving into the initial stages of civilizational decline. (The 60s Awakening being the 'interim rout', followed by a 'rally' presided over by Reagan.)
I disagree, somewhat. The World Wars and Cold War were, in my estimation, contemporary (in the Spenglerian sense of the word) with the Punic Wars of Classical history. The Kennedy brothers compare with the Gracchi, Nixon with Sulla, Bush II with Pompey (substitute the "war on terror" for the campaigns against the Cilician pirates). The Western Caeser is due to arrive sometime during the next Crisis. If history rhymes -- as it tends to do -- he will complete the transition of the United States from republic to empire and then pass abruptly from the scene, leaving his heirs to solidify the new imperial system and inaugurate a resurgence of American global power. I expect that a truly universal Western empire will emerge during the Crisis of 2100 (comparable to the emergence of the Pax Romana during the first century AD), that it will peak about a century later, and then will begin to decline steadily, terminating with the crackup of the first planetary government sometime in the 26th century.







Post#87 at 01-27-2005 05:33 PM by Prisoner 81591518 [at joined Mar 2003 #posts 2,460]
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Quote Originally Posted by Arkham '80
Quote Originally Posted by Sabinius Invictus
Quote Originally Posted by Tim Walker
Let us suppose that WWI/WWII could be described as a time of troubles for the West. The Millenial Saeculum would be a rally, and the European Union a constitutional experiment.
I'm more inclined to see NATO as the West's nearest approximation of the 'Universal Empire' phase, and that with the breakdown of NATO, the West is moving into the initial stages of civilizational decline. (The 60s Awakening being the 'interim rout', followed by a 'rally' presided over by Reagan.)
I disagree, somewhat. The World Wars and Cold War were, in my estimation, contemporary (in the Spenglerian sense of the word) with the Punic Wars of Classical history. The Kennedy brothers compare with the Gracchi, Nixon with Sulla, Bush II with Pompey (substitute the "war on terror" for the campaigns against the Cilician pirates). The Western Caeser is due to arrive sometime during the next Crisis. If history rhymes -- as it tends to do -- he will complete the transition of the United States from republic to empire and then pass abruptly from the scene, leaving his heirs to solidify the new imperial system and inaugurate a resurgence of American global power. I expect that a truly universal Western empire will emerge during the Crisis of 2100 (comparable to the emergence of the Pax Romana during the first century AD), that it will peak about a century later, and then will begin to decline steadily, terminating with the crackup of the first planetary government sometime in the 26th century.
I hope you're right, though I thought you were even more of a 'declinist' than me.







Post#88 at 01-27-2005 05:52 PM by Arkham '80 [at joined Oct 2003 #posts 1,402]
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Quote Originally Posted by Sabinius Invictus
Quote Originally Posted by Arkham '80
Quote Originally Posted by Sabinius Invictus
Quote Originally Posted by Tim Walker
Let us suppose that WWI/WWII could be described as a time of troubles for the West. The Millenial Saeculum would be a rally, and the European Union a constitutional experiment.
I'm more inclined to see NATO as the West's nearest approximation of the 'Universal Empire' phase, and that with the breakdown of NATO, the West is moving into the initial stages of civilizational decline. (The 60s Awakening being the 'interim rout', followed by a 'rally' presided over by Reagan.)
I disagree, somewhat. The World Wars and Cold War were, in my estimation, contemporary (in the Spenglerian sense of the word) with the Punic Wars of Classical history. The Kennedy brothers compare with the Gracchi, Nixon with Sulla, Bush II with Pompey (substitute the "war on terror" for the campaigns against the Cilician pirates). The Western Caeser is due to arrive sometime during the next Crisis. If history rhymes -- as it tends to do -- he will complete the transition of the United States from republic to empire and then pass abruptly from the scene, leaving his heirs to solidify the new imperial system and inaugurate a resurgence of American global power. I expect that a truly universal Western empire will emerge during the Crisis of 2100 (comparable to the emergence of the Pax Romana during the first century AD), that it will peak about a century later, and then will begin to decline steadily, terminating with the crackup of the first planetary government sometime in the 26th century.
I hope you're right, though I thought you were even more of a 'declinist' than me.
Don't get me wrong, the West began its decline with the French Revolution (Napoleon was the Western Alexander). But civilizational collapse is a gradual process, agonizingly painful to watch for the historically informed. Barring a cosmic disaster, the West will stagger along for at least another century or two before it starts to fray irreversibly. I only hope there are humans in space in sufficient numbers to preserve the species when the West enters its terminal phase, as its death throws could easily wreck the planet.







Post#89 at 01-27-2005 07:16 PM by Tim Walker '56 [at joined Jun 2001 #posts 24]
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response to Time of Troubles

In terms of constitutional experimentation, could not only the EU but the Concert of Europe be deemed to be examples?







Post#90 at 01-28-2005 11:10 AM by Prisoner 81591518 [at joined Mar 2003 #posts 2,460]
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Quote Originally Posted by Arkham '80
But civilizational collapse is a gradual process, agonizingly painful to watch for the historically informed. Barring a cosmic disaster, the West will stagger along for at least another century or two before it starts to fray irreversibly.
Here's where I believe lies our partial disagreement. Civilizational collapse is indeed a gradual process. After all, it took three centuries for the western half of the Roman Empire to fall. However, I tend to believe that the West began to 'fray irreversibly' as early as World War One, but should continue to 'stagger along' for another century before the final collapse, which I expect to come with the Crisis of 2100. (Though it could come with this 4T.)







Post#91 at 01-29-2005 12:00 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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01-29-2005, 12:00 AM #91
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
> On the contrary, every major civilization has experienced slowing
> technological change in its later centuries. Usually there is a
> period of rapid change, in which the major technologies
> characteristic of a civiliation are established, followed by a
> long period of slow, incremental change.

> The reasons why this tends to happen are not clear, though I
> suspect that full political unification is one contributing
> factor, since a unified civilization's ruling faction has a vested
> interested in the status quo.

> In Classical Civilization, for ex, the Roman Empire showed a much
> slower level of technological change than the Republican Period.
I would have to disagree with this statement in so, so many ways.

First, technology follows a steady exponential growth path through
time irrespective of the rise and fall of civilizations.

Technology development doesn't require a major civilization any more
than literature does. People can write books in attics and basements
at any time, even when there's a war going on all around them.
Similarly, technology can be developed at any time in any place.

So, even if you had some real evidence to support your claim about
civilizations in decline, it wouldn't make any difference, since
another civilization is growing while one civilization is dying, so by
your reasoning, technology development would just move over to the
other civilization. But in fact technology development would
continue apace in both civilizations.

Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
> Even so, the rate of technological change has already slowed
> considerably compared to what it was even 75 years ago. For
> example, the social and economic changes brought about by the
> internal-combustion engine, the telephone, steam trains, the
> airplane, etc, dwarf the impact of information technology, space
> flight, or most (to date) biotechnology (though biotech is an area
> where major, revolutionary changes remain distinctly possible).

> Most of the technological advancement of the last 50 years has
> been more evolutionary than revolutionary, though one can hope
> that will change.
Your profile doesn't list where you live, but is it on earth?
Personal computers and the internet have thoroughly changed every
aspect of social life. There's no job that even resembles what it
was 30 years ago. And just e-mail technology alone has
revolutionized our personal relationships. Mike Alexander's postings
state many other reasons supporting this view.

But that actually isn't the point. You and I are talking about two
different things. I'm not talking about how many companies are
selling competitive products to the iPod. I'm not talking about any
consumer products. I'm talking about the develop of basic science.

Tom Mazanec points out in another posting that nanotechnology is
proceeding rapidly, and I agree with him.

In the case of computers, technology is proceeding very rapidly. This
past may, the Department of Energy announced a $25 million grant to
three partners -- Cray, IBM and Silicon Graphics, working in
conjunction with the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory
-- for the first year of a project to develop the next generation of
supercomputer by 2007. See the following for more information:
http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene

This is an extremely serious situation.

You may recall that in the Germans were working on developing nuclear
weapons during WW II as well as us. We beat the Germans, thanks to
some luck, some skillful sabotage, and, of course, Albert Einstein.
But it needn't have been so, and if the Germans had gotten the bomb
first, then it might have been London and New York instead of two
Japanese cities that were nuked.

There's no guarantee that the "good guys" will win this technology
race either. Japan was the world leader in supercomputers from 2002
to 2004, thanks to NEC's Earth Simulator supercomputer. (See
http://top500.org for details.) A few months ago, IBM's Blue Gene/L
supercomputer took back the lead.

But there's no reason why the any other country might not be the
first to develop the super-intelligent computers that will take over
the world. It might be China or India or Russia or some other
country that gains ascendancy during the next 20 years.

At any rate, even if your argument about the West being in decline
were true, something that I would disagree with for at least the next
two decades, it still wouldn't mean that technology was in decline.
It would only mean that the locus of technology development had moved
to some other civilization.

But technology development goes on without a break. I see the
following rough timetable: By 2010, there will be supercomputers with
computing power exceeding the human brains. By 2020, the first "small
form factor" super-intelligent servants will be available -- things
like intelligent plumbers, intelligent nursemaids, intelligent
language translators, intelligent soldiers, and so forth. By 2030,
super-intelligent computers will be quite common. They'll be able to
improve and manufacture new versions of themselves, and the
Singularity will occur. After that, no one knows.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com








Post#92 at 01-30-2005 10:22 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
> On the contrary, every major civilization has experienced slowing
> technological change in its later centuries. Usually there is a
> period of rapid change, in which the major technologies
> characteristic of a civiliation are established, followed by a
> long period of slow, incremental change.

> The reasons why this tends to happen are not clear, though I
> suspect that full political unification is one contributing
> factor, since a unified civilization's ruling faction has a vested
> interested in the status quo.

> In Classical Civilization, for ex, the Roman Empire showed a much
> slower level of technological change than the Republican Period.
I would have to disagree with this statement in so, so many ways.

First, technology follows a steady exponential growth path through
time irrespective of the rise and fall of civilizations.
?? Technological development has never, at any point in history, followed such a pattern. It surges and slows.


Technology development doesn't require a major civilization any more
than literature does. People can write books in attics and basements
at any time, even when there's a war going on all around them.
Similarly, technology can be developed at any time in any place.
1. Technological development requires a political and economic infrastructure in order to have any effects at all. It's true that thought and speculation continue at all times and in all places, but in most historical times is made little difference.

2. Even when new technological approaches are known, the economic, political, and social environ determines how, and if, they are used.


So, even if you had some real evidence to support your claim about
civilizations in decline,
I do. All you have to do is look at the actual events that happened in the course of the major civilizations in history, such as Classical Civilizatin, China, etc. In their later centuries, all reached a state where near-stability was not only a practical day-to-day reality, but almost a cultural imperative, even in the later stages when the near-stability had turned into functional decline.



it wouldn't make any difference, since
another civilization is growing while one civilization is dying,
Not always. It's true that new civilizations always appear, but not necessarily coterminous with a former one's collapse. The Persian/Byzanitine culture did appear even as Classical Civilization was declining, but our own Western culture did not jell until several centuries after the total collapse of Classicial society in the western part of Eurasia.

so by
your reasoning, technology development would just move over to the
other civilization. But in fact technology development would
continue apace in both civilizations.
That is, in fact, what happened after the end of Classical society. The old knowledge of Classical Civilization lay largely untouched and unused in the libraries of the monasteries and other facilities of the nascent West, while technology and knowledge grew steadily in the Middle East and the empire of Byzantium. Later some of that knowledge filtered back to the younger West via the Crusades.

Several of our odder words for mathematical concepts, for ex, are Arabic in origin, such as 'azimuth'.

But no, technological development manifestly did not grow steaily in the western lands after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It had not, in fact, advanced much if any in the final centuries of that Empire.


Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
> Even so, the rate of technological change has already slowed
> considerably compared to what it was even 75 years ago. For
> example, the social and economic changes brought about by the
> internal-combustion engine, the telephone, steam trains, the
> airplane, etc, dwarf the impact of information technology, space
> flight, or most (to date) biotechnology (though biotech is an area
> where major, revolutionary changes remain distinctly possible).

> Most of the technological advancement of the last 50 years has
> been more evolutionary than revolutionary, though one can hope
> that will change.
Your profile doesn't list where you live, but is it on earth?
Personal computers and the internet have thoroughly changed every
aspect of social life.
In trivial ways, yes. In major ways, on the scale of what happened 75 years ago, no. The effect of the transport revolution on social interaction simply overshadows the greatest effects (so far) of the IT revoluton on personal social interaction, and it definitely has NOT transformed the economy or the political organization of the country in ways comparable.

Granted, the timeline is not fully played out yet, the effects of the transport revolution did not appear overnight, and the IT revolution might yet have larger effects than it already has. But the story of the last ten years of the IT revolution has been one of diminishing expectations. Ten years ago, there was wild talk of the Internet being a fundamental, transforming force that repressive regimes would be powerless against, and a channel that could not be censored or interfered with by nation-states. It was going to eliminate office work, as everything was done remotely from work-at-home or other distant sites. It was going to eliminate paper copies of work, since electronics could take the place.

All that sounds naive and empty now, since it's been demonstrated by facts-on-the-ground not to be true, or else to be only half-true.

There's no job that even resembles what it
was 30 years ago.
This statement is simply false. Many jobs have been only modestly affected by the electronic communication revolution. Others have been altered, but still remain in essence what they were before. That isn't to say that there's been no change whatever in many of them, but that the changes are modest.

The only jobs that have really been profoundly transformed are those directly involved with the manipulation and dissemination of information, such as news and journalism, publishing, and science, and related fields such as medical work, and even there much has remained the same.

IMHO, the communications technology that has the potential to make for the largest-reaching social changes is the ubiquitous cellular phone, actually. But I still don't see it changing things on the same scale that railroads and mass production did.


And just e-mail technology alone has
revolutionized our personal relationships.
In small ways, yes.







Post#93 at 01-30-2005 10:42 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis
Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

But that actually isn't the point. You and I are talking about two
different things. I'm not talking about how many companies are
selling competitive products to the iPod. I'm not talking about any
consumer products. I'm talking about the develop of basic science.
So am I. Historically, the growth of scientific knowledge has slowed in the later stages of civilizations.

Tom Mazanec points out in another posting that nanotechnology is
proceeding rapidly, and I agree with him.
As do I. What it isn't doing is showing signs of advancing to produce the predictions of Drexler. Which isn't surprising, there are some reasons of basic physics why the assemblers and related concepts Drexler discusses would be very difficult to implement.


In the case of computers, technology is proceeding very rapidly. This
past may, the Department of Energy announced a $25 million grant to
three partners -- Cray, IBM and Silicon Graphics, working in
conjunction with the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory
-- for the first year of a project to develop the next generation of
supercomputer by 2007. See the following for more information:
http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene

This is an extremely serious situation.
There's no guarantee that the "good guys" will win this technology
race either. Japan was the world leader in supercomputers from 2002
to 2004, thanks to NEC's Earth Simulator supercomputer. (See
http://top500.org for details.) A few months ago, IBM's Blue Gene/L
supercomputer took back the lead.
Agreed, keeping the American technological lead is always important.


But there's no reason why the any other country might not be the
first to develop the super-intelligent computers that will take over
the world.
Since this is purely a speculative concept, there's no way to alter the outcome of it by intent. We don't know if those are even possible, or if they are, what it would take to create one, so we can't take intentional steps to influence how it happens.


But technology development goes on without a break. I see the
following rough timetable: By 2010, there will be supercomputers with
computing power exceeding the human brains.
This assessment is unverifiable and unfalsifiable, since nobody, and I do mean nobody, has any idea what the computer power of the human brain actually is, or even if the concept is meaningful in that application.


By 2020, the first "small
form factor" super-intelligent servants will be available -- things
like intelligent plumbers, intelligent nursemaids, intelligent
language translators, intelligent soldiers, and so forth. By 2030,
super-intelligent computers will be quite common. They'll be able to
improve and manufacture new versions of themselves, and the
Singularity will occur. After that, no one knows.
The Singularity is a concept of doubtful reality. The term derives from the science fiction of Vernor Vinge (IIRC), and the Singularity is an SFnal concept that tells more about the psychological underlying this Cycle's popular culture than it does about the future. In the way it's been developed in the science-fiction community, it bears a recognizable resemblance to the Millennialist concept of the Rapture, and is often presented in similarly apocalyptic terms.

Science fiction is essentially always about the present, not the future. I strongly suspect that the Singularity is to today's culture what the Gernsbackian 'technocratic paradise of the future' was to that of the last Cycle.

As always, the popular culture contained odd cross-connections then. To my mind, the marginal existence of the Technocrat Party, which argued that the future should be governed by scientists and engineers, since they would be more efficient and effective than mere politicians, cross-connected with the idea of a Gernsback-style 'perfect future' that occupied SF at the time. This same 'concept' showed up in the 1939-40 World's Fair "World of Tomorrow' show/exhibit.

As the SF writer S.M. Stirling as observed: "Nothing ages faster than yesterday's tomorrow."







Post#94 at 02-06-2005 02:15 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Re: Carroll Quigley

Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68
> The Singularity is a concept of doubtful reality. The term derives
> from the science fiction of Vernor Vinge (IIRC), and the
> Singularity is an SFnal concept that tells more about the
> psychological underlying this Cycle's popular culture than it does
> about the future. In the way it's been developed in the
> science-fiction community, it bears a recognizable resemblance to
> the Millennialist concept of the Rapture, and is often presented
> in similarly apocalyptic terms.

> Science fiction is essentially always about the present, not the
> future. I strongly suspect that the Singularity is to today's
> culture what the Gernsbackian 'technocratic paradise of the
> future' was to that of the last Cycle.

> As always, the popular culture contained odd cross-connections
> then. To my mind, the marginal existence of the Technocrat Party,
> which argued that the future should be governed by scientists and
> engineers, since they would be more efficient and effective than
> mere politicians, cross-connected with the idea of a
> Gernsback-style 'perfect future' that occupied SF at the time.
> This same 'concept' showed up in the 1939-40 World's Fair "World
> of Tomorrow' show/exhibit.

> As the SF writer S.M. Stirling as observed: "Nothing ages faster
> than yesterday's tomorrow."

I was looking back at some of the arguments you used to make in my
"Eschatology - The End of the Human Race by 2100?" thread.
http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...?p=67515#67515

Some of those were very sophisticated arguments. But this is an
extremely weak argument - a simple ad hominem attack on the
person who coined the use of the word "singularity" for this purpose.

I conclude from this that you're running out of arguments, and guess
we'd have to call that progress. Maybe this discussion is finally
reaching a conclusion.

Anyway, Vernor Vinge was in the Dept. of Mathematical Sciences at San
Diego State University, and a writer of both science fiction and
science fact.

He coined this use of the word "Singularity" in the 1980s. In 1993,
he wrote a lengthy article beginning, "Within thirty years, we will
have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.
Shortly after, the human era will be ended." I put this article on
my web site last summer, in conjunction with the movie I,
Robot.

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...ot040709.vinge

It's a super article, and it makes a lot of points that I've never
made. I hope you'll read it.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#95 at 02-09-2005 01:58 PM by Prisoner 81591518 [at joined Mar 2003 #posts 2,460]
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Conflict to Decline?

On page 163, Prof. Quigley wrote, "But in theory it is at least conceivable that the competing states of Stage 4 might just fight each other down and down to lower and lower levels of prosperity and public order without one emerging triumphant over all the others. In such a case, Stage 5 might be omitted, and the civilization would pass directly from Stage 4 to Stage 6 (Age of Conflict to Decay) without achieving any Universal Empire."

If one rejects the idea of NATO as the nearest approximation to Universal Empire the West will ever achieve, then it seems to me that one should be open to the idea that Western Civilization will devolve in the manner described in the quote above - especially since there is a slight matter of the Atlantic Ocean separating the core area of Western Civilization from it's most powerful peripheral state, and thereby rendering the sort of power projection needed to establish a genuine Universal Empire very close to problematical, in either direction - as the British found out in 1775-1783, and as we would have found out during World War II had Britain not been available as an ally willing to serve as, among other things, a relatively secure forward staging area for our forces sent to Europe. And given the growing rift between the US and the EU, if the Atlantic Ocean effectively prevents either from gaining a clear, lasting triumph over the other, then such a course of devolution becomes that much more possible.

As for a 4th Expansion Phase, I'm afraid I just can't see that happening, and haven't been able to since the last 2T, when the very idea of another Expansion Phase was anathematized in many circles as being 'politically incorrect' at best. (From an environmentalist/Malthusian POV, especially.)







Post#96 at 02-12-2005 03:33 PM by Prisoner 81591518 [at joined Mar 2003 #posts 2,460]
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This article is posted here for educational and discussion purposes only:

********************

Rumsfeld Calls for Unity in War on Terror

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN

MUNICH, Germany (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld struck a conciliatory tone at a European security conference Saturday, saying the American-European alliance could withstand its current differences and calling for unified efforts to defeat terrorism and weapons proliferation.

Referring to his earlier critical description of European nations that opposed the Iraq war as "old Europe,'' he said, "That was old Rumsfeld,'' drawing laughs from the assembled officials.

"Our collective security depends on our cooperation and mutual respect and understanding,'' Rumsfeld told the conference, which included U.N. chief Kofi Annan, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and German Defense Minister Peter Struck.

Rumsfeld called for further cooperative efforts to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.


"Our Atlantic alliance relationship has navigated through some choppy seas over the years. But we have always been able to resolve the toughest issues. That is because there is so much to unite us: common values, shared histories, and an abiding faith in democracy,'' he said.


Rumsfeld singled out the governments of France and Germany, two of the biggest critics of the war in Iraq, for praise for their arrests of suspected Islamic extremists last month.


His description of France and Germany as part of "old Europe'' caused bad blood in the run-up to the war.


Rumsfeld came out strongly against a suggestion to move away from NATO as the main vehicle for trans-Atlantic dialogue.


"NATO has a great deal of energy and vitality,'' Rumsfeld said. "I believe they are undertaking the kinds of reforms to bring the institution into the 21st century. The place to discuss trans-Atlantic issues clearly is NATO.''



Struck, the German defense minister, had opened the conference by suggesting a move away from NATO and proposing more direct coordination between the European Union and the United States.


NATO "is no longer the primary venue where trans-Atlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies,'' Struck said. He proposed a commission be formed to study closer direct relations between the United States and European Union.



Rumsfeld's trip to Germany follows a visit to France and Iraq. At a conference of NATO defense ministers in France, he advocated greater alliance participation in Afghanistan and Iraq.


He also said he believed that U.S. and European policy toward Iran's nuclear efforts were in alignment.


Rumsfeld added his address to the weekend gathering of top security officials to his agenda at the last minute. Defense experts and policy-makers traditionally use the meeting for frank exchanges in an informal atmosphere.



02/12/05 05:17


? Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved

********************

Is a leader of one of the core states actually suggesting that Western Civilization towards a true Stage 5 'Universal Empire', perhaps as an alternative to jumping directly from our current (third) Stage 4 'Time of Troubles' to 'Stage 6 'Decay'? If so, might it not already be too late, or can it actually be made to work, even at this late date?







Post#97 at 02-13-2005 12:39 PM by Tim Walker '56 [at joined Jun 2001 #posts 24]
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The Babylonians by Elaine Landau

Chapter 4 Kassite Rule:

"...The Kassites rusled Babylonia for nearly four hundred years, from about 1595 to 1157 B.C.-considerably longer than any other dynasty...but the Kassites' rule was hardly oppressive. These invaders adopted Babylonia's culture and became fully absorbed into the Babylonian way of life. As they were careful not to tread on the already established rights of Babylonian citizens, they never had to deal with rebellions.....

"...While ruling Babylonia, the Kassites were especially active in encouraging international trade. They established an ongoing trade agreement with Egypt that provided for a number of caravans carrying trade goods to travel between the two countries. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C., trade also blossomed between Babylonia and Assyria-the now strong empire-building nation that once had been controlled by Babylonia. Babylonia even imported precious gems from such distant places as India and Afghanistan by way of Iran.

"...From the beginning of the fourteenth century B.C. on, there was also a great deal of rebuilding in Babylonia. Internal peace allowed funds and energy to be put into restoring the area. New prosperous towns sprang up, and the temples and other structures at important ancient cities were restored as well. Some of the outer walls of the temples were decorated with attractive paintings and sculpture.

"...It was also a time of religious renewal in Babylonia. From about 1200 B.C. there had been a trend toward worshiping one god rather than many. Now, the Babylonians viewed the god Marduk as the ultimate supreme being....

"...In addition to the emphasis on religion, there was also a burst of literary activity...Myths, epics, and hymns to both the gods and rulers were composed. Other new works included compositions exploring such issues as proper conduct and sound beliefs. These pieces were often referred to as Wisdom Literature. Older works were not forgotten, as scribes of the time spent seemingly endless hours carefully copying ancient texts."







Post#98 at 02-13-2005 01:05 PM by Tim Walker '56 [at joined Jun 2001 #posts 24]
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Ancient Iraq by Georges Roux

The author commented that Kassite rule was....

"...an epoch of revival and even of progress, at least in some fields. There is no doubt, for instance, that the Kassites restored order, peace and unity in a country devastated by half a millenium of war, kept up with Mesopotamian traditions and behaved in every way like good, sensible, Mesopotamian monarchs."

There seems to have been a bit of creativity during Kassite rule:

"...major, or minor changes were wrought by the Kassites or, at least, took place during their reign. They range from the way of measuring fields to the fashion of dressing....Two of them are of particular interest to the historian. One is the substitution for the old dating system of year-names of a simpler system, whereby the years of each reign, counting from the first New Year following coronation, were expressed in figures, e.g. 'first, second, etc., year of King N'. The other novelty is the kudurru. The Akkadian word kudurru means 'frontier, boundary', and these little steles are often called 'boundry stones', although there were in reality donation charts, records of royal grants of land, written on stone and kept in temples, while copies on clay were given to the landowners. A kudurru was usually divided into two parts: on the recto or on the upper part of the stele were sculptured in low relief the images of the gods-often replaced by their symbols: a sun-disc for Shamash, a moon-crescent for Sin, a hoe for Marduk, etc.-under whose guarantee was placed the donation made by the king, on the verso or under the sculptures was engraved a long inscription giving the name of the person who benefitted from the grant, the exact location and measurements of the estate, the various exemptions and privileges attached to it, a list of witnesses and finally, multiple and colorful maledictions against 'whosoever in the future should deface, alter or destroy' the kudurru.

"...These small monuments are, with cylinder-seals and terracotta statues and figurines, about the only works of art of the Kassite period that have survived. While the sculpture on the kudurru is predominantly symbolic and static, the designs on the seals comprise novel geometric figures (lozenges, crosses, crescents) and a variety of animals previously not represented, such as the fly, the bee, the grasshopper, the dog or the monkey, using 'in motion'...."

The author described the efforts to preserve the old Babylonian culture, which was saved from oblivion by scribes. However....

"...The religious and philosophical concepts traditional in Mesopotamia were preserved, but in the relationship between men and gods the stress was put on resignation rather than on confidence, on superstition rather than on faith."







Post#99 at 02-13-2005 01:45 PM by Tim Walker '56 [at joined Jun 2001 #posts 24]
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civilizational phases of Mesopotamia

As listed by Carroll Quigley:

1. Mixture 6000-5000 B.C.

2. Gestation 5000-4500

3. Expansion 4500-2500

4. Conflict 2500-800

5. Universal Empire: a. Core 1700-1650 b. Whole Civilization 725-450

6. Decay 450-350

7. Invasion 350-200


The "Core" empire listed above was that of Hammurabi. Like that of Alexander the Great, Hammurabi's empire began to fall apart with his death. The Kassites took over, and the long division between Babylon and Assyria began.







Post#100 at 02-14-2005 10:50 AM by Prisoner 81591518 [at joined Mar 2003 #posts 2,460]
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Re: So the question is....

Quote Originally Posted by Tim Walker
What are the West's prospects for renewal?


If an older Mesopotamian civilization could renew itself, why not us?
To reiterate:
As for a 4th Expansion Phase, I'm afraid I just can't see that happening, and haven't been able to since the last 2T, when the very idea of another Expansion Phase was anathematized in many circles as being 'politically incorrect' at best. (From an environmentalist/Malthusian POV, especially.)
IOW, the more prominent 'progressive' ideals of the last 2T are, by their very nature, in vehement opposition to the very idea of a 4th Expansion Phase, and are equally opposed to any 'Universal Empire' centered on the one Peripheral State which is capable of establishing such an empire (the United States). The only people nowadays who reject said ideals are themselves 'vested interest' reactionaries who present no real alternatives to continued conflict, leading first to empire, and then eventually to decay. So much for any real hope for civilizational renewal.
-----------------------------------------