Chapter four covers culture and religion in Eurasia and
North Africa between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E., so we are still talking about
second-wave civilizations including those in: China, India, Persia/the Middle
East, and Greece. These cultural “traditions are among the most enduring legacies
that second-wave civilizations have bequeathed to the modern world.” In China,
the long lasting traditions came to be Confucianism and Daoism. In India,
writings known as the Upanishads would give expression to Hinduism. Buddhism
was born in India as well, though it died out in its homeland and was absorbed
into a new popular Hinduism. In the Middle East, there appeared the
monotheistic traditions of Zarathustra, and Judaism –which would set the ground
work for Christianity and Islam. Then
out of Greece came the rational and humanistic tradition of those like
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These are not the only cultural and religious traditions
in these areas, but they are the most long lasting.
I mentioned Confucianism and the rule of China in my last
post. Reading about it in slightly more depth made me see how rigid it actually
is. And of course, while not as heavy-handed as the earlier Legalism with it’s
strict reward and punishment system and pessimistic view of human nature (150),
Confucianism is concerned with the perfection of one’s moral character,
specifically men’s. That is an interesting take from the point of view of
someone like me that does not believe in perfection, but perhaps there is
nothing wrong with striving for it. On the other end of the spectrum, in
response to Confucianism and its emphasis on developing culture, is Daoism and
its emphasis on nature. I thought at first that these two very different ways
of thinking would be in conflict with each other at first, but then I was
reminded of the concept of yin and yang; “the unity of opposites” (156). I have
encountered this concept before, especially in my study of martial arts, and in
nature. For example, night and day are opposites, but neither can exist without
the other. It is, however hard to exercise mastery of the concept in every day
life when I have grown up within the somewhat Western (?) framework that often
times says there can only be one dominating school of thought. All or nothing
thinking, or perhaps everything has to be one way or the other…in those terms I
suppose. But that is not how things turned out in the case of Confucianism and
Daoism. They were practiced side by side, complimenting rather than clashing or
contradicting the each other. I like this concept.
I found it interesting that instead of completely dying out,
that Buddhism was not eradicated but more absorbed into the new popular
Hinduism that accompanied the writing of the epic poems of Mahabharata and the
Ramayana (the Ramayana is a fascinating read, by the way, though I only read a
brief version of it).
The monotheism that emerged in the Middle East is somewhat
more familiar to me than other traditions. I like the fact that the book
mentions the Eurocentric idea that Christianity is a European religion, when in
fact most followers for the first six centuries of the Christian era were
non-European (174). I find that some people do not know this and when I have
conversations and bring up this point they tend to get irritated. But what am I
to do? Lie? Others, however, are very open to learning about this.
The practice of monotheism, in my opinion, gets a bit
messier. I suppose it is messier in only the context that, at least in Judaism,
Yahweh (God) “demanded their exclusive loyalty” (167). This would be hard, or
messy, because these people lived in a world where multiple Gods were worshiped
by many different peoples. This problem was extended to the time of early
Christianity, a more missionary religion that would seek converts and where
martyrdom came to be a prominent feature. Islam is not excluded as it is also
monotheistic.
“The Greek Way of Knowing” (169) was just as threatening to
others in their beginning as perhaps monotheistic religions in the Middle East.
Take a look at Socrates, who “challenged conventional ideas about the
importance of wealth and power in living well, urging…instead the pursuit of
wisdom and virtue” (169). He also had good things to say about Sparta, which
threatened the Athenian government (the city state where he was from), was
accused him of corrupting the youth, and he was then executed. Nevertheless,
the classical Greek thinkers made great strides in government, physics,
astronomy, ethics, etc. I find it highly interesting, but not surprising, that
when the Western Roman empire fell, most of the of the classical Greek
knowledge went with it. Christianity filled the void of the power vacuum left
by the fall of Rome, and dominated Western thought and culture for centuries. But
the legacy of the Greeks were not dead, and they remain an inspiration to
people and nations.
As enduring moral and cultural, and religious orders that
began so long ago I cannot even imagine it, these traditions are fascinating to
read about.
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