After the long weekend, a few more notes on the Mayans, stimulated by William Carlsen's book, Jungle of Stone: One - While catching up on the flotsam and jetsam of the news cycle, I came across a set of new discoveries on ancient civilizations from Listverse. On one, we find that the Nazca of Peru (those of the famous Nazca Lines), who's civilization vanished around 500 AD, caused their own demise by over-cutting the sparse dry-forest trees that retained moisture and held down the soil during El Nino rain years. On the other hand, the vast civilization in India known as the Harappan culture, one that stretched over 300,000 square miles up to 4,000 years ago, crumbled due to massive climate change. Drought dried up the rivers and caused the people to disperse into small settlements as well as they could.
So, in considering our own concerns on climate change, history leaves us hanging on the edge. Climate change does occur naturally and sometimes spectacularly on a regular basis, without prompting from humans. But humans are also often responsible for smaller changes that can lead to the demise of their subsistence base. The question is: is the industrial age so powerful that it can change the course of an entire planet, or are we only witnessing, in global warming, a natural change well beyond our powers? Certainly, our children or grandchildren will know for sure.
Whether they will be living in Jetson's-style floating houses, or in crude bark huts, remains to be seen, but we are not the Harappans or the Nazcans or the Maya. Almost all of us now live in a global economy. If great war or huge climate change does not take place, we will most likely continue along the path of science we have forged today, for small-scale disasters cannot take down the whole world. However, if we do fall, it will be catastrophic. Our population is far too great to be supported by primitive agriculture, and - just as bad - most of us have no idea how to support ourselves from the ground up anyway. For those who wish to see the 'monster' fall, better be careful for what you wish.
And two: Carlsen tell us that archaeologists have largely deciphered the writings of the Mayans, the only people in the New World to have a complete phonetic script. From this, we find that their lives revolved around war and blood sacrifice. Kings would be carried on stretchers onto battlefields, and those who lost would be taken back to the victor's city to be killed (along with other elites. Commoner soldiers were often forced into slavery). This would be done after a ball-game with some semblance to modern soccer, where the game was seen as a go-between and enactment of the mythological battle of the gods. Here, the losers would also be sacrificed, just as in the mythological past, where the losers of the god-wars were killed. The winners, as in myth, were "good", and so the human battle, the ball game, and the mythical battle were seen as one in the same - a war between good and evil where the good eventually won.
Here, however, the "good" was decided only by victory, as the gods decreed, because, for the Maya, what happened on earth was a shadow of what happened in the god sphere and could not be any other way. Destiny, morality, and reality coincided unfailingly. The good was always, in the end, victorious, and by this, the good could be known on earth.
This is not only at odds with current Western (and other's) morality, but often the exact opposite. For Jesus, the victor - or the rich man or the man of power - was at a disadvantage morally, and indeed had about the same chance to get into heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle. This has influenced Western culture to such an extent that today, even and perhaps especially with the non-religious, it is the "victim," however that might be defined, who holds the moral cards. Nietzsche remarked on this over one hundred years ago, and vociferously opposed it, instead opting for the return of the hero (or the 'superman') to salvage Western civilization. Instead, of course, the one man who took him all too seriously, Hitler, ended up causing the opposite to happen.
Hitler: paradoxically, he did lose, and the victors claimed the moral high -ground, just as the Mayan victors did. However, his philosophy was based on the moral superiority of the strong. Who, then, was stronger, the winners or the losers? The victims, or the "supermen"?
We muddle through this today, lost in the same paradox. Worse, as all the cultures of the world have been drawn together, we have become ecumenical by necessity. But sometimes, we have to decide who is right. If we, for instance, judge the victim culture to be superior, might not that culture, with more of a Mayan view, use that to its advantage, to become the victor in the end, and thus prove itself morally superior? Here we are dealing with two black and white concepts that appear to be universal, although different cultures flip them from one side to another. Are, we all ask, the wealthy and powerful wealthy and powerful because god approves of them, and so, then, should we? Or are they abusers, the disadvantaged of Jesus, who have to give up everything to follow him, but have so much more to give up?
Those like the Maya who believe in the victor have the easier path, because it makes more (common) sense. Who would not rather be the hammer than the nail? And yet, it is Western culture with its empathy for the victim that has, to date, been the most powerful force on earth ever. Is this not proof, then, that Jesus was right? But that would make the victim the victor, right here on earth.
This is not a historic essay, for many have claimed that the Western "victim" has indeed been passive-aggressive and only used and abused its philosophy; rather I speak of morals and who is right or wrong. Is "right" something that is steadfast, or does it move with the times, flipping back and forth to accommodate the circumstances? Was it right for Jesus's time and place to be a victim, but wrong for the Maya? For in the end, it is almost a certainty that even our civilization will end, and with that will go our concepts of right and wrong, following the path of the Maya.
Perhaps that is why Christianity posits an end-time, for, to the Christian, the passing of its god as just another would be unthinkable. On the other hand, never before has humanity had the ability as it does now to destroy itself. Again, we can go back to the environmental question: are we only a part of the cycle, or have we indeed taken our own survival entirely into our own hands? And if so, are those hands guided by a supernatural power? For the first time in known history, we might just find out. Once again, paradoxically, we might want to pray to whatever god or gods that we know that we do not find out, even if that might solve the moral question once and for all. FK
So, in considering our own concerns on climate change, history leaves us hanging on the edge. Climate change does occur naturally and sometimes spectacularly on a regular basis, without prompting from humans. But humans are also often responsible for smaller changes that can lead to the demise of their subsistence base. The question is: is the industrial age so powerful that it can change the course of an entire planet, or are we only witnessing, in global warming, a natural change well beyond our powers? Certainly, our children or grandchildren will know for sure.
Whether they will be living in Jetson's-style floating houses, or in crude bark huts, remains to be seen, but we are not the Harappans or the Nazcans or the Maya. Almost all of us now live in a global economy. If great war or huge climate change does not take place, we will most likely continue along the path of science we have forged today, for small-scale disasters cannot take down the whole world. However, if we do fall, it will be catastrophic. Our population is far too great to be supported by primitive agriculture, and - just as bad - most of us have no idea how to support ourselves from the ground up anyway. For those who wish to see the 'monster' fall, better be careful for what you wish.
And two: Carlsen tell us that archaeologists have largely deciphered the writings of the Mayans, the only people in the New World to have a complete phonetic script. From this, we find that their lives revolved around war and blood sacrifice. Kings would be carried on stretchers onto battlefields, and those who lost would be taken back to the victor's city to be killed (along with other elites. Commoner soldiers were often forced into slavery). This would be done after a ball-game with some semblance to modern soccer, where the game was seen as a go-between and enactment of the mythological battle of the gods. Here, the losers would also be sacrificed, just as in the mythological past, where the losers of the god-wars were killed. The winners, as in myth, were "good", and so the human battle, the ball game, and the mythical battle were seen as one in the same - a war between good and evil where the good eventually won.
Here, however, the "good" was decided only by victory, as the gods decreed, because, for the Maya, what happened on earth was a shadow of what happened in the god sphere and could not be any other way. Destiny, morality, and reality coincided unfailingly. The good was always, in the end, victorious, and by this, the good could be known on earth.
This is not only at odds with current Western (and other's) morality, but often the exact opposite. For Jesus, the victor - or the rich man or the man of power - was at a disadvantage morally, and indeed had about the same chance to get into heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle. This has influenced Western culture to such an extent that today, even and perhaps especially with the non-religious, it is the "victim," however that might be defined, who holds the moral cards. Nietzsche remarked on this over one hundred years ago, and vociferously opposed it, instead opting for the return of the hero (or the 'superman') to salvage Western civilization. Instead, of course, the one man who took him all too seriously, Hitler, ended up causing the opposite to happen.
Hitler: paradoxically, he did lose, and the victors claimed the moral high -ground, just as the Mayan victors did. However, his philosophy was based on the moral superiority of the strong. Who, then, was stronger, the winners or the losers? The victims, or the "supermen"?
We muddle through this today, lost in the same paradox. Worse, as all the cultures of the world have been drawn together, we have become ecumenical by necessity. But sometimes, we have to decide who is right. If we, for instance, judge the victim culture to be superior, might not that culture, with more of a Mayan view, use that to its advantage, to become the victor in the end, and thus prove itself morally superior? Here we are dealing with two black and white concepts that appear to be universal, although different cultures flip them from one side to another. Are, we all ask, the wealthy and powerful wealthy and powerful because god approves of them, and so, then, should we? Or are they abusers, the disadvantaged of Jesus, who have to give up everything to follow him, but have so much more to give up?
Those like the Maya who believe in the victor have the easier path, because it makes more (common) sense. Who would not rather be the hammer than the nail? And yet, it is Western culture with its empathy for the victim that has, to date, been the most powerful force on earth ever. Is this not proof, then, that Jesus was right? But that would make the victim the victor, right here on earth.
This is not a historic essay, for many have claimed that the Western "victim" has indeed been passive-aggressive and only used and abused its philosophy; rather I speak of morals and who is right or wrong. Is "right" something that is steadfast, or does it move with the times, flipping back and forth to accommodate the circumstances? Was it right for Jesus's time and place to be a victim, but wrong for the Maya? For in the end, it is almost a certainty that even our civilization will end, and with that will go our concepts of right and wrong, following the path of the Maya.
Perhaps that is why Christianity posits an end-time, for, to the Christian, the passing of its god as just another would be unthinkable. On the other hand, never before has humanity had the ability as it does now to destroy itself. Again, we can go back to the environmental question: are we only a part of the cycle, or have we indeed taken our own survival entirely into our own hands? And if so, are those hands guided by a supernatural power? For the first time in known history, we might just find out. Once again, paradoxically, we might want to pray to whatever god or gods that we know that we do not find out, even if that might solve the moral question once and for all. FK
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