Moving from early India (see Friday, March 16th) to a similar period in Greece, we see comparable trends toward unity. Greece consisted of a number of city-states, each headed by a king. Evidence points to the early development and existence, as early as 1200 B.C., of a federation of monarchs, headed by the king of Mycenae. Later, at about 500 B.C., Greek genius for political organization caused the arrangement of Athenian citizens into purposely constituted units, comprised in such a way as to prevent the emergence of factionalism, such as between city dwellers and farmers. And in the fourth century before Christ, we see Athens engaging in further efforts toward unity, when it undertook the formation of a group of cities into a confederation known as the Delian League. (Furthermore, we learn that subsequent factionalism, and failure of cooperation among the League's elements, caused the weakness that enabled Philip of Macedon to eventually conquer Greece).
Other manifestations of inclination toward unity among the ancient Greeks include Diogenes' declaration in the fourth century before Christ, in answer to a query as to what country he was from, stating that he was "a citizen of the world." And, in his Republic, Plato implies a belief in the similarity of all men, when he describes society as "the individual writ large."
Stoicism, another Greek institution, applied to all men, and taught that all people were alike. It has been described as the seed of an ethical universalism which gradually transcended the distinctions between Greek and barbarian, and spoke of a common humanity. It urged a universal brotherhood of man, as well as tolerance for the rights of all.
This ongoing tendency toward unity can be seen during these centuries in lands farther East as well. During the sixth century before Christ, Confucius emphasized the wholeness of the universe, portraying the ultimate goal of mankind to be to strive together in a quest for universal peace and harmony. A Chinese philosopher named Mozi was noted for his declarations during the fifth century B.C., that the method of achieving universal love and benefit was via a regard of "other people's countries as one's own."
Thereafter, during the last centuries of the Chou dynasty, a school of writers known as the Legalists urged that there should be "one law for all," ordained and applied by one ruler. Some legalists attained high office within the succeeding Ch'in Dynasty, and transformed their aforementioned theories into practice. Among the results was the spawning and spread of a realization that the various segments that eventually constituted China possessed more similarities than differences. This led in turn to political unity during the Ch'in period--which, we are told, was a logical effect of the cultural unification that was thus already under way.
Moving to early Persia, we behold a rather unusual stride toward unity when, around 325 B.C., Alexander marriewd a Persian princess, the daughter of Darius, and shortly thereafter conducted a ceremony in which nine thousand of his troops married nine thousand women of the region. This celebrated spectacle has been referred to as "the famous marriage of East and West." Perhaps the occasion was as well in the mind of the Hellenic scientist Eratosthenes when he declared his perception of all good men as fellow countrymen.
The subsequent Roman ascendency was accompanied by further unifying gestures. The underlying purpose of the Twelve Tables, being the body of common law put into place by the Roman administration, as its realm spread farther and farther, has been described as a framework within which the empire's many cultures were able to survive and contribute to a common civilization.
In fact, the Mediterranean itself, as it existed around 100 B.C., has been described as a "great uniting force," within whose perimeter thrived comparable civilizations, and but a few (common) languages. At perhaps 30 A.D., Cicero affirmed the existence of a worldwide natural law which all men and governments ought observe. And, during that same period, the proponents of Christianity spoke of one God, one plan of Salvation, one Providence, and the concept that all mankind took its origin from one source; resulting in an "overwhelming sense of human unity." (Palmer ands Colton, A History of the Modern World).
As time goes on, further movement, interaction, and joinder among people and peoples takes place. Tribes began to travel into, to absorb and be absorbed into, what had been the Roman regions. Tribes encountered tribes, and intercourse between traditions and societies was inevitable.
Actually, by this time many of the details and burdens of life experienced by much of humanity were alike. From China to India to Western Europe to the Islamic regions, subsistence agriculture was the basis of life within society. All resorted to wind, running water, animal and human muscle as the sources of energy. These rings of similarity spread wider and wider across the globe. And today, although vast economic and technological differences among people and peoples are apparent, many, if not most, of the fundamental underlying details and burdens of our twenty-first century lives remain similar.
We also find evidence of this trend toward unity in the Arab world of the seventh century. Muhammad
himself taught a doctrine which held the brotherhood of believers (referred to as "umma") to be more important than the kinship of the family. This effected a movement away from a tribal setting, towards and into an administration, religion, and language that were simply and solely Arabic, embracing much of the Middle Eastern regions in a unity and singletude that has persisted for long periods. Further, in the Christian world of the seventh and eighth centuries, devotion to individual local saints and holy men came to be replaced by devotion to the "Eucharist and cross. This further consolidation within the Catholic Church produced abbeys, within each of which groups of monks lived culturally organized lives. And Christianity in general is credited with binding many together during these times, in moral and spiritual unity and conformity.
* * * * *
As time went on, combinations and mixings of groups and their cultures continued. In Europe, after 1000 A.D., groups of people became increasingly less isolated from each other. Kings consolidated their rule over the nobles of their regions and created larger and larger realms.
These gradual steps toward greater and greater forms of unity were neither unnoticed nor unheralded by some of our greatest thinkers. For example, a universal empire, jointly commanded by temporal and spiritual leaders, was proposed as early as the fourteenth century by Dante Alighieri. This ideal would later be echoed in the writings of Abbe' St.Pierre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the concept of royal domain over all of the inhabitants of larger and larger locales produced the sense of nationhood that began to arise within a growing number of places. In Europe, national patriotism replaced other more local forms of loyalty. These unifications ushered in the modern period of Western history.
Meanwhile, a belief which has been entitled "Humanism" arose during this time. Based upon a concept that our world contained a universal law of nature, which faith and reason would enable us to discover, Humanists declared that all men and all nations should obey that law.
Correspondingly, the medieval conventions of personal dependence that comprised feudalism faded; and centralization commenced becoming the social order of the day, as nation-state, and loyalty to the monarch, replaced vassaldom and loyalty to one's lord.
* * * * *
Following the establishment of these nation-states, man's next (what I consider to be) instinctive tendency toward unification began to manifest itself as imperialism; and I consider this imperialism to in fact be but a fulfillment of this inclination. Nations imposed themselves upon other, less developed, or less powerful, peoples and places; and though the result was not an acceptance or declaration of the subjugated people as equal members of the dominating nation, it did in fact result in a larger political organism (consider, for example, the British Empire), consisting of an assembly of several--in some cases numerous--additional groups of people. True, State A may be today regarded as having taken unfair advantage of States B, C, and D, when it made States B, C, and D its dependencies or colonies; but the net result is nevertheless that A, B, C, and D together (A and its empire, if you will) resulted in a larger and more assembled entity, and thus exhibited, for a time, a further degree of unification, than would have A, B, C, and D, standing alone.
Unfair and unjust, harsh and cruel, that European imperialism obviously was to millions of dominated people, it nevertheless did furthermore revolutionize the world economy of the period, converting hundreds of more-or-less self-supporting and self-contained economies into a worldwide network of exchange.
* * * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment