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Permalink Reply by Bo Olsson on May 14, 2010 at 12:44am

There sure was quite a lot of civilization around already 9-10.000 years ago. 5000 years later they were all very well established, - with organized production-sites, trade-routes and stations of regional, intra-regional and trans-oceanic ramafications, monumental architecture and construction, maths, astronomy and calendars, city-like infrastructures with handcrafts, arts, civil service and cultural inter-change at national proportions.

Since it all had to be initiated, developed and established only after the last ice-age, there must have been a period of 5000 years were CON-tact, CON-struction, PRO-action and PRO-duction were allcompasing guidelines. If strife and war had been part of that time we would never had reached the cultural level neccesary to produce and establish large, parallell bronze-age civilizations on all major continents.

Sadly - at some point - some 4000 years ago there were one - or a few small - group(s) of people that got the splendid idea that they could actually arm themselves with hunting-weapon and start shooting people dead - to take over their positions, as well as all their assets, houses and land. Since the stone will always beat the stone, the idea would work just splendid - at a material/functional level. Moreover, since the specifically equipped and trained killer-troopers would meet close to no /(serious) resistance or counter-attacks the endavours would be close to risk-free.
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And when the wolf got to taste the blood, he could simply repeat and repeat this reckless hunting over and over again - while he keeps expanding his teritory.

Since then the strategy of conquest have spread like wildfire - growing to etnic and international proportions. 3000 years ago we had large empires built on brute force and plunder rather than cultural traditions and legitimacy. Since 2000 years ago the history of the past civilizations were about to be completly eradicated - as the "new time", i.e. the paradigm of the empirial "legacy", became the foundantion of the post-war cultures of the old world. Integrated into all levels of society the new formulas of a constitution was based on power and rhetoic politics rather than histoic legitimacy, cultural and philosophical traditions. When the old civilisations was brougth down the new ("foreign") rulers would ignore most of the traditional values of the old constitutions and base their civil ordinations on dictate and demagogics. Consequently the academia óf antiquity was estinguised, corrupted and broken down to bits and pieces.

What reocurried was entire schools of philisophy and academia that at times were - as their employing warlords - scrupleless in what they would produce and do to keep their posts - and help the regime they worked for to segment theior control and expenad their regime. Consequently the academians of the iron-age/middle-ages would produce outrigt superstitions into perfect ideologies to subdue and stigmatize the very people they should serve. Finally the old historians, philophers, civil servants and other "keepers of sacred knowledges" turned into seducing illusionists, twisted magicans, and feudal lordships with nothing but contempt for the laymen that made their bread. Within the ironage empires all clercs and public officers learned to behave according to the culture of a dictatorial rule, where military domination would enforce slavery, economical explotation and ongoing conquests.

The core of this culture have continues untill our very days. The ideal is still to jump into rat-race where explotation of some-or-another source of gain is in sigth for the most clever, cunning, strong, fast and ruthless. Compared to the poverty and fatigue, frustration and poverty that now hits 3/4 of the industrialized world it is easy to argue for the old, traditional cultures of the "wilderness" - such as we used to know it from the Bornean jungle or the Polynesian Islands and the Amazon indians.

Unfortunately greed and jalously still seems to rule the planet - as we even keep on exterminating these last, handfew, populations of the old, natural life-style. It is avtually less than a DECADE since they "TERMINATED" yet another tribe of Amazon indians, with NAPALM-bombs, guided by satelite-photos (!!!) - to get to their woods and minerals. LAST YEAR they used BULLETS and granates to take out yet another small village of the Yanomanis - for exactly the same prupose.

9000 years ago we started spreading thar Yanomani-kind of culture from Japan, Taiwan, Mekong, Indus, Catal Huyk, Crete, Yucatan and Caral. Looking at the scrupless Frons Urbana subculture we're still upholding; what is the more "primitive" and "brutal" and "uncivil"; the modern industrial cowboys or the old-fashioned indians of the Amzon and Bornean jungles?


30 years before present "Ten Years After" launched the long-playing record "Who Do We Think We Are?".
Time is already overdue to expect every serious academian left to act with courage and determination to demand a minimum of legality and dignity - or otherwise rise hell WEREVER its due to extradict the brutal greed, rape and GENOCIDE were still hostage to.

By the way; Avoidance is NOT an obtion this time. Not even trying to give an honest answer to the above question will be considered self-poisnous - as well as an act of treason towards humanity, by our very children and grand-children. After 4000 years of conquest the wave of explotation have reached all around the globe - which means there are NO new food-stores, treasure-chambers, monuments, capitols, lands, populations, trade-routes, continents, jungles, mines or sea-floors left to explore and exploit.. That way "big greed" have nowhere left to go. Which is why even big buck should understand that the handfew genocides left to make won't do jackshit to any real account anyway. Big buck knows, of course, the "mayan time" is already up. Now we could hope that the rest of us are able to save whats left of western dignity. Thus we may demand that our intelectuals can provide a minimum of virtue.

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Permalink Reply by Mitchell Jones on May 14, 2010 at 6:27pm

Wow! What a great post! Is anyone out there familiar with the 1000 year rule? I was told this by someone and it seems to hold true when you look at archaeological history: Basically state-level societies only last for about 1000 years and then they collapse. Egypt may seem to be an exception, but when looked at more closely you find that Egypt had upheaval after upheaval and thus no Egyptian dynasty ruled for quite 1000 years. America and its empire is very young. However, it does seem like contradictions within the system are propelling us toward societal collapse.

Back to the "nobel savage" point. The people that seem to point out this stereotype seem to be ones who look only at the bad things that indigenous cultures do and not the positive things. Thus, romanticization of these cultures is demonized. But often these intellectuals are the ones advocating the destruction of these cultures.

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Permalink Reply by Bo Olsson on May 15, 2010 at 2:39am

I'll guess your're rigth about non-linear evolution. I wouldn't describe it as plainly "circular" though, rather 'spiraling'. That way we avoid the complete relativeness that some like to cling to, to avoid personal/social/political responsability - on ethical grounds - within the historical context. (Of course we all matter, somway or another - otherwise we would be born in lumps, as leaves on a limb...) Further, the spiraling evolution would include the indevaluation of time, as we are never the "same" anyway - as individuals, societies or cultures - as our predecessors. Time and chronology do exist, but as we are gravitating around the centre of our (common) origin we will still be evolving in a "circular" pattern of motion. With the small diversion of "open-ended-ness" that makes the circle a sprial...

For the sleep-walkers who refrain from evrything - from smoking to speaking up - there's not much to say, accept to the ones that enjoy official posts and public positions paid by the rest of us; evolution has a way with parasites, ehrm, species, that don't return the favours their enjoying.

When the 4000 year old circle of explotation is running dry the present stamina of value, i.e. money-as-marketgrowth, is evaporating too. Thus we're up for a big debate on what the stamina for change/inter-change/trade is going to be in the future. The question is as simple at it is imminent an d lethally important to the next circle of the evolutionary spiral; what can we use as a stamina/standard of value for the economy and trade of tomorrow? The need to rise the issue and find a substantial and sustainable answer will decide whether the next circle of evolution is going to expand around the last one - or implode on it, and retract towards the center of its origin.

Thus the tickets for the next circle of e-volution are already out, and they won't get to the gig by ignoring the writiing on the wall. And - btw. this time there are no special vip-tics to get at the counter. The only way to order is to stand up and adress the autrocities of ourselves - as well as our contemporay brethren, wheter they're black or white, catholic or jew. If we're not in for A future we're out, anyhow.

Still out of a ticket?




NIKOS GOUSGOUNIS said:

I have the opinion that evolution of the human species was never linear on this planet, but circular as u name it and the proof is some monuments such as Pyramids left on some sites but not built by people of local civilizations.Some natural catastrophes changed the evolution of advanced cultures and humanity had to come backwords to some ''primitive form'' many times , much more than Historians consider.

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Permalink Reply by Bo Olsson on May 15, 2010 at 3:36am

A bit sceptic about the 1000 year circle - as a general rule. You may extract a number of POSSIBLE stats from the archaelogical records. What they tell us about a warfare of scale is that it started around the borders of NW-India and the Persian Gulf, some 4000 yrs BP, before it raided into the flourishing cities of the Persian bay before it took of towards the treaures of the cultures in the west and nort-west. A millenium later it had reached the Meds and conquered a lot of lands, alves and good from the Sumerians, Hittites, Egyptians, Greek and Libyans. A millenium more and you have had a number of dynasties north and south of the Meds, before the Romans took over everything and Octopusian was planning to rule the entire world - in an empire "were the sun never would settle". But it still took half a millennia before the Roman empire colapsed and was reshaped as the Vatican empire - with an improved methodology of political dictatorship. With the old franco-roman senator-families at its core the new western empire would rise an imperial design of proportions that Augustus could hardly dream about as they conquered all of Europe and most of the Americas - at their 1000 year anniverary as an imperial power - as of 1500 AD. Since they're still around it seems that the religious empires are the most successful ones - with a record-of-merrit more than 1500 years old, while the old (pagan) empire of Rome became only 500 years, while the Greek/Macedonian lasted 300 years and the Phoenician was just about a 1000 years long.

Before that - and meanwhile- there was a number of Persian, Assyrian and Akkadian rulers that lasted a few hundred years each. The series of "Burnt Cities" - from Ur and Uruk to Tyre and Carthago - gives a clear outline of this story. As for the first big slayer we had guys like Krisna and Sargon of Akkad to show the world - and explain the rationale of - how large one could get; by attacking defenseless neighbours with boys who were trained to become scrupleless, strong and effective manslaugtherers. Since there was no way to defend against that shit except to train your own youth for the same physical skills of authrocities - all the cultures of the old world became affected and gradually turned their cultural idols into heroes of warfare. As said, the most effective and enduring of these cultures of tyrrany where the ones that called upon the sacred, the sanctomonious and the holy to motivate their yougsters to go on killing, robbing, torturing and enslaving, to serve their masters and their 'ultimate' goals. But also violent greed, social perversion and hostility as ideology has its time. Even if it have been ruling the world "for a time - and yet another time. And even yet half a time more - one day also this shall pass."

You ticket for next round, Sir...?!



Mitchell Jones said:

Wow! What a great post! Is anyone out there familiar with the 1000 year rule? I was told this by someone and it seems to hold true when you look at archaeological history: Basically state-level societies only last for about 1000 years and then they collapse. Egypt may seem to be an exception, but when looked at more closely you find that Egypt had upheaval after upheaval and thus no Egyptian dynasty ruled for quite 1000 years. America and its empire is very young. However, it does seem like contradictions within the system are propelling us toward societal collapse.

Back to the "nobel savage" point. The people that seem to point out this stereotype seem to be ones who look only at the bad things that indigenous cultures do and not the positive things. Thus, romanticization of these cultures is demonized. But often these intellectuals are the ones advocating the destruction of these cultures.

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