Chapter 2 1. The tyranny of ignorance
In 527, Flavius Anisius Justinian became ruler of Eastern Rome.
The Serbian farmer knew nothing about book knowledge.It was on his orders that the philosophical schools of ancient Athens were finally suppressed.He was also the one who closed the only Egyptian temple that had been worshiped for centuries since the New Christian monks invaded the Nile Valley.
The temple is located on a small island called Philae, not far from the first cataract of the Nile. From the time of human memory, this place has been a holy place to worship Isis. For some reason, Africa, The Greek and Roman gods had long since tragically vanished, but only this goddess remained alive.Until the sixth century, it was the only place where the ancient sacred hieroglyphs were understood, and a small number of priests continued to perform work long forgotten elsewhere.
And now, by order of an illiterate peasant known as "His Majesty the Emperor," the temple and the adjoining school became the property of the state, the gods and statues were sent to museums in Constantinople, priests and hieroglyphs The calligrapher was thrown into prison.After the last person died of hunger and cold, the hieroglyphic craft with a long tradition became a lost art.
What a pity.
It would have made the historian's job a lot easier if Justinian (the damn guy) had cut the grass a little bit and rescued a few old hieroglyphics experts to a safe place like Noah's Ark.We can once again spell out the weird Egyptian words (thanks to Champollion's genius), but we still don't understand the inner meanings they passed on to future generations.
Among the peoples of ancient societies such things abound.
The Babylonians with strange beards left us a whole brick-making yard full of religious texts. They once piously exclaimed: "Who will be able to understand the faithful words of God in the kingdom of heaven in the future?" What do you think?What do they think of the Holy Spirit, who continually invokes the protection of the Holy Spirit, tries to explain the law of the Holy Spirit, and inscribes the will of the Holy Spirit on the marble pillars of the holiest city?Now they are open-minded enough to encourage priests to study the kingdom of heaven and explore the land and sea, and then they become inhuman executioners. People may have a little neglect of religious etiquette that is now neglected, and there may be appalling punishments on their heads. The reason is that what?
We haven't figured it out yet.
We sent expeditions to Nineveh, to excavate monuments in the desert of Sinai, where the translated cuneiform tablets were miles long.All over Mesopotamia and Egypt, we have gone to great lengths to find the key that unlocks the front door of the mystical treasury of wisdom.
Suddenly, and quite by chance, we discovered the back door of the vault, which had always been open for anyone to enter at any time.
However, this little door of convenience isn't located anywhere near Arkada or Memphis.
It is hidden deep in the jungle.
The wooden pillars of the pagan temple almost sheltered it from the weather.
Looking for something easy to prey on, our ancestors came into contact with what they liked to call "savages." Their encounter was not pleasant. The poor savages misunderstood the intentions of the white men, and greeted them with spears and bows. The visitors reciprocated with heavy-bore pistols. Since then, a calm and unbiased exchange of ideas has been elusive. The savages are always portrayed as a bunch of dirty, lazy wretches who believe in crocodiles and dead trees, and that any calamity is their due.
meeting of east and west
Then came the turning point of the eighteenth century.Jean-Jacques Rousseau first saw the world through the eyes of his sad tears.His contemporaries, moved by his thoughts, took out their handkerchiefs and joined in the tears.
Their favorite subject was the ignorant savage, who in their view (though they had never seen a savage) was an unfortunate victim of circumstance, the true embodiment of all human virtues, three thousand years of corrupt civilization Institutions have deprived humanity of these virtues.
Today, at least in certain areas of investigation, we know better.
We study primitive man as we study higher poultry, although there is not much difference between the two.
Generally speaking, our hard work can always be exchanged for fruit.Savages are really our own self-expressions in bad circumstances, they are just not inspired by God.Through the careful study of savages we begin to understand the early societies of the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia; their thorough knowledge allows us to gain a glimpse into many of the strange ways that humans have formed during the last five thousand years. Innate instincts, these instincts are now buried deep under a thin shell of etiquette and habit.
These discoveries don't always fuel our pride.But on the other hand, an understanding of the circumstances from which we have escaped, an appreciation of the many things we have accomplished, can only give us new courage to approach the work at hand, if anything else, it is Take a tolerant attitude towards outdated brothers of different races.
This book is not a handbook of anthropology.
This is a book dedicated to tolerance.
But tolerance is a big proposition.
The allure of digressions can be great, and God knows where we will end up once we get off the highway.
That being the case, let me use half a page to properly explain what I mean by tolerance.
Language is one of the most deceitful inventions of man, and all definitions are arbitrary.Therefore, students of unknown juniors should worship under a book, because its authority has been accepted by most people who can understand the book.
I'm talking about the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The book reads on page 1052 of the twenty-sixth volume of the book: "Tolerance (from the Latin word tolerare): Allowing others freedom of action and judgment, patient and fair tolerance of opinions different from one's own or traditional views. "
There may be other definitions, but for the purposes of this book, I might as well use the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica as a lead.
Now that I have bound myself more or less to some definite purpose, I shall return to the savages, and tell you what kind of tolerance I find in the earliest forms of society on record.
People usually think that primitive society is very simple, primitive language is just a few simple grunts, and primitive people's freedom disappears only after society becomes "complex". For nearly fifty years, explorers, missionaries, and physicians have surveyed Central Africa, the Arctic, and Polynesia, and have come to diametrically opposed conclusions.Primitive societies are very complex, primitive languages have more tenses and declensions than Russian and Arabic, primitive people are slaves not only of the present, but of the past and the future; To live, to die trembling. What I have said seems far from the usual picture of savages, that of a company of red-skinned men roaming the prairie at leisure, in search of buffalo and booty, but it is nearer to the truth. How could things be otherwise? I have read many books about miracles. But they lacked a miracle: the miracle that humans survived. These unarmed mammals actually resisted the invasion of bacteria, mastodon, ice and snow, and scorching heat, and finally became the masters of all things. How and how they did this will not be discussed here. But one thing is for sure, this cannot be done by one person alone. People at that time had to melt their individuality into the complex tribal life in order to be successful.
There is only one creed that governs primitive society, that is, the supreme desire to live. There are many difficulties. All other desires are therefore subordinated to the highest demand—to survive. Individuals are insignificant, but collectives are of great importance.A tribe is an active fortress. It forms its own system, relies on the strength of the group, and seeks its own interests. Only by rejecting all foreign things can it be safe. But the problem is more complicated than what I just said. My words only apply to the visible world, but in the early stages of human development, the visible world is nothing compared to the invisible world. In order to fully understand, we must remember that primitive man was very different from us.They don't understand the law of cause and effect at all. If I were sitting on poison ivy, I would blame myself for my negligence, send for the doctor, and tell the kids to get rid of the stuff.The ability to discern cause and effect told me that the poison ivy was causing the rash, that the doctor would give me medicine for the itching, and that getting rid of the poison ivy would prevent something painful from happening again. The real savage reacts very differently.He wouldn't connect the rash with poison ivy.In the world he lives in, the past, present and future are intertwined and entangled.The dead chief becomes a god, and the dead neighbor becomes an elf, still an invisible member of the family, accompanying the living every step of the way.They still ate and slept with the dead, and guarded the gate together.Whether to avoid their closeness or to win their friendship is a question for the living to consider, otherwise they will be punished immediately.Since it is impossible for the living to know how to please the elves, they are always afraid that God will take misfortune on them as revenge. So, he attributed the anomalous events not to the original cause, but to the intervention of unseen spirits.When he noticed a rash on his arm, instead of saying, "Damn poison ivy!" he murmured, "I offended God, and he's come to punish me." It is not a plaster, but a talisman, and it must be a hundred times more effective than the one thrown to him by an angry god (not poison ivy). As for the poison ivy that made him suffer, he ignored it and let it grow as usual.If now and then a white man brought a bucket of kerosene and burned it, he would call him troublesome. Therefore, in a society where everything is believed to be controlled by unseen beings, the society cannot survive without absolute obedience to the laws that appease the wrath of God. According to the savage, laws do exist.The ancestors created the law and passed it down, and the most sacred duty of this generation is to pass it on intact and perfect to the next generation. This certainly seems absurd to us, and we believe in progress, development and continuous improvement. However, "progress" is a relatively recent concept, and the lower forms of society are characterized by people who believe that the status quo is already perfect and that there is no reason to improve it, because they have never seen other worlds.
If what has been said is true, how is it possible to prevent changes in laws and established forms of society? The answer is simple. By promptly punishing those who refuse to regard public regulations as the embodiment of the will of Heaven, or, to put it bluntly, by rigid and arbitrary institutions.
If I say from this that savages are the most intolerant, I do not mean to insult them, for I shall soon add that in the environment in which they inhabit, tyranny is a matter of course.If they tolerate the violation of the many rules and regulations that protect their personal safety, their purity of mind, and their tribal life, they will be ruined, which is the greatest sin. But (and this question deserves to be explored), how did a small number of people protect a whole set of regulations that depended on word of mouth?Today we have tens of thousands of policemen and millions of troops, yet we still find it difficult to enforce even a little common law. The answer is equally simple. Savages are much wiser than we are, and shrewdly calculate what force cannot enforce. They invented the concept of "taboo" (tabu). Perhaps the word "invention" is a bit of a misnomer; such things are rarely the product of a whim.They are the result of years of accumulation and practice.In any case, the savages of Africa and Polynesia figured out the concept of "taboo" and saved themselves a lot of trouble.
taboo
The word "taboo" originated in Australia.We all more or less know what it means.Today's world is full of taboos, things you can't do or say, like talking about a surgery you just had while eating or leaving a spoon in your coffee cup.But none of our taboos are of great importance, they are mere ceremonies, which do not disturb the happiness of life.
For primitive people, taboo is very important.
It means a person or an inanimate object that is beyond this world, something (in Hebrew) "sacred" that one must never talk about or relate to, at the cost of immediate death pain or eternal suffering.For those who dare to defy the will of the ancestors, you can curse and curse, but you must not show pity.
Whether priests invented taboos or created them to preserve taboos is an open question, and since tradition is older than religion, it is likely that taboos existed long before wizards and witches. But as soon as wizards first appeared in the world, they became staunch supporters of taboo, and they misappropriated the concept in a clever way, making taboo a prehistoric symbol of "forbidden things". When we first hear the names of Babylon and Egypt, they are still in the development period of taboo.Crude taboos were not, as they were later discovered in New Zealand, but commandments with the words "Thou shalt not . . . ".They are austere, negative yardsticks of human conduct, like the six familiar Christian Ten Commandments. Needless to say, the concept of tolerance was entirely unknown in the early history of those nations. What we sometimes see as tolerance is actually indifference born of ignorance. We never find kings and clergymen with an ounce of sincerity (even insignificance) in granting to others "freedom of action or judgment," or "a patient and just tolerance of opinions differing from their own or conventional views," and this has now become the ideal of our society.
It follows that the interest of this book is not in the study of prehistory, or of what is commonly called "ancient history." The struggle for tolerance does not begin until the individuality is discovered. Among the greatest new discoveries of modern times, the honor of the discovery of individuality should go to the Greeks.
Looking for something easy to prey on, our ancestors came into contact with what they liked to call "savages." Their encounter was not pleasant. The poor savages misunderstood the intentions of the white men, and greeted them with spears and bows. The visitors reciprocated with heavy-bore pistols. Since then, a calm and unbiased exchange of ideas has been elusive. The savages are always portrayed as a bunch of dirty, lazy wretches who believe in crocodiles and dead trees, and that any calamity is their due.
meeting of east and west
People usually think that primitive society is very simple, primitive language is just a few simple grunts, and primitive people's freedom disappears only after society becomes "complex". For nearly fifty years, explorers, missionaries, and physicians have surveyed Central Africa, the Arctic, and Polynesia, and have come to diametrically opposed conclusions.Primitive societies are very complex, primitive languages have more tenses and declensions than Russian and Arabic, primitive people are slaves not only of the present, but of the past and the future; To live, to die trembling. What I have said seems far from the usual picture of savages, that of a company of red-skinned men roaming the prairie at leisure, in search of buffalo and booty, but it is nearer to the truth. How could things be otherwise? I have read many books about miracles. But they lacked a miracle: the miracle that humans survived. These unarmed mammals actually resisted the invasion of bacteria, mastodon, ice and snow, and scorching heat, and finally became the masters of all things. How and how they did this will not be discussed here. But one thing is for sure, this cannot be done by one person alone. People at that time had to melt their individuality into the complex tribal life in order to be successful.
There is only one creed that governs primitive society, that is, the supreme desire to live. There are many difficulties. All other desires are therefore subordinated to the highest demand—to survive. Individuals are insignificant, but collectives are of great importance.A tribe is an active fortress. It forms its own system, relies on the strength of the group, and seeks its own interests. Only by rejecting all foreign things can it be safe. But the problem is more complicated than what I just said. My words only apply to the visible world, but in the early stages of human development, the visible world is nothing compared to the invisible world. In order to fully understand, we must remember that primitive man was very different from us.They don't understand the law of cause and effect at all. If I were sitting on poison ivy, I would blame myself for my negligence, send for the doctor, and tell the kids to get rid of the stuff.The ability to discern cause and effect told me that the poison ivy was causing the rash, that the doctor would give me medicine for the itching, and that getting rid of the poison ivy would prevent something painful from happening again. The real savage reacts very differently.He wouldn't connect the rash with poison ivy.In the world he lives in, the past, present and future are intertwined and entangled.The dead chief becomes a god, and the dead neighbor becomes an elf, still an invisible member of the family, accompanying the living every step of the way.They still ate and slept with the dead, and guarded the gate together.Whether to avoid their closeness or to win their friendship is a question for the living to consider, otherwise they will be punished immediately.Since it is impossible for the living to know how to please the elves, they are always afraid that God will take misfortune on them as revenge. So, he attributed the anomalous events not to the original cause, but to the intervention of unseen spirits.When he noticed a rash on his arm, instead of saying, "Damn poison ivy!" he murmured, "I offended God, and he's come to punish me." It is not a plaster, but a talisman, and it must be a hundred times more effective than the one thrown to him by an angry god (not poison ivy). As for the poison ivy that made him suffer, he ignored it and let it grow as usual.If now and then a white man brought a bucket of kerosene and burned it, he would call him troublesome. Therefore, in a society where everything is believed to be controlled by unseen beings, the society cannot survive without absolute obedience to the laws that appease the wrath of God. According to the savage, laws do exist.The ancestors created the law and passed it down, and the most sacred duty of this generation is to pass it on intact and perfect to the next generation. This certainly seems absurd to us, and we believe in progress, development and continuous improvement. However, "progress" is a relatively recent concept, and the lower forms of society are characterized by people who believe that the status quo is already perfect and that there is no reason to improve it, because they have never seen other worlds.
If what has been said is true, how is it possible to prevent changes in laws and established forms of society? The answer is simple. By promptly punishing those who refuse to regard public regulations as the embodiment of the will of Heaven, or, to put it bluntly, by rigid and arbitrary institutions.
If I say from this that savages are the most intolerant, I do not mean to insult them, for I shall soon add that in the environment in which they inhabit, tyranny is a matter of course.If they tolerate the violation of the many rules and regulations that protect their personal safety, their purity of mind, and their tribal life, they will be ruined, which is the greatest sin. But (and this question deserves to be explored), how did a small number of people protect a whole set of regulations that depended on word of mouth?Today we have tens of thousands of policemen and millions of troops, yet we still find it difficult to enforce even a little common law. The answer is equally simple. Savages are much wiser than we are, and shrewdly calculate what force cannot enforce. They invented the concept of "taboo" (tabu). Perhaps the word "invention" is a bit of a misnomer; such things are rarely the product of a whim.They are the result of years of accumulation and practice.In any case, the savages of Africa and Polynesia figured out the concept of "taboo" and saved themselves a lot of trouble.
taboo
Whether priests invented taboos or created them to preserve taboos is an open question, and since tradition is older than religion, it is likely that taboos existed long before wizards and witches. But as soon as wizards first appeared in the world, they became staunch supporters of taboo, and they misappropriated the concept in a clever way, making taboo a prehistoric symbol of "forbidden things". When we first hear the names of Babylon and Egypt, they are still in the development period of taboo.Crude taboos were not, as they were later discovered in New Zealand, but commandments with the words "Thou shalt not . . . ".They are austere, negative yardsticks of human conduct, like the six familiar Christian Ten Commandments. Needless to say, the concept of tolerance was entirely unknown in the early history of those nations. What we sometimes see as tolerance is actually indifference born of ignorance. We never find kings and clergymen with an ounce of sincerity (even insignificance) in granting to others "freedom of action or judgment," or "a patient and just tolerance of opinions differing from their own or conventional views," and this has now become the ideal of our society.
It follows that the interest of this book is not in the study of prehistory, or of what is commonly called "ancient history." The struggle for tolerance does not begin until the individuality is discovered. Among the greatest new discoveries of modern times, the honor of the discovery of individuality should go to the Greeks.