"The continuity of the cultural field" (9). The axioms of civilizations

3.2. Imperial stabilization

The earth's average temperatures increased abruptly some 12,000 years ago and they stabilized a little less than 9000 years ago. Since then they have varied within a very narrow bandwidth, of + 0.5 °C to - 0.5 °C, which procured humanity a unique climate stability that climatologists have never observed in the earlier climate history of the earth.



The first civilizations, Sumer and Xia, emerged sometime between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago. This gives a transition between tribal societies and empires-civilizations that spanned some 7,000 to 8,000 years. It is important to always remember that the reproduction of the power-institutions of empires is what finally unleashed civilizations upon humanity. But there is still much uncertainty about how those civilizations emerged and ideological considerations are furthermore vastly complicating the story.



Knowledge about that period comes from 2 sources:

1. Written materials :
   
   Early written materials that refer to the origins of an empire often remain unproven by archaeological discoveries and such material is referred to under the rubric of “legendary sources”.



2. Archaeological discoveries :
   
   Excavations uncover the material that certifies historical reality. Archaeology was initiated by Europeans in the 19th century and European archaeologists have focused the bulk of the available money, and also their time and efforts, on the areas directly related to the emergence of the European Christian civilization. Those areas were under European colonial rule so the barriers of entry were nonexistent. Countries, not under European territorial control, were largely off limit to European archaeological research and seen that it was exclusively a European affair archaeology in those countries has been something of a late comer. In consequence their early history is not as well documented as the history of countries within the Fertile Crescent. This is then touted by Western ideologues as a sign of the non-history of these countries...

The differential observed, in the start of archaeological excavations between different areas, has led many Europeans to conclude that the oldest civilization on earth is located in the Middle-East. Some historians immediately concluded that civilization originated in the Middle-East and was exported from there to other places. Such a conclusion was often accompanied by a value judgment belittling the histories of “the others”, while aggrandizing their own, for descending from this cradle of civilization.



The traditional history of civilization, as written by West-Europeans, affirmed that it originated in the Fertile Crescent and that from there it spread out to the rest of the world. Today most historians agree that civilizations arose independently from one another in several locations. And these centers of civilization are now generally viewed as originating the history of 'civilized humanity' :

• the Nile Valley in Egypt
• the Tigris–Euphrates valleys in Mesopotamia
• the sources of the Tigris–Euphrates in the territory of present day Turkish Anatolia 
• the extension of the Fertile Crescent into the North-West of present-day Iran
• the Indus River Valley in present day Pakistan 
• the Yellow and Yangtze River valleys in present day China 
• Mesoamerica 
• Andean South America
• Norte-Chico in present-day Peru
• the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Colombia.

Note how Africa is absent in this European listing of the places that originated the history of 'civilized humanity'.



Notwithstanding all this most Western scholars continue to state to this day that the Fertile Crescent is the cradle of civilization. But since the countries, where other centers of civilization originated, started to allocate research budgets to their universities new discoveries are proving that Western-centrism is a myth that has been debunked once and for all. But the fact is that it takes much time for facts to be registered by all; and that is if they ever get registered at all.



As I just stated the subject of history in Modernity, as so many other subjects, has been originated, over the last 2-3 centuries, in Christian Western Europe. Western Europeans thought that they were the most advanced beings among all the creations of their god and they also thought that god had given them the earth as a playground. It makes thus sense that they have been thinking of themselves, during all this time, as being at the center of reality.



Their system of thought is rooted in the axioms of their civilization and chief among these axioms is dualism which rests on the assumption that their god is the ultimate cause that started the operation of reality. See “3.3. The axioms of East and West”. If god is the ultimate cause of the operation of reality, as Westerners believe that he is, then in their thinking he must also necessarily be the ultimate good. This is how the Western narrative about the operation of reality came to center on the love of god who is viewed as the ultimate good who acts as one side of “the dualism good-evil”. And being the mechanism that powers human actions dualism, in finale, is what sets in motion the flow of time as was laid out by Aristotle and passed down to Western Europe through Roman Christianity.



Being firm believers in their god Western Europeans then posited that they are automatically on his side. It is in this sense that they believe naturally inheriting from him his goodness. And so they feel justified to oppose the otherness of “the other” which they think represents evil. This is the dialectical moment that Western Europeans, and by extension citizens of geographic extensions of Europe, get unconsciously bogged down in their characterization of “the other” as the representation of evil. It is also how Western citizens have been unconsciously engulfed historically in bouts of societal madness that often ended in acts of great barbarity. Many signs are presently pointing to the unfolding in the West of such a bout of societal madness. Lets hope that this time around the West escapes the terminal barbarity that could be hurting the survival of humanity.

 

I will address the following in my next posts :

3.2.1. Signals of imperial stabilization

3.2.2. The essential role of a codified worldview in imperial stabilization

3.2.3. Why such a stark differentiation between East and West ?