World History Mid-Term

Introduction to the Essentials

    Brian Tierney argued for "distinctive characteristics that set Western Civilization apart from the other great historic cultures" (Great Issues in Western Civilization, ed. Tierney, Kagan and Williams, xi.). This thinking fits into the "Western Heritage" approach. It often emphasizes national history, local-cultural uniquenesses, individuality/progress to explain history.

      On the other hand, some historians have stressed "what civilizations have in common". These historians see World History more in a Comparative or Cross-Cultural Mode. Comparative history emphasizes how societies form, change, interact with one another, and end. It relies on similar causes, similar forces for change and for ends, e.g., natural resources or social-economic causation.

      These are the two main approaches to World History, two differenet Worldviews -- Conflict vs Consensus, Western vs Comparative, unique vs shared -- with different assumptions and  implications. Choose either approach, then contrast or compare Western and Eastern primary sources -- Pericles' Funeral Oration and other Greek sources with the Book of Esther on a single theme that interests you in this First Empires section (or any other section or source of early World History: your choice).

      Think the project through yourself, then settle on the theme that seems most convincing to you in reading the evidence. Once you have decided on approach and theme, present solid examples each from the Western and the Eastern view that support your line of thought:' similar or different?' is the main question. Keep this question in mind, since it will serve us well with future readings.

      There are problems and advantages in both these approaches. For example, the 'western heritage' conception often leads to ethnocentric (imperial/nationalistic/domination) history. While the 'comparative' conception often blurs true differences in (naive/biased/simplistic) attempts at 'consensus-at-any-price'.

Here is an example of a student dealing with some of these issues -- Augustine & Taoism.

    Below is the prof's short example of another (not an 'A' level quality, but also not below 'C' level: Cf. comments at the end). It first follows the Tierney approach, but as the end reveals, could as easily have argued for the either approach.

      If there is one true, irrefutable fact in history, it is that historians often disagree.  Top historians offer direction, issues, ideas, etc., and so they are useful. But one cannot merely accept what any one (or ten!) historian(s) say.  Our task is to go beyond: 1.) by examining evidence, 2.) thinking it through, 3.) coming to our own conclusions (not opinions). I wish you well.

End and Beginning are dreams!-- from the Baghavad Gita, ch. 2
                                                                                            by Michael Markowski

    Brian Tierney and other historians have argued that Western Civilization has some distinct characteristics not found in the world's "other great historical cultures." (Great Issues in Western Civilization, ed. Tierney, Kagan and Williams, xi.).  This paper will explore the idea of "rational scientific inquiry" in the West and East by centering on the single theme of the warrior ethic, which itself is the basis for defining an individual's place within that group.

    In the Baghavad Gita, the warrior Arjuna faced the enormous difficulty of whether or not to go into battle against his own kinfolk and friends.  Arjuna's individual thinking brought him to the conclusion that it was better to die or withdraw from the battle than fight against his own relations.  The god Krishna, however, taught Arjuna that no fault came from killing relatives, or anyone, for two reasons: First because Arjuna's warrior caste required him to fight, and fight well,  under any circumstances without regard to the consequences. So Krishna clearly teaches all readers that rational thinking must give way before the dogmatic implications of Hinduism.

    These implications go further by defining the nature of life and death:  In Krishna's own words, "End and Beginning are dreams" and killing as well as individualism are illusions, so therefore, not only may Arjuna join battle against and kill friendsand relatives, he must. And in so doing, he really accomplishes nothing meaningful in the physical world, but does fulfill the requirements of caste, gains in karma, and participates in the turning wheel of reincarnation. Killing is not a fault if life's true and real meaning only resides in the spiritual, not the physical: As Krishna taught:

Nay, but as when one layeth
         His worn-out robes away,
       And, taking new ones, sayeth,
         "These will I wear to-day!"
       So putteth by the spirit
         Lightly its garb of flesh,
       And passeth to inherit
         A residence afresh.

    I say to thee weapons reach not the Life;
  Flame burns it not, waters cannot o'erwhelm

-- (from theBaghavad Gita, Chapter 2; cf. also Reilly, 99).

    The emphasis which the Gita places on spiritual life at the expense of the rational and/or physical destroys the very basis of individualism because the individual and his or her center -- rationality, the mind, one's own body and life --  cease to be important before the needs of the group mentality. Answers are drawn not from experience or thoughtful argument (Arjuna's own warrior morality dictated he die rather than kill relatives) but from the group/caste and the divine. Those dictates robbed significance from the human mind and human experience.

    A different picture presents itself in Homer's Iliad. Achilles, the ultimate Greek warrior, made his own decision about when to fight or not. Actually, against all "caste" and group requirements, Achilles withdrew from helping the Greeks against the Trojans because he felt insulted by the Greek leader Agamemnon.  Achilles' own individualistic values provided the answers of when not to fight.  Later, when Achilles' friend Patroclus was killed by the Trojans, Achilles made another, personal decision that now he would re-enter the fray.

    Neither of Achilles' decisions were dictated by the gods or the group mentality, but by  his own individual standards. The gods often do intervene in human affair in Homer, and sometimes do undercut human spheres of individual action.  Still, Homer is most famous for an early creation of humanist, rational values and a conception of individualism. For example, even after Achilles has died and is in the afterlife, his observations and preferences are clear:

Let me hear no smooth talk of death from you, Odysseus, light of counsels.
Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand
for some poor country man, on iron rations,
than lord it over all the exhausted dead.

(Odyssey, Book 11:577-81; trans. by R. Fitzgerald, 190)

    In those last, famous lines, later re-worked by Milton, Achilles makes the clear choice  for any physical life over the spiritual. It is through individual rationality that Homer and later Greeks would begin to change the face of the physical world through mathematical inquiry, philosophy, history, literature, poetry, politics, architecture, art etc. Even in  Homer,  it is  "Penelope the wise" along with "crafty" Odysseus who prevail against the suitors.

    In the comparison of these two texts, there is a greater emphasis on the rational individual in the West than in the East. One might be tempted to conclude an ethnocentric "better" in the West on this account, but before doing so, two things come to mind: One, the Gita might be right about the primacy of the group based on the spiritual: the rational inquiry has no way of disproving Krishna or any divine system. And second, Western rationality is a two-edged sword, or to carry the warrior theme a bit further, rational scientific inquiry has used nuclear energy to keep homes warm at night at low cost, and it has used nuclear energy to destroy entire cities (in Japan) and to threaten the very existence of all individuality, of rational scientific inquiry, of humanity itself! To turn around the Gita phrase, perhaps the beginning of rationality spells its end....but that end would indeed be a bad "dream."

But, one might argue the opposite....

     Accepting the first part of this essay concerning Arjuna, one might also bring up the Mitylenean Debate to argue that Greek individualism was smothered by concerns of the state or the group. For example, both Diodotus and Cleon argue that the good of Athens must determine the retribution due to the Mityleneans (specific examples from Thucydides should follow at this point).  Or, one might cite Socrates' devotion to the state which included drinking the hemlock rather than self preservation. Another example can be found in Homer's Odyssey where Odysseus' loyalty to home and Ithaca overshadow any personal desires to become immortal and remain with the nymph Calypso or the goddess Circe.

     Such examples find more in the way of similarity to Arjuna's position, and hence, with the sharing of characteristics across cultural boundaries. This approach agrees with the comparative thesis of Stearns, rather than the distinct themes of Tierney.

Prof's comments on the Prof's example:

This paper has promise, but does not fulfill that promise. The paper does not even present/examine/explain three examples each from the Eastern and the Western document(s). (Citations need improvement also.)

The paper begins well in its argument of differences based on secondary sources (uniqueness of the West) and it provides a couple of good examples which are explained clearly and to the point. But the last two paragraphs introduce some confusion into the theme of the paper, and the paper needs to develop that apparent contradiction then find some reconciliation, however it might turn out.

This paper has a clever title: Its "Beginning" is done well, but the "Middle" of the paper needs to be developed further with more examples and more thinking on that apparent contradiction, and the "End" needs to bring it all home to a more fulfilling conclusion of the themes introduced.

Hence, as said earlier, this paper is not below "C" Level, but not as high as an "A" either.