James F Welles-The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity
THE STORY OF STUPIDITY

by James F. Welles, Ph.D.
A History of Western Idiocy from the Days
of Greece to the Moment You Saw This Book

First Edition: First Printing Nov. 1988
Second Printing Jan. 1989
Third Printing Oct. 1989
Fourth Printing June 1990
Fifth Printing Dec. 1991 Sixth Printing Mar. 1994
Seventh Printing Nov. 1995
Eighth Printing Apr. 1996
Ninth Printing Jan. 1997
This book may be quoted for review purposes.
Copyright 1988
ISBN 0-9617729-0-3
Mount Pleasant Press
Box 212
Orient, NY
11957-0212
JWELLES103@AOL.COM

The Story Of Stupidity
Table of Contents
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
Psychosocial Mechanism of Stupidity
Biocultural Basis of Stupidity
Pre-Western Stupidity
Non-Western Stupidity
GREEK STUPIDITY
ROMAN STUPIDITY
MEDIEVAL STUPIDITY
STUPIDITY REBORN
STUPIDITY REFORMED
REASONABLE STUPIDITY
ENLIGHTENED STUPIDITY
INDUSTRIAL STUPIDITY
THE AGE OF ARROGANCE
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
HOME

Preface
History is a multifaceted discipline which may be studied many ways. A given era or civilization may
be analyzed in terms of political, economic and social history; biographical, cultural and intellectual
history; etc., etc. One might think that with all the history that has been written, there would be no
new way left to view the record of the past, but it appears that one facet of the discipline has been
overlooked.
Specialists in intellectual history have tended to treat the development of the Western mind as a
progressive triumph of intelligence over simple ignorance or perhaps stupidity. However, stupidity
itself was usually dealt with as an aside or an aggravating, exceptional condition which just
happened to exist because of the specifics of the moment. Each individual example was presented
as if it were some kind of historical accident due to the perverse minds involved, and then attention
was focused on how people overcame that particular brand of idiocy. The fact that in every
civilization, in every age, the historical record is replete with examples of stupidity was lost on
everyone. This is an analysis of that facet of our past which has heretofore never been examined in
its own right.
As one of the universals of the historical record, stupidity warrants our attention now more than
ever, as its costs have increased to the point that we no longer can afford it as we have in the past.
Hopefully, by studying this aspect of our behavior, we might learn how to reduce the incidence of
this phenomenon in the future. However, if nothing else, at least we will gain a fuller understanding
of how we became who and what we are as we add another perspective to historical analysis.
In that regard, a qualification is very much in order. This is not a book for the professional historian.
It is loaded with glittering generalities to which there are invariably exceptions. By way of
explanation and apology, I can plead only that the overwhelming mass of material made it
necessary to sacrifice both breadth and depth in this introductory endeavor. It would have been
easy to have doubled the length of this book but only at the risk of losing the general reader, to
whom it is directed. Likewise, each chapter could easily be expanded into a book of this length, and
perhaps some specialists will do so in the future. Certainly, the need is there if we are to understand
ourselves.
A further word is in order about the parenthetical dates which follow the names of some of the
individuals in the text. In the cases of rulers (i.e., kings, emperors and Popes), the dates refer to
reigns. For others,they indicate the dates of birth and death. Seldom are the specific dates
important. They are included as sign posts to give the non-historian some idea of when the events
being discussed occurred and are even omitted in cases where the context itself makes the
approximate dating clear.
Finally, let me express my gratitude to all the helpful resource librarians at the Floyd Memorial
Library in Greenport, New York, and to Mrs. Maria Heaney in particular. Her assistance in nailing
down details and references was invaluable and very much appreciated.
JFW
Orient, NY
September, 1988

I. Introduction
The Psychosocial Mechanism of Stupidity
What is stupidity? It is the learned corruption of learning. At best, learning about our surroundings
and ourselves is an imperfect process anyway. At worst, it is rendered difficult, impossible or
self-defeating by stupidity, which promotes maladaptive behavior by denying us information about
our environment and our effects on it.
In general, learning is directed and controlled by a "Schema"a master cognitive plan by which
each person organizes information. It is both a mental set which provides a context for interpreting
events in the perceptual field and a program for behavior. Schemas are good, if they are
appropriate and adequate, or bad, if they are inappropriate or inadequate for the situations and
problems at hand. Stupidity is a matter of unnecessarily modifying a good schema to its detriment or
unnecessarily adhering to a bad one to one's own detriment. We commonly do both, since we are
all emotionally involved with our schemas to the extent that we identify with them. Thus, a person
may change his to suit his self-image while being reluctant to alter it simply to bring it into
congruence with information from the environment.
Basically, a schema is a system of belief, and all people need something in which they can believe.
Often, this is a religious belief system based on faith in supernatural powers, forces or beings and is
accompanied by equally strong beliefs (i.e., "Secular religions") in human institutions and
individuals. Whatever the basis of the schema, it rationalizes the believer's relation to the world
while defining what he considers to be proper behavior in it. Invariably, each schema is
accompanied by an ideologyan intellectual, logical expression of the beliefs. The irony of the
human condition is that a person's behavior is so often inconsistent with his specific ideology,
particularly in matters of importance.
This self-deceptive aspect of human nature is due to the role the schema plays in binding groups of
people together. The schema is not only a behavioral/belief system for an individual; it also acts as
a unifying force for society. However, stupidity is induced when linguistic values, social norms,
groupthink and the neurotic paradox promote a positive feedback system which takes schematic
behavior to extremes unjustified by and often at odds with external conditions.
Language functions not only as a communication system for a group but also as a value system
which defines the mental life of the members and thus is a prime contributor to stupidity. On the
positive side, language obviously makes it possible for people to discuss problems, processes and
phenomena of which they are consciously aware. On the other hand, language also (and much
more subtly) affects the process of perception and makes it so ambiguous that people can accept
clear discrepancies between their beliefs and actions in many important, ego-defining situations. To
wit, Crusaders killed in the name of Christ, and businessmen work in the verbal context of
capitalism to enlist the aid of government when free competition hurts their specific interests. With
perception rendered so ambiguous and subjective, stupidity is invited, if not actually promoted, as
people usually can find some verbal framework in which they may rationalize their behavior and
some scapegoat or excuse to explain away their failures.
Thus, it appears that the verbal nature of our schemas shapes human perception by blurring the
boundary between unwelcomed fact and desired fancy. Perception is actually quite an active
process in which the perceiver selects certain aspects of his environment as worthy of his attention.
Many important events may be simply ignored because they are not deemed significant or
interesting. On the other hand, as we see as much with our minds as with our eyes, we are fully
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capable of perceiving conjured fantasies of events that did not happen and things that do not exist.
Further, if and when an actual event is perceived, it can be distorted, with details added or omitted
to suit the psyche of the observer. Finally, and most important of all, raw sensory data are coded,
reorganized and given meaning according to the perceiver's particular value system. Ergo, what any
person perceives is very much affected by his own experiences, attitudes, motives, psychological
defenses, etc., all of which are shaped very much by "Categorizing" according to verbal values.
We each really build our own reality by this process of sorting out perceptions into categories.
These are our own schematic constructs based on our specific language group. These constructs
then determine each person's psychological world, the rules of tongue used to assign percepts to
the given categories and the hypotheses created to explain how various events and objects
perceived relate to one another.
While linguistic systems act as screens or sieves between people and their environment, they
promote cooperation among group members by fostering common perceptions. At the same time,
they promote intergroup conflict as different languages lead to various perceptions and cognitions in
different societies. Thus, language is an obstacle not only to objectivity but also to cooperation
among diverse groups. Worst of all, language keeps people from understanding what they,
themselves, are doing.
People commonly have dysfunctional beliefs because their conscious schemas are shaped by the
verbal values of their reference groupi.e., their nation, religious organization, professional
association, etc. With everyone using the same biased language, it is unlikely that members could
develop original, self-correcting ideas. Hence, it is difficult for an insider to form and usually stupid of
him to offer an objective, critical analysis of his reference group, whatever it may be. Any attempt to
do so would most likely be regarded as heresy and the critic shunned or dismissed as a threat to
group integrity. (In fact, the only thing more aggravating to a group than a critic is an idealist who
lives up to its stated creed.)
Usually, people cannot be objective about themselves or anything else since they use their
group/language values to judge their world. If people are anything, they are judges, and their
perceptions of things and events are judged good or bad according to the standards formulated by
their given social experiences. To the extent that conformity is induced by both language and
norms, objective criticism is inhibited and stupidity induced when people strictly adhere to forms of
thought and behavior which are irrelevant to the problems at hand or self-defeating for those
involved.
One human universal is that every group is endowed with attributes which members regard not only
as positive and praiseworthy but self-justifying and self-glorifying. Individual members develop these
by internalizing group norms through socialization. In fact, it is through this process that a group is
formed, thereby giving individual members a sense of belonging. Dress, manners, gestures and
many other forms of learned social behavior tend to promote a sense of group unity and identity by
encouraging conformity among members. In addition, examples of "Success" by high ranking
members, verbal dicta and formal corrective measures all inhibit deviation from group standards.
Possession of qualities defined as "Good" makes a member a "Good person". (On the other hand,
negative qualities are commonly attributed to outsiders and members of out-groups according to the
degree of competition between the groups.)
The development of the cognitive norms of socially approved ideas and shared illusions that
interfere with critical, analytical thinking can also promote group cohesion. However, when this
process goes to the extreme, reality testing is suspended and the condition of "Groupthink" leads
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members to overestimate their collective power and righteousness. They tend to consider
themselves invulnerable to any of the dangers inherent in their activities, and they become
excessively optimistic about results they expect from actions they contemplate. In such instances,
there is a strong probability of risky adventures being attempted with complete confidence of
success. Although such an attitude may be advantageous to some groups, like military units in
combat, even this is not always the case: The Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba in April, 1961 remains the
archetypical example of this phenomenon at its worst.
People indulging in groupthink find themselves not only invincible but invariably right according to
their own standards. This presumption of inherent morality usually means that no one in the isolated
group will question its basic beliefs. Thus, members are likely simply to ignore ethical and moral
consequences of their acts, since they assume they are right and what they are trying to accomplish
is obviously good. Of course, if actions against an out-group are under consideration, the enemy is
stereotypically viewed as evil, weak and stupid and is accordingly referred to in disparaging
terminology.
Basically, groupthink is a way for closing the minds of members of a cohesive unit. Policies are
rationalized rather than scrutinized; data conflicting with such policies are ignored rather than
evaluated; warnings of impending or possible failure are dismissed rather than discussed. By such
means, the group schema is maintained intact, which is obviously the most important thing of all.
Whether or not behavior is appropriate or successful is a distinctly secondary consideration to the
maintenance of group image and ideology.
That image, ideology and a sense of esteem as well are all promoted by pressure toward uniformity
within the group. The group censors itself by suppressing deviations from the prevailing consensus
and minimizes expression of doubts. The result is an illusion of unanimity, with judgments
apparently conforming to the majority view. Dissent is considered disloyal, and direct pressure may
be brought to bear against any member who seriously questions any of the group's stereotypes,
delusions or policies. In addition, self-appointed "Mindguards" may shield the group from adverse
information that might shatter their shared misconceptions or placid complacency about their own
effectiveness and righteousness.
The imposition of unwanted, negative perceptions upon groupthinkers (or anyone indulging in
behavioral fantasies) often produces the condition of "Cognitive dissonance", with the disturbing
data being misconstrued or misinterpreted if at all possible so as to save the schema. If failure
cannot be denied, blame is likely to be affixed anywhere but where it belongsusually as far down
the chain of command as possible. The failure of generals during World War I to learn the obvious
lesson that the day of frontal assaults was over is a classic case in point: They insisted the tactic
was basically sound; it was always execution that was faulty.
In this context of an inability to learn, life may be viewed as a dynamic imbalance. Social life,
particularly, is often a compromise state between goal achievement and group survival. Either may
be sacrificed for the other but usually with results deemed stupid by anyone judging according to the
criteria of the function sacrificed. For example, government agencies are notorious for taking on
lives of their own at the expense of efficiency. As a bureaucracy grows and becomes entrenched, its
ability to respond effectively to its environment is reduced, and although growth of the agency is
regarded as a sign of success by the civil servants in charge, the accompanying inefficiency is
regarded as stupid by citizens trying to get action.
Judgment is shaped not only by the viewpoint of the perceiver but also by the time scale used to
evaluate effects. In this context, stupidity's most reliable ally is the "Neurotic paradox"a
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self-destructive learning pattern which occurs when an act is reinforced with an immediate
short-term reward although its long-term consequences will be maladaptive. A drug addiction is a
classic example of this phenomenon: Getting a fix is an immediate reward and will keep the user
hooked, although it is clearly in his long-term worst interest. Thus, his immediate judgment is that
getting the fix is necessary and, in that sense, good, even if he knows it is working toward his
eventual demise.
Since judgment is so subjective and made from an arbitrarily, subconsciously selected perspective,
people usually fail to see themselves as doing something stupid while engaged in behavior
detrimental to their own interests. They persist in such activity because they have a schema which
defines success in terms of the behavior undertaken while it simultaneously inhibits percepts of
undesirable negative consequences. Contrary to prevailing psychological dogma, feedback from the
environment does not necessarily lead to adaptive behavior (i.e., adjustments most likely to produce
positive results) because it is first screened by the perceptual defense system. During this process,
incoming information is likely to be dismissed or misinterpreted if it conflicts with and cannot be
adjusted to fit the existing belief system.
It is important to bear in mind that such self-deception in moderation may be an effective defense
mechanism which promotes self-confidence in an individual and cooperation within a group. It is
only when it goes to excess that it tends to become stupidly maladaptive, but it is precisely this
which is made probable when a behavioral or cultural trend develops into a self-rewarding, positive
feedback system. When this occurs, a pattern of activity becomes rewarding in and of itself
regardless of its extrinsic consequences. Behavior may then go to an extreme because it is
reinforced by the schema, which functions as an intrinsically gratifying, internal reward system for
such conduct. If at all possible, such self-reinforcing behavior is imposed on external conditions, and
in the absence of critical self-examination, members of a group can thus become victims of their
own excesses as inner directed behavior runs out of control and becomes disruptively
self-defeating.
Hence, as a learned corruption of learning, stupidity must be seen as not only an inhibitor but also
an inventor of feedback. Some stimuli, lessons and thoughts are blocked, while an active
imagination may create pleasing perceptions that are misleading and which promote activities that
may be maladaptive. The net effect of all this is to detach the mental world from the external
environment, and as we all suffer the resultant imbalance on occasion, stupidity must be considered
a normal psychological condition which has gone to one of two extremes. It may be due to a deeply
ingrained, inflexible maladaptive schema, or it can result from an overactive fantasy which produces
imaginative thoughts that are flexible to the point of creating misperceptions. In either case, the
resultant mental set is a function of our biological heritage and cultural environment.
The Biocultural Basis of Stupidity
The interference of learning with adaptation through further learning is not a uniquely human
problem. It is found, for example, among earth worms, which can be trained to turn away from an
"Electrode alley" in a T-boxan experimental construct in which the animal reaches a choice-point
and must go to one side or the other. Having learned to avoid the side with the electrode, a worm
will at first have difficulty learning to turn the other way when the electrode is switched to the
previously "Correct" side. In this case, what the animal had learned clearly interfered with its ability
to adjust to altered environmental conditions, as it had to overcome the original lesson before it
could form a new, effective schema.

Among both insects and birds, mimicry is perpetrated on unwitting hosts which have difficulty
learning to discriminate between their own kind and impostors. Limitations on the ability of some
social insects to learn make them perfect hosts for inquilinesparasites that are dependent
throughout their life cycle on their hosts. These penetrate the alien society by means of
physiological and behavioral mechanisms which have developed, through convergent evolution, the
identifying traits of the host species. Thus, they are accepted because they provide the few key
stimuli their hosts recognize as defining membership in the group.
Of course, the failure of the hosts to reject the invaders might be due more to a genetic limitation on
their ability to perceive and learn than to a purely learned inability to learn. Although some animals
(and humans) cannot learn certain things, they are not necessarily, ipso facto stupid. The range of
their biological programs to react to environmental contingencies is somehow restricted, be it due to
genetics, learning or any compounded combination of phylogenetic and ontological factors. Thus,
while genetics may limit such organisms' abilities to learn, that does not qualify as stupidity,
according to our definition.
Since vertebrates have more streams of information by which they can check phonies than do
insects, most do not usually host mimics. However, some birds are victimized by parasitic mimicry
of their eggs. For example, cowbird eggs are tailored not only to a particular host species but to the
local population with which the cowbirds live. Among host species, there is considerable variation in
tolerance to cowbird eggs, with "Discriminator" populations rejecting any cowbird egg that is not
closely mimetic and "Nondiscriminator" populations accepting eggs of various sizes, colors and
patterns.
In a general sense, the mammalian learning "Strategy", if you will, is more open than the more
structured and intrinsically limited learning fields of other classes of organisms. Certainly, the
learning process in mammals is directed more by experience with the environment than by a tight
genetic program and thus usually promotes adaptation to short-term changes in their immediate
surroundings.
Still, this is not always the case. In water-shrews, for example, learning can lead to some bizarre
results. These creatures certainly challenge the basic principle that learning is adaptive because
their distinctive behavioral characteristic is the inflexible tenacity with which they cling to any habit
once formed. Perhaps it might be said that learning would be adaptive if it continued and thus
permitted continual adjustments to changing conditions, but in this regard, water-shrews are
archetypically stupid. Once one has learned a pathway through its environment, it will persist in its
locomotor pattern although the path may have been altered significantly. (E.g., if it learned to jump
on a stone at a certain point, it will continue to jump there even if the stone is removed.)
Thus, the shrew disregards its senses when it encounters a change in the environment which cries
out for an alteration in behavior. Once a habit is ingrained, it inhibits the acquisition of more and
better knowledge. This dominance of an established motor habit over perception is a remarkable
peculiarity of the water-shrew, whereas the shaping of percepception by cognitive habit is more
common among the more intelligent mammals.
The ability of animals to adapt behavior to perceptions of an environment which exists only in their
minds was suggested by B. F. Skinner's "Superstitious pigeons". When reinforced at random, these
birds came to make idiosyncratic movements as if by doing so they would elicit a reward. A better
example is the "Raindance" of Jane Goodall's chimpanzees, which fairly invites the explanation that
they are threatening that son of a baboon in the sky that makes it rain. Of course, they might just be
venting their frustrations at being made miserable, but their aggressive displays certainly suggest a
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mentality capable of creating and acting according to myths.
Hence, there may really be nothing unique about human stupidity. Ac-cording to one view, we are,
in this regard, only quantitatively but not qualitatively different from our fellow creatures. That is, we
are not just as stupid as other animals but more so.
In fact, we are quantitatively excessive in one basic psychological capacity relating to stupidity, and
that is the ability to learn. We have developed this ability we share with so many species to such an
extent that we are in this respect biological extremes. With our equally excessive and exceptional
imagination apparently the only limit on our capacity to conjure up lessons, we seem to be able to
learn anything at allwhether it makes sense or not. Ironically, the power of the human mind to
invent supernatural explanations for natural events is matched only by our curious inability to couple
the simplest cause-effect relationships. The current worldwide need for birth control is but one
handy example of this latter phenomenon: The inability of civilization to face up to this matter
officially and do something effective about it is just typical of the stupid way people have failed to
deal with problems throughout history.
Thus, we may be something other than just excessively stupid animals. According to a second view
of human evolution, the new element in the human equation which makes human stupidity and
indeed humans qualitatively unique is language. As we have noted, it is language which intensifies
group identification, promotes self-deception and limits our ability to cope with ourselves. History
shows a dreary succession of civilizations arising, growing, flowering and dying with each failure
being displaced by another while the method of failure apparently remains remarkably constant:
Biased value judgments disrupt interaction with the cultural and natural environments until the
Establishment collapses and is replaced by a new but equally biased system. Most of the time,
leaders could not cope with their most fundamental problems because they did not even recognize
them as such. The suggestion here is that they did not do so primarily because of the way language
shaped their schemas and defined their perceivable world.
If we owe our general humanity (i.e., our propensity to err) to verbalization, we owe our specific
identity to socializationthe learning process which trains us to fit into a particular way of life. In this
regard, human societies have two basic problems: 1.) people who fail to fit into the established
organization, and 2.) established organizations which fail to reorganize according to changing needs
of people in a changing world. In both cases, stupidity usually plays a decisive role.
Considering the evolutionary pressure in favor of success, bright people and efficient organizations
should have survival advantages over others. If this is true (and perhaps it is not, as the standards
for measuring brilliance and efficiency are not at all clearly defined), the question that must be
asked is: How is it that we still have as much stupidity in the world as we do today? There are two
obvious and easy answers: Nature and nurture. That is, we both breed and cultivate stupidity.
Genetically and culturally, there has always been a tendency of groups to sacrifice quality and even
genius in favor of the cooperative spirit and group cohesion. As humans evolved in social groups
rather than as individuals, cooperation of members within a group and of groups with each other
was (and remains) essential. If intellectual life was compromised in the cause of cooperation, then it
was because the net effect was advantageous for society.
There are two amazing things about the evolution of civilizations. One is the great variety of them
which have developed, if not flourished: Almost any kind of cultural system can exist at least for a
while if it can maintain a minimal level of internal consistency. The other is that the vast majority of
these failed from internal malaise or external competition. Ironically, failure from both causes can be
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attributed to the fact that culture is a positive feedback system, with each specific civilization lacking
internal checks on its own development. Thus, collapse occurs when a culture becomes 1.) fatally
inconsistent with itself, 2.) consistent to the point of rigidity or 3.) eliminated through dire conflict with
competing systems.
On the other hand, a cultural movement may flourish if such competition is balanced. For example,
in the United States, big labor checked big business, and both prospered and promoted
Americanism. Nationalistic ambitions in turn are usually checked by those of other countries. Thus,
biocultural life seems to follow its own version of Newton's Third Law every force begetting an
equal but opposite force. If this is true of human affairs, a certain amount of confrontation if not
conflict is inherent, necessary and perhaps (if non-violent) even good.
In fact, we are biological anomalies in that we have largely replaced interspecific competition with
intraspecific (i.e., cultural) competition. As a result, there is no other species we need fear as much
as ourselves. The major question facing us today is whether the pattern of replacing one human
cultural variation with another will continue. If it does, we might despair over the passing of a
particular cultural group, especially if it is our own. However, if it does not, it will not for one of two
reasons: Either we will eliminate all cultural life completely, or we will find a way to live with
ourselves.
There has long been a hope that scholarly research would help us learn about ourselves so that we
could find a way to live together. Indeed there have been many efforts made to identify a definitive
form of behaviora uniquely human universalwhich would provide a basis for understanding
human nature, but so far, the best we have come up with is language, which we define as the way
humans communicate. Piles of amassed data show no simple, non-lingual, behavioral constant
across cultures. If anything, humans display endless variations in the ways they deal with and
discuss basic biological problems (e.g., raising young, gathering energy, etc.) according to
environmental contingencies and linguistic constraints.
Although stupidity is not uniquely human, understanding our verbally based brand of it might help us
cope with ourselves and perhaps avoid some of the psychological and philosophical pitfalls which
have plagued us in the past. Certainly, we can begin by acknowledging that stupidity has been our
constant companion throughout history. Thus, anyone studying it in a historical context should learn
something fundamental about the human experience and gain some insight into the human mind.
The first thing the student of stupidity learns is that, along with our purely biological needsfood,
water, etc., we need a schema which provides a program for behavior. The second is that we also
need an ideology which explains the nature of the universe and our relation to it. The ideology is a
conscious, organized expression of the verbal facet of the schema and forms a cognitive bridge
between religious beliefs about the supernatural world and secular ideas derived from coping with
the mundane problems of life. These beliefs and ideas need not necessarily be factually based; nor
need they be logically consistent with each other, and indeed they seldom are. Their function is to
promote group cooperation as people interact with their natural and cultural environments.
The problem with and for the ideology is that it is not experience per se but the schema that comes
to define life by shaping perceptions according to its own irrational nature. This often means that
unpleasant facts are not treated as information but as sinsbreaches of faith in the belief system. In
real life, most political/economic systems do not have to make sense nor even be systematic: The
important thing is that they function. Surely, any objective, outside observer committed to a logical
analysis of events could not help but be bewildered by the development of modern governments
and economies, for example. Nonetheless, as long as the people living with them believe in them,
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they (both the people and their nonsystematic systems) may survive and even flourish, at least for a
while.
During their existence, "Establishments" are usually quite anti-empirical and unscientific in their
adherence to obsolete or even incorrect theories about what they are doing. Those in power tend to
be conservative meaning they honor the ideas with which they grew up and perceive the world in
terms of the values which took them to the top. Basically, leaders want to retain their power and are
loath to acknowledge the existence of any problems they cannot solve without changing. Thus, their
own continued predominance defines the context in which problems are considered. Throughout the
ages, the eternal, ultimate political problem has been and remains that of controlling those in
control, and the perennial abuse of power has invariably rested on the resistance of the mighty to
any change in their point of view.
The failure of anyone to modify perceptions according to new combinations of developing
environmental variables often leads to the extreme imbalanced condition everyone else recognizes
as stupidity. This would happen even more often than it does except that most "Perceptual systems"
are checked by conflicting systems. Thus, youthful enthusiasm is checked by parental guidance;
corporations are checked by government, which is checked by the people or other governments,
etc. On the other hand, stupidity is induced when systems which should check each other become
mutually reinforcing. The arms race was a striking example of this process, as two systems, which
would have confronted each other in ages past, stimulated each other to excesses in the
development of their military establishments. Only as recently as December, 1987, did the signing
of an arms control treaty designed to restrict our capacity to annihilate ourselves interject an
element of sanity into this double helix of inspired madness which had its origins in our common
past.
Pre-Western Stupidity
The story of civilized stupidity began with civilization. From the beginning, it has been a story of
maladaptive, pretentious claims to eternal grandeur with each case becoming something more than
just a tragedy for those involved if it also became a lesson wasted on those who followed. Usually,
the specific examples repeated a generally cyclical pattern of conquerors becoming civilized and
weakened by easy affluence and internal strife until they were conquered in turn by later bands of
invading nomads. Old rulers and ruling classes would thus be replaced by new versions without
anything fundamental changing, and then the process would begin again. So were the Sumerians
swallowed up, their genes dispersed through interbreeding and their languages lost as they gave
way to the Semites who gave way to the Aryans, with the Persians dominating until the time of
Alexander (ca. 330 B.C.).
Those Sumerians founded western Asia's first known empire in the Euphrates-Tigris valley about
8,000 years ago. It lasted about 4,000 years so they must have done something right, and if stability
were the sole criterion of success, it was among the most successful empires ever. During much of
this time, however, it was divided into city-states which anticipated those of Greece (and the military
tradition of Western states generally) by warring upon each other because there was no one else
around to fight. For thousands of years, intra-imperial battles raged, and the only people to conquer
Sumerians were other Sumerians. As in Renaissance Italy, the chauvinistic separatism of the cities
of Sumer stimulated life and art but also led to civic violence and fratricidal strife that weakened
each petty state and finally destroyed the empire. In this way, the Sumerians slowly wore
themselves down and out until eventually they were replaced by the Semitic peoples.
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Thus, in the early history of Mesopotamia (the Land Between the Rivers) began the struggle of
Semites vs. Non-Semites. Since the dynastic clashes between the city-kings established at Semitic
Kish (4500 B.C.) and Non-Semitic Ur (ca. 3500), the conflict between these peoples and cultures
has remained one of the bloody themes in the story of the Near East. Contemporary statesmen
committed to settling such a long-running dispute would do well to bear this in mind and modify their
ambitions accordingly.
We might also note that in this early stage in the development of civilization, there was not yet a
clear distinction between religion and politics. In fact, government was bound up with religion in the
person of the patesi, meaning "Priest-king". Within this context of religious politics, an occasional
reformer arose to oppose domestic oppression. Most notable among these was patesi Urukagina of
Lagash (ca. 2900). He railed like a Luther against the exactions of the clergy, accused them of
corruption, denounced them for their voracity, and charged them with over-taxing the workers. He
had some success combatting bribery of officials and protecting the helpless against extortion, but
neither the reforms nor the liberty he boasted he had given the people outlasted him. All was ended
by Lugl-zaggisi, who invaded Lagash at the height of its prosperity, overthrew Urukagina and
sacked the city.
With the passing of Urukagina, the priests recovered their power, as they would do in Egypt with the
passing of Akhenaton, and abuse and corruption were restored as official norms. Such iniquities
might best be viewed and accepted as the price of mythology. People apparently need myths, and if
the priests were overcharging for inferior products as they presumed to provide this eternal and
unfathomable necessity, then that just makes them seem all the more like our modern day myth
mongers.
By 2800, the growth of trade made the pettiness of the patesi and municipal separatism impractical.
Empires were thus effectively generated very much in the way that developing commerce would
break down the provincial isolation of medieval Europe and pave the way for nationalism some
4,000 years later. The reigning Sumerian despot subjected the various cities and their patesi to his
power, but he lived in a Renaissance atmosphere of calculated violence. Always with him was the
gnawing fear that someone might apply the Golden Rule of Imperial Succession and dispatch him
by the same means he had used to gain his power.
About 2400, Ur-engur brought all of western Asia under his pacific authority, proclaimed the first
extensive code of laws in history and announced "By the laws of righteousness of Shamash forever
I establish justice". It is with both relief and gratification that we learn justice was established forever
more than 4,000 years ago. Despite all the legal righteousness of Shamash, the regal justice,
peace, prosperity, leisure and glory enjoyed under Ur-engur endured only until 2357, when the city
of Ur was invaded and sacked by some not so peaceful, prosperous and leisurely neighbors.
Around 2350, a Semitic people under Sargon I built a kingdom at Akkad, 200 miles north-west of
the Sumerian city-states. Sargon modestly called himself "King of Universal Dominion" as he ruled a
small portion of Mesopotamia, and historians have since called him "The Great" because he
invaded many cities, captured much booty and killed a lot of people on his way to conquering the
Sumerians. He never did live up to his self-proclaimed title, but in trying to do so, he established the
first "Great" empire in history by extending his domain from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean
Sea. However, his empire may have been more vast than great as at the close of his fifty-five year
reign, it was in revolt.
The Sumerian culture survived Sargon, but the importance of Sumer was more in its formation than
its extended demise. As one of the first if not the first civilization, it was a civilization of firsts. For the
13

first time on a large scale, people indulged in the civilized sins of slavery, despotism, ecclesiasticism
and imperialism. The natural inequality of people was supplemented by cultural inequities and
iniquities which provided comfort for the strong and labor for the weak. Yet, it lasted until
Hammurabi, King of Babylon, rose to power.
Babylon was a theocratic state always under the collective thumb of the priests. There was a
solemn union of church and state, with the king invested with royal power by the priests and acting
as an agent of the gods. Of course, this arrangement was one of reciprocal, mutually reinforcing
advantages. On the one hand, the supernatural aura about the throne made potential rebellion less
probable because it was a civic impiety which was not only illegal but heretical. On the other, tax
money was collected in the name of the gods and found its way into temple treasuries. In fact, the
church became even richer still as it amassed dividends the uneasy wealthy shared with the gods.
Beyond mere wealth, however, the religious Establishment had an edge over the temporal tyrants in
that it was founded on the tradition of divine permanence. Kings came and went, but the 65,000
gods were eternal. Al- so, the council of priests had a corporate perpetuity that made possible the
long-range planning and patient policies which still characterize the great religious institutions of the
modern era.
Nevertheless, Babylon's most famous name is that of its founder and greatest secular ruler,
Hammurabi. He reigned for forty-three years (1729 -1686) and is still remembered for his code of
laws which was inspired, according to the prologue, "...To cause justice to prevail in the land, to
destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak,...to enlighten the
land and to further the welfare of the people". In the epilogue, he claimed to have established
prosperity for his people for all time. If Babylon was not quite the Heaven on earth he intended it to
be, it did in his time reach a level of material civilization which, according to Christopher Dawson,
has never been surpassed in Asiaexcept, according to Will Durant, maybe in Persia, India and/or
China. Morally however, many of the ideals embodied in his Code were never realized in Babylon
and remain, to our shame and embarrassment, unfulfilled throughout the world today.
Part of the reason the ideal state envisaged by Hammurabi was not realized in Babylon may have
been that the Code represented a commitment to the principle of equal justice qualified according to
social class and sex. More likely, its realization was inhibited by the fact that the secular, legal Code
was officially complemented by a conservative religious philosophy designed to promote civil
obedience and faith in the Establishment. According to going explanations, of which royalty
approved, evil was good in dragsome part of a divine plan invisible to humans, who were simply to
believe and obey. Eventually, faith and courage would be rewarded and enemies somehow
punished by gods who were standing by to heed calls for help.
Actually, the reality of Babylonian life not only contrasted sharply with secular ideals but seemed to
be running counter to the theological explanations as well. As noted by an anonymous observer,
who probably will not mind being paraphrased: "Men exalt the work of the great murderer. They
disparage the poor who have not sinned. They justify the wicked. They drive away the just. They
help the strong steal from the poor. They strengthen the mighty. They destroy the weak." If it sounds
as though civilization has not changed much in the last 4,000 years, it is because in some
fundamental ways it hasn't. The modern priests of our secular religions (the media moguls who
would have us believe in and buy into the Establishment) still side with the largest fortunes (the
corporate sponsors) as did the priests of power in Babylon.
Despite all the apparent injustices of Babylonian life, and even though prosperity eventually waned
and Hammurabi's ideals faded into the distance, it is not really surprising that the people remained
14

faithful for so long to a religion that gave them so little consolation. True believers simply had no
option but to continue humbly to seek favors from the biased gods and to heed devoutly the
powerful priests. There certainly was no way for anyone to challenge the haughty, who had an
arrangement of reciprocal support with the mighty. The only way the validity of any belief system
can be checked is through knowledge, and personal experiences of the citizens notwithstanding,
the only knowledge officially recognized in Babylon came from the priests through divine revelation.
Not surprisingly, this invariably validated the established system.
Nor is it surprising this knowledge produced myths which justified and explained the system.
Mesopotamian myths differ somewhat as to how the gods created man, but it is clear that when
they became dissatisfied with their handiwork, they sent a flood to destroy him. It must be some
consolation to our God to know that occasionally the Babylonian deities also did something stupid,
and this was a case in point. No sooner had they unleashed the flood than the gods wept and
gnashed their teeth at their divine idiocy. "Who will make the offerings now?", they asked.
Fortunately for them and us, Ea (the God of Wisdom yet), out of pity for humanity, had saved one
coupleMr. and Mrs. Shamashnapishtimwho built an ark, survived the flood and made an offering
to the surprised and grateful shortsighted gods.
Such legends aside, the general effect of theology on the early cultural life of the pre-imperial city of
Babylon was that of intellectual stagnation. This was particularly true, for example, in medicinea
field in which the priestly influence which held back science was reinforced by superstitions of the
people, who demanded supernatural diagnoses and cures. Sorcerers and necromancers were more
popular than physicians, and through their influence on the people, they encouraged irrational
medical practices. Hence, disease in Babylon was due to sin and was usually treated by
incantations, magic and prayers. Such drugs as were used were designed to appease or disgust the
demon possessing the patient.
By the time of Hammurabi, however, physicians had separated themselves from the clergy, and the
medical profession was legally established with both fees and penalties fixed by law. A patient
would thus know in advance just how much he would have to pay, and if he was poor, fees were
lowered to match his means. In cases of malpractice, doctors had to pay damages, and in extreme
cases, a bungling surgeon could have his fingers amputated so that he could not bungle again. This
lesson was certainly not lost on other surgeons of the day as it was on later, more civilized and
squeamish societies.
Medical liberation notwithstanding, the priests generally reigned supreme in Babylon, and to put
their influence in a positive light, it can be said they provided an element of cultural continuity to
society while promoting a decent docility among the lower classes. However, the upper classes
seemed beyond the reach of religion particularly in the latter days of the empire. As cultural
stagnation led to civic corruption, Babylon surrendered itself to revelry, drifted into its notorious
decadence and became the sink of iniquity which was to serve the ancient world as a scandalous
example of luxurious laxity and shocking immorality.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, the long-enduring stability/stagnation complex which characterized the most
successful ancient civilizations found expression as the vital cultural principle of repetition.
Egyptians possessed no dynamic sense of progress but were content to apply certain formulae as
called for by a constant environment dominated by a perpetual sun, endless sand and an eternal
river. Officially, they were dogged record keepers, and these records were invariably couched in
conventional terms which were used over and over again to describe things done over and over
again.
15

Even private correspondence became reduced to bland and blank formality, so the overwhelming
impression of Egypt is that of impersonality. Egyptians had no desire to express originality or
individuality but aspired to behave as much like each other and their dead ancestors as possible.
Their major philosophical preoccupation was to ignore time and live outside it. Further, they lacked
curiosity and never speculated about themselves or anything else. This makes them strangers to us
in that not only did they not answer the questions historians ask about their dynasties they did not
even ask the questions.
Our answers indicate that in predynastic, fifth millennium Egypt, there werewhat else?two warring
states. In Upper Egypt (i.e., the headwaters of the Nile or southern Egypt), the king wore a white
crown while in the Delta, the king wore a red crown. The warring factions were thus referred to as
"Whites" and "Reds", and it is somewhat humbling to think that 6,500 years ago, the Nile may have
echoed with the Egyptian equivalents of "Better red than dead" and "Better white than right". In one
of those rarities of historyan extended period of peace, the kingdoms coexisted for nearly 1,000
years until about 3300, when hostilities were resumed. Finally, the Uppers got the upper hand and
Narmer (alias Menes) unified the two lands and became the first king of dynastic Egypt.
In the next millennium, Egypt nearly wrecked itself building the pyramids. As symbols of Egypt and
monuments to stupidity and death, they remain unsurpassed. Around 2650, Cheops raised the
Great Pyramid, which was originally about 500 feet high and weighed more than five million tons,
with most of the stone being lugged into place by human muscle. The ultimate significance of this
and the other burial piles was that they left Egypt exhausted and wasted as if devastated by war.
In the second millennium, Egypt was confronted with the reforming impulses of Akhenaton
(1370-1352). He recognized as the sole god of Egypt, Aton, the creative principle of the sun, rather
than Amon-Ra, the spiritual fountainhead of his own dynasty. Although to know Aton was to enjoy
gaiety and intellectual freedom, Akhenaton proceeded against Amon-Ra with all the fury of a joyless
bigot. Actually, this self-destructive theological rage was a thinly disguised attempt on the part of
Akhenaton to break the iron power of the priesthood at Thebes. However, the attempted reform
failed, and the king capitulated because he had clearly underestimated both Amon-Ra's popularity
among the people and the power of the priests, who held the dynastic purse strings.
Non-Western Stupidity
While we focus here on stupidity, we must acknowledge in passing that, like the Sumerians, the
ancient Egyptians must have done something right for we can pick up the story of their descendants
in our own era. This is no mean tribute to the capacity of the Egyptians to survive, as their culture
was contemporaneous originally with that of Sumer and later with that of Babylonboth long since
gone. What they did right was find a cultural balance with their natural environment. However, the
development of a concomitant sense of complacent, eternal equipoise in ages past may have
contributed to their later subjugation by successive waves of aggressive Moslem and Western
elements in their human environment.
By the middle of our own millennium, the condition of Egypt had become one of Egyptian tragedy
and Turkish stupidity as it was then the Turks who were the dominant force there. The
Ottoman-Mamluk rulers shared the same religion as the subject people but usually spoke a different
language, so the ties of the rulers to the people were rather weak. In fact, the peasantry was simply
considered a resource to be exploited. During the heyday of Mamluk rule (which lasted in toto from
1250 to 1517), the merchant class contributed enormously to the wealth of Egypt. However, toward
the end of the fifteenth century, state intervention blunted merchant initiative and Egyptian
commerce declined.
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In the nineteenth century, Turkish governors pursued a goal of an export-oriented economy relying
on a large influx of foreign capital. By 1875, the borrowing of money at increasingly onerous rates
led to the desperate, foolish sale of Egypt's shareholdings in the Suez Canal Company to the British
for only $20 million. For a short-term fix, Egypt thus lost its influence over and the extended benefits
from its greatest international asset.
In this century, the quest for sustained economic development carried Egypt toward a fascistic
policy of governmental planning as the state assumed an ever expanding role in the fiscal
management of the country. In 1956, Gamal Nasser indulged in a self-defeating fit of patriotic
bravado and nationalized foreign firms, thereby driving out much needed capital and technical
expertise. The economy did develop slowly under him, but Egypt's resources were hard pressed
and the gains threatened by an expanding population.
Like Nasser, who could not carry out his long-term theoretical plans in the short-term practical
world, Anwar Sadat could not cope with long-term problems, like population growth, nor effect the
long-range government investments needed to raise Egypt's standard of living. He was simply too
idealistic and found that even his greatest short-term triumph making peace with Israelalienated
both his supporters (the army) and his enemies (religious extremists). His assassination made him a
martyr to liberalism in a land resistant to change.
Actually, the sacrifice of dynamics and the individual reached a debilitating extreme not only in
Egypt but also in India. There, the commitment of fatalistic Hindus to a condition of national nirvana
allowed a Moslem conquest and domination which lasted a thousand years. This conquest was
probably the bloodiest in history until World War II and illustrated that the delicate balance of
civilization may easily be thrown off at any time by barbarians invading from without or attacking
from within. In this particular case, the Hindus permitted their strength to be wasted by internal
division and war. Further, they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved
them for the tasks of this life. Most important of all pragmatically, they failed to organize their forces
to protect their borders, cities, wealth and independence.
Within the general context of Indian apathy and indifference to survival, a feudal civilization was built
in Mewar and some other states by warlike rajasIndian samurai, if you will. From about 600 to
about 1600, these feudal lords defended themselves and all of India as best they could, while they
could, from would-be invaders. They regarded war to be the highest art, but their pride was also
their tragedy as the same spirit which for a while enabled them to prevent an invasion also kept their
little states divided and weakened by strife. This was a classic case of a people who could survive
anything but themselves. Their militaristic schema defined their existence but created dissension
and led to their demise, so all their bravery came to less than naught. Thus, Indian militarism
presents a story of contrast: When it was absent, it was a fatal defensive weakness; where it was
present, it was a fatal divisive strength.
For about three hundred years (ca. 700-1000), growing Indian opulence invited conquest. Hordes of
Huns, Afgans and Turks hovered on the frontiers just waiting for national weakness to admit them.
After a few hundred years of raidingtime enough for the Indians to have organized to defend
themselves effectively against this clear and ever present danger, the real conquest began in the
eleventh century with a devastating Moslem invasion that lasted for centuries. In fact, if there was
stupidity on the part of the invaders, it was that they destroyed so much wealth they could have
used to their advantage.
If India was a land divided by warring states before the Moslem invasion, since that time it has been
a land divided by battling religionsparticularly Islam and Hinduism. The resultant strife and
17

bloodshed seems just that much sadder when one reads the religious ideals expressed by Kabir, a
medieval poet. Devoid of dogma and infused with a profoundly religious spirit, he blended the best
of both creeds into one with no distinctions on earth and one God in heaven. Unfortunately, his
death in 1518 demonstrated his failure, as Moslems and Hindus disputed whether his remains
should be buried or burned. Although his words passed largely unheeded into Indian oral tradition,
they did inspire the creation of two sects which today remain jealously separate while they both
worship the doctrine of the poet who tried to unite Moslems and Hindus: One sect is Moslem, the
other Hindu.
As subjugated Indians sought consolation in religion, they were predisposed to accept Christianity,
which happened to be compatible with many ethical precepts that they had honored for centuries. In
fact, Christianity might have led to a higher standard of loving not only in India but in the world in
general had it not been for the character and behavior of Christians. The contrast between their
precepts and practices left many potential converts skeptical and satirical because often the
missionaries could hardly be heard above the roar of Western cannons.
When they were heard, missionaries did have some difficulty spreading the Holy Word in India
because Hinduism had many more and better miracles to offer than had Christianity. Hindus were
not much impressed by someone being raised from the dead, and the Europeans' claim "But this
really happened" must have left them completely nonplussed. Hence, missionary work was
somewhat limited by one of Christianity's strengths in that, despite all its miracles, it is better suited
to use by rational beings than any other major religion but is also less appealing emotionally to
potential converts steeped in superstition.
Actually, it has been through secular rather than sectarian education and technology rather than
theology that the West has had its greatest impact on the Orient. Clearly, the major impact of
Western ideas on Indian thought came not from religion but through liberal education. The English
taught colonials British history with the intention of creating loyal subjects but unwittingly inculcated
the idea of democracy and the ideals of liberty and equality in the minds of their students.
Railroads, telephones and mass media have likewise produced extensive cultural changes
throughout the world. If India was reluctant to embrace industrialization, it was not only because
British machines reduced Indians to poverty (while high calibre guns taught them humility) but also
because of the very nature of Indian society. The caste system, which developed in and for a static,
agricultural civilization, provided order but gave no opening to ability, let alone genius. It furnished
neither stimulus for invention nor encouragement for enterprise. It has been undercut by the
Industrial Revolution, and although it hangs on, in most Indian factories today, employees work side
by side regardless of caste.
In contrast to the traditionally religious culture of India, that of China has always more philosophical
and intellectual, based more on sages than saints and directed more toward wisdom than
goodness. To the Chinese, the ideal is not pious devotion but mature contemplation. Most honored
is he who acts in silence for true wisdom is expressed better by example than by words.
When traditional Chinese wisdom was expressed in words, it was generally consistent with the
minimal standards of Buddhist ideals. Formally, there was no functional knowledge, as material
possessions were valueless and empty nothingness the eternal ideal. Like Rousseau, Lao-tze (ca.
550 B.C.) wrote with more idealism than realismwith knowledge tempered by hope. In the way that
urbanites romanticize nature and Jesus idealized people, Lao sweetened everything. Actually,
however, sweetness was usually set aside, and the pragmatic Chinese were more likely to outwit or
confound their opponents than serenely ponder philosophy.
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This discrepancy between formality and function was enfranchised by Confucius (551?-479?), the
Chinese philosopher par excellence who synthesized a religious philosophy of morality. The chaos
of his time seemed to him a moral disorder caused by a weakening faith in ancient ways and the
spread of skepticism. His remedy was a moral regeneration based on a sound family life which
would lead to an ordered state. In his simple mind, knowledge would lead to sincerity, which would
lead to orderly desires, which would lead to regulated families, which would lead to a successful
state. As a pat, logical train of thought, this is hard to beat, but as an accurate, descriptive analysis
of life, it is impossible to accept.
Confucius was, if anything, too much the philosopher, as he let his quest for a perfect system of
morality mislead him into visions of inhuman ideals. Knowledge does not necessarily make people
more sincere and better and may even make them phonier and worse if they merely use their
knowledge to achieve subconscious, petty ends. Further, this is all the more likely in people who do
not make a deliberate, fair effort to obtain objective information about the effect they are having on
their environment and couple that with an effort to have a "Good" effect. Where biases remain in the
perception of "Good", knowledge itself does not improve people: It just makes more probable the
realization of their goals, whatever they are.
Unfortunately for China, Confucian scholars became enraptured with their ideal view of human
nature and formed an anti-intellectual bureaucracy hostile to free and creative inquiry. Thought
stopped as philosophy became divorced from reality and the Confucian classics came to define
orthodoxy. From 1200 to 1900, when Confucianism officially molded the Chinese mind, the Chinese
were forced to learn without the benefit of a functional system of thought. In the absence of a
condoned schema which related to worldly events, they developed a general, undefined system of
values which became too practical, too sensible, too prosaically sane and totally beyond discussion,
analysis or reform. Thus, it was partially because Confucius was so completely successful in his
abstract way that China had to undergo a revolution.
In contemporary China, Confucianism is clearly out and science in. This represents a triumph for
both pragmatism and philosophy over the mental state which treated them as separate and
unequal. The basic shift in attitude toward a modern functionalism was expressed by
historian/philosopher Hu Shih early in this century when he openly scorned the "Spiritual values" of
Asia and opined he found more worth in the reorganization of government and industry than in all
the "Wisdom of the East". Mathematics and mechanics are both popular now in a land which
underwent a Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment and Revolution and produced an Oriental
Napoleon all at once.
As a revolutionary culture restrained only by the political leaders' desire to retain power,
contemporary Chinese society has been built on the fault between the modern and traditional
minds. The Chinese are imitating foreigners, whom they despise. They were forced to choose
industrialization over vassalage, so they surrendered their own standards and accepted the worst of
Western cultureparticularly in architecture and musicalong with its technological necessities.
*
Until the Industrial Revolution, Easterners could not comprehend the zest of the West for life. They
saw only superficial childishness in business and ambition, much as Westerners saw only inertia
and stagnation in the East. Now, while the East is moving to adopt Western technology, we remain
adamant in our refusal to look ultimates in the face. Perhaps it is time we ask ourselves "Why?"
19

II. Greek Stupidity
There are three contemporary attitudes toward ancient Greece: One is indifference toward anything
that happened that long ago; a second is reverence (which became widespread during the
Renaissance); and the third is condemnation of a culture which retarded the development of
science and inhibited progress in Western Civilization for centuries. In adopting the third of these
attitudes here, we must beware our own modern tendency to equate technological development
with progress. Actually, if there is any consistent theme throughout Western history, it is the
underlying failure of knowledge in general and scientific knowledge in particular to promote moral
development and improve people and the way they relate to each other.
While we will emphasize the shortcomings of Greek thought and the debilitating influence it had on
the Greeks and those who followed them, we should be able to muster enough respect to give them
the credit that is due. They did make some real contributions to intellectual life with their discoveries
of mathematics and the art of deductive reasoning. Geometry, particularly, is a Greek invention, and
nothing serves better to exemplify the static nature of the Greek mind. In the broader context of
logic in general, the one-sided genius of the Greeks appears clearly in the way they reasoned
deductively from apparently self-evident truths rather than inductively from observed facts.
Ironically, the Greeks' strong point was also their weak point in that their inventive genius in
philosophical abstraction was basically the obverse of their impracticality in responding to the
problems confronting them. For example, they conceived the grandiose idea of democracy but
failed to unify their city-states in a cooperative effort which would have worked to the mutual
advantage of all.
Generally, the world of the Greeks was as small, orderly and statuesque as they could make it, and
for all their genius, everything Greek remains comprehensible in a glance. Their political ideal was
the little polisthe statuary city-state. Their gods were superlative shapes rather than omnipotent
forces. Their religious services were formalities of piety not expressions of soaring emotions. Their
great ethical systemsStoicism and Epicureanismidealized steadiness, with the goal being to
limitdesires rather than fulfill them, and such desires as existed were for order not excitement. Their
science was one of form not energy. Their mathematics was geometric not dynamic. Their painting,
having no horizon and no perspective, expressed no sense of either space or depth, and their
architecture was based on the post.
We must bear in mind that the Greeks functioned in a world of severe technological and cultural
limitations. There was neither water power nor wheelbarrow, banks nor Bible. Still, Greek stupidity
cannot be properly attributed to such limitations or the absence of such items. It was shaped
primarily by the interaction of 1.) the city-stateparticularly its divisive role in Greek history; 2.)
slaveryparticularly as it divorced "Doing" from "Thinking"; and 3.) philosophical thoughtparticularly
deductive logic and Platonic ideals.
The self-governing city-state was both the greatest political achievement of Greece and a fatal
limitation in that it proved to be a pragmatic barrier to the development of Greek thought and
identity. It was considered the ultimate form of political life because it embodied the Greek ideal of a
compact little static world impervious to outside influences and secure against reality. However, it
was also incapable of growth or development as a political entity, so each was limited to making
treaties and quarreling with its neighbors. Further, as all aspired to absolute sovereignty, they
perforce failed to cultivate any enduring political union which might have promoted the framing of a
common legal system to settle interstate disputes or the building of roads to facilitate transportation.
20

Plato estimated the ideal size for a city-state to be between 1,000 and 5,000 citizens and thought
such a state could hold its own against similar rival states, which it probably could. He worked all
this out a century after the Persians had crossed the Hellespont in the belief that the age of world
empires was passing away when, in the West, it was just beginning, but if he was mistaken in this
regard, he was not alone. Even as Alexander was rendering the city-state obsolete, Aristotle could
find no merit in any other form of polity so he joined his mentor in hailing it right up to the days of the
Macedonian empire.
On the other hand, there were some with a breadth of vision that was wasted in their time. For
example, Herodotus (485?-425) wrote a history of the Persian invasion and called for a united
Greek effort for revenge, but it would be over one hundred years before his idea bore fruit in
theexploits of Alexander. Until that time, there was no concept of a Greek policy or future because
there really was no Greece. There were numerous city-states, like Athens and Sparta, etc., whose
residents proudly emphasized their differences while vainly distinguishing themselves collectively as
"Hellene" from all other peoples according to Herodotus's criteria of shared blood, language, religion
and customs. In response to the external threat of invasion by Persia in 490 they attempted to
convert this sense of "Greekness" into something like a functional, unified entity, but that attempt
failed politically even if it eventually succeeded militarily.
Thus, what we today call Greek Civilization was really a collection of rather independent political
states. Each was characterized by its own particular brand of religious and patriotic devotion with
the intensity of this identity complex varying considerably among them. At one extreme, loyalty ran
counter to the ideal of individual liberty to the point of repressing anything but pure equality. In
Ephesia, for example, anyone who raised himself above the mean was treated according to the
democratic philosophy: "We will have none who is best among us; if there be any such, let him be
so elsewhere and among others". In an equally oppressive manner, personal liberty in Sparta was
restricted to a degree found in our own century in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. At the other
extreme, freedom flourished in Athens to the point that strident aristocratic individualism and
enterprise eventually destroyed liberty.
The great leader of Athens in this era was Pericles (495?-429), who was simply too good for the
common man. Like an earlier-day Lincoln, he combined a canny political ability with a deep passion
for lofty ideals (and an un-Lincolnesque love for beautiful things). A true leader rather than a
dominator, he set loose the genius of those around him, but like many other great men, he was
discordant with his times and was finally turned loose by the boorish citizens who were resentful of
his righteous purity, unappreciative of the beauty he created and uncomfortable in the presence of
such excellence.
Really, this battle between democracy and virtue was hardly necessary since the Golden Age of
Athens was base enough to make even the most inveterate Yahoo feel at ease. Libel, slander and
scandalous greed masked as patriotism were all as common then as now. The problem with
Pericles was that he was an honest demagogue who somehow rose above the rampant pettiness in
his environment, so whether it was reasonable or not, he had to go. As he was personally
unassailable, he was attacked through his friends: Thus, for example, Anaxagoras, whom Pericles
had welcomed to Athens, was forced to flee for having suggested the heresy that the sun and stars
were not gods.
Personalities aside, in some ways, Periclean Athens was comparable to nineteenth century
England. It was a democracy administered by aristocrats. Even more to the point, its imperialistic
behavior abroad finally embroiled it in a devastating war as the selfish individualism of Athenian
aristocrats led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404) through commercially ambitious enterprise
21

unbridled by any moral or political ideal more noble than self-aggrandizement.
As we will see later in the Fall of the Roman Empire, the demise of Athens was inherent in its rise:
By policing the avenues of international trade in the Aegean, Athens made the other city-states its
subjects. Increasingly, the commercial hegemony of democratic Athens came to be based upon
force applied to the subject states, which became first aggravated and then rebellious as their own
wealth and pride grew. This interaction became a mutually reinforcing positive feedback system with
insistence by Athens and resistance by most every other polis leading to a deterioration of
interstate relations and finally the extreme of war.
Unfortunately, just as the commercial aristocracy of Athens was free to indulge itself to the
detriment of all Athenians, so too were the city-states free to make war upon one another. It was
indeed Greece's great tragedy that there was no higher law, unifying force or moral sense acting to
restrict the liberty of the states so as to prevent the suicidal Peloponnesian War, which left Sparta
victorious and Greece vanquished.
As we shall often note, the outer political history of worldly power is commonly filled with deceit,
violence and cruelty while the inner cultural world of thought, feeling and character remains
somewhat removed from the demands of pragmatic concerns. Thus are the actions of political
leaders shaped by a clash of precedents, definitions and ideas from the past with contemporary
realities while intellectuals busy themselves shaping schemas which will limit and confound future
leaders. Such was certainly the case in fifth century Greece where statesmen and warriors
struggled within the framework of city-states to find a Greek solution to Athenian hegemony while
abstract thinking reigned extreme: To wit, in a counterreaction to civic chaos, idealists like Plato led
not Greece toward an orderly Empire but the Western world into a sterile commitment to deductive
logic.
Ergo, our traditional reverence for the Greek philosophers is truly inappropriate because it was they
who, in fits of logic, turned Greece and the West away from science and analytical thinking about
the real world. Only very slowly over the past four hundred years have we managed to overcome
the debilitating legacy of Greek thought and replaced the Athenic belief in deduction from assumed
axioms with the contemporary belief in induction from factual data. However, if the Greek love affair
with logic is condemnable for its notable excesses, it is also comprehensibleif we bear in mind that
the existence of slavery predisposed Greek thinkers to embrace any philosophical system which
emphasized pure reason. While the city-state provided the context for Greek stupidity and fixed its
range, slavery shaped it and defined its character.
As a basic condition of Greek life, slavery was profoundly and fundamentally immoral in that it shut
off sympathy between classes of human beings. Nevertheless, most Greeks could not conceive of
their lives without it, and although some noted philosophers tried, only Plato succeeded. Carried
away as usual by his clear, extreme ideals, he would have abolished slavery. The Stoics and
Epicureans condemned it as unnatural, but as it was too strong an institution to be upset, they
decided it did not affect the soul and thus could be ignored. To the matter-of-fact Aristotle, and to
most practical people as well, abolition was inconceivable: Certain people were simply labeled
"Natural slaves", and that settled that.
Not only was slavery as morally reprehensible as it was securely entrenched, it was an intellectually
limiting institution which prevented the leaders of Greek society from learning about the real world.
Today we honor more those who do than those who think because our society has been made
more by men of action than by philosophers, but in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., gentlemen and
plutocrats had other standards. They idealized the disinterested, dignified seeker of academic truth
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and formed among themselves a society of equals who lived on the labor of their social inferiors,
meaning the doers. Chief among these were the slaves, and it was inconceivable to cultured, upper
class men of leisure that they could learn anything worthwhile from mere artisans, craftsmen and
other such workers. Thus, the Greek intelligencia was predisposed to dismiss the scientific mode of
thought which developed in Ionia in favor of the theoretical approach to philosophy developed by
Pythagoras.
Before the beginning of this story of the mind versus the senses, soothsayers and oracles were
considered repositories of wisdom and, when consulted, were expected to provide sage council and
advice. This was basically an extension of parental reverencethat is, when tribal elders could not
decide what should be done, they consulted those who had died. As Greece evolved, priests came
to form a class of specialists skilled at divining "Themis" (i.e., the Will of God).
Philosophy, as distinct from theology, began in Greece in the sixth century. Just as the Greeks'
prime contribution to political theory was that they invented it, so too their prime contribution to
natural philosophy (i.e., science) was that they started itwith their specific contributions being most
significant in the fields of mathematics and astronomy. It is certainly fitting that they excelled in
geometry, as they were at their intellectual best when contemplating ideal forms and thus fairly
revelled inthis imaginary, abstract, static world of cognitive perfection. As for astronomy, their basic
approach was to get the heavenly bodies to conform to geometric patterns and laws, and in this
regard, they were so successful with the Ptolemaic system that thinking about heavenly motion
ceased for almost 2,000 years.
Still, the greatest tragedy of Greek culture was that science began, developed and flourished in
Ionia (on the western shores of Asia Minor) and then was aborted in favor of deductive logic and
Platonic ideals. The inception of science can be traced to the Milesian (alias Ionian) school of
philosophy, which was created when Greek minds came in contact with the Babylonian and
Egyptian cultures at Miletus, a city in Ionia. Until its subjugation by the Persians in 494, this was
culturally the most important place in the Greek world. Thereafter, it was superseded by Athens so,
sad to say, it was more important for its brave beginnings than its enduring legacy.
From Egypt and to a lesser degree Babylon, Ionians derived a few rules of thumb in mathematics
and some records of astronomical observation. However, in these ancient civilizations, science
hardly extended beyond mythological interpretations of the universe which were handed down by
priests and served mainly political purposes (i.e., they promoted social stability, as modern religions
still do). Thus, although the Milesian school was created by contact with these cultures, its
significance was not so much in its role as an entry point for Eastern ideas but for the way it
overcame them.
In all ages, there are technicians who manipulate materials and things much as priests manipulate
prayers and people. The originality of the Ionian thinkers was that they applied the modes of thought
derived from these technical fields to the interpretation of natural phenomena. This was a
revolutionary cultural innovation, and it might have been better received had these fledgling
scientists not ridiculed established myths as they presumed to explain the world and universe by
interpreting "Things above" according to their experiences with "Things below".
Although such tactlessness undoubtedly hurt the cause of science, the way to naturalistic
explanations of natural events itself had been paved by the casual attitude of Ionians to religion.
This, in turn, was due to the fact that Miletus was a rich commercial center in which prejudices were
softened by contact with many cultures. Thus, the Ionians were relatively independent speculators
and proposed scientific hypotheses usually devoid of anthropomorphism and unaffected by a need
23

to subscribe to popular morality or to find answers which were considered culturally correct. If this
made them somewhat indifferent to common sensibilities, they didat least ask good questions,
meaning questions whose answers inspired further questioning, research and learning.
Of all the questioners of the Milesian school, Thales (636?-546?) was probably the most important.
His science and philosophy were crude, but he was disposed to temper the rash hypothesizing
typical of Greeks with empirical tests. This way of answering made the Milesian era Greece's
greatest age intellectually as it was a time when thought was wedded to observation and stimulated
rather than repressed further thought.
After the fall of Ionia, Greek thought first decayed and then became effete, and the general cause
for this gradual decline into intellectual sterility was the preoccupation of philosophers with Man
rather than the universe. This self-centering of the human mind on itself and its prowess found
early, extreme expression in the Pythagoreanscontemporary competitors of the Milesians who
equated knowledge with numbers. Then came (among others) the Idealists, like Parmenides, who
paved the way for the AtheniansSocrates (who reduced philosophy to a quiz game about ethics),
Plato (who rejected reality in favor of ideas) and Aristotle (who reveled in systematics and respected
facts).
Pythagoras flourished in southern Italy from 540 to 510 and was intellectually important when he
was both wise and otherwise. He was a mystic and magician who founded mathematics (in the
sense of demonstrative deductive argument), and his influence on philosophy via mathematics was
as profound as it was regrettable. In fact, he owed his influence and success to the philosophical
emptiness of his system in that his approach was more appealing to the Greeks than was that of the
Ionians precisely because it was more religious than scientific.
Unlike the Ionians, the Pythagoreans did not try to describe the universe in terms of the behavior of
material elements and physical processes. They described it exclusively in terms of numbers, which
provided the form for reality if not the matter as well. Thus, a point was related to One, a line Two, a
surface Three and a solid Four. According to them, points added up to lines, lines to surfaces and
surfaces to solids, although this is not strictly true as a point (one) and a line (two) would add up to a
surface (three). Nevertheless, the number Ten was sacred because it was the sum of the numbers
out of which the world was built.
As the numerical philosophy of the Pythagoreans triumphed over the natural (i.e., scientific)
philosophy of the Ionians, explanations of events in terms of mathematical relations came to
predominate over those based on physical processes. It is important to note that the Pythagorean
system was victorious over science not because it was better but because it was more appealing to
the leaders of Greek society, and it was more appealing to them primarily because it was more
abstract than factual. This wasnot only a drawback in that it implied people could learn more about
the universe by drawing pictures in the sand than by observing and analyzing natural phenomena: It
was a real loss because the mathematical approach was so completely plastic that it was easily
adapted to conform to and/or condone any given theological or ideological preconceptions.
Of course, Pythagoras managed to make numbers into his own personal theology. God was
perceived as a divine geometer with a mild addiction to arithmetic, and mathematics was
considered the sole source of eternal and exact truths. This led Pythagoras to the supersensible
ideal universe of perfect forms and away from the real world of imprecise observation of imperfect
objects, and to the extent that Greek philosophers followed him, they also became unconcerned
with and indifferent to irregular reality.
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Ironically for Pythagoreans, their greatest discovery proved to be their undoing, as their theorem
about the right trianglethat the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the
other two sidesled to the discovery of irrational numbers. Their existence meant something in the
world of numbers could not be expressed by numbers so not only was the Pythagorean world
incomplete, but it never could be complete as defined by itself. Thus, even the theoretically ideal
world was imperfect.
Ironically for everyone else, Pythagoras both established pure reason as the source of ideal
knowledge and corrupted it by giving it a distinctly moral purpose. What began as magical
mathematics became moral mathematics as the mysterious religious elements of the Asiatic
tradition were dropped in favor of ethical implications. It is this which distinguishes the theology (and
thought) of the West from that of the East, but it left Greek (and subsequent) philosophers with the
problem of formulating a logical, eternal ethic upon which they could construct a metaphysics which
was both rational and moral. While there usually was some degree of internal consistency in the
would-be eternal philosophical systems thus developed, they were invariably suited at most to the
developer and his world, so normally their only pragmatic value was that they made their devotees
feel smug about themselves.
For Greek thinkers, however, the quest for a reasonable morality was overshadowed by the
romance they had with pure thought. The essence of this was Pythagoreanthat the eternal world
revealed itself to the intellect alone rather than through the senses. Unlike the empiricist (who is the
slave of his material) but like the musician (who is the creator of his material), the mathematician
can create a perfect world of ordered beauty. Thus, reason alone should theoretically suffice to
reveal pure knowledge, and if the thought in which the Greeks indulged was not as pristine as they
believed, it was tainted only by the omnipresence of and need forsome kind of moral order.
Nevertheless, in their belief that they were dealing with pure, uncontaminated ideas, they were
carrying on the tradition of Pythagoras, and Parmenides and Plato (both of whom idealized logic)
were inheritors as well as perpetuators of that legacy.
As the champion of pure reason, Parmenides (ca. 500-450) had few equals. He attacked the
research method of gathering data through the senses and relied on reason exclusively. Consistent
with his love of logic, his was a static universe in which not only nothing did change but nothing
could change. Needless to say, he was opposed to the Ionian "Doers", who were actively engaged
in altering nature at every turn. He considered any alleged change as a misperception due to a trick
the senses played on the mind, but he never did explain how he knew that permanence was not a
misperception perhaps caused by his belief in it. He summarily dismissed all experience as
illusionary, and although he did make a good argument for his case, he obviously could have no
evidence for it because the whole gist of it was that evidence was unobtainable. According to him,
thought was at variance with or at least totally independent of experience, which it (i.e., he) both
condemned and rejected. As a living triumph of fancy over fact, he bordered on the edge of
reasonable insanity by managing to persist in a way of thinking which was continually refuted by his
actual daily contact with the real world.
The chief losers in this unfortunate and unnecessary battle of reason versus reality were the
Athenian philosophers and everyone who followed their intellectual tradition. Athens came to be the
heir of the triumphant Pythagorean doctrine of logic over life, and wearing the mantle of pure
rationalism, philosophers there took the first steps down the path that led to Western Civilization.
They first asked the big questions (What is truth? What is "Good"? etc.) that we still ponder and first
attempted to solve the fundamental philosophical problems that still confront us today. It was they
who began the distinctly Western tradition of disciplined thinking by means of carefully analyzed
words and statements. However ignorant, narrow-minded and abstractly idealistic they were, their
25

writings mark the dawn of our own day.
Thus, the intellectual life of Athens toward the end of the fifth century marked a watershed in the
development of thought. If it was floating free from experience, thanks to Pythagoras and
Parmenides, it retained a moral bent and was directed by the questions Athenian philosophers were
asking and the answers they sought to support. Two thousand years later, this intensely verbal logic
would link up again with experimentation, and science would be reborn even though the moral
element remained.
Certainly in ancient Athens, resistance to objective, analytical thought was clearly the norm as
Anaxagoras (500?-428?) discovered to his greatdismay. He was of the Ionian intellectual tradition
and the first to introduce philosophy to Athens, which had survived the Persian invasion as Ionia
had not. There he lived for about thirty years (462-432), discussed the nature of intellect and folly
and was generally treated with the hostility usually reserved for those who try to improve the lives of
others.
As mentioned above, when Pericles engendered resentment, it was his friends who were attacked.
In the case of Anxagoras, prosecution was made possible by the passing of a law which permitted
impeachment of those who did not practice religion and taught theories about "The things on high".
Specifically, he was accused of teaching blasphemiesthat the sun was a red-hot stone and the
moon was made of earth. He left Athens and founded a school in Ionia, where he could safely teach
those who already agreed with him and any others interested in learning.
Athenian culture rejected Anaxagoras and the Ionian tradition he represented not only because
slave owners were not disposed to learn from people who dealt with the real world and material
universe, nor just because the political leaders did not want people speculating about the nature of
things, but also because of the absence in science of a preoccupation with ethics. Moral neutrality in
science promotes accurate, analytical thinking, whereas the warping effect of self-righteous biases
in the Western intellectual tradition generally is the philosophical legacy of Pythagoras and Plato,
both of whom allowed ethical considerations to shape what passed for pure thought. In any event
(and despite the best efforts of Anaxagoras and other Ionians), Greek thought turned away from
science and toward moral philosophya field which has been consumed by controversy and devoid
of progress since its inception.
Put in terms of questions, the Greeks came to ask "Why?" rather than "How?". The answer to the
first kind of question is teleological and presumes a purpose; the answer to the second is
mechanical and presumes causality. The first led to useless, open-ended theological disputes which
raged for ages and still consume many worthy minds; the second led to sciencebut not until 2,000
years after the Greeks stopped asking about the real world and how it functions.
Thus, in order to appreciate fully the contributions of the Athenian philosophers to Western stupidity,
it is necessary to bear in mind that the thwarted Ionians were scientists who reasoned from
experience and attempted to understand the universe and find Man's place in it. The Athenians, on
the other hand, introduced into Western thought a kind of earlier-day humanism which made Man
the center of a self-serving method of investigation and morality rather than validity the ultimate
standard by which answers would be accepted or condemned by society.
The first of these thinkers was Socrates (470?-399), who discouraged research into nature and
substituted for it a theory of ideals linked to a belief in the immortal soul. In following his lead, the
Athenians abandoned science and embraced a religious view of Man in the Pythagorean tradition of
moralistic idealism. As a philosopher per se, Socrates (according to Plato) was not so much a
26

logician as a metaphysician whose main concern was with the oxymoronic field of political ethics.
His forte was in asking questions; his double forte was in never answering them.
Fortes aside, his only belief was that knowledge is virtue, and his acid test for any idea or belief was
whether or not it promoted virtue. Even though his strategy of questioning was supposed to lead to
virtuous behavior, for many of his followers, it actually led only to a loss of moral habits which had
restrained their baser impulses. Among these self-indulgent, self-excusing scoundrels were Critias
(who destroyed the Athenian educational system when acting as a tyrant for victorious Sparta at the
end of the Peloponnesian War), Charmides (another tyrant sponsored by Sparta), and Alcibiades
(the ultimate traitor who did as much as he could to wreck Athens and Greece). In the name of
virtue, these and other pupils had their faith and patriotism destroyed by Socrates.
If Socrates were a tree, and trees could be judged by their fruit, then he could be justly accused of
corrupting Athenian youth and spreading impiety. On the other hand, there were those who knew
him who thought him very pious and considered his effects on others to be wholesome. Probably
civic leaders were enraged not so much by his indeterminate effects on the young people of Athens
as by his ill-conceived efforts to get competent men into positions of power in government.
One problem with democratic Athens was that high ranking officials and even generals were chosen
by lot. Socrates had the peculiar idea that those in power should know something about what they
were doing and should do it right. Consequently, and unfortunately for him, he urged competence
and virtue in public life. Obviously, such sedition had to be stopped, and it was with a cup of
hemlock.
Although Socrates was a saint as a man, he was a sinner as a philosopher. In fact, the irony of his
life and legacy is that he is remembered as a philosopher although he was explicitly more
concerned with promoting virtue than being philosophical and readily sacrificed his intellectual
integrity to become an ethical success. He insisted the soul was most important but incongruously
directed his efforts toward the minds of his pupils. He spoke for the human spirit, but it was through
the mind (i.e., reason andknowledge) that they would become virtuous. He was the first apostle of
intellectual and moral freedom, which he bent toward his own particular end of promoting human
good. He did care about truth, but when push came to shove, he simply cared more about reaching
desirable conclusions. If he never did fashion a consistent system of thought which would
encourage virtue, neither has anyone else. However, he failed in this because he commonly
indulged in the human practice of dishonesty in argumentation for the sake of a desired effectan
exercise philosophers refer to as "A search for knowledge".
With the smugness of a bad cleric, Socrates opined that this search was the most important of all
enterprises, but he eschewed science as it did not lend itself to helping him achieve his
predetermined goal of demonstrating the universal validity of his undefined, inconclusive ethics.
Actually, his abiding preoccupation was a search for definitions of ethical terms, but as he examined
issues like courage and friendship, he structured each argument to a particular end. If he was
subconsciously and surreptitiously opinionated, he claimed to be ignorant and constantly
maintained that the only thing he knew was that he did not know anything. He certainly was naive if
he believed his own assertions that no one sins wittingly and that therefore only knowledge is
needed to make people virtuous. Like most of his pronouncements, this proved nothing but
suggests his detachment from the hard knocks of real life in the agora. It also implies he sinned
subconsciously and could not have been particularly virtuous considering how little he knew.
This Socratic/Platonic nonsense of coupling knowledge with virtue is common in Greek thought and
rather aristocratic in bent. People may have to learn to be virtuous, but virtue does not follow from
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the intellectual learning of facts: It develops through a fostered sense of compassion and sympathy
for others. However, this development was precluded in Greece by the cultural predominance of the
slave owners, whose beliefs and behavior defined prevailing ethical values.
Ironically, the general orientation of Socrates toward human affairs was both more intensely
developed and more skewed off in his most famous pupil, Plato (427?-347?). He was primarily
concerned with cultural institutions, but, unfortunately, his keen sense of the social and political
implications of his ideas distorted his thinking and made him the great standard bearer of Western
stupidity for all time. He used his tremendous intellect to all but snuff out the lamps of learning in the
ancient world, and Aristotle's efforts aside, intellectual progress all but ceased due to his
overwhelming success in reducing philosophy to a method for coining idealized rationalizations.
It was not so bad that, like Socrates, Plato restricted his interest to human affairs and neglected the
rest of the universe, but it was indeed regrettable that he perpetuated the Great Questioner's
tradition of intellectual dishonesty in the cause of rationalized morality. Doctrines were judged by
their social consequences, and if the particular views he advocated were still designed to make his
followers virtuous, it was because to him virtue was "Obedience". If he is to be admired
intellectually, it must be for the procrustean ways he could twist arguments and manipulate
discussions so that they would lead to "Proper" conclusions.
Ever since Plato introduced this vice into Western thought, all formal metaphysical inquires have
been conducted only after the conclusion to be reached was already established in the inquirer's
mind. Unfortunately, he became the most influential of all philosophers, and as he enfranchised this
practice of building foredrawn conclusions on inherent biases, end-directed analysis became the
basis for Western thought generally albeit to the decided detriment of intellectual integrity for ages
to come.
Both this particular, fundamental philosophical fault and his emphasis on human affairs may have
been Socratic in origin, but Plato showed the genius of a gifted student and far out-stripped his
teacher in applying stupidity to new fields and carrying it to new depths. Born to the privileged class,
his personal bias in political affairs was clearly aristocratic, and he blamed the defeat of Athens in
the Peloponnesian War on democracy, which he despised. Naturally, this feeling was only
intensified when democratic leaders put his respected mentor to death. Further, his experience of
growing up during the war made him fear the future, so he directed his thinking toward securing
peace and order for the chaotic society of Athens. This he believed could be achieved through
human obedience to divine law. He further believed an understanding of divine law would promote
not Socratic virtue but better obedience, and thinkers like himself would bring that understanding by
determining and promulgating the absolute truths upon which a tranquil society would be based.
To this end, stable, militaristic, victorious Sparta served as the source of inspiration and model for
the Republic. As usual, Plato was rather crafty in disguising the true nature of his work so his
readers did not have to be stupid at all to miss the point that he was advocating a utopian
totalitarianism. In fact, even the title is a bit misleading and may have contributed to the
misunderstanding, as most people find the very concept of a "Totalitarian republic" oxymoronic.
One of the many particular points upon which he was clear was that lying was to be reserved for the
government, where it does indeed seem to have a natural home. The "Royal Lie" is set forth in
considerable detail, and Plato seemed unconcerned that the compulsory acceptance of official
myths would be incompatible with philosophy and would involve a kind of education which would
stunt intelligence. That he valued public order over intellectual integrity clearly indicates he was
more a Greek than a philosopher. The ideal of orderthat everyone and everything had a place and
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should be kept in itwas a basic part of the Greek schema, and however repugnant the deliberate
use of deception may be to anyone who loves knowledge, Plato considered it an acceptable way to
realize this cultural ideal.
In the cause of order, the Republic sacrificed not only intellectual integrity but liberty and equality
as well. Politically, this totalitarian utopia was based on Plato's aristocratic assumption that most
people are incapable of self-government and fit only to work and fight for the state. Socially, a caste
system divided the people into workers, warriors and philosopher-kings. Thus, although the real
model was Sparta, the ideal model would have been a beehive in which there was neither freedom
nor individualism but only a total devotion and dedication to the community.
Further, it was Plato's craving for worldly order that led him to distort the symbolic, fantasy world he
created in his mind. In this regard, he was not like a faulty mathematician who was innocently
illogical and whose assumptions were only suggested but not necessarily supported by perception.
Nor was he merely like an inventive mathematician, in that he did not construct an ideal mental
world that was just a logical, symbolic representation of his assumptions. Rather, he allowed his
schema to be shaped by his subconscious desire for an orderly state into an array of absurd
fantasies. At best, his philosophical arguments might have been valid in his independently idealized
mental world, but often he sacrificed cognitive consistency in order to create propaganda he could
use to promote obedience in Athens. At worst, he performed a disservice to the formal, symbolic
knowledge of logic and mathematics by claiming it represented the real world.
It is somewhat ironic that Plato was such an extreme idealist because he was actually heavily
absorbed in the politics of his day. In his case, idealizing was not a matter of dreamy abstractions
conjured up in splendid isolation but was due to an overestimation of the role and importance of
intellectualizing. However, regardless of the cause, he became an ideal airhead in that most of his
ideas had little to do with reality.
In fact, Plato's basic problem was not so much his logical inconsistency as his determination to
ignore or refute real life experience. For example, the bed he slept in was not a real bed: The real
bed was an ethereal, ideal bed somewhere in the sky. The bed Plato used was just a poor copy of
the archetypical "Form" (i.e., the perfect "Real" bed) which actually existed only in his imagination.
Thus, what he called "Real", we consider an abstraction; what we call "Real", he considered an
aberration.
Trusting in his own vision (and assuming others shared it), Plato encouraged people to look for
truths in their own minds independent of the world around them. In so doing, he was at least
consistent with his belief that real, true knowledge came from isolated contemplation as opposed to
scientific analysis based on observation. What he must have assumed was that others like him
would come to his conclusions. Alternatively, what he expected may have been that they would look
not into their own minds but into his. He certainly did not anticipate that people tend to find whatever
they want when they look into their own minds or anywhere else, and it has been precisely the
self-centered, subjective nature of people which both characterized and plagued humanism in all its
forms from the time of Greece onward.
Unlike his mentor, who idealized ideas, Aristotle (384-322) had great respect for factual reality. He
criticized both Socrates and Plato, and his career as a scientist may be viewed as an effort to
overcome the legacy of Plato as he struggled to square his observations with Platonic ideals.
Likewise as a metaphysician, Aristotle was a mixture of Plato and common sense, although this
made him rather confusing as these two mix like oil and water. Unfortunately, as Aristotle struggled
to overcome Plato's tyrannical legacy and pointedly studied nature, he persisted in deducing
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conclusions from presumed truths because thought was still more important to him than the senses.
Hence, his logic was always more influential than his science, and it is noteworthy that his specialty
was the syllogisma form of logic in which the major premise cannot be tested. This inability to
check assumptions led Greek thought to dogmatism and a habit of arbitrary assertion in which the
validity of argumentation was everything and the veracity of conclusions nothing.
Like Plato, Aristotle lived in a time of cataclysmic change and sought order and stability. He found it
in systems. Socrates questioned; Plato idealized; Aristotle organized. Whereas Plato had aspired to
remold life, Aristotle tried to understand it. This he hoped to do via orderly knowledge gained by
comparing and classifying thingsespecially living things. In his efforts to achieve this understanding
of life, he made biology part of his personal religion and accepted change as evolution toward
godlike perfection. The other part of his religion was the ideal, static Greek perfection toward which
life was presumably evolving.
The problem with Aristotle was that he was so successful as a thinker that he became an obstacle
to further thought. In fact, it would be 2,000 years before the world produced his equal as a
philosopher, although this was only partially due to his success. It was also due to the success of
his disciples, who deified him as the intellectual fountainhead from which all knowledge flowed and
the omega point upon which all thoughts converged. As a result of their efforts, his authority
became so great in both philosophy and science that his legacy became an impediment to
progress. Since 1600, almost every serious intellectual advance first had to overcome one of his
doctrines.
Moreover, the success that Aristotle had in shaping the passive schema of Europe in the millennia
that followed him was the same kind of success that brought stagnant failure to Greece. As a result
of the Greeks' aristocratic preference for thought over action, technical progress was thwarted. They
failed to improve agriculture or to exploit any resource other than forced labor. If this is a sad
picture, it is also a concrete realization/reflection of the Republic and Aristotle's Metaphysics. The
development not only of science but of society was arrested as Greek thought remained true to
itselfstatic and unreal.
Nevertheless, Aristotle's most illustrious (and probably most reluctant) pupil, Alexander (356-323),
did as much as any one man could to reshape Greek and Western history. In his time, political
philosophy was geared for the city-state, not empires and civilizations, but as a Macedonian (i.e.,
non-Greek) doer, he forced a rethinking of political, economic and social relationships which was
beyond the ability of the Greek mind.
Thus, Alexander was both an end and a beginning. He fairly wrecked an already decrepit, classical
Greece but was the first unifier of a multicultural empire even before there was a Western idea of
empire. Before him, the most grandiose Greek political ambition was to Hellenize Persia, but he
took Herodotus's idea and went well beyond it. After him, the idea of a world organization based on
universal law became possible as he came to symbolize a world-wide political order and became
the role model for the Roman Emperor. In effect, he was an earlier-day Caesara Roman general
misplaced in time and space.
If Alexander can be known through his accomplishments, he was a brilliant, transitory comet in the
historical firmament. He created much, and he created grandly, but overall, he created little that
endured and little more than he ruined. He unified everything from the Adriatic to the Indus under
one rule but could not make his empire permanent. The cities he planned and that remain have to
be matched against those he destroyed. He failed to Hellenize the East: Babylon and Egypt
swarmed with Greek names before his time and remained Eastern after it. He builtno great roads
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and secured no sea lanes. With his mental range limited by his magnificence, his greatest creation
of all was his own myth.
As a myth and a model, Alexander inspired many who came after him, but his immediate legacy
was one of confusion, barbarism and atrocity. When he died, the order he had imposed upon his
world vanished as autocratic provincial rulers set themselves up in his shattered empire. Also, his
entire family was destroyed, with his mother (having indulged in a murderous rampage) being killed
by vengeful friends of her victims.
This legacy of confusion may be attributed to the way Alexander drifted around while looking
backwards, and in this sense, he truly personified the whole Hellenistic (i.e., Macedonian
dominated) period of Greek history. In a world of action made meaningful or meaningless by people
and their attitudes, all the major developments which followed his reign contributed to the demise of
Greek civilization. Consistent with the Greek adage "Character is fate", this great undoing can be
attributed to drawbacks seemingly inherent in the Greek mentality if not human nature.
The most impressive achievements of the Hellenistic age antedated Rome in being material and
utilitarian. During this era, the Greeks were builders on a large scalehighways, aqueducts, harbors
and planned cities. There was a growth of business and a vigorous expansion of commerce which
increased the wealth of the merchant class. This temporal success brought with it the usual vices of
immorality which invariably accompany luxury. Cultural creativity ceased and was replaced by a
bourgeois complacence which degenerated into a lethargic vulgarity anticipating Roman
decadence. Scholars became pedantically sterile while the gods became pathetically human.
All this material accomplishment and attendant moral collapse came at a time of political chaos.
This was produced by widespread social unrest and freebooting Macedonian armies unrestrained in
their mutual territorial disputes by any political principle beyond the power of the sword. If the
absence of something can be a cause, a further contributing factor to this chaotic condition was the
absence of a new ideal of an empire to replace the outmoded model of the city-state.
As debilitating as this deficiency was, it was merely a specific example of the grander overall failure
of Greek thinkers to cope with the changing Hellenistic world. Consistent with Platonically abstract
idealism, Greek philosophy eschewed contact with the world of action and buried itself in itself. Not
surprisingly, the self-effacing effect this had on cultural life in general was made manifest in the
intellectual life of Alexandria, the most famous city of this era.
In political philosophy, an excess of freedom in Alexandria led to deference to popularity. Originally,
political discussions were supported aswell as limited by the patronage of Ptolemy I (367?-283).
Later, dissension permitted the superstitions and prejudices of the city mob into academic life to the
detriment of clear, independent thought.
While on the one hand popular opinion thus abused freedom and confused political thought, on the
other, no one at the Establishment's institutionalized Alexandrian Museum took advantage of
existent intellectual freedom to indulge in creative thinking in either science or mathematics. The
associates there in this era were comfortably disposed to accept prevailing Greek opinions from the
past as to how they should think and how the universe should behave. Basically, everything was to
be theoretical: This was evident in the works of the two great mathematicians of the age Euclid
and Archimedesas well as in the approach of the astronomers of the day to the heavens.
Euclid's Elements (ca. 300) is one of the greatest books ever written and a perfect monument to the
Greek intellect, as it codified the triumph of static thought. Its limitations are typically Greek in that
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its method is purely deductive so there is no way within the pure, ideal system of geometric
perfection to test the assumptions upon which it is based. These are supposed to be self-evident
truths, but only observation could demonstrate whether or not they were actually true. However, this
kind of confirmation was not only impossible but unthinkable in Euclid's privately constructed little
world. Imbued with Plato's contempt for reality, he regarded the idea of practically applied geometry
as repugnant.
The other typically Greek prodigy of this era was Archimedes (287-212). He was a great
mathematician as well as a great engineer, but his love of consistency made him timid and
contemptuous toward practical applications of science so he remained a great engineer with a
contempt for engineering. He wanted his fame to rest entirely upon his contributions to pure theory,
and it has, although his weakness for the logic of geometry limited the horizons even of his
theoretical interestse.g., as motion is illogical (or nonlogical), he confined himself to statics.
Beyond geometry and theoretical engineering, astronomy was the most impressive scientific
achievement of the Alexandrian age, although it was in this field that the oppressive role of previous
thought was more evident than in any other. In aspiring to adhere to the homocentric hypothesis of
celestial motion, astronomers increasingly had to force themselves to ignore motions of heavenly
bodies for which there was no explanation. The problem was not that these irregularities had not
been accounted for but that they could not be accounted for by the prevailing theory. Although
appealing to the egos of ancient humanists and built of perfect circles, the homocentric hypothesis
was fundamentally unacceptable, and the reasonsfor its unacceptability were known by those
who nevertheless strove to perfect it.
This was a classic example of the human mind thwarting itself, as information contradicting a
prevailing belief was simply ignored. When "Irregularities" were acknowledged, the schema was
jimmied around to accommodate them. The last resort was to develop a new system of belief, and
this was actually done by an IonianAristarchus (315?-230?) of Samos, who formulated the
Copernican system of revolving planets only to find he had thereby offended religious prejudices.
His theory was rejected in favor of the "Ptolemaic system", which explained the motion of planets
around the earth in terms of epicycles.
The irony of Alexandria was that it coupled intellectual repression (as in the case of astronomy) with
major scientific achievements (like the maps of Eratosthenes) at a time of undisciplined political
thought. However, Alexandria had little practical effect on the lives of people in general, then or
later, because it produced no pragmatic system of beliefs to match the events of the day. In this
sense, it was a true realization of the Greek mentality. Philosophy had abandoned the world as an
illusion in favor of reveling in sublime thought. Divorced from the mundane experiences of earthly
living, which it roundly disparaged, Greek thought idealized static perfection and became static and
irrelevant. Philosophers sat aside, so to say, and let mere doers, like Alexander, take over.
Aristocratic thinkers thus failed to keep pace with men of action because the dynamic idea of a
constantly changing world was simply and fundamentally incomprehensible to the Greek mind.
This intellectual failure in the third century contributed to the moral decay of Greek culture generally
during this age. As in so many historical eras, there was no great cause worthy of commitment from
everyone and upon which social stability could be based. Civic spirit survived in the old city-states,
but they were stagnant and moribund. In the new cities established by Alexander, there were no
traditions of civic pride and no sense of political unity, and their absence weakened the fiber of
Hellenism considerably.
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In a more general sense, the deterioration of the Hellenic city-state and Greek philosophy prepared
the Western psyche for the supernatural spirituality of Christianity. Until the time of Alexander,
philosophers had reason to feel that wisdom was power. Ironically, even Pythagoras and Plato, who
condemned the world of appearances, had plans for converting governors into saints. When the
Macedonians took over and philosophy failed, people turned to religion as well as magic and
astrology. Concern for public virtue was replaced by interest in individual salvation and theensuing
emphasis on the individual's subjective religious experience paved the way for the Christian faith.
Thus, it was during this Hellenic era that Western intellectual life took a decisive turn away from
Aristotle and his orderly collection of knowledge toward religious spiritualism. The ordinary person is
rather disposed to take an easy path which may be followed, regardless of where it happens to be
going, rather than to hack out a new trail on his own to get to some unknown destination. In this
regard, the deposed and dispossessed philosophers of this period were remarkably ordinary in the
ease with which they abandoned the orderly planning of perfect, new utopian ways of living and
drifted into creating systems of cognitive evasion. The Cynics could not have cared more for the
relation of the soul to God nor less for reality while the Stoics and Epicureans were most concerned
with ethical means to abstract ends.
Actually, traditional Greek life could have succeeded had nothing ever changed. Although it may be
an exaggeration to imply in this manner that Greek culture was inflexibly static, certainly it was not
dramatically dynamic. The Greeks did not even try to harness the forces of nature and had no idea
of progress. They sent out no crusaders to remake the world in their image, and the only Greeks
who went to excess were the philosophers, who were excessive in their withdrawal from life.
All Greece paid the price for their quest for perfection, and the tragedy was that the failure to realize
the ideal was due to the limitations inherent in it. The preoccupation of Greek intellectual life with
static excellence became formalistic and led to a strained sense of propriety rather than to a vibrant
love of life. In idealizing, Greek thinkers sacrificed too much variety for the sake of purity and
ignored the complexity of the human condition in favor of the simplicity of rational systems. Greece
became culturally paralyzed largely because philosophical perfection (although very nice for an
ideal as an ideal) was pursued for itself while thought was rendered useless to society in general. In
their attempts to create perfect worlds, thinkers removed themselves ever more from their
environment, drifted off into their limbotic ideals and left Greece strapped by reason and unable to
learn from experience.
Particularly, their ideals prevented the Greeks from learning from their experiences with the
city-state, slavery and ideals themselves. For example, the city-state, which gave form to Greek
politics and structured perpetual disunity and strife into Greek life, was not only taken for granted by
the citizens of Athens, Sparta, etc. but was regarded as an ideal, and most could not conceive of
their political life in any other way. In fact, they regarded the city-state, slavery and vapid ideals all
as great culturalvirtues, and their tragedy was that, being human, they could not overcome their
virtues.
However, that is not the whole story. In addition to their fatal virtues, Greeks also had a number of
other very human, debilitating faults. For example, they were superstitious to the point that even the
militaristic Spartans campaignedsometimes to their detrimentaccording to lunar phases and
eclipses, Also, they had little sense of science and history, so they could not substitute knowledge
for superstition or understanding for tradition. Basically, they believed everything was due to the
gods, all of whom had to be honored by any mortals hoping for the best.
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Still, superstitions flourished because analytical thought had been rendered abstract and impractical
by the influence of the Pythagorians and Athenian philosophers, so once again, we return to ideal
philosophy as the basic cultural flaw of Greece. The Ionians had developed scientific thought, but
the Greeks failed to continue the rational pursuit of natural causes and settled for moral rationalism
instead. They would neither subject their theories to empirical tests nor ask critical questions of their
self-evident truths. Part of the cause for this attitude was that the established powers preferred
keeping the existing gods to having a lot of inquiries made as to how things actually worked.
Another part was the slave-owning aristocracy's disdain for knowledge gained through doing. With
the deification of pure reason, Plato triumphed at the expense of all Greeks, who sacrificed
pragmatism for idealism.
This idealism failed because it separated the Greeks from their environment and each other while
stifling creativity. The net effect was that they could not respond effectively to the challenges of their
own achievements. Specifically, they could not cope with social tensions released by freedom within
the city-states like Athens nor with the problems among them which precluded the development of a
unified Greek Empire or the United States of Greece as envisaged by Herodotus. Indeed, Thebes
tried but failed to establish a Greek Federation in the 360's.
Not only was reason divorced from reality, but it was also narrowed to theoretical considerations of
human affairs. Nature was not a school for the Greeks so they generally failed to appreciate the
theories developed by their own thinkers about the atom, evolution and the solar system.
The immediate cause of this failure was the slavery of the Greek mind to itself. The ideals of perfect
forms and theoretical order in an abstract world became facades behind which Greeks hid from
change in the real world. Rather than coping with it, philosophers dismissed change and everything
else as illusionary while those in power tried to prevent it. Gradually, Greece withdrew intellectually,
culturally and then politically from a world which kept on changing.
Of all the symbolic acts of antiquity, the clearest was that of the Roman soldier who killed
Archimedes at Syracuse in 212. Nothing could better epitomize the fatal effect of the emerging
power of Rome on theoretical thought in the ancient world.
*
Today, we honor the Greeks more for what they attempted than what they achieved. Like Socrates,
they asked more questions than they answered, and we are still trying to find answers to some of
the questions they first posed. They were the first to challenge the world and proclaim that life need
not be dictated by presumed necessity and tribal tradition; it did not just have to be accepted but
could be altered by the application of reason and deliberate planning.
Unfortunately, in searching for a better world, the Greeks became side-tracked into searching for
ways to preserve their own because they defined their own world as good and thought its
continuation would be better than any change. In this regard, they were simply being more human
than scientific as they sought to save themselves (i.e., their schema) at the cost of their future.
While we can see this from our vantage point, we can also see that they were intellectual geniuses
when compared to their predecessors as well as their successors until the time of Copernicus.
In their day, however, their genius could not alter the fact that, as citizens of the various city-states,
their narrow view of themselves limited their political development. Still, their legacy of stupidity to
later generations was due less to this than to their excessive Platonic idealization in philosophy.
Aristotle did his best to bridge the real and ideal worlds, and regrettably, his partial success was so
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impressive that it stopped scientific inquiry for nearly 2,000 years. For this, we can not blame the
Greeks in general nor Aristotle in particular: Those who followed him betrayed his spirit, became
paralyzed with respect and converted him into an obstacle to intellectual development.
Nevertheless, the origins of modern Western stupidity can be traced back to the ideal rationality of
Athens and in some ways beyond. Our scientific tradition began in Ionia but was aborted. Our
moralistic bent began with Pythagoras and still determines which lessons we prefer to learn.
However, in the most obvious ways, our stupidity is more like that of the Hellenic era than any other
in that we are pragmatically realistic to the point of encouraging amorality. After some four hundred
years of achievement in the natural sciences and two hundred of technological development, we
have become stunted, lopsided, uncultured, amoral materialists. We have narrowed our interests
and focused on making a good living rather than enjoying or leading a good life. It is worth noting
that the Greek word for this became our word for "Idiot".
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III. Roman Stupidity
From the rise of the Republic to the fall of the Empire, the story of Roman stupidity is the story of
material success undermined by intellectual failure. The Romans' material success was built on
their canny knack for acting in their immediate best interest, but their intellectual limitations rendered
them unable to perceive the long-term negative effects imperialism had on their society. Thus,
Roman stupidity was fundamentally a failure of self-perception for as they busily reshaped the
world, the Romans failed to see what they were doing to themselves. This was particularly true of
the governing aristocrats, who insisted on viewing themselves as Rome incarnate and their own
interests as those of Rome in general, especially in the latter days of the Empire.
It was not always so.
In its early days, the Roman Republic was preoccupied with a class struggle between the
aristocratic patricians and the plebes, but both sides were quite pragmatic in respecting each other
and shrewd enough never to force an issue to a disastrous climax. Within their limits, Romans were
hard dealers, but during the fourth century B.C., they stayed within those limits. If there was
stupidity in this era, it was correctable within the existing cultural construct and did not go to the
excesses which led to the fall first of the Republic and then the Empire.
Furthermore, the same sagacity, aggressive selfishness and practical altruism which limited the
Republic's class conflicts also characterized its foreign policy. The Romans understood the value of
allies, could assimilate vanquished foes and would "Give and take" with a degree of fairness and
sanity. This was the real power of Rome, and it converted a miserable little city, which in 390 was
defended by geese and sacked by Gauls, into the ruling unifier of Italy in 275.
In achieving unity, Rome succeeded where Athens had failed because Athens had been dominated
by that narrow patriotism which can thwart the ambitions of any state. Athens was basically disliked
or, at best, envied even within her own empire because she prevailed in a proud spirit of civic
egotism. Consequently, her disasters were not felt to be disasters by her subject states.
The Roman Senators prevented such attitudes from developing by incorporating even the sturdiest
of their antagonists into the Republic on a par with themselves. Not only did they extend the rights
of citizens at home, but they expanded the franchise of citizenship abroad, giving all in their domain
a common, broad interest in the welfare of the state. This was a new phenomenon in history as until
this time, all empires had been built on obedience to some monarch. However, early on, this was
theoretically a "Republican empire" even if eventually it became simply the "Roman Empire".
Actually, the nature of the Republic is masked from the modern mind by the very use of the term
"Republic", which in our day suggests (without guarantying) representative government. Even in the
early days of Rome, this never really was the case, and as the Republic grew, the Popular
Assembly lost what influence it had. At best, the people were never really effectively represented
because they were disenfranchised by both distance and the organization of the Assembly, which
voted along tribal lines. These tribal votes were often manipulated in ways which would have
shamed Tammany Hall so as to produce results contrary to the popular will, and as the Assembly
became increasingly unwieldy and corrupt, power fell to the Senate.
The Senate was the bastion of the Roman oligarchythe big businessmen, ambitious politicians,
great land owners, etc. Thus, most members had interests at odds with those of the majority of the
citizens. Although the Senate had little executive authority, it was so influential and the
unrepresentative Assembly so impotent that popular government failed before the First Punic War.
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In the Punic Wars, Rome had the distinct advantage of fighting Carthage, which was about as
stupid an opponent as any belligerent could wish to have. The Carthaginian leaders ignored their
allies and own people as much as possible and, as leaders of the Roman Empire would later do,
pursued their own narrow interests to the detriment of the state in general. They were particularly
hostile to new men and novel measures and were overconfident of their maritime ascendancy to the
point of negligence.
In fact, nothing better illustrated the general stupidity of the Carthaginians than their demise at sea
at the hands of the Roman fleet in the First Punic War. At the battle of Mylae in 260, the Romans
were victorious by virtue of a tactical innovation: Instead of ramming the enemy vessels or breaking
their oars, the Roman navy maneuvered so that Roman soldiers could board the enemy ships and
slaughter their crews. Incredibly, they were completely triumphant using exactly the same tactic
again in 256 at the battle of Econmus. The Carthaginians had four years to developa countertactic
but, having learned nothing from the first debacle, failed to do so.
The last two Punic Wars were characterized by an element of insanity extreme even for wars.
Reasonable men were howled down or murdered, as homicide became an obsession. During the
Second War, Hannibal conducted one of the longest, most brilliant futile raids in history: For fifteen
years, he won every battle fought but ultimately failed because he could not sustain his siege of
Rome. Finally, he had to withdraw to Carthage and was beaten at the battle of Zama in the year
before our Lord 202. This was the high point in the history of the Republic.
However, during the fifty years leading to the next war, Rome became cowardly and insecure in
attitude, harsh and base in spirit and mean and petty in action. This was a period when fear of the
mighty, envy of the successful, arrogance of the righteous and greed of the rich led to an expansion
of power abroad and the destruction of the plebes at home.
To begin with, the politicians feared successful military commanders, and specifically they feared
the victorious general Scipio Africanus. Cato (234-149) led the attack against him, and the Senate
actually became infuriated when the general's younger brother Lucius won a battle in Lydia in 190. It
seems the Senators hoped their commanders would lose battles but somehow win wars.
While the Senators feared the generals, the oligarchy they represented resented any wealth but
their own and thus envied the twice defeated but commercially successful Carthaginians.
Eventually, fear yielded to envy and Rome embarked upon the third and stupidest of the Punic
Warsa trade war with a noncompetitor. The big winner was the hated enemy (the army), which
defeated the nominal enemy (Carthage) in 146.
By this time, the Roman Army had become thoroughly professional. The embattled farmers who
had once defended Rome had been replaced after the Second Punic War with soldiers whose
interests differed from those of the citizens in that they owed their allegiance to their own leaders,
who secured pay and plunder. Before the Punic Wars, the political leaders had courted the plebes:
Thereafter, they uneasily courted the legionsimperial monsters of their own creation.
During this era, no one better personified Rome than Cato, and certainly any culture that could be
represented by him had to have something wrong with it. He embodied the stern, stiff, brutal, stupid
moral code which enabled Rome to defeat Carthage, but he was virtuous to a fault and considered
the pursuit of the wicked the most noble calling of an honest man. In fact, his brutality stemmed
from his strict adherence to traditional Roman morality, which he feared might be undermined by
Greek influence.
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Actually, Roman morality was undermined by a base financial system of cash and credit which was
developing during this era. Thus, one simple explanation for the fall of the Republic was "Easy
money". In the earlier world of Babylon and the simpler world of China, the pace of life had been
leisurely with trade conducted by barter or payment in kind. In Rome, this changed.
After the final fall of Carthage, the Roman imagination went wild with the possibilities of finance.
Money had been in use for only a few centuries, and its primary effect on Roman life was that it
provided a handful of successful financiers with freedom and leisure. A secondary effect was that,
due to financial speculation, neither the city nor the Empire ever developed a secure economic
base. A tertiary effect was the decline in virtue which accompanied the opportunity for instant riches.
Money clearly had the Romans, and as its price fluctuated, fortunes were made and lost. This was
all well and good for the successful few, but the majority attained only the negative wealth of debt.
Patricians grew poor, then irritated and finally unscrupulous. Corruption reached the army to the
point that professional generals could be bought off. Hope of speculators was often dashed by
disappointment, and almost everyone felt vaguely baffled and sensed they were being bested not
by impersonal financial forces but by manipulating insiders.
Not only did Romans become irresponsibly vulnerable in the pursuit of easy money, but as the
search for riches led them into a policy of imperialistic expansion eastward, they underwent an
identity crisis. As a result of opportunistic triumphs abroad, they became imperial rather than
republican in character, and an exclusive policy of "Patriotism" replaced that of assimilating
inhabitants of conquered territories. It seems the practice of inclusion, which had been the secret of
Roman success, was a secret the Romans kept from themselves.
At the same time that Romans were becoming narrow, their calculated greed inhibited further
expansion. They looted and destroyed Asia Minor and Babylon, which could have been used as
bases for expansion eastward. In doing so, they repeated the spiteful mistake they had made in
annihilating Carthage, which might have served as a Roman base in Africa. Thus, shortsightedness
was a limiting factor on Roman aggrandizement in both the south and east.
Nonetheless, the Republic was quite vast as it was and somehow maintained a semblance of unity
for generations despite the divisive factors working against it. This achievement is all the more
remarkable considering it was accomplished in an age when there were no newspapers nor any
practical means for disseminating propaganda or information in general. On the other hand, this
factor might have been balanced by the fact that it was also more difficult to spread dissension, as
there was no underground press to inflame popular opinion and focus awareness on injustices.
Thus, the vaunted and long lasting unity of the Republic might be partially attributable to widespread
ignorance as well as the stupidity of the common citizen about which nearly everyone complained.
A surprising thing about these complaints is that none was accompanied by a suggestion of an
educational program to produce informed, intelligent citizens instilled with a sense of Romanness.
Certainly no one in the Establishment tried to foster a sense of public virtue in Roman character,
and with the public generally uninformed and politically impotent, the Republic wallowed in its own
built-in obstacles to sane and reasonable government. In this post-Punic War era, there was no
effort to make the Assembly work in a simple, straightforward, effective manner. Popular opinion
was muted and the needs of the people frustrated. The only practical means of popular expression
was not the tribal vote but generally futile disobedience in the forms of strikes and insurrections.
These had been made necessary and therefore legitimate as the people were systematically
cheated, ignored and suppressed.
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Not only did popular frustrations find no legitimate outlet or means of expression in official channels,
but they were actually thwarted by a firm commitment of the rulers to the status quo. The Senate
was all for "Law and order" and worked to prevent any meaningful reform which would undercut its
own power. If it thus induced insurrection and courted revolution, it was, in this regard, but typical of
power elites, which seldom appreciate that what is needed is not "Law and order" but justice. Even
though the Romans made a laudable cultural contribution to civilization with the development of a
codified legal system, they did not develop the concept of justice. Their laws were consciously
designed to promote order but fostered disorder because they were not fair. They were made by the
rich to protect the wealthy and were not adjusted to the changing conditions high finance had
wrought throughout society.
As wealth defined power, the Roman Senate came to be dominated by "Practical" men whose
biased perception of justice and shortsighted commitment to order were shaped by their
presumption that "The state is us". They conceived the utopian state to be one in which the able
(meaning themselves) ruled the incompetent (everybody else) and endeavored to build a world
according to the principle that the most obedient and submissive subjects are contented cowards.
However, with all the myopia they could muster and maintain, they not only created a discontented
classwhich was no longer cowardly but became contented cowards themselves. They all but
deliberately rigged the political machine for an explosion by persistently creating injustice and
dissatisfaction to the point of violence. Unwilling to share power or redress grievances their
impractical polices had created, the Senators sustained themselves by resorting to the
time-honored political practices of double-crossing, bribery and thuggery.
As corrupt as government had been earlier in the development of the Republic, Roman success had
depended on a general belief in politics. This tradition of faith among all citizens in the political
process was almost a religious faitha belief in the myth that the law would be fair. Not stuck with
the idea of the city-state nor even that of a republic, Romans had believed in political action and
seized every opportunity for it that came their way even as the Republic declined. More than
anything else, it was the coupling of their positive, optimistic attitude toward political action with their
open-mindedness toward political form that carried Romans to a world empire.
However, in the latter days of the Republic, as this belief waned in the face of laws favoring the rich,
anarchy gradually became a real threat. Only when the oligarchy realized its own lives and property
were seriously threatened did it moderate its nefarious and disastrous policies, but by then, it was
too late, and conciliatory gestures were insufficient to halt the slide toward disunity. (Further, the
Empire finally fell when the ultimately amoral political Establishment became so corrupt and
ineffectual that the Romans, in pessimistic despair, gave up on it and turned from this world to the
nexti.e., to religion.)
Thus, the Republic failed because it was not unified in spirit. People professed loyalty and thought
of themselves as Romans, but the moral bond had been broken by the corrupting effects of greed
and imperial expansion as well as the failure of the political process to address issues and solve
problems. As the gap between citizen and state widened, class strife finally erupted in the Social
War of 91 B.C. Thereafter, the demise of the Republic became a story of revolutionary and
counter-revolutionary leaders, the vulgar poor opposed by the vulgar rich and neither democrats nor
aristocrats doing much to be admired. Together, they demonstrated how clever, cunning, subtle,
greedy and stupid all Romans could be.
After two years of conflict, the Senate surrendered to the idea of reform. However, as soon as the
rebels dispersed, it was politics as usual. Once again, the big winner was the army, which reigned
terror over Italy and was opposed only by itself. Rival generals plotted for dictatorial power in the
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face of a Senate which had been weakened by its own failure to respond to the crisis it had created.
During these wars, one general would champion the Senate and another the people. The general
who paid best won, but expenses on both sides were paid by confiscating the estates of the rich
and dividing the land among the soldiers. This became a self-reinforcing positive feedback system
which finally ended only when Julius Caesar's adopted son Augustus (63 B.C.-14 A.D.; alias
Octavian) became completely victorious.
Thus, chaos led to monarchyalthough the princeps (alias "Caesar") was not an hereditary
monarch but more like an American wartime President elected for life. Gradually, he would become
a god-emperor with his only mortal limitation being that he had to keep in touch with the army, but at
first, all Rome (with the possible exception of the Senate) was united behind the pathetic idea that
Augustus was and his successors would be grand, noble and worthy of support.
They were half right. Augustus was a worthy leader and his reign a happy time for the Romans
according to the Roman sense of happiness. Although he replaced the policy of expansion with one
of peace, the commercial class prospered, and if government by an overorganized bureaucracy
functionally replaced that of constitutional administration, the old aristocrats continued to be
honored and respected. Further, for the sake of stability, Augustus promoted ancient piety over free
inquiry, so the Roman world began to become stereotypically hidebound by tradition. Romans thus
secured both peace and their beloved order courtesy of Augustus but at the cost of creativity. They
settled down to a stodgy contentment and became, if anything, too content.
After Augustus, the Imperial Court limited its inventiveness to vice and immorality and consequently
deteriorated noticeably as the indulgences of the Emperors went to excess. They were considered
gods and were therefore restrained by neither law nor religion. With their behavior beyond the call of
custom or conscience, their power was absolute, so their merest whim became a reality.
A measure of Imperial immorality in the first century A.D. is indicated by the causes of Nero's
unpopularity. He lost support among the people not because he murdered his mother and wifeafter
all, such behavior is usually understandable, often forgivable and occasionally justifiable. He was
unpopular because during his reign the army suffered a disastrous setback in Britain, there was an
earthquake in southern Italy and Rome burned downthat is, because he was unlucky rather than
because he was wicked or a mediocre musician. As the Romans were superstitious rather than
religious, there was no moral basis for power, which rested on the army, and after Marcus Aurelius
(161-180), unity and reasonable government came to an end.
Marcus was almost the personification of Plato's ideal philosopher-king. This could have been ironic
since the "Practical" (i.e., unimaginative) Romans distrusted Greek philosophy. However, it was not
because, while Marcus idealized Roman order and tried to govern according to reason, he had to
deal with a succession of disasters including treason, plague, war, rebellion and bankruptcy. As he
confronted these problems, he personified the essence of the Roman conditiona pragmatist
searching for order in a chaotic world, but being more a king than a philosopher, he sacrificed order
and reason for immediate solutions to real problems. For example, he had to see that grain ships
arrived and that borders were defended, and he did so, behaving like a practical politician while
espousing Stoic philosophy.
If there was indeed any irony in this, it was that a pragmatic Emperor would promulgate Stoicism,
although by so doing, he was at least in tune with his times and the needs of his subjects. During
this era, Romans simply endured their lot without even the hope of improvement. Their sense of
futility was appropriately expressed in the Emperor's philosophy, which alleged that happiness was
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theoretically possible despite suffering but that pleasure was to be despised. Like vintage pressed
from sour grapes, Stoicism encouraged people to pretend it did not matter if they were not happy so
long as they could be good.
Although Stoicism was both untrue and insincere, it emphasized the soul and thus pointed away
from the Greek belief in the city-state and toward a common bond in the human family. As an
articulation of the human ability to imagine a better world than that existent, Stoicism was an heroic
and useful morality designed for a bad world in which successful resistance to evil and tyranny was
impossible. Such was the world when Rome was in its glory, but if the Empire seemed stable to the
point of immutability, it was nevertheless hollow.
The reign of Marcus Aurelius brought to an end Rome's greatest age, but just how great that age
really was is open to question. In the second century, slavery abounded, sapping the vigor of the
Roman world. Gladiators battled with each other and beasts in a spirit of cruelty and brutality. Such
as it was, "Civilization" hardly touched the agricultural regions upon which Rome depended for free
distribution of grain. In general, the economy was bad, and in most cities, the citizens suffered
poverty along with the slaves.
If anything, Rome's greatest age was one of opportunity wasted on spending rather than creating.
The construction of great buildings was accompanied by a superficial, material prosperity of the few
who wallowed in luxury while most lacked necessities. As the rich grew richer, therewas some
refinement of manners but no development of morals, and as the poor grew poorer, the human soul
and spirit decayed.
Further, as the government became a military dictatorship, the citizens came to be regarded merely
as a source of revenue and recruits. Political power and initiative were concentrated in the Emperor
and his ministersall of whom heeded only the army. Among the Caesars, Diocletian (286-305) is
noteworthy for having curbed the immediate political power of the military by enlisting barbarians
into the ranks of the army. However, this proved to be a fatal expedient, as it delayed but practically
insured the demise of the Empire. One hundred years later, the barbarians turned the skills they
had learned to their own advantage when they realized it was more profitable for them to fight for
themselves than for the Romans. Finally, when they realized it was even more profitable still to fight
against the Romans, they turned on their former masters.
In fact, the two of Diocletian's policies most noted for having staved off the fall of the Empire proved
to be classic examples of the neurotic paradox, as they were reforms which were successful in a
way and for a while but proved to be debilitating if not disastrous for Rome in the long run. His
barbarization of the army reduced the practice of corrupting Roman generals with bribes and
likewise reduced the Emperor's dependence on the military but taught the barbarians how to sack
Rome. Further, in order to collect taxes more efficiently, he made migration illegal, thus reducing the
population by creating the social class of serfs, who were unenthusiastic about raising children who
would be bound to the soil.
Such negative effects notwithstanding, official policy was set and remained in effect. In retrospect, it
seems that Rome was already boxed in, as those policies Diocletian could think up and apply
eventually proved disastrous. He had to deal with certain problems (i.e., the political power of the
rapacious army and the necessity of tax collection), but with the given conditions, his solutions to
these led to bigger problems later on.
In a similar vein, everyone found statecraftor lack thereofto be an insurmountable problem
inherent in the Roman imperial system. The Roman Empire was basically unsound because it
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neither grew nor developed politically. At best, it sprawled over the Mediterranean and Europe for a
while, but it was run by a bureaucracy which could keep peace only for a time but could not secure
it. The conceptual limitation of the Romans in this regard was revealed by their contentment with
their boundaries in thefourth century: For example, neither then nor later did they make an effort to
Romanize the Germans although the incorporation of Germany was absolutely essential to the
security and life of the Empire.
In fact, the first serious irruptions of German tribes into the Empire had already occurred in the third
century, as central power by then had begun to decay. Although thus directly challenged militarily,
the Empire really did not fall through invasion but was barbarized primarily through the army. The
border between authorized and unauthorized barbarians became blurred during the fourth century
until the Empire became so undefined and spineless that whatever it was could be overrun in the
fifth.
It would have been bad enough for the Empire if the common people had just perceived imperial life
as unsatisfactory, but many had also come to regard it as wrong. Despairing over life as it was and
devoid of any idea or even hope of improving it, Romans were pushed to imagine a better afterlife.
This became a compensatory opiate for existing miseries. It brought relief to the distressed, gave
hope to the downtrodden, restored self-respect to the lowly and provided everyone with a belief that
the universe, if not the world, was righteous. Without hope of setting the world right, they looked for
salvation in religion.
Among the many faiths to which people turned was Christianity. With its Oriental, Jewish, Greek
and Roman origins, it is based upon an intriguing not to mention confusing theology. God is stern,
joyful, inscrutable, lawful, fearful, compassionate, stubborn, autocratic and loving and is
approachable by both reason and faith. Likewise, Christian theology has throughout history given all
kinds of contradictory answers to questions that were literally burning issues in ages past although
they seem trivial today. Further, some answers changed with time, so the original Christians
adhered to a number of beliefs which are considered heretical today just as some of our modern
beliefs would have shocked St. Paul, not to mention Jesus. However, two things about Christian
theology are certain: One is that "True meaning" is found by each individual according to his own,
personal ideals, and the other is that no one could possibly deduce the ideals of Christianity by
studying the behavior of Christians.
Although wickedness is not a Christian ideal, anyone studying the behavior of Christians might
reasonably and correctly conclude they believe in it. Actually, this element of the Christian schema
stems from the Jews' belief in their own moral waywardness for having worshipped idols while being
held captive in Egypt. In this matter, they were really simply victims of their own prophets, who had
coined the tabu against idol worship and then proclaimed it an ancient proscription. In a power play
typical of those in the Establishment who cover for each other, God sided with theprophets and has
persecuted the Jews ever since for failing to keep the faith purealthough the interdiction was newly
concocted.
More important and despite theological disputes over the New Testament, Christianity may be
viewed as essentially a moral regeneration of the Jewish spirit. The development of Christianity was
induced by the moral vacuum created when the Pharisees became oriented toward their own
political well-being and theological formality. They were members of the Jewish sect who
emphasized strict adherence to Mosaic Law, became conservatively committed to the letter of that
Law for its own sake and left no scope for ethical development (i.e., the concoction of new tabus)
within the Jewish faith. The Christians kept alive the soul of the early teachers and thus became the
spiritual successors of the prophets, moral innovators and new tabu makers.
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Moreover, a major difference between Jews and Christians is that the latter perceive themselves as
sinners. Jews incorrectly consider themselves descendants of idol worshipping sinners and persist
in adhering to what they believe is the pure faith. Christians are more self-condemning and believe
themselves to be evil, which they often are. However, they base this belief not so much on their own
actions relative to the words of Christ as to the pronouncements of his disciples and interpreters.
This is indeed regrettable, for if there ever was a case where the messenger was a medium, it was
that of Jesus Christ. Certainly, all the formal wrangling over the letter of his teachings would have
mystified the Great Mystic himself, who would have been bewildered by the many doctrines which
profess to interpret his simple Word. In fact, he would be hard pressed even to find it now, buried as
it is under layers of ritual and dogma. If he could find it, he probably would accept the fact that it had
been altered to fit the modern world because he was not doctrinaire, accepted the popular
superstitions of his day, had no theology and offered no new ideas about God.
It is not even clear his idea about nonviolence was intended to be taken as a cultural absolute.
Jesus directed that part of his message to the Zealots, who were clamoring for a rebellion, because
he foresaw that against an overwhelmingly superior Roman force it would be fruitlessas it was.
Since he was right, the fanatics resented his presence and were quite happy to have him take his
good advice to a better world where it would fit perfectly. They wanted to be delivered from Roman
rule in this life, not counseled on how to be happy in the next.
One thing that was clear about Christ's message was that he really believed the Kingdom of God
was at hand. Maybe it was for him, but that left everyone else to cope in a world that was not
supposed to matter very much. What Christians have since found but refuse to admit is that
hisideals really are not suited to an ongoing human society. They were designed for a civilization
which was about to end by someone indifferent to political freedom, economic opportunity and
social equality. Actually, since Christ's time, one of the main problems confronting Western thinkers
has been that of trying to adapt his teachings to a worldly system that works.
Chief among the adapters was St. Paulthe creator of Christianity. Originally a reformed Judaism
preached by Jews to Jews, Christianity triumphed over the many other miraculous religions of the
day not because of Jesus but because of St. Paul. The certainties of Judaism were appealing in the
Roman age of dissolving faiths, and Paul proved quite adept at retaining what was attractive of the
old religion in the new while eliminating those features (like circumcision) which would have
inhibited its wider acceptance among gentiles.
Paul was willing to sacrifice everything for the success of "His" religion, and the first thing to go was
Jesus. Paul knew him only indirectly and regarded him more as a symbol than a fixture. Mixing the
spirit of Christ with the moral law of Judaism in teachings that were often contradictory but always
original, Paul made Christianity a religion about rather than of the historic Jesus.
Jesus had taught that people could earn a place in the Kingdom of God through simple repentance
and righteousness. Paul taught that salvation came through Christ alone. Further, Paul laid the
cornerstone of Christian mytheology by presenting Jesus as the Redeemer who atoned for all sins
since that of Adam, and this is the role Christ came to play, although he would be quite surprised to
learn of it.
A tireless religious promoter, Paul was the archetype of a new kind of manthe fool for the sake of
Christ. He went all but delirious with inspiration and issued a call to faith which was singular in being
made with essentially no supporting evidence. Faith alone was all as doctrinaire consistency was
hardly necessary and a dogmatic demand for good works hardly appropriate in a world whose end
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was regarded as imminent.
To the extent that Paul recognized the world, he declared the existing Establishment to be ordained
by God. If it seems strange God would both ordain and doom the world, at least this permitted Paul
to proselytize, which was really all he wanted to do, without being labelled a rebel. Thus, since Paul
wanted to work without interference from the Establishment, God conveniently condoned institutions
like slavery and attitudes like sexism.
If He did, He was something of a Holy Hypocrite, for Paul was busy scurrying around incongruously
presenting Christianity as the great equalizer. According to him, everyone was equal: All were one,
and Christwas all. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female." Then to compound the inconsistency, Paul turned around and, in the spirit of
someone other than Christ, attacked nearly all equallybe they Jewish or Gentile, Greek or Roman
while discouraging attacks on divisive practices (like slavery and sexism) which separated people.
Following his lead, the Church that came into being would co-exist peacefully with slavery and
serfdom, condone the divine right of kings to misrule and generally oppose any popular movements
toward equality, fraternity and liberty on earth.
Christianity actually became part of the Western Establishment when Emperor Constantine
converted to it in 312. This was a decisive event which altered the nature of both the Empire and the
religion. For his Empire, Constantine's conversion was disruptive, as it brought spiritual confusion
and alienated many pagans. For Christianity, it was at best a mixed blessing, as the faith was
diluted by the many pagans led to it, but the Church was made legitimate, wealthy and prestigious
to the point that it became the worldly Establishment and eventually superseded the Empire it never
served.
As the fourth century wore on, the brutal, shabby state came to be consecrated and supported by
God, although this meant a limiting alliance for an allegedly universal religion and generally
confused everyone as to what was Caesar's and who was God. Everyone found the notion of a
"Christian Caesar" confusing because whereas previously the Church had been indifferent to the
material despotism of the Empire, it now owed its existence to both Christ (meaning Paul) and
Caesar (meaning Constantine). It had been at first a non-State Church which had become a State
Church and was on its way to becoming a Church State. As it became a senior partner to the state,
it became alienated from itself because it became increasingly involved with the material world while
theology was detaching from reality.
Hence, as the Church became part of the Establishment it began to develop the schizoid tendencies
which were inherent in its new, dual nature. During the first phase of its existence (the first three
centuries A.D.), Christianity had been a religion for unhappy people whose only hope was that the
next world could not be any worse than this one. During the next phase (the fourth century), the
faithful's grounds for unhappiness became increasingly justified. Theologians turned away from
deteriorating secular concerns as the standard of living fell until the Empire was not worth defending
and hardly worth overrunning. When the barbarians came in the fifth century, Christians had a
grand, abstract theology about Heaven but nothing worldly in which anyone could believe.
In fact, the most striking phenomenon of fourth century intellectual life was the increasing
indifference of theologiansthe only intellectuals worthy of noteto the new role of the Church. As
this trend progressed, Christian ideology became something of a religious fantasy with secular
problems being pointedly ignored by the theologians. And what were the issues which occupied the
great minds of the age as the Empire deteriorated? Were they absorbed with reforming the abuses
of bureaucracy? No! Were they busy expelling the barbarians? No! With civilization crumbling all
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around them, the best educated minds of the Roman Empire were busy extolling the merits of
virginity and preaching the damnation of unbaptized infants.
As these religious philosophers viewed this world only as a stopping point along the way to the next,
they thought the only knowledge worth having was that which would help the tourist understand the
Scriptures as a Holy Travel Guide which contained all essential truths about the universe. Thus,
they considered curiosity a vice, since faith alone would suffice for the successful completion of the
journey. The idea of seeking secular knowledge died for seeming pointless, and analytical thought
became totally divorced from reality as a kind of detached insanity went to excess and ushered in
the Dark Ages.
This was made possible in part by the development of an abstract theology which made the
medieval era one unsurpassed in applied ignorance and superstition. As the herald of the new age,
St. Augustine (354-430) worked to have the doctrine of free will and the questioning of original sin
declared heretical and stifled interest not only in natural knowledge but in all independent inquiry.
Officially, however, the light of learning was not extinguished until Emperor Justinian closed Plato's
Academy in Athens in 529.
The third phase of its existence was an earthly triumph for the Church but a fatal compromise for
Christianity. To the extent that the Christian religion was a self-realizing fantasy, it fulfilled itself by
bringing Heaven (i.e., Church rule) to earth, but it then was taken over by the world the medieval
Church ruled. This occurred because the adjustments required in the faith and by the faithful
developed not as products of thoughtful planning by theologicians but as reactions of priests to the
new role they were required to play. That is, although Church philosophy did not change, the
Church did. While theologians were busy turning away from worldly affairs, religion became
trivialized by clerics who were assuming the mundane chores of judicial and administrative
governmental functions. As they became the Establishment, priests accepted the status quo, and
any impetus for reform was lost on them just as the idea of reform was lost on the abstruse
theologians. Serfdom was accepted as natural, and themoral and spiritual standards of the Church
were lowered to accommodate the pettiness of the Popes.
Although the Christians inherited the earth by default as the Empire declined and certainly played a
role in that decline, there were many factors which contributed to the fall of Rome. Actually, the
failure of the Empire had its origins in the success of the Republic in that in general, overall terms,
the Empire fell because the Romans had no understanding of who they were or what they had
created in the heyday of the Republic (ca. 200 B.C.). One reason they did not understand
themselves or the empire they were creating was that they did not deliberately set out to be
imperial. In fact, expansion was accomplished reluctantly and over the explicit objections of some
Senators. After the final victory over Carthage, one conquest led to another until almost
inadvertently the Romans found they had an empire on their hands.
Thus, the demise of the Empire can be traced to the triumphs of the Republic in that Roman
success was accompanied by a failure of self-perception as well as corruption, class war and
chaos. Nevertheless, the imperial Republic continued to expand during a century of civil war until it
finally destroyed itself. Augustus (ca. 0) restored peace and order, halted conquest and established
a monarchy in Republican guise, but moral corruption continued apace in the ensuing two centuries
of prosperity and peace.
As for the eternal question, "Why did the Roman Empire fall?", the simple answer alluded to briefly
above and developed here is that it fell because the Romans were not interested in nor capable of
understanding what they were doingthat is, because they were stupid. If this answer is a bit too
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simple, it may at least be taken as a guiding principle by anyone who wishes to consider the more
complex explanation that it was a mixture of political, social, economic and intellectual elements
which composed a fatal complex for the Empire. This synergistic explanation misses the point,
however, that the cultural specifics really did not matter. Regardless of the particular elements or
even the way they were combined, the Empire fell because the Romans failed to deal with their
problems effectively. None of the individual concrete problems was insurmountable. Theoretically,
even in combination they could have been resolved. The Empire failed because the Romans lacked
the imagination to find solutions to the crises they created.
Politically, the fall of the Empire was invited when it was invented by AugustusRome's great
political genius. The Principate was Rome's response to the failed Republic, and although it
remained officially republican, it was really simply a new form of monarchythe most unimaginative
form of government imaginable. It was a political system which not only resolved but created
political problems because Rome was invariably ruled by an Emperor who was human enough to be
corrupted by his absolute power. Further, the Empire never resolved the basic political problem of
succession, the most common methods for replacing one corrupt Emperor with another being
assassination and appeals to or by the army.
With the political system animated primarily by fear, it is not surprising that Rome's major social and
economic problems went unresolved. Chief among these was that those who worked had to support
both the idle poor and the idle rich. Although this social/economic arrangement is common in
civilizations and was not fatal to Rome, it was a problem which became aggravated by imperial
successes. Even in the days of the Republic, triumphs abroad increased the discrepancy between
the oligarchy and the plebes until they eventually produced class war at home.
This basic problem was further compounded under Augustus when military expansion was halted
and thus ceased to provide plunder and new markets. The up-and-coming business class became
somewhat stifled not only by limited markets abroad but also by domestic poverty, which limited
markets at home. Still, prosperity continued for the newly established entrepreneurs (as well as the
wealthy, landed patricians) because they had enough political clout to pass their economic burdens
on to the poor. This became a positive feedback system, and the gaps between city and country,
rich and poor, upper and lower classes ever widened.
The sad fact of Roman economic life was that the Empire, which had grown up on territorial
expansion and thus failed to develop any substantial industry, could continue to exist temporarily
only by exploiting its own poor. Early on, Roman industry had begun to develop but had failed. This
failure was due not only to an economic dependence upon imperialism but also to a general
technical backwardness of the supporting culture, which typically scorned innovation in any of the
arts or sciences. After the first century, there were no important improvements in industrial
techniques. For example, there was no development of mechanical power, although Archimedes
had laid the foundations of mechanics and technicians knew the potential power of water, steam
and air pressure.
Social factors also played a role in stunting industrial development in that the oligarchy remained
disdainful of the economic activities that produced their wealth. The class/caste structure of society
which had contributed to the failings of the economy in Greece thus did so again in Rome. Again,
slavery was both a sign and source of this weakness as slaves (and underpaid workers as well) had
no vested interest in inventing anything, while those who might have profited from developing new
techniques andprocesses were not practically involved with them. The result was a technological
stagnation which promoted an economic decline.
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Officially, the basic policy of Roman Empire in both economic and social matters was laissez faire,
which is to say the government had no policy at all. The state simply lived from hand to mouth and
met wars and national emergencies with disruptive levies rather than planned programs. After the
third century, a semblance of order was maintained by the fascistic practice of wage/price controls
and the binding of workers to their jobs. These measures were not reforms but doomed efforts to
preserve the status quo in a crumbling society. Members of the oligarchy sensed that things were
changing and tried to hold the line, but they could not comprehend why their world was collapsing
nor formulate policies which would have been to their long-term advantage because their own
material prosperity blinded them to the very real, widespread failings and inequities of the system.
As the Empire crumbled around them, Romans clung to the illusion it was eternal, but when Rome
finally fell in 476, it made no sound. No one heard the Empire fall because by the time the
barbarians triumphed, Rome had already become barbarized. The Romans of the Republic who
had unified Italy had been of one stock, and although the early Empire was of mixed stock, we
today would still recognize it as Italian. However, conquests led the Empire to include people it
could not assimilate people whose mother tongue was not Latin, who had difficulty perceiving
themselves as Roman and who certainly did not identify with the Empire to the point of wanting to
die for it.
In moderation, variety can be a source of strength, but if it becomes overwhelming to the point that
the identity of a population dissolves, political and cultural bonds can no longer hold society
together. This is what happened to the Empire, which became so mixed racially, culturally and
geographically that it lost its sense of unity to the point that neither law nor religion could sustain it. It
became a mixed bag, and efforts to impose order from abovelike making Christianity the official
religion were doomed to fail. Such contrived efforts to maintain artificially a unity which no longer
existed in the Roman mind could not really help and may even have hastened the demise of the
Empire, whereas a concept of diverse, federated states might have saved it. However, such an idea
was not available to the orderly Roman mind, which was not given to plastic, adaptive thinking.
In the broadest sense, the Empire fell because the Roman mind was not only static but was
indifferent to knowledge of all sorts. The Romans had practical access in every direction to all kinds
of knowledge but simply never looked because they had closed minds. With essentially no curiosity
and less imagination, they were colossally ignorant, foresaw nothing, created little and saved less.
They were not explorers and knew little of the geography upon which the Empire was based.
Striking by its absence in the imperial life of the vulgar rich was any scientific or academic
organization for the increase, development and use of information.
Of course there were natural scientific geniuses, but these were stifled rather than cultivated by
Roman culture. In fact, Lucretius (100-55 B.C.) would have been but first among them had there
been any others, but, in the suffocating atmosphere of martial materialism, the term "Roman
scientist" was meaningless. Romans made no important contribution in medicine, astronomy or
geography, and without science, they could not control nature, matter or themselves. What control
they did achieve was over other people by means of military and political repression.
In terms of intellectual repression, however, the Romans were most successful with themselves in
that they were and wanted to remain unconscious. They never questioned their official values,
examined themselves nor permitted controversy. The Empire was really a garden for the rich in
which political discussion could be considered treason and economic analysis construed as a threat
to the oligarchy. Generally, the wealthy thought wisdom could be purchased, but what they bought
was ignorance instead and at a price higher than they could possibly have imaginedthe future.
Notably absent from the flat but domineering Roman culture was a unifying ideal to inspire people to
47

work for anything grander than the retrenching Empire, and it was missing probably because most
Romans were too intensely involved with their own immediate worldly affairs to be inspired by the
cultivation of humane ideals.
In fact, with few exceptions, Rome was a blight on the general flowering of Western culture. Not
only did the Romans make no significant scientific discoveries, but they invented no art form and
constructed no original philosophy. They made good roads, systematic legal codes and efficient
armies, but for all else, they looked to the Greeks (whom they ironically looked upon as degenerate
and treated with contempt). Thus, Latin literature remained encased in Greek form, but
unfortunately, Greek letters were so admired that the spirit of inquiry was destroyed: For example,
Aristotle's works were so valued that further research ceased.
With pride in their Greco-Roman traditions, Romans lost the spirit of pragmatic adaptability which
had characterized the political life of the young Republic. They clung to form long after it had lost its
function and served only to impede development of new, more efficient forms and ideas. Ritualism
blocked resourcefulness, and while Romans courted reason, in their quest for order, they were
irrationally conservative. At all times, "Roman intelligence" and Roman thought were enslaved by
bureaucratic habit and guided more by tradition than experience: Convention ruled and experiment
was unknown as Imperial Rome was to remain the same while it changed the world.
Really, Rome has come to be admired more as a symbol than as a civilization. It now represents
not a failure to adapt but the ideal of universal peace based on law and orderan ironic legacy for
an empire created almost absent-mindedly by force and fraud and loaded with anomalies.
The Republic died when the aristocracy rejected compromises which would have maintained their
dignity and allowed them to retain their privileges in favor of a military dictatorship which destroyed
first their power and then their way of life. With Augustus, Rome clearly went on the defensive
culturally as well as militarily primarily because the up-and-coming business class lost its drive as
soon as it gained power. Thereafter, Rome became too businesslike, and business became too
Roman. As it turned out, the merchant class was just as suicidal and incapable of prudent
leadership as the landed aristocracy it replaced but had less power so could not run itself into the
ground with quite the Roman efficiency of the old guard.
In the first two centuries A.D., the rulers of the Empire clearly demonstrated that it really did not
matter who ruled or misruled. During that period, they had failed to come to grips with both the
latent and blatant social problems existent because no one, including the diligent and admirable
Marcus Aurelius, had a practical, positive program of any kind. In the third century, the civil wars
typified Roman folly: They were pointless in that they involved no general principle whatsoever.
They were not fought to improve labor conditions or class relations; they were not confrontations
between rulers and subjects nor efforts to reform the system. They were simply clashes among rival
powers. Springing from greed, ambition, envy and hatred, they profited only the army.
Later, as conditions were allowed to deteriorate further, the people became apathetic and simply
accepted their plight. In an absence of either creative leadership or a popular push for reform, the
Empire festered and declined. Slowly, the people turned away from politics and toward religion,
creating a vortex of further decay as they put their faith in dying gods rather than nonexistent
reformers.
The tragedy of the Roman Empire was that, despite Constantine's official decree, the oligarchy
became boorishly barbaric rather than compassionately Christian and consequently maintained
neither mental and spiritual health nor material wealth. In fact, Rome died from the top down
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because the shortsightedly selfish upper classes failed to educate and civilize the lower classes,
were themselves incapable of responding to the needs of the Empire and turned on any liberals
who dared try. In the final analysis, however, the religious mentality of the Roman masses
dominated the materialism of their rulers, and Christianity emerged victorious as the Empire
collapsed.
There really are two amazing things about the collapse of the Roman Empire: One is that it took so
long (hundreds of years) to fall, and the other is that no one could save it. Thus, the mystery of
Roman history is not just that the Empire finally fell but also that it lasted so long, and the
explanation for both its endurance and demise lies largely in the blending of Roman law and
engineering (which gave the Republic unity) with imperial character. If nothing else, Romans were
organized and disciplined to conform dutifully to a model of courage, temperance and dignity, but as
victims of their manly virtues, they suffered from the limitations of their character.
If the Romans could rule the world, they could neither enjoy nor improve it. At their grave,
strait-laced best, they were always more admirable than attractive because they had little social
conscience, were disciplined to duty but were indifferent to the wretchedness of poverty or the
suffering caused by their brutality. Their cold, pious patriotism left little room for a zest for life or a
sense of humor, and for the good of the Empire, they were always ready to sacrifice happiness, be
it their own or somebody else's.
Further, they were heroic to the point of tedium and pragmatic to the point of impracticality. For
example, they failed to appreciate mathematics beyond its immediate applications in arithmetic and
surveying. Their roads were straight because that was how Romans marchedin straight lines,
unwavering and monotonously into oblivion. Likewise, they were distrustful of individuality and
genius, suspicious of art and speculative thought, indifferent to science and incapable of inventive
philosophy. Their stiff love of order made them not only wanting in humanity and spirituality but
basically devoid of any conception of growth, developmentor progress. Finally, their assumption that
nothing would change made them incurable conservatives and was their strength and weakness.
Essentially, the Romans' basic problem was that, like the Greeks, they lacked any dynamic sense:
Everything was static. They might tinker with the political process, build a bridge or beat up some
tribe on the frontier but all to no greater purpose than to maintain the shallow Empire. For lack of
any more meaningful vision, the status quo was accepted and was to be endured rather than
changed by willful endeavor; the past was idealized as an imagined utopia, and the future was to be
a perpetual repetition of the present. Thus, the failure of the elite to exercise effective leadership
was largely due to their chronic intellectual stagnation, particularly in metaphysics. While as
engineers they built to last because they had no concept of progress or decay, as political and
social architects, they were limited because their passive attitude led to an ethic of indifference.
In fact, if the Romans are to be admired for anything, it must be their ability to have breathed life into
their static idealsto have been so vigorous in stand-pat causes and shown such spirit in imitation
rather than invention. Like their fixed ideas, however, this spirit was simply an expression of their
devotion to commonplace convention. Even at their conquering best, they had never really been
adventuresome: Romans discovered no new worlds, accepted their horizons and never inquired
into novelty.
Thus, the same factors which gave the Empire stability rendered it unsavable. For the love of order,
Romans became culturally sterile and finally would not work or fight for anything97-like
survivalwith any spirit at all. The rich were quite content to live off a demoralized population and
right up to the very end thought they could go on buying a defense against the barbarians they
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had not yet bought off. Not only did they fail to realize they could not buy loyalty, but they had
alienated the classes whose support was necessary for their own continued existence.
This alienation was evinced quite early in the history of the Empire by the general apathy of the
public to politics as indicated by the indifference of the people to the many, various upstarts and
pretenders who aspired to rule. Basically, the public was smart enough to have learned that the
leaders really did not matter. The people had no hope of a better life, and the one they had was
certainly not worth fighting for. Had they joined the legions against the uninvited barbarians, Rome
would not have been sacked, but to the slaves as well as the common people, the barbarians were
seen as liberators and the Empire as not worth defending.
Thus, all things considered, the true wonder of Rome was not its demise but its extended
endurance. However, both its longevity and decline are attributable to the unreasoning inertia of
Roman habit and tradition which finally triumphed in the fall of the Empire.
*
So, what does Rome mean to us? Are there parallels or lessons from which Americans can learn?
Even lessons that the Romans failed to learn about themselves?
One parallel is that, like Rome, America rose to world domination without a conscious plan or vision.
Another is that we were divided over expansion: Some Senators were isolationist, others
aggressive. Like the Romans, we engage in brutal conquests and revel in gladiatorial sports. Our
relation to Europe is akin to that of Rome to Greece: We admire the European cultural tradition
while scoffing at its formal decadence. More disturbing is the similarity of militarism: It was military
might that corrupted Roman political, intellectual, artistic and moral standards just as it dominates
the official business life of our modern warfare state. Further, like the Romans, we are materialists
who despise theory, embrace practicality and glory in our feats of engineering. Finally, like the
Romans, we are unprepared for the social and spiritual consequences of expansionism, militarism
and materialism: Like them, we enjoyed a period of get-rich-quick exploitation and speculation and
are now paying the price.
On the other hand, the price we pay may not be that which the Romans paid because there are
some very real differences between them and us. One basic difference is that they had no concept
of progress. They had change in their moments of anarchy and civil war, but these brought no
progress in economic, cultural or social affairs.
However, our belief in progress may be neither profoundly important nor even justified, as we share
with Romans a fundamental moral failing. The modern world is materially successful but is as
ethically hollow as the Roman Empire was at its best and worst. Whatever the similarities and
differences between the Romans and ourselves, we would do well to note the danger of becoming a
society known for doing what it does without believing in anything greater than itself. Further, we
would be doing even better if we could learn something from the fate of the Romans, whose shallow
character prevented them from learning about themselves.
The Romans were unable to learn either from or about themselves because they were not really
interested in learning about anything. They were interested in maintaining order within the diverse
empire they createda concoction which not only failed to assimilate the heterogeneous,
conquered, alien populations but, more important, failed to assimilate and even alienated the
peasants and poor of Rome itself. Unfortunately, when the Emperors became Christian, the Church
sought to promote uniformity via a unitary belief. This repressive imposition of intellectual order and
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religious conformity failed to save the Empire but became the ultimate legacy of Rome to the
Western mind during the Middle Ages.
| stupidity.com |
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IV. Medieval Stupidity
Medieval stupidity should be easy to characterize: It should be Christian stupidity. However, a look
at the record indicates much less Christian behavior than belief during the Middle Ages, so stupidity
in this era was more a function of the Church reacting as a ruling rather than Christian institution to
medieval realities.
Still, although the Christian schema was not much of a guide to medieval behavior, it inhibited
appreciation of the secular dimension of life, and it was this inhibition which actually characterized
medieval stupidity. This condition was more noticeable among the intelligencia, such as it was,
which had been indoctrinated with theology, than among the people
or the pragmatic rulers of the Church or states. Certainly the political behavior of medieval leaders
was clearly shaped more by some eternal and transcendent power ethic than by either a sense of
Christian virtue or a desire to understand what they were doing.
Because of this inhibition, medieval stupidity came in two forms, both of which were malfunctional
expressions of the interaction of the Church with its environment. One of these was the general lack
of intellectual activity in all fields but theology, in which scholastic analysis was eventually carried to
hair-splitting extremes. The other was the moral corruption of the Church as its emerging,
centralized leadership dealt with the evolving practicalities of medieval life.
Initially, these practicalities were shaped by the collapse of the Roman Empire, which marked the
beginning of the Dark Ages (ca. 500-1000). In the early sixth century, Europe was basically a giant
slum, with political fragmentation compounding social disorder. It was not really barbaric just
extremely demoralized, with daily life functioning at a very low level physically, morally and
intellectually. Only very slowly did people rally around the Cross and regain a sense of community.
Not only was Europe demoralized, but it was confused as well. In the absence of an organized
administrative system and in the presence of generally increasing ignorance, social and political
chaos posed problems which were solved piecemeal by practical people without theorists and by
priests without theologians. Nevertheless, amidst this confusion, therewere some glimmerings of
moral if not intellectual leadership and ability, notably in the person of Gregory the Great (540-604).
Gregory was particularly notable as the inheritor of the Roman State. He lived during the darkest
age of Rome when memories and traditions of greatness still existed in an environment of death,
grief and isolation. It was under those conditions that he fathered medieval Christianity and the
civilization that arose in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. He did so as the "Missionary
Pope" who championed the dignity of Rome against the worldly power of the Byzantine Empire not
by military force or political intrigue but by simple moral authority. It was he who made religion,
rather than politics or economics, the foundation of Christianity, and after him, the Western world
looked to Rome for guidance.
Unfortunately, Gregory was a bit too otherworldly for those who came after him. His whole schema
was dominated by a supernatural concern for a superworldly Roman order. Not only was he
remarkably ignorant in many ways (especially for a rather successful world leader), but he could not
imagine that the moral authority he gave the Church would be abused for worldly purposes because
he expected the world to end before such corruption could occur. In fact, his reign marked the moral
apex of Catholicismthe point from which the Church gradually descended into corrupting worldly
affairs and took on the schizoid nature of an organization whose leaders became debased by reality
while its ideology became ever more unworldly.
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Regrettably, Gregory's ignorance was due partially to his morality, which was opposed to the
intellect. He believed prayer to be magical, welcomed superstition and frowned on curiosity. Faith
alone was good enough for God, and it must be an unquestioning faith. If doctrine was
incomprehensible, that really did not matter, as reasonable proof was unnecessary. What did matter
was that the faith should be rooted in fear, since anxiety was the best motivation for escaping Hell.
This was Gregory's theological legacy and his contribution to the Dark Ages. The faith he
bequeathed was one of dark fear and hatred of the natural world. If Gregory personified the moral
purity of institutional Christianity, it was a purity in eternal conflict with worldly knowledge and
behavior necessary for survival. However moral his God was, He was not a God of law and light
who welcomed the pursuit of truth, beauty and practicality. Faith in that kind of God would later be
based upon a faith in humanity, but if there was one thing people in the Middle Ages did not believe
in, it was themselves.
With the passing of Gregory, the history of the Church became that of a structured organization
gradually emerging with a codified, quasi-functional doctrine recognizable as an institutionalized
religion. An unconscious compromise between the limitations of Christian theology and the needs of
the Church evolved as Popes and priests worked to further their worldly influence while also
attempting to convince the faithful to abide by the Holy Word. In order to make Christianity ever
more appealing, they carried on the venerable Pauline tradition of sacrificing the gospel according
to Jesus for the sake of popularity, so an already adulterated religion became further cheapened
and inflated as rites and symbols became material and vulgar. Meanwhile, morality became
formalized on a firm financial footing, and Purgatory experienced the first real estate boom in
history.
Taken together, canny interpretations of Scripture and necessary rationalizations of ceremony
became the basis for medieval theology and provided a theoretical framework for life in the Middle
Ages. Fundamental to the Catholic schema was "Free will", as it meant that people were morally
responsible for sinning and thus needed the Church for salvation. However, as an ideology,
Christian theology was more effective in keeping people from thinking about themselves and their
lives than in regulating their behavior. An intellectual vacuum was promoted by the fanaticism and
superstition which prevailed amongst the clergy, who thought secular learning wicked. Everyone
truly believed in the theoretical Christian schema, which, as the Age of Belief progressed, became
increasingly theoretical and detached from reality.
Actually, the Church based its power not only on the general idea that it provided the standard by
which people thought they should live and die but also on the more concrete notion that the clergy
was necessary for the sacraments. Thus, despite or because of how people indulged their passions
on earth, most of them assumed a priest would determine whether they would spend eternity in
Heaven or Hell. If a reprobate repented and confessed and the proper ceremony were performed,
he went to Heaven after suffering a while in Purgatory. A priest could shorten this time by saying
masses for the repentant and was willing to do so for a suitable fee, but just why the holy Fathers
would not do so out of Christian compassion was never explained.
This was the medieval schema. It was not just an official creed but a firm belief genuinely held by
everyonepriests and people. It was this that made the clergy superior to the princes and Popes
more powerful than the generals. It granted an authority limited only by divisions among the priests
and protests from the people, and it was symbolized for the age by the Virgin Mary.
Mary enthralled medieval minds but to minimal practical effect. She began her career as a mother
and became a myth. In the Gospels, she is hardly mentioned, but she became popular because the
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ancient world had long worshipped a Great Mother in the loving, sorrowful Egyptian goddess Isis.
Yielding to popular demand, theologians made her into a celestial celebrity. Embraced by the lowly
and theoretical, she had surprisingly limited practical impact on behavior. As reigning queen of the
Middle Ages, she dominated mighty warriors without influencing their conductexcept to provide
justification for the bloody excesses they committed in her Holy name. Further, she failed to raise
her daughters from their inferior status: Legally, women were not people, and because of their
frailty, wife beating was legal.
While Christian theology evolved to declining practical effect during the Middle Ages, the Church did
change in both attitude and structure. Originally, members of the clergy perceived themselves as
temporary caretakers of an earthly way station on the road to the eternal hereafter. However, as the
years passed, priests became ever more effectively involved in ministering to the needs of people in
this world and increasingly aware of the powerful role they played as participants in the here and
now. As the attitude of the clergy thus changed, a superstructure developed within the Church over
and above the local clergy, and to the eventual detriment of the Superchurch, its medieval leaders
became, if anything, too worldly. In fact, the world took over the Church as its leaders ignored
Christian principles and surrendered their moral independence to practicality.
Actually, the Church gradually became a gigantic, successful worldly kingdom not only because it
was lost to theology but also because it was better organized and more extensive than any other
political entity in Europe at the time. During the Middle Ages, Christianity provided the ruling (if
misleading) ideology, while the Church became the ruling institution and the clergy the ruling elite.
All learning and wisdom were concentrated in the Church and used to extend the power of the
clergy.
Thus, the Church became the first great corporation in history, providing the public with a product it
wanted (eternal happiness in the next life) at a reasonable price (financial support in this one). As
both its power and wealth grew, theologians busied themselves fashioning rationalizations out of
Christian ideals not only for political but for financial policies as well. In this regard, they were more
successful than convincing since there always remained at the heart of the Church a discrepancy
between what the clergy practiced and preached.
Nevertheless, nothing could shake the faith of the people in Catholicism. In fact, the greatest tribute
to both medieval piety and stupidity wasthat regardless of what clergymen did and said, their
unworthiness and corruptibility never compromised the sanctity of the Church. Even when it was
generally conceded that priests were especially unlikely to get to Heaven, the Church as an
institution remained inviolate. Contempt and even hatred which the people felt for the corrupt clergy
were never transposed to the idealized Church.
While theologians kept the medieval mind in slavish subjugation, the Church provided the people a
defense against all oppression but its own and that of the nobility. Actually, the clergy's image and
influence were not only protected but enhanced by the secular rulers, whom the people knew
primarily as the inflictors of injustice. As they suffered underfoot, the people found their only
consolation in religion, which offered them the possibility of a better time in the next life if they
obediently toed the line in this one.
Naturally, not everyone would to get to Heaven. In fact, the gloomy forecast of the medieval Church
was that the majority of souls would suffer a fate worse than feudalism in the next life. Only those
who retained a childlike, thoughtless innocence would find joy in the hereafter. Faith, not knowledge
or wisdom, would lead to eternal bliss, which became forever coupled with ignorance.
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To their credit, priests did what they could to promote both faith and virtue by trying to calm, tame
and civilize the medieval soul, which was still semibarbaric and as committed to blasphemy as piety.
People in the Middle Ages loved gaud and spectacles, fighting and adventure, fantasy and
romance. They lived a decerebrate life vividly and intensely in stark contrasts of blacks and whites.
They were happily adapted to the "Sin now, repent later" policy of the Church and unconcerned with
either heavy theology or the elaborate rules which the Church dutifully constructed and everyone
solemnly forgot. They therefore tended to indulge themselves in open defiance of the Ten
Suggestions upon which society was supposedly founded and salvation allegedly depended since
they figured they could 'fess and pay up just before the end.
Although Christianity provided the unifying ideology of the age, greed was the common corrupter.
Among the mighty, it was naked and unabashed and rivaled pride as the second most popular sin.
Of course, it was noticeable as a corrupter of the clergy and nobility because they had power and
espoused high ideals: For example, during the latter Middle Ages, in open defiance of their Christian
vows, Franciscan friars became notorious for their greed and fraud. On the other hand, the people
at least appeared to be less corruptible than their leaders but probably only because they were
relatively powerless to effect their desires and seldom professed impractical pretensions.
With Christianity the unifying belief and corruption the common practice, the symbol of medieval
civilization really should have been not just the Virgin but the Virgin drenched in gold and blood, for
just as the clergy corrupted religion, the nobility corrupted chivalry. As a typically feudal
contradiction to Christianity, chivalry was a secular code of ritualized violence for the privileged and
powerful. It made looting and the shedding of blood honorable by institutionalizing fighting for the
love of fighting and perhaps for worldly gain but certainly not for ladies, God or any higher ideal.
While the clergy preyed on those who prayed, knights imposed themselves with impunity upon
anyone too weak to resist. In so doing, they demonstrated the corrupting effects of unbridled power
as well as their noble indifference to human suffering. Medieval chronicles are replete with accounts
of knightly greed, lust and cruelty as peasants were robbed, raped and slaughtered by those who
had sworn to protect them. Knights simply had more scornful contempt than Christian love for the
wretchedly poor serfs who labored to support them.
On a good day for a knight, he might hear Mass in the morning and rob a Church in the afternoon.
In the evening, he would beat the wife he had sworn to cherish and then drink himself into
debauchery. Subsequent ages would somehow idealize such behavior and chivalry into romantic
myths, but knights of old were about as noble as members of our modern motorcycle gangs.
During the medieval era itself, one of the most popular myths was that the ancient world had not
ended. First, Rome had not fallen, then Charlemagne (800-814) had restored it. If he had, it was a
most unusual empire, as it had neither cities nor roads, government nor laws, army nor institutional
organization of any form except the Church. However, that alone was enough to legitimatize the
fiction.
If Charlemagne could not revive the reality of the Roman Empire, at least he benefited from the
tradition of the Caesars. By the end of the eighth century, the mentality of Europe had sunk to a
level at which creative political thinking beyond legal fictions was impossible and speculation
unknown, so no one had the ability to conceive and organize any new political system. The need
was certainly there, but the old ide fixe of an Empire blocked the development of any other
practical ideas about political institutions. The tradition of the Roman Empire and Emperors
remained the ideal model of European unity, so when Pope Leo crowned Charlemagne Emperor in
800, Western Civilization began a repetition of the dreary, misconceived failures of the past.
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Certainly as a Church ordained Emperor, Charlemagne was anything but holy. He was a vigorous
barbarian whose long-term political aspirations and cultural ambitions were foiled by the endurance
of the Church and the turmoil of the age. A magnificent, immoral genius, he was politically allied
with the Church but unbound by piety to it.
For their part, the Popes needed imperial protection, as papal elections had degenerated into
disorderly squabbles among contending factions. Officially, the Church had all but abandoned Jesus
and had assumed the task of creating a Heaven for the clergy on earth. To do so, it had become a
political body which used its spiritual leverage to further its designs for worldly domination.
During Charlemagne's lifetime, it had seemed a new political order was emerging, but all that
remained after his death was an old theory and an impractical empire. It soon disintegrated under
the tutelage of his successors, whose cognomens the Bald, the Stammerer, the Simple and the Fat
tell all, and the chaos that followed the demise of his legendary Roman Empire was worse than the
demoralization that had been occasioned by the barbarization and decay of the real one. For the
next eleven hundred years, Emperors would come and go to no appreciable effect but to maintain
the form of a phoney empire.
However, once again, an idealized memorynow the image of Charlemagnesurvived as an
inspiration. In 962, the German king Otto once more restored the Roman Empire. It was
nonetheless holy for being opposed by the Popes, who claimed their own temporal supremacy
based on a forged documentthe "Donation of Constantine". This fraud served the Church for five
centuries, but the unholy Roman Empire lasted in name until 1806 by which time it finally had been
acknowledged (by Voltaire) as neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire.
Despite the restoration of the Empire, the tenth century, like the one that had gone before it, was
one of general disorder, as the pendulum which swings between materialism and morality clearly
favored the former. Politically, it was an era of struggles for power, lawless wars and treacheries as
neither Emperors nor kings could bring order to the anarchy of their nominal vassals. Europe was a
mosaic of nobles theoretically subordinate to but in fact independent of and ever ready to war on
their kings, each other or anyone else as occasion permitted.
This general disorder was also clearly reflected in the disorganization of the Church. Only the
monastic priests remained aloof and maintained any semblance of austere if impotent Christian
morality. Wherever Christianity came in contact with the real world, reality won and corrupted the
clergy, which became violent, immoral and worldly to the point of universal decadence. In Rome,
the papacy was completely controlled by the local aristocracy and hit its nadir in John XII (955-964),
who thoroughly debased his office with debauched orgies at the Lateran.
All things considered, the year 1000 marked the lowest depth to which Western Civilization sank,
the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of a progressive if inconsistent improvement in
civilization which lasted until 1914. This improvement was generally characterized by and
attributable to peace, the development of commerce and moral reform (with the latter factors
continuing to act throughout the medieval era until the success of capitalism induced the
Renaissance and the failure of the Church produced the Reformation). Wars gradually subsided as
the conquests of Western Europe by Muslims and northern barbarians ceased. Just as gradually,
the nordic hordes had been Christianized as they overran civilization, so by the eleventh century,
there were no more tribes or races left to be conquered by the religion of the land they invaded.
As peace descended and trade improved, an impetus for moral reform in Western Civilization itself
began in and spread from the monasteries to the community at large. Unworldly friars and monks
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revived and disseminated the Christian ethic they had protected and nurtured during the Dark Ages.
Earnestly, they now set out to help people live in accordance with Christian principles.
Ironically, this reform movement was qualified and limited by the hierarchy because in the eleventh
century, there was a deliberate movement to separate the clergy from the laity. This reorganization
of the Church was due largely to the efforts of Gregory VII (alias Hildebrand). Up to this point (i.e.,
1073), the Church was loosely knit, with local clergy in touch with the people. Gregory worked to
promote the image of the priest as an uncorrupted moral model while centralizing Church authority
in the papacy. Although he was to a degree successful in both respects, as his reorganization of the
clergy progressed, contact with the people was characterized less by the animating spirit of Christ
than by a false standard of "Efficiency" imposed by discipline. Further, his program for moral reform
was tainted by an astute awareness of worldly power and gradually led to a conflict between Pope
and Emperor over the role and control of the clergy.
Specifically, the squabble over investitures made every prince in Western Europe suspicious of
bishops, who were perceived as agents of a foreign power. These suspicions were reinforced as the
expanding political role of the papacy required increasing demands for money. Even by the
thirteenth century, it was said that the priests were bad men who were always hurting for money.
Thus did the Church on a grand scale follow the path priests had trod to corruption some five
hundred years before. It seemed that Christianity could remain a moral force only if hidden away in
monasteries. When the individual priest or the Church at large presumed to deal with the world,
Christianity suffered. In the case of the Church, the powers it exercised beyond its spiritual functions
corrupted it. As it took full advantage of the confidence the people had in it and the extraordinary
freedoms granted to it, it became a state above states: It had its own court, made the Pope the
supreme law maker in Christendom and levied a tax of ten percent on its subjects.
The fundamental problem was that, in Gregory's view, the Pope was supreme in matters of morality.
This meant there really was no supreme moralityjust a set of guiding principles which the Pontiff
could suspend at his pleasure. Of course, if the Emperor were immoral, the Pope could suspend
him, and nothing was more immoral than opposing the Pope. This secular/clerical split was and
remains essentially irreconcilable and comprises one of the enduring conflicts of Western history.
In view of this split, it is hardly surprising that one of the West's most elusive ideals has been that of
a perfect union of Church and State. If most medieval leaders agreed on the principle, they
struggled over who would be master of the amalgamPope or Emperor. Gregory succeeded in
humiliating Henry IV in 1077, but this proved to be a costly victory because the use of material
means to combat force with force succeeded too well. As classic victims of the neurotic paradox,
the Popes became increasingly ambitious for secular power and ever more willing to use material
means to obtain it. Consequently, they became locked in a life and death struggle with the
Emperors which reached its zenith under Innocent III in the early thirteenth century. In this battle,
the temporal power of the papacy increased except under Popes who tried to be Christian and thus
allowed ethics to intrude into political considerations. As this did not happen often, papal power
finally freed the Church of lay control, and the Popes became answerable only to God, who was not
asking many questions.
However, the papacy's triumph was also its tragedy, as it battled the Emperors not on behalf of the
people but for the sake of its own prestige. Pride, not Christian humility, was really the key to
medieval character, and it showed itself when the Popes claimed the right to judge the morality of
everyone according to their own double standard. Everyone else was supposed to be moral; Popes
were supposed to be successful, and the criteria for measuring success were temporal not spiritual.
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Likewise, it was more pride than humility that led to the ultimate in medieval idiocythe Crusades.
They proved little more than the limits ofmoral reform, in that the guiding ethic for the European
community as it turned outward toward the world was anything but Christian. The early Crusades
were conducted with incredible enthusiasm, but certainly none was infused with the spirit of Christ
and only the first (ca. 1100) met with any real success.
This was the brain child of Pope Urban II, who perceived a holy war against the infidels as an
opportunity to unify the people of Western Europe into one grand destructive enterprise. For
generations, the Turks had been deliberately insulting Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, and about
1075, they had taken the Holy Sepulchre. The Crusaders were to avenge these disgraces while, in
addition, private warfare would be ended and belligerent energies focused upon the Muslims.
Further, the Byzantine Church would be set aside to the greater glory of Rome if not God.
The response of the people to the Pope's call was overwhelming, and even if the motives for
responding were mixed, the reaction suggests how effective an organization the Church had
become in the previous five hundred years. At the end of the sixth century, the Western world really
was not a civilization in any manner of speaking: It was a chaos of political and social fragmentsa
nonsystem of self-seeking individuals devoid of hope and without any common ideal. By the close of
the eleventh century, Europe was united by a common belief which commanded all to cooperate
under the sign of the cross.
The irony, of course, was that the Crusades were so fundamentally un-Christian in spirit. However,
in this regard, they were but an expression of an institutionalized Church which was neither
intellectually nor morally sound but somehow worked. Certainly, it was something less than
Christian, but those insiders who knew did not care, and those believers who would have cared did
not want to know. With the onset of the Crusades, all the debauchery, scandal, and violence of the
Age of Christ were forgotten. All the evil, lazy and stupid priests had done their worst, but the
mutable message of Jesus had survived, and the Crusaders sallied forth to kill for Christ. How tragic
that the first time Europe discovered a unifying cause to pursue, it was such a perversion of a noble
ideal. Actually, corrupted Christianity may have provided only an inspirational guise for many, as
there were about as many motives for going as there were Crusaders: Some went looking for
adventure, others for trade routes and others for plunder.
Still, most who went were devout and responded on impulse to the call with genuine enthusiasm
and often without calculating the consequences. In fact, the zeal of these true believers for this
dubious adventure was as infectious and blinding as it was sincere. There was a frenzy among
those committed to the cause, and reason and caution may have been furtherblunted by the fear
some had of being thought cowards if they exercised reason or restraint. Seldom did anyone
consider the inadequacy of his means or whether he should yield up his lands and livelihood.
Princes went because they could afford to; paupers because cost was no object. Others sold their
property at the lowest possible price to the few willing to stay behind and profit from the righteous
ardor of the many.
If each went for his own reasons and without regard for his means, when combined into the rather
motley crew they did indeed comprise, the Crusaders beg for but almost defy definitive
characterization. They were savage bigots parading down a path of blood, sweat and tears, but they
were also pious, heroic, virtuous, magnanimous Christians serving the cause of Christ with honor. In
a word, they were "Human".
In its way, medieval Europe mobilized for the Crusades in much the way that we mobilize for war in
our era. Swept up in the grand passion of mass groupthink, crusading feudal chiefs ceased to
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oppress, robbers ceased to plunder and people ceased to complain. On the surface at least, the
one somewhat misleading idea of holy Christianity predominated, and there was little room for any
other.
As grand as this may have been, there was another side to the story. Since all sins would be
forgiven when the Crusaders arrived in Palestine, hundreds of them indulged in unrestrained
licentiousness. Debauchery flourished as never before and without shame, as service alone would
atone for all transgressions. Hence, with salvation assured, cries of revelry mingled with the prayers
arising from the Crusaders' camps.
Such cries and prayers notwithstanding, the Crusades had three major results. The first was that
papal power was enhanced: This was the only major (if cynical) goal that was realized. Secondly,
many European Jews were massacred, robbed and forcibly baptized: There were some especially
large-scale massacres of Jews in Germany, although York was the site of one of the most appalling
of these mass atrocities. Finally, there was increased literary traffic between East and West: Up to
the time of the Crusades, contact had been mostly commercial, but thereafter, it was cultural as
well.
If the Crusades demonstrated any one thing, it was that this was an age of both belief and
blasphemy. Although Christian (i.e., kind, humane) behavior was probably as common but hard to
document then as in any other age or culture, Christian theology developed more to promote and
justify the dominance of the feudal Church than to govern medieval conduct. Derived from and
applied to the people, Christian ideals were roundly ignored by nearly everyone, and if this went
unnoticed, bear in mind the reason we call the Dark Ages dark was precisely because there were
no doubters, critics or heretics: Essentially everyone accepted Gregory theGreat's principle of blind
faith blindly, as his doctrine did not allow even the possibility of questioning dogma.
This anti-intellectual tradition was ably championed by St. Bernard, who headed a fervent mystical
movement within the Church in the early twelfth century. He believed that an intense subjective
experience, not reason, was the way to religious truth. As do all bigots, he knew what that truth was
and actively combatted heresy by imposing orthodoxy on adventurous philosophers. Consistent with
his mysticism, he deplored papal absorption in worldly affairs and disdained temporal power. He felt
the Pope was and should be a spiritual leader and not get involved with actual government. He was
shocked that the Pope defended his domains by military force and could not understand that wars
like the Crusades required organization and could not be conducted by religious enthusiasm alone.
Altogether, he represented a spiritual ultimatethe withdrawal not only from reason but from reality
as well.
This withdrawal was typical of medieval theologians, as their assumed task was not to adapt the
teachings of Christ to the world but to maintain established orthodoxy. Whereas St. Bernard's
mystical approach emphasized inspiration over contemplation, it was the Scholastics' methodical
logic and faith in reason which made a lasting contribution to the development of Western thought
primarily by the Platonically clever ways they created support for conventional conclusions. Further,
it was their determined commitment to find orthodox truth that demonstrated the value of doubt and
heresy.
Actually, the development of critical reasoning in theology began in the ninth century, when John
Scotus Erigena proclaimed "True religion is pure philosophy". Subsequently, theoretical Christianity
gradually took on an airy life of its own in the halls of the hair-splitting scholastic philosophersthe
repositories of an ideology functionally disowned even by the evolving Church which produced and
promoted it.
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As members of a school of philosophy, the Scholastics were clearly committed more to theological
orthodoxy than moral reform, with most contributors retracting anything considered heretical. This
was not necessarily an indication of intellectual cowardice but more a matter of acquiescing to the
decisions of ranking authorities, much as our modern judges do when yielding to higher courts. In
matters in which dogma did not prohibit speculation, there could be vigorous debate and even
occasional heresy, but most clerics were definitely conservative politically and did not challenge the
power structure either inside or outside the Church.
Basically, the Scholastics represented a compensatory reaction of theologians to the power
struggles of the Church. They were very intelligent men who could not cope with the reality of the
Church within its ownframework so they hid from the world in quibbling debates about formality and
trivia. None of these debates dealt with matters with which the Church was involvedfor example,
they did not discuss the immorality of the Crusades and call for their abolition. Generally, the
Scholastic philosophers acted, to the long-term detriment of the Church, with self-serving,
short-term political astuteness and couched their rationalizations and justifications for the status quo
in biblical language.
Thus, the Scholastics conducted discussions which were not so much narrowly orthodox as
functionally irrelevant. During the twelfth century, Western culture was opening up. This was due
partially to the contact with the East brought about by the Crusades and partially to the translation of
Greek books which gradually became available to Western scholars in ever increasing numbers.
The Scholastics also opened up and debated broad philosophical issues but only in ways that left
them meaningless. They considered Aristotle rather than Plato the supreme lay authority, but they
took the worst of both: They carried on Aristotle's love of syllogisms, devoted themselves to silly
exercises in logic and retained Plato's defects of idealizing abstractions and coining arguments to
lead to pre-established conclusions. As is so often the case, their strength was also their weakness,
in that their commitment to thought made them indifferent to facts, science and reality. Hence, they
routinely debated matters which only observation could decide and became enraptured with verbal
distinctions and pointless subtleties.
This movement was capped in the thirteenth century, when St. Thomas Aquinas endeavored to
substitute rational principles for appeals to historic authority. His great work Summa contra
Gentiles convincingly established the truth of Christianity in the minds of any reader who already
believed it. However, he failed in his purpose to convert through reason those who did not accept
Biblical authority as proof of the validity of the Christian faith. What he unwittingly succeeded in
doing was demonstrating the limitations of reason, since some Christian doctrines (like the
existence of God and the immortality of the soul) can be proved to someone who accepts
Aristotelian definitions and logic while others (like the Trinity and the Incarnation) cannot be proved
but must be accepted on faith alone.
Nevertheless, even this qualified triumph of Aquinas was too complete. Thought never had been
really free, but after his works became dogma, theologians had to limit themselves to nit-picking his
inconsistencies. He was accepted as a success because he provided the Church with what it
needed and wanteda philosophy which seemed to justify its existence, and his schema has
dominated the Church ever since.
Although Aquinas had actually disproved reliance on logic, his fellow Scholastics did not read him
that way, preferring to think that reality had failed to live up to the standards of reason. As they
drifted into splendid isolation, they became surprisingly harsh in their judgments, since they were
removed from and indifferent to the concrete tangibles of life. Intoxicated by logic, verbiage and
abstraction, they scorned the real world and withdrew into a dehumanized, disembodied academia
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whose removed spirit still pervades Church policy as well as the uninvolved attitudes of our learned
institutions at their pointless worst. The arts were slighted, science feared, imagination regarded as
heretical and the mind honed to conformity at the expense of creativity.
In the following centuries, the ensuing confrontation between belief and knowledge could not force
the Church to change its mental stance. It stood on dogma, and as it became swamped by the
rising tide of new knowledge it refused to recognize, it had to yield its place of preeminence as the
West's ultimate intellectual authority to science. Although the failure of theologians to adapt to
evolving conditions and face up to the complexities of life may have made their work simpler, the
endless conflict between faith and fact could not be contained within monastic halls. Finally, it
moved beyond Church control into the open air of the secular world, and the complex of philosophy,
science and religion which Aquinas had constructed broke apart in demoralizing confusion. It was in
that shattered environment that the modern mind began its continuing search for some kind of
plausible consistency amongst the discrepant ways we think, know, believe and behave.
Actually, this search for a comprehensible reality began within the medieval Church, as some
thinkers managed to transcend their theological training and achieve a measure of intellectual ability
which carried them beyond their age. The Franciscan Order was especially "Blessed" with two such
individuals in Roger Bacon and William of Occam. As a Franciscan philosopher, Bacon
(1214?-1294) was a man of universal learning. He had a passion for mathematics and science,
which in his time was an odd mixture of alchemy and magic. Unlike most philosophers of his time,
he valued experiment highly and thought logic rather useless. In his Opus Majus, he listed four
causes of ignorance, which were: 1.) false authority which did not include the Church, since the
book was written for the Pope; 2.) custom; 3.) uninformed opinionmeaning all but his own; and 4.)
hiding one's ignorance behind a display of apparent wisdomwhich he considered the worst of the
four. He made a career of attacking clerical ignorance and for some reason was never very popular
among the clergy. In 1278, his books were condemned, and he was imprisoned until shortly before
his death.
Early in the fourteenth century, William of Occam set rational theology back on its ear by showing
that reason could not prove the truth of dogma. The result was that theology was finally recognized
as sterile and dogma restored to the realm of pure faith. The problem with theology had been that
its goal was to demonstrate known truths. This basic problem remained in philosophy, but the
enthusiasm and curiosity of the Scholastics for theology staled, and they settled down to choosing
horns on dilemmas.
In the long run, the commitment of the Western mind to reason has been less than a complete
success. Part of the explanation is that logic omits feelings and spiritual intangibles that fill out so
much of human life. This was already apparent in the detachment of the Scholastics in the thirteenth
century, but they persisted in their commitment to logic because it was seen as a way to appeal to
those, like Muslims, who believed in other creeds. In this regard, the effort to render Christianity
reasonable must be acknowledged as a failure, since very few were converted to the cause by
logical argumentthe efforts of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Dominic notwithstanding.
In a more immediate sense, the synthesis that St. Thomas achieved and which seemed so
complete and final was an even greater failure. It disintegrated in the face of changing conditions in
a world Church leaders attempted to rule but could not understand. In the secular domain,
democracy, nationalism and commercialism were on the rise, while within the Church, immorality
was waxing strong. All of these changes presented challenges to which the Church could not
respond effectively because the papal hierarchy could not comprehend them within its theoretically
Christian schema.
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In terms of general political conditions during the Middle Ages, the seeds of democracy were
present, and the Church itself was actually quite egalitarian in practice (offering high careers to the
lowest of men) as well as democratic in theory (i.e., theology). Generally, the peasants did have
some rights, but these made them equal only to each other, and as in all ages, the only true equality
came with death. While waiting to be equalized, few people were actually stupid enough to take
Church pronouncements on human rights seriously, but one of these was John Ball. In the
fourteenth century, he audaciously proclaimed that "At the beginning we were all created equal; it is
the tyranny of perverse men which has caused slavery to arise, in spite of God's law". He was
properly drawn and quartered, but authorities still have not killed his dream of equality.
Meanwhile, in France, England and Spain, strong monarchies arose and served as focal points for
emerging nationalist sentiments in these regions. As spokesmen for all those who spoke their
respective tongues, thekings were strong enough to fight the Pope in their own national interests. In
their kingdoms, they suppressed anarchy and allied themselves against the aristocracy and with the
growing merchant class.
In general, the feudal aristocracy had been ignorant, barbaric and stupid. In fact, the aristocracy
was so bad that it made the Church look comparatively intelligent, orderly and moral. However, the
new commercial class was more knowledgeable in mundane affairs than the clergy, more pragmatic
than the nobles and more dynamic than both. As such, the business class played a decisive role not
only in breaking Europe out of the Dark Ages but later in breaking down medieval conditions
altogether. This it did directly through mercantile endeavor as well as indirectly by serving as a
focus for support not only of nationalistic royalty but of the lower classes, who saw the newly
emerging business class as champions of civil liberties and economic opportunity.
For its part, the Church was characteristically obtuse with respect to the rising commercial class. In
fact, the flat approach of the Scholastics to real life in general was indicated by their attitude toward
economics. Aquinas, among others, worked out a "Just price" for goods rather than having the
seller fix the price or charge what the market would bear. Divinely impractical "Christian merchants"
were supposed to charge just enough to cover costs of their labor, and usuary was condemned.
However, if the Scholastics were naive enough to think that business morality could be set by holy
pronouncement, even they were not stupid enough to believe that public welfare would be
enhanced by businessmen in the pursuit of profit. The medieval mind had many blind spots, but it
recognized greed for what it was and called it by its proper name rather than "Enterprise" or
"Economy".
What the medieval mind could not recognize was the subconscious desecration of its own ideals.
The Virgin, who had conceived without recourse to the joy of sin, now was seduced without knowing
it. She was deflowered by a traveling salesman as the new business class remade feudal society
into a money economy. The consummation was rather tranquil and largely without self-conscious
class conflict so there was no bleeding to belie the change of condition. As the new class rose to
power, it indifferently left medieval myths intact, so everyone could claim to believe in the sanctity of
prevailing Church fictions.
Philosophically, the Virgin could remain pure and eternally dedicated to the established, sham
society because the Church was protected in error by ignorance. Devils and witches were invented
and feared, but the pious never questioned the truth of the Scriptures upon which everything was
based. To the extent that reason was employed, it was used, oftenbrilliantly, not for self-correction
but to explain away fundamental errors or inconsistencies in theology.
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While reason was being bent to provide democrats, nationalists and capitalists with a theological
basis for civil, political and business ethics, the papacy was losing both the secular power and moral
prestige it had generally earned and certainly enjoyed up to the end of the thirteenth century.
Officially, the decline began with Innocent III (1198-1216), who was a firm believer in the papacy.
He had the most able mind of his age but questionable scruples and was a trend setter in being the
first great Pope without a trace of sanctity. Less a priest than a monarch, he called for Church
reforms while his commitment to power politics actually set the tone for further papal conduct and
brought on the fall of the Christian Empire.
In fact, the first signs of decline were evident in the nature of the moral reforms called for by the
Pope: For example, in the sacred cause of orthodoxy, the Church was committed to the conversion
or destruction of heretics. Thus, St. Dominic (1170-1221) and some misplaced Crusaders were
dispatched to southern France by Innocent III to bring into the fold the Albigensesa wayward sect
whose members lived in conspicuous virtue and purity in a violent, undisciplined and vicious age.
Such rectitude obviously had to be eliminated, so Dominic and the Crusaders went to work: Those
whom he could not convert by argumentation they slew.
At best, St. Dominic's efforts indicated a naive faith in reason as well as an awareness on the part of
the Pope that force was not the answer to the problems Christianity posed for the world and vice
versa. However, along with the rising tide of theological discussions of and Scholastic debates
about airy theoretical issues, the development of the Dominican Order showed the Church
committed ever more deeply to organized dogma. This was a turning point, and the Church took the
path toward a hopeless conflict with the intellectual and moral integrity of Western Man.
Worse yet, this dogma was not even the Church's version of Christ's message but a theological
rationalization for its own existence. In framing it, theologians had always been restrained by the
verbiage of the creed while the behavior of the Popes belied their fundamental faith in power.
Confronted with the opportunity to be Christian and the imperative to survive, the hierarchy of the
Church compromised its moral spirit for the sake of worldly sovereignty. Like Rome, the Church
became corrupted from the top down, and the spirit of Christ was smothered, sought refuge outside
Catholicism or actively opposed it.
The resulting decline of the Church was thus induced partly by the worldly success of Innocent III
and his successors and partly by their intolerance toward questions and dissent. Church leaders
were intolerant notbecause they were sure of their faith and themselves but because they were not.
They had lost faith in the power of truth because their own self-serving version was faltering. By the
thirteenth century, they already were haunted by gnawing doubts about their pretensions and were
anxious about the future of the Church. They knew they could not succeed in state affairs by
adhering to the code of ethics they preached to individuals, nor could they give up on their
theological schema.
What they could do and did with a vengeance was establish a Papal Inquisition to persecute
hereticsas well as anyone (like the Albigenses) who lived up to Christian standards or suggested
that they themselves should do so. Certainly under its auspices, many of the victims persecuted as
heretics were not atheists or unbelievers but simple, pious souls who took Christianity seriously and
literally. Such believers in Christ became both mortal and moral enemies of the Church, which itself
had become heretical.
One of the more disturbing features of the Inquisition was that it was not conducted by a bunch of
fanatics but by somber, sober leaders in the Establishment. They were simply determined to stay
established, and they did for more than three hundred years, but the institution they headed
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certainly paid for their success. Where their police methods were most effective, the Church
became ever more powerful, worldly and corrupt. Success was defined as uniform belief, which was
inimical to the moral, spiritual and intellectual health of everyonethe Inquisitors included.
It would have been sad enough if this intolerance had been due to a sincere commitment to Christ,
but the overwhelming compulsion of the authorities was to make everything fit Church dogma rather
than the letter of Christ's teachings. Further, their manner of enforcing conformity was actually
contemptuous of the spirit of Jesus. In fact, the methods of suppression were so horrendous that in
its paranoid attempt to hang on to worldly rule, the Church caused more human suffering than any
other organization or institution until modern technology became available to our contemporary
fanatics. People were tortured and murdered with a cynicism that insults the mental dignity of all but
the most righteous bigot. Eventually, the shameful commitment to worldly power combined with the
new business spirit of the age, and in a commitment to material gain, the Church commercialized
religion to the point that, with the sale of indulgences, it sold its soul.
This eventuality was made all the more likely because, during the medieval era, theological
dogmatism prevented Church leaders from comprehending what they were doing. Worse yet,
dogmatism was not limited to theological matters, since the mindguards of Churchianity feared any
knowledge and distrusted any thinking they could not channel to acceptable conclusions. Rather
than leading the way, the Catholic hierarchy came to contest and combat every advance in thought
and almost every attempt to apply Christian principles to life. They felt obligated to exercise
totalitarian control over all aspects of life and thereby alienated the intellectual conscience of
Western man. Science and facts were both ignored, disdained or condemned as unbiblical, and all
mental activity was repressed except the pointless exercises in logic by the Scholastics. Otherwise,
they simply could not leave to reason only things that were reasonable: Hence, the struggle over the
position of the earth in the universe became a great religious controversy, although it was a matter
that could and would be settled not by logic but by observation and, further, really was not any
business of the Church's at all.
Actually, the prevailing fantasy in Rome was that of a universal rule of righteous peace on earth,
and although the Popes had betrayed their own chance to lead a world government of spiritual
affairs, they refused to recognize that the Church was being corrupted by its involvement with the
changing world. Rather, they continued to espouse Christian ethics while the papacy became just
another power hungry office like so many others.
In its doomed efforts to establish a Kingdom of the Clergy on earth, the Church was increasingly
committed to maintaining dogma while pursuing power politics. Particularly at the top, the Popes
and their advisors were committed to winning immediate political ends and dropped all but their
verbal commitment to ethical considerations and long-term views of a better world. Victory for the
papacy over the Emperors became an end in itself, and as the Pope presumably personified and
certainly defined righteous rule, power gained for the Church was automatically construed as
furthering the idea of universal peace. Even when doubts were entertained about the ethics of
Church policy, there was no open questioning of its righteousness: Whatever it was, it was correct.
The only ideological discord permitted raged over petty disputes of doctrine which were usually
settled by arbitrary authority shaped according to the power structure within the Church. There was
no effective self-criticism or reexamination of fundamental ideals and thus little likelihood that
Christian values might somehow influence official policy.
Nor would there be internal reform through efforts of those like St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226),
who personified sincerity overcome byinstitutionalism. He renounced a genteel life and committed
himself to imitating Christ, serving the sick and wretched and particularly the lepers. Joined by a
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great number of disciples, he set up the Franciscan Order and devotedly continued his work. It is
indeed a sad commentary on the moral state of the Church that these early Franciscans were
suspected of heresy because of their greatest virtuesincerity. Not only did they take a vow to
poverty, but they took it seriously and, worse yet, practiced it. This was a dangerous precedent
indeed, but miraculously, the Church was rescued from reform and theology saved from good
intentions.
The very success and popularity of the order led to its expansion. This brought upon Francis
increased administrative demands which his religious mysticism could not meet, so he resigned.
Until his death, he remained committed to poverty, but even before then the institution he created
had already taken on a life of its own in direct contradiction to the principles upon which it had been
founded. His successor, Brother Elias, allowed complete abandonment of poverty and wallowed in
luxury, and St. Francis was hardly dead before his order was holding property and building a great
church and monastery in his name at Assisi. During this period, the Franciscans served chiefly as
recruiting sergeants in selected wars of the time and conducted Inquisitions in several countries.
Thus, the net effect of St. Francis on the internal organization of the Church was the creation of yet
another order corrupted by wealth, committed to the Establishment and actively engaged in
persecuting all who strayed into morality or thought for themselves .
By way of contrast, a group known as the Spiritualists remained loyal to the spirit of Francis and
pointedly argued and preached that Christ and his apostles possessed no property. This proposition
proved too much for the Church and was pronounced false by Pope John XXII in 1323. Thereafter,
those Spiritualists who persisted in preaching the word of St. Francis were scourged, imprisoned
and burned at the stake as heretics.
This reaction of the Church was but typical of the institution to what were perceived as troubles
brewing within it. St. Francis provided a simple, absolutely impossible ideal in an age of corruption.
Unfortunately for the Church, such attempts to purify it from within were treated as threats to the
Establishment and were suppressed and/or perverted to standards acceptable to the mighty. The
dogma of the Church rather than the spirit of Christ reigned supreme.
Thus, the Church did its worst to bring itself into ill repute by becoming lost in dogma while at
precisely the same time it was becoming so thoroughly worldly. For example, the papacy was
coming to play the role of an earlier-day Internal Revenue Service. As such, it taxed the
pocketbooks and patience of its parishioners as well as the consciences of its priests. On one hand,
it drew to itself revenues which the emerging nations of Europe would preferred to have kept at
home. On the other, it gave ever less for the support it received because the Popes were losing the
moral authority that had once given them power. To wit, in the thirteenth century, St. Francis had
been able to work with Innocent III, but by the next century, earnest clerics found themselves in
conflict with the Popes precisely because they were earnest about their religion.
Ironically for the Church, the political power the Popes had worked so hard to attain did not endure
long beyond the loss of the moral authority which had been sacrificed to attain it. The first indication
of this decline in power came when Pope Boniface VIII was arrested by the French King in 1303. It
is significant that this act was committed with the approval of the vast majority of the French people
and without the disapproval of the other states, as this suggests the papacy had come to be
generally regarded as a nemesis by both the people and states of Europe.
The fact that the power of the immoral papacy had indeed declined was also indicated by the life
and fate of John Wycliffe (1320?-1384). He was driven to heresy late in life by the strength of his
moral feelings, his sympathy for the poor and his contempt for the rich, worldly clergy. He taught it
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was unrighteous of the clergy to hold property and that people should think for themselves. The
Church was righteously outraged, but the English government was delighted, since the Pope drew
huge tributes from England. The indication that papal power had declined was that Wycliffe did not
suffer more than he did for his opinions: He was ordered to be silent but was not formally
condemned when he died.
Even when weighed with the good the clergy did for devout individuals in need of hope and
consolation, the overall story of the Church in the Middle Ages must be regarded as a tragedy. It
failed to achieve a noble, splendid, ideal world unified in the spirit of Christian peace, and it failed as
a temporal political power. In its twofold failure, it was incumbered by a complex, dogmatic,
irrelevant theology which itself somehow ignored idealized moral issues while casting the activities
of the clergy in a bad light. The basic problem was that there was too much theology and not
enough religion, so ethics were sacrificed for expediency while ideology remained a stumbling block
to the education of Church leaders. In fact, Christian theology failed as a moral guide precisely
because it prevented the clergy from attaining the breadth of knowledge needed for success
in the worldly tasks the Church had assumed.
There was little breadth and less learning mostly because the range of thought was so limited by the
"Christian" schema. Understandably, leaders seemed obsessed with rationalizing their actions in
terms of a divine ideology geared toward getting the guilty into Heaven. Further, although both
Popes and Emperors ruled high and mighty, they were usually too preoccupied with political
squabbles to deal with underlying economic and social problems.
This underscores the basic challenge for those who lived during the Middle Agesto remain
unconscious of the profound contradictions in medieval life. The Church set heavenly standards but
played by very human rules, and if Church officials were surprised when the Reformation occurred,
we should be amazed it was so long in coming.
Eventually, reform had to come because the Middle Ages were basically a lost cause. As
monuments to tragedy, the medieval cathedrals which dot the cities of Europe are forlorn reminders
of the life that streamed around them despite what was preached in them. Just as Church officials
were drawn into the real world, so were the churches themselves, as they were both favored
trysting places for young lovers and hunting grounds for prostitutes. Only Church ideologues
remained removed from reality as the logical, verbal games they played with themselves cast a
spell over the minds but not the morals of the age. In fact, the true miracle of the age was that
Catholic ideology was so effective in blocking thought and criticism. Finally, however, in spite of the
worst efforts of medieval theologians and because of the immoral reforms of the Popes, the
Western mind became restless, striving, experimental and eager for learning.
*
As the Roman Empire decayed, the medieval Church found that power abhors a vacuum. Its
secular role expanded, and as it did so, the Church found itself encumbered by its theological if not
ethical commitment to Christ. As the Middle Ages developed, the Church took both power and
theology to extremesthe one to the point of corruption and the other to the point of pointlessness.
In fact, if theology had any function beyond itself, it was to keep the clergy oblivious to clerical
corruption. In thus taking iniquity and otherwise senseless theology to extremes, the Church was
but typically medieval in that this was a period of boundless love for simple, pure commitments to
perfect ideals and sacred causes betrayed.
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Actually, the medieval mind went to extremes precisely because it was so simple, and even today, it
is occasionally resurrected and appears in someone committed totally to a single, absolutely just
cause. Whether the commitment is to a religion or a secular doctrine, any mentality whichkeeps
itself deliberately flat and uninformed will eventually malfunction in a round world and complex
universe. However, if we have learned anything from the world of ideas in the last 1,000 years, it is
that we can reduce the discrepancy between theory and practice in human behavior by
self-consciously introducing cultural checks which help us learn about what we are really doing.
Although uncertain and confused, the modern Western mind began by burying theology and
secularizing ideology. Like a phoenix reborn from the ashes of pious heretics, Western Civilization
soared into the impetuous, boundless richness of the Renaissance.
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V. Stupidity Reborn
The Renaissance was an expansion of the Western cognitive world beyond the limits of the
medieval mind. Deism was replaced by humanism as God was replaced by man at the center of
thought. Christian theology, which had so restricted intellectual development to ways to prepare
people for the next life in heaven, gave way to a general appreciation of this life here and now as
people self-consciously gloried in and legitimatized the world of the senses. Whereas the range of
mental activity had been artificially constrained to Church ends by theologians during the Middle
Ages, the born again Western mind now embraced all dimensions of life with a conspicuous lack of
foresight, planning or purpose. If there was a new schema for this new age, it was so broad as to
provide no guidance at all to people openly plunging into the secular world with shameless
abandon.
In the thirteenth century, the overall power of and faith in the schema of the medieval Church began
to decline. This was a result of the self-defeating methods employed by the medieval Popes to
enhance their immediate, short-term secular powers at the expense of their basic spiritual authority.
With the Church increasingly absorbed in the exercise of power rather than the cultivation of
morality, it might even have led the way to the intellectual Renaissance had it not been stuck with
Christian theology as the ultimate source of authoritative explanations and rationalizations for
everything.
In fact and despite itself, the Church at first actively encouraged the new humanism with a
commitment to learning which promoted the development of the modern mind at the expense of
piety and orthodoxy. This trend was begun by Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), who, as the first
humanist Pope, was a bit too broad-minded for the good of the Church. He bestowed papal offices
on scholars whose learning he respected regardless of other considerationslike the nature of their
conclusions, but while this was a boon to humanists, it shocked the devout. Such shocks
notwithstanding, the Church suffered more from the belligerent policies and immorality of Popes
who cultivated wars and indulged in power politics than from those who cultivated talent and
indulged in arts and letters.
This developing modern mind was clearly one in which secular values predominated over those
espoused by the Church so the irony was that some of the Popes displayed and supported it while
others just displayed it in their pursuit of worldly power. Basically, it was found in Popes and people
who took responsibility for their own fate by acting upon the notion that it was the individual rather
than God who was the architect of the human condition. The human being became the center of life,
and although the external gap between the way things were and the way they should have been
remained, the standard for judging the way they should have been was changed to accommodate
human limitations and emphasize human aspirations.
For the ways the people of the Renaissance presumed to modify their traditional, Christian lifestyle,
they (like the Greeks) are better known for what they attempted than what they achieved. Even if
much of what they attempted was done mistakenly or imperfectly, it all contributed to the shaping of
the strange, confused, uncritical Renaissance mentality. While they had not abandoned heavenly
ideals, they tried to satisfy their curiosity by doing things. No longer an age of believers and not yet
an age of thinkers, the Renaissance was an age of "Doers".
As this was an age when the human mind was turned loose to interact with the world, the
Renaissance doer was first and foremost a "Discoverer". He discovered an artistic appreciation of
life, the past, new places and, most important of all, himself. Proud of his accomplishments rather
than afraid of God, the Renaissance man was eager to discover who he was so that he could be
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himself. Neither reborn Greek nor good Christian, he was more flamboyant than classical and more
theatrical than theological. What he failed to discover about being human was that his limitations
were a function of his subjective nature. Nevertheless, as the star of a drama with neither plot nor
development, Renaissance man strutted about his world stage in this unstructured age which had
its own characteristic spirit, attitude and tone.
It should not be surprising that the most notable achievements of the age were in the field of art
because the Renaissance was essentially artistic in spirit. The use of knowledge about the world to
create order, beauty and truth was the inherently artistic, subjective process that characterized the
age, and as gratifying and self-serving as it was emotionally for each individual, it was confusing
intellectually for society in the long-run and shaped the stupidity of the era. Truth no longer was
found in the Bible but in the impressionable mind of the individual as it interacted withthe world,
imposed a pattern of thought on knowledge and synthesized it into something satisfying. Nor was a
commonly accepted guiding moral schema to be found, as ethics came to be shaped by the
impulsive, artistic/subjective spirit of the period.
This spirit was accompanied by new attitudes which developed as people overcame the medieval
fiction that natural man was inherently sinful and ergo dependent upon the Church for both
leadership and redemption. The new hope for enjoying a good life here on earth was accompanied
by a rebirth of an intellectual interest in understanding the universe. With the facade of piety gone,
people resurrected the ancient values of classical Greece, studied the natural world around them
and expanded their geographical horizons.
As these new, broadening attitudes toward learning about life developed, the tone of the age clearly
became that of confused conflict. Whereas Medieval man had been confronted with conflicting
opposites, a balance had been found between virtue and vice, treachery and honor, brutality and
piety even if behavior commonly contradicted Church ideology. By way of contrast, Renaissance
man lived in a multidimensional world with no fixed standards. To the simple Christian answers to
the problems of life were added many more, most of which clashed with Christianity and each other.
Discoveries from the past conflicted with traditions just as discoveries from other continents
conflicted with set notions about the nature of the world and people.
Unfortunately, in the 1400's, some of these conflicts took the bloody form of religious wars and
workers' revolts. These evinced a new attitude quite different from the accepting apathy of serfs and
peasants in Egypt and India or the hopeless resignation common among slaves and plebes of the
Roman Empire. Although cruelly suppressed during this era, this attitude lives on today as an
unexpected result of Christianity. While the Church never intended to promote humanism or spread
a doctrine of social equality, as it nevertheless did so, an activist idea sprang up and took root along
with an incongruous sense of freedom and responsibility wherever priests introduced people to the
teachings of Jesus.
On the other hand, while Christianity had these unintended effects (and provided theological themes
for artists and writers), it failed to provide dependable, intelligible, ethical standards for social
behavior. With religious ceremonies increasingly reduced to functionless rituals which were
continually challenged and undermined by new forms of immorality, the vestige of social stability
during this period was due to common, sharedinternal standards of civil obedience which prevented
total anarchy even in the absence of a credible, established ideology. Life became brasher and
more sordid than ever as Popes and princes, explorers and artists, sages and scoundrels fired by a
lust for gold, beauty and sometimes God multiplied and went to excesses. As they did, the
Renaissance became an age of action and excitement, so whatever else it was, it was an era of
external disorder characterized by social unrest and political instability conditions which promote
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artistic creativity and permit its expression.
As Renaissance art became more representative than just decorative, it expressed the tone of
conflict in the self-image of a bold and splendid spirit confronting a beautiful but brutal world. In its
creative glory, this artistic movement peaked in the early sixteenth century: Michelangelo painted
the Sistine Chapel in 1512, Leonardo died in 1519 and Raphael, always a good imitator, followed in
1520. However, your archetypical Renaissance artist was Sandro Botticelli (1444?-1510).
Botticelli was archetypical in that he was not simply a passive spectator or recreator of an outward
image. He took over reality and made it his own by using incoming bits of information as exponents
of his personal ideas, moods and visions. Thus, when interacting with his environment, he
embodied artistic license on the loose in that he was quite casual with datarejecting some,
isolating others and combining still others into a new synthesis as suited his fancy.
For Botticelli, both conventional and unconventional orthodoxy were out. As a philosopher, he was
all artist, with a careless formula for the traditional roles of Purgatory, Heaven and Hell. He could
accept what was unworthy in Heaven and worthy in Hell and live comfortably in a middle world in
which people took no sides in great conflicts, decided no great issues and made no great moral
decisions. In fact, his art was sincere and sure while being amoral, since he was interested in
neither good nor evil. His typically Renaissance interest was in people and their mixed, confused
condition. If he had any morality, it was sympathy for those who were understandably indecisive in
the midst of uncertainty. Words and honor had no meaning, so if there were to be understanding, it
would come not through the study of incongruous things but through inquiry into sentiment.
While Botticelli was all artist, Leonardo was all everything. If he was the archetypical Renaissance
man in a broad sense, he was also deeply enigmatic and sought meaning in nature and purpose in
humanity. Certainly, his art reflects the ideas of an inner man who seemed to possess some
unsanctified, secret wisdom which allowed him to pass unmoved through personal difficulties.
Whatever the nature of his genius, it came in many forms. In fact, Leonardo truly embodied the
Renaissance in that he went in all directions at once except back to church, and although his
interests were universal, they lacked a unifying design. No one could do as many things as well as
he, but he was a collage of brilliant themes which remained parts of a colorful, disorganized,
undirected, abstractly modernesque, unfinished canvas. With his genius for insight, he would cut to
the center of things while generalizing beyond specifics into boundless nature, but since he could
not quite match nature's ability to fit things together, he, like Michelangelo, often failed to complete
projects begun.
This inability to complete works stemmed from his greatest virtuehis ability to conceive too richly.
He would become lost in experimenting with details and absorbed in the philosophy of art rather
than in its accomplishment and then would leave the physical task uncompleted. Basically, his
keenly developed sense of imperfection, which continually confronted the reality of the material at
hand, was his character, fate and tragedy.
As the ultimate artist, Michelangelo (1475-1564) was particularly adept (especially as a sculptor) in
bringing the inner soul to the surface, even if there was usually something incomplete about his
creations. Ironically, in emphasizing the spirit of piety, he expressed with profound intensity a quality
which was strikingly absent in the vain, superficial, capricious behavior of his agewhen people
were turning away from theology (as well as tradition) and becoming absorbed in the realities of this
world. This was not only ironic but also typical, in that the arts of the period abounded with religious
themes and statuesque classical ideals but included a surprising paucity about the brave new world
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which was being discovered all around him.
Like the visual arts, Renaissance literature was also largely an attempt to combine Christianity with
the classics. There were simple imitations of the classics as both figures and formal themes were
copied in mechanical fashion, but it was only as vernacular writing emerged that the classical mold
was broken by the optimism of the modern mind. However, at this stage, the nascent modern mind
remained remarkably superstitious, with the general curiosity in all things human being satisfied by
oracles, webs of romantic imagery and quaint old wives' tales which explained everything and
nothing. The true wonder is that a mentality which accepted such explanations and entertained such
beliefs produced as many worthy achievements as it did.
Ideologically, the ideal Renaissance construct was a synthesis of classicism and Christianity, but as
knowledge grew, the maintenance of any ideal at all became increasingly difficult. Theology
certainly continued to predominate, but as the humanists discovered the past, their successful
efforts to get back to original sources and achieve fundamental understandings often challenged
Church doctrine. Thus, the modern mind was fashioned partially by a respect for antiquity as the
authority of Greek philosophers came to replace that of medieval theologians. This represented a
giant leap in intellectual emancipation because when the ancients disagreed with each other, as
they occasionally did, scholars had to make judgments in evaluating what they read. Hence, while
everything was respected, little or nothing was accepted with anything like medieval, Biblical finality.
Fortunately, one of the first casualties of these conflicts was the rigid scholastic system which had
kept the Western in an intellectual straitjacket for centuries. Unfortunately, this revived a study of
Plato, but there was a benefit even to this in that it called for independent thought in choosing
between him and Aristotle. This encouraged firsthand knowledge of the classics and removed
intellectual activity from the cloistered monasteries, where the aim had been to preserve, protect
and defend predetermined orthodoxy. The distinct disadvantage was that the humanists were too
absorbed with learning from the classical past to produce anything new, original or effective. They
remained pedantic or merely literary as they, like the Scholastics before them, mulled over ancient
authorities and aloofly ruminated as remote from reality as possible.
This ineffectiveness of the humanists (and thus Renaissance intellectuals in general) was well
illustrated by the careers of Erasmus (1466-1536) and Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). In 1509,
Erasmus conceived The Praise of Folly, in which folly praises herself and claims the human race
would die out without her. As an antidote to wisdom, she recommends marriage. Based on the real
life observation that the least reasonable people are happiest, she equates happiness with folly.
Catholic in her criticisms of Catholicism, she impugns the Church for abuses of Christianity, ridicules
pardons, indulgences and theological disputes in turn, points out that the Church is committed to
formality at the expense of Christian love and ends by suggesting that true religion is a form of folly.
In contrast to Erasmus, who was a scholarly satirist, Sir Thomas More was a pious humanist. He
was incorruptible and was beheaded for allegedly saying Parliament could not make the King head
of the Church. He is best known for his Utopiaa description of a communistic Levittown in which
monotony is carried to philadelphian extremes. All the streets are alike; everyone dresses alike; all
go to bed at the same time, etc. Itwould have been an incredibly dull society, as all diversity was
forbidden except in religion: To its credit, Utopia was a land of religious toleration in an age of
bigotry, but this was the only sphere in which variety was permitted.
It is important to note that for all their intellect and erudition, neither Erasmus nor More could relate
their mental worlds to the events of their day. In fact, Erasmus was typical of the humanists in his
indifference to science, inventions and explorations that were transforming and expanding the
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Renaissance world all around him. He found the Argonauts far more interesting than Columbus and
was generally predisposed to believe any ancient nonsense he read while being wont to discount
any travelers tales he heard. In 1517, on the eve of the Reformation, he saw himself living in the
dawn of a golden age of peace rather than in the midst of one of religious bigotry, persecution and
wars.
On the other hand, More's problem was just the opposite of detachment. As Lord Chancellor, Sir
Thomas was like a latter-day Plato who was too involved with the events of his day to apply his
idealistic principles effectively. He persecuted the new Protestants harshly for their beliefs, thoughts,
errors and heresies despite his utopian insight that people of different beliefs should live together in
mutual toleration. Had this humanistic view been converted into policy by himself and later
statesmen, much ensuing religious strife might have been avoided. However, he was typical of the
humanists (and later, the romantics) in having no definite social or political program to follow.
In general, the humanists had precious little practical impact because they were pointedly
unrealisticwith More being unrealistic in his own individualistic, principled way, while most usually
served those, like the Medici and humanist Popes, who supported them. Usually, the relation of the
humanists to the Church was shaped by the obvious fact that it was the paying patron of most such
Renaissance scholars. Although most of these were impressed by the wickedness of the Popes and
the ambitions, greed and immorality of the priests, they were happily employed by the Church. This
was why the humanists could not inaugurate the Reformation: Too many of them depended on the
Church for support and were not disposed to hound those who fed them. Particularly in Rome,
which banked heavily upon Church revenues, such orthodoxy as could be found remained purely
intellectual and did not create a popular movement away from the Church.
As the sixteenth century progressed, people throughout Europe gradually became more interested
in the natural world being discovered and expanding around them than in classical works revered by
the intellectually isolated and mostly servile humanists, so the focus of curiosity shifted from books
to reality. Interest in the surrounding environment gradually grew and that in classicism waned as
new facts overwhelmed old systems of thought, which often could be proven wrong. Ptolemy's
astronomy, Galen's medicine and Aristotle's physics could no longer be stretched to cover the new
scientific discoveries being made. In fact, discovery was being enjoyed as delightful in and of itself,
and "Systematics" became almost an enemy of thoughtful inquiry. With intellects like Montaigne and
Shakespeare comfortable with confusion, disciplined system building did not catch up with
observation until the seventeenth century.
Thus, although intellectually the Renaissance was an age of discovery, it was not really an age of
science. Renaissance science was actually just another form of art which was based on alchemy
and the occult and had none of its modern precision. In most cases, it was an unformulated,
impulsive adventure into the incomprehensible in which a single subjective vision would magically
leap over reason and concentrate a thousand experiences and distill hundreds of observations by
clairvoyant divination into some brilliant and semimystical generalization.
Nevertheless, as modern science gradually took shape in the sixteenth century, its practitioners
were not really pioneers. They were more like "Rediscoverers" who were reestablishing on their
own the ancient Ionian tradition which had been buried for over two thousand years. Of course, they
had to overcome the tyranny of later Greek thought (particularly that of Ptolemy and Aristotle)
because books by the ancients were still the best available: E.g., for Vesalius, Galen's anatomical
works were not historical curiosities but, for better and worse, the best in existence.
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Whatever they were, the two great scientists of the era were Copernicus and Leonardo. It seems in
retrospect that Copernicus (1473-1543) was misplaced in time, as he had little influence until the
seventeenth century and therefore will be considered in Chapter VII. In this regard, he personified
modern science in the Renaissance: It received some impetus in this age but did not flower until the
Age of Reason.
Leonardo was a peculiar combination of visionary engineer and artistic naturalist/anatomist but was
a scientist only because he was The Renaissance Man who had universal interests. In addition, he
was a Renaissance man in that he was primarily a problem solver rather than a theoretician. In fact,
he personified the Renaissance because the fading, failing Christian/Biblical schema provided no
answers to many of the real problems he faced as he delved into the world. In this regard, it is
noteworthy that he had only a minimum of formal education, so his practical achievements were
made all the more likely because he had no blinding schema no dogmatic theoryto block the
originality which was his genius. However, if Leonardo's specific solutions to pragmatic problems
were made possible by his lack of formal theory, his attempts to solve theoretical problems were
remarkably impractical because he was indifferent to or contemptuous of practicality.
Thus, he both profited from and suffered for the absence of an organizing, functional schema. On
the one hand, he was free to follow his curiosity to natural (but not always logical) conclusions
unhampered by the learning which shaped the minds of his contemporaries. So he explained the
dark part of the moon and knew the sea had covered the mountains and the poles had been at the
equator. It seems he was saved for the ages by his ignorance, and if a negative example can be
used to make the point, he failed to discover the circulation of blood because he knew of Galen's
theory of invisible pores in the inner wall of the heart. In this particular case, he uncharacteristically
sacrificed the authority of personal observation to that of traditional knowledge.
On the other hand, being unencumbered by anything like a methodical schema and true to the
artistic temper of the age, his investigations usually were matters of intuitive analysis which
bypassed reason and formed ideas with an eye for aesthetics. His studies of nature invariably were
compromises between his intellectual curiosity and his artistic desire for beauty, and like the
Renaissance, they added up to nothing but a jumble of experiences which pointed toward the
future. Also like his age, he was too restless to be ordered and was in no sense really a scientist
who analyzed systematic observations logically much less mathematically.
Not surprisingly, speculative leaps, which were typical of the age, led Leonardo to atypical
conclusions. Most of his engineering innovations were remarkably impractical for precisely the
reason that they were made in the first placethere was no mechanical way in his day to realize his
fantasies. He blithely ignored the mundane details of constructing functional machinery and was
content to indulge his visionary curiosity in designing contraptions, like the submarine and airplane,
which were centuries ahead of themselves. In fact, he was very much at his inventive best when
finding impractical solutions to theoretical scientific problems which no one else even contemplated.
By way of contrast, in the field of geographical exploration, there were more pragmatic problems to
be solved whose solutions had not only beenfound but then forgotten or ignored. Thus, some of the
presumed discoveries of the Renaissance adventurers were really rediscoveries, in that information
about them had been lost or had not been shared. Even most of these rediscoveries were
accidental because most of the Renaissance explorers really did not set out to discover anything
but a new way to the Orient and never did find the coveted Northwest Passage they doggedly
sought. Inadvertently, they bumped into the New World because it just happened to be in their way
as they tried to sail to lands Marco Polo had already visited two hundred years before.
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When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, Mediterranean merchants and sailors who began
looking for new ways to the East for trade did not know that Pharaoh Necho had solved the problem
of rounding Africa to get to India more than 2,000 years earlier. In addition, Irish myths about a land
to the west had been unwittingly confirmed by Vikings, who had known about Vinland (i.e., New
England) for centuriesbut all this was not part of general European lore. However, Columbus had
been to Iceland, must have learned about Vinland and thus must have been encouraged to try get
to the East by sailing westward. Such a tactic stretched the credulity of most in the fifteenth century
beyond the maximum, but he knew the earth was round even if he did seriously underestimate its
sizethinking Japan to be about as far west as the Rocky Mountains.
Sailing westward became the ruling passion of Columbus's life, but his requests for ships were
rejected by the Portuguese, Genoese, Venetians and Spanish as well, until the Moors were driven
out of Granada in 1492. After a little more than two months at sea, he thought he had found China
(others thought it India) and died (in 1506) believing he had reached Asia. It was just about that time
that Europeans in general finally realized he had not found Asia but (re)discovered a new world
which they could exploit.
Basically, Spain's colonial policy was that of a conflict between Christianity and crueltybetween
saving souls and stealing gold. While Dominican friars struggled for a humane and peaceful policy
toward the Indians, the Conquistadors thirsted for riches and ravaged the lands and peoples they
conquered. If the effects of the Spaniards' spiritual imperialism are still debatable, their exploitative
imperialism unquestionably led to the destruction of three culturesthose of the Aztecs and the
Incas as well as their own.
In destroying the Aztec culture (and people), Hernando Cortez (ca. 1520) was aided by the
resentment many subjects felt toward Aztec rule but even more by a self-dooming belief on the part
of Montezuma. Via an excess of supernatural mysticism, he convinced himself that the conquerors
were the expected party of Quetzalcoatlthe state's founding god, whose return would portend the
demise of the Mexican empire, and he was half right. Although he was slightly mistaken as to the
divine nature of the Spanish, he was correct about the result of their presence. Since he believed
himself doomed, he made no effort to thwart fate. He was sovereign over a warlike people who
outnumbered their captors by a thousand to one, but he submitted not so much to the Spanish as to
his conviction that destiny was preordained. Not even the Spaniards' continual demands for gold
and provisions nor their Christian rituals could lead him to the realization that they were just a bunch
of very human thieves. His mind was set, and nothing the Spanish did could change it.
The Spanish were also fortunate in their conquest of Peru, which was aided by some ill-planned
insurrections by the Incas. As usual, the invaders treated the natives abominably and labored to
destroy them as convincingly as they had the Aztecs. However, unfortunately for Spain, as gold and
silver flowed into the royal coffers from the American provinces, the Spanish became dependent
upon this source of wealth and ergo failed to develop any industry. Thus, when the Armada was
defeated in 1588, Spain began its irreversible decline as a world power.
If Spain eventually paid the price for its rapacious successes, the conquered horizons were forever
expanded, and Europe in general became a world power. Oddly enough, the financial weakness of
European kings promoted the rise of the West because monarchs encouraged private enterprise to
push exploration. Meanwhile, in China and the Muslim world, royal complacence and prerogative
prevented private participation in such ventures.
A further paradox in this age of exploration was that just as Christianity had encouraged and then
been weakened by humanist scholarship, it encouraged and then was weakened by both the
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expanded European view of the world and the development of printing. Christians had always been
motivated by a quest for perfection and a vision of a "Better place": It might have been in the past; it
might be created; it might be found somewhere else. However, as Christians pushed into the world
in search of a Garden of Eden, a Heaven on Earth or simply some place they might perfect, they
found themselves creating and confronting lessons they were loath to learn. Until this time, Europe
had been bonded by a common legal system, religious belief and sense of ethics, with the Pope
considered the supreme arbiter and final judge in legal affairs, religious disputes andmatters of
immorality, in which he was usually an expert. This view of the Pope and Church and the
presumptuous self-assurance of Christianity did not survive geographic expansion untouched.
Further, while the case for Christianity was being undermined by new knowledge gained about the
ever deepening past and widening world, the primacy of the priest as intermediary between the
Bible and the people was undermined by the advent of printing. There certainly is irony if not
stupidity in the development of printing, in that all the major technical breakthroughs were made in
the Orientin a cultural milieu in which its use was so restricted because of the nature of the
linguistic characters. Thus, it did not lead to an intellectual revolution in China, where it began to
develop about 1,400 years before Gutenberg.
One of the earliest applications of block printing was paper money, which first appeared in China in
the tenth century. Then as now, inflation was considered to be a new way of creating wealth. At that
time none knew and few have since learned two basic principles of modern economics1.) that
paper money symbolizes wealth and 2.) that printing more symbols does not create more wealth
any more than producing crosses creates more Christianity.
Even when movable type was invented in eleventh century China, printing remained of little
practical use to the Chinese. However (and again ironically), European culture sprang to world
dominance on the back of this new Oriental technology, which was ideally suited to European
languages. A further irony for the Christian world was that by their very success in spreading the
Holy Word in print, the devout made Biblical interpretation by different readers possible and then
doctrinal dissent by conscientious thinkers probable.
The prime European contribution to the technology of printing was a crucial improvement in the
casting of type made about 1445. From then on, books became available to the general public,
even if humanist scholars at first rejected printed tomes as vulgar. This was the first step toward a
mass media culture, and it was used to appeal to both careful thought and popular emotion. On the
one hand, it was the press that made Erasmus possible, although his message did not penetrate to
those in power. On the other, the printed broadside, which was seldom reasonable, revolutionized
politics, and indeed, reason was usually lost amidst all the pages of propaganda and
misinformation.
In fact, one of the tragedies of the age was that the press had the power to preserve and spread
obsolete ideas. A case in point was the Ptolemaic notion of a homocentered universe, which was
diffused just as it was being proved wrong. A primary contributing cause of this general problem
was economic: Printing books required an investment, and printers were reluctant to change a set
galley just to accommodate new information. For example, the copper plates upon which maps
were inscribed were seldom revised just to accommodate new discoveries, so their truths often
simply outlived themselves to the point of being misleading. As distributors thus had a vested
interest in obsolete facts, a popular work could run for a hundred years even if it had nothing to do
with revised versions of reality.
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Although old truths hung on in printed forms, the Renaissance was characterized by an undeniable
growth of intellectual freedom for the individual. This was a mixed blessing, as the medieval order
had provided substantial psychological security through feudal rights. It was this sense of
permanence and security which the West traded in for the illusion of freedom. No longer fixed to a
particular purpose or place in life, Renaissance man was restless but surprisingly secure in a new
sense: He believed he would develop according to his own passion for wealth, power or fame. It
was this optimistic belief in potential that gave the new personality confidence and a kind of
psychological security which transcended physical insecurityi.e., almost no one had a nervous
breakdown, even though many experienced a stab in the back, as that was considered a culturally
acceptable way to resolve any number of problems during this era.
This Renaissance sense of freedom was more illusionary than real, however, because there were
still general behavioral constraints. These were different from those of the Middle Ages, but such
conditional restraints had just been changednot eliminated. The Renaissance man was a slave to
the money market, was free to starve and had a right to fail if he could not sell his services to
contractors whose decisions were governed more by principles of business than the gospel
according to Christ.
Likewise, the State was freed of any pretense of theological restraints and became the great
individualist of the agean end in itself. More important, the means used to achieve state ends were
not notably Christian. Justification by Biblical or divine standards was superseded by justification in
terms of secular success. According to Machiavelli, the archetypical amoralist, the state had but one
lawthe pursuit of its own interest.
Actually in politics, neither institutions nor behavior changed from the Middle Ages quite so much as
did the ethical standards for rationalizations. Certainly, Christian ethics were no longer used as
much (by either the Church or state) as was a hopeful presumption that ends would somehow justify
themselves.
A prime example of this principle was the plot of Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) to overthrow Medici
rule in Florence and seize territory for the papal family. Accompanied by machinations which make
our modern Watergate and Irangate conspirators look like alter boys, the plot washatched in the
Curia and probably with the knowledge and encouragement of the Pope himself. The
assassinations of Lorenzo de' Medici and his brother Giuliano were planned for Easter Sunday,
1478, and the attack was made in the Cathedral of Florence. Giuliano was killed, but Lorenzo
survived to take Christian vengeance upon the perpetrators, who just happened to be his political
rivals.
In a more general sense, as the not particularly Christian states pursued their own interests in Italy
in the latter half of the fifteenth century, various combinations of them produced a compromise
between international anarchy and order by maintaining a dynamic imbalance of power. In order to
achieve and maintain this condition for the good of all selfish little states, the process of interstate
relations became systematized, diplomacy institutionalized, competition among states codified and
the process of governmental relations made "Reasonable". This did not mean statecraft was made
logical or that it was divorced from ethicsjust that a state ethic replaced that of Christ as the basis
for diplomatic interaction, so assassination was commonly employed and spying accepted, since
information was crucial to state success.
If the city-states were doomed by their own narrow, anarchistic nature, as existing institutions will,
they hung on and, in their stupid pettiness, made and kept Italy petty. As improvised political works
of art, they were typically Renaissance in being compartmentalized from ecclesiastical control and
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Christian ethics as well as by being independent of secular tradition and general legality. In their
new found freedom, they failed because they could develop no political mechanism for resolving
their self-defeating internal economic/class conflicts and would not unify, so they remained a
fragmented mosaic which invited devastating foreign invasions.
Internal conflicts went unresolved because the franchise was usually limited to a shortsighted few of
those who lived within the city walls. They thought they were being self-serving, but their
narrowness made their political base unstable and left them vulnerable. In Florence, for example,
the Medici government was nominally democratic, but in reality, it was a rigid oligarchy which
excluded many residential interest groups. Naturally, those excluded did not identify with the
Establishment, so the city played out the history of the Roman Empire writ small and employed
mercenaries to fight its wars. This led to a series of disasters beginning early in the sixteenth
century, and by the time Machiavelli referred to the problem, it was too late to find a solution.
For the preceding forty years, the game of power politics as played among the Italian city-states had
been incredibly complex, with princes and tyrants shifting allegiances with one another in efforts to
create and /or maintain an imbalance of power favorable to themselves. Anyone whomade a
mistake was likely to be eliminated, and there were many mistakes. Although there were also many
wars, these were largely bloodless, as the soldiers were mercenaries who specialized in minimizing
risks. Trade usually continued uninterrupted, and the country grew rich.
Somehow, the imbalance of power which characterized interstate relations in Italy survived the age,
thanks to ambitious, counterbalancing designs of aggressive Popes and princes, but the system of
independent Italian city-states ended with the French invasion of 1494. Until that time, prosperity if
not peace had been maintained apparently without conscious efforts on the part of statesmen, and
although a balance of power mentality was attributed to this age later (in 1536), there really was
none. There was no balance and could be none because foreign powers, like Turkey, France and
Spain, were always threatening to become or actually were involved in Italian affairs.
Dedicated more to statecraft than statesmanship, the contentious city-states were distracted by
each other and their entangling alliances and hence rendered themselves mutually defenseless
when the expansionist French invaded. In fact, it was Milan's request for French aid in its quarrel
with Naples that resulted in the invasion of 1494. Soon, Italy became a battleground for the Spanish
and French, with the French shocking everyone by actually killing enemy soldiers in wars that
brought suffering and poverty to Italy. Nevertheless, the leaders of the city-states went on intriguing
against each other, seeking the aid of either foreign power regardless of "National" injury.
Eventually, all were ruined in this self-induced debacle diplomatically referred to as the "Italian
question".
This question was really a medieval problem for modern diplomacy, although it was a problem only
because there were no Italians at the time. There were residents of Florence, Milan and Naples, for
example, but no Italians. Like the "Non-Greeks" before them, the citizens of these various
city-states simply could not perceive themselves as members of a greater community. They were, at
best, members of an exclusive set in a particular city-state, and many people were not even that, as
most of the city-states were personal creations or perhaps exclusive political organizations run by a
family or a class. Abstract loyalty to an area or an institution (like monarchy) rather than to personal
leaders had not yet developed into a national conscience, and the only diplomatic connections
among the city-states were military alliances which never developed into a federation or league to
protect the members from invasion.
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For their part, the French were bent on the conquest of Italy, which was rich, even if it did not exist.
French King Charles VIII (1483-1498) saw such an enterprise as a way of occupying his restless
nobles, and in that spirit, the sixteenth century was to become one in which foreign adventure was
the preferred alternative to domestic violence. After many machinations and much looting, thirty
years and several Popes later, little would be settled, and all that would be proved was that the
nationalistic European states were interaggravating and that the rest would take common action
against any one which appeared to be getting too powerful.
Actually, the first evidence of this came as early as 1495 in the form of the Holy League, which was
established ostensibly to defend Christianity against the Turks but really to confront the successful
French. Thus, the early triumphs of the French actually brought on failure by making enemies for
them, and once their position in Naples became untenable, their retreat became more rapid than
their conquest had been. In the final analysis, they gained little for themselves but hostility and
syphilis.
Although the French invasion of Italy had clearly been a failure, the European powers followed their
lead and competed with each other for chunks of the peninsula, which was decimated in the
process. For the French themselves, having apparently learned only that Italy was worth invading
but nothing about how to do it to any lasting effect, failure begot catastrophe. The dazzling promise
of unrealized riches encouraged King Louis XII (1498-1515) to assert claims he could not back up
with force, and by 1512, the French were pushed completely out of Italy. Ironically, those who
gained most from the French defeat were not the Italians but the Spanish, who took over Naples.
This success of the Spanish in Italy was the result of well-timed maneuvers made with a cynical
disregard for previous commitments, but this whole era was characterized by shifting alliances and
betrayals in the finest Machiavellian tradition. Certainly, it was an age when honoring a commitment
could be expensive. The Florentines learned this the hard way when for stubbornly maintaining their
connections with France, they lost their independence and experienced the imposition of Medici rule
by the triumphant Holy League.
The restoration of the Medici to power also brought a restoration of the family's venerable tradition
of patronage of the arts, which reached its zenith when Giovanni de' Medici became Leo X in 1513.
He created a court of unrivaled splendor and unfortunately made magnificence the standard for
measuring success. In fact, it was the adoption of this secular standard for judgment which made
him unable to comprehend Luther's revolution when it broke upon him.
In Europe in general, the emerging states followed the Italian lead of pragmatic rather than Christian
diplomacy. Such as it was, the commitment to nationalism made precious little sense, as most
countries were formed by accidents of conquest and thus constituted totally arbitrary political
entities which were ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous.
As the nationalistic governments looked overseas to judge conditions for expansion, they paid little
more than lip service to the Pope's authority to divide up the world. The acid test really was one of
poweri.e., the ability to maintain a domain. A world-wide Christian community never was to be: It
became a casualty of nationalism even before it could be formed.
While nationalism was undercutting the Church, ascending Spain was becoming part of the
burgeoning Hapsburg Empire, whose growth was based on the unquestioned assumption that
crowns and titles to dominion were subject to the same laws as private inheritance. By such
formality, the national interests of Spain were subverted by being bound to Hapsburg interests in
central Europe.
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These interests were themselves very much shaped and structured by the outlook of absolutist
Charles V (1519-1556). Within the Hapsburg Empire, he was all-powerful, but as he looked
backward, he failed to realize that if government was absolute, it was also beyond the control of any
single person precisely because its expanded, absolute role was so great. Thus, while trying to
cope with the vast and detailed problems of imperial rule, Charles had to function within the
limitations set by his inability to understand the nature of the forces confronting him. For example,
as a staunch Catholic, he viewed religious disputes as mere theological differences and gathered
diets and councils in vain attempts to reconcile the various warring factions of Christendom. To the
extent that he could not comprehend what was going on around him, Charles showed only that he
was an ordinary man in an eventful agein his particular case, a commonplace son of a mentally
defective mother who, in true Hapsburg fashion, had married for reasons of state.
If the Hapsburgs usually married their way to power and generally proceeded to incompetence,
Charles was at least bright and rich enough to bribe his way to election as head of the Holy Roman
Empire. In so doing, he revived the ancient Roman tradition of secular corruption in true
Renaissance style. Not only did big money return to politics during his age, but money in general,
public debt, social unrest and discontent all made their triumphant reentries into European life.
As it turned out, the political entity best suited to conditions existing throughout Europe generally in
this period was the kingdom rather than the city-state or the empire. The former was usually too
small and the latter simply too vast to maintain any semblance of integrity, so even though the
interests of the people remained unrecognized, those kingdoms whichhappened to extend and
expand along nationalistic lines were favored by the future. Thus, the petty disputes of the Italian
city-states and the efforts of Charles V notwithstanding, in terms of political organization for Europe
generally, the major fact of Renaissance life was the gradual development of powerful kings.
In the early sixteenth century, these were not yet the absolute monarchs they would become, but
they were seemingly committed to absolute stupidity, as power begot an arrogant insensitivity to
human needs and rights. This eventually led to revolutions against monarchy, but there were some
short-term benefits in the sixteenth century to a strong leader who could organize and expand a
state by lording over the nobility and clergy, controlling revenues to support a large army and
conducting an aggressive foreign policy.
Although the monarchs of the nation-states might be almighty when they ruled, orderly political
succession remained uncertain. With traditions awry, continuity and stability were no longer
assumed, and transitions of power were commonly settled by power. The Wars of the Roses in
England, for example, were typical of Renaissance politics. In suppressing both competing
contenders for and challenging pretenders to the throne, reigning monarchs (like Henry VII)
established the grand tradition of royal tyranny, while the confiscation of lands often made the king
independently wealthy and therefore not in need of financial support from a legislative body (like
Parliament).
If there were serious threats in the nation-state to the absolute authority of the monarchies and
public order in general, they came from old nobles and the new elite. The nobles were invariably at
odds with the kings, who undermined their power, just as the kings would undermine that of the
Emperor. However, the old nobility was clearly declining, as was evident in court life, which became
a set of ritualized ceremonies with symbolism substituted for substance.
Nevertheless, even the absolute monarchs never were truly absolute, since they had to contend
with the new elitethe merchants and lawyers. The commercial class had some financial influence,
while the lawyers, as educated public administrators, replaced the hereditary land owners as
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decision-makers in local government. Still, if the Renaissance needed any one thing, it was stability,
and this was best provided by a strong king who personified an active, organized government.
As the role and size of government expanded, its cost rose accordingly, so one of the chief
problems that had to be solved was that of increasing revenues without violating property rights.
Although Western tradition has always maintained a fictitious separation between State and Estate,
this distinction became blurred during the Renaissance and has remained unclear ever since.
Actually, the whole financial structure of emerging government was ill-defined during this era and
thus tended to favor those who shaped the definitions. To wit, legal precedents were reinterpreted
to justify confiscation, and government (as it usually does) took the lead in mocking legality.
During the Renaissance, the operative maxim in this regard was that of the Roman philosopher and
statesman Seneca: "To kings belongs authority over all; to private persons property". Whereas,
previously, medieval rights had been owned by people, now individuals owned things, and
governments owned rights and told people what they could and could not do with their property. The
only certainty in all of this was that any government that could do so would increase its share of
wealth so as to have the power to consolidate territorial gains and conduct military operations which
would extend them further.
Institutional life in the Renaissance was otherwise rather uncertain because it was independent of
not only theological but of some financial restraints as well. In a general sense, as the European
financial community developed, it remained quite deferential and so conservative in its interactions
with established political authority of the larger nation-states that politicians were independent of this
bloc as a special interest group. Bankers would not challenge governmental polices even when they
led to bankruptcy and confiscation. At this time in history, money simply did not have the political
clout in such states that it later had because the economic revolution, which was under way, had not
yet progressed to the point that financial power represented the interests of a general class.
Particularly in these states, financiers were too reticent and economic factors too weak and diluted
to be decisive in political decisions, so bankers supported the political establishment and made
great profits or sustained great losses according to policies beyond their influence. On the other
hand, to the extent that money had a significant impact on policies in the smaller city-states of
Renaissance Italy, it promoted economic/class conflict which ended up with everyone losing. The
rich lost and no one gained because the clashes themselves killed the cities. If there is a lesson to
be learned here about the impact of money on Renaissance politics, it is that the stable
nation-states were as yet a bit insensitive to the needs of the growing financial community while the
volatile city-states were a bit too susceptible to fiscal influence because they were so narrowly
based.
With Renaissance statecraft liberated from the constraints of theological justification and not yet
subject to the economic restraints of big money,diplomats schemed and manoeuvered in a world of
power unto itself, removed from the limiting influence of any greater morality or rationality
whatsoever. If anything, Renaissance politics became somewhat schizoid, as the intellectual
development of the Western mind went on independent of and concurrently with the drift toward
amoral, Machiavellian monarchy. It was not until the seventeenth century that these two
streamsthe world of general ideas and the sense of ethical leadershipcame into a conscious
conflict which is yet to be resolved.
Thus, the Renaissance was an age when the growth and dissemination of knowledge was
accompanied by a change of moral standards used to judge success. Certainly information about
the world was accruing, and just as certainly, as the grip of Christianity on the Western conscience
weakened, the Church was becoming ever more sordid. In a world in which priests were supposed
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to be celibate but not necessarily childless, monarchs replaced Popes as posers of moral
leadership. As statesmen, they could hardly be frank and definitely could not practice what
everyone else preached. However, if this was the age of ambition, audacity, cunning, treachery and
cruelty, it was not without its beau ideal.
The man who personified Renaissance "Virtue" was Cesare Borgia (1476?-1507), the son of Pope
Alexander VI and role model for Machiavelli's The Prince. Murder and betrayal were his fortes but
were in no way considered blameworthy by Machiavelli. Combined with his father's influence, these
villainies made Cesare a successful duke, so Machiavelli saw him as a superb prince and
completely missed the basic flaws masked by his magnificence, which collapsed upon his father's
deathbed.
For all his political astuteness, Nicolo Machiavelli (1467-1527) seemed to have something of a blind
spot for judging princes, of all things. Not only did he miss on Cesare, but he backed a
loserSoderiniin the battles for Florentine power and paid for his mistake by being tortured on the
rack and banished. Further, he was unreceptive to modern possibilities, dismissing the cannon as a
noisy toy and missing the fact that the Mediterranean was becoming a lake in a world of oceanic
trade. Basically, his mind was bound by his Roman past and was neither truly modern nor oriented
toward the future.
Despite his personal shortcomings, setbacks and drawbacks, Machiavelli remains significant as a
political philosopher because of his honesty about political dishonesty. His concern was with how
principalities were won, held and lost, and his approach was empirical, in the tradition of apragmatic
Roman. In describing and codifying what occurred around him, he merely noted the obvious,
commonplace factsthat commitments were to be honored if and when they paid, and if disguise,
feigning, dissembling and worse were necessary for success, they were acceptable (especially in
his unsettled age). In a world in which few rulers were legitimate and papal elections were secured
by corruption, no one was shocked by cruelty and treachery, but nearly everyone was shocked by
his writing about such eternal and nefarious means to political ends.
Machiavelli was quintessentially Renaissance in that he believed he had discovered a new, true
basis for ethics (i.e., power) although he had really only (re)discovered and made generally explicit
what anyone concerned had long knownthat power belongs to those who take it. Further, he was a
man of his age in that none of his political arguments was based on the Bible or abstract idealism,
since he entertained no medieval illusions about Holiness or "Legitimate power".
Whereas Christian ethics clearly had no place in diplomacy, and its place in intrastate and Church
relations was suspect, Machiavelli reduced political morality to a matter of cold-blooded efficiency.
In an age of villainy, cynics would forgive anything that worked: Hence, if a ruler would perish by
being "Good" according to Christian morality but could retain power by being "Bad", he must suffer
no scruples but do whatever was necessary to survive, since that was the nature of the game and
only a fool would think or behave otherwise. As there were more successful sinners than saints,
Christian ethics remained important only in that leaders should appear virtuous by such standards.
However, within the context of his pragmatic, Roman schema, Machiavelli had a failing as an
analyst if not as a philosopher. It was not that he was a hypocrite, for he was only incongruously
inconsistent when being righteous about doing "Evil", obvious about being tricky and candid about
duplicity. Much as we might admire a man whose writing is so free of deception, we must bear in
mind he would have admired Hitler for his purge of his own party in 1934, his breach of faith after
Munich and perhaps even the "Final Solution" and would have condemned him not for the nature of
his policies but only for failing.
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Machiavelli's own failing was his justification of power as an end in itself. His ruling thought was that
princes should be guided by a morality of power, but if this kind of thinking might suffice in an
artificially self-contained world of political philosophy, it is a bit shallow for the real world of hard and
soft knocks. Basically, he could not see how politics fits in with the rest of society to make an
organic whole. All he could see was a bunch of princes scheming to outdo rival schemers and
rewarded by gratified malice, plunder and, most of all, more power.
In this regard, Machiavelli was clearly culture bound, being spiritually blind in an age of spiritual
blindness. Deprived of a utopian vision by the cynical cesspool of Italian politics, he could not
recognize the need of people for inspiring, noble leaders who obey the laws of state and embody
the ideals of their general culture. He dismissed as irrelevant not only God and the Bible but the
human heart and conscience as well.
If Machiavelli believed in anything beyond sheer power, it was the "Nation" as the proper setting for
power. For him, patriotism was a consuming passion and a self-evident moral justification for any
and all forms of statecraftiness. For the good of the nation-state, anything and everything was
condoned or condonable. This fixation on nationalism led him somewhat astray in that he failed to
realize it could not be used where it did not exist. Specifically, it led him to perceive around him a
sense of Italian unity which existed only in his Roman mind.
Machiavelli was quite astute, however, in perceiving the disintegration of the Church around him,
but his warning that "Her ruin and chastisement is near at hand" in his Discourses (ca. 1513) was
just one of many ignored by Catholic officials. Specifically, he took the Church to task for preventing
the realization of his pet projectthe unification of Italyand also because Catholicism's own unifying
idea of the world of God, far from being realized by the clergy, was actually being subverted by the
evil conduct of Church leaders. While traditional religious faith was thus being undermined, the
Renaissance was concurrently kindling in the Western mind a new sense of social justice based not
on Machiavelli's (later Hegel's) self-justifying nation but on a secularized Christian conscience which
was profounder than theology permitted or the Church encouraged.
Unfortunately, this new consciousness had not reached the lay leaders of society, since the political
institutions were as removed from their cognitive and moral environments as was the Church. What
Machiavelli observed and wrote about of the political scene might have been noted in Egypt, India
or China, but he was simply being descriptive and approving of age-old behavior and offered no
new ideas to match the world evolving around him. Thus, at a time when all kinds of things were
being discovered in a world in which everything was changing, political thought was standing
stillthat is, there was no basic change in the ideas about the relationship of state to state or state to
citizen. In fact, Charles V had carried the idea of absolutism to the absolute extreme of a political
limbo, and the world seemed to be falling back toward personal monarchies of the Macedonian
pattern.
However, this secular conscience was spreading among the people. Intellectually, the Renaissance
world was fragmented into art, religion, science, exploration, commerce, politics, etc. Not only did
this chaos release new energy within society, but commoners were voicing their ideas and opinions,
particularly in the otherwise stagnant fields of theology and political theory. Creative, pragmatic
thinking was being done by practitioners and the peoplenot by Popes or princes, who had
everything set up to suit themselves (i.e., to keep their environments tailored to their haughty
status), nor by abstract intellectuals.
By way of ironic contrast, Sir Thomas More and Machiavelli personified the split of the idealist and
realist traditions and the pointlessness of both. More's mind was basically medieval and contrasted
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markedly with that of his practical contemporary. More dealt with the world as it should be;
Machiavelli dealt with it as it was. More became a beheaded optimist; Machiavelli died merely a
disenfranchised pessimist.
Still, for all the practical effect they had, both might just as well have been arbitrarily splitting
argumentative hairs in some medieval monastery. In his useless way, Sir Thomas More wasted his
intellect and integrity to no immediate effect while in a mighty intellectual leap, Machiavelli related
politics to power but went nowhere with either. At best, they and other Renaissance writers and
artists joined explorers in a rebirth of interest in worldly affairs that led the way to both theological
and secular reforms.
*
For us, the Renaissance remains significant as the grand opening of our born again modern world.
If anything remains of the Renaissance spirit, it is the trace of optimism inherent in the belief that it
is at least theoretically possible to increase the sum of temporal well-being. This belief that the
standard of living can be improved is our legacy from the age when the importance of this life was
rediscovered and the creative possibilities of the future here on earth were first perceived.
The ultimate Renaissance problem that remains is the coordination of secular materialism with a
sense of morality. In that regard, we are still searching for a balanced, satisfying ethical order while
living amidst an imbalanced, annoying disorder of competing, contradictory institutions some of
which are indifferent to while others play upon our emotional needs. Like the Renaissance, our age
is one of artfully contrived philosophic and religious truths which usually do not match up and which
are only obliquely related to behavior. Perhaps once again it is time to reform society by
reexamining our truths.
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VI. Stupidity Reformed
At the same time that people were turning away from theological truths and looking outward at the
world, those truths were undergoing dramatic revision as both the Christian religion in particular and
Western Civilization in general were thoroughly reformed. In the early sixteenth century, with
religious man seeking biblical answers to theological problems, Christianity underwent a number of
soul searching revisions. Meanwhile, with Renaissance Man seeking human answers to temporal
questions and functional solutions to real problems, the secular religions of capitalism and
nationalism were taking shape. Thus, as Christian theology was being redefined, the Bible
reinterpreted and the Church both split and reformed, rising capitalism was undermining the
medieval guild system while growing nationalism was enfeebling the Holy Roman Empire and
weakening the papacy.
The net result was not a reformation but four of them. Martin Luther began the revolt by trying to
reform the Church but ended up reforming Christianity. John Calvin carried on the movement by
expounding a theology which ended up putting capitalism on a tenuous metaphysical footing. As a
reaction to the Protestant challenge, the Catholic Church staged a Counter-Reformation which
sought to restore power if not goodness to orthodox Catholicism. Meanwhile, princes were
reforming the political realm by framing various sects of the secular religion of nationalism.
In general, the overall reformation of Western Civilization was due to the dilution of Church influence
which accompanied the rise of capitalism and nationalism. However, the Christian Reformation (with
a capital "R") itself, which splintered the monolithic theocracy of the Catholic Church, was due
primarily to a revival of religion. Christianity, if not the Church, thus was saved by reformers who
made religion the chief issue again by appealing to the Bible and the spirit of Christ. Hence,
although the Reformation was a theological backlash against the temporal Renaissance, it likewise
began by looking backward to a renewal of the values of antiquity and ended by stumbling forward
into the modern world.
The Reformation really was the Middle Ages' way of ending themselves and releasing the Western
mind from the official, singular faith which never had encompassed all of medieval life anyway. As
the lastgreat flowering of Medievaldom, it was intensely preoccupied with life in the hereafter,
redemption and both the word and world of God. It was characterized by intolerance and
superstition, narrow-mindedness and credulity as an upsurge in belief led to an addiction to demons
and witches as well as a renewed commitment to Christ and eventually to reason.
While belief was reestablished, the Church and the ecclesiastical structure of the Middle Ages were
shattered by the combined attitudes of the princes, people and Popes. The princes were particularly
vexed not only by the clergy's immorality but by the Church's interference in lay affairs, its claims of
overlordship and its financial policies and practices. During the Middle Ages, leaders of the
emerging nation-states had gradually lost respect for the Church and come to fear it less and less.
By the sixteenth century, when the Church sided with the Emperor against the nobles, the princes
reached the point of grumbling about staging an irreligious revolt against the world-rule of the
Church.
On the other hand, the people objected not to the power of the Church but to its weakness. They
wanted a Church which would help them oppose wickedness here on earth: That is, they wanted
more Christian control, not less. Their objection to the Pope was that he was just another wealthy,
strong-armed prince rather than the spiritual leader of the Christian world. In the three-corner
struggle among the Popes, princes and people, the Popes sought alliances with various princes but
never concerned themselves with their general popularity.
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Ultimately, however, the Reformation was caused by the Renaissance Popes, who provided the
motivation and material for all those who challenged their authority. It was the Popes, not Luther,
the princes or the people, who destroyed the Western theocracy both by what they did and did not
dobecause of both what the Church was and was not. Far from clashing with secularism, the
Popes had welcomed it into the Vatican, which they had secularized to the point of shameless
corruption while inhibiting reforms in theology and thought which would have allowed them and
others to understand what was happening. By embracing corrupting, worldly values while
embodying a spiritual void, they eventually caused the splintering of Christendom.
Beginning with Sixtus IV (1471-1484), papal deterioration was rapid and complete. Sixtus was a
despot who never let his role as servant of Christ interfere with his role as Vatican prince. Following
him was Innocent VIII (1484-1492)a weak, compliant family man who provided for his children.
Under him, administrative standards reached a level of venality which could no longer be ignored,
and in 1488, several high ranking Church officials were arrested and two executed for forging for
sale papal bulls of dispensation.
Innocent's immediate successor, Alexander VI (1492-1503), centered his efforts on his family, the
Borgias, rather than on the Church. Despite all his efforts, his son Cesare failed to attain the office
the father had so thoroughly defiled. Like his son, Alexander indulged in legendary sins, was
responsible for sundry murders and carried perfidy to a new low. As a rake whose conduct firmly
established the doctrine of papal fallibility, his disastrous reign marked the nadir of the Renaissance
papacy.
Julius II (1503-1513) was a crusader who missed the Crusades. Europe was dismayed by the role
he played in 1506 in instigating wars and stunned by the sight of the Pope riding at the head of his
army. Although his behavior was otherwise not scandalous and he did enlarge the papal domain,
everyone and especially the Church ended up paying for his militarism. He defeated the French but
at the price of inviting the Spanish to dominate Italy. Both his costly wars and patronizing of artists
(like Michelangelo and Raphael) increased the financial burden on the papacy, and although these
monetary problems were certainly severe, the basic problem he posed was that his ends were
simply incompatible with Christian means and ideals. Probably his idea of Heaven was a one of
riches gained through military might.
If stupidity is the obstinate attachment to a disfunctional goal, Julius was indeed stupid. His goal
was personal glory, which he somehow believed would bestow glory upon the Church. He pursued
this goal with an absolute disregard for both obstacles and methods. His disregard of obstacles
made him a successful warrior, but his disregard of methodsthe means to his worldly endsmade
him a menace to the Church and God he was allegedly serving.
The unasked question Julius posed was: "What price glory?" His answer was, apparently, "Any!",
and he was happy to have the Church pay it for his glory in life and death. In life, he needed money
to support his chief instrument of papal policy in Italytroops. In death, he needed it to be housed in
a tomb whose cost exceeded papal revenues. The price of this "World's cathedral" had to be met by
the sale of indulgences, and this was the proximal cause of the Protestant revolt.
Footing the bill for all the papal indulgences was Leo X (1513-1521), who capped the religious
irresponsibility of the Renaissance Popes. He was an educated, sensitive, pleasure-loving,
easygoing, indolent gambler who never understood the game he was playing and losing to Luther.
Interested in music, the theater, books, gems and huntingpractically everything but the Church, he
neglected his official duties and was totallyunprepared for the challenge which confronted him. What
the Church needed at this point was a Pope who would institute internal reforms. What it had was a
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neoplatonic Christian who did next to nothing to curb Church corruption.
At best, Leo was conscientious about maintaining religious rituals. A careless Christian in office, he
kept fasts and celebrated Mass daily. At worst, he discredited the papacy. For the sake of fines, he
promoted a conspiracy to have himself assassinated, but the plot failed. In true Renaissance style,
he resorted to treachery to dispose of Gianpaolo Baglioni, a dynastic ruler and rival who was invited
by Leo to Rome on a safe-conduct pass, stupidly accepted and then was safely beheaded.
Undoubtedly, the Popes were contributing causes to the debacle in so far as they personified and
worked within the cognitive framework of the Church and the age. However, while the idiosyncratic
quirks of the Renaissance Popes contributed to the onset of the Reformation, they do not explain
why and how the Church failed to respond to the dissent which was growing all around it but instead
persisted in bringing itself into disrepute. The basic problem was that the Popes were usually
unwilling and always unable to change the system because they were the system. In defining the
Establishment, they compounded two factors which both corrupted the Church and inhibited reform:
One was that the Church had embraced the general, secular values of the age; the other was that,
having become secularized, it refused to heed its many critics, reform and become the
spiritual/religious institution the people needed.
Basically, by adopting the values of their general environment, the Renaissance Popes became
victims of the neurotic paradox. They were continually reinforced by immediate financial rewards as
they brought on the long-term ruination of the Church. In the true spirit of Renaissance artists, they
evaluated their policies and acts from their own subjective viewpoint (i.e., as leaders of a rich
political institution). Unfortunately for the Church, they perceived their new, worldly perspective itself
in its own termsnot as a corruption of the Christian schema but as a standard defining a new kind
of success.
The problem was not that the Church failed to adapt to new conditions. If anything, the problem was
that the Church had become the new conditions. It had become a Renaissance, secular, worldly
Church in which few could believe. Far from providing an eternal standard for behavior and rather
than reforming the Church to keep or make it a spiritual institution, the clergy led the way to
corruption. At a time when some people worshiped money, others power and others the
nation-state, devout Christians felt a bit bewildered and very much betrayed by their religious
leaders. If anyone could embody a void, the Popes embodied the spiritual vacuum which induced
the Reformation.
Induction was all but assured because efforts at reform were pretty much wasted on Church
leaders, who had already turned their collective backs on the faith and the faithful. Well before
Luther, there had been numerous attempts to stem the decline of the Church, but none had any
significant impact. Outside the Church, there had actually been open revolts, like that of Wycliffe in
England, and there had also been a number of attempts at Christian reform within the Church, but
all had failed. In addition, criticisms not only from outside the Church but from within the priesthood
as well were pointedly ignored.
Such potential reforms failed and criticisms were ignored because no one in a position of authority
in Rome was looking to prevent the debacle we know was so imminent. If anything, Church leaders
generally refused to acknowledge that reforms were necessary. Behind all Church policy was an
underlying assumption by the higher clergy that the Church was invulnerable and eternal. This
self-defeating illusion on the part of the papacy of its indestructible permanence as well as a
concomitant, exaggerated sense of righteous power were both based on a presumption of moral
inviolability common among those who define right and wrong. This complex is typical of people
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indulging in groupthink and tended to make Church officials deaf to the calls for reform swelling
around them.
Basically, these calls came from two kinds of would-be reformers, both of which failed to save the
Church. The first was the "Rational" reformer, who was usually a scholarly philosopher. He believed
in the idealized intellectthat the informed mind would bring about improvements in institutions and
morality. Such a potential reformer (like Sir Thomas More, for example) carried on the tradition of
the Christian humanist, who emphasized the reasoning faculties of man and venerated the role of
the intellectual aristocracy.
The other was the "Mystical" reformer, who was medieval in approach and emphasized reliance on
divine guidance, inspiration and individual sanctity. According to mystics, the corruptions of society
could not be corrected by pious remedies, which were considered useless and misleading: Society
could be saved, however, by purification through exhortation and discipline. This was the approach
of the orthodox fundamentalist and was personified in Savonarola.
As a constant source of criticism, friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was a voice of religious
distress which Pope Alexander VI managed to ignore for seven years while it resounded throughout
Italy in the 1490's. He castigated the Popes for contravening their own creed and proclaimed,
"Popes and prelates speak against pride and ambition and they are plunged into it up to their ears.
They preach chastity and keep mistresses...They think only of the world and worldly things; they
care nothing for souls."
Of course, some reformers, like Erasmus, combined both approaches into a kind of rational
mysticism. He certainly was a humanist scholar, but in religious matters, he emphasized the spirit
over formality and piety over reason. Unfortunately, he was a man of conviction with an approach to
social reform that was bypassed. His commitment was to Church unity, but as a sixteenth century
moderate who disliked fanaticism, he was pushed to the fringe as the zealots of the age piqued
themselves and each other to frenzies of excess.
The tragedy of Erasmus was that of the humanists generallyfailure to achieve reform within the
Church. In The Praise of Folly, he pointed out the stupidity of formality, monasticism, ignorance
and neglect among the higher clergy. Even though these ills persisted, he and his colleagues could
not bring themselves to break with the Church because they were not revolutionaries. They were, if
anything, too reasonable, too intellectual and certainly too timid to lead a popular movement.
When the rationalists and humanists failed, reformers perforce turned to mysticism. Reason and
moderation had been ignored and thwarted, so the field was left to the intense, spiritual reformers of
the age. Among these, Savonarola had already overplayed his righteous hand and been burned at
the stake for heresy (i.e., denouncing papal crimes) in 1498. Still, the supreme moral questions of
the age would be called by reformers outraged to the point of passion by rampant clerical abuse.
Bad as this abuse was, problems within the Church alone did not cause the Reformation. There was
certainly little in the Church to prevent the Reformation, but actually the ecclesiastical abuses in the
early sixteenth century were no worse than they had previously been. True, under Julius II, the
demands for money reached a new high, but there had been indulgence scandals before, and for
three centuries, Popes had been accused of avarice. Other problems, like corruption of the
monasteries, simony, plurality and neglect of duties, had also been common for centuries.
The Reformation was thus not the result of a progressive decline to the point of revolt. It resulted
from a failure of belief in the traditional system. Rather than a reaction against long-standing errors
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and excessive abuses in the established institutions, the Reformation was an expression of age-old
needs which could not be fulfilled within the existing framework of the Church. People did not cease
to believe in the Church because ofwhat scandalous monks and corrupt clergymen had done for
centuries, nor what Luther did in 1517 but because they had needs that the Church failed to meet.
Under "Modern" tutelage, the Church became generally indifferent and unresponsive to spiritual
needs of the unsung people and so irresponsible that Leo X simply dismissed Luther's first
challenge as a quarrel among monks. He was half right. Luther was a monk, but his quarrel was
not with other monks: It was with the Church, and in the grandest sense, the movement he led
became a religious revolution because it led to a reformation not of just the Church but of
Christianity. Catholicism would later reform itself in its own fashion with the Counter-Reformation
because it had been clearly undermined as a religious institution by Luther's crusade, which was
basically a fundamentalist, reactionary movement calling for a return to what was thought to be the
pure, unadulterated Christianity of classical times.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) was (along with John Calvin) a throw-back to St. Augustine, particularly
with respect to the relation of the soul to Goda medieval issue if ever there was one. With the aid
of his fellow Protestants, he abolished Purgatory, from which the souls of the dead could be
delivered by Masses, and claimed that predestination made the fate of souls independent of priests,
particularly after death. Also, he emphatically rejected indulgences, the granting of which helped
support the papacy.
As a theologian years earlier, Luther had scrutinized every official way to salvation and found them
all wanting. Worse yet, he suspected the reason he could not love God was because God was not
very lovable. Certainly there was something unlovable about a God who damned people regardless
of their merit, for which He was somehow responsible anyway. The basic problem seemed to be
that the Supreme Egotist was playing God. He was uncontrollable, unregulated, a law unto Himself
and capable of capricious decisionsa celestial case of absolute power corrupting divinely. Love
God? Luther hated Him!
In his blasphemy, Luther despaired and panicked. He could not pray for help because there was no
one to whom he could pray. He became morbidly introspective but finally found his salvation in the
Bible, which led him, from 1513-1515, to reject reason and embrace faith. He found God to be
unreasonably compassionate and forgiving even of those whorebelled. This simply must be
believed and accepted because faith alone was the answer.
Philosophically, Luther was ironic in his use of logic to reject reason. He dealt with medieval
problems and used a modern method to come up with a primitive solution. He had used reason but
could not face the rational conclusion that God was a turkey. Nor could he conclude that the Bible
was a book of fables. He was stuck with his religious schema, so his conclusions had to fit into his
Christian/Biblical format. The day of reason for its own sake was yet to come.
As one who as a priest had not only read the Bible but taken it seriously, Luther had been shocked
by the levity and worldly splendor of papal life he had observed in Rome six years earlier and now
said so. In 1516, he protested that indulgences were deceptive and pernicious, rested on a false
assumption of extra credits of saints and induced complacency rather than contrition. A year later,
he denounced papal expedients and papal conduct as well and defiantly refused to recant unless
shown on Biblical authority where he had erred. He quickly had the people in ferment and princes
committed, for their own Machiavellian reasons, to support and protect him from the Pope.
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Although Luther was a theological rebel, he certainly did not perceive himself as an innovator. On
the contrary, as a spokesman for reform, he leveled the charge of innovation against a Church
which he contended was really only 400 years old. He objected to the papal theocracy which had
developed since the reign of Innocent III and wanted to restore the Church of the eighth centurythe
time when he thought the worldly power of the Church began. His goal was to recover the innocent,
virginal Church which had discredited itself by surviving. To him, the Church had simply given up
too much by compromising fundamental essentials when it mixed with life in the Middle Ages. He
denounced it as a power conscious institution devoid of a Christian conscience and aspired to
restore the religious spirit to Christianity.
As an archly conservative, inadvertent rebel who accidentally invented the individual conscience,
Luther did not try to start a new sect: He simply wanted to reform the Church that existed. However,
he was more extreme than most reformers in that while others complained about abuses within the
Church, he regarded the Church itself as an abuse. As a theological fanatic, he struggled over the
relation of man and God and wasnot as much concerned with ending papal corruption as he was
with saving a compromised religion. For him, corruption was a side issue that just happened to play
into his hands as a reformer.
Luther was not only a conservative rebel but an authoritarian who hated the Church not for being
authoritarian but for being slack and corrupt. In fact, he lost himself in the authority of a Fhrer Gott
whose only commandment was blind obedience and who was unattainable through priests, good
works or reasonwhich Luther considered the "Devil's bride" and "God's worst enemy". Faith alone
would do.
Ironically, the revolt begun by the authoritarian Luther became essentially a matter of individual
rebellion in the true artistic spirit of the Renaissance. Previously, only the Church had perverted
God's Word, but now, thanks to Luther, everyone could pervert it. Every person was to be his own
priest, with each reading the Bible and deciding for himself who and what God was. This was moral
anarchy, with each individual disregarding externals, concentrating on his own conscience, listening
to his own heart and developing his own soul. Luther advocated this intensely subjective approach
to religion because he naively assumed everyone else would come to the same conclusions that he
had reached. He took for granted that most people were pretty much like himselfquieter, perhaps,
and maybe not quite so gifted, but still basically little Luthers. During the peasant revolts of the early
1520's, he was dismayed to find that some people wanted things quite different from what he did,
and when some carried their causes to shocking excesses, he lost confidence in the free judgment
he had promoted and defended. Apparently, the people might make up their own minds about the
all-defining Bible but not about their own lives.
When Luther found the people were inspired by his spirit rather than his theology and had come not
only to disbelieve the Church but to disobey secular authority, he abandoned them and denied them
the right to resist worldly tyranny. However, while faith in God might bring salvation, faith in the
Establishment when coupled with an indifference to political and social iniquities has never brought
justice. Thus, his immediate legacy was not secular reform but theological controversy and a
century of holy wars that devastated his divided land.
This division began when Luther realized that since the Church was obviously not going to
accommodate him, he must start his own. Ironically but not surprisingly, it quickly became
institutionalized and developed its own priestly laws, dogmas, and doctrines. Although Luther
always saw himself as offering people correct beliefs, his rebellious spirit conquered more souls
than did his authoritarian dicta. Protestant disciples piously carried on his tradition, generalized his
means to their own endsand claimed their faiths justified their beliefs. Some of these claims were
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completely lost on Luther (who never could see how any amount of faith could justify Anabaptism,
for example), but in such cases, he seemed to be simply a victim of his own success.
Actually, the success of Protestantism was not as much "His" as he thought anyway. Luther
succeeded where Wycliffe had failed as much because of the printing press as because of doctrine.
With the Bible, rather than the Church or himself established as the source of authority and a
sufficient number of people with this ultimate source in their hands, there could be as many popular
religious movements as ways to interpret God's Word, and there were.
While Protestantism was thus transforming the religious world, capitalism was reforming the secular
world of the sixteenth century. By this time, capitalism already had a long history of its own going
back to the Middle Ages, when the guild system gave way to the entrepreneur. As factories
developed, so did a business "System", which was supposed to be under rational control.
Behind the rational system, however, was a capitalistic spirit which represented a new attitude
toward life and which became something of a new religion for Westerners. In the East, people
untouched by the capitalistic spirit today work in order to reach a certain standard of living and then
stop. The Western businessman does not stop: He keeps going just to be going. He works for the
sake of work because, in true religious fashion, good capitalists developed a sense of shame if they
did not work continually while there was still strength and time for more. Thus, the capitalist's
schema became an attitude which defined work as an intrinsic good directed toward the good life,
which was eventually redefined as prosperity. When carried to an extreme, this attitude still
produces the workaholiccapitalism's equivalent of the religious fanatic.
Max Weber suggested that, within the Western community, Protestants made better businessmen
than did Catholics because of the difference in their attitudes toward work. Certainly the Protestant
business spirit proved to be more dynamic and progressive than Catholicism, which was generally
stodgy and repressive when and where it predominated. Further, this difference has been attributed
to John Calvin (1509-1564)the source of the Protestant work ethic. Commercialism began its
development in the Catholic dominated Middle Ages, and Luther exalted common occupations as
ways of serving God and promoting self-reliance, but it was Calvin who gave the spirit of capitalism
its theological basis.
Like Luther, Calvin found his way to genuine Christianity via that outmoded pillar of orthodoxy, St.
Augustine, and although his theology was suited to the developing commercial class, it was not
planned that way.When he sat down to write his great work, Institution of Christian Religion
(published in 1535), he intended to put forth his explanation of God's Holy Word. According to
Calvin, God allowed no freedom: As He was all-everything (knowing, powerful, etc.), He planned
everything and left people no choice. After planning Adam's fall, and condemning humans to
damnation for it, Calvin's all-loving God apparently decided to give some people a second chance
via salvation through his Son. These few the electwere obviously Calvinists.
Calvin's rigid determinism could have been (and has been) taken to justify sinif indeed the term
would apply, as everything is God's will or fault. However, Calvin set logic aside just long enough to
establish the most intense moral conscience in Christendom. This is apparently just a pale reflection
of the conscience developed by Calvin's deterministic God, who allegedly listens to prayers, at least
of Calvinists, when they ask Him to help them avoid predetermined sins.
Although Calvinists became noted for their business sense, upright character was essential in all
walks of life, and the test of success for a true believer was not economic but ethical. In business,
emphasis was on integrity rather than profit, and worldly success was not taken as proof of divine
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favor for or by Calvinists. Their disciplined faith just happened to engender economic
virtuesindustry, sobriety, honesty and frugality and these advanced them as individuals financially
while ameliorating their society generally. There certainly is something to be said for people who
abide by such virtues, and Calvinism suffered no shortage of heroes fully committed to the cause.
Of course, it was to their advantage that they wasted no time or energy pondering imponderables:
Whereas Luther agonized over faith, Calvinists just had it.
A further advantage was that their job on earth was simple and very straightforwardestablish a
Holy Commonwealth, and they came nearer than anyone to realizing their own brand of utopia,
however strained it may have been. This was sixteenth century Geneva, which was incongruously
an ideal place for anyone ascribing to medieval values as well as a place where work/slave virtues
were vigorously applied so that acquisitive businessmen could selflessly fulfill their obligation of
public service to the community.
Further, it is altogether ironic that the spirit of classical capitalism has been attributed to the
Calvinists, because capitalism was more developedin Catholic Flanders and Florence before the
Reformation than it was in Calvin's Geneva. In addition, Calvin himself would have regarded laissez
faire as a moral outrage, while the business class in Geneva regarded his moralism as an outrage.
The essence of Calvin's schema was not freedom but discipline, and as the business of Geneva
was really religion, not business, he drew up elaborate directives designed to shape all aspects of
life in his model city to the Christian ideal. Among these were business regulations, including price
and rent controls, which were supposed to assure everyone that economic affairs would be
conducted with religious propriety. In later centuries, Puritans would remain firm believers in
government regulation of businessthe defining characteristic of modern fascismwhile
businessmen, released from Calvinistic moral restraints, would indulge in orgies of undisciplined,
cut-throat capitalism.
Thus, the reason Calvinism is associated with the spirit of capitalism is not because of Calvin's
attitude toward business but because of his emphasis on discipline and because Calvinists
succeeded financially by applying their discipline in a capitalistic society. In succeeding, they did
give capitalism its spirit, but that was just an historical accident which occurred because they
happened to be working in a capitalistic system. They would have undoubtedly imparted a defining
spirit to any systembe it agricultural, industrial, or whateverin which they worked, as did their
direct spiritual descendants, the Puritans, for example, when subduing the wilderness a century
later in New England.
Although Geneva was a commercial city, Calvin's totalitarian regulations, far from making it a
Heaven or haven for capitalists, made it a living satire of Hell on eartha theologian's utopia
religiously committed to combatting secular evils and joys. There were penalties for dancing or
having one's fortune told by a Gypsy, and a woman could be imprisoned for wearing an immoral hat
or clothes made of forbidden materials. To the credit of the citizens, such rules in trivial lay affairs
were made the objects of ridicule and were routinely broken.
Calvin was canny enough to reach a compromise with the business community on economic
regulations, but his religious schema folded inward upon itself until Geneva became something of a
living nightmare. Regulations regarding religious pursuits made it an offense to laugh during
preaching, give the names of Catholic saints to children, be unable to recite prayers, or say that the
Pope was a good man. To hold office, a Catholic magistrate was required to say, "Mass is bad" and
then had to confirm it without qualification. If Catholicism was thus grudgingly accepted, heresy was
rigorously combatted as treason to God. Denial of predestination meant banishment and denial of
immortality or the Trinity meant death, and from 1542 to 1564, fifty-eight disbelievers were executed
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and seventy-six banished out of a population of about 20,000. As a positive feedback system going
to excess during this period, Geneva became less a city of the elect than the selectintolerant
saints who expelled or killed dissenters and accepted immigrants who conformed to Calvin's narrow
standards for propriety in piety.
The regime became not only intolerant of moral waywardness but so sensitive to political opposition
that a street fight was interpreted as an attempted coup and the leaders executed or banished. This
reaction was based on fear but not paranoia, as Calvin's followers had made plenty of enemies in
the pursuit of righteousness. After his death in 1564, the city relaxed, control of the economy
reverted to the capitalists, and business ethics returned to their pre-Calvinist condition.
Along with Luther's and Calvin's theological reformations of Christendom, there was also the
Catholic Church's reformation of itself. This was the Counter-Reformation, and it was nearly
obviated by the accidental election of Pope Adrian VI in 1522 because, as a reformer, he might
have led the Church back to Christianity. However, he could do little to overcome long entrenched
corruption in his reign of fifty-four weeks, and with his passing, the Church reverted to form and
chose Clement VII to preside over a series of disasters. Protestantism continued to advance while
the Pope ineptly engaged in self-destructive diplomacy which was designed to thwart the growing
power of Charles V but which ended up with imperial troops sacking Rome in 1527.
Although the significance of the Protestant secession took a while to register on the Catholic
Church, the sacking of Rome was quickly recognized for what it wasdivine punishment for the
worldly sins (i.e., failures) of the Popes and their cronies. Perhaps it was ten years too late, but the
realization finally broke upon the Vatican rulers: They were doing something wrong. As their
response, the Counter-Reformation was an intensely conservative movement for internal reform of
the Church.
In an age of sectarian splintering and theological invention, the Church leaders sought to achieve
Catholic unity by intellectual repression. Thus, the Counter-Reformation was a revolt by the
established powers against freedomthe moral freedom of the Renaissance Popes in particular and
the intellectual freedom of the Renaissance in general. It was characterized by a strengthened
spiritual commitment to doctrine which itself became ever narrower just when worldly knowledge
was expanding and growing. Its specific manifestations were the Jesuits, the Inquisition, the Index
of Prohibited Books and the Council of Trent.
This repressive spirit of intense Catholicism was embodied in St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556),
the founder of the Jesuit Order and the Church's belated answer to Luther. A former soldier, Loyola
founded the Order upon order: There would be unquestioning obedience to the General in the war
against heresy. In accordance with his battle plan, Jesuits became zealous missionaries, and
through preaching and even more through teaching, they raised the level of the Catholic conscience
and improved the moral tone of the Church. However, their efforts to raise the intellectual level of
the Church were limited by the determined opposition of the Catholic hierarchy to freedom of
thought.
The most concrete expression of the Church's anti-intellectual attitude came in the form of the
revival of its most insidious institutionthe Inquisition. Along with the Index, this constituted a direct
counter attack by the faithful against heresy. Although it may be fair for anyone to question the
worth of an organization which presumes to save itself by suppressing thought and banning books,
Catholics in general in the sixteenth century were not inclined to be fair. More specifically, Church
leaders were under attack and intended to survive by using all means at their disposal to defend
themselves. Hence, as when in its medieval glory, the tragedy of the Inquisition was that it was not
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an invention of some madmen but a reaction of otherwise responsible and certainly powerful people
who insisted on perceiving a diversity of ideas and, worst of all, conscientious intellectual inquiry as
threats.
On the eve of the Reformation, the Spanish had reinstituted an inquisition as a means of achieving
national unity. This was but another specific example of the periodic Western passion for a
monolithic minda unitary culture of one ruler, one religion, one race. After the fall of Granada in
1492, Spain was to be orthodox and authorities used bribery and force to win over remaining Moors
and Jews to Catholicism. When converts relapsed, the Inquisition became a means to a higher end
and was justified by, of all things, national honor. In the face of widespread un-Spanish activities,
some officials became full-time inquisitors and even specialized some in torture, others in burning.
Flesh, thought, the Church and Spain all suffered (although not equally) from these police tactics.
Such sufferings notwithstanding, the success of the Spanish Church and nation in thus suppressing
Protestantism led Counter-Reformer Pope Paul XIII to set up a general Inquisition for the whole
Church in 1542. As a means to European purification, this Roman Inquisition was most effective in
Italy, where it had the support of the secular powers. However, even there, this revival of
institutional persecution of heretics was milder than its Spanish model, and very few people were
executed.
As a more general and broader approach to combatting heresy, the Church developed the Index of
Prohibited Booksa list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read. Like the Inquisition, this
had its historical antecedents, as the Church had long been committed to preventing the faithful
from reading heterodox literature. As long as books could be produced only by the laborious
process of copying by hand, book burning sufficed as an effective means of censorship, but the
printing press necessitated a change in strategy on the part of those opposed to the dissemination
of information. Thus, in 1515, the Fifth Lateran Council forbade the printing of any book in
Christendom without permission of the Churcha method that worked reasonably well until
Protestant printers flooded Europe with unauthorized books.
The response to this new threat was the Index (or Indices, as there were many). Early versions
appeared in Cologne and Paris in the 1540's but were only of local importance. The first papal list of
prohibited works was issued by Pope Paul IV in 1559. As an attempt to suppress books which might
corrupt morals, endanger the faith or promote thinking, the Papal Index eventually came to read like
a "Who's Who" of world literature. Being listed became a backhanded complimenta mark of
distinction which placed an author in the company of, among others, Francis Bacon, Balzac,
Descartes, Dumas, Gibbon, Hobbes, Hugo, Hume, Kant, Locke, Mill, etc., etc.
The Council of Trent constituted yet another aspect of the Counter-Reformation which became, in
its way, short-circuited and worked to the long-term detriment of the Church. Meeting intermittently
from 1543 to 1563, the Council did effect some internal reforms for the Church and arrested the
crimes and blunders which had driven one state after another from the Catholic fold. Theologically,
however, it took a hard line and confirmed basically all of Catholic dogma, specifically rejecting the
right of individuals to private judgment in matters of faith and morals, reserving for the Church the
right of interpreting Scripture and opposing unauthorized circulation of the Bible.
This uncompromising position of the Council on doctrine was typical of the generally conservative
nature of the whole Counter-Reformation. Threatened by Protestants and attacked by princes, the
Church, far from transcending itself, demonstrated the desperation of a besieged mentality trying to
reduce cognitive dissonance by turning inward and backward and clinging ever tighter to orthodoxy.
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Thus, although the Counter-Reformation did address specific abuses like immorality and corruption,
it must be rated a failure because it reaffirmed and perpetuated the basic authoritarian schema of
Catholicism. With Western Civilization on the brink of the modern age, the Church remained firmly
committed to its medieval mentality and was bypassed. Actually, it was rather ironic that the Church
espoused its medieval doctrine of "Free will" while demanding obedience and conformity from the
flock. The modern age is modern precisely because the people make their own decisions, but the
Church did not want people thinking for themselves: Doctrine was to come from the top down, and
believers were to obey.
It was indeed a tragedy for the Church that it became intellectually reactionary just when Europe
was awakening. It condemned not only immorality and heresy but the spirit of inquiry, as faith was
to squelch not only misbehavior and doubt but curiosity as well. With the Church's Biblical
interpretations becoming increasingly irrelevant to the ever expanding world and changing cultural
environment, the intellectual leadership of the West passed to those people who first overcame and
then ignored Catholic theology and simply thought for themselves.
This tendency of people to think for themselves was particularly evident in affairs of state, where
politicians were coming to grips with the growing spirit of nationalism. Nationalist sentiments
developed against the background of the raging religious disputes of the age but (unfortunately for
historians) did not conform neatly to any theological arrangements. The Catholic Church both
helped and hindered nationalismhelping it by weakening the Holy Roman Empire but hindering it
by resisting nationalistic attempts to reduce its own influence. On the other hand, Protestantism
helped states opposing Rome, although the main concern of Protestants was not the form of the
state but the right to worship their way.
Viewed the other way, Protestantism in the sixteenth century was aided by the nationalism of both
ruling groups and popular masses. Some ruling princes used Protestantism to help in their struggle
against the Popes, so in their domains, the Protestants were simply the nationalistic in-group. Such
rulers, like Henry VIII (1509-1547) of England, for example, replaced clerical privilege and
corruption with secular privilege and corruption as official bureaucrats assumed the trappings of
power.
Theologically, the nation-states of the sixteenth century, with religion determined by the given ruler,
were smaller models of the medieval system. However, the political strains which resulted from
religious tensions could be eased, if and when they were to be eased at all, by three different
methods: Migration, territorial division and comprehension.
Before the New World opened, the only escape for free spirits was to the east. In the Far East of the
day, infidel Muslims proved to be moretolerant of heretics than were either Catholics or Protestants.
In politically backward Eastern Europe, feudalism retained the diversity that had been crushed by
nationalism in the West, so in Poland, for example, the different sects accommodated each other by
agreeing to disagree. In Western Europe, a believer could emigrate to a land of his particular faith,
but in each of these, there was little or no tolerance, with even Protestant lands normally officially
accepting only one sect.
The second methodterritorial divisionwas really just a refined version of the first and likewise
produced considerable emigration. Local rulers were allowed to decide what the religion would be
for their little areas while dissenters were allowed to move elsewhere. This later became the method
adopted by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and to this day the Constitution prohibits only
a national religion but leaves states free to unify Church and government.
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The third methodcomprehensionmeant that one religion would be officially recognized in an area,
but only limited demands would be made on other faiths. This small step away from the West's
prevailing "One state, one ruler, one faith" mentality was a giant leap toward toleration. It kept
emigration to a minimum, as doctrinal requirements permitted all but the most fanatical dissenter to
live with them, and was the method tried by Charles V and accepted by Elizabeth I (1558-1603).
As head of the House of Hapsburg and then as Holy Roman Emperor, Charles would have come
down hard on Luther early on had he been free to do so. However, he, Henry VIII, Francis I
(1515-1547) of France and Pope Clement VII (1523-1534) were caught up in a tangle of power
politics which must have warmed Machiavelli's heart. The basic principle was that the other three
would align themselves against any one who appeared to be getting too powerful. Of course, the
great beneficiaries of this arrangement were the Protestants and the Turks, because the Pope could
not do much about the former and was not willing to help Charles suppress heresy or lead a
crusade against the latter lest the Emperor become too strong. By 1550, when Charles was finally
free to persecute Protestants, they were too entrenched for him to have much success.
By then, there really was no longer any hope of solving religious disagreements by reconciling the
various faiths. Nor would an agreement to disagree have suited Charles, since he was basically as
intolerant as most people of the time. Having dissident subjects leave the Empire or splittingit up to
accommodate the many sects ran counter to his role and image of Emperor, so "Comprehension"
was the option imposed by circumstance. Even this compromise was opposed by the German
Lutherans, however, thus preventing Charles from realizing a universal solution to the problem of
religions which confronted him.
In despair, he resigned and spent the last two years of his life tinkering with clocks, studying maps
of his former empire and rehearsing his funeral. His struggle for supremacy in Europe as well as his
quest for peace and religious unity had all been in vain. He failed because circumstances were
changing all around him while his mind was stuck in its original mold, clinging to the imperial ideal
when rising nationalism in Germany made the failure of an imperial reality a forgone conclusion.
Likewise, he persisted in his pursuit of religious unity (and even resorted to force) when Lutherism
was immovably entrenched.
Worse yet, in failing to understand his times, Charles was not alone. When his approach of
comprehension as a possible solution to Germany's religious problems broke down, his political
heir, brother Ferdinand, was forced to fall back on territorial divisionthe principle adopted at the
Peace of Augsburg in 1555. This was a mixed blessing in that it initiated fifty years of peace in
Germany but also set the stage for the Thirty Years' War because the German princes were
reacting to their immediate plight while remaining blind to the fundamental issues at hand. As
princes, they thought in terms of principalities, not people, and were predisposed to learn from
history only those lessons that suited their purpose and supported their position. Specifically, these
rulers had learned (perhaps from experiences with the Anabaptists) that subjects should not be left
free to exercise judgment in religious matters. The principle of religious freedom was applied to
individual states rather than to individual citizens as the right of private judgment, upon which the
Reformation had been founded, was rejected by everyone.
The most successful example of this principle of a state religion in a religious state was sixteenth
century England. Under the Tudors, royal power reached its absolute apex as leaders of church and
state supported each other in a kind of incestuous, religious fascism. Henry VIII represented a
culmination of religious nationalism as a king who claimed control of at least all outward forms of
worship, and all but the existence of God came to depend on royal whim. His was the first
totalitarian state, and the fact that it was supported by an accepting population made it simply all the
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more powerful. It was not until the seventeenth century that democracy raised its head when
Puritans claimed that the state should reciprocate and support the people by embodying their moral
values.
Actually, in totalitarian Tudor England, the Anglican Church evinced a canny capacity for
compromise with the stateor at least an ability to pretend that certain theological problems did not
exist. The church was a conservative institution which lacked the usual Protestant zeal for saving
the world from itself, and its history in the mid-sixteenth century showed how easily masses of
people can be pushed through a series of mutually conflicting beliefs, particularly if they are
secondary to the identifying schema of the believers. To wit, in 1534, Henry led the country away
from the Catholic Church, only to have Bloody Mary return it to Catholicism in 1553, only to have
her sister Elizabeth re-return it to Anglicanism six years later. There was no one stupid enough even
in England to believe the contradictory pronouncements everyone was required to make during this
period. It was mostly a matter of taking theology lightly or going mad, and going mad just was
not...well, "English".
In Europe generally, religious thinkers contributed to this growth of democracy by denying the
absolute power of the state. The developing nation-states went to aggravating excesses in some
cases and could not be constrained by forces within government nor by any amount of praying.
Theologians attempted to counter absolutism by appealing to a universal morality which presumably
was binding on states. This was supposed to be "Natural law", which superseded national law and
provided a theoretical basis for those who wished to combat arbitrary abuses of power.
In a more general sense, the Protestants' Reformation brought both achievement and failure, with
their achievements being inadvertent while they failed in what they intended to accomplish. In fact,
as reformers, Luther and Calvin were ironic and incongruous and really did not know what they
were doing. Nonconformists who demanded conformity, they were authoritarians who introduced
intellectual independence to theology. Both were medieval in spirit and neither believed in freedom,
but they liberated the Western mind from the Catholic Church. The religious movement they started
was an accidental success they could not understand, control or stop, and it became modern in
spite of itself, as it was taken over by individualism, capitalism and nationalism.
As theologians, the Protestant reformers replaced the authority of the Catholic Church with the
authority of the Bible, which they opened to the public. The inevitable but unforeseen result was that
every individual who could read thought God could communicate directly with him. Unfortunately, as
recorded in the Bible, the voice of God often rambles incoherently like that of a slightly schizoid
manic-depressive with delusions of grandeur. Worse yet, his Protestant readers promptly splintered
into numerous sects which agreed only on one pointthey wanted to be separate. By 1650, there
were 180 sects all based on the Bible and each more dogmatically intolerant than the next. Even
these, however, failed to meet the religious needs of the people, so there were revivals (like
Methodism) and reversions to more primitive forms of Christianity.
To Luther and Calvin, the plight of Protestantism would have seemed tragic, but if there was a
saving grace, it was that the new sects tended to ally themselves with the new forces of capitalism
and nationalism that were shaping the modern world and mind. As Protestantism was open and
responsive to its general cultural milieu, it never became as dogmatic as Catholicism. If anything,
Protestants were arbitrarily selective about their Biblical interpretations, picking and choosing what
suited them and rejecting anything counter to their particular cause of the moment.
Thus, the reformers were triumphant in that they protested successfully against centralized
authority, paved the way for religious and political freedom and established the pattern of
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individualism. Nonetheless, they failed in their original intent to establish a pure, primitive,
uncorrupted Christianity. Their medieval obsession with sin, grace and salvation was overwhelmed
and buried by secular concerns with profit and national honor. Devoted to a uniform faith and
intolerant of diversity, they complicated Christianity with their endless, contradictory theologies.
If there was anything consistent about Protestant theology, it was that it looked backward. In fact,
most of the various sects permitted less freedom of thought than did the Catholic Church, so the
only freedom presented was that of choice among intolerant denominations. Further, if
Protestantism generally was more practically adaptable than Catholicism, it blocked traditional
theological avenues to divine grace by banishing the Virgin, saints and father confessor. Thus, if
Protestants were worldly, they were left alone in the world to fight the Devil and sternly warned
against enjoying the beauty and sins of Renaissance life.
Altogether, the Reformation was a blight on hope and a boon to bigotry. Its incongruities inspired
outrageous persecutions and unreasonable wars. Luther would have been stunned and horrified at
the results of his revolution, which bequeathed a legacy of violence and uncertainty in a world ruled
by profit and sword rather than love and understanding. God remained inscrutable but was now
unrestrained by either logic or common sense and devoted to divine domination rather than
Christ-like peace. Free of scruples, the Protestant God became Machiavellian in His publiccapacity
and condoned many things in business and affairs of state which were considered immoral in the
private lives of individuals.
For all the hype about theology, capitalism clearly carried the dayor centuryas reality once again
bent behavior away from belief. Predestination was shelved for liberty, and with economic liberty the
big winner, the big losers were the poor. During the Middle Ages, they had received Christian
charity. In the Puritan schema, the poor were moral outcasts who received retributive justice: They
were poor because they were paid low wages, which they were paid because they were poor.
Protestant theology supported the "Haves", who were rather condescending in their attitude toward
the prerejected, unelected damned, and a venerable tradition which survived to our own day was
established of ministers preaching the need for poverty in the Divine Capitalist's Holy Economy of
things.
Ironically, by attributing success and failure to the moral worth of the individual, Protestants actually
kept themselves from understanding the workings of economics and the nature of their own
business society. This trend continued well into the Industrial Revolution, as business steadfastly
refused to acknowledge any responsibility for unemployment, poverty and social distress. Indeed, it
was not until business hurt business in our own century that capitalists began to pay some serious
attention to the effects of enterprise beyond immediate, short-term profit.
The political importance of the Reformation was that the Western mind became modern,
progressive and democratic. Protestantism promoted not only the initiative of the disciplined
capitalistic businessman but individual freedom in general and democratic self-rule as well. Its
vocabulary was that of resistance, its appeal that of individual rights and its cause that of
predetermined liberty. By attacking the authoritarian, privileged Catholic Establishment, it broke
down medieval politics and furthered the emergence of the nation-state.
Thus, in general terms, the overall effects of the Reformation were both incongruous and profound.
As a theological movement, it both rent and bound. The unity of the Catholic Church was shattered,
but the spirit of Christianity was renewed by the Protestant emphasis on ethics. Even the Catholic
Church was stimulated to effect reforms of its grossest specific abuses as it renewed its moral
commitment to be true at least to its own authoritarian version of Christian theology.
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Actually, the effects of the Reformation would have been greater had it not been essentially a
theological movement, but in their revolt against Rome and earthly pretensions, the reformers were
stuck with their confining, religious schema. Thus, an ideological consideration limited their
interactions with the real world in that, as they firmly believed humanity could be saved for the next
life by the grace of God, they were less interested in learning from or about this life than in making it
conform to Biblical standards. In addition, they afflicted Western intellectual life with the same
arrogant pride and narrow-minded bigotry they had opposed in others because they were basically
conservative within the domain of theology. Having rejected authority and tradition, they could save
their positions of power and influence only by also rejecting any further liberties being taken with
their new, true faith(s).
As Erich Fromm noted in Escape from Freedom, Luther sought securitythe certainty of the Middle
Ages. In his quest, he opened a Pandora's box of private opinion, but no matter how many answers
there were to the question of Man's relation to God, none was rational and satisfying enough to
everyone, much less to Luther. Thus, he never did overcome his irrational feeling of helplessness,
and his own "True" answer remained an ambiguous combination of faith and fear, hope and
humiliation.
In fact, what Luther (i.e., the Reformation) did was individualize certainty. The overall, general
certainty of medieval society was gone and replaced by new, true faiths held by the citizens. These
differed as citizens differ, but a universal constant of the sixteenth century was that each person
was sure that his belief was correct because each had recourse to the ultimate authoritythe Bible.
A correlated universal was the assumption that there was a correct belief. Everyone agreed there
were divergent interpretations of the Bible, but only one was right, the others wrong and naturally
each home grown expert was convinced his was correct. Only a few people, like Erasmus, pointed
out that part of the problem was that the Bible was not clear, with some parts being ambiguous and
others contradictory. As usual, his voice was lost in the temper of the times as people continued to
wrangle over obscure issues and debated questions which themselves were unclear.
Just as those who wrangled and debated agreed that there was only one right answer to each major
religious question of the day, they were also all opposed to religious freedom. Tolerance was
condemned as indifference and religious liberty as diabolicala means of letting each go to Hell in
his own way. Each faith fought for its own right to dominate, as each was convinced that it had The
Truth. None saw that perhaps each had part of the truth and that errors are better revealed by
discussion than concealed by suppression. Still, the Reformation did break the intellectual grip of
the Catholic Church on the Western mind, created a diversity of sacred truths and thus prepared the
way for the Age of Reason.
*
The first half of the sixteenth century was a period of major reform for Western Civilization in
politics, economics and above all religion. However, theologically, the Reformation raised more
issues than it settled. Fundamentalists who believed that the Scriptures provided all solutions for all
problems were still left with the problem that different people seek and find different things in the
Bible. The Bible does not speakit must be read and, worse yet, interpreted. All the Protestants did
was substitute the people for the priests as the readers and interpreters. While the reformers all
expected conformity to a new theology, they found they did not have a new form of Christianity but
many.
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Perhaps the only thing clearly settled was that the central authority of the Catholic Church had
broken down, although this had many very mixed results. The immediate effect of the ethics
vacuum was a plethora of Christian sects which all shared a mutually intense bigotry and engaged
in a rage of religious spats which, like the Reformation, settled nothing profound. On the other hand,
when it finally became clear that neither Protestantism nor Catholicism would triumph completely,
the medieval hope of doctrinal unity was gradually abandoned and grudgingly replaced by tolerance
and freedom of thought about fundamentals. The new hope was that theological disputes might be
conducted calmly and perhaps settled peacefully by appeals to fact and logic. The reality was that
the Western mind was left in the heretical state of eternally seeking reform.
Thus, the Protestant Reformation is still underway, although the revolt which began as a regressive,
medieval, negative movement has become transformed by the modern world into something
positive: Freedom from Church authority has led to a developing realization that the task of creating
peace and justice here on earth is one for all of us. In this vein, Protestant leaders are now
reappraising the responsibilities of the individual to society, taking a direct active role in social
reform and even sort of trying to Christianize business. Further, in terms of theology and
organization, Protestantism is trying to overcome the splintering effects inherent in its own
subjective nature by the merging of some modern sects.
Such modern developments notwithstanding, the Reformation of the sixteenth century remains
significant for us today because it showed that pride and self-righteousness can become
self-defeating sins when carried to excess by either the Establishment or reformers. In fact, nothing
fails like excess because any self-justifying belief system (be it theological or secular) courts failure
when it carries its sins to extremes at the expense of both reform and reason.
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VII. Reasonable Stupidity
The Age of Reason was marked by a decline in the theological basis of knowledge and the rise of
scientific explanations of natural phenomenatrends which reflected the application of reason to
philosophy, astronomy (where it was most effective) and biology. However during this era, the
political life of nations continued to be shaped by power, while the cognitive life of people continued
to be shaped by religion, tradition and emotionfactors which combined to make this period as
unreasonable as any other.
The Age of Reason began unofficially in 1555, when the Diet of Augsburg brought a truce in the
religious strife consuming Europe. The new rule was "Whose region, his religion", with dissidents
emigrating to a region ruled by a prince with a belief compatible with if not identical to their own. An
accepted fact of the era was that neither Catholicism nor Protestantism in its many forms would
triumph and dominate completely, and a corollary was that the various Christian sects would have
to learn to live together. It somehow seemed that reason might be the means by which this process
of religious accommodation would be accomplished that religious differences might be reconciled
by Catholics and Protestants holding rational discussions about theology. Although that was a
reasonable hope, the actual result was a resumption of hostilities (e.g., the Thirty Years' War) as
people found that intolerance was immune to logic.
However, the spirit of religious intolerance which had sparked and sustained the various inquisitions
earlier was directed at first not into military actions against other Christian sects but toward legal
action against heretics and witches. In fact, one of the few things upon which Catholics and
Protestants agreed was that heresy and especially witchcraft had to be rooted out and expunged.
As it turned out, concern with heresy declined while witch mania continued to develop, and
eventually, in this Age of Prejudice, even some of the devout were burned as witches.
Witch hunting had its origins in the Middle Ages, grew as the medieval world crumbled in the 1400's
and became an obsession during the sixteenth century. Surprisingly, the zeal of the hunters
seemed evenly matched by the number of witches: The more witches were hunted, themore there
apparently were. Actually, the efforts to root out this crime seemed to increase it because, although
the officials could not see it at the time, the methods of investigation were designed to produce
confessions, if not witches. The mania finally peaked in the mid-seventeenth century as a growing
number of people became disturbed by the excessive cruelty used to elicit confessions from
suspects and convinced that such admissions should not be used to justify the execution of the
accused.
When the ashes finally settled, it became clear that not only witches but facts had been tortured so
that people could create and support a belief they wished to hold. The more people thought about
witchcraft, the more they believed in it, and as the resultant positive feedback system went to
excess, a mania went to madness. In the American colonies, the insanity reached the point that a
dog was tried and executed. If there was any irony in this whole tragedy, it was that the witch
hunters, while they were inflicting agony on their victims, thought they were doing Good.
Fortunately, by the end of the 1600's this reign of Goodness tapered off, and people were left pretty
much alone with their private beliefs.
Ironic or not, the witch hunts provided a tragic marker for the age, in that these grotesque
persecutions in the cause of orthodoxy and the name of Goodness were actually logically justified to
those people who believed in witches. It is really quite reasonable for people who know what is right
to want to stamp out evil, and there is nothing inherently illogical about extending righteousness to
the nth degree. While we marvel at the use of scientific logic and math as means to help us unravel
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the mysteries of nature, we must not forget that rationalism can be so destructive when used by
witch hunters and their ilk to dismiss or override basic human values.
However, in the seventeenth century, rationalists thought these values were fixed: They did not
have to be created and could not be destroyed. Correct beliefs simply were to be applied, and
naturally people who had already discovered them felt morally obliged to impose them with a
passion on others. On the other hand, those who were still searching for eternal truths were
convinced that logic by itself would lead the sane, rational intelligencia to discover the proper
standards for judging right and wrong for everyone. With theological disputes gradually being found
to be basically unresolvable by any meansmental or military, Western intellectual life generally
shifted to philosophy as well as science, and the guiding principle for the educated, informed, elitist
leader in the Age of Reason might well have been, "I think, therefore, you don't have to".
Although this new rationalism was a belief system (i.e., a belief in logic), it constituted a departure
from religion in that it denied the supernatural and reduced God to, at most, the role of Logician
Supreme. In addition, rationalism went beyond science, which limited itself to the objective, logical
study of factual nature. Scientists did not ask the big questions about human valueswhat was right
or wrong or good or badbut restricted their concerns to the validation of their data and theories.
However, rationalists believed they could find valid answers to questions about cultural intangibles
like epistemology and ethics primarily through logic, and although they usually based their
reasoning on knowledge gained from Scripture, tradition and superstition, an increasing number of
thinkers in this era included in their considerations facts based on experience.
At the most abstract level, the general interest in both reason and fact resulted in the false but
long-lived philosophical confrontation between the rationalists and empiricists. Actually, these were
not really opposites, as the rationalists merely emphasized the mental world while empiricists
emphasized the material world. "Rationalists" like Descartes, Leibnitz and Hobbes all thought the
world made sense and assumed the universe was reasonable as did empiricist John Locke.
First and foremost among the rationalists was Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who attempted to build
a completely new philosophy from scratch or rather from reason. His mathematical, mechanistic
views were modified for people, who presumably had souls in their pineal glands, but this fabrication
notwithstanding, Descartes was attacked because his ideas led to atheism. While he was living in
Holland, the Prince of Orange saved him from persecution, and when the University of Leyden
forbade all mention of him, he was again aided by the Prince, who told the University not to be silly.
Nevertheless, the general message was clear: Reason would do well to compromise and
accommodate itself to religion. In fact, Descartes might have changed his famous maxim to
Cognito, ergo stupido had he known his atheistic cosmology would be supplanted by Newton's not
because that system was superior mathematically or provided a better theoretical framework for
factual knowledge but because it required God to set the planets in motion. This was a classic
example of how appeal can supersede logic when competing ideas confronted, confirmed or
conformed to entrenched beliefs. Generally, a system of thought is accepted not for itself but only to
the degree that it supports established, orthodox, popular conclusions.
Although Descartes professed to be a devout Catholic and refused to publish anything that would
disturb the Church, his universe was hardly that of the Bible, in which a meddlesome God
concocted unpredictablemiracles. It was one of vast numbers of particles whirling around and
combining to fool us with false common sense notions about the way they interact. He had a full
measure of the rationalists' contempt for facts, eschewed reality and contended that the way to
understand nature was not by studying it through experience but by sort of divining its underlying
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principles through mathematics. A throwback to Pythagoras, he sought the clarity and consistency
of a mathematically perfect system.
While Descartes was really something more than a misplaced Greek philosopher, he was also less
than a modern scientist. In his polymathic dabblings, he sought results which would confirm his
mechanistic hypothesis for nature but was not disposed to adjust his ideas to conform to his findings
and did not reason from experimental evidence to scientific conclusions. Knowledge of external
things was to be attained by the mind not the senses, and truth was in the mind alone. Facts were
thoughts, and thoughts were facts. In his love of mechanics, mathematics and the mind, he was
both so extreme and so extremely successful that he threw doubt on the very existence of
everything but doubt and questioned even the existence of his mechanistic world.
Descartes was not so extreme, however, that he could not make a travesty of his whole system. He
allowed the human soul to alter material states by volition, thereby introducing free will into his
otherwise purely mechanical system. Thus, even the great rationalist could not quite bring himself to
be consistent. He had to have freedom, so although he worshipped the goddess Reason in public,
Catholicism's free will was the sacred idol he would not surrender.
More an extremist than anything else, Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716) went beyond Descartes in that
he did not just cast doubt on the existence of matterhe denied it altogether. A latter-day
Parmenides, he was the great anti-empiricist of all time, although this did not necessarily make him
a rationalist: He was a rationalist because he attempted to use reason to support whatever point he
wanted to make. In this regard, his attempts to prove the existence of God are pitifully amusing
examples of how a great intellect can be perverted by a commitment to proving an assumption: To
wit, God must exist because it would be better if He did than if He did not; and, abstract truths (like
2+2=4) are always true, therefore God exists.
If the way Leibnitz used logic in cosmology and theology was odd to the point of being suspect, his
application of reason to ethics was equally bizarre. He conceded there is good and bad in the world
but was certain God had created the best possible world with more good than evil. The
commonplace observation that there are more serfs suffering evil than nobles and kings enjoying
good in no way affected his logic of values perhaps because he denied the real world existed. On
such metaphysical issues, Leibnitz was all rationalist in favoring truths known by logic over those
learned by experience, and in epistemological matters in general, he was quite willing to draw
inferences from syntax to the real world. Gradually, however, with the growth of empiricism, this
approach fell into disrepute as scientists reversed this process and reasoned from fact to theory.
For all his abuse and misuse of logic, Leibnitz firmly believed in its importance and would have been
the founder of mathematical logic had he but published his work. However, he abstained from
publishing and retarded development in this field for 150 years for two reasons. First, he could not
believe Aristotle was wrong on some points in his doctrine of the syllogism. In addition, since his
philosophy was deterministic and considered incompatible with the Catholic doctrine of free will,
Leibnitz, like Descartes, refrained from publishing lest he offend someone. Once again, reason
paled before reverence and deferred to orthodoxy.
Only slightly less the rationalist was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Nominally an English empiricist,
he actually was an absolutist who came down on the side of reason. He was one of the few who
appreciated both empiricism and mathematics, but he clearly favored the logical certainty of math to
the imprecise knowledge gained through observation. Even though his own thinking was actually
rather crude, as he was impatient with subtleties, he was always ready to sacrifice facts to his rough
logic if they were obstacles in his way to a desired conclusion.
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Hobbes was a rigid determinist to the point that he was suspected of atheism. After superstitions
were aroused by the plague of 1665 and the Great Fire in London in 1666, the House of Commons
appointed a committee to investigate atheistic writings, specifically mentioning Hobbes. Thereafter,
he could no longer have anything on controversial issues published in England.
Meanwhile, John Locke (1632-1704) was trying to concoct a philosophy of liberal empiricism.
Usually more sensible than rational, he could be open-minded, reasonable and sometimes both. He
found a consoling hiding place in the subjective nature and multiplicity of truths and also found
peace with a diversity of opinions based on probable knowledge rather than in philosophical
certainty based on implacable logic.
Actually, the peace Locke found was partially due to his refusal to draw logical conclusions he did
not like. As an inveterate empiricist who was really more liberal than philosophical, he could accept
reason so long as it avoided paradoxes and led to conclusions which passed his personal test of
common sense, but otherwise, it was expendable. Thus, he avoided dogmatic thought and was ever
willing to enunciate a general principlewhich would lead to some strange conclusion and then simply
fail to draw it. This aggravated logicians, but it showed sound judgment and a practical sense rare in
intellectuals. While other philosophers were bending logic to desired conclusions and scientists
were testing ideas against reality, Locke simply stopped concluding if he sensed he was heading
somewhere he would rather not go.
When Locke did reach conclusions, he was quite fortunate as a thinker in that not only were his
valid opinions useful but his errors as well. For example, his philosophy as presented in his Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1690) had demerits as well as merits, but all were
functionally of value. The demerits were theoretical, but as a sensible empiricist, Locke was always
willing to forgo logic rather than become paradoxical. On the issue of epistemology, for example, he
defined (Bk IV, Chap I) and then redefined (Bk IV, Chap III) knowledge so as to allow empiricism.
His key belief was that sensations have external causes, but this was just a belief and was not
known. In fact, a psychotic may perceive an object which does not exist (except in his own mind).
The belief that sensations have outside causes can be maintained only on grounds independent of
experience, and as Locke could not face the paradox that an empiricist cannot know how he knows,
he simply did not draw that conclusion and let his commitment to common sense blind him to his
inconsistency (i.e., that an empiricist must take his knowledge on faith).
However, in the cause of knowledge and well before rationalists put their stamp on the age or
liberals took refuge in uncertainty, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) laid out the course the Western mind
would follow. He came as close as anyone to systematizing a natural philosophy, and if he
undervalued mathematics, at least he hated Aristotle and felt philosophy should be separate from
theology. In addition, he was as successful as anyone before Newton at developing a functional
synthesis of empirical knowledge and reason in that he favored evidence gathered by sense
perception and championed inductive reasoningi.e., building generalizations from observed facts.
If there was any weakness in his approach, it was his naive belief that facts would arrange
themselves into knowledge if the observer just gave them the chance.
Unfortunately, Bacon's intoxication with induction led him to slight deductionthe process by which a
scientist reasons from a hypothesis to a consequence that is testable. In fact, the scientist really
needs both induction and deduction as he usually gathers facts and frames a hypothesis from them
via induction and then deduces a way to test that idea (and perhaps then revises it in light of new
data gathered by experimentation).
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If Bacon came up short of appreciating and completely codifying the scientific circle (or spiral), at
least he did identify five "Idols", or badhabits of mind, which cause stupidity. Idols of the tribe are
inherent in human nature, with the example given being the human tendency to expect more of
nature than can be found. Idols of the cave are personal prejudices. Idols of the market place are
"Words", which can have a tyrannical hold on the mind. Idols of the theater are systems of thought
like those of Aristotle or the Scholastics. Lastly, idols of the schools are blind rules, like syllogisms,
that take the place of judgment.
Although we continue to honor these idols, we have learned to temper our beliefs with experience
thanks to the approach which Bacon advocated and which scientists developed during this period.
Known as the Age of Reason, this was also the Age of Facta time when knowledge and
understanding were pitted against both religion and common sense. Science combined reason and
fact and progressed not by confirming everyday notions but by exposing paradoxes and advancing
beyond ignorance into the unknown. It did so by evolving as a system of discovery which permitted
intellectual progress through the refinement and revision of rational theories according to further
discoveries. Novelty became prized, and with increasing frequency, science provided apparently
unimpeachable truths which proved that things were not always as they seemed.
This modern development of science was due to a number of liberating factors starting with the
growth of capitalism. Business not only rewarded innovators who successfully applied knowledge to
practical enterprises but provided the financial base for the seventeenth century equivalent of
"Research and Development". A related psychological factor was the disposition of intellectuals to
turn from philosophy toward realityfrom the dignified, literary world of theological pursuits and
philosophical disputes to the sordid, factual world of weights, measures, gunpowder and iron.
In addition, the new intellectuals willingly renounced their medieval respect for previous authority,
especially Aristotle. Scientists in particular instituted the habit of checking their own ideas by
experimental verification of theoretical explanations, and most thinkers were freed of the worst of
the taboos, traditions and customs of the Middle Ages. Pioneers in this regard were the
astronomers and anatomists, who ironically made the greatest intellectual advances of this age
while being circumscribed by theological authorities and criticized by medical "Experts" respectively
for presuming to redefine reality according to observation.
Actually, the Ptolemaic schema of the universe had served quite well for a long time, with its minor
irregularities easily explained away by astronomers, who became rather adept at this practice.
However, as facts gradually accrued, these explanations became increasingly complex until
Copernicus opened the door to modern science with his heliocentric hypothesis of planetary motion.
As an explanation which conformed to observations and axioms of physics if not theology, its basic
tenets were that the earth revolved around the sun once a year and rotated on its axis once a day.
Although Copernicus's system gave rise to our modern term "Revolutionary", when his book
Concerning Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies was published in 1543, it caused little
commotion. It was dedicated to the Pope (Paul XIII), and for years before the Catholic Church
attacked it, and even before it was published, the ideas contained in it had been denounced by
leading Protestants. In fact, even before 1530, Luther had dismissed Copernicus, whose views were
already well known, as "An upstart astronomer" and a "Fool (who) wished to reverse the entire
science of astronomy". Just as Luther's antagonist, Leo X, had been half right about his monkish
quarrel, Luther was half right about Copernicus: He did not want to reverse astronomy so much as
correct it. Further, Calvin joined Luther in dismissing the Copernican view of the heavens as
unbiblical, citing Psalms 91:1 "The world is so established that it cannot be moved."
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Initially, Copernicus found his hypothesis scoffed at not only by the Protestant clergy for lack of
supporting quotations but also by astronomers for lack of supporting evidence. For one thing, there
was the absence of stellar parallaxthat is, the stars did not appear to shift positions as the earth
moved in its orbit. Copernicus presumed correctly that the stars were simply too far away for this to
be observed, and indeed, it was not until the nineteenth century that scientific instruments permitted
such observations.
In addition, critics alleged that an object propelled directly upward would land west of its starting
point if the earth were rotating eastward. Copernicus's rebuttal was that such an object would be
"Part of the earth" (as are clouds, which critics also noted did not lag behind the spinning earth) and
carried along with it. However, not until Newton framed his law of inertia was this issue was truly
resolved and the Copernican hypothesis generally accepted by the scientific communityabout 150
years after its publication. However belated, this acceptance was a result of the greatest reformation
of all: The realization that ancient beliefs might bewrong and that truth could be established by the
patient collection and rational analysis of facts.
The patient collector of facts who dispelled the ancient belief in Aristotelian dogma and provided the
hard evidence for the Copernican hypothesis was Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), although he did not
subscribe to that system himself. Aristotle had declared that change and decay were confined to
earthly things, and like almost everything else he said about scientific matters, this became an
obstacle to progress. However, Brahe's discovery of a new star in 1572 and his observations on
comets first undermined and then shattered this particular stumbling block to understanding. In
addition, his precise observations of heavenly bodies and careful record keeping provided Kepler
with the data he would need to make his calculations and formulate his laws.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was the first to step through the door Copernicus had set a jar, and
he sort of backed through with only one foot while the other remained firmly planted in Greek
mysticism. His own acceptance of Copernicanism was not the result of a reasonable analysis of
facts but due to his view of a symbolic analogy between the roles that the sun and the Divine Mind
played in giving light. Thus, by a fortuitous blind leap of faith, he established his basic assumption
that the sun must be the center of the universe because it emits light.
If mysticism led Kepler to Copernicus, it was the sometimes silly but finally fruitful application of
geometry which provided him with both a defense for and explanation of the heliocentric system. He
was the first astronomer of any merit to defend this system, but he did so like a displaced Greek,
recalling and then dismissing regular polyhedra and reviving and reveling in Pythagorean "Harmony
of the spheres". His abiding conviction throughout all travail was that truth (i.e., proof of his beliefs)
would take the form of mathematical laws, and his particular truths eventually took the form of laws
which delineated planetary motion in terms of ellipses.
Copernicus had also been a misplaced Pythagorean whose battle cry might well have been
"Mathematics for the mathematicians", and like a Greek influenced by aesthetic motives (and in the
absence of any data compelling him to do otherwise), he had made orbits circular. However, Kepler
had Brahe's data and knew they could not be made to fit a circular pattern. Rather, for each planet,
they described an ellipsea form he referred to as a "Cartful of dung" in a fit of disgust at its
irrationality. This willingness to abandon a theory which failed to conform to facts distinguished
Kepler the scientist from earlier philosophers. Data had never restricted theorizing by the Greek
rationalists or the Scholastics, all of whom were given to analyzing words, thought or analysis itself
and quitewilling to bend logic and ignore inconvenient facts in order to reach preselected
conclusions.
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Although partially a prisoner of the past, Kepler was also a pioneer of modern physics in that he
replaced celestial intelligence with forces, distances and speeds. This was the first major step in the
shift of Western thought from immeasurable qualities (like will, perfection, etc.) to measurable
quantities (like mass, velocity, etc.). After him, the solar system, at least, was quantified and found
to obey the laws which he had discovered and described.
The next to step through the door to the world of modern thought was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).
He was, at first, a closet Copernican, having adopted the heliocentric view because it explained the
causes of many natural phenomena which were incomprehensible according to the prevailing
homocentric theory. In his efforts to reduce the universe to reason, he collected many proofs of the
new system but was deterred from publishing them because of the fate of Copernicus, who had
been, as Galileo noted in a letter to Kepler in 1596, "Ridiculed and condemned by countless people
(for very great is the number of the stupid)".
Perhaps partly because there were, in those days, so many stupid people, awareness of the
Copernican system had not penetrated the public mind nor disturbed theologians. It was over fifty
years since Copernicus had published and perished, and his hypothesis was still generally regarded
as nonsensespecifically, non-Aristotelian nonsense. Even in 1597, the year after he wrote Kepler
of his belief in the heliocentric system, Galileo publicly professed support of the Ptolemaic system in
a series of lectures at Padua. However, he found Kepler's version of the Copernican system even
more appealing than the original, as it passed well with his own ideas of the tides. Seven years
later, he went public with a declaration of faith in the heliocentric hypothesis in a lecture at Pisa.
Galileo finally became an out and out champion of the heliocentric hypothesis when his
observations through his own telescopenot rational thinking nor argumentsprovided him with
convincing evidence that Copernicus was right. His most astonishing discovery and revelation was
that Jupiter had four moons. Although this did not prove the Copernican system, it did provide a
miniature model of the solar system. In addition, the phases of Venus, which Galileo also observed,
lent further plausibility to the cause, as they suggested that the planet revolved around the sun.
While Galileo found his observations totally convincing, the learned world in general found them
troubling and shocking. They failed to make as many converts as one might have expected, but
their publication in March, 1610, shook the Ptolemaic view of the cosmos at its foundations and cast
doubt on traditional scientific and religious dogma.
One of the major obstacles Galileo faced in attempting to prove his case was the reluctance of
adherents of the old order to look through his telescope and view the evidence for themselves. It is
noteworthy that in this endeavor he had more difficulty with the professed intellectuals of the day
than with the clergy. For example, at Padua, the principal professor of philosophy was repeatedly
requested and urged to look through Galileo's telescope but persistently refused to do so. In a letter
to Kepler relating this affair, Galileo wrote, "Why are you not here? What shouts of laughter we
should have at this glorious folly! And to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa laboring before the
grand duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations to charm the new planets (i.e.,
moons) out of the sky". Thus, the Age of Reason was just beginning when logic, which had so
recently been used by critics of the Church to refute dogma, was used by the opponents of learning
to refute facts. As it turned out, the great appeal of reason was not that it automatically led to truth
but that anyone could use it in support of any cause whatsoever.
In terms of getting opponents to use his telescope, Galileo had more success with Catholic
authorities in Rome than he had with the professor at Padua but still to no great effect. In April,
1611, he persuaded some of the them to look through his telescope, and they enjoyed what they
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saw, but they would not accept his interpretation of what their observations meant. Although no one
realized it, one of his greatest discoveries of all was that subjectivity is as intractable a foe of
learning as ignorance, and he never did persuade the Church to accept the obvious.
Galileo probably would have succeeded had the matter been considered simply one of astronomy,
but the Church considered it in terms of theological politics, so he became a belated casualty of the
Counter-Reformation. Protestant attacks on the Church had obliged Catholic officials to impress
everyone with their commitment to the faith, and they presumed they could do this by preserving the
purity of Christian dogma. Hence, the Church mustered all the proper self-deprecating zeal it
possibly could in persecuting him. In the finest fundamentalist tradition, it forbade him to write and
publish a book comparing the Ptolemaic and Copernican doctrines, and when he did so anyway, it
forbade anyone to read it. On June 22, 1633, having been threatened earlier with physical torture,
he was forced to abandon publicly the "False opinion" that the earth is not the center of the
universe. In thus stopping Galileo from teaching the Copernican theory by its stupid recourse to
authority and force to counteran interpretation of facts, the Church not only stunted the development
of Italian science but damaged itself by becoming the chief antagonist to learning in Western
Civilization.
Although Galileo is well remembered for his battles against the stupidity of those who believed in
the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic universe, he was not immune to the malady. He had been captivated by
Copernicus, so the earth remained the center of motion, if not the cosmos. For Galileo, natural
"Inertial" motion was movement that neither rose nor fell: It was always equidistant from the center
of the earth and therefore circular. As incredible as it seems, even though he had Kepler's work on
elliptical orbits at hand and admired it, he paid no attention to it. Had he dwelt on the "Dungcart", he
might have overcome his love affair with the circle and realized that without gravity, rectilinear
motion would carry objects off the face of the earth in straight lines to infinity.
This failure is all the more surprising because he well knew that forces act independently upon a
bodyi.e., that horizontal and vertical forces, for example, can be treated as vector quantities which
do not modify each other. Despite this knowledge, which implied that an object moving along the
earth's surface would take off on a tangent into space, Galileo rejected straight lines because they
would disrupt the beautiful order of things, which to him meant circles. Perhaps he took gravity for
granted, but because he ignored Kepler's work, he left the unification of the universe to Newton.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) personified the ultimate in reason applied to the universe. He
demonstrated an apparently divine order in astronomy and physics by analyzing observations of
reality rather than reasoning from the Bible or simply asserting faith in God. He unified the cosmos
under mathematical laws and reduced God to the role of Divine Mechanic. His overwhelming
success in both regards was due to the fact that at least nonhuman objects behave reasonably.
Newton's three laws of motion (the first two of which are due to Galileo) showed that Kepler's laws
are consistent with the proposition that every planet, at every moment, has an acceleration toward
the sun which varies inversely as the square of its distance from the sun. He made Kepler's laws
universal and made calculations to prove them. His universal law of gravitation explained everything
in planetary motion (except the perturbations of Mercury). The only drawback to his success was
that it was so total that he almost became, like Aristotle, a barrier to furtherprogress. As it was, it
took England one hundred years to free itself of his authority and resume creative work in
astronomy and physics.
Part of his appeal was that he reduced the universe to common sense by showing that everything
behaved like a falling apple. On the other hand, as he thought we would always be ignorant of the
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inner essence of bodies, he shied away from fundamental explanations of "Whys", which tend to
imply not only causes but a purpose. Thus, not only did he apply reason with great success to the
solar system, but he set a limit on its scientific application and discovered a further limitation on its
range when his extended study of the Bible proved to be a fruitless effort to quantify the Divine Will.
Newton's writings in theology exceed his scientific works in bulk but not in brilliance, as he
misapplied mathematics to theology. Certainly reason can be applied in theological and
philosophical arguments, but neither theology nor metaphysics can be quantified and analyzed
mathematically. Nevertheless, as an orthodox, fundamentalist mystic, Newton attempted to prove
the date of the Second Coming mathematically and tried to determine the ratio between the highest
attainable earthly happiness and a believer's reward of bliss in Paradise.
In his own professional experience, Newton also found that reason was usually misapplied when
used as a means to convert opponents to one's point of view. He learned this lesson the hard way
when trying to persuade the scientific community that his theory about sunlight being a combination
of colors was correct. For centuries, the axiom had been that light was simple and primary. His
critics, including some of the greats in science of this era, found his attempted explanations more
confusing than convincing, and they persisted in their belief that the colors he saw were
modifications light suffered as it passed through his prism. Their tenacious commitment to cerebral
habit left him frustrated, and he resolved never again to publish anything until he could prove it
conclusively, thus delaying the dissemination of some of his contributions for years.
When Newton finally did get his message out, it was so overwhelmingly convincing that it reshaped
the philosophical basis of Western Civilization. First of all, animism was removed from physics:
Movement was no longer taken as a sign of life but inherent in material objects as they interacted
with each other. Secondly, the idea of purpose changed in that it had no place in scientific
explanations of the universe: No divine force intervened in the workings of the solar system nor had
a place in astronomical calculations. God could hardly be expected to concern Himself greatly over
the events on a minor planet of an unimportant star, so at most, human purpose was
self-generated. Lastly, although our place in the Copernican system was humbling, our discovery of
its mechanics was construed as a triumph of the human mind and contributed to a growing sense of
pride in European culture and faith in reason.
Just as we had to overcome commonplace perceptions like the "Sunrise" and "Sunset", which had
long kept us from learning about the solar system and our place in it, so did we have to transcend
folk "Wisdom" about life and ourselves. This was particularly true in anatomya matter in which
everyone had some first hand knowledge. Before the sixteenth century, professional ignorance in
general was stored in learned languages and surrounded by an aura of the occult, and in the field of
medicine in particular, it was stored in the works of Galen (130?-201?), who was deified to the point
that his works became obstacles to further learning. This happened to both Aristotle and Newton in
the mechanics of motion and happened to Galen despite his warning to readers of his works to be
wary of pedantic medicine.
"If anyone wishes to observe the works of Nature, he should put his trust not in books on anatomy
but in his own eyes...", he wrote, and he thought himself an experimental physician who constantly
appealed to experience. Unfortunately, the customs of his day forbade the dissection of humans, so
the main source of Galen's experience was not the human body but those of monkeys and pigs.
Worse yet, for almost 1400 years, his work stood as a barrier to real knowledge of human anatomy.
Not until about 1300 were human bodies dissected for learning and teaching anatomy, but even up
until the sixteenth century, the world of medicine was a dichotomy: Books were separated from
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bodies, knowledge from experience and healers from the ill. Actually, this was based on a happy
cultural confluence: Professors had a vested interest in protecting traditional lore and accepted
dogma while the public had a vested interest in seeing to it that they did not practice any of it. The
situation could hardly improve while those on the inside who knew the trade secrets remained
committed to the status quo. The profession could advance only when a pioneer would willingly defy
convention and oppose the canons of his own guild. Such a person would have to possess a
passion for knowledge and more daring than prudence. Such a person would have to be a reckless
missionary who would shriek rather than speak. Such a person was Paracelsus.
Philippus Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a self-taught physician who succeeded in getting appointed
to the medical faculty at the University of Basel but failed in his efforts to use that position to
become the Luther ofmedicine. On June 24, 1527, he threw a copy of Galen's works into a student
bonfire and announced that his courses would be based on his own experience with patients and
taught in the local Schweizerdeutsch dialect. Although the book burning was, in this instance,
almost justified, the medical community regarded it as an act of blasphemy and turned on him as a
heretic.
Unfortunately, in turning against Paracelsus, the learned doctors and their allies were turning
against progress in understanding disease. The prevailing notion of disease at the time was that is
was an imbalance of "Humors" which could be rectified by sweating, purging, bloodletting or
induced vomiting. Paracelsus championed the radically different theory that disease was caused by
outside agents. However, it was also unfortunate that he saw these outside agents not as germs but
as minerals and poisons carried in the atmosphere from the stars.
Paracelsus's commitment to medical astrology undoubtedly detracted from his potential impact and
distracted attention from his historic contributions. He recognized that the causes of disease lay
outside the body and insisted on uniformity of causes and specificity of diseases. Further, he
believed there were no incurable diseasesonly ignorant physicians and noted that uneducated
peasants cured more people than all of them with their books and gowns.
His own books were not published in his lifetime, and his colleagues (whose pedagogical practices
he questioned), the druggists (whose excessive profits and ignorance he denounced) and the
students (who ridiculed his passion for his cause) all joined forces against him and drove him out of
the medical Establishment. The profession was not to be reformed by emotional appeals to
principles.
A more effective professional reformer was Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), who rewrote the books
on anatomy. As a professor thereof, he dissected cadavers himself, thus departing from the custom
of his day, which was to read from Galen while a barber-surgeon pulled organs out of the body.
Also, he introduced the use of drawings as study aids, thus engendering the opposition of
professors who felt students should be reading rather than looking at pictures. For his part, Vesalius
thought students could learn more anatomy at a butcher shop than from professors sitting in their
high chairs talking about things they had never seen but simply memorized out of faulty books. He
came to insist that students see, feel and learn for themselves what the human body really was, and
it turned out that he was the greatest student of all.
At first, in his Six Anatomical Tables, Vesalius continued the Galenic tradition of leaping from
animal to human anatomy. However, in 1538, while teaching from Galen's text, he realized that
what he was readingwas really only a compendium of statements about animals in general. His
great revelation was that "Anatomical dissection might be used to check speculation". His greatest
work, On the Structure of the Human Body (1543the same year as Copernicus's book) rectified
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Galen's most flagrant errors. As he continued to learn from further dissections, he revised his own
works, thus constantly up-grading his schema according to new discoveries and refined
observations. Of course, he was blasted for his irreverence toward the revered if fallible Galen, but
his disciples carried on his commitment to produce complete and accurate works on human
anatomy.
Although Galen's mistakes in anatomy were thus corrected, his errors in physiology remained. His
physiological system was a pneumatology, built upon the three "Souls" which Plato had said
governed the body: The rational brain, the emotional heart and the nutritional liver. The chief virtue
of this system was that its vocabulary provided ample opportunity for debate among philosophically
minded doctors. At its heart was the heart, and before doctors would discard their "Spirits" and
pneuma, someone had to find something for it to do. That someone was William Harvey
(1578-1657), another scientist who successfully coupled fact with reason.
Like any great student of life, Harvey sought his own unifying vital phenomenon. For Galen, it had
been Plato's pneuma; for Harvey, it was the circulation of the blood. His conclusion that the heart
pumped the blood in a circular movement throughout the body was based not on Biblical,
metaphysical or emotional argumentation but on reasoning from a number of crucial anatomical and
physiological observations, not all his own. These suggested that Galen's notion that blood ebbed
and flowed from both heart and liver with a kind of tidal motion in the vessels was basically
incorrect. Around 1615, Harvey finally freed himself from this idea by posing a quantitative
questioni.e., how much blood flows through the heart (in a given time period)? The answer was
"So much that it could not possibly be synthesized new from ingested food but had to be the same
blood continually recycled in a circulatory system".
Harvey correctly anticipated hostility from orthodox Galenists so was not surprised when he was
denounced for overturning accepted dogma. He expected to suffer the fate of a genius who having
overcome some fool idea then had to endure criticism for having done so. However, it is noteworthy
that he was criticized not because of his observations but because he relied on reasoning and
calculating from measurements. He was accused of sullying his reputation as an anatomist by
playing mathematician. His pettifogging, quantitative approach was regarded as an attempt to
pursue facts which could not be known by investigating things whichwere incalculable and
inexplicable. Worst of all, he was charged with accusing Nature of stupidity.
Although Harvey's temper was as sharp as his views were original, he was almost modest in
insisting what he described was only simple fact. If he was on firm ground scientifically and in good
company in relying on observations rather than ancient writings as the starting point for reason, and
despite the fact that his efforts to quantify medicine seemed as absurd to his colleagues as efforts to
quantify religion seem to us, he was vulnerable on one point: He failed to close the circle. Blood
went from the veins to the heart and thence (after a side trip to the lungs) to the systemic arteries.
However, Harvey could find no link between the arteries and veins. His great act of faith was in
assuming that such a link would eventually be found, and it was, three years after his death, when
microscopist Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) discovered the capillaries.
Malpighi not only squared Harvey's circle but discovered a vast array of anatomical details invisible
to the naked eye. With his "Flea glass", he viewed taste buds on the tongue and the infrastructure of
the brain and put his name on parts of the skin, spleen and kidney. As he did so, he founded
microanatomy and checked the assertions of Aristotle and Galen by "Sensory criteria". Further, by
studying insects and other animals (his work on the capillaries had been done on frogs and
confirmed in turtles), he converted comparative anatomy from the field of errors it had been for
Galen into a source of knowledge for everyone.
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Of course, those committed to errors did not give up without a fight, so Malpighi encountered
resistance to the use of his microscope similar to that Galileo had encountered to the use of his
telescope. In 1689, he found his works condemned and himself formally indicted by the same
Church that had condemned Galileo and his works fifty-six years earlier. In this case, Malpighi's
works were declared useless and false according to four criteria devised for the occasion by one of
his own open-minded students: 1.) His work was on such a small scale as to be of no use to
physiciansso microscopes were out; 2.) it was untrue that humors were separated by sieve-like
structuresso capillaries and lungs did not exist; 3.) comparative anatomy would not help physicians
cure the sickso that was out; and 4.) the only useful study of anatomy was directed toward
learning pathologyso general anatomical research was out.
Critics who did look through the microscope objected to the distortions of shapes, additions of colors
and general counterfeiting of reality. Although some of these criticisms were perhaps justified, they
did not meanthat all microscopic observations were false but just that care and caution were needed
to promote accuracy when using such instruments.
Much of this medieval opposition to interjecting man-made devices between objects to be observed
and God-given senses was overcome by Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). A successful cloth
merchant turned microsleuth, he made a 500X microscope with the power to refute many criticisms.
Like Malpighi, he had no research program except to look at everything he could put in front of his
lenses. It was a decided loss to science that, in the worst spirit of alchemy and instrument making,
he jealously kept his best microscopes and techniques to himself.
While science was stirring up storms of controversy throughout the seventeenth century,
nationalism was growing by the silent, continuous process of unconscious learning. It was education
rather than reason that produced the Merrie Englishman and the Oedipal Russian. In each land,
people took themselves and their views seriously as well as for granted and usually passed their
ideas on to the next generation along with some minor self-serving embellishments about obeying
the authority of elders.
In the normal day-to-day functioning of society, most people centered their lives around their
immediate circle of acquaintances. A basic supposition was that all people were like their own
neighbors and would think and behave "Rationally", meaning "As expected". With the political
Establishment accepted as a "Given", very few people even wondered much less asked why
anything happened, and it was only when people became emotionally aroused that they would
question and challenge their own sacred governments and institutions.
As faith in Heaven was replaced by faith in the state, Unity, Hegemony and Glory became
nationalism's Holy Trinity and Destiny the new Virgin Mother. With nations more committed to
getting ahead than people were to getting to Heaven, the "Designs of France" and "Ambitions of
Prussia" came to preoccupy the minds of leaders, and Machiavellian monarchies came to dominate
Europe in a spirit of Christian "Botherhood".
It mattered little to ministers (of state) that the national entities that structured their thoughts in this
Age of Confusion were largely fictitious. Russia was (and remains) an incongruous assembly of
incompatible Cossacks, Tartars, Ukrainians, Muscovites, etc. France included Burgundy and
German Alsace, suppressed the Huguenots and sweated its peasants. England created Great
Britain by alienating the Scots, Welsh and Irish. Sweden, Prussia, Poland and Austria expanded
and contracted like so many gigantic amoebas sprawling across the map of Europe as power, not
reason, permitted and demanded.
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While civilization at least appeared to be advancing on every other front, on the political scene there
was clear regression from the medievalideal of a universally accepted supernatural law and divinely
inspired order. Overall, the basic principle of political rule was absolutism. However, in Germany,
the only absolute was chaos. In Holland and England, absolutism was compromised, while in
France (and Russia and Italy too), it went to excess. In all cases, reason had less to do with the use
than the abuse of power because while logic was essentially useless as a means of persuasion, it
tended to carry reasoning people to dangerous extremes.
It really cannot be said that in Germany nothing worked because there was no Germany: There was
just chaos. The root cause of this condition was the failure of unification through Christianity, but the
Protestant revolt had made that impossible. The various German states still might have unified
behind a German king had there been one, but there was none. Charles V became Spanish in spirit,
and the Austrian Hapsburgs were Catholics and often oriented toward Hungary and Turkey, thus
having little in common with northern Germans, who were Protestant and oriented toward the Baltic
and the west. The resultant Thirty Year's War between the Catholic Crown and Protestant nobles
was something of a civil war which everyone lost.
The first modern break in the absolutist tradition of domination by a personal prince who controlled
both religion and politics occurred in Holland, where the Dutch successfully resisted their Spanish
King, Philip II (1556-1598), when he sought support for his war against France. William the Silent,
Prince of Orange, led the resistance, and Philip countered by dispatching Spanish troops under the
Duke of Alvaone of those ruthless "Strongmen" whose witless use of power wrecks everything. If
all one's sympathy were not used up on Alva's victims, one could almost feel sorry for him, as all his
murdering of nobles, sacking and massacring was not only in vain but counter-productive. By 1567,
his ironhanded rule had induced open revolt. Throughout the struggle and with William as their de
facto king, the rebels maintained the myth that Philip was their de jure king, if only he would be a
reasonable and limited king. However, the idea of a reasonable, limited monarchy was generally
unacceptable to the royalty of the day as it would spoil both the fun and idea of being royal, so Philip
eventually drove Holland (called the United Provinces) to a republican independence effective as of
1609.
Resistance to absolute idiocy was also successful in England, where the throne had never been
more powerful than it was at the start of the seventeenth century. However, in their long-standing
battle against private property, the English Kings had to contend with a Parliament and shouldhave
accepted the fundamental fact that England was a legal rather than a regal state. Nevertheless,
when James I ascended to the throne in 1603, he saw himself as a king with a divine right to do as
he pleased. During his reign, the confrontation between the Crown and Parliament was conducted
reasonably but to no avail, as nothing basic was settled.
His son and successor, Charles I (1625-1649), was not only probably the meanest and most
treacherous but also the stupidest of all English monarchs. He did not know his subjects (although
he had lived in England since the age of four), was generally narrow-minded and clung obstinately
to any course of action once embarked upon it. On the issue of kingship, his ideas were more
exalted than those of his father. In practically every way, he was unprepared to cope with the
situation which confronted him. In fact, if he was prepared to do anything, it was to take such a
situation and make it worse.
This he proceeded to do when he had to go to Parliament for funds to conduct a war against France
and Spain. It refused support, so he dismissed it in 1629 and raised some money illegally. Later,
when war in Scotland broke out, Charles once again had to call a Parliament, but by this time
(1640), no amount of reason could save England from civil war. Once the fighting started, both
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sides were hampered by moderates who subscribed to the "Virgin strategy" of warfarethey did not
want to go too far. However (and to carry on the image), when Oliver Cromwell proved to be a
consummate general, the King became the prisoner of the parliamentary forces.
At this point, Charles might still have remained a compromised monarch, but he simply could not
perceive himself as sort of king. Doomed by his character, he could neither see that his own
excesses had caused the conflict nor stop his incessant scheming. He continued his policy of
driving to extremes people who wanted to be secure in their rights under a modern (i.e., reasonable)
ruler who himself accepted English rules.
The problem for England once the King had been subdued was that there no longer were any rules.
However, the pursuit of liberty and triumph of anarchy led to political slavery. The puritanical
hypocrites who imposed their rigid rule upon the land considered themselves to be the elect rather
than the electedchosen by God rather than the people. As agents of God's Will, they peppered
their iniquities with fervent prayers, somehow refrained from blushing in their piety and tried to
disguise, in the Lord's name, the violent cruelty they visited on their countrymen.
Not only was the King beheaded, but vengeance was visited upon a number of peers, many of
whom were imprisoned and some of whom were executed. Soldiers who mutinied in the causes of
popular sovereignty, manhood suffrage and annual Parliaments were hunted down and dispatched
without mercy. Would-be cultivators of the common lands were chased away, and in a fit of
righteousness, Cromwell led an inglorious crusade against Catholic Irelanda campaign which has
left a legacy of bitterness and hatred down to the present day.
By the time Cromwell died in 1658, England had suffered just about all the righteousness it could
endure and wanted to be merrie again so it welcomed back Charles II, son of the "Martyr". He
retained the crown by wary compromise and sold English foreign policy to Louis XIV for a pension
of 100,000. However, when his brother James II ascended to the throne in 1685, the old issue
between Parliament and Crown flared again because once again the King was too stupid to
recognize the limitations of the British monarchy. In 1688, the nobles staged a proper, dignified and
altogether terribly English revolution and invited another king William of Orangeto replace James,
who had enough sense at least to flee to France, where absolutism reigned supreme.
In fact, Louis XIV (1643-1715) carried the dogma of the divine right of kings to absolute excess. He
ruled arbitrarily and recklessly and frittered away the tax money wrung from his oppressed subjects
on exhaustive wars and his lavish court. These expenditures created an insurmountable public debt
which his descendants would parlay into the French Revolution. This reaction against absolutism
was all the more devastating when it finally came because it had been pent up by the alignment of
the nobles and clergy with the crown.
Louis's legacy of bitter poverty to the people of France was a consequence of his indulgence in
splendor and his pursuit of his own regal rainbowthe image of the Holy Roman Empire. In the
sunlight, he lavished the money on his supporters everywhere while in the shade, hatred was
building and waiting. In the cause of national unity, he opposed the spirit of independence, and
throughout the 1660's and into the 1680's, intolerance became persecution as he made legal war on
French Protestants. This drove great numbers of sober, diligent Huguenots abroad, to the economic
detriment of the mother country and benefit of her competitors and opponents.
To his credit, in his commitment to gaudy unity, Louis did not neglect the intellectuals as he did the
common man. However, this was at best a mixed blessing in that while the arts and sciences were
patronized, most cultural life was centered around the court, so French writers were self-consciously
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obliged to kiss the hand that fed them. Thus, there was no French Bunyan nor dissenting spirit to
liberate a French Milton. Intellectual life was correct and limited under the eye of the clerical
schoolmaster and the scholarly critic. The French Academy (incorporated in 1635) remained the
bastion of cultural orthodoxy, and if anything went to excess, it was intellectual restraint, as
substance was subordinated to style.
In a sense, the court became the major, artificial, tragic drama of the age as Louis and his
supporting characters played out their superficial roles as misplaced Romans suffering from the
education of an exclusive caste totally out of touch with the heart and soul of the people. The irony
of France's greatest ruler was that he concentrated on being a great ruler and forgot his subjects.
He was correct in believing (although he did not say), "L'tat, c'est moi", but he was not France.
The philosophical antidote to such political absolutism was not reason for even despots can be
reasonablebut liberalism. Born in the limited monarchies of Holland and England, liberalism began
with religious toleration and became the philosophy of parliamentary democracy and laissez faire
capitalism. It opposed everything medieval, especially theories used to sanction the powers of the
Church and Crown. It encouraged permissiveness, discouraged fanaticism and regarded religious
wars as silly. At the expense of the monarchy and aristocracy, it favored commerce, industry and
the rising middle class. It respected the rights of property, particularly when accumulated through
labor, and directed energy toward business as well as science. With prosperity increasing, optimism
was the order of the new day, and narrow-minded bigotry was gradually replaced by open-minded
individualism.
*
In retrospect, it appears the seventeenth century was characterized by a faith in reason rather than
by reason itself. This was aptly expressed by Locke, who made a career of limiting reason, when he
wrote, "Men living together according to reason...is properly the state of nature." This was his
description not of life among savages but in his own utopia of virtuous anarchists who needed
neither police nor courts of law because reason was natural law.
In general, the seventeenth century was less an age of reason than restraint. It produced no great
martyr willing to burn for his conscience, and although Galileo came pretty close, he had enough
sense to swallow his pride and lie about being wrong. After the witch hunts burned themselves out,
humanity embarked on no great efforts to improve itself or the future. Even while the Thirty Years'
War raged in Germany and England suffered the throes of a civil war and political revolution,
stability was assumed by everyone. In fact, despite such disruptions, kings were still monarchial,
nobles privileged, merchants despised and the poor oppressed. In a word, everything remained
"Natural" if not reasonable.
While reason remained mostly a theoretical ideal, it was primarily sciencethe application of logical
analysis to factswhich transformed theoutlook of the educated people of this era into something
like the modern mentality. Although the rise in knowledge seemed to be accompanied by a decline
in morality to the point that, in 1697, Leibnitz hoped the Chinese might send some missionaries to
Europe to save the West, most thoughtful people at that time still looked to science as the means to
salvation. Liberalism was nice and democratic, but because it made everyone's answer equally
good, it settled nothing. Science alone seemed to hold the hope of bringing certainty back into
Western life. If the methodology of the natural sciences could but be applied to society,
understanding would come, corruption end and perfection begin as people would then behave
properly and despots benignly.
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Obviously, all that was needed was a little learning and enlightenment.
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IX. Industrial Stupidity
With the defeat of Napoleon, European powers deluded themselves into thinking they had defeated
the Revolution, turned the clock back and restored monarchy forevermore, and indeed there
followed a period of peace and oppression with only relatively minor spats among rulers and
classes. During this time, the cultural basis of the Establishment was completely altered by the
Industrial Revolution, which was so overwhelmingly successful in its own terms of material
production that it redefined the Western way of life. As during the Renaissance, believers and
thinkers were displaced by doers as the shapers of civilization, and although intellectuals framed
thoughts and defined ideas which guide our world today, philosophical issues in general were
shelved in favor of pragmatic concerns. Machines and technology imposed their values on the way
people worked, fought, felt and thought.
Specifically, life was reshaped primarily by the immediate, practical effects of newly invented
sources of power applied to the means of producing goods, with no one much concerned about
ethics or even concrete, long range problems like pollution and overpopulation. Worse yet, as its
power and technological control over the environment increased, Western Civilization hardly hid its
shallowness. It dominated the world without endearing itself to anyone, as materialism ran rampant
without any guiding schema. There were many specific triumphs of engineering and organization,
but the overall, net effect seemed somewhat pointless because for all its ideas, the West had no
intellectual unity or humanitarian goal. The underlying belief was that technology and science would
bring progress, and they did, if progress is measured in the quantifiable terms of increased amounts
of technology and science.
The cost of this progress was an escalation of the callous arrogance toward other people and the
haughty indifference toward the environment which had long characterized the West. With
industrialization, the search for markets and raw materials made Western stupidity a global
aggravation. There were extended conflicts between the young, vibrant European culture and
listless, handcrafted civilizations (like India and China) as well as a concerted attack on the earth's
nonrenewable resources. Unfortunately, the easy, early victories of the scrutable Westerners made
them feel contemptuously superior to both other peoples and nature.
In its brutal efficiency, the dynamo symbolized the age and the aptitude the West was developing
for converting knowledge into mechanical power. Previously, knowledge had been used
occasionally as a source for wisdom, but more often it was turned to political and economic
advantage. In the nineteenth century, it was used to expand human potential beyond the limitations
of immediate conditions as people remade the world to suit their momentary needs and whims.
In this transformation of the world, it was practical technology, not speculative science, that led the
way, albeit slowly at first. For example, in 1711, Thomas Newcomen employed a steam engine
(which had been invented originally in Alexandria, France and England) to pump water out of a
mine. For some sixty years, steam engines were so employed with no other use being found for
them and little improvement being made in them. Then in the 1770's and '80's, James Watt, an
instrument maker, improved their precision and efficiency so they could drive the machinery in the
burgeoning textile factories. In 1786 on water and in 1804 on land, dedicated tinkerers first
effectively applied steam power to transportation. These developments increased dramatically the
speeds by which people and products moved and thereby extended the ranges of administrative
and commercial stupidity.
The first steamboat large enough to carry humans was developed by John Fitch (1743-1798)an
American who was not quite as practical as Yankee inventors are thought to be. He began with a
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model boat with vertical paddle wheels on the sides, but when he noticed the paddles lifted a
considerable amount of water as they rose after immersion (thus losing power), he abandoned this
mechanism and devised sets of canoe paddles which would stroke the water along the sides of the
boat. They worked but were a curious regression away from the principle of the side-wheeler (the
design upon which the first commercially successfully steamers were eventually built) and back to
an imitation of the human motion for propelling a log or canoe if not a boat.
As it turned out, the principle of commercial success was decisive in the development of the
steamboat, but in the 1780's, Americans were poor, had neither time nor money for silly toys, and
were in no mood for what most considered to be the flippant diversion of a madman. Still, Fitch
managed to form a company, although his partners were visionaries like himself rather than what he
neededrich men willing to stake their wealth on his venture. He labored for ten years and tried,
with varying degrees of technical success, paddle wheels again and even the brand new screw
propeller. However, eventually he became disheartened, took to drink and finally committed suicide.
Hence, the first successful steamboat is attributed in the popular mind to Robert Fulton
(1765-1815), apromoternot an inventorwho had the financial backing to make his side-wheeling
Clermont a commercial triumph in 1807.
As odd as it seems, in this era, the future of land transportation appeared to be on water, in that
canals were very much in vogue. Nevertheless, a brief controversy of "Canals vs. rails" arose in
New York, where a commission was discussing the planning and building of the Erie Canal. In their
midst appeared a prophet of the new order, John Stevens (1749-1838), the apostle of the
locomotive. His motive aside, he was regarded as clearly loco by the canal commission when he
proposed building a railroad instead of the canal. A calm, persistent, scholarly, almost scientific
inventor, he was summarily dismissed as a crackpot by those who refused to open their minds to
novelty.
Chief among these was Chancellor Robert R. Livingston. In 1811, as spokesman for the old
orderor more probably for the monopoly he and Fulton shared to run steamboats in New York
watershe objected to the building of a railroad for a number of theoretical reasons, one of which
was that it would have to be set "At least four feet below the earth's surface, to avoid frost, and
three feet above to avoid snow". Showing no apparent sense of incongruity, he championed the
canal, which would be frozen solid for four months every year. In fact, most people considered the
canal, with its traditions dating back to the Egyptian dynasties, the safe bet and regarded the
railroad, which was still experimental, as impractical.
Actually, the development of the railroad depended upon the acceptance of two independent
elements: A roadway of rails and the steam engine as the source of power. Just as the railroad in
general had been rejected by rationalizations before the fact, so too was the idea of a road of rails.
No amount of argumentation could persuade anyone that smooth wheels on smooth tracks could
generate enough friction to move a locomotive, much less one drawing a train. Of course, anyone
who tested such a system would have found that it worked, but an amazing series of
contraptionsmechanical legs pushing a car from behind, cogged wheels on notched tracks,
etc.were tried before a determined engineer named William Hedley demonstrated empirically in
1813 that a locomotive could indeed pull a train on smooth tracks.
Once smooth rails had been accepted, attention shifted to the source of power, with the major battle
being that of the horse versus steam. Although Mr. Hedley had proved that a locomotive could pull a
train, most minds were still transfixed by the idea of horse drawn vehicles. Within that limiting
framework, an earlier-day efficiency expert imagined that a platform could be placed on the first car
so that the horse could jump up on it when the train came to a downgrade. Further, to save time, the
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animal could be fed while thus resting. By way of compromise, a "Horse locomotive" was also
proposed, with the poor beast driving the wheels by working a treadmill. However, eventually horse
sense and steam power prevailed because visionary mechanics ignored what was being thought
and said and simply demonstrated the superiority of the steam engine.
While steam was thus changing transportation, electricity was changing communication, and the
development of the telegraph was very much shaped and in some ways retarded by the conditioned
beliefs of almost everyone involved. For example, in 1780, when Italian anatomist Luigi Galvani
found he could make the leg of a dead frog twitch by touching it with a scalpel while the animal was
suspended by a copper wire, he did not understand what he was doing. Actually, he had generated
an electric current between his scalpel and the wire via the brininess of the frog's body. Being an
anatomist, he sought a more organic explanation and directed his research toward the discovery of
some vital fluid which he assumed to be still present in the frog. Although it is thus clear he did not
understand what he had discovered, someone else did.
Physicist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), recognized Galvani's discovery at once as an example of
chemical electricity and began trying to produce a current by placing various combinations of metals
in cloths soaked in brine. When he found that by so alternating pieces of zinc and copper he could
generate a current, he was on his way to making the first battery. Meanwhile, the public proved to
be quite slow in comprehending the shift and for years referred to Volta's work in terms of
"Galvanism", "Galvanic circuits" and "Galvanic cells" and later abused terminology still further when
referring to "Galvanized iron" and even "Galvanized crowds".
It also took a second mind to appreciate fully Hans Christian Oersted's inadvertent discovery of the
link between electricity and magnetism in 1819. While lecturing at the University of Copenhagen,
with his table covered with all kinds of electrical equipment, he went to connect a wire to a battery.
The wire happened to fall over a compass parallel to the needle, and as he completed the
connection, the needle deflected toward a plane at right angles to the wire.
While Oersted fumbled with the questions of his students and puzzled over and experimented with
his deflected needle, news of the phenomenon spread. Eventually, it reached Andr Ampre, who
understood immediately what was happening even if he did not know how to convert his
understanding into a successful commercial venture. Within a week, he had completed a paper
(published in 1822) laying down the basis for the field of electrodynamics. He also saw the
possibility of a needle telegraph, with as many conducting wires to as many magnetic needles
asthere are letters in the alphabet permitting the transmission of information over extended
distances. This system proved to be too cumbersome to be of commercial value, but if Ampre was
more successful as a theorist than an inventor, there were many innovative pragmatists coming
along who would turn his scientific knowledge to practical advantage in the development of the
telegraph.
Best known among these was Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), artist and promoter (but not
inventor) of the telegraph. Even though he did own the patent on it, he actually contributed very little
to it except his persistence in establishing it as a functional means of communication. In matters
technical, he was gifted primarily in his unusual ability to adapt the discoveries of others to his own
purpose. Oddly enough, his one great, original contribution was a transmitting keyboard device
which foreshadowed the invention of the typewriter and typesetting machine, but it was dropped in
favor of a single telegraph key.
Another casualty along the way was a printer, which provided the receiver with a typed message. It
was the forerunner of the stock-ticker, but operators preferred taking messages down by coded
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sound rather than by the automatic printing process and would do so even when the printer was
present and operational. Perhaps they did so because it made them necessary, and in deference to
their persistence in taking messages by sound, the clicker was amplified and the printer scrapped.
While inventors were thus shrinking the world by making transportation and communication as fast
as possible, thinkers were trying to find something consistent and eternal about humanity that
transcended the rapidly changing technological conditions. Ironically, for the first time in history, the
basic condition for a civilization was change, and the functional constant was adjustment.
Consequently, intellectuals were confronted with the task of finding a generally acceptable belief
system which would define the fundamentals of human nature and yet permit social adaptation and
cultural progress through superficial alterations of the environment. Throughout the nineteenth
century, they sought such a system in romanticism, rationalism, Darwinism, liberalism and
socialism, but none proved to be the ultimatism.
In the post-Napoleonic, industrializing era of the early 1800's, many people felt rationalism had
betrayed civilization so they turned to romanticism for escape in the personal answers of subjective
experience. They believed reason, devoid of Christian compassion, had contributed to and
characterized the French Revolution, and also they resented the mechanical regimentation
demanded by the new technology. Yet, for all its sentimental idealism, nineteenth century
romanticism was not a back to nature movement aiming at peace and quiet but a vigorous and
passionate individualism directed toward establishing an emotional identity in a world increasingly
dominated by the logic of machinery. Eventually, it evolved into an equally vigorous and passionate
nationalism, but in the first decades of the nineteenth century, it was a simple faith in feelings based
on the notion that rationalism had led Western Man astray.
True to the spirit of romanticism, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (1818) was an allegory for modern
man in that it dealt with basic emotional issues which shaped the behavior of a reasoning,
mechanically contrived monster. Like man, Frankenstein's monster was not a mere monster. In the
beginning, he was a kind, gentle monster longing for affection. He was driven to hatred and violence
by the horror which his ugliness inspired in those whose love he coveted. When Frankenstein
declined to create a mate for him, the monster, in a fit of logic, murdered everyone Frankenstein
loved. However, he remained a noble murderer, if judged by the romantic standard of sentiment
alone.
Gothic horrors aside, the problem confronting Western Man in the nineteenth century was that of
finding balance and unity within the individual. These were ideal conditions the romantics attempted
to realize through adventure, variety and subjectivity while all around them the real life that was
emerging under the impact of industrialization was one of conflicts, entanglements, distractions,
preoccupations and bewilderment. In the face of such real uncertainty, the clearest prognosis for the
fate of the modern individual came from romantic literature in the form of Goethe's infamous
protagonist, Faust, who would live now and pay later but could find neither balance nor unity
because he had sold his soul.
Nor was there balance in romantic philosophers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Arthur
Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was unusual as a philosopher in being only semi-academic. This made
him less appealing to professionals in scholastic circles but more appealing to cultured people
generally, and he was especially appealing to cultured pessimists, as he was all gloom and doom.
His starting point was the will, which was typical in the romantic era, but for some subconscious
reason, he considered it to be an ethical evil and the wellspring of all humanity's eternal
sufferingsuffering that increased in direct proportion to knowledge. Purpose was futile, reform vain,
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death triumphant and reality nothing. Actually, the only thing he seemed sure of was nothingness,
and the only escape from this was via the Indian myth of Nirvana, which to him meant extinction.
In a rare moment of positive pragmatism, Schopenhauer suggested a reduction of will as a possible
way to reduce suffering. Oddly enough, he did not call for a reduction in knowledge which,
according to him, also would have reduced suffering. In a good person, knowledge was somehow
supposed to quiet volition, turn the will away from life and lead the person to deny his own nature.
The good person would use knowledge to get beyond illusions, although learning would seem to
lead to neither insight nor understanding but to an estranged ignorance.
Schopenhauer's ideal person would be poor, chaste, hungry and altogether ascetic to the point of
being self-abusive. Perhaps as a reaction against industrialism, Schopenhauer tried to break down
the will to material success so as to achieve not harmony with God or nature nor balance and unity
but a kind of negative good. The ultimate goal for one of his depressing saints was not to exist at all.
Recognizing neither good nor God, he looked to Satan as the guiding Omnipotent Will who created
suffering. His gospel was resignation, and if a sage existed, it was only because he retained his will,
which was evil.
In declaring the will to be evil, Schopenhauer took romanticism a step toward nihilism, but in so
doing, he really revealed more about his own professed values than he did about life. Nor was he
sincere, as he lived decently, enjoyed good meals and indulged in passionless romances.
Nevertheless, just for the sake of argument, he would have claimed the proverbial glass of water to
have been half empty, the glass dirty and the water bad for one's health.
Schopenhauer's successor in romantic pessimism was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). To him,
will had a metaphysical as well ethical primacy. He was important not only as a philosopher but as
an historical critic, and he found his own escape when he went insane in 1888.
In this sense alone, Nietzsche personified the plight of the intelligencia of his age, in that he was
unable to reconcile his intellectual love of ruthlessness and war with his cultured taste in philosophy,
literature, art and music. Pope Julius II combined these rather discrepant elements into a functional
personality and might be thought of as Nietzsche's ideal ruler. In fact, Nietzsche was something of a
philosophical throwback to Machiavelli in that both professed anti-Christian ethics which aimed at
power with Nietzsche being, if anything, more frank in this regard and certainly more systematic
than Machiavelli in developing his views. To carry the historic parallel one step further, what Cesare
Borgia was to Machiavelli, Napoleon was to Nietzsche.
In a broader sense, Nietzsche was a philosophical throwback to a predemocratic era. The heroic
qualities he admired were means to excellence for only an aristocratic few. True virtue was not for
everyone but for a special minority. Nor was it profitable or prudent. He regarded John Stuart Mill,
the champion of utilitarianism, as a "Blockhead", and as industrialization proceeded, giving people
power and spreading democracy, Nietzsche resented and resisted the tendencies of mediocre
people to joinhands and make themselves heard. He habitually alluded to ordinary humans as the
"Bungled and botched" and had no objection to their suffering, especially if their ordeal produced
great men. Thus, for example, the French Revolution was justified because it produced Napoleon.
Not only were Nietzsche's means to excellence out of step with the age of industrial democracy, but
his philosophical ends (like those of Schopenhauer) were unlikely to become popular on their own
merit because they pointed toward neither happiness nor well-being. Mostly, he praised evil and
denounced good. In some places he tried to change his readers' opinions of what good and evil
were, but usually he contented himself with using the words "Good" and "Evil" conventionally and
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then shocked his readers by saying he preferred evil.
Basically, Nietzsche was simply unhappy. He was a thinker who wanted to be a man of action and
knew he was not. He had a conceited sense of duty and admired Alcibiades, Emperor Frederick II
and Napoleon, all of whom were quite efficient at causing people to die. Further, he never tired of
inveighing against women and regarded Rousseau as the seducer of civilization for having made
them interesting. If there was one positive thing in his thinking, it was his concern with improving the
species, but his standard for judgment was ruthless power rather than compassionate wisdom, and
one could almost hear the storm troopers marching in the distance.
If Nietzsche bent the subjectivity of romantic philosophy to his own peculiar purpose, Georg Hegel
(1770-1831) continued the rationalists' venerable reverence for logic. In fact, he epitomized this
tradition with his belief that rationality was reality and vice versa. His underlying assumptions were
that nothing exists but absolutes and that nothing can be true unless it is true about reality as a
whole. As separateness was illogical, it could not exist, so even if isolated facts might appear to be
irrational, eventually they would be found to be rational when placed in the context of the whole.
Thus, nature could be discovered by deduction, because reality, as a logical "Whole", could not be
self-contradictory.
The way to discovery was through the logic of Hegel's "Dialectic" thesis, antithesis,
synthesiswhich became quite influential. Although this might seem to be a recipe for conflict
among opposites leading to compromise, he saw it as a way to reach a higher level of
consciousness by logically blending apparently discrepant parts into a grander whole. Eventually,
this process would lead to the "Absolute idea"pure thoughtthinking about pure thought. Like most
rationalists, however, he took logic too seriously and developed a system for philosophizing rather
than for learning about reality, which turned out to be not quite as logical as he assumed.
Nevertheless, in his universe, God became the ultimate professor in the form of the ideal thinker
contemplating Himself.
In his Philosophy of History (originally a set of lectures delivered in 1822 and 1823), Hegel
asserted that history follows his dialectic. However, he also noted that history teaches us that we
never learn from it. In his case, he could not learn from it because the retention of his dialectic,
which was essential to him, required a distortion of facts and considerable ignorance. Like Marx and
Spengler, he indulged in the former and possessed the latter. Like a good rationalist, he assumed
time would bring logical perfection: Everything would be reasonable, with all parts perfectly
coordinated toward a single end by the rational process of world history.
In Hegel's approach to this developing dialectic, nations were what classes would be to Marxthe
means to the realization of history. His strident nationalism (especially when coupled with his
peculiar notion of freedom as the right to obey the law) explains his excessive glorification of the
state. As a totalitarian philosopher, he viewed the state as the whole giving meaning to the parts
(i.e., the citizens). Individuals existed for the state, which was not a means to an end but the end
itself. "The State was the Divine Idea as it existed on earth." It defined reality and was rational in
and for itself.
Basically, Hegel was your absolute nationalist. Of course, a state can be good, as when it provides
protection, roads, schools, etc., but non-Hegelians would agree it can also be bad, as when it is
repressive and engages in unjust wars. Not surprisingly, his thinking did not lead to an absolute
truth but unfortunately did lead to an ambiguity which permitted Germans to believe their state was
absolutely right.
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In more general terms, there were two fundamental problems inherent in Hegel's nationalism. The
first was that the state was absolutely dominant over its citizens. The other was that there was no
way to regulate interstate affairs, which were simply subject to the law of the jungle once portrayed
by Hobbes as a war of all against all. Politically, Hegel was stuck with his schema of nationalism,
and far from suggesting a World State, he argued against such a creation. He thought the Holy
Alliance and Immanuel Kant's proposed League for Peace mistakes because he believed that
states need enemies and that conflicts among them could be decided only by war anyway.
Not only did Hegel offer no new, hopeful morality to order international relations, but he practically
opposed peace as ossification. He considered war not an unfortunate evil to be abolished but an
acceptable good to be cultivated from time to time because it made people appreciate the
superficial vanity of material things. Further, it supposedly had a positive moral value in that it made
people take themselves, life and presumably the state seriously.
While Hegel was busy using rationalism to promote his subconsciously selected cause if not prove
his particular case, scientists were busy applying logic to data gathered objectively. Foremost
among these was Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution (first presented in 1858) was quite
logical, consistent with known facts and very disturbing to some Christians. In fact, there would be
no good reason for this reaction were Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus, which clash with
neither scientific discoveries nor explanations of the origin of the world or mankind. As noted earlier,
however, it is based largely on the teachings of St. Paul, which did entail very definite beliefs about
the origins of the universe and man. Specifically, St. Paul and his disciples added the doctrine of
salvation to the fledgling religion. As a result, born again Christianity glossed over the words of
Christ and redefined its meaning in terms of the alleged sin of the mythical Adam and Eve.
In fact, the Biblical story of creation was Babylonian and perhaps even Sumerian in origin and was
transmitted to the new religion by the Jews. The tenacity with which fundamentalists cling to the
fabric of this pagan myth attests to the mystique of ignorance for the world abounds with evidence
of its absurdity, and sounder cosmologies have frequently been proposed and recognized as
acceptable. Aristotle was aware of the broad principles of modern geology, Leonardo correctly
interpreted fossils, and Descartes speculated on the incandescent creation of the earth. However, it
was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the authority of the pagan/Biblical story of
creation was challenged directly.
Slowly, the Western world came to the disconcerting realization that the succession of life as
recorded in the geological record did not correspond to the Biblical account of creation. Rather, it
pointed away from the separate creation of each species and toward a genetic relationship among
all forms of life including man. The creation of the world and life had not taken six days but billions
of years. There had been no Garden of Eden and no Fall, so the reason for atonement, upon which
"Paulianity" had been based, disappeared.
This was too wrenching an adjustment for most Christians to contemplate, so the theory of evolution
was denounced and opposed with all the righteous irrationality theologians could muster. The fact
that the theological edifice was built upon false history was apparently irrelevant, even though it
meant that Darwin's theory did not necessarily and directly undermine the moral precepts of Christ.
The new scientific facts and theories were clearly irreconcilable with entrenched dogma and
therefore threatened the collapse of the clergy if not morality. Thus, to many not so enlightened
minds, the unhappy choice appeared to be that of agreeing to immorality or adhering to something
that was wrong.
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However, there was another, more basic choice to be made, and that was the selection of the
standard for right and wrong. This is the wild card upon which society is based, although it is really
more an "Open" card in that it can be different things to different people at the same time. On this
issue, Darwin was either rejected or misused by nearly everyone who had a nineteenth century ax
to grind.
Not surprisingly, the fearful faithful chose the Bible as the standard for judgment, and the
unnecessary battle between theology and biology was on. Confronted with obvious factual errors,
theologians rejected the new scientific standards for truth, refused to modify their absurd views and
attempted to suppress Darwinian thought. Clerical institutions, including universities, adopted a
policy of deliberate ignorance by bitterly resisting the new knowledge. As if it were some kind of test
of holiness, many church leaders devoted their considerable intellectual gifts to obscuring facts,
inhibiting learning and preventing understanding.
As stupid as the oppressive, fundamentalist theologians were in their efforts to maintain the
trappings of their moral doctrines, they were benign in their reaction to Darwin compared to those
who made him into the standard bearer for a new immorality. Racists cited Darwin, chapter and
verse, as justification for the elimination of their presumed inferiors. In more general terms,
imperialists used him to exculpate themselves and their policies designed to repress and subdue
the weak. Further, he was used to rationalize the previously tacit conspiracy between the law and
illegal violence, and as might now made right, cruelty came to be openly admired. The jungle was
the law, and Darwinism provided the rationale for pretty much any kind of injustice those in the
power Establishment chose to impose upon their subjects. Adopting the new ethic, rulers believed
they reigned by virtue of their natural superiority in the struggle for existence in which the strong and
clever get the better of the weak and honest.
If all this was just a logical extension of Darwin, and it was, it was fashioned on his great half-truth.
As astute as Darwin was in observinganimal behavior, he was still a man of his times and saw in the
natural world only a paradigm of the cutthroat competition of industrial capitalism. He completely
missed the fact that cooperation among individuals and groups is as necessary to their mutual
survival as competition is to their evolutionary development. All the cynical ethics based on Darwin's
works are similarly jaded in that they ignore the crucial role intraspecies cooperation plays in the
zoological world. Humans, particularly, are mutually interdependent and proportion their role playing
as cooperators and competitors as the demands of circumstances shift.
Although Darwinism provided a rationale for the established rulers to be as oppressive as possible,
the political and economic conditions upon which Western civilization was based were evolving, and
democracy and industrialism were undercutting the foundation of the traditional, aristocratic ruling
class. Democracy, on the rise since the French Revolution, had put an end to the idea of
government by a privileged elite. In fact, cultured gentlemen found they had to defend their
privileges against the populace and in the process ceased to be privileged, cultured or gentlemen.
Meanwhile, industrialism eroded the basis for the landed aristocracy itself, as the newly emerging
society was built on technology rather than traditionon the factory rather than the farm.
Ironically, even while the emerging business class was replacing the landed aristocracy as the
dominant force in the Establishment, education was sideswiping the manufacturers' own power
base. Previously, it had hardly mattered that people generally were uneducated and uninformed,
since most work in the agricultural era was drudgery best accomplished by laborers who were more
proficient at sweating and straining than questioning and thinking. However, as machines took over
the work place, people with a kind of intelligence were needed to make decisions, so a technically
trained worker became a necessity.
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The problem with public education was that it was an imprecise process which was difficult to
control, and it did produce some unpredictable results. A little education was indeed a dangerous
thing, and semi-educated workers collectively became a veritable vexation to manufacturers. As
laborers became educated enough to do their jobs efficiently, they came to perceive themselves as
the victims of exploitation by the owners of capital. Workers had always experienced poverty and
injustice, but now, concentrated in urban centers, they had the opportunity to share and express
their feelings and ideas. Slowly, they developed a class consciousness and eventually learned to
think of and for themselves. Although this was to their advantage, if not that of the factory owners,
the general spread of semiliteracy also led to the rise of demagogues who mastered the art of
manipulating propaganda to the detriment of everyone's best interests including, in most cases,
their own.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, liberal propaganda became increasingly appealing to
the working class as the concept of political democracy was expanded into an economic and social
creed. The prevailing view at the time was that the government should play the role of civic umpire,
if you will, guarantying that the rules of society were fairly (i.e., uniformly) enforced. Liberals wanted
the government to be more than fair and intervene to help the socially handicapped and
economically disadvantaged. They often had their way because some degree of governmental
intervention was not only necessary in many instances but invariably very popular.
While liberals generally tended to be romantically vague in their approach to existing ills, socialists
were better organized and focused on framing programs that were supposedly solutions to the
problems of the age. In this regard, pioneer socialist Robert Owen (1771-1858) was typical. He was
a Manchester cotton-spinner and social experimenter who opposed the use of intemperance and
improvidence as explanations to justify existent economic iniquities. He attacked the selfish
indolence of his fellow manufacturers, and it was largely due to his efforts that the first Factory Act
was passed in England in 1819.
This legislation was an attempt to protect manufacturers from themselves by restraining them from
taking excessive, shortsighted (i.e., stupid) advantage of their workers' poverty. Still, its provisions
remain a sad commentary on the grim standards of applied compassion in this age, as under its
aegis, children under the age of ten were prohibited from working in factories and the work day of
their older brothers and sisters was restricted to just twelve hours. When one realizes that at the
time these new standards represented a real triumph of humanitarianism over greed, it is indeed
possible to believe that there may be such a thing as progress in human affairs, for certainly we
have come a long way in labor relations at least since then.
Like Plato, Owen had looked to the good sense of people in all classes to recognize the faults of the
Establishment, and apparently he never did learn how unenlightened and biased the powerful can
be. On the other hand, Karl Marx (1818-1883) found the driving force for reform throughout history
generally in class dynamics and in his own time specifically in the injustice and exploitation of the
worker. He was the first to perceive that the old social classes were dissolving and that people were
regrouping. According to the dialectic he had taken over from Hegel, the thesis of capitalism would
produce the antithesis of revolt and lead to the synthesis of socialism. Property was and would be
opposed to labor. With capital becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, he foresaw a
class war and unions as the means to this end. They would instill a class consciousness in the
laborers, who then would seize capital in a social revolution and work for themselves. This would be
the new order, with the restoration of freedom based on common ownership of the earth and its
management by the whole community.
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This was Marx's flat, rational, materialistic formula for the future. To him, it was all fatalistically
inevitable, with matter the driving force of the universe, class conflict the determining factor in
history and economics the decisive feature of the human condition. As Confucianally smug and neat
as all this was, it was also limited to the point of being incredibly misleading. First, social conditions
are determined as much by imponderable peculiarities of personalities and politics as by
inescapable dictates of economics. Further, class conflict was but one of many important factors
which shaped history. Finally, there is a spiritual element which pervades humanity (if not the
universe) to the extent that our perceptions are shaped and behavior motivated as much by our
beliefs about our environment and ourselves as by actual, existent material conditions.
In Marx's particular case, his belief in his dialectic certainly shaped his views. He perceived the
common interests of labor against capital everywhere but failed to perceive the common interests of
labor, and indeed everyone, in peace everywhere. In a more active vein, as a theorist and
propagandist, his belief in the importance of organized unionism made him the inspiration for the
formation of the First Internationalan international league of workersalthough it also led him to
underestimate the importance of nationalism in nineteenth century Europe.
Not only did Marx's schema frame his perceptual failings, but it also limited his ability as an analyst.
In fact, he was an oxymoronic "Roman thinker", as he was too practical and too much wrapped up
in the specific problems of his time to qualify as an impartial social scientist formulating universal
laws of human behavior. As his ultimate commitment was to his cause rather than to science, he
openly fantasized that his master class would voluntarily dissolve itself and altruistically surrender
its advantages when it was in everyone's best interests (i.e., the interests of the Hegelian "Whole")
that it do so. Actually, all he inherited from Hegel was clearlyunscientific, in that there was no reason
nor proven factual basis for supposing it to be true, and it would have been philosophically
advantageous to have dropped it, but he was stuck with Hegel in his schema and therefore thought
in terms of a dialectic and used it for his purpose.
Further, like a good Roman, Marx was quite willing to dispense with ethics. He could do so because
of his bourgeois, nineteenth century belief in progress. Perceptually unlike a Roman, he was
disturbed by the cruelty of the industrial system and, following Hegel's rational but unproven
dialectic, thought socialism was coming and would therefore be an improvement (which is true if the
inevitable is necessarily good). Ergo, anything done to help it would be justified as a means to a
progressive end.
Oddly enough, Marx and many others in the 1800's could believe in progress precisely because of
the absence of a generally accepted standard for measuring it: They were thus free to define it to
suit themselves and their respective causes. However, the belief in progress was common not only
because different people could define it in different ways but also because there was considerable
evidence of it. Technological inventions had clearly improved material lifethere was faster travel
and communication, better plumbing and more varied and abundant foodstuffs. There certainly was
also progress in the development of scientific knowledge since, despite all the controversies, there
could be no argument about the fact that scientists in 1900 knew more than their counterparts in
1800. A case could even be made for progress in morality, as slavery was abolished and the serfs
freed in Russia. Clearly, the human race was getting better and growing happier, and there was no
earthly limit to this process in sight.
Even political history was viewed as a record of struggles and suffering which brought slow but clear
progress. The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars were simply viewed as an evil interlude, like
some kind of aberrant political plague. As Europe recovered from the disease, there was an illusion
of progress perceived in the Concert of European actual patchwork league of nations which set
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aside the individualism of machiavellian rulers in favor of a commonwealth of monarchs.
This community was dominated by a romantic urge to evade vital issues and a conservative resolve
to prevent the rise of another Napoleon. Major wars were thus avoided for several decades due to
the common fear that fighting might create another military monster. Still, pure peace was prevented
by the misguided attempts of royalty to restore unfair privileges and by the long-term effects of the
borders drawn up at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 which thwarted effective government.
A general disposition of European royalty to maintain monarchy by marching backward was most
clearly revealed in Spain, where the Inquisition was restored and a rebellion squashed by French
troops in 1823. In that same year, Austria suppressed a popular uprising in Italy, and in the next
year, Charles X of France embarked upon a royal program to destroy freedom of the press and
academic freedom at the universities in his attempt to restore absolutism. In 1830, Paris rose up
against these assertions of regal privilege and replaced him with Louis Philippe, who reigned until
1848. This change was acceptable to the other members of the commonwealth of monarchs since a
king remained on the throne.
However, the royal Entrenchment found it not quite so easy to deal with the results of the
unenlightened map making of the "Statesmen" at the Congress of Vienna. The basic problem was
that the maps they made up ignored the people and therefore often resulted in real, practical
problems for administrators who later had to govern groups with different languages, religions and
ideas. In fact, if the congressional cartographers had been trying to create as much local
exasperation as possible, they probably could not have done a better job. For example, the Dutch
Republic was destroyed and a kingdom of the Netherlands set up by lumping Dutch Protestants and
French speaking Catholics of the old Spanish (Austrian) Netherlands together. Likewise, Northern
Italy, including Venice, became Austrian. Etc., etc. Soon, the human map of Europe seethed
beneath the political map so glibly concocted by the diplomats, and by the 1830's, there were
revolts in Belgium, Italy, Germany and Poland against the newly if not wisely created states. The
powers suppressed them all as easily as they had created them, but later in the century, the human
map would assert itself again in the formation of Italy and Germany and the rise of nationalism
generally.
While major wars had been successfully avoided during the first half of the century, revolutions were
invited, as the rights and needs of the growing numbers of industrial workers remained
unrecognized by the old order. These were the largely ineffectual revolutions of 1848, but, not
surprisingly, it was through them that the feared Napoleon, whom wars had been avoided to
prevent, became a realization. At least it should not have been a surprise, since the original
Napoleon rose to power when a revolutionary republic failed and a strong man was needed to
restore order. What was surprising was that the new one was a Napoleon not only in deed but in
name as well.
The cunning nephew of the original, this new Charles Louis (Napoleon) Bonaparte rose to power
after the French Republic (which briefly replaced the monarchy in 1848) had created considerable
economic disorganization and even more business anxiety with its crude socialistic proposals.
Napoleon posed as a liberal "Safe" man who would restore confidence and stability to affairs. In
October, 1848, he took an oath to befaithful to the republic and to regard as enemies all who sought
to change the form of government. By December 1852, he was Emperor and, with his
misadventures in foreign policy (especially in his confrontation with Bismarck), would visit upon
Europe in general and France in particular even greater destruction than had his infamous uncle.
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After the general failure of the revolutions of 1848 and the enthronement of the dreaded Napoleon,
nationalistic wars came back into fashion. Sad to say, the little ones in the latter half of the
nineteenth century eventually led to the big ones in the twentieth because, although "Statesmen"
were once again discussing issues, they were discussing the wrong ones. Rather than dealing with
the Dickensonian problems (i.e., unemployment, poverty, filth, slums, etc.) created by
industrialization, European leaders busied themselves with eighteenth century "Questions". For
example, there was the Crimean Question, with the clash between Russian interests and those of
France and England resulting in the Crimean War. Then there was the Schleswig-Holstein
Question, with Bismarck forcing Denmark to release the duchies so that Prussia could fight Austria
over them.
Unfortunately, there was no discussion of the "Question" Question. That is, no one asked what
questions should be asked, so discussions of political issues continued along traditional,
nationalistic lines, although they did so with diminishing enthusiasm and conviction by people of
conscience and vision. These could not sustain any genuine interest in political discussions when,
in an age of general adaptation to industrial power, a new awareness of human potential and an
irruption of scientific, economic and social ideas, the basic political mentality failed to change.
The fundamental problem was that for all the interest and awareness of the greater issues facing
humanity, nationalism was the defining factor of the nineteenth century conscience. Selfish
individualism gave it a good run for its money when the nation was not challenged, but in a crunch,
most people would side with their countrynot their church, class or walletwhen called by the
national siren. As time passed, nationalism became romantically exaggerated into a secular religion,
with belief in and obedience to the local sect being taught in schools, emphasized in editorials and
praised in sermon and song. People became crusaders, wearing their particular brand of
nationalism on their sleeves, and ancient tribal gods became ascendant monsters which darkened
all human endeavors.
As the different countries pursued their own special interests, nationalism served each as a system
of self-justification: Whatever acts were taken were necessary forwhat else?the good of the
country. Nationalism thus helped all European diplomats carry out their power plays by diminishing
the ranks and appeal of skeptics. Sons could be sent abroad to be killed not because of greedy
industrialists or stupid statesmen but becauseone righteous, national divinity was engaged in a
struggle with another. This was the modern mythology which dignified death as a sacrifice to the
state and made it acceptable to the common sense of those benumbed by grief.
Worse yet, the divisiveness of nationalism and the discord developing among the Great Powers
formed a positive feedback system, with more nationalism making for more discord which made for
more nationalism. Each nation pursued its own particular selfish ends as if it and they were more
important than humanity in general, and the European community disintegrated. It had never been
unified by anything but a fear of another Napoleonic war anyway, and as wars came and went, that
fear faded. Europe became ever more a jumble of clashing interests, each detracting to the best of
its ability from the others and to the general detriment of all. The key phrase was "Legitimate claim",
with all kinds of nations claiming the right to interfere with each other while simultaneously
demanding the sovereign right to mismanage their own internal affairs. The reality was that the
Industrial Revolution made the affairs and interests of all nations inextricably interrelated, and in
order to deal with this reality in a nationalistic format, diplomats constructed an incredibly complex
web of entangling alliances which eventually dragged everyone into a war no one had imagined
possible.
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At best, a world of independent sovereign nations implied a world of perpetual conflict (or perpetual
preparation for conflict). In fact, the probability of confrontation was increased because nationalism
tended to make the weak nations stronger and the stronger nations imperialistic. Thus, modern
imperialism was nationalism made aggressive by and for prosperity to the point of megalomania.
This compounding of nationalism with imperialism was dangerously unsound for a number of
reasons both practical and theoretical. First of all, the practice of these isms just increased the need
for an international control system which the industrial revolution was already making ever more
necessary. Further, their domination of European political thought in the late 1800's effectively
prevented the evolution of an international institution that would bring such control. Finally, they
inhibited the Western conscience from developing the concept of a common humanity living in
peace and the Western mind from developing an understanding not only of other people but of
itself.
Actually, imperialism did bring some learning of other lands and cultures, but there was often a
heavy price paid for this education, and more for the failure thereof. Such was the case when the
East India Company precipitated the Indian Mutiny of 1857. A new rifle and its greased cartridges,
which the men had to bite open in the loading process, were issued to the company's Indian
soldiers. It was an act of incredible folly because the cartridges were greased with the fat of cows,
which were sacred to Brahmins, and pigs, which are considered unclean by Moslems. When the
troops discovered this, a revolt ensued, and the British population discovered India.
In doing so, the English learned, at a considerable cost to everyone, that India was a land of dust
and sunshine, massacre and cruelty. They never did learn how they got there or what right they had
to be there, as these were questions that no one asked. Nor did they learn much from the mutiny,
other than how not to grease cartridges. They did not perceive it as a warning but as an opportunity
so, in 1858, the Indian Empire was annexed to the British Crown by an act optimistically and
imaginatively entitled An Act for the Better Government of India. This better government
combined all the disadvantages of absolute monarchy with the drawbacks of democracy and the
impersonal irresponsibility of bureaucracy. As an administrative system, it was staid and inflexible
and supported by a military noted for its lack of character and intelligence. Generally, British
imperialism was supported by the press (as it provided stories), the army (as it made soldiers
important), the government (as it gave officials something to do) and the business community (as it
brought in profits). Its chief opponents were the toiling workers, of whom there were many, and its
chief critics were the educated poor, of whom there were few. Nor were there likely to be many
more, since the troubled educational system was firmly in the hands of the imperial Establishment.
First of all, popular education in England was generally crippled by religious squabbles, stingy
authorities, a desire for child labor and individualists who objected to educating each others'
children. In addition, when modern history was taught to the public, Robert Clive and Warren
Hastings, who had been tried for their unrighteous treatment of the Indians, were romanticized into
Empire building heroes. The terribly English traditions of fair play, legality and liberty were given
short shrift in favor of a Teutonic ethnology: The ideal of justice was sacrificed for the idea of racial
superiority, and the newly created Anglo-Saxon was presented as the omega point of human
evolution.
Immorality aside, the success of Europeans in India and the East Indies characterized the ruling
Aryan caste's assumption of the "White man's burden" elsewhere if not everywhere. The glory of
ruling Persia and the Far East beckoned, and toward the end of the century, it was simply assumed
that the world would fall under European domination. In a classic display of a neurotically
paradoxical positive feedback mechanism in action, imperialism's immediate, dazzling rewards hid
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the system's basic defectsthat profits were based upon continued exploitation while theybuilt the
concomitant resentment which such a materially successful method engenders. So, with their
political systems in tense convulsions, their religions in decay and their rapacious economies
consuming their half educated populations at home, the Great Powers presumed to rule the world
and really believed the states of Asia and Africa could be permanently subordinated to themselves.
What Westerners were loath to accept was that the average Asian and African might be born equal
in brain power to the average European, as that would have meant imperialism was not based less
on a permanent racial superiority than on a temporary cultural supremacy. Since Europeans did not
understand that their imperial success rested largely on technological capability and administrative
capacity, they generously if ironically brought the seeds of their own demise with them to their
colonial possessions. With close commercial and cultural contact, the transfer of knowledge
between interacting populations was inevitable, but to their own detriment, Europeans made every
effort to keep this educational process a one-way affair. They introduced liberal ideals and political
ideologies into the colonies and made a point of educating promising colonial students in Western
institutions while failing to send their own sons and daughters to learn Eastern ways. Those
government officials and missionaries who did go to the colonies did not go to learn and have their
ideas shaped by the experience: They went to effect imperial policy and spread Christian gospel.
Whereas European imperialism carried the seeds of its own destruction to its colonies, the Prussian
Empire created in Europe by Bismarck in 1871 nurtured its own demise by carrying its arrogant lust
for power to uncontrollable excesses. As Germany became Prussianized, the subconscious
yearnings of the people for a national identity created a strange blend of romantic rationalism in the
myth of a Teutonic hero who was logically destined to rule the world, and as the embodiment of this
myth, Otto von Bismarck was indeed a man for his age. Devoid of any higher moral purpose than
national aggrandizement and lacking any sense of obligation to serve humanity, this machiavellian
architect of Teutonic nationalism spun his diplomatic webs, lusted after power and became the role
model for a generation of Germans learning to believe in their superiority. It was he who created an
imperial Germanic state committed to a policy of blood and iron while the country's rapid rise from
poverty to wealth and success in war contributed to the myth of Aryan invincibility. Further, at the
expense of critical, analytical thought and a sense of objective self-awareness, both German vanity
and a belief in the Fatherland were promoted to patriotic excesses by the press, intelligencia and
educational system.
In fact, one of the greatest crimes of the Hohenzollern regime was its adulteration of education. No
other modern state had so sinned against academic learning by teaching a lesson so willingly
learned. It is ironic that in the industrial age of technological invention and scientific discovery, the
most portentous phenomenon in the last half of the nineteenth century for the first half of the
twentieth was the methodical self-indoctrination of Germans with the idea of their own preeminence
and predominance in a world based on might. The German pupil read of his superiority in school
books and literature, and this same theme was pounded into the university student by professors.
Lectures in mathematics and biology became lessons in the supremacy of the German mind and
body. History, particularly, was corrupted and prostituted so that Germans became intoxicated with
a grandiose belief in themselves. They reveled in the image of the Teutonic knight in shinning armor
riding through a world of inferior people and maintained this fantasy with bombastic patriotic rhetoric
that would be echoed by Hitler fifty years later.
However, the Teutonic knight lent some substance to the fantasy when he entered the international
lists in the guise of the Prussian soldier in 1870. While embroiled in an eighteenth century style
dispute over the Spanish succession, Napoleon III fatally misjudged the allegiance and intentions of
the German states outside of Bismarck's North German Confederation. He hoped (and apparently
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therefor thought) they would side with France against Prussia and its allies, but nationalism
triumphed as the human map asserted itself and Germany unifiedlike a clenched fist.
Unfortunately, Pax Germania carried nationalism beyond the human map, as Germany took over
the administration of Posen and some other Polish districts in the east while in the west, Bismarck
guaranteed French bitterness for years by reclaiming Lorraine.
As if Bismarck was not Germanic enough, he was dismissed in 1890 by Emperor William II, who, in
his early thirties, combined the worst aspects of the new German education with the imperial
tradition of Prussian monarchy. A willing pupil of German propaganda, he had learned Russia had
decayed, the French were degenerate and the British verged on civil war. He thought it Germany's
duty and destiny to civilize the world and believed he had the able-spirited assistance of God, the
ultimate in arrogance, as his divine henchman to help him accomplish this task. Restless to the
point of aggression, he outdid his former mentor as a blatant militarist committed to making his mark
on the world.
In the face of escalating militarism not only in Germany but throughout Europe in general, the Great
Powers at the turn of the century saw no reason to surrender their sovereignty for the sake of
peace. Those at the peace conferences at the Hague (in 1899 and 1907) worked not to endwars but
to make them shameful and cheaper. Each power sought to establish international laws which
would shame and embarrass its potential opponents and make wars economicalperhaps even
cost effective, with less wasted on minor disputes. When the war so brazenly courted finally
erupted, shame and embarrassment were forgotten, and the cost was incalculable.
*
One of the first casualties of the Great War was the view of history as one of automatic progress
toward peace and freedom. Until 1914, the nineteenth century had been commonly perceived as
one of industrial and technological development liberating people from the drudgery of life. That
illusion was shattered in the trenches, and if the hope for peace remained intact in the hearts of
people willing to work for it, they no longer knew how.
The reason those desiring peace did not know how to achieve it was that industrialization changed
not only the problems people thought about but the way they thought about them. It placed
tremendous power under human control and made people think about its use in achieving their
particular ends while reducing the apparent need for any moral justification for behavior. In political
affairs and human relations generally, two old concepts which had previously established outer
limits on behavior were the beliefs in God and truth. These were superficially retained, but as the
nineteenth century unfolded, those in power increasingly found their policies limited only by the
effectiveness of force and propaganda.
The major problem confronting people thus seemed to be that of adjusting to human limitations, and
the results were cataclysmic because there was no grand schema to set goals and guidelines for
civilization in general. Those with power had their goalthey wanted to keep it: Those without it had
theirsthey wanted to get it. Although slavery was abolished and labor relations grudgingly
improved partially because of disturbed consciences, in far too many cases, simply having the
power to dominate was justification enough for the preferred policy of the Establishment. Not
surprisingly, the "Might is right" ethic often set state against state, ruler against citizen, and man
against nature.
The ultimate irony of the industrial era was that as Western Civilization became increasingly
dependent upon nature for resources, it refused to become romantically involved with the world that
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supported it. Technology erected a barrier between man and nature which gave people the sense
that culture was independent of the natural world when actually it was more dependent upon it than
ever. People simply became so skilled at exploitation that nature no longer seemed to be a limiting
factor on human ambitions.
Thus, the basic lessons of the nineteenth century were that power was not coupled with virtue and
that knowledge might be coupled with vice. More important, moral considerations seemed to fade
altogether in the face of material progress. Railroads and steamboats made life clearly better
without making it more ethical, and although not all change was good, no one much was looking for
a metaphysical standard for judgment. If and when it is discovered, it will be an ethic limiting power
according to an appreciation of the rights of other people and an understanding of our place in
nature. Sad to say, with the Industrial Revolution continuing at an ever accelerating pace and our
minds preoccupied with inventing new ways to use bits of information more efficiently, it appears
that no one in a position of power in the Western world is much interested in finding an ethic that will
curb our arrogance.
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X. The Age of Arrogance
At the turn of the twentieth century, Victorian industrialists seemed invincibly in command of
everything but themselves. Sad to say, in their smug little world of wealth and success, their
self-satisfaction seemed justified by the triumphs of technology. It seemed that the adaptive genius
of inventors and the application of reason to the material world by engineers and scientists had
indeed brought the progress enlightened dreamers had foreseen. With the Industrial Revolution in
full swing, there appeared to be no limit to what technology could accomplish. The telephone,
electric light, airplane and the rich man's newest toythe horseless carriageall seemed triumphs
over nature. The physical world was viewed primarily as a source of gratification for anyone with the
power and inclination to avail himself of its riches.
Unfortunately, the arrogance inherent in this "We can do anything" attitude came to characterize the
general stupidity of our age and contributed to the monumental problems we have created for
ourselves. While blatant aggression and exploitation of human resources and the natural
environment comprise the most obvious of these in our century, they are in turn based on our
fundamental inability to control the technology we have come to worship and ourselves, in whom we
persistently believe. Until we find proper places for people and nature in the equation "Technology
=progress", we will continue to pay the price for the arrogance which flaws the Western psyche and
characterizes the official attitude of the Establishment. In fact, early in this century, even the most
reverent believer in the invincibility of industrial technology should have learned from the fate of the
Titanic that all our mechanical skill could not guarantee human safety when coupled with a
vainglorious disrespect for nature.
Nothing serves better to symbolize our pompous belief in both our technology and ourselves than
the voyage of that ill-stared ship of death. It was the biggest, fastest and most luxurious ship built,
and best of all, it was unsinkable. Obviously, Captain E. J. Smith had nothing to fear from petty
things like icebergs, of which he had been warned, so on the foggy night of April 14, 1912, it was full
speed ahead at a reckless twenty-two knots. After all, if there were a collision, the iceberg would be
more likely to sink than the Titanic, or so everyone believed.
As it turned out, the Titanic had actually been built to sink. The allegedly watertight compartments
had been left open at the top so when six bow compartments filled up after the fated collision, the
ship was pulled downward to such a degree that water spilled over into the seventh and then the
eighth and so on. Naturally, there were not enough lifeboats on board, as they had been considered
superfluous on an unsinkable ship so more than fifteen hundred souls perished that night. This was
a large number for a single, totally unnecessary tragedy but a small sacrifice to arrogance as
measured by later standards in a century of unnecessary tragedies.
While people have occasionally paid for having too much faith in our fallible hardware, most of our
tragediesintense international wars and prolonged domestic injusticeshave been due to our all
too human software and particularly our inability to get along with one another. Despite all the
inventions and technological progress of the Industrial Revolution, we seem to be in our own Dark
Age of human relations. Nothing better demonstrated this point than World War Ithe first and
certainly one of our finest major tragedies.
While in July, 1914, no one could have anticipated all the consequences of the impending war,
everyone would have been much better off if European leaders had considered it simply in an
economic context, as it was a sure-fire money loser. However, as usual when rationality is needed
most, there was a complete breakdown of political sanity. Against a backdrop of regional politics,
cravings for vengeance and paranoid ambitions, a general reluctance to face known facts, throttle
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patriotic zeal and search for peace led to outright blunders. Specifically, Austria wanted a fight, but
in getting more than what it wanted, it was carried along by an unhealthy does of Germanic
arrogance.
Rooted in most egos is the "Custer complex"the inability to appreciate the capabilities of one's
rivals. However, in militarists this handicap is often accentuated, and throughout the war, Kaiser
Wilhelm II and his chief generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg were particularly susceptible to this
condition. They assumed the allies would be too stupid to discern the intent of German genius and
completely underestimated America's ability to raise and dispatch an army of any real value to
Europe.
Actually, in their assumption about the allies misreading their intent, the Germans were half right.
The French were completely wrong as to the location of the heaviest German attack despite
accruing evidence that they were indeed wrong and a warning of their strategic error from the ablest
among them, General Victor Michel. In 1911, he informed the Supreme War Council he was
convinced that if Germany attacked, it would do so via the northern route through Belgium because
of the impenetrableFrench defenses in Lorraine. The British had come to the same conclusion as to
the probable route of a German attack, but the French commanders had made up their minds. The
War Council was convinced the Germans would take the southern route through Alsace Lorraine
because 1.) this was where the Prussians had attacked in 1870, 2.) this was where the French had
decided they would launch their own attack if there were a war, and 3.) a northern drive would
necessarily bring England, which had a treaty with Belgium, into the war against the Germans.
During this period just before the war, groupthink played an especially prominent role in shaping
French arrogance. Members of the Supreme War Council supported each other in their commitment
to ignoring not only General Michel's warning but the fact that obvious military preparations had
been made by Germany, as called for by their Schlieffen Plan, along the Belgian frontiernot in
Alsace Lorraine, where the French had massed their troops. Their reliance on simplistic slogans
about French lan and illusions about France's invulnerability bolstered their decision to adopt an
unrealistic military plan (Plan XVII) to launch a frontal assault against Germany's most heavily
fortified western border.
This plan was flawed not only in that it all but ignored the possibility of a German sweep through
Belgium, but also because it was based on misleading intelligence. By counting only active German
divisions and ignoring reserves, the French underestimated by half the defensive strength opposite
the Lorraine gap and thus actually planned their attack with numbers equal to those of the well
fortified enemy. The key to this miscalculation was the fixed belief that the Germans would not
deploy their reserves to the front lines. Evidence to the contrary, which began seeping through to
the French General Staff in 1913, was, of course, ignored. Hence, when the war began and the
Schlieffen plan was put into effect, the French were caught totally unprepared. They had to pull
back and regroup, and when, with British assistance, they finally managed to stand off the Germans
at the battle of the Marne (September 6-10, 1914), the war became a stalemate.
The entire German army would have been annihilated had the battle begun just one day earlier,
which it would have, had the British been as dedicated to creative action as they were to proper
attire. Unfortunately for millions of men, General Joseph-Simon Gallieni, the military governor of
Paris who conceived the plan for the battle, was a bespectacled, untidy, shaggy chap with black
buttoned boots and yellow leggings. No British officer would be seen talking to such a "Damned
comedian", and because of the delay thus caused in allied communications, the master stroke fell a
day late, and the war dragged on for four years.
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In 1917, when it was clear to the German High Command that victory on land was impossible,
unrestricted submarine attacks were resumed in the hope that England could be starved out of the
war before America could intervene effectively. In a fit of optimism, the German admirals claimed
that within about four months England would crumble, so the possibility of American involvement
was not denied but was discounted: There simply would not be enough time for Yank forces to play
a decisive role in the land war before England had to sue for peace.
At best, this was a gamble; at worst, a miscalculation. However, there was no other option available
given the German insistence on victory and rejection of reality. Woodrow Wilson's proposal of a
negotiated peace without victory was psychologically unacceptable to a mentality schooled in
winning objectives by force rather than in adjustment and accommodation. Nor could the Imperial
Navy acknowledge its limitations by allowing even the possibility that England would still be in the
war in 1918. So, in the spirit of the finest Greek tragedy, Germany proved that character is indeed
fate and, in a most fitting image, torpedoed itself.
In the postwar era, America stretched its own fate by indulging in fits of emotional abandon while
displaying some rather strange forms of its self-righteous character. At the very start of the Jazz
Age, American fanaticism was at its peak. The Ku Klux Klan made a resurgence and went public
nationwide. The federal government made young J. Edgar Hoover head of the General Intelligence
Division of the Department of Justice in charge of rooting out radicalsmeaning Communist
immigrants. In April, 1920, the New York Legislature passed the Lusk bills, setting up a secret
police, the job of which was to ferret out by stealth and trickery citizens who questioned or privately
rejected various tenets of the American political system. In the same year, Wisconsin enacted a
"Pure history law" which required hearings on any schoolbook which allegedly "Falsifies the facts
regarding the War of Independence or the War of 1812 or defames our nation's founders or
misrepresents the ideals and causes for which they struggled".
However, the most artificially contrived social blunder of this libertine era was Prohibition. If this was
a "Noble experiment", Americans proved to be ignoble failures. With the best of intentions,
well-meaning, mor-alistic reformers crusaded to save people from themselves by imposing their
own puritanical values on society. The idea was that, since the excessive consumption of alcohol
was clearly bad, the sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages would be made illegal. The
effect was not to cut consumption of booze but to make the majority of Americans criminals, since
virtually everyone kept on drinking in an underworld built on crime. It was a classic overreaction to a
problem, and the attempted solution of excessive control created new problems which were worse
than the original itself.
Oddly enough, the worst problem that inter-war America would have to face was building for lack of
control: The economy of the 1920's was building to a crash for lack of an overall, guiding schema or
regulatory mechanism. The basic, political/economic schema of America at this time was
open-ended and based on the assumption that capitalism was good simply because individuals
were free of governmental restraints in business affairs. No one was looking out for society in
general, since good things were just supposed to happen for everyone automatically. The best
people (i.e., the most efficient entrepreneurs) would emerge triumphant (with the most money), and
the best ideas (i.e., most profitable policies) would naturally come out on top because whatever
happened would be a matter of character and fate. The grand myth was that of the American
businessman arrogantly assuming the mantle of material righteousness and pompously proclaiming
he would bring happiness and progress to everyone if just left alone to compete freely with other
capitalists in the marketplace of life.
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A myth this was indeed, as the business community had a long tradition of requesting and getting
government support for and regulation of controlled competition. Like a good nineteenth century
umpire, the government would see to it that everyone played by the rules, which had been set up by
business to favor itself. Generally, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, every phrase in
the Constitution designed to protect the submerged individual had become an instrument for the
protection of the Establishment. For example, the Fourteenth Amendment, which was obviously
adopted to protect the newly freed slaves, was immediately turned to the advantage of the business
community when the "Corporation" was granted the legal status of "Person".
Further, around the turn of the century, big businesses had prevailed upon the government to
protect them from fair competition because true freedom would have led to the cutthroat destruction
of the entire system. The railroads, insurance industry, lumbermen, meat packers, grocers and
druggists all sought federal legislation to regulate their businesses so as to save them from the
anarchy of laissez faire practices in their respective trades. Little could the capitalist community
know the precedents thus established by governmental regulation of business for the sake of
business would later be used, when necessary, to regulate business for the sake of society.
In the 1920's, with the government largely restricting itself to enforcing laws that aided big business,
the economy became, at best, a self-promoting entity which defined its own existence independent
of any consideration other than its own immediate well-being. This created a decidedly imbalanced,
one-way relationship with society in general, since business shaped the lives and values of
Americans but responded only to those factors (i.e., supply, demand, resources, labor, etc.) which
directly affected it and only in ways that appeared to be to its own short-term advantage. Under
such conditions, businessmen became heedless of their responsibility to society at large and simply
assumed that what was good for business was good for America.
After the stock market crash of 1929 and in the midst of the ensuing Depression, the American myth
about the evils of governmental regulation of the business community continued despite the obvious
need for some kind of directing schema. The first efforts of the New Deal were timid, indecisive and
ineffective, as superstition and folklore hampered every effort to reorganize thought and develop an
effective policy for national action. Politicians and people alike were more interested in saving
dollars than in dealing with the crisis at hand and more concerned with protecting free Americans
from the woes of a bureaucratic dictatorship than in actually getting the needy adequate food,
clothing and housing.
Most of all, they were interested in saving and protecting American rhetoric. The jargon of
Constitutional capitalism had to be retained even as dogma was being totally revamped by
pragmatic politicians hammering out piecemeal solutions to the consuming crisis. As socialismi.e.,
government ownership of the means of productionwas too extreme for most people, a fascistic
program of government control and regulation of business evolved. This was accepted functionally
(in terms of daily behavior) but denied intellectually as it passed into the context of Constitutional
parlance via the normal expedient of reinterpreting terms and ideas.
By 1936, the Constitution had become the national Ouija board which would solve all problems
because it said all things to all people. Even the Ku Klux Klan supported it and, by using the
Constitution to justify its persecutions of those it considered to be un-American, showed just how
meaningless the document had become. With all parties subjectively interpreting it to suit
themselves, the Constitution ceased to have any definitive meaningif indeed it ever hadand
became less the Supreme Law of the land than a national symbol which all people could worship,
praise and ignore as they pleased. Even the Justices of the Supreme Court, who played the role of
high priests telling the people what the Holy Wordreally meant, were more divisive than decisive as
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they changed meanings to match their arbitrary ideas of justice.
Within a Constitutional context, America underwent an economic reformation with the adaptation of
Keynesian economics. Until the mid-1930's, the idea that deficit spending was a good thing in and
of itself was regarded as insane and repelled men of sound judgment. However, it was precisely
those men who made the case for John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) when their insistence on
balancing the budget brought a modest recovery to a halt and a slump in the Depression as he had
predicted. Finally, the proponents of deficit spending had their day, but still their program failed to
pull the country out of the doldrums until taken to the extremes required by World War II. During the
war, the inflation that deficit spending invited loomed as a threat, but the Messiah had an answer ready. According to
Keynes, all that had to be done was to put everything into reverse: Taxes would have to be raised
to keep pace with spending, and labor would have to forego wage increases.
This was a nice solution for dreamers, but it proved to be a politically inexpedient remedy virtually
impossible to effect at any time. By 1942, realists found inflation was running away with itself, but
the war made the implementation of the suggested control mechanism totally unthinkable so it
never was even tried. During the war, fascistic control measures of price-fixing and rationing were
needed, and after they were removed at the war's end, inflation became a seemingly unalterable
fact of life. In a way no economist could have anticipated, politicians became trapped by the
neurotic paradox of garnering the short term, immediate rewards of spending dollars which at first
did not exist and which ever since have become worth less and less. Just how much longer the
country can survive living on deficit spendingessentially an emergency systemremains to be
seen. At the current rate, in a few years, 60-65% of the federal budget will go for entitlement
programs, 13-14% for defense, 17% for interest on the debt and the remainder (less than 10%) for
governing.
As in matters economic, in labor relations, what was once a cure to one problem ran to excess and
became a problem in and of itself. Before the 1930's, the courts had been the major bulwark against
the organization of workers. Of course, property had been granted the right to organize up to a
point: Corporations were legal but trusts were not. Still, this favoritism was enough to produce the
"Corporate state" which, with the blessings of the federal government, assumed responsibility for
the economic well-being of everyone.
With the corporate debacle of the Depression, the New Deal encouraged unionization of workers
and made Big Labor a counterpoise to Big Business. Although this seemed sensible and moral in so
far as the National Labor Relations Act (1935) safeguarded the workers' right to collective
bargaining, the labor movement proceeded to run away with itself with absurdly high demands of
more pay for less work. This became a classic case of the neurotic paradox in action as increasingly
inordinate union exactions were rewarded, although they fueled national inflation which then
reduced business and eventually led to unemployment.
The reality of the postwar world economy was that American steel workers getting $26 per hour
simply could not compete against cheap foreign labor and thus drove business overseas. In the
1960's, laborers struck, paraded and demonstrated for their right not to work; in the '70's, they were
equally emphatic about marching and demonstrating for their right to work. Of course, this idea of a
right to work was a fiction embraced by workers trying to deal with the fact that they had priced
themselves out of the labor market. Only in the 1980's did their unions begin to back off in their
demands and resumed their proper role of helping rather than hurting the worker.
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While America was just beginning to undergo these secular reformations in constitutional law,
economics and labor relations, the world was contending with the results of political revolutions in
Russia and Germany. The Russian Revolution had its origins in the hearts of the peasants but could
not take form until intellectuals expressed the dream in dull, cumbersome books. Most of these
were elaborations on Karl Marx and placed the revolt on a respectable academic basis of
exhaustive research if dubious psychology. Of course, all scholarship and erudition soon gave way
to the dictatorship of the practical politician.
In Germany, the "Revolution" was accomplished within the existing political framework, but it turned
society upside down and culture inside out as the dregs of the streets became the Establishment
and perverted every traditional human value into a horror of metaphysical obscenities. Despite
ample evidence that Hitler was indeed everything he claimed to be if not worse, just about no one
perceived him as a threat. This was particularly strange, considering the French fear of Germany,
but can be explained by the more prevalent fear of Communism. Certainly in England, with more
hope than justification, the government persisted in viewing the Nazis as nationalists who would
save Western Europe from the Red menace, while in his political wilderness, the disenfranchised
Winston Churchill voiced his wasted warnings of the impending debacle.
Within Germany, Hitler appealed to a sense of pride with his explanation of how the country had lost
the war. Germans had been schooled to think of themselves as invincible and superior in every way
to everyone else and therefore were at a loss to understand how they could have been defeated.
Hitler's thesis was that the great German people had been stabbed in the back by Jewish bankers.
This idea had immense popular appeal, as it saved the Teutonic myth and directed against the
financial community the unfocused hostility which had been created among the people by the
collapse of the German economy.
If the Germans wondered how they had lost the war, that was about the only question they asked of
Hitler. Generally, the German intellectual tradition was not the property of the people but of a few
philosophers: It was quite narrow and usually absurdly deep. Even among thinkers, the tradition
was not to ask questions but to provide answers or enunciate grandiose statements about how the
world worked. Both of these factors worked in Hitler's favor as he transformed ideological appeal
into political power.
Once he began the next war, Hitler made several strategic and tactical errors which seem
inexcusable. His first was in allowing Gring to talk him into letting the Luftwaffe polish off the British
at Dunkirk in May of 1940. Gring was jealous of the Army Generals and convinced Hitler that too
much success would go to their heads. Hitler should have countered by stressing the team
approach to annihilation and could have pumped up Gring a bit with promises of glory for the air
force in the forth coming Battle of Britain. However, he listened too much to a biased advisor, and
then bad weather gave the British the time needed to pull off their miracle evacuation.
Hitler's next mistake was even bigger and worse than the first. As air supremacy was essential
before England could be invaded, he assigned the Luftwaffe the task of destroying the Royal Air
Force. This it was doing and undoubtedly would have done had not Hitler gone berserk after the
RAF staged some bombing raids on Berlin. Retaliatory raids on London would have been
appropriate and should have been enough to assuage German rage, but Hitler insisted on switching
the entire brunt of his air attacks to the strategically unimportant capital. While German bombers
pounded the city in September, 1940, the RAF recouped its strength and managed to gain
supremacy in the air over England, so the invasion had to be postponed indefinitely.
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Hitler's third and probably greatest mistake was attacking Russia. This gave Germany the two-front
war it could not win. As stupid as the attack was, it was even stupider of Stalin to refuse to believe it
was coming. In fact, not only did he ignore warnings that the invasion was imminent, buthe tried to
appease Hitler by faithfully supplying Germany with war materiel right to the day of the
invasionJune 22, 1941.
As dumb as this was, the Russians found themselves outclassed when it came to stupidity. When
the Germans first marched into the Ukraine, they were welcomed by the people as liberators from
Stalinist oppression. The residents thought nothing could be worse than life under Communism, but
the Nazis set out to convince them they were wrong. Ruthless and arrogant to the core, the
invaders found no particular satisfaction in victory itself, and soon their needlessly vicious brutality
turned the population against them. Finally, the failure of the German Army to withdraw from Russia
while it still could was the ultimate act of idiocy in a campaign that all but doomed the Reich.
Although America was late in joining the hostilities, its entrance into the war showed a genuine flair
for stupidity. At Pearl Harbor, the military commanders knew of the possibility of a Japanese attack
in "Any direction" and received warnings of possible danger from the War Council in Washington.
However, none of them was sufficiently dramatic and explicit about the danger to Hawaii to alter the
local officers' assumptions about their safety, since none of them directly contradicted the prevailing
schema in Hawaii that Pearl Harbor was an unlikely target. Thus, the commanders in Hawaii
indulged in the unaffordable luxury of wishful thinking: Instead of finding out whether they were
being threatened or taking other precautionary measures, they let their assumption that the attack
would occur elsewhere shape their judgment, and they were caught napping.
Basically, the failure of the American commanders at Pearl Harbor to appreciate the probability of
an attack there can be traced to a question they did not ask and an answer they could not have
given. The question was: If the Japanese were to start a war, what would be the most important
target for them to hit first? Even had they asked this question, they probably would have come up
with the wrong answer since they apparently did not even attempt to see the fleet from the
Japanese perspective but rather persisted in perceiving it as a deterrent rather than a target.
Considering the value of their base, they should have considered an attack all the more likely.
However, naval commander Admiral Husband Kimmel thought less in terms of gain than risk to the
Japanese and was convinced they were not stupid enough to chance losing their carriers and
aircraft by sending them thousands of miles over the ocean to Hawaii. Thus, since the raid was
unexpected, it was, in fact, safe and certainly proved to be tactically successful.
The chance of success was also enhanced by the fact that American attention was focused on a
known Japanese convoy moving toward Thailand. The whereabouts of a lost convoy of aircraft
carriers was a concern to some in the intelligence community in Hawaii, but no one seemed to have
considered the possibility that the two Japanese fleets might strike in two places at once. Actually,
low frequency radio transmissions of the strike force headed for Hawaii had been detected by the
SS Lurline on December 1 and reported to Naval Intelligence in Hawaii on December 3, 1941.
However, in one of the great bungled "Might have beens" of the war, no one realized these were
from the missing convoy or dispatched reconnaissance aircraft to determine their source.
Of course, the Japanese decision to attack the United States was one of the stupidest mistakes of
the war. It undoubtedly had its roots in the belief, firmly entrenched in most Nipponese minds, that
Japan was invincible. When the Japanese militarists saw films of American troops training with
wooden guns, they were convinced they could win a war against the United States if there were
one. In fact, their greatest miscalculation was that they really did not expect a war to ensue once
they had destroyed our Pacific fleet; they expected America would simply concede the Western
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Pacific to Japan and accept a dishonorable peace.
With the Allied victory in 1945, surprisingly little changed. True, one great evilthe scourge of the
swastikahad been eliminated, but all the basic human problems of injustice, aggression,
corruption, ignorance and stupidity remained. Taking this as a challenge, and with the war between
the superpowers on "Cold", Americans renewed their commitment to find what archetypically
industrialized Westerners thought would be sensible and moral resolutions to the enduring
pragmatic problems of diplomatic ineptitude, political corruption, social injustice and technological
desecration of the environment.
In affairs of state, diplomatic and political stupidity proceeded apace in the forms of the Vietnam
War and Watergate scandal. In Vietnam, American policies and actions are now generally
recognized as having been quite stupid, but the whos, hows and whys remain as debatable as ever
and probably never will be completely clear. American involvement in Vietnam was a case of
compound stupidity, with ignored warnings interlaced with wishful groupthink. The escalation of the
mid-1960's was pursued in the face of strong warnings from practically everyone who was
concerned and powerless, but naturally, these were totally lost on those in positions of
irresponsibility. Again, we find conscientious statesmen ignoring both experts and everyone else
voicing concern over the military, political and moral consequences of deliberately planned idiocy.
Within the American political community, criticism could usually be stilled quite easily because no
one wanted to be the one responsible for losing Vietnam to Communism. The fact that it never was
ours to lose was one of those relevancies lost on nearly everyone.
Nevertheless, in the cause of retaining what it never had, the American government was determined
to be misled by misinterpreting events in Vietnam. The cause of the war was that Americans were
fighting Communism while the Vietnamese were fighting colonialism. From 1945 onward, we
consistently misconstrued all evidence of nationalism and the fervor for an independent Vietnam.
That is, we did not ignore facts so much as we failed to perceive them in their relevant context: We
insisted on misperceiving events in Vietnam in a global context of a Communist conspiracy to rule
the world.
This misperception was facilitated by the self-serving invention of labels to justify our sacrilegious,
self-defeating cause. The "Commitment" to the "Vital interest" of "National security" became a
positive feedback system which took on a life of its own as those in power came to believe in and be
prisoners of their own rhetoric. As it turned out, all the power committed in the name of "National
interest" to this self-generated disaster worked against us because America had no perceivable
interest in Vietnam at any time.
As leaders came to believe more and more in their own clichs about American policy toward
Vietnam in the late '60's, phoney, invalid optimism was replaced by genuine, invalid optimism.
Consequently, during the Johnson years, there was a decided amount of unrealistic planning due to
overambition and overoptimism in the White House. As always, the key to stupidity lay in the
discrepancy between what was believed and what was happening, and not only was the official
American schema out of synch with Vietnamese reality, but it was systematically programmed to
remain out of touch with events in Southeast Asia. Hence, these never fell within the scope of the
government's comprehension.
As the Vietnam debacle developed during this period, the Johnson administration turned inward,
consulting more and more with military experts to whom there was invariably only one solution to
any problemescalation. This escalation became a perfect example of a positive feedback
mechanism going to uncontrollable excess, as there was no mechanism within the government
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which could check policies accepted without reservation by those devoted to the incestuous
administration. However, the war was not accepted by citizens who found the more they questioned
and learned, the less they understood. A gnawing doubt became a growing awareness of the
fundamental absurdity of our involvement, and gradually the uneasy realization spread that the
Establishment was out of its mind. It was the country's good fortune that the insanity of its leaders
could be checked by the common sense of several million skeptics.
Leaders do not usually appreciate this built-in restriction on their power to wreck the system, and
Richard M. Nixon was one who became increasingly vexed as the descent of his administration to
new depths of political morality was made evident by the media and then finally halted by public
outrage and Congressional power. The irony of the Watergate fiasco was that Nixon ran on a "Law
and order" platform in 1968, but four years later, his campaign was characterized by burglary,
bribery, forgery, perjury and obstruction of justice. Even this litany of crimes would have come to
naught politically had executive sessions in the Oval Office not been taped and the tapes retained. It
was the combination of these incredibly stupid blunders with the crimes themselves which led to the
President's resignation.
As might be expected, groupthink played a major role in this debacle, and members of the White
House staff did indeed seem to share the over-optimism and sense of invulnerability common to
groupthinkers. As usual, when people are completely committed to their plan, cause and
themselves, warnings of impending disaster were ignored.
This failure to heed warnings was due to both the nature of the Nixonian schema and the tenacity
with which it was held by loyal staff members. The schema itself was basically one of
methodologyspecifically, that any creepy means could be employed to manipulate the image of the
hollow administration. This was the subconscious guide for strategy and behavior which was shared
by the Nixon staff and which led them to perceive the Watergate scandal as a public relations
problem. In doing so, they were at least consistent: They perceived everything as a public relations
problem.
The impact of this schema's limitations was compounded by the persistence of the President's staff
in adhering to it despite its obvious short-comings. At every stage of the Watergate morass, there
was a consistent failure of those involved to face irrefutable facts even when they were known to be
irrefutable. With all the signs indicating failure, loyal staff members carried on very much as usual
and so validated the signs.
As did political problems, social problems begged for sensible, reasonable solutions. For centuries,
members of racial minority groups were systematically denied opportunities offered to and enjoyed
by the white Establishment. The reality of their bad housing, inferior educational facilities and limited
possibilities for employment went unrecognized by a system set up to ignore such conditions.
Gradually, however, the clear injustice of this arrangement led to protests, marches, demonstrations
and riots which induced real adjustments in the direction of ideals espoused by liberalsas voices
incarnate of God, The Great Hermaphroditic Social Workerbut ignored by the mighty.
Generally, the prevailing social ideal of the contemporary American Establishment was that the poor
minority group member must be integrated into a completely homogenized society and would join
the majority if given the opportunity to do so. This provided the ideological basis for court decisions,
humanitarian activities, selective appeals to civil rights, preferential consideration in admission to
colleges and discriminatory alterations of qualifications for employment and promotion.
Unfortunately, the arrogant commitment of government to force this ideal upon the Land of the Free
led to a white backlash against the self-contradictory omega point of Affirmative Action programs
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best summed up in the unspoken slogans: "End racism! Hire Blacks!"; "End sexism! Hire women!"
The ideological imperative which demands integration is in turn based on Environmentalism as the
unstated, unofficial assumption of the liberal Establishment. A corollary is that education is the way
to improve society, despite all the failures and shortcomings of public school systems. When
necessary, variables other than race (i.e., broken homes, bad nutrition, etc.) have been and are
used to save the environmental/educational schema by serving as possible explanations for the
poor learning abilities of some minority groupsOrientals being the notable exception. (The
superiority of Orientals in academics suggests the possibility that race and/or a tightknit family
structure may be the key(s) to success, but liberals are clearly less disposed to consider the former
than the latter.)
This platonic insistence on theoretical support for a desired policy is actually a betrayal of the liberal
tradition, one of the original hallmarks of which was an examination of all aspects of an issue so as
to lead to the fairest, overall conclusion. However, on the topic of race, contemporary liberals are no
longer concerned with objective inquiry or a composite of subjective investigations. Worse yet, they
have elevated intellectual dishonesty to the status of moral virtue and often refuse even to consider
a discussion of the issue of race and behavior. Indeed, on some college campuses, freedom of
speech has been sacrificed to "Politically correct" orthodoxy. Discussion of many compelling
social/racial issues is thus restricted, unless it is based on the deconstructionist assumption that
there is no hierarchy of values and directed toward the relativist conclusion that all groups of people
are comparatively equal in abilities.
Such a discussion might begin with the simple fact that the lower classes breed more effectively
than the middle and upper classes. This is a good strategy for keeping the lower classes low, as
they must divide their meager resources among more people. However, it gives a genetic
advantage to carriers of cultural phenomena like illiteracy, ignorance and poverty, since the best
educated, well-to-do people willingly reduce their contribution to the gene pool of each succeeding
generation in order to maintain their position of cultural superiority. Of course, the idea of employing
birth control as a means of promoting cultural equality is lost on those who perceive reduced
reproduction as a genetic plot to suppress racial minorities, while any form of eugenicseven a
policy which would forbid reproduction by certified morons or the criminally insaneis unthinkable.
Although some may think that education could be the salvation of the disenfranchised, in this
regard, blacks in New York City certainly do not have much to look forward to from or in the
Establishment. As Dr. Donna Shalala, President of Hunter College pointed out, the New York public
schools had a dropout rate of 42% in 1984, with relatively few blacks graduating and being
integrated into the system. Thus, many are becoming alienated and learning to live in what will
amount to a foreign country in their own land. As might have been expected, New York City officials
treated Dr. Shalala as a traitor to the cause of education for pointing out that the cause was failing,
which it obviously was.
The factors contributing to this failure of the urban educational system are, of course, legion. The
school facilities in the inner cities are usually old and decrepit. Teacher turnover is unusually high,
with few teachers staying in such schools for more than five years and some children having as
many as four teachers a year. Community support is minimal and distractions maximal. The net
result is that those who need more help are getting less and leave school, sooner or later,
inadequately prepared to find decent employment or continue their education.
The fact of life in inner city schools is that truancy is excessive, with teachers being privately
relieved when problem students are absent. In their early teens, children begin leaving school to join
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the ranks of the unemployed and eke out a living on odd jobs and crime. They have not yet been
organized into any large scale criminal or political movement, but if they ever are, the failure of
public education will become so obvious as to be undeniable even by those responsible for it.
Whether this ever happens or not, we remain in danger of losing a generation of young urbanites
largely because they have no formal education. They have no intellectual skills, no guidance, and,
worst of all, no hope. They know no one who has managed to get out of the inner city, and if they
have learned anything in school, it is that they cannot make it in the systema frustrating awareness
that contributed to the hostility to established authorities manifested in the urban riots of the 1960's.
If they are motivated to do anything, it is to get up and out any way they can, which in too many
cases leads them to reform schools, psychiatric clinics and prisons.
Within the system, the problem of measuring learning ability has always been one of testing and,
more specifically, one of developing an unbiased test. Generally, what might be referred to as the
standard IQ test was soundly criticized as a middle class device for intellectual discrimination
against minority groups that do not do well on them. This criticism formed the basis for a court
decision in 1980 which declared it unconstitutional to use intelligence tests to place black children in
classes for the retarded. The ruling stated: "An unbiased test that measures ability or potential
should yield the same pattern of scores when administered to different groups of people." And it
would, if ability were indeed equally distributed among different groups, but that is just an
assumption and, given the unequal distribution of educational resources, hardly a likely reality. If a
test provides results which contradict this assumption, that is no reason to throw out the test but
rather is a reason to check both the test and the assumption.
In a similar vein, the inability of minority group members to match up to even their own "Special"
standards is sometimes strikingly displayed to the embarrassment of all. Such was the case in New
York City in September, 1984, when only 1.6% of black candidates passed a police sergeant's
exam which had been specifically designed to favor minorities. The explanation for the poor
showing on the exam was that, in its effort to find or create sergeants among minority groups, the
department apparently allowed many totally unqualified candidates to take the test. This rigged
commitment to integration thus ended up with everyone getting a black eyeofficials, who were so
obviously willing to sacrifice quality on the procrustean bed of equality, and black patrolmen, who
performed so badly on a test doctored to make them look good.
Perhaps because government officials think they can decree by fiat that test results and promotional
procedures must confirm the liberal ideal that all groups are created equal in ability, society is failing
to provide minority group members with the skills they need to compete on an even footing with
everyone else. The tragedy is that if America is unwilling to pay the immediate price for improving
public education, everyone will pay eventually, directly or indirectly. For those denied a decent
education, it means wasted lives; for society in general, it means an increase in crime and an
increased burden on social services. Those who think they are immune to these problems are
deceiving themselves about being above and beyond their economic costs of $1 billion a year for
crime prevention programs, police protection and prisons. Likewise, others are deceiving
themselves in thinking equality in the market place is a birth right.
It is noteworthy that the ideologies of many groups of economically disenfranchised Americans do
not represent efforts on their part to understand their condition cognitively so much as to cope with it
emotionally, and they range from theories of black supremacy to perversions of civilrights. In this
latter context, one of the more popular cliches is "Minority rights" (i.e., black rights, women's rights,
etc.), which implies that members of minority groups have legal rights others do not andcontrary to
a ruling by the Supreme Courtare not just mere citizens but special favorites of the law. In fact,
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"Civil rights" has come to mean "Integration", and if this end is laudable and desirable, the means of
requiring racial and sexual discrimination to attain it is not, even according to the professed
standards and values espoused by liberals. However, as long as the government tries to impose
equality upon society by accepting mere competence as a substitute for excellence, everyone but
the minimally competent will lose as institutions become less efficient.
While struggles in the fields of politics and social relations dominated the postwar consciousness,
there gradually grew in the background an awareness of the ominous strain the burgeoning human
population was putting on the world's limited resources. Earth Days notwithstanding, this awareness
remains largely the property of environmentalists while political power remains in the hands of
industrialists who are willing victims of the neurotic paradox. In the pursuit of immediate profits, they
are dedicated to the irresponsible exploitation of nature's resources and seem determined to top all
the stupidity of all ages past combined with a grandiose display of pollution and destruction of the
natural world that supports them. To this end, they have thus far succeeded in keeping the
government officials who should be monitoring their activities happily mired down in their own
restrictive rules and regulations.
With industry dedicated to the immediate ravaging of the environment, some kind of international
birth control policy limiting the quantity of human life must be implemented globally if any kind of
quality of life is to be sustained over the long haul. For what it is worth, which is not much, the
position of the Catholic Church on the population problem is consistent with the idea that the miracle
of the loaves and fishes can be repeated endlessly. For skeptics, another strategy is very much in
order but not much in evidence.
One strategy that has to go is the obsolete growth/development syndrome. With its resources
apparently stretched to the limit, the earth simply cannot sustain continued growth of the human
population, particularly if it is bent on wrecking its support system. However, a new philosophy of
self-limitations is going to be difficult to formulate, could not be imposed on an unenlightened public
and will probably be accepted only after we finally become ashamed of how much enduring misery
we can cause and the world can maintain.
The greatest stupidity of all is that we have made our own plight difficult and are making it
impossible with overpopulation, pollution and theintense exploitation of nonrenewable resources.
There are some encouraging signs that these problems are finally being recognized as such by
people in positions of power, although too little is being done about them. Thus, a moderately stupid
person still has an advantage in coping with this world over one who tries to understand it logically,
as it is a world of compromises, tradeoffs and shabby political charades pulled off by self-seeking
hacks using ideas and abusing ideals to suit their seedy needs and sordid purposes. The surprise is
not that it does not make any sense but that anyone ever believed it could.
Incredibly, there are still some who try to make some sense out of it. These must be very stupid
indeed! Philosophers have generally given up and now amuse themselves with theories of sets and
games of mathematical analysis. Intellectually, the torch has been passed to the scientists, who
assure us they cannot be sure of anything. Nevertheless, they have propelled us into space and, by
splitting the atom, converted a little bit of matter into a great deal of anxiety. As impressive as these
technological triumphs are, they intensify but do not clarify our relationship to nature.
Although we have been focusing on the nebulous field of human relations in this century, our
technological expertise deserves a final examination because we need to be continually reminded
of the dangers inherent in our determined efforts to impose ourselves upon "Our" environment.
Presently, the danger is unclear and obscure because, although the Industrial Revolution changed
143

our historic belief in belief to a belief in knowledge, we really do not know what we are doing. For all
our power, we have a feeling of helplessnessas if we are culturally muscle-bound. Surrounded as
we are by our increasingly powerful machines and contraptions, we have lost the feeling of security,
assurance and self-confidence which historically was part of small town life. Thus, for all our ability
to do things, and although the potentials we create for disasters demand that we be inhumanly
perfect, we remain rather uncertain as to just what it is we should be doing or how to go about it.
If there is one thing about which we are sure, it is that we should extend human stupidity into space,
and despite the long public record of successes of the American space program, the tragedy of the
space shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986 revealed the arrogance of those who
believe not so much in knowledge as in bare technology. The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's program for controlling development of the space shuttle was euphemistically
entitled, "Success Oriented Management", and the basic assumption underlying this management
technique was that everything would work unless someone proved otherwise, which in turn meant
that everything was designed to cost and prayer. It was bad enough that this system led to
whole-scale deferralsof work, embarrassing accidents, expensive redesigns and erratic staffing, but
worst of all, it lead to the illusion that everything was running A-OK. The net result was an absence
of realistic planning, inadequate understanding of problems and an accumulation of invisible
efficiency deficits and visible scheduling difficulties. Sad to say, all these criticisms were made
publicly more than six years before the Challenger destroyed itself, NASA's invincibility complex
and the fantasy that those in charge knew what they were doing.
Actually, the mechanics of the decision to launch the Challenger provide a prime case study in
administrative stupidity. The basic arrangement was that each contractor had to disapprove its own
product and show NASA authorities why it disapproved, although company executives were
understandably reluctant to admit their hardware was suspect or dysfunctional if it were possible to
find some way to avoid doing so. Further, in this particular instance, the shuttle had already been
delayed the two previous days for other reasons, so NASA officials were strongly committed to
getting it off the pad so as to polish their slightly tarnished public image and keep the whole program
on schedule. Everyone connected with the launch knew this and knew they were expected to fall
into line, meaning no one was to hold up proceedings unless absolutely necessary.
The fact that a freak cold snap sent temperatures plummeting well below freezing the morning of
the launch certainly was not considered a deterrent by those in charge. The only hitch in the launch
system came from the Morton Thiokol engineers who were responsible for the rubber seals
(O-rings) which covered the joints between the segments of the rocket boosters. They were
uncertain how these seals would function at low temperatures because they had never been tested
under those conditions.
The astronauts were doomed when Morton Thiokol management caucused with the engineers and
overrode their reservations. Certainly, it would look bad for the company if it were responsible for
further delay. Its contracts were up for renewal soon, so executives were determined to avoid any
kind of immediate, guaranteed, real embarrassment and took the chance that the launch would not
bring even worse consequences. Apparently, the probability of a total disaster did not enter their
minds despite the strenuous objections of the project engineers who continued, to no avail, to
protest management's decision to go.
For company executives, the world had become one industrial politics, forms and rubber stamps,
and their assumption was that the seals would probably function properly if someone granted the
needed approval on paper. Thus, in the meeting between management and technicians, unfounded
belief dominated the deliberations, as there really were no data upon which to base the decision at
144

hand. In the face of their own ignorance,company officials should have said, "We don't know. Don't
go!" However, management's wishful, groundless assumption that the seals would function under
the existent conditions prevailed, the Vice President in Charge of Disasters signed a
recommendation for launch, and the Challenger took on the status of a very expensive test
caseunfortunately, a test it failed.
Not only have we extended our technological arrogance to the reaches of outer space, but we have
also applied it to the tiny atom, and the idiotic overkill of the Arms Race aside, the peaceful use of
the atom should concern anyone who hopes for any future at all much less a safe one. Sad to say,
even the 98% success rate of the Space Shuttle program would be considered disastrous in the
nuclear power industry. Worse yet, those committed to the cause of nuclear power are so convinced
of its safety that even the monumental proportions of the disaster following the meltdown at
Chernobyl in Russia on April 26, 1986, failed to convince them that the industry in and of itself
poses a danger to the public. That accident was simply dismissed as one that could not happen in
reactors of different design, but if it couldn't, one just as bad or worse certainly could.
If all who point their fingers at everyone else are right, the accident occurred because of design
flaws, faulty equipment and lax management. Despite all the official regulations, there were planned
safety violations, inept supervision and departures from plant operating rules in efforts to gain more
electricity from the generators. In fact, nothing serves better to illustrate the problems of people
interacting or failing to interact with their own technology, and the overwhelming lesson must be that
unlikely events with very serious consequences can become tragic realities. The Russians could
have learned this from the Challenger or even the Titanic, but apparently this is a lesson people
are ill-disposed to learn, so each industry and generation has to learn it for itself the hard way.
Although those who run our high tech culture are supposed to be alert and generally on the ball,
they refuse to recognize that all the safety designs and official regulations in the world will not
eliminate the incalculable factor of stupid errors as long as people remain human.
Thus, the public can hardly derive any assurance from the sanctimonious pronouncements of
industry spokespeople that nuclear power is safe. In the words of one official, "The odds of a
meltdown are one in 10,000 years. The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected
from any breakdown with three safety lines, which operate independently without duplicating one
another...The environment is securely protected, as hermetically sealed buildings with closed cycles
for technological processes...preclude any discharge into the external environment." Are you
reassured? You might beuntil you learn this statement was made by VitaliSklyarov, Minister of
Power and Electrification of the Ukraine and appeared in Soviet Life in February, 1986, just two
months before the disaster at Chernobyl.
In the same article, Nikolai Fomin, the chief engineer at the Chernobyl plant, expressed his belief
that both man and nature were completely safe. According to him, the huge reactor was housed in a
concrete silo and had environmental protection systems, an emergency core cooling system and
many other technological safety features. Even if the incredible should happen, the automatic
control and safety systems would shut down the reactor in a matter of seconds, and probably they
would have, had the operator not dismantled the automatic shutdown system and shut down the
emergency cooling system in order to run an unauthorized test.
In the United States, the basic problem with the attitude of the proponents of atomic power is
revealed by the standards they use to judge the potential effects a disaster at a nuclear power plant
might have. When considering insurance coverage, industry officials concede that were a meltdown
to occur, it would be so bad that any insurance companies covering it would be wiped out so a limit
of $7.1 billion on liability was established by law. However, when considering public safety, the
145

same officials assure everyone that a meltdown is so improbable that no one need worry about it.
Would it not be more convincing if such spokespeople were consistent and stuck to one position on
both issues? Certainly if a meltdown would be so severe that ensuing claims would wipe out
insurance companies, it would have devastated surrounding communities. On the other hand, if
such an eventuality is so improbable that the public can be forced to risk it, so could insurance
companies. All atomic officials demonstrate by their double standard is that they think more of
insurance company money than they do of human life. SURPRISE!
Thus, we have come full circle in the story of twentieth century stupidity, as the nuclear power
industry is dominated by an attitude which may be fairly characterized as the "Titanic mentality".
Whereas those who built the Titanic believed it could not sink, we all know there could be a
meltdown of any nuclear reactor. Still, those who believe the risk to the public is acceptable for the
sake of profit to themselves and their cronies arrogantly continue pushing nuclear power while
mouthing soothing platitudes about nuclear safety.
*
Technologically, the twentieth century has just been an extension and intensification of the
nineteenth in that we are still in the Industrial Revolution. Likewise, a case can be made for the fact
that contemporary arrogance is simply an accentuation of tendencies already obviously present in
ages past. Still, the overwhelming material success of the West in our century seems to justify our
characteristic, overbearing confidence that we can do anything except maybe get along with one
another.
The lesson of the twentieth century is that science and technology will not save us from ourselves.
Nor will we be saved by spiritual superstitions and religions. If there is to be salvation, it will come
from a soul searching appreciation of the pitfalls of our subjective nature and be based on universal
human rights and a respect for the natural environment.
The danger we face is that short-term technological development will continue to enrich society
without being balanced by a long-term commitment to the arts and humanities. We will be able to do
more and more better and better while forgetting why. If we cannot share our cultural advances and
advantages with everyone, we will just be making trouble for ourselves. Our focus must be on the
total human environment for the simple reason that if we insist on evaluating everything simply in
terms of immediate technological ability and monetary worth, we will fashion for ourselves only a
very efficient and expensive permanent demise.
It is understandable that people want to feel competent and that Westerners feel technology makes
them superior. However, the commitment of the West to make the world safe for computers has
meant that some problems in human relations have been neglected and others created precisely
because our pride in our technological expertise makes us stupidly callous to such issues. We
cannot admit that machinery will not solve labor disputes nor reduce racial tension, nor that teaching
machines do not educate, nor that birth control devices do not control the growth of populations.
While technology has made the world better in some ways and may make it better in many others,
we are left confronting ourselves and the fact that we do not understand how to work with one
another to the advantage of all, and no computer can teach us how to do that.
Basically, people want to feel in control of their lives, and although the twentieth century has seen
incredible advances in the development of means to control nature, we do not seem to be able to
control ourselves. This is primarily because our beliefs and biases continue to shape our own
particular brand of the universal cultural blind spot which is located where "Understanding" should
146

be. One can only hope that we can learn to live with our technical expertise and each other so that,
some years from now, there will be someoneperhaps youto write a short, amusing article about
stupidity in the twenty-first century.
147

Epilogue
The overwhelming conclusion of this work must be that people are human. This profound insight is
based not only on the fact that we err but that we do so stupidly because our schemas define the
way we perceive and interact with our environment while interfering with the way we learn about it
and ourselves. At best, stupidity is a necessary evil since we do need guiding schemas to help us
order our lives, even if these systems of thought come to shape and dominate our conscious world
by structuring our perceptions, values and beliefs.
This review of the history of stupidity indicates that perhaps we overrated words as defining
elements of schemas. For example, Galileo was entranced by neither the Italian nor Latin word for
"Circle" but by the image of the circle as the perfect form. Thus, while words may shape our beliefs
and thoughts to some extent, they may also be simply masking labels we attach to images and
ideas we already hold. In a more general sense, language does not seem to dictate our behavior
directly as much as it shapes it indirectly by the way we evaluate, think and talk about it.
More important, this work indicates how our sense of morality interacts with our propensity for
learning. One of the human universals is a standard for judging what we do and what we learn. The
specific standards vary, of course, from culture to culture, but every group and every individual has
some subjective standard for making such judgments. In the absence of knowledge of absolute
ultimates, Western culture uses its material success as the measure of all things. However, even in
the context of materialism, it is time we recognize the long-term negative impact our technological
self-centeredness imposes on the environment as we pursue our own short-term interests and
goals. Likewise, we must recognize the nationalistic self-centeredness which inhibits our perception
of ourselves as part of a global community.
If there is a sign of hope, it must be that the West permits people to question as well as to do. This
combination makes our civilization potentially self-corrective, as it promotes learning and makes us
at least theoretically capable of adapting not only to nature in general but to our own subjective
nature as well. Further, it invites us to adapt our moral code to what we learn.
Ultimately, the intellectual/moral imperative is for less imposition and more balance. We should not
be imposing ourselves on the world or our values on each other. Rather, we should be balancing
our need for myths, quest for moral order and desire for material achievement with the necessity of
learning history's overwhelming lesson: We must live together. To fail to do so would be very
stupid indeed.
By the way, if you think this a trite way to end this book, take another look at the subtitle on the
cover.
148

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156

Index
Akhenaton 13, 17
Alcibiades 35, 211
Alexander The Great 12, 26, 27, 40, 41, 43, 116, 119, 128, 130, 212
Alexandria 41-43, 205
Anabaptists 143
Anaxagoras 27, 33, 34
Archimedes 42, 46, 65
Aristarchus 43
Aristotle 26, 29, 31, 36, 39, 40, 44, 46, 67, 87, 105, 107, 156-158, 160, 163, 165, 168, 213
arms race 11, 248
Aryans 12
astronomy 29, 30, 42, 43, 67, 107, 152, 159, 162164
Athens 27, 28, 30, 33-35, 37, 38, 44-46, 50, 63
attitudes 2, 25, 41, 51, 61, 88, 102, 127, 135
Augustus (Octavian) 56, 64, 65, 68
Aurelius, Marcus 56, 57, 68
Babylon 14-17, 30, 40, 53
Bacon, Francis 157, 158
Bacon, Roger 88, 94
Bay of Pigs 4
Berkeley, George 181, 182
bias 3, 8, 15, 54, 189, 216, 237
Bible 26, 101, 111, 120, 121, 126, 132-135, 140, 144, 145, 147, 148, 154, 163, 164, 214
birds 6-8
birth control 8, 190(fn), 243, 245, 250
157

Bismarck, Otto von 220, 223, 224
Brahe, Tycho 160
Buddhism 19
bureaucracy 5, 21, 56, 58, 63, 222
businessmen 2, 51, 90, 135-137, 234
Calvin, John 126, 132, 135-138, 144, 145, 159
capitalism 2, 82, 126, 135-137, 144146, 158, 173, 200, 215, 217, 233, 234
Carthage 51-53, 64
Categorizing 2
Cato 52
Challenger 246-248
Charlemagne 80, 81
Charles V 116, 117, 121, 138, 142, 170
Cheops 17
Chernobyl 248, 249
chimpanzees 8
China 14, 20, 21, 53, 109-111, 121, 204
chivalry 80, 102, 185
Christ, Jesus 2, 21, 59-62, 77, 81, 82, 84-86, 91, 92, 94-96, 102, 112, 113, 126, 127, 145, 213, 214
Christianity 19, 20, 43, 59-63, 66, 69, 76-81, 83-87, 89, 91, 92, 102, 104, 105, 109-111, 115, 119,
126, 132, 133, 135, 138, 145, 146, 148, 170, 178, 179, 196, 200, 213
city-states 12, 13, 25, 27, 28, 43, 45, 46, 113, 114, 117, 118
civil rights 194, 242, 245
cognitive dissonance 4, 140
cohesion 3, 9
Columbus 106, 109
158

competition 2, 3, 9, 113, 215, 233
conflict 2, 9, 12, 55, 76, 82, 88, 90, 91, 95, 102, 103, 109, 118, 119, 171, 211, 217, 221
Confucius 21
Constantine 62, 69, 81
control 6, 8, 11, 67, 82, 83, 88, 93, 113, 116, 127, 135, 138, 143, 144, 186, 191, 193, 204, 215, 221,
225, 229, 233-235, 243, 245, 249, 250
cooperation 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 186, 215
Copernicus 46, 107, 159-161, 163, 167
Council of Trent 139, 140
Counter-Reformation 126, 132, 138, 140, 141, 162
crusaders 2, 44, 84, 85, 91, 220
Crusades 83-87, 128
Darwinism 208, 214, 215
deduction 28, 157, 211
democracy 20, 25, 27, 28, 37, 89, 143, 144, 173, 188, 194, 200, 210, 211, 215, 216, 222
Descartes, Rene 140, 154-156, 213
Diocletian 50
discrimination 244, 245
Egypt 13, 16-18, 30, 40, 59, 102, 121, 199
England 28, 66, 89, 95, 109, 117, 130, 137, 141, 143, 144, 156, 164, 169-173, 191, 192, 193, 199,
205, 216, 220, 222, 231, 232, 236, 237
Epicureanism 25
Erasmus 105, 106, 111, 131, 147
Euclid 42
evolution 6, 8, 9, 39, 45, 213-215, 221, 222
failures 2, 80, 138, 232, 242
fantasy 6, 38, 63, 79, 93, 224, 247
159

Galen 67, 107, 108, 165-168
Galileo 161-163, 168, 173
geometry 25, 29, 42, 160
Germany 27, 59, 85, 143, 170, 173, 219, 223, 224, 230-232, 236-238
Gibbon 140, 196
Greece 12, 25-29, 31, 35, 36, 39,40, 44, 45, 65, 71, 102
Gregory the Great 76, 85
Gregory VII (Hildebrand) 82, 83
Hammurabi 14-16
Hapsburgs 116, 170
Harvey, William 167, 168
Hegel, Georg 121, 188, 211-213, 217, 218
Henry VIII 141-143
heresy 3, 27, 86, 94, 95, 131, 138- 142, 152
Herodotus 26, 27, 40, 45
Hindus 18-20
Hitler 120, 224, 236-238
Holy Roman Empire 116, 126, 141, 172
humanism 35, 39, 100, 102
humanists 42, 100, 104-107, 131
Hume, David 140, 181-184
ideology 1, 4, 10, 63, 76-79, 86, 95, 96, 102, 179
illusions 3, 120, 190, 210, 231
image 1, 4, 44, 79, 81, 82, 103, 143, 171, 172, 199, 224, 232, 241, 247
imagination 6, 8, 39, 53, 64, 67, 88
Index of Prohibited Books 139, 140
160

induction 28, 130, 157, 182
information 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 21, 43, 54, 67, 103, 109, 112, 113, 119, 140, 183, 208, 226
Innocent III 83, 91, 95, 133
insects 6, 7, 168
integration 242, 244, 245
Ionia 29-31, 34, 46
Japanese 238, 239
Jefferson, Thomas 193, 194
Jews 59-61, 85, 137, 139, 213
judgments 4, 8, 88, 105
Kepler, Johannes 160163
Ku Klux Klan 232, 234
language 2, 3, 8, 10, 18, 27, 87
learning 1, 5-7, 9, 10, 29, 31, 34, 36, 44, 63, 71, 77, 78, 88, 94, 96, 100, 102, 104, 105, 108, 147,
162, 163, 165, 168, 169, 174, 189, 210, 212, 214, 221, 223, 224, 242, 243
Leo X 115, 128, 132, 159
Leonardo 103, 104, 107-109, 213
Linnaeus, Carolus 180, 181
Locke, John 140, 154, 156, 157, 173, 181, 184, 188
long-term 5, 18, 50, 58, 66, 80, 87, 93, 129, 140, 199, 218
Luther, Martin 12, 115, 126-128, 130, 132-136, 138, 139, 142, 144, 145, 147, 159, 165,
Macedonian 26, 40, 41, 122
Machiavelli, Nicolo 112, 113, 119- 122, 128, 142, 210
Malpighi, Marcello 168, 169
Marx, Karl 212, 216- 218, 236
Mesopotamia 12, 13
161

Michelangelo 103, 104, 128
mindguards 4, 92
misinterpreted 4, 5
misperceptions 6
morality 4, 21, 30, 32, 35, 37, 52, 53, 57, 76, 77, 81, 83, 90, 94, 100, 103, 119, 120, 122, 130, 136,
144, 174, 185-188, 200, 213, 214, 218, 241
More, Sir Thomas 105, 106, 122, 130
Napoleon Bonaparte 22, 178, 197-199, 204, 210, 211, 218, 219 Charles Louis (Napoleon)
Bonaparte 219, 220, 224
nationalism 13, 89, 115, 116, 121, 126, 141-145, 169, 209, 212, 217, 219-221, 223, 224, 240
Nazis 236, 238
neurotic paradox 1, 5, 58, 83, 129, 186, 235, 236, 245
Newton, Sir Isaac 9, 154, 157, 159, 163-165, 178, 180, 190
Nietzsche, Friedrich 209-211
norms 1, 3, 13
objectivity 2
Paracelsus 165, 166
Parmenides 31, 33, 155
patesi 12, 13
Peace of Augsburg 143
Peloponnesian War 28, 35, 37
perception 2, 7, 21, 28, 38, 50, 54, 64, 157, 181, 182
Pericles 27, 34
philosophes 179, 186
pigeons 8
Plato 26, 28, 29, 31, 33-39, 42, 43, 45, 57, 63, 87, 105-107, 167, 216
polis 25, 28
162

positive feedback 1, 5, 9, 28, 56, 65, 138, 153, 221, 222, 240
Ptolemaic system 30, 43, 161
Ptolemy (the astronomer) 107
Ptolemy I 42
Punic Wars 51, 52
Puritans 137, 143
Pythagoras 29, 31-34, 43, 45, 46, 155
Pythagoreans 31, 32
rationalism 33, 45, 153, 178, 181, 184, 186, 189, 208, 209, 213, 223
reference group 3
rights 51, 89, 112, 117, 118, 146, 171, 173, 181, 188, 193, 194, 197, 200, 219, 226, 242, 245, 250
Robespierre, Maximilien 197, 198
romanticism 184, 186, 189, 208-210
romantics 179, 185, 189, 209
Rousseau, Jean Jacques 20, 185-188, 211
Royal Society 189, 190
Russia 27, 169, 170, 199, 218, 224, 236-238, 248
Savonarola, Girolamo 106, 130, 131
schema 1, 4-6, 10, 19, 21, 28, 38, 40, 43, 46, 59, 75-77, 87, 89, 92, 96, 100, 102, 108, 120, 129,
132, 133, 135, 137, 141, 144, 146, 158, 167, 178, 183, 187, 204, 212, 217, 218, 225, 233, 234, 238,
240-242
Scholastics 86-90, 93, 94, 105, 158, 160, 182
Schopenhauer, Arthur 209-211
self-confidence 5, 246
self-deception 5, 8
self-image 1, 103
Semites 12
163

short-term 5, 7, 18, 87, 100, 117, 146, 195, 234
Skinner, B. F. 8
slavery 13, 26, 29, 44, 45, 57, 61, 62, 65, 89, 171, 187, 218, 225
socialism 208, 217, 218, 234
socialization 3, 9
Socrates 31, 35-37, 39, 46
Spain 89, 109, 110, 114, 116, 139, 171, 199, 218
Sparta 27, 28, 35, 37, 38, 44
St. Augustine 63, 132, 135
St. Bernard 86
St. Dominic 89, 91
St. Francis of Assisi 93-95
St. Ignatius of Loyola 139
St. Paul 59, 61, 213
St. Thomas Aquinas 87, 89, 90
Stalin 237
steamboat 205
sStoicism 25, 57
Sumerians 12, 13, 17
Supreme Court 234, 245
Thales 31
Titanic 229, 230, 248, 249
Turks 18, 19, 84, 109, 115, 142
Urukagina 12, 13
Vesalius 107, 166
Vietnam 239, 240
164

virtue 27, 35-37, 43, 51, 53, 54, 75, 79, 91, 94, 104, 119, 167, 186, 187, 196, 199, 210, 214, 226,
242
Voltaire 81, 187, 195
warnings 4, 236-239, 241
Watergate 112, 239, 241
William of Occam 88, 89, 94
witch hunts 153, 173
World War I 4, 230
World War II 18, 235
165

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The Story of Stupidity

THE STORY OF STUPIDITY

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

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The Story of Stupidity

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The Story of Stupidity

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The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity

The Story of Stupidity