No, this is not some right wing political rant about the socialization of America and the loss of freedom. Rather, it is a fascinating lecture (via Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek) by a British historian on the discontinuity between modern existence and Western civilization. (As an interesting aside, he states that the idea of "Western civilization" is a fairly recent narrative of our place in history. Before the mid-1800's most Westerners considered themselves part of Christendom, not Western civilization.) Two of the major drivers of discontinuity he discusses are as follows:
1. A dramatic change in the "material conditions of existence" including an increase in population size and density as well as an increase in the standard of living. For example, he claims that the poor among us live better than ancient kings.
2. A change in the collective psychological worldview. For example, a shift to critical rationalism away from a worldview where it was theoretically, although not practically, possible to know all there was to know. Also, a shift where religion changed from a set of practices to a set of propositions that are believed.
This lecture is some seriously good brain candy. It is an intellectual's version of the monthly lecture my sixth grade teacher Mr. Wilson would give about how knowledge has exploded since over the last few centuries.
Update: The third source of discontinuity is the difference in cultural symbols between Christendom and modern society. Most of us, unless we've made an active study of it, would miss many of the allusions in Shakespeare. Also, we are likely to miss many biblical allusions. Just as an example, I was reading out of Samuel for the Sunday School lesson this week and discovered the phrase "God Save the King" in reference to Saul's selection as king of Israel. Or as a more basic illustration, Dr. Davies (the historian) mentions that about half of his students in a class weren't familiar with Adam and Eve.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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I like that he specifically differentiates "professional historians" from Victor Davis Hansen.
ReplyDeleteOuch! I didn't catch that. Not a VDH fan, eh?
ReplyDeleteActually, he's not bad. I'm just a fan of subtle, high-brow snark.
ReplyDeleteAlso, he almost certainly didn't consciously say that VDH isn't a professional historian, it's just that it could be construed that way.
Now, after watching the whole thing (which was a better way to spend my lunch hour than playing Google Pacman), I wonder exactly where Davies thinks the caloric requirements for 10 billion people are going to come from if there's no agriculture.
I got the bit about growing cloned meat, but that tech is a loooooong way from feasibility, let alone scalability to a point where it supplants raising livestock.
It was only a minor point in his lecture, but I had a hard time with it. Overcoming the laws of conservation of energy and mass is a pretty big hurdle and I need more than a little bit of hand waving before I see how it could even be possible.
Oh, and on your comment, sometimes, with the King James Version, it's possible to confuse Biblical wording with 17th century English wording. I'm not saying that "God save the king" isn't "Biblical", but it could just as easily be "English".
Good points all around. Yes, I thought the post-agriculture speculation was a little out there as well.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean on the KJV comment. So do you think that may have been an English phrase that was already in use and fit the translation so they stuck it in? I suppose we'd have to look at some Hebrew if we wanted to get to the bottom of it.
One more thought. The latest middle-of-the-road demographic predictions I've seen have world population peaking at just over 9 billion by 2080 followed by a slow decline. However, because a lot of that population will want to consume increasing amounts of meat as the global standard of living raises the caloric demand will definitely continue to climb.
ReplyDelete>So do you think that may have been an English phrase that was already
ReplyDelete>in use and fit the translation so they stuck it in? I suppose we'd
>have to look at some Hebrew if we wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going for.
>One more thought. The latest middle-of-the-road demographic
>predictions I've seen have world population peaking at just over 9
>billion by 2080 followed by a slow decline. However, because a lot
>of that population will want to consume increasing amounts of meat
>as the global standard of living raises the caloric demand will
>definitely continue to climb.
This is the issue I always see included in articles about the petri dish-grown meat.