When Did the ME Go Wrong?

[Sheilbh]

Since this didn't happen, I'm not sure why you bring it up.

Especially as it's even an inaccurate depiction of the Church which saved much of Europe's intellectual life in the period and was to foster the climate that led directly to the renaissance.  It wasn't conservative and anti-intellectual.  It horded knowledge, but sought it, and was far less anti-intellectual than the illiterate lords that ruled much of Europe.

I'd also say that religion is I think over-emphasised.  A large intellectual problem for Europe was that we inherited, from the Greeks, a rational but not a scientific tradition.  It was based on geometry and maths rather than empirical observation, I think the reverence Classical civilisation was held in was as much an ideological restraint as Christian belief.

[Queequeg]

That is eschatological time - not "progress" as we understand it.

Religion cannot be a component of our conception of time?  But surely the Protestant-Reformed notion of movement towards the Second Coming had something to do with the modern notion of progress?  The two world views seem to be remarkably similar in some regards.

The Greeks and Romans both believed in cyclical time, or alternatively in degeneration from a past, semi-mythical "golden age".  The Roman Republican senators treasured stability.  Their territorial expansion was aggressive but it was sporadic, responsive, and ideologically it was driven by the belief that it was needed to protect the core.  There was no grand master plan of expansionary conquest.

The Senatorial class wouldn't, but wouldn't Caesar and some of the Optimates have held something different?  Caesar, with his aspirations of conquering Persia and the Steppe, probably saw Rome bringing progress to the world in a way not entirely dissimilar from the European powers of the Colonial period.  While the initial expansion was haphazard and driven by the need for slaves or security, by the time of the conquest of Gaul I think Rome was expanding as much for traditional colonial reasons as anything.

[The Minsky Moment]

Two things:  First off you underestimate the complexity of the agrarian worker in the pre-modern world. 

I don't think so - put the modern farmer in the pre-modern world and he or she would also have a hard time of it.  I don't question the complexity - the argument is that the nature of that complexity didn't change that much over time.

Second you are mixing two separate occupations.  The pre-modern French peasant's modern equivalent would be a laborer at an agro-business not the proprietor of a modest sized farm.  If we plop him from his peasant work to a modern equivalent he'd do okay.  The proprietor fellow is the equivalent of a schenchel or manor lord and he does have to worry about management techniques, transport, export, etc.

First of all, some peasants cultivated respectable size plots.  Second, even very small farmholders in modern times (say a small vineyard or berry farm) face many of the issues I just described.  For example many 21st century Burgundian wine growers are working highly fractionated plots -- their peasant great-great-great-grandparents actually worked much larger plots.  The nature of the work however has changed beyond recognition in many respects.

[Oexmelin]

Sure I am, but it is hard to create a meaningful discussion out of questions like "why is this progress?".
If you have a definition you wish to offer, please do so.

Matters of perspective: I am trying to get you to define what you seek to measure by looking at the past and finding hints of progress. I am trying to get you to define the standards which you seem to ascribe to progress as opposed to either «change» (i.e.: an increase in population) or «domination» (i.e., The West imposing its will upon the.Rest of the World)  If you think this is meaningless and worthless, I'll not waste your time nor mine.

I don't have a good definition of progress. It is not a word I appreciate much, because it raises -- to me, at least -- many more questions than it helps answer. I usually prefer «modernity», precisely because it encompasses a number of processes that I recognize as part of my world, and different from that which came before: disenchantment of the World and the removal of God, perfectibility of men, the division between the Natural and the Social, the invention of the great conceptual solvents of State, Society, Market, Self... This, to me, has the advantage of including both the Enlightenment and its notion of progress (walking towards an undefined Light) and its critiques. It also puts the emphasis on its «presentist» quality.

[Malthus]

That's just it - in looking at the past, *we* are truly aliens from another planet.  Part of what is making you so flabbergasted I think is that you are being confronted with a past that is alien to our mindset and experience.  To foist our own mindset and analytical apparatus onto this alien world is to misunderstand it on a fundamental level. 

I disagree. We are often in a better position to understand what is happening in the past than the people actually living through it.

To many living through the Black Death, it would appear a truly apocalyptic event, the actual end of the world. We know this was not literally true.

Similarly, people in the past may have believed in past Golden Ages - but we know this is mostly romantic legend. People in the Renaissance may believe that they were only recapturing abilities well known to the ancients - we know they were surpassing them.

Looking at relative technological levels as an alien (modern) my answer would be that that I see some technological progress up to the classical period which then slows down considerably.  There are some incremental improvements - but nothing revolutionary - and considerable amount of older theoretical and applied knowledge appears to have been lost.  I would see a long history of cycles of rising and collapsing empires. So even applying my alien mindset of "progress" I would be skeptical that any of the civilizations I am looking about would make a revolutionary transition into a post-malthusian world anytime soon.    But if I took the next step and actually tried to understand the world as the natives understood it (putting aside the impossibility of crossing that hermeneutical chasm) - then the conclusion is unavoidable: absent some kind of major ideological shift, these societies aren't going there, no matter how much incremental technological tinkering they achieve on the margins.

And here we simply disagree. Where you see "tinkering on the margins" I see fundamental changes being made - admittedly in incremental and peacemeal manner, but with an increasing momentum leading inevitably, at some point or other, to a technological break-through. Gunpowder, the development of printing, the gradual evolution of ship-building ... all leading to the take-off point.

By that reasoning, rat populations could be projected by an alien observer to be on the verge of some scientific-technical breakthrough.  In any case, as I already pointed out, that argument is not helpful because most of that proportional increase occurs in the 1000 years prior to the year zero.  It supports a post-classical stagnation hypothesis - coincidentally roughly what most contemporary observers thought.

Sure, assuming that those rats develop agriculture and run printing-presses, and I'd agree ... in fact, as you probably know, the increase in rats is directly caused by *human* progress. Humans increase rat habitat, humans spread rats over the globe, humans make agricultural surpluses that rats eat, etc.

I'm not arguing that there have *not* been localized "dark ages" (and indeed if you read my arguments I'm in fact arguing for the fundamental importance of such "dark ages" in determining the time and place of the break-through to modernity).

[Queequeg]

First of all, some peasants cultivated respectable size plots.  Second, even very small farmholders in modern times (say a small vineyard or berry farm) face many of the issues I just described.  For example many 21st century Burgundian wine growers are working highly fractionated plots -- their peasant great-great-great-grandparents actually worked much larger plots.  The nature of the work however has changed beyond recognition in many respects.

Really?  The Latifundae (sp?) were profit motivated and as mechanized as possible for the period. 

[Oexmelin]

The Senatorial class wouldn't, but wouldn't Caesar and some of the Optimates have held something different?  Caesar, with his aspirations of conquering Persia and the Steppe, probably saw Rome bringing progress to the world in a way not entirely dissimilar from the European powers of the Colonial period.  While the initial expansion was haphazard and driven by the need for slaves or security, by the time of the conquest of Gaul I think Rome was expanding as much for traditional colonial reasons as anything.

There might be something to this: I would think that the Imperium, the domination of the civilized world (rather than the Republic, the City where citizens engage as part of their nature of citizen) is certainly a break, a rupture in ways to understand polity, and the goals associated with it. Especially when it united with the King-Shepard of Christian tradition. But, then, it morphed into the unification of Christianity in another brand - albeit slightly different - of eschatology.

[Malthus]

Sure I am, but it is hard to create a meaningful discussion out of questions like "why is this progress?".
If you have a definition you wish to offer, please do so.

Matters of perspective: I am trying to get you to define what you seek to measure by looking at the past and finding hints of progress. I am trying to get you to define the standards which you seem to ascribe to progress as opposed to either «change» (i.e.: an increase in population) or «domination» (i.e., The West imposing its will upon the.Rest of the World)  If you think this is meaningless and worthless, I'll not waste your time nor mine.

I don't have a good definition of progress. It is not a word I appreciate much, because it raises -- to me, at least -- many more questions than it helps answer. I usually prefer «modernity», precisely because it encompasses a number of processes that I recognize as part of my world, and different from that which came before: disenchantment of the World and the removal of God, perfectibility of men, the division between the Natural and the Social, the invention of the great conceptual solvents of State, Society, Market, Self... This, to me, has the advantage of including both the Enlightenment and its notion of progress (walking towards an undefined Light) and its critiques. It also puts the emphasis on its «presentist» quality.

Perhaps an example will help.

When I was a kid in university archaeology class, I had a prof who made knives out of flint. We were encouraged to actually use these flint knives to do everyday tasks.

We have all heard that flint knives can be extremely sharp, and it is true - but frankly, in terms of usefullness, flint knives suck shit. For one, they are very unforgiving - they chip easily if not used exactly right. Knapping a good edge is extremely laborious and difficult.

Contrast this with a knife made out of steel. Much better, more useful in every way. It is no wonder that native americans valued such stuff as trade goods - anyone would.

The design of knives has progressed, from a less developed less useful inferior-for-its-purpose form to a better, more useful form. This is a fact quite independant of ideology. It is an exampe of progress.

Now, there are numerous such examples of progress since Sumerian times, I would assume most would agree. The technological examples (i.e. steel knives and not flint) are I would think obvious - and they tend to transcend cyclical rises and falls of empires, dark ages, etc. The impact of technological progress on other forms of progress (such as in human abililties to govern themselves and knowledge about their world) are not as obvious but nonetheless there - occasionally suppressed, occasionally subject to regression, but overall the tendency over all of human history has been to increase - to move from flint knives to steel, and not the other way.

[Malthus]

Are you of the opinion that "modernity" is *not* something different from previous ages?

No, but I don't think what you've said supports a steady increase in "progress."  Nor do I think imposition of one's culture on others to be an indicator of progress.

It is a symptom, not an example, of progress in the case of modernity.

[PDH]

Way too teleological, Malthus.

[Oexmelin]

Perhaps an example will help...

I think it is precisely trying to isolate these kinds of examples which creates an illusion.

How did metal knives came about ? Who cares when a single individual creates a single metal knife ? Unless you think the material preceeds the social or the cultural, I find it very hard to separate the metal knife from the culture that produced it, and the type of polity they bring about, which is all about the uses of the metal knife...

Consider that metal knife in the 17th century, in the Americas. Why were they exported to the Americas ? Would you characterize the Native's shift from stone tools to metal tools as progress ? Were the technical systems which sustained the expansion of the European monarchies a progress over Natives' consensual-style of politics? Warfare, within Native societies with stone tools, created hundreds of deaths. Warfare, within European society, created thousands of deaths. Is this progress ? This is why I wanted you to define the values which you must associate with progress.

[PDH]

I once heard in a grad seminar the best definition of Progress - it was "Paved Roads."

[Ed Anger]

I once heard in a grad seminar the best definition of Progress - it was "Paved Roads."

Toilet paper.

[PDH]

Toilet paper.

You are wiser than she was.

[Ed Anger]

Toilet paper.

You are wiser than she was.

I will write a paper on that. 2-ply.