Historical myths

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Alexander son of Phillip


Alexander's greek tutor was a man with an ax to grind against Athens in general and the platonic academy in particular. Did he teach Alexander to love Greek culture or did Alexander simply avail himself of the useful tools of rhetoric and logic to further his own ends.


Seamus

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I strongly disagree. A lot of people didn't like Athens and Plato (most famous among them:Thoukidides) but Aristotle was n ot one of them. Because:
1) He spent most of his life in Athens, and he even got the honour to be named "citizen of Athens", even though his father was not athenian, an honour that few people had been awarded at the time. It was a gesture that expressed the deep and profound link that connected him with the city.
2) He was Plato's most beloved and intelligent student (remind the painting of Rafael named "Scuola di Atene" where the two philosopers are marching side by side) but he had a different, less poetic and more rational way of thinking than his mentor. They disagreed, but if you ever have the chance to read their works, you will see that Aristotle is pretty much a "product" of Plato's teachings. The product of a procedure often differs from the initial materials, but it carries them within it.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Alexander son of Phillip

Phillip defeated Greece and Alexander completed that conquest. Alexander conquered Persia and the Middle East. After his death, the Persian/mid-eastern culture took back control of the whole region as well as Greece -- though it took a while.

Seamus

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That is a quaint conclusion you extracted.. After all, historians agree that the era after Alexander's death is called "Hellenistic era", exactly because greek (vis a vis Hellenistic) culture was the dominant culture of the kingdoms that emerged, a culture that had adopted many elements of both Egypt and Persia, true, but fused them into one, hellenic, culture, with a greek core and Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, etc layers.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Civilization is the road to rational thinking, it doesn't mean that if you're in the road you have to be civilizated already. Rationalism is the source and the origin of civilization. I think that you're mistaking the meaning of civilization.

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It's source was 1 percent rational thinking in combination with 99 percent instincts. As the creators and those who keep developing civilization lacked/lack, respectively, total rationalism, they can't foresee the results of what they do.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

That's your perspective on civilization. You'll see that Rousseau said something in the opposite way. Though i don't see why any human isn't capable of analyze the different complicated situations, when in fact our own evolved mind created the situations. We don't act instinctively at the original degree anymore, that's one of the effects of society and civilization. You also mention "ethical instincts" when infact the ethics comes from morality, wich is totally ideal construction of the human mind. The natural society is exactly the begining of civilization, unless you consider the "natural society" in a different way than I.

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Instincts were created in the pre-civilization society, and are adapted to it. The instincts can't be guaranteed to work in any other society. I think you force me to present the proof of that, well, I can do that by an example. All animals, humans included, have for example a stronger sexual urge in the summer, than any other time of the year. Why? What's the rational explanation for such a behavior pattern? Well, simply that the chances of feeding the offspring is greater if the offspring is born in the spring. Now, if that instinct had been perfect and would be constructed in a way that would work in any environment, it would be based on knowing exactly when it was 9 months to the next period of spring and access to much food. But it's impossible to have senses that can predict that exactly, therefore, the instinct has to be connected to something that almost always exists at the same time as a period where it's 9 month left to the next spring. It might be the summer heat, the increased light, the green colors of all vegetation, etc., that gives birth to the actions through this instinct. And that means we can fool that instinct, by in the winter use artificial lights, green tapetsry indoors, and artificial heat etc. Similar systems exist for ALL instincts, because their indata must come from the environment through our senses, and our senses will not tell us the entire truth, it'll always only give us a foggy picture of reality. Therefore, a man might have a reflex to kill when it looks like he is attacked, but the environmental effect that causes the kill reflext isn't the attack itself, but certain ways of moving of the other guy, etc., that usually only exist at the same time as an attack will happen.

If humans live in a society of exactly the same kind over millions of years, evolution would adapt those instincts to react correctly, according to the signal system in the society they live in. However, when we by civilization constantly change the meaning of symbols etc., the instincts will never develop to become adapted to the civilization, resulting in faults of the kind I mentioned above.

Even so, it's important to remember that this is only one of the minor factors behind violence in civilization. No. 3 is by far the most important one, which will remain even when rationality increases. Only by increasing rationality enough to understand the existence and cause of no.3, and by making humans have a will to remove the causes of it, will it be possible to remove the violence. (No.3 is the factor when civilized societies are in their construction made in a way so that violence and evilness pays off, whether it's in the short or long term. A society must be built in a way so that evilness punishes itself - laws etc. aren't good enough, as history has proved - think about all dictators and war mongers etc., and how crime isn't less common in countries with tougher sentences than in countries with milder sentences AND last but not least - have non-violent alternatives in the cases where pressure, and not greed, leads to violence)

BTW you don't need rational thinking in a society where your instincts will lead you to make the correct decisions anyway. The only time we need rationality, is when we live in civilization.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

That will be the effect of rationality. But do you really think that the in natural state humans were less violent and didn't fought for territories, goods or even for a couple. Civilization doesn't create any threats those threats are created by human and by the wrong assumption of many that we're diffrent as humans.

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I don't understand what you mean by this ~:confused: Please clarify...

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Demonstrate point 1. As far as what the point 2 states, the mongols were nomads and Genghis Khan was uncivilized because he was a violent irrational man. You're correct in the 3, but i already answered to that.

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As for uncivilized nomads being less violent, I was referring to the ancient nomads. Those were uncivilized, and peaceful. As for Genghis Khan being uncivilized, that's a lie. He was leading one of the most civilized cultures ever. And it was a violent culture. Genghis wasn't irrational, he was among the most rational people ever, but because the civilizations around him and his own civilization implied violence would benefit him and his people, his rational thoughts led him to violence. Not only instincts, but also rational thinking, can lead to violence. The difference is that instincts lead to violence because it misconcepts environment, whereas rational thinking leads to violence when environment makes it benefitial, or when it is benefitial in the short term (so that the rational thinking, with it's limits in how many factors it can take into account, can predict it). Of course in the long term it's seldom true that violence pays off, even for a Genghis Khan, but rational thinking is often too limited to understand the long term factors.

To summarize the limitations of instincts and rational thinking:

Instincts:
- are based on statistics over millenia. Although such statistics don't lead to an exact result, all billions of factors that exist are weighed in. Therefore, instincts are really good at foreseeing long term effects of actions, which is why we among other things instinctively hate unethical power fights and are careful with unethical actions of any kind as long as we listen to instincts.
- they are however not based on causality, but on correlations that only exist as long as the society they were developed in remains fairly constant.

Rational thinking:
- it is exact, but it can't weigh in as many factors as instincts. Over a thousand factors is nearly impossible to master. This makes it really weak when it comes to predicting long term effects of something, which is why the psychopats who led conquest but got their empire crushed one or more centuries afterwards were thinking rationally, not instinctively.

Furthermore:
- every rational thought has it's origin in an instinct. You may work for money, even though money didn't exist in nature and there couldn't possibly be an instinct for money, but why do you work for money? Because you want security and food, which is an instinct. Every basic urge that makes you do anything at all has it's roots in an instinct. The way you carry out the actions, the way you strive towards that goal, is decided by rational thinking.
- the reason why natural evolution developed rational thinking was for using it in isolated situations like hunting, not to replace the long term thinking which instincts are better adapted to handling.

It's a misconception to think that you can make all living humans behave rationally in the way for example you and I are behaving by being able to analyze things such as this, things such as excessive violence of wars and genocide etc. etc., without mixing in too much instincts and feelings in it. There will always be people who can't control their feelings, and one or two per century is enough to create huge wars. Also bear in mind that if instincts are too much denied, the no. 1 factor in my post above will grow in strength, as civilization tends to get more unnatural, and that will lead to more violence. There is simply no other way than accepting that instincts will always control us to a very great extent, and that society must be adapted to it. The main way in which society has to be adapted to it, is by regulating the levels of fear. They are way too high in modern society, which leads to much frustration and violence as a result. It's true what many dogmatics in Christianity or Rationalism say: "IF everyone would follow our faith, there would be no violence". But it will never happen that everyone will follow a faith other than instincts, which they were born with. Even a Christian or Rationalist is driven to his belief by instincts, by the searching for safety, and he/she then chooses faith after what rationalism mixed with feelings tell him/her is the faith that will lead to most safety. The same thing is probably true for me to some extent, I guess. But I'm not yet believing in any political ideology or faith, any complete method that would solve all problems, but still only analyzing what exists, in order to, perhaps in the future, find such a faith.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

1. Again demonstrate (though it will be really difficult because we've no empirical proof of the times that you're talking about, so it's imposible to talk about statistics).

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Well, monkeys don't fight wars as often as humans. It has happened that raids have been conducted by gorillas, but that's still by far less common than among humans (I hardly think it has happened more than once or perhaps twice btw). Besides, gorillas have a lot of rational thinking ability, and after humans have destroyed most of their habitats and they are victims of more or less inbreeding, it doesn't change much if one male gorilla goes to rape all females because the inbreeding will be there even if he lets, as is the usual method, more gorillas share the mating procedure to achieve more genetic variety, and the gorillas are therefore, no matter what, doomed to extinction no matter what WWF or Greenpeace do (they can only prolong the inevitable a little).

If we compare human violence with violence in nature, humans are by far worst. And we shouldn't compare humans to some insects that aren't even closely related to humans, we shouldn't compare human violence to the violence of a predator to a prey. We should compare it to internal violence within the same species among other species. And we should also keep in mind that most violence among other species can be easily avoided, whereas a total war is nearly impossible to escape from. For example monkeys have a complex system of threatening signals that they send out before attacking, giving the opponent to surrender. And whoever surrenders is usually shown mercy. Many so-called "rational" humans today are so scared (by instincts) that they immediately think the earliest display of discontent is a sign that they will be attacked, and they immediately strike - with unethical power tools that gives them a strength they do not naturally possess, so that they have to defend that power with constant attacks, because if they didn't use their unnatural power tools they would immediately lose the power.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Again you're assuming that the mind (the brain work that creates ideas) is inferior to instincs, when we already erased or decreased much of them.

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No we haven't. The very fact that you're debating with me prooves that the instincts still exist. Why would you debate this if you didn't think it would create a safer world to apply more rationalism and civilization? Why would you want a safer world if you aren't still afraid of death? Why would you still be afraid of death, if you had no instincts, no urges.

Besides, it has been proved that during a normal talk, about 90 percent (these are not my own arbitrary numbers, but the numbers of scientists) is carried over by body language. Good looking people get jobs easier than bad looking ones even in cases where the boss won't benefit at all from the beauty of the one he hires and the less beautiful one was better at the job. Every time you fall in love, instincts are driving you to it. Men and women still choose men after looks to some extent, even though money and evil shrewdness can be more benefitial in today's society. Women who choose men after money and evil shrewdness, which is also common, do so because of their instincts for safety, which drives their rational thinking to make the conclusion that they can give more safety than other men. The urge to attack countries because a small number of people from the country committed an act of terror, is an instinct. The will to eat, to breathe, to sleep, is based on instincts. Fear of conflicts is an instinct. Compassion is an instinct. Curiosity, the urge that drives people to think rationally in sciene, is an instinct. One could go on forever...

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Again assuming that the instincs are superior to the mind. Even materially you'll be wrong because all the day i ignore instinct after instinc. And the separation of nature actually means giving away your instincs and taking a more rational stance, so it's in fact the solution.

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You can't get rid of instincts without losing your will to live, your will to reproduce, and your will to protect your children, the things that makes you a human. You can't eliminate instincts without eliminating yourself and mankind! A man who doesn't care about his children, what is he? What is a man who doesn't want to reproduce - what does he care about future or long term effects of his actions - why not conquer half the world and kill all the people you conquer to the last man, if you don't care about tommorrow? Why refrain yourself from massacring the first people you see before your eyes if your instincts don't tell you your own life is worth something?

BTW, this post of mine describes more about this:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...8&postcount=18

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

On nature humans also killed themselves as i already said [...] in natural state the mortality rate will be higher, there will be more irrational violence and there will be less reflexion, so it's more logic to say that nature leads to extintion of the human kin.

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Like I said, irrational violence exist IF AND ONLY IF the instincts order violence in a situation when it isn't benefitial in any way. This means the instincts have to give birth to it. But instincts were not made to be irrational in the society they were created in. They were made to be rational in the society they were created in - based on research over thousands of years. The only way instincts can give birth to irrational behavior, is by being exposed to an environment which they aren't adapted to.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

What means "in the form it had then". Society is the beggining of civilization (again). Some times you refer to the natural state and some times, to the "natural society" ~:confused: .

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With natural society, I mean the way things were before civilization. I use that term to clarify that there's only a small number of things that have changed since then. Otherwise, using different words fools many to believe that more than just a few minor things have changed since then, fools some people to even believe EVERYTHING has changed since then. My definition of the word society is: "a system for how humans live together". With that definition, also nature is a society. Accepting this also opens the path to learn from the natural society when creating a modern society. Nature was better in many ways.

[QUOTE=Idomeneas]why dont you try read actuall books before you assume the big shot historian attitude? Where is your bibliography for all the stuff you are writing?



Vice versa

Bty , why are your posts include so harsh words , do you think your argument is better that way ?

You don't have the slatiest information about the guy , why ? Because the whole story was written 500 years after he died , you can belive that you are the son of Zeus , a pure Athenian , an uncle of prickles , of the father of the greek nation , but please leave your personal feelings out of historical arguments .

I think it's hilarious how when someone discovers that Aristotle tutored Alexander and assume it means that he had a Greek upbringing. Haha. He began teaching him at the age of 11 or 12 and only did so for a short number of years - enough so Alexander could become versed in Greek language and the culture thereof.

I have no clue where anyone who is claiming him as a Greek are justifying their claims from because it seems rather clear to me. He had Macedonian and Epirote blood (Royal Blood, no less). He was raised a Macedonian and his father imported a Greek teacher to teach him; as many Royal Families did at that time seeing as Greek was the merchant and noble education; lingua franca so to speak. Seeing as he led Greeks and their culture was more solidified than his Macedonian upbringing it is no surprise that those writing the histories and proliferating the conquered regions were largely Greek speaking (they were the merchants and the educated ones afterall).

In the end he, and his predecessors, were labelled Kings of Macedonia. Themselves and their peoples had their own language, although Alexander I (450bc) did promote the usage of the Attic dialect by the tradespeople. This brought more proliferation of the Greek culture to their borders, but largely people spoke their own native tongue. Now titles, Royalty, language even modern peoples claiming Macedonian ancestory ...

... it's all very amusing because the Macedonians were the ones who conquered the Greeks. Haha. And then the man who created an empire far and above anything Greece had seen previous was thereafter adopted as one of their own. Man, history is so much fun.

[QUOTE=Colovion]I think it's hilarious how when someone discovers that Aristotle tutored Alexander and assume it means that he had a Greek upbringing.


Actually even Aristotle was Macedonian. He was born in Stageira on the Chalkidike peninsula.

Leodegar

While I don’t agree with Advo-san; I would say the issue of whether the Macedonians were Greek (or more specifically the how Greek was the Macedonian ruling Argead dynasty) is rather murky and open to interpretation.

But Aristotle was certainly a Greek by any standard. Stagira was an Ionian colony.

I hate the myth that the battle of Culloden was Scots versus English.

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Originally Posted by Advo-san

That is a quaint conclusion you extracted.. After all, historians agree that the era after Alexander's death is called "Hellenistic era", exactly because greek (vis a vis Hellenistic) culture was the dominant culture of the kingdoms that emerged, a culture that had adopted many elements of both Egypt and Persia, true, but fused them into one, hellenic, culture, with a greek core and Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, etc layers.

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Advo:

If I had the time, I'd pick up a masters just to argue my thesis at more length and with the proper research. Prior to Alexander's conquests, Greek culture - as expressed through Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, et. al. emphasized the rational and logical as a basis for knowledge and society (Yes, I am aware that Greek culture in practice never reached the perfection of its expressed ideals, nor has the USA with its own constitution -- people aren't perfect). These ideals undergird the strength of republican Rome, Roman engineering, and -- eventually -- the renaissance of Western European culture. After Alexander, Hellenic culture -- which I freely admit shows greek influence, takes on an essentially "oriental" culture as opposed to the western "occidental" ( I recognized the propriety of these terms is disputed) Imperial Rome did progressively trend in this direction as well -- preserved longest and most emblematically in the "Byzatine" empire. The West followed a different route.

As to Aristotle, he became tutor to Alexander following his rejection as Plato's successor as head of the academy -- despite the fact that Plato himself had acknowledged Aristotle's mind as the best aside from his own. Having worked in academe, I can tell you that Aristotle being anything aside from bitter at the "shabby" treatment accorded him by Athens and the Academy after such high previous honors would be almost an inhuman response. The laurels should have gone Socrates - Plato - Aristotle, and Aristotle was, I conjecture, at least a little bitter towards his erstwhile home. He would have been well aware of Thoukidides and other's views of Macedon and Phillip, nor would he have lacked other lucrative offers as a tutor.

And yes, I have read the surviving works of Plato and Aristotle, Euripedes, Aeschylus and pieces of Herodotus, Galen, Euclid, and Thucidides. Your are correct in that Aristotle's work clearly proceeds from the Socratic and Platonic efforts prior to him -- but that doesn't change my point. ~:)

Seamus

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

It's source was 1 percent rational thinking in combination with 99 percent instincts. As the creators and those who keep developing civilization lacked/lack, respectively, total rationalism, they can't foresee the results of what they do.

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Again totally arbitrary. Anyway this doesn't refute anything. In the course of civilization the humans begun to understand it porpose.

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Instincts were created in the pre-civilization society, and are adapted to it. The instincts can't be guaranteed to work in any other society. I think you force me to present the proof of that, well, I can do that by an example. All animals, humans included, have for example a stronger sexual urge in the summer, than any other time of the year. Why? What's the rational explanation for such a behavior pattern? Well, simply that the chances of feeding the offspring is greater if the offspring is born in the spring. Now, if that instinct had been perfect and would be constructed in a way that would work in any environment, it would be based on knowing exactly when it was 9 months to the next period of spring and access to much food. But it's impossible to have senses that can predict that exactly, therefore, the instinct has to be connected to something that almost always exists at the same time as a period where it's 9 month left to the next spring. It might be the summer heat, the increased light, the green colors of all vegetation, etc., that gives birth to the actions through this instinct. And that means we can fool that instinct, by in the winter use artificial lights, green tapetsry indoors, and artificial heat etc. Similar systems exist for ALL instincts, because their indata must come from the environment through our senses, and our senses will not tell us the entire truth, it'll always only give us a foggy picture of reality. Therefore, a man might have a reflex to kill when it looks like he is attacked, but the environmental effect that causes the kill reflext isn't the attack itself, but certain ways of moving of the other guy, etc., that usually only exist at the same time as an attack will happen.

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Instincts were created? You're definitively wrong on that, instincts come from the inconcient part of the brain, so you can't create them. Again there's no pre-society, civilization starts with society, it's the first step on the construction of the structure. You're again assuming that the instincts are superior to the mind. We humans can surpress and ignore instincts totally, humans, from the time that civilization begun, learned to do that. Now we don't eat for hunger, we don't sleep for rest, we don't look for coverage for protection of the bad weather, we don't have sex only for reproduction or not at all for reproduction. The mind works over the ignored parts of the brain, and is that mind that has the capacity of adapt humans to their own creations. You're giving a to high and fictional value to the instincts.

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If humans live in a society of exactly the same kind over millions of years, evolution would adapt those instincts to react correctly, according to the signal system in the society they live in. However, when we by civilization constantly change the meaning of symbols etc., the instincts will never develop to become adapted to the civilization, resulting in faults of the kind I mentioned above.

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My instincts and those of many others i know are, at least in practice, totally supered.

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Even so, it's important to remember that this is only one of the minor factors behind violence in civilization. No. 3 is by far the most important one, which will remain even when rationality increases. Only by increasing rationality enough to understand the existence and cause of no.3, and by making humans have a will to remove the causes of it, will it be possible to remove the violence. (No.3 is the factor when civilized societies are in their construction made in a way so that violence and evilness pays off, whether it's in the short or long term. A society must be built in a way so that evilness punishes itself - laws etc. aren't good enough, as history has proved - think about all dictators and war mongers etc., and how crime isn't less common in countries with tougher sentences than in countries with milder sentences AND last but not least - have non-violent alternatives in the cases where pressure, and not greed, leads to violence)

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Again we don't want to remove violence, we just want to remove irrationality. Violence is the very engine of civilization. Though my principal critic here's that you fail to see the true begining of civilization. The natural society itself (though it's very discused if such a society existed) was the begining of civilization. Laws will never be good enough, they're imperfect. What we really need is to achieve the momentum when laws are not needed anymore, when the laws come then there's something wrong. Of course that tougher sentences don't make crime low, it's an absurd of actual law makers, but that doesn't make it less rational, and your missing something, state only cares about imposing power, there's little reason in reality to believe that the state really gives a damn about prisoners.

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BTW you don't need rational thinking in a society where your instincts will lead you to make the correct decisions anyway. The only time we need rationality, is when we live in civilization.

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Correct by what criteria. Instincs will not pull you to construct houses, invent concret, creat powder, steel, in short they will not make you evolve. Instincts are very simple and they exist only on the cerebelum, wich is the most primitive part of man. To evolve the matter made the brain grew and granted the different parts of the brain a different function, but most of nothing beyond instincts we are self aware.

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I don't understand what you mean by this ~:confused: Please clarify...

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It's simple your initial thread accused civilization of increasing violence (i dunno if you refer to the irrational one or the rational). I ask you. Were the mans less violent in natural state? (notice that here i mention the natural state, and not the natural society, because for me it's a contradiction, anyway this has no importance for this question)

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As for uncivilized nomads being less violent, I was referring to the ancient nomads. Those were uncivilized, and peaceful. As for Genghis Khan being uncivilized, that's a lie. He was leading one of the most civilized cultures ever. And it was a violent culture. Genghis wasn't irrational, he was among the most rational people ever, but because the civilizations around him and his own civilization implied violence would benefit him and his people, his rational thoughts led him to violence. Not only instincts, but also rational thinking, can lead to violence. The difference is that instincts lead to violence because it misconcepts environment, whereas rational thinking leads to violence when environment makes it benefitial, or when it is benefitial in the short term (so that the rational thinking, with it's limits in how many factors it can take into account, can predict it). Of course in the long term it's seldom true that violence pays off, even for a Genghis Khan, but rational thinking is often too limited to understand the long term factors.

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Again civilization begun far before Genghis Khan. When i said that i was refering to the mongols and Genghis Khan included being the more uncivilezed on the context. Ghengis Khan just conquered for the sake of conquering and spread fear and terror, like if that would help him keep the territories that he conquered. So i would say that he acted more irrationally (less reason and reflexion) than rationally.

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To summarize the limitations of instincts and rational thinking:

Instincts:
- are based on statistics over millenia. Although such statistics don't lead to an exact result, all billions of factors that exist are weighed in. Therefore, instincts are really good at foreseeing long term effects of actions, which is why we among other things instinctively hate unethical power fights and are careful with unethical actions of any kind as long as we listen to instincts.
- they are however not based on causality, but on correlations that only exist as long as the society they were developed in remains fairly constant.

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Instincts based on ethical values. Wrong instincts give no importance to the complexity of the minds construction, less to one of the more complicated: "morality".

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Rational thinking:
- it is exact, but it can't weigh in as many factors as instincts. Over a thousand factors is nearly impossible to master. This makes it really weak when it comes to predicting long term effects of something, which is why the psychopats who led conquest but got their empire crushed one or more centuries afterwards were thinking rationally, not instinctively.

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Rational thinking is not exact, that's why it has so much problems. If it was exact then it will be perfect, but rationality is falable and also perfectionable. Psychopats thinking rationally? Please, come on. The very core of psychosis is the fact that rationallity "fades away" on the mind of a certain person that suffers it, temporary ot constantly.

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Furthermore:
- every rational thought has it's origin in an instinct. You may work for money, even though money didn't exist in nature and there couldn't possibly be an instinct for money, but why do you work for money? Because you want security and food, which is an instinct. Every basic urge that makes you do anything at all has it's roots in an instinct. The way you carry out the actions, the way you strive towards that goal, is decided by rational thinking.
- the reason why natural evolution developed rational thinking was for using it in isolated situations like hunting, not to replace the long term thinking which instincts are better adapted to handling.

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Agreed with point one. Though you always forget that rationality also made those realationships more complex and at the same time devoloped the mind, so instincts are less needed more and more. And you don't "think" when you're behaving instinctively.

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It's a misconception to think that you can make all living humans behave rationally in the way for example you and I are behaving by being able to analyze things such as this, things such as excessive violence of wars and genocide etc. etc., without mixing in too much instincts and feelings in it.

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I don't see the misconception, in teory it could work. And the point is separation from natural, unnatural. The social human (zoon politkon, Aristoteles) is not more ruled by positive science, natural science, it has it's own method, dinamics and matter, called social science. You're trying to mix the two. The social science surged from the very principle that the humans had an ideal "spirit" that performed the actions socially and all scientists agree that the spirit is superior to the instincts.

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Well, monkeys don't fight wars as often as humans. It has happened that raids have been conducted by gorillas, but that's still by far less common than among humans (I hardly think it has happened more than once or perhaps twice btw). Besides, gorillas have a lot of rational thinking ability, and after humans have destroyed most of their habitats and they are victims of more or less inbreeding, it doesn't change much if one male gorilla goes to rape all females because the inbreeding will be there even if he lets, as is the usual method, more gorillas share the mating procedure to achieve more genetic variety, and the gorillas are therefore, no matter what, doomed to extinction no matter what WWF or Greenpeace do (they can only prolong the inevitable a little).

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No mokeys don't reason they just adapt themselves to the eviorament, they just have more memory than most of the other animals, though they're showing signs of begining to separete from survival, and start to think in other things. And the chimpances act in an interesting way, when they reach the period when we're considered adolescents, they group in "gangs" and fight each other and also kill other species just to demonstrate masculinity. And they're condemned to extintion right because they didn't evolve (or did they? us), civilization secures the duration of man.

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If we compare human violence with violence in nature, humans are by far worst. And we shouldn't compare humans to some insects that aren't even closely related to humans, we shouldn't compare human violence to the violence of a predator to a prey. We should compare it to internal violence within the same species among other species. And we should also keep in mind that most violence among other species can be easily avoided, whereas a total war is nearly impossible to escape from. For example monkeys have a complex system of threatening signals that they send out before attacking, giving the opponent to surrender. And whoever surrenders is usually shown mercy. Many so-called "rational" humans today are so scared (by instincts) that they immediately think the earliest display of discontent is a sign that they will be attacked, and they immediately strike - with unethical power tools that gives them a strength they do not naturally possess, so that they have to defend that power with constant attacks, because if they didn't use their unnatural power tools they would immediately lose the power.

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It's worse because the number of humans have increased. The violence that you're talking about is exactly the rational violence, the one that is acting to create a mor fair and rational society. They're not scared by instincts, the instincts are exactly the problem why they act like you describe (if i interpreted it well).

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No we haven't. The very fact that you're debating with me prooves that the instincts still exist. Why would you debate this if you didn't think it would create a safer world to apply more rationalism and civilization? Why would you want a safer world if you aren't still afraid of death? Why would you still be afraid of death, if you had no instincts, no urges.

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The instincts don't give you selfawareness, therefore no fear for death ,that's rational, reflexive thinking. And i'm debating this with you to proove the contrary, my instincts are not moving me to do so, i do this rationally, also it has nothing to do. I just want to state my point, you, yours. And i never said that i've no instincts (though it doesn't matter at this point), i just said that the man achievied to ignore the instincts, they're still there and they show from time to time some some signals.

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Besides, it has been proved that during a normal talk, about 90 percent (these are not my own arbitrary numbers, but the numbers of scientists) is carried over by body language. Good looking people get jobs easier than bad looking ones even in cases where the boss won't benefit at all from the beauty of the one he hires and the less beautiful one was better at the job.

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Yes i've saw it too. But that doesn't prove anything to your initial statement. That doesn't make civilization the cause of violence. Besides that's exactly one of the signals that some times instincts show. I still ignore instinct after instinct, though sometimes the signals show up (generally because they're inconcient).

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The urge to attack countries because a small number of people from the country committed an act of terror, is an instinct. The will to eat, to breathe, to sleep, is based on instincts. Fear of conflicts is an instinct. Compassion is an instinct. Curiosity, the urge that drives people to think rationally in sciene, is an instinct. One could go on forever...

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They're not insntincts (except for compassion), they just surge from them. They need of rationallity to analize the situation and make a response, because of the same complexity that you state.

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You can't get rid of instincts without losing your will to live, your will to reproduce, and your will to protect your children, the things that makes you a human. You can't eliminate instincts without eliminating yourself and mankind! A man who doesn't care about his children, what is he? What is a man who doesn't want to reproduce - what does he care about future or long term effects of his actions - why not conquer half the world and kill all the people you conquer to the last man, if you don't care about tommorrow? Why refrain yourself from massacring the first people you see before your eyes if your instincts don't tell you your own life is worth something?

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Yes i can, and i'll. Most utopies are constructed over the basis of no family and no child protection from biological fathers. The females may want to protect the children, i'm male, by instinct males of almost all species doesn't care about their children, they just deposite the seed and disappear. The instincts don't make you human, they make you an animal, rationality makes you human. The idea of the worth of the life of human kind surges from rationality, again instincts doesn't give a damn about society or "groups".

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Like I said, irrational violence exist IF AND ONLY IF the instincts order violence in a situation when it isn't benefitial in any way. This means the instincts have to give birth to it. But instincts were not made to be irrational in the society they were created in. They were made to be rational in the society they were created in - based on research over thousands of years. The only way instincts can give birth to irrational behavior, is by being exposed to an environment which they aren't adapted to.

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This is incorrect. Animals fight for chances of reproduction and territory. Again instincts weren't creted, unless you believe in God, and atribute the creation to "him".

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With natural society, I mean the way things were before civilization. I use that term to clarify that there's only a small number of things that have changed since then. Otherwise, using different words fools many to believe that more than just a few minor things have changed since then, fools some people to even believe EVERYTHING has changed since then. My definition of the word society is: "a system for how humans live together". With that definition, also nature is a society. Accepting this also opens the path to learn from the natural society when creating a modern society. Nature was better in many ways.

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That'll be exactly natural state. Society is a mental construction, so it's not exactly living together, they can live together but don't have an actual relationship at all, it has to fit in a formal conception of what society is. Nature wasn't better in anyway. You were stuck on the evolution process at the same level as other animals, there were more mortality rate, less use of inteligence (therefore less rationality and more irrationality), in few words we were abandon to the phenomenums of nature. Though i agree with you in some points, nothing of that makes civilization the cause of violence (just of rational violence, that's not always "bad") nor natural state the better relationship between man.

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I strongly disagree. A lot of people didn't like Athens

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Funny thing is Demosthenes managed to find rather a lot of friends before Chaeronea while at the same time the majority of Macedonia’s friends found more pressing things to attend too… The only real solid facts about Chaeronea seem to be it was a long battle, Philip won and the Macedonians had to build a rather large mound over their dead, and a lot of Greeks died as well. Historians tend to be enamored with the autocrats Philip and his son, but it was a close test, and Macedonia dose not look to have been all that well loved by contemporary Greeks.

@Soulforged: I apparently have to start over...

1. Is violence a good or bad thing in itself?
- It's a bad thing, violence hurts people. Only if the violence can ACHIEVE something, is it good - for the one who achieves it by using the violence. Now, assume we create a society where say, cooperation is forbidden. Everyone who cooperates will be killed. In a such a society, it's rational to kill each other, but is that violence REALLY good for them? No, because it's the society that creates it, and it's unnecessary. Now let's take a real example: After the first wars raged on earth, men started fighting wars just because of mutual fear of the other part going to attack - they wanted to strike while they were stronger, in fear of being struck later. Even though no REAL conflict existed, but only the fear of a future conflict did, did they start war, and kill each other en masse. Later in civilization, men started to fight wars even with people they considered completely harmless, not even a future threat, because those harmless people possessed strategical positions. Taking those strategical positions would make the attacker safer against those he DID consider threats, in case of a future war. That's the way wars and violence work today in civilization, and that violence serves no real purporse - there's no real conflict, it's the fear of a future conflict, that creates it. Try to see the difference between a conflict that is about something real, and a conflict which is created solely by fear.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Again totally arbitrary. Anyway this doesn't refute anything. In the course of civilization the humans begun to understand it porpose.

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So what was it's purpose?

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Instincts were created? You're definitively wrong on that, instincts come from the inconcient part of the brain, so you can't create them.

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Instincts were created by evolution. If you misunderstood me that much, please reread my post again and you'll hopefully understand what I mean.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

You're again assuming that the instincts are superior to the mind.

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No, I've never assumed that. My knowledge about instincts and rational thinking was posted in my post above (reposted below for convenience):

Instincts:
- are based on statistics over millenia. Although such statistics don't lead to an exact result, all billions of factors that exist are weighed in. Therefore, instincts are really good at foreseeing long term effects of actions, which is why we among other things instinctively hate unethical power fights and are careful with unethical actions of any kind as long as we listen to instincts.
- they are however not based on causality, but on correlations that only exist as long as the society they were developed in remains fairly constant.

Rational thinking:
- it is exact, but it can't weigh in as many factors as instincts. Over a thousand factors is nearly impossible to master. This makes it really weak when it comes to predicting long term effects of something, which is why the psychopats who led conquest but got their empire crushed one or more centuries afterwards were thinking rationally, not instinctively.

Furthermore:
- every rational thought has it's origin in an instinct. You may work for money, even though money didn't exist in nature and there couldn't possibly be an instinct for money, but why do you work for money? Because you want security and food, which is an instinct. Every basic urge that makes you do anything at all has it's roots in an instinct. The way you carry out the actions, the way you strive towards that goal, is decided by rational thinking.
- the reason why natural evolution developed rational thinking was for using it in isolated situations like hunting, not to replace the long term thinking which instincts are better adapted to handling.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

We humans can surpress and ignore instincts totally, humans, from the time that civilization begun, learned to do that. Now we don't eat for hunger, we don't sleep for rest, we don't look for coverage for protection of the bad weather, we don't have sex only for reproduction or not at all for reproduction. The mind works over the ignored parts of the brain, and is that mind that has the capacity of adapt humans to their own creations. You're giving a to high and fictional value to the instincts.

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I've presented proof of the opposite. Please motivate this obvious incorrect statement you're making. BTW, we do eat for hunger, try not eating for two days (should be enough), and you'll think of nothing but food. Try not sleeping for five days, and you'll start sleeping microsleep, and think of nothing but your soft pillows. Sex? Your instincts tell you to have sex, it's them that makes you want it. As condoms didn't exist in nature, you can fool the instincts that way (remember the instincts are based on correlations existing in the nature they were created by evolution, not on any causality - again I refer to my post above which explains that extremely important phenomenon in detail) - you'll still feel the pleasure. Why do you feel pleasure by having sex? Because that's the instincts ordering you to have sex. Almost everything instinctive works like that - satisfy the instinct and you get pleasure, don't satisfy it and you get pain and fear. BTW, a man who doesn't eat for five days to prove that he can "supress his hunger", can do so because he knows he'll get food again after those five days have ended - therefore, he hasn't supressed any instincts much at all by doing so. But assume we force you not to eat for five days, then throw you out in the wilderness. Then you'll know fear - the fear of not being able to know whether you'll get food or not.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

My instincts and those of many others i know are, at least in practice, totally supered.

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Please prove this. Say anything you've done, that doesn't have it's roots in instincts. Everywhere you look, my statement is confirmed, the rational thinking may control your way of achieving a large goal by achieving several smaller goals on the way, but the large goal is always originating in instincts.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Again we don't want to remove violence, we just want to remove irrationality.

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So, you think rational violence is good? If a single people benefits from killing all others and conquering the world, do you think they should do that? What we have to remove, above all, are the signals that lead people to violence. Most violence is unnecessary and caused by an artificial, created situation, which always leads to violence when it exists. If we create situations that lead to violence, then we're just plain stupid. If such situations are created, it's hard to oppose to the violence, as those carrying it out will see it as necessary to use the violence.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Violence is the very engine of civilization. Though my principal critic here's that you fail to see the true begining of civilization. The natural society itself (though it's very discused if such a society existed) was the begining of civilization.

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Again you need to explain what you mean. Natural society being the beginning of civilization, even though natural society didn't exist? How can something non-existing cause something existing? ~:confused: ~D

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Correct by what criteria.

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By evolution's criteria. By maximizing survival. Maximizing survival is caused by, for example, living without destroying the nature that feeds you so it can no longer feed you, as well as keep conflicts and violence to a minimum. Statistically it's easily proved that humans are the most violent and irrational of all animals. Theoretically, the same thing can also be proved, as I have done here - the explanation is not the human nature, but the civilization humans live in.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Instincs will not pull you to construct houses

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*cough* Birds, Rabbits, Foxes *cough*

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

invent concret

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*cough* Birds and their building materials *cough*

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

in short they will not make you evolve

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Why evolve if the evolvement leads to more unnecessary, irrational violence?

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

It's simple your initial thread accused civilization of increasing violence (i dunno if you refer to the irrational one or the rational). I ask you.

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Both. The instincts behave irrationally if they are in a different environment in that which they were created in, i.e. the natural society. That explains the increased irrational violence. Then civilization has also created more causes of conflict, which is probably the worst thing, as it will also lead whoever is thinking rationally to commit violent acts.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Were the mans less violent in natural state?

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Everything implies that, yes. See the explanations above for a theoretical proof of it. The statistical proof is quite as simple - looking at monkeys gives an (if not perfect), at least quite good indication of it.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Again civilization begun far before Genghis Khan. When i said that i was refering to the mongols and Genghis Khan included being the more uncivilezed on the context. Ghengis Khan just conquered for the sake of conquering and spread fear and terror, like if that would help him keep the territories that he conquered. So i would say that he acted more irrationally (less reason and reflexion) than rationally.

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On the contrary, everybody thought his methods of conquests would prevail and never lead to their defeat. It was rational - by eliminating everyone who could perhaps in the future become a threat, they achieved safety. By creating a strong economy they could get hold of luxury. The tactics and strategies employed by the mongols were brilliant. All that came from a rational mind, controlled by instincts. The instincts were the origin of the will for safety and luxury (all humans are by nature lazy, like all other animals, it's a basic instinct which helps survival - you don't waste energy unless you have to). Besides, Genghis also realized that a more total terror and spreading of fear would make the effect of keeping the territories calm a lot stronger than if he would have applied partial terror. However, he failed to see that it would eventually lead to an inevitable destruction. Would you have seen that in his situation? Probably not. Besides, mongols and other steppe tribes were constantly subject to expansion attempts from city people. The constant expansion of farmer's territory pushed these nomads out in infertile, harsh land where it was much harder to survive, and life much more painful. He had a reason to strike non-nomad civilization, which has always thought itself better than nomad civilizations, and taken from the nomads their land and pushing them out on steppes, into deserts, and so on.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Though you always forget that rationality [...] devoloped the mind, so instincts are less needed more and more. And you don't "think" when you're behaving instinctively.

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Modern humans almost always mix in rational thought in their decisions, but the instinctive parts are still also part in all decisions. Rationality developed the mind? How so? The neurophysiology of man hasn't changed over the last seven thousand years in any way.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

I don't see the misconception, in teory it could work. And the point is separation from natural, unnatural. The social human (zoon politkon, Aristoteles) is not more ruled by positive science, natural science, it has it's own method, dinamics and matter, called social science. You're trying to mix the two. The social science surged from the very principle that the humans had an ideal "spirit" that performed the actions socially and all scientists agree that the spirit is superior to the instincts.

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What kind of fantasy/religion is that? All thoughts that aren't rational, are instinctive. There are no other parts of the brain. And our very own society is a good proof that it couldn't work. A majority are quite rational, but a few are irrational, and that's why there are thousands of irrational murders every year, and why irrational war after irrational war is started all over the world. Not to mention the rational violence caused by civilization creating unnatural situations that make violence benefitial.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

No mokeys don't reason they just adapt themselves to the eviorament,

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*cough* Even cats reason. The reasoning ability is being able to perform statistical research of the environment in your brain, then create new neutral connections accordingly. That system has existed from the time of the first mammals and birds, perhaps also among a few reptiles.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

they just have more memory than most of the other animals, though they're showing signs of begining to separete from survival, and start to think in other things

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Why is it good to separate from survival (and reproduction and caring/protecting of your offspring)? A man who doesn't care about his offspring doesn't care about longterm effects of his actions, which, again, makes it rational to be a Genghis Khan - even though it'll lead to losing the provinces some centuries afterwards. Then it would also be rational to destroy the environment so much that humans can't continue living on earth, because it'll take one to five generations from now until that happens, given the speed at which we're doing it at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

And the chimpances act in an interesting way, when they reach the period when we're considered adolescents, they group in "gangs" and fight each other and also kill other species just to demonstrate masculinity.

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Chimpanzees eat other species. But do they kill each other in those gangs? Nope. Almost the only times animals other than humans kill each other is during sexual rank fights, and then it's always possible to give up. It's only individuals who refuse to give up their status that are killed. Not very surprisingly, those are the individuals that have created civilization - those who can't accept their sexual rank. And only by unjust means can they hold that rank in civilization, by constantly using their power. Not surprisingly, those are the ones that refuse to give up civilization, despite all the violence it causes.

Besides, don't small children often like to roast ants under magnifying glasses? Isn't it common that parents refuse to give their children pets when they're too young, of fear of the children hurting them?

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

And they're condemned to extintion right because they didn't evolve (or did they? us), civilization secures the duration of man.

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So you mean not evolving means being condemned to extinction?

*cough* Beetles *cough* Fish *cough* Reptiles *cough* Insects *cough* Spiders *cough*

In fact, the animals mentioned above are among those who have the greatest chance of all to survive if humans hadn't existed. Most of those also even have a chance of surviving even now, when humans exist and destroy earth. They are really tough, I can assure you.

The one thing that makes humans strong enough to survive compared to other species is their ability to cooperate and their complex system of instincts which store ethical values for the practical situations which may occur in the natural society (the instincts aren't, like I've explained above numerous times by now, adapted to any society other than the one in which they were developed by evolution, due to the phenomenon of them having to be based on CORRELATION rather than CAUSALITY). A so frail, weak little animal like the humans can never survive without cooperation. How sad that such a frail, slow little animal is a hunter and collector, when it's too slow to hunt by itself. Like suricats, like rabbits, like lions, they have to stick together or they'll face certain death. How sad that such a species doesn't realize how much it depends on, for it's survival, the ability to cooperate and fight the systems which create conflicts that have no real meaning, because the state of matters that made the conflict worth fighting was created artificially and by accident.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

It's worse because the number of humans have increased.

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On the contrary, humans are more violent per capity nowadays.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

The instincts don't give you selfawareness, therefore no fear for death ,that's rational, reflexive thinking.

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The fear of death doesn't have to be an aware feeling in order to work. Think of things such as the reflex which makes you move a hand from a hot stove. Some instincts are that primitive. But it has been proved that the more complex instincts which exist in the lower parts of the brain, are aware instincts. That's the part of your brain which gives birth to all your feelings. Attempts to avoid death, aware or not, but in any case combined with a painful fear feeling, exist in any living species, whether it's bacteria, rabbits or humans.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

And i'm debating this with you to proove the contrary, my instincts are not moving me to do so, i do this rationally, also it has nothing to do. I just want to state my point, you, yours. And i never said that i've no instincts (though it doesn't matter at this point), i just said that the man achievied to ignore the instincts, they're still there and they show from time to time some some signals.

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Ok, so you admit the instincts still exist and show from time to time. But have you now realized that they are the basic urge behind EVERY rational thought? Because when you realize that, you'll realize that in order to create a functioning society it's necessary to not deny the instincts, but allow them to exist freely, but adapting the society to the instincts so that they lead to rational behavior. I've explained how that is achieved. Of course, there will have to be SOME regulation with rationalism suffocating instincts, but if society is adapted well to the instincts, there will be so few cases when such adaption is needed, that people's frustration levels won't rise high enough to cause irrational behavior and conflicts. It doesn't matter if the thoughts are irrational, our goal is to achieve rational behavior, whether it has it's origin in instincts or reasoning.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Yes i've saw it too. But that doesn't prove anything to your initial statement. That doesn't make civilization the cause of violence. Besides that's exactly one of the signals that some times instincts show. I still ignore instinct after instinct, though sometimes the signals show up (generally because they're inconcient).

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The civilization is, once again, the cause of the INCREASE of violence of two types:
1. the one caused by making the instincts lead to irrational behavior by changing the indata signals patterns by changing the society.
2. the one caused by making it benefitial to use violence, so that it is rational to use violence to achieve success.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Yes i can, and i'll. Most utopies are constructed over the basis of no family and no child protection from biological fathers. The females may want to protect the children, i'm male, by instinct males of almost all species doesn't care about their children, they just deposite the seed and disappear.

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On the contrary, fathers do care about their offspring, always. Not always actively, but at least passively in the sense that they wouldn't want to kill their offspring or actively hurt it in any way. A father wouldn't either hurt the mother of his children in a way that would result in the mother getting smaller chances of protecting the offspring, and so on.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

The instincts don't make you human, they make you an animal, rationality makes you human. The idea of the worth of the life of human kind surges from rationality, again instincts doesn't give a damn about society or "groups".

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No, rationality without instincts makes you a machine. You can't remain a human unless you both have your urges - your definitions of goals, preferences and feelings - and your tools to carry it out - the instincts.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

This is incorrect. Animals fight for chances of reproduction and territory.

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Yes, but only when doing so leads to an advantage. Humans create situations that makes violence lead to an advantage, and then they apply the violence that those situations lead to. Besides, those fights are fought in a way that reminds of what humans in civilization refer to as "honor" and "fair play". Threat signals are always given before an attack, and their are ethical rules about how much land each flock is allowed to own - most territories are of approximately the same size etc. When it comes to the reproduction fights, it's ALWAYS possible to surrender for most animals, and the result is mercy. One of the few cases where animals are killed often during such fights are deers and others who have developed horns and evolution of instincts hasn't been fast enough to correct their fighting behavior after it, so that they are aware of that their weapons are more dangerous and can be less violent against each other, and surrender more quickly (this can also be compared to human behavior, where the same phenomenon has happened). Besides, in nature it's mostly the initiative of the weaker (in status - therefore most of the time also in strength) to start a status fight. The stronger keeps his status automatically and doesn't need to "defend" it by constantly hurting and weakening his opponents. When the weaker win, however, they must constantly defend that rank by attacking and by hurting weakening their opponents. Of course, they can only win if they use hideous weapons like brainwashing, religion, spears and guns, and power - which is why civilization was created. It was created because of people wanting to hold a power they weren't constructed to hold.

Civilization was not created in an attempt to improve life for entire mankind, it was created merely out of egoistical thoughts of minorities or individuals. Where was the rational thought when money was invented to facilitate trade, and it lead to slave trade, prostitution, poverty (with laws against stealing food), economical competition instead of compassionate cooperation within flocks, and wars in order to get hold of silver and gold mines (Iberian conquest and conquest of Dacia during roman times come to mind) etc. You must realize that civilization is a series of failures, and it's kept from total collapse not because it's basic system is good, but because their are plenty of good humans living in it, striving to compensate for the numerous faults of it. Just think if the workers that go to poor countries to feed the poor - isn't that like trying to fill a water barrel with a hole in by pouring water in it from the top when society system in itself has created that hole and keeps it from closing? Think of the industrial decapitating and injuring of people in wars, and the rows of medics repairing the wounds. Think of all rebels that have to sacrifice their life in order to make state realize that workers need rights and that giving them rights will also benefit the company owners in that healthy workers will do a better job?

You seem to believe in the myth of civilization. Unforuntately, you're not the only one. And so, mankind will keep spiralling closer and closer to their own destruction. They're all affected by civilization - only civilizations which can in their system promote making nature look dangerous and cruel, could survive the thousand years during which civilization evolved. How many today act of their own free will - and how many act in ways because civilization orders them to? The civilizations that were best at making the humans in them create armies and destroy others, prevailed. The civilizations that went back to nature lost military power, and were overthrown. Perhaps that is how it always will be? An evolution reinforcing civilization until it has full power over mankind, and mankind loses their own will, their own urges. Slaves to a system, which as no soul, no mercy. Acting no longer of free will, but on orders of the society they once created to increase their chances of satisfying their own free will. They even try to debate against the few remaining that see the true dangers of civilization. Can that be an act of free will? To defend a system which suffocates free will, to defend a system which makes people want to suffocate their free will and want to make others suffocate it too?

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Again instincts weren't creted, unless you believe in God, and atribute the creation to "him".

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They were created by evolution, what else? (I assume you meant "created" when you wrote "creted") Humans have other instincts than fish, frogs have other instincts than reptiles. What could be more self-explanatory?

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Advo:

If I had the time, I'd pick up a masters just to argue my thesis at more length and with the proper research. Prior to Alexander's conquests, Greek culture - as expressed through Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, et. al. emphasized the rational and logical as a basis for knowledge and society (Yes, I am aware that Greek culture in practice never reached the perfection of its expressed ideals, nor has the USA with its own constitution -- people aren't perfect). These ideals undergird the strength of republican Rome, Roman engineering, and -- eventually -- the renaissance of Western European culture. After Alexander, Hellenic culture -- which I freely admit shows greek influence, takes on an essentially "oriental" culture as opposed to the western "occidental" ( I recognized the propriety of these terms is disputed) Imperial Rome did progressively trend in this direction as well -- preserved longest and most emblematically in the "Byzatine" empire. The West followed a different route.

As to Aristotle, he became tutor to Alexander following his rejection as Plato's successor as head of the academy -- despite the fact that Plato himself had acknowledged Aristotle's mind as the best aside from his own. Having worked in academe, I can tell you that Aristotle being anything aside from bitter at the "shabby" treatment accorded him by Athens and the Academy after such high previous honors would be almost an inhuman response. The laurels should have gone Socrates - Plato - Aristotle, and Aristotle was, I conjecture, at least a little bitter towards his erstwhile home. He would have been well aware of Thoukidides and other's views of Macedon and Phillip, nor would he have lacked other lucrative offers as a tutor.

And yes, I have read the surviving works of Plato and Aristotle, Euripedes, Aeschylus and pieces of Herodotus, Galen, Euclid, and Thucidides. Your are correct in that Aristotle's work clearly proceeds from the Socratic and Platonic efforts prior to him -- but that doesn't change my point. ~:)

Seamus

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seamus:
A phrase you wrote made me realize that we have a fundamentally different approach on what we call "greek": After Alexander, Hellenic culture -- which I freely admit shows greek influence, takes on an essentially "oriental" culture as opposed to the western "occidental" . You consider hellenic culture to be something non-greek, or demi-greek or at least partially-greek . But, for me, hellenic is greek.
Firstly, as you probably know, we do not call ourselves "Greeks", you 'll never hear that in Greece, we call oureselves "Hellenes". Greeks was a name the Turks gave us, but we never adopted it, though europeans did. We have always been "hellenes", for the last 35 hundred years.
To our subject now, for me hellenic culture is the result of a fusion between classical greek culture and "oriental" cultures. And this hellenic culture, after its fusion with christian culture produced Byzantine culture, which is also greek to me, and Byzantine culture after its fusion with the renessance-western culture produced modern-greek culture, my actual culture.
What I am trying to say is that, to my eyes, the minoic and mykenian culture (1300-800 bc), the pre-classical greek culture(Homeric culture we call it, 800-500 bc), classical greek culture (500-323 bc), hellenistic culture (323 bc-400), byzantine culture (400-1453) and modern greek culture (1821-today) are all greek vis a vis hellenic, are the different phases that my culture has been through the last 3.500 years. Greek culture has always been a never-ending procedure of integration of "alien" influences.
I will try to make a comparison. Greek culture is like a student. A student who goes erasmus, who travels abroad a lot, who does post-graduate studies in a foreign country. He is being influenced by all the things he encouters while abroad and by all the new stuff he is learning. He is changing .... But can you really say he is a different person? Of course not. He is still him, because he integrated all those influences in his own special and unique way.
So you see now why I believe hellenistic culture is greek culture. Our disagreement is a matter of definition. A definition of what is Greek.

BTW I m really enjoying our debate, even though we disagree, and I m more than happy that you are so interested in greek history. So, I 'll give you a few things to think over.

Advo-san

Your Greek history seems to be missing a few centuries. The more pertinent for the question on the Greek-ness of Macedonians, is would the ancient Greek’s of Athens or Corinth would see it the same way. To use a different example, the Pope may have crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans (Irene in Constantinople not withstanding), but would Cato, Cicero or Caesar call either Charlemagne or Irene Romans?


The ancients Hellenes were called Greeks by Romans, well before the Turks showed up. The Byzantines called and thought of themselves as Romans.

Conon:

Bless you, but Advo and I have moved beyond that tidbit. Whether the residents of Athens in his time referred to Alexandros as a Makedonian, a Hellene, or a tater-tot is secondary. We have both already noted that most of the Hellenes in what we label Greece thought of him as a Macedonian, whereas the Persians Armenians, Indians, et. al had a tendency to lump them all together as "greeks." We have re-centered the discussion on cultural influence.

Advo:

Please do not be upset with me for the use of the label "greek." For me it has no perjorative character. I am actually aware that you are a citizen of what is called the Hellenic Republic.

Hellenic culture is, as are all cultures, the product of much time and interaction among cultural groups. My point is that western cultures -- of which I am a product -- took much of the thinking extant in those cultural periods prior to Alexander's demise and used that as the foundation for what we call the Renaissance. We tend to think of THAT as the history of Greece, and sort of assume that Rome and later Byzantium maintained this without accounting for the huge impact of the infusion of "oriental" cultures beginning in the time of the successors. In fact, you will find many western tourists who don't quite "get it" when visiting Greece since they're mentally locked into the Greece of Apollo, Zeus, Socrates and Alexander. You rightly point out that it is substantially different from this, and seem to be in fairly close agreement on this with me -- despite our language disconnects. ~:)

Seamus

On violence et al.:

Soul' & Legio30':

First, as a conflict scholar, I recommend the following to both of you:

Paul Bohannon's "Law and Warfare"

John W. Burton's "Deviance, Terrorism, and War"

Collins' "Conflict Sociology"

T. R. Gurr's "Why Men Rebel"

and

Konrad Lorenz's "On Agression"

The latter, in particular, discusses many of the themes on which you both have built.



"Violence" at least in the sense of conflict to acquire resources, seems to be an instinctual component of all higher animals, including homo sapiens.

"Violence" may well be considered the cause of civilization as homo sapiens, poorly suited to solo survival in a "natural" setting was very effective in coordinated groups.

In competing for resources and, potentially, to address violent conflict with other groups doing the same, we have the beginnings of civilization. Remember the doctrine of Hobbes who views civilization as a "contract" by which individuals band together to combat the state of nature wherein life is "nasty, brutish, and short."

Civilization, of course, allows for the development of resources far beyond that available to individuals. Specialization - including warriors - becomes possible only when resources are assured. In that sense, Civilization may be said to have "caused" more violence than ever existed in the "state of nature."

As to rationality versus instinct.

Yes, individuals living in society can suppress or supercede -- or at least channel -- instinctual behavior. This does not, as has been noted, deny their existence. Western culture tends to preference "rationality" as the acme of intellectual development, and we have consequently enshrined science and technology as the hallmarks of civilization. Other cultures, notably the asiatic ones, take a different route. Enlightenment, for many asiatic philosophies, is not so much a product of superceding instinct with rationality so much as it is a quest to accept these traits and to "integrate" them as a means to achieving spiritual balance and enlightenment.

A good read on this area is R.G.H Siu's "The Tao of Science."


Fun discussion.

Seamus

Seamus Fermanagh

I was really aiming to use the original point to look at Advo-san’s rather broad construction of a unified and continuous Hellenic culture. From the current point looking back one can call it all on collective Hellenic culture, but I was questioning the validity of that. If you polled the various points in time he notes I don't think he would often find agreement.

The Byzantine would almost certainly answer that they were Romans not Hellenes. A classical Greek might well agree there was broad cultural group of Hellenes, but would almost certainly construct an identity around his or her polis first.

To take up the student example, I don’t know that his education is a good analogy. If the same traveling student returns home, but retains very little if any of the cultural values and norms he left home with does he really have the same culture.

And at the risk of aggravating Advo, I was also pointing out his list of fussions has a gap as well, of some 400 years.

Well Legio this is going to large. But to keep it simple, you mentioned the creation of instinctc as created through times by humans. Secondly you have a romantic vision on history, many works on the natural state state that we were more violent, because of the little use of rationality. Rationality makes us evolve, because our body does not evolve at the same rate of other species, and it doesn't adapt to the enviorament as fast as other species we need rationality to survive what we're in nature, that's why the only way to decrease irrational, and eventually rational, violence, is too simple, reason with more frequency and you will notice what is that separates you from your own nature. All your positive objective post on rationality is based on the assumption that instincs overwhelm the rational mind, that you can't get rid of instincs. But i really don't think that you gave enough empirical proves on that. Just some isolated presence of instincts that are present on everyday, but that doesn't mean that they've a great effect. I'm not saying that actions doesn't have any roots on instincts, but you're misunderstanding me, the mind is capable of surpressing the effect of the instinct and create a new expression totally isolated from the instinct. For example let's take one simple: every day you go to eat, but you do it on certain hours, you prepare your food and eat with dishes. If you're saying that this unnatural deviation makes the man react wrong in some way to the enviorament, then i asure you that that doesn't have any effect over me. (this is what i meant when i said "we don't eat for hunger", you just supposed a situation were obviously our instincts of autopreservation will come up)
But even if you were right there's no point in discussing this, you don't have empirical facts on the increasing of violence through history, therefore you can't say with certainty that civilization increases violence.
Btw, i never said reason - instincts = human. Obviously you will never be able to do that, what you'll be able to do is to surpress the instincts, but they will exist, as always, in the unconscious (above i said inconcient, sorry for that kind of english). So rationality will rule irrestricted over the instincts. So you will leave your animal past behind and just resort to instincts when you invetabily need them (like in your case of hunger). What i mean is: you keep your instincts as your background and use always reason as your primary "weapon" to "survive" in society, so that way the background only gives origins and support, while the principal weapon is used always to express and move yourself in society.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Well Legio this is going to large. But to keep it simple, you mentioned the creation of instinctc as created through times by humans. Secondly you have a romantic vision on history, many works on the natural state state that we were more violent, because of the little use of rationality. Rationality makes us evolve, because our body does not evolve at the same rate of other species, and it doesn't adapt to the enviorament as fast as other species we need rationality to survive what we're in nature

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Please prove these things. You haven't presented any proof at all, neither theoretical nor statistical.
1. please present any works that state natural state was more violent, and what their motivation for that lie is.
2. rationality makes us evolve? how so?
3. our body does not evolve at the same rate as that of other species? what makes you think that?
4. it doesn't adapt to environment as fast as other species? what makes you think that, nothing implies so.
5. rationality to replace instincts isn't the main thing humans needed to survive in nature. They needed cooperation, and rational thinking in isolated situations such as hunting. They are in that sense comparable to other flock animals and other predators/partial predators/omnivores.
6.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

that's why the only way to decrease irrational, and eventually rational, violence, is too simple, reason with more frequency and you will notice what is that separates you from your own nature. All your positive objective post on rationality is based on the assumption that instincs overwhelm the rational mind, that you can't get rid of instincs.

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Once again, I never said instincts are superior to rational thinking. I explained that both have strengths and weaknesses. Instincts are nearly perfect as long as they are used in a society during which they were developed. If we'd keep civilization constant for half a million years, then our instincts would adapt to it. Unfortunately, civilization will never be constant, it'll keep evolving because of the leaders' hunger for power and safety, which are, of course, instincts adapted to the natural state, that they can't deny. If civilization keeps changing, our instincts will always call to arms.

And again, the worst of all scenarios is when we actually create a situation where it DOES pay off to be evil/violent, where such a scenario didn't exist before. Then we're creating a most unnecessary violence. And that happens often in civilization.

Finally, last but not least, the power that drives civilization to evolve is NOT rational thinking and attempts to make the world better. Civilization was created by greed and instincts, combined with not to farsighted, primitive attempts at rational thinking, that made it look benefitial to be evil, even when it in the long term punished itself. The only way civilization isn't worse in practise than it is at the moment, is because there are thousands of people trying desperately to fill the holes in it.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

But i really don't think that you gave enough empirical proves on that. Just some isolated presence of instincts that are present on everyday, but that doesn't mean that they've a great effect. I'm not saying that actions doesn't have any roots on instincts, but you're misunderstanding me, the mind is capable of surpressing the effect of the instinct and create a new expression totally isolated from the instinct. For example let's take one simple: every day you go to eat, but you do it on certain hours, you prepare your food and eat with dishes. If you're saying that this unnatural deviation makes the man react wrong in some way to the enviorament, then i asure you that that doesn't have any effect over me. (this is what i meant when i said "we don't eat for hunger", you just supposed a situation were obviously our instincts of autopreservation will come up)

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Ok, did I get this right? You're admitting that every action has it's root in an instinct? But still we can create a new expression totally isolated from the instinct? How can it both be totally isolated from the instinct and still has it's root in an instinct?

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

But even if you were right there's no point in discussing this, you don't have empirical facts on the increasing of violence through history, therefore you can't say with certainty that civilization increases violence.

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You have no empirical proof of the opposite. And, all proof and indicia that aren't counted as empirical supports what I say. Besides, if you sketch a graph based on historians' assumptions on death tolls in human-caused problems, you'll see that it increases per capita - with only a few exceptions from the linear or possibly exponential increase (it's hard to know if it's linear or exponential if the base isn't much enough larger than 1.0000).

And the comparisons to animals aren't to be underestimated. A personal question - are you living in a city with skyscrapers? Have you ever seen animals in their natural setting? Have you ever tried to understand the rules and systems for how to avoid conflicts in a flock of any animal species of your choice? How much do you know about animals and nature? Have you only read what philosophers that despited nature have written? Have you only read what stiff civilizationist people write? Just look at the first non-breeded, natural mammal or bird you see, and I can assure you it's a hundred times less violent than humans against it's own species. I've never suggested going back to nature, as that is both impossible and unrealistic (the damn humans would create a new civilization and go through sacrifice etc. all over again). So, then, what are you afraid of when it comes to nature? Whenever I say something about natural state, you seem to immediately reject it,no matter how well I prove it. I've never recieved a correct contra-argument against something I've said about nature, only attempts at escaping from the scientifically proved theories that I present. Doesn't this fear of nature come from civilization itself? How would civilization have survived if it hadn't been so skilled at decieving people again and again that nature would be more cruel? I've never heard any rational explanations for comments like yours.

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

Btw, i never said reason - instincts = human. Obviously you will never be able to do that, what you'll be able to do is to surpress the instincts, but they will exist, as always, in the unconscious (above i said inconcient, sorry for that kind of english). So rationality will rule irrestricted over the instincts. So you will leave your animal past behind and just resort to instincts when you invetabily need them (like in your case of hunger). What i mean is: you keep your instincts as your background and use always reason as your primary "weapon" to "survive" in society, so that way the background only gives origins and support, while the principal weapon is used always to express and move yourself in society.

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What exactly do you mean by supressing instincts (you make it sound like you want both survival, sex and offspring survival to be suppressed)? How is it done (are you talking about brainwashing by schools and other civilizational institutions, or by discipline and violence again children who doesn't agree to it?), how will you make all humans do it (or will you kill/punish/inprison those who fails - calling them criminals because they lived in a society situation that made them commit crimes, because their pain and fear instincts couldn't make them avoid the frustration that caused it - instead of changing back society to be less full of pain and fear, so that it would never have gotten to that)? What will be the effects of it (do you think peace will magically spread over earth because people think rationally - when the first implementation of rational thinking in the fields naturally covered by instincts, i.e. the long term effect actions, led to creation of civilization with it's power fights, human sacrifice etc.)? Why should it be done? Will you, or civilization, a soulless system, be the winner of further denying the humans?

I once joked to an obvious civilizationist and said, trying to not sound sarcastic: "When humans and society aren't in harmony, either has to change. So, now that we have such a nice society, why not change the humans?" And got a serious nod as response ~:confused: :furious3: What is it with you people?

Changing humans rather than society, is what nazis, communists, dictators, murderers - every evil man who has ever lived on earth - has been trying to do. A society that has forced Jews to become bankers (because they aren't allowed to any other jobs, where Christians are favored), which a few centuries makes them the richest in Germany in a time when Germany is poor - instead of changing the society, the nazis kill the Jews*. The communists being so scared of coming back to a tsar dicatorship, but have found a society which would, if all would follow it, lead to peace and compassion - and so they kill all anti-communists, who don't like the lack of freedom and chances of career in that society. And whenever a foreign nation seemed like a threat, no leader ever tried very hard to create a system for making war gainless for both parts - instead they usually attack. And always, the society changes, so there are always new groups who have to be "removed" for it to work. It will never become calm, because always a new group will be subject to "removal". Those who commit suicide in the USA (about 50000 per year from what I've heard, mostly little girls), are the losers, the victims, today. Those, and the black people, mostly innocent, that end up in the electrical chair. And as long as humans are denied in favor of society, society is allowed to change in a way that always makes a new group badly adapted, because people always think it's those people that are bad, and not the society, whenever it occurs.

The only way to achieve a society without killing, is to adapt it to the humans, rather than adapting humans to the society. What will you do with those who aren't "rational enough" when they kill for money, because society structure doesn't give a [BEEP] about the poor? Will you call those uncivilized and irrational, who rebel against western culture? Will you call Africans and Arabs irrational, if they, in a hundred years from now, have succeeded in getting a stronger military than western countries, and attack them as payback for the colonialism and imperialism, which even though it was a long time ago, still is present everyday in that it set those countries at a disadvantage in economical competition in it's starting phases.

And even if you, personally, claim that a society based on changing humans after society rather than society after humans, wouldn't need killings, you can never guarantee that nobody will come to that conclusion as long as you stick to such a society. Because people always do. There are millions of people today who wouldn't mind a mass killing of those not well adapted to the society, when the reason why they aren't well adapted to society is because society isn't well adapted to mankind. It has happened over and over again, throughout history, that the belief that humans should adapt to society, and not society to humans, resulted in massmurder. It will again, I can assure you. Nobody can do a thing about it, until they admit this simple fact: adapt society after humans, not the opposite. If the first gloves you put on in a shop, when you intend to buy gloves, are too small, do you cut off your fingers, or change gloves?

* It has always been the praxis of humans to kill those with the money in times of poverty, rather than going for the systems that led to the money ending up in the hands they did end up in. Sometimes, it was the same hands that created the systems for how money is distributed, and who ends up getting it. In such cases, a behavior of that way could be rational. Often, however, this is not the case. Hardworking formerly poor or oppressed can often be the richest ones, through hard work and by being honest. Even then, unforuntately, people go after the people, instead of the system. Civilization is considered holy, it is never seen as responsible for the injustice and poverty. Therefore, in the case mentioned above, when the victims were NOT the same as those creating the systems, completely innocent people were killed for a fault in the society system.

@Soulforged: Ah, now I suddenly realize what it is you might disagree with. You think I by meaning instincts still affect us say that we'd often not be able to control our actions in the sense that we would choose a completely random and not appropriate action in a situation. If that's what you think I meant, then I'm sorry for the angry post above and will explain more thoroughly what I meant.

The instincts' effects on behavior are very small in the sense that the amount of actions they directly affected by instincts are small. Even so, instinct is the ultimate source of all actions. However, that instincts are the source of all actions, often simply means no more than that all actions are in one way or another striving towards the ultimate goal of survival, sex/reproduction, and protection of the offspring. It does NOT mean the instincts necessarily affect the way this is carried out in ANY other way than simply making sure the rational-though induced actions strive towards those goals, and not against them, as best the instincts can (although sometimes they're fooled by principle no.2. - the wrong causality behind instincts, which is the reason why instincts has no guarantee to work in a non-natural setting). That way, we can in practise see instincts are a minor effect on actions, which is probably what you're referring to - what we can see in practise. I'm doing a more theoretical way of reasoning about this. Because, on a world political level, or even a national level, there are enough cases of instincts being fooled after principle no.2, that it has a major effect on actions and events.

Still, this problem is overshadowed by what I believe I called principle no.3 - that the ACTUAL state of affairs makes people want violence, death etc.

So, in conclusion, violence is induced by either:
- the human brain, through instinct or rationalism, correctly seeing that violence is benefitial (and the human being a type of person which doesn't care about ethical principles)
, or,
- the human brain, through instinct or rationalism, through the existing inaccuracies in our senses, wrongly seeing that violence would be benefitial

That summarizes it all - in order to avoid violence altogether, both those factors must be fought. I'm not sure you agree about the existence of the first of those points, but you must agree with the existence of the second one. As that one is the most problematic one in that it causes most of the violence (not proved), it's most important to first of all counter that one. That civilization and society structure in themselves contain situations of that kind, is the thing I above all want you to understand. That conflicts are created by the system itself, rather than the humans in them, and that those conflicts therefore were unnecessary, because it had been possible to create a system where those conflicts hadn't been benefitial.

One of the scariest things about civilization is that it's so complex that such a simple fact takes ages of philosophy and rational reasoning before it is realized, meaning it's very hard indeed to counter it, as few will understand what a person trying to counter it is really meaning. That means factor no.3 is never fought. That means civilization is not only a problem in that it creates factor no.3, but it also prevents people in it from countering that factor.

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Originally Posted by conon394

Seamus Fermanagh

I was really aiming to use the original point to look at Advo-san’s rather broad construction of a unified and continuous Hellenic culture. From the current point looking back one can call it all on collective Hellenic culture, but I was questioning the validity of that. If you polled the various points in time he notes I don't think he would often find agreement.

The Byzantine would almost certainly answer that they were Romans not Hellenes. A classical Greek might well agree there was broad cultural group of Hellenes, but would almost certainly construct an identity around his or her polis first.

To take up the student example, I don’t know that his education is a good analogy. If the same traveling student returns home, but retains very little if any of the cultural values and norms he left home with does he really have the same culture.

And at the risk of aggravating Advo, I was also pointing out his list of fussions has a gap as well, of some 400 years.

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@conon
1)The byzantines would answer that they were Romans, but I have a surprise for you. Even today, Greeks call one another "Romhios" and women "Romhia", there is a very popular greek song that says "A Romhios fell in love with a Romhiaaaaaaa, a Romhiaaa from Thessaloooonikaaaaaa.......". Pretty amazing, don't you think... Politicians use the term "Romhios" all the time, it is a synonyme to "honest Greek people" I suppose... And the byzantines would still use the term hellenes to describe the non-christians. But, today, we can proudly call oureselves either Romhios, or Hellenas.
2) I left out the ottoman occupation period, 1453-1821 on purpose. We were under turkish occupation for that time and I wish this 400 years never existed. Of course, today Turkey is our ally and friend, even though we dissagree over some agendas. Since you asked though, the period 1453-1821 is called "Turkocracy" and during this era byzantine (vis a vis medieval greek) culture made first contact with the renaissance, mainly through Greeks of Italy, Russia and the Austrohungarian empire.
3) As for the student thing: I can assure you that there is no chance for an 18year old Greek to stop being Greek. Even if he leaves Greece not only to study, but even for the rest of his life, he will never become american, english or French. One of the most ancient greek words, that is still pronounced, written and used today in Greece the same way as it was used in Homer's Odyssey is the word NOSTOS.

It means homesick, and it has been used from Greeks for at least 2.800 years. Unchanged. Once a Greek, always a Greek.

What I realize is that you are determined not to accept the continuity of the hellenic culture. But, I cannot debate over that. I feel like I m trying to prove that I m not an elephant, and it is neither interesting nor fun.
There is, though, a huge gap in your opinion. What are you thinking? That a fine morning, a few hundred years ago, my people woke up and said:"Hey, why don't we call oureselves Greeks?-Ok, lets do it!!-We can claim to be decendants of Homer, Plato, Alexander....hmmm....What else?-We can add Byzantium.....hmmmm....Any other ideas?-No, that will do!" and here we are now? Well, that is not the deal.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Conon:

Bless you, but Advo and I have moved beyond that tidbit. Whether the residents of Athens in his time referred to Alexandros as a Makedonian, a Hellene, or a tater-tot is secondary. We have both already noted that most of the Hellenes in what we label Greece thought of him as a Macedonian, whereas the Persians Armenians, Indians, et. al had a tendency to lump them all together as "greeks." We have re-centered the discussion on cultural influence.

Advo:

Please do not be upset with me for the use of the label "greek." For me it has no perjorative character. I am actually aware that you are a citizen of what is called the Hellenic Republic.

Hellenic culture is, as are all cultures, the product of much time and interaction among cultural groups. My point is that western cultures -- of which I am a product -- took much of the thinking extant in those cultural periods prior to Alexander's demise and used that as the foundation for what we call the Renaissance. We tend to think of THAT as the history of Greece, and sort of assume that Rome and later Byzantium maintained this without accounting for the huge impact of the infusion of "oriental" cultures beginning in the time of the successors. In fact, you will find many western tourists who don't quite "get it" when visiting Greece since they're mentally locked into the Greece of Apollo, Zeus, Socrates and Alexander. You rightly point out that it is substantially different from this, and seem to be in fairly close agreement on this with me -- despite our language disconnects. ~:)

Seamus

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Seamus
I understand what you say and I agree. Let me add a few tips in your thoughts.
As you said, Classical greek culture truely offered the foundations of the modern society,from democracy to theatre. Ancient Greeks have not created the first civilized society, but they did create the first civil society, a society of civilians.That explains pretty much the admiration of the western world, which is also a civil, even though not that civilized, society if I am allowed to say.. But back then was not the time for city-states. It was the dawn of the Empires. The Peloponessian war showed the inadequacies of the city-state. If it wasn't Pella's phallanxes, it would have been Theve's holy band, or Athens' hoplites, or Corinthian marines or another greek region's army that would have turned Greece into a kingdom and the lands all the way to India an Empire.

During our Revolution, in 1821, many foreigners came to fight by our side, but were dissapointed and left us, because they expected to find bearded philosophers wearing white robes and temples made of marble. This is a shame, because all eras of hellenic culture have a unique beauty-at least to my eyes, and I can trace them all in my actual culture. There is more in Greece than classic.. ~:)

What a nice debate! :bow:

~:)

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Originally Posted by Advo-san

Seamus
The Peloponessian war showed the inadequacies of the city-state. If it wasn't Pella's phallanxes, it would have been Theve's holy band, or Athens' hoplites, or Corinthian marines or another greek region's army that would have turned Greece into a kingdom and the lands all the way to India an Empire

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Agreed. The polities of the era did not have the resources to guarantee their own defense. They were ripe for conquest/assimilation. Had it not been Phillip, it would have been Thrace or Dacia or one of the city states. It would be centuries before nationalism, the printing press, and greater numbers of people with "liesure" time allowed the development of the modern quasi-democratic republic.

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Originally Posted by Advo-san

During our Revolution, in 1821, many foreigners came to fight by our side, but were dissapointed and left us, because they expected to find bearded philosophers wearing white robes and temples made of marble. This is a shame, because all eras of hellenic culture have a unique beauty-at least to my eyes, and I can trace them all in my actual culture. There is more in Greece than classic.. ~:)

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Exactly the kind of mis-conception I was referencing. I always knew things didn't fit, but never knew why until I'd read Balkan Ghosts. I realized that, like most Americans, Greece "stopped" with the defeat of Pyrhus [sp?], re-appeared in blip form while Byron was there, and then "stopped" again until the Italian invasion in 1940. Needless to say, this skips a good bit. ~:rolleyes: I've gone back and filled a few things in on my own.


Like you, I too am enjoying the discussion.

Seamus

Advo-san

I say we agree tht we basically disagree on the point of weather or not you can describe Greek history as an unbroken progression of a nation state, I certainly don’t want to drag out a debate that is not enjoyable.

How about just arguing the idea of a ‘failure of the city states’. How do you think they failed?

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Originally Posted by conon394

How about just arguing the idea of a ‘failure of the city states’. How do you think they failed?

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Sounds like an interesting seed for a new topic.

THat Aryans invaded India.

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Originally Posted by AlokaParyetra

THat Aryans invaded India.

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And what is the alternate theory to the dated "Aryan" theory that you are dismissing?

I am questioning only out of curiousity. :bow:

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Originally Posted by AntiochusIII

And what is the alternate theory to the dated "Aryan" theory that you are dismissing?

I am questioning only out of curiousity. :bow:

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That there was no invasion.

The only reason there was ever a proposed Invasion Theory is because Max Mueller, a German Indologist, observed similarities between Sanskrit, the once prominent language of the Indus region and several European languages. Therefore, he declared that there must be some Proto-Indo-European language from which all others evolved.

The controversy came into effect when Mueller claimed that a race called the Aryans, that originated from Southeast Europe, invaded the Indus region to bring to it its Vedic culture and language. Mueller theory (Aryan Invasion Theory) had its skeptics even then. Mueller changed his affirmation later, saying that he did not mean that the Aryans were of any particular race origen. However, no one really cared for what Mueller had to say then, and the AIT became a prominant tool of European expansionist (to justify their taking over of Southeast Asia) and later the Nazis (to justify their superiority over Asians).

I don't really have any particular alternate theory i support, because there are a few out there (including AIT), and i am yet to find convincing evidence for any of them.

The whole Greek-Macedonian discussion is extremely interesting...

About the Macedonian identity: compare this to the European settlers of America. Especially among younger and lesser informed people, there is another myth that America before the independence war was completely in the hands of England, in reality only a small portion. Of all the Americans, few were English by ethnicity (Anglo Saxon), the rest were Spanish, French, Dutch or of other European descent.
Yet today, we consider the US (not just the original English colonies) to belong to the same Anglo-Saxon cultural group that England belongs too, even though only a small part of the Americans actually has Anglo-Saxon blood running through their veins.
So the Macedonians, and later the Diadochi, were certainly part of the same culture as the old polises wether you call that culture Helenic or Greek. To deny that Alexander was a figure in Greek/Helenic culture and history is, well, incredibly stupid.

(I know this has been discussed at lenght before, but seeing Ceasar44's locked poll, I couldn't resist)

Advo-San: I read somewhere that the Byzantines considered the word "Helene" synonymous to "heathen". Is this correct? Did they look on classical Greek/Helenic culture with contempt?

There certaintly were Iranians (Aryan) people around India, and some may have taken over land in India.
However, the whole Nazi thing is crazy, but there were Aryan (Iranians), but not in the way Germans thought of it. Many Northern Iranians were probably fairer than moder day Germans.