Monday 5 November 2001

Pic of the day: Not completely lost in The Empty Vessel.

Test of time

No, this is not about the original floppy-based version of Sid Meier's Civilization for the PC, though I shall readily admit that it may have supported my awareness and perspective. But I had a hunger for ancient history well before this, and would sit down with one of those 25-books world history works and start from the beginning.

I would lose interest gradually and stop reading around World War I. From there on, history is just contemporary politics in disguise. You cannot know the truth while those involved are still in power, or at least their children are. With time comes a clarity brought by impartiality. The rivalry between the various Sumerian city-states may be interesting, but it does not open any wounds in our soul the way the German attacks on much of Europe does. Hopefully in the future others will be there to look at our age with the same clarity, and perhaps they will see the real underlying pattern.

***

Now the thing that really brought this topic up was reading the summer issue of The Empty Vessel, a magazine of contemporary Taoism. (With its main focus on Qigong, I'm sorry to say. A bit too controversial for my tastes. Still, there are pieces of sage-like Taoism too.) Anyway, it set me thinking. You meet these people who are part western (perhaps born here) but who are Hindu or Buddhist or Taoist, and they let slip that "ancient civilization" line. Like, because these people were civilized back when we hunted reindeer for a living, their thoughts must be TRUTH.

For that matter, members of the Abrahamic religions can act in the same way. Because some sacred text is old, this is proof of its truth. But obviously all the conflicting ancient texts can't all be true. You can't eat your holy cow and have it too.

Now in all honesty, the respect for ancient texts is not complete nonsense. The challenge of Civilization is to "stand the test of time". And this has indeed happened to Moses and Buddha and Socrates and Lao Tzu and Muhammad (yer spellage may vary). Their words have stood the test of time, to some extent at least. But when you stop testing them, because they have stood the test of time, then they no longer stand the test of time. See? Time is not over yet. When it is, you'll all see who was right all the time ... Muahahaa! Ahem.

Anyway, divine revelation aside, you can't possibly believe that the sages 4000 years ago were any more competent than a modern philosopher? Well, you can, if you believe that the first humans were created perfect and things have gone downhill from there. But so far, archeological evidence indicates that these people lived in a society that was very like our own before the Renaissance. Only a minority could read and write; people ambled around on their farms, and life was often nasty, brutish and short. Today we are healthier and longer living, more intelligent, and better educated.

The one thing that counts in favor of the ancient sages is that they had fewer distractions. They did not watch TV or try to catch up with hyperactive newsgroups on the Internet. They did not need to research a case and write a report for Monday. (And above all, they did not have the temptation to play just one more round of Civilization.) If you were unmarried and your sheep were well behaved, you had quite a bit of time to think. And once you were famous enough to let someone else tend the sheep, you had very little else to do but think, think, think. Some people would break down faced with that; but that is where the born sage shows himself to be cut from a different cloth.

Of course, the born sage would get time to think even today. There is usually a choice.

***

Ancient civilizations may have been impressive for those who visited them. For a barbarian grown up in a village that was just a cluster of farms, to see the enormous stone walls, the marble palaces, the cobbled roads and tiled streets, the bazaars filled with exotic goods, the rich people clothed in silk and purple. And when the civilization fell on hard times, and its glory became a memory, then a legend … it would seem like something to long for.

But today we live like kings, like sorcerers, if not like demigods compared to those. There are many buildings now that dwarf the pyramids in height. We have flying ships, magic mirrors, and devices that let us talk to anyone anywhere in the world. Longevity is the norm. And even a child knows more about the world than ancient sages did at the height of their lives.

Herbal remedies and breathing techniques are not to be laughed at. They could make the difference between life and death. But the fact remains that most people in ancient times died before the age of 40. The wise old men were rare. (They still are, but now there is a tremendous supply of stupid old men.) While some of the ancient techniques still have preventive value – meditation comes to mind – it would be foolish to avoid modern treatment because the old "has stood the test of time". Surely the same is the case for the care and feeding of souls. Many of the old thoughts are still valuable; but there is no reason to discard anything new just because it is new. (If it's evil, that's another matter.)