Epidemic disease is one of the themes in Jared Diamond’s fascinating book Guns, Germs & Steel: The fates of Human Societies (ISBN-13: 978-0393317558 or ISBN-10: 0393317552). However what I found most interesting in his book was his explanation of how Western civilisation has become, and was deemed to become, dominant over all others in the 20th century.
He argued that this is mainly attributable to an accident of geography, and definitely not due to genetics and race.
If you do not have time to read this fascinating book, and to enable you to understand what is written below, his core idea is that civilisation needs trade and exchange in crops and domesticate-able animals (i.e. food sources that you can foster and have some control of) to thrive. Especially crops, and to some extent animals, have evolved to thrive in specific environments. For example in ancient times, when it was greener, it was as easy to grow wheat on the savannahs of the fertile crescent (modern Iraq and Syria) as it was in north Africa (the Nile Delta, modern Tunisia, northern Libya and northern Algeria), or even on the plains of Greece or grasslands in northern India…. and it did spread there, along with ideas and culture. However it would have been impossible to grow wheat in ancient Germany (too cold) or the Benin area of West Africa (too hot, wet and humid). As a result this exchange is more likely to do well in similar latitudes, not in similar longitudes. This is because, as a rule, climate does not vary much in the same latitude (east-west), but varies tremendously in the same longitude (north-south). For that reason the African grain sorghum spread across the Sahel region of Africa, but would not tolerate being grown further south in wetter areas, nor further north in the arid Sahara region. If you glance at a globe or a map of the world, you will notice that Europe and Asia (actually Eurasia) are joined and are roughly an east-west continent sharing a lot in similar latitudes. Africa and both the Americas are more north-south orientated continents sharing similar longitudes. Yet other continents, such as Australia are generally isolated. As a result he surmises that it makes sense that civilisation arose in Eurasia (China, India & Europe) where exchange in developed crops and livestock was easy, and not in Africa, North or South America, or isolated Australia.
In other words, if you could turn the clock back and start again, history of civilisation would likely have a similar result.
Of course we cannot do that, so we cannot prove his explanation. If we were a wise man, one who had managed to travel the world (perhaps someone like the Greek geographer Herodotus or the Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta), we may have then been able to deduce and predict this simply through a broad understanding of world geography. Unfortunately the ability of a human to understand world geography was limited then by our knowledge, and ideas even of the shape of Earth remained in the realm of physics and astronomy until our eyes were opened, when proof of the true nature of our world became possible after the “discovery” of the Americas in 1492, followed by the subsequent circumnavigation of Earth.
Aside from predicting probability, the other part of my Where theme is to describe my dreams of where we could be in the future. This has to start with ideals – Where do we want to be? Politics, Sociology and Philosophy are useful fields to explore here. However we need to also be practical, assessing what is possible, and for this we need care, and to look at history. Jared Diamond’s book is an alternative way of reading history, leading to a clearer explanation and understanding of events.
Many historical events may not have remotely been likely to occur, and may have simply been lucky, or unlucky accidents that affected all happenings from that point forward in time. Mr Diamond’s prediction of the birth of civilisation happening in Eurasia may have been inevitable considering the shape and orientation of the continents, but who could have predicted the birth of democracy in Ancient Greece and Rome, and was that fluke?
Did it happen there because Ancient Greece was a land of common identity, interconnected by way of the Mediterranean sea, with the technology of efficient ocean-going vessels, with relatively free trade and a common language and culture, but often separated also by the sea and mountainous terrain, and run as independent city states, resulting in a plethora of choice and experimentation in how to govern any city state? One, Athens, happened to develop a democracy in 508 BC, perhaps attracting innovation, immigration, ideas and a crucible for growth of ideas. Although initially this did not last that long, Athens did lead a coalition of states to war against the greatest empire of all time, Persia, and incredibly, managed to defeat it.
At the same time, further west, on the Italian Peninsula, there were also several city states, most of which were monarchies. The most well known, Rome, dabbled with its own version of a representative democracy starting when the last king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed supposedly in 509 BC, one year before Athens (Was that a coincidence or Roman propaganda?). This was in a time when there would have been considerable trade between the Etruscans, Romans, and others in the Italian Peninsula, and with others around the Mediterranean Sea – the Phoenicians, their semi-independent colonists, the Carthaginians (who also had a form of representative democracy), and the Greeks in Sicily and further afield. Was the democratic experiment in Ancient Greece, and the republican versions of democracy in Ancient Rome and Carthage an inevitability, or were they the result of dreams and ideals of individuals (people who being “free citizens”, and not slaves, did not fear punishment or death)?
It appears that they were practical solutions to the problem of despotic rule, in the case of Rome, and maybe in the case of Carthage to more independence from their colonial masters in Tyre. We know less of Carthage as much of their history was lost after Carthage was razed to the ground by the Romans.
The Roman Republic lasted 700 years before they outgrew it, and metamorphosed into an autocracy ruled by an emperor for a further 450 years. It too sowed the seed for the next great nation of innovators in politics, engineering and many other fields.
Then after the demise of Ancient Rome and the fall of Europe into the “Dark Ages”, when the control of power and education became monopolised by kings and the church, what precipitated the modern rise of civilisation, with the reformation and the industrial revolution? How much of the changes that happened mainly in north-western Europe are able to be attributed to the free movement of people, and the existence of many different states (like in Ancient Greece), allowing the flourishing of some that encouraged freedom of trade, thought, and ideas without risk of slavery, banishment, imprisonment or death?
How much is attributable not just to trade, since in those times Genoa and Venice were huge trading centres, but to being less under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, to the translation of the Bible into the vernacular languages, and to safety? Galileo Galilei’s clash with the Catholic Church over heliocentricism seems to me an indicator of the dangers that novel thought posed in the areas dominated by the Catholic Church at that time. Did these changes lead to democracy in England (Protestant), France (Catholic), and the USA (mainly Protestant), and if so why did they not in Russia (Orthodox), which also had its revolution and a banishment of the old despotic order? Perhaps the balance of power has a huge part to play, and was a big motivator? After the Black Death the feudal order could no longer be sustained in Western Europe. The price of labour and craftsmen soared. A middle class arose. In the end a compromise of power had to be reached in some parts between the King, the lords, the church and the newcomers – the traders and skilled craftsmen. Democracy was given a second chance.
I think Western Europe was safer for innovators, encouraging and becoming a home to motivators who dreamed of a fairer world. No change can happen without the birth of an idea.
Martin Luther King was right – first you must dream. Then when you dream, you need to be able to distinguish between those that are pure fantasy, and those that could become reality. Lastly you must pursue and nurture those that could become reality, assuming they purport to a better world.
Why am I writing this now? Because I sense that we are living in times of huge change. As often happens in times of uncertainty, we cling to what we know.
Our world today is like a ship riding the ocean of history (from where we have sailed) and the future (the direction in which we are headed). We then sail into a turbulent storm, becoming shipwrecked (the present). We cling to the ship for safety (which is what we know – our ideals, beliefs, religions, customs, politics), but most of this is baggage, and instead of helping us, weighs us down and will mean we sink with the ship. Do we need a small light craft that will float, with clear concise ideas, free of dogma, spin and lies, our life-raft, in order to survive? If so, what is our life-raft like? What ideas do we need? And so Where should we be going?
This is the second question that this theme Where? explores. Note that although this question inevitably leads to the next logical question How do we get there?, this theme is limited to Where? First we need to think where we should be going, before we look at the methods of getting there. That comes under another theme.