The Western Man (and Woman): Gods of Perpetual Chaos. (A short look on European history)

8/9/2019 The Western Man (and Woman): Gods of Perpetual Chaos. (A short look on European history)

1/7

Courtney Mortimer

Political Ideas and Issues

Summer '10

The Western Man (and woman): Gods of

Perpetual Chaos

What does popular European literature say about the

European mind, in relation to the desire for a 'just society'?

Does the literature in question suggest that they, as a

collective, actually want one? Does current and/or historical

behavior on behalf of the cultural monolith, that is Europe,

work to create this society? These questions arise every time

I'm confronted with European and Eurocentric literature. The

words in question are usually beautiful and idyllic, but the

same questions always comes to the front. Why after 2800 years

of literacy, have they not yet got it right? Why is this world

still plagued with the negativity emanating from this branch of

the human family?

Throughout European recorded history, there have been

documents and works of art that have pointed to a presumably

strong desire for different types of socialprogress. Along with

these works, you'll find a behavioral process that goes in

direct opposition to these ideas. For example, if one was to

take a brief glimpse of documents created during the European

slave trade, you'll find many works explaining the backwardness


2/7

of aboriginal people, and how they need to be taught to be

civilized, such that they will be able to come to the world

table as proper humans. The behavior of European civilizers was

actually one of complete barbarism and insanity. In theory, the

people of the earth would be taught that which they did not

know, but in practice they were abused for centuries. As a

historian, I've noticed a chronic pattern that has been stuck

on loop for quite some time. More examples of the pattern would

include the following: the Macedonians, who strived to create a

culturally Hellenistic world, but truly destroyed nations, razed

cities, and spread chaos throughout west Asia, and north-east

Africa. Then there were the Athenians, who wrote of a sort of

World democracy, but we'll see in the Melian debate, that they

had other motives. Later in time we had the Romans, who dreamt

of a worldly empire ruled by Roman law. Ideally, that could have

been nice. In practice, though, they conquered their neighbors,

and put to death or slavery any peoples that wouldn't accept

their culture. Some centuries later, we're given the example of

the Catholic religious Empire, which, to this day still works to

bring about a world ruled by the culture and laws of the God of

their own reality. I intend to look at the works of literature,

as well as the climate of the times in which the works were


3/7

written, and also discuss whether or not these certain ideals

are really being aspired to.

In much more direct terms, how has the last 20 centuries

been, in Europe, an exercise cultural, economic and military

aggression, with the intent of creating chaotic mess of

humanity, an environment it which the majority of the European

branch of the human family seems to thrive so well.

In the class, to explain the beginnings of European law, we

discussed Plato and his idea of a Just republic. In a nutshell,

Plato feels that every central government needs to be run in an

extremely specific manner, and framework, with the goal of

creating a civilization, in which everyone gets equal treatment,

and has the freedom to achieve what ever the Gods of destiny had

in store for them.

Plato's thoughts, though very optimistic, seemed quite

hypocritical, in that, rather than being an all encompassing

movement of universal freedom, justice and equali, it only

applied to rich Greek men. Under no circumstances can you have a

society with a majority of the population in bondage, as well as

half the non slave population(the women) living as virtual

property. While Plato, as well as contemporary historians have

viewed Platonic1 thought as the beginnings of freedom, democracy,

and other positive adjectives, if one would take a less romantic

1 relating to Plato or his philosophy


4/7

view, one could see this pattern in European thought that

disguises one negative system, as a positive one, in order to

achieve a certain end, that benefits one party, while hurting

another. The way this pattern worked out in the Grecian golden

age was in benefiting wealthy Athenians, and harming those

around them who refused to capitulate to Athens. The military of

Athens had a well developed justification for their practices.

They were building an empire, which would bring justice and

order to the savagery that existed outside of the platonic

republics. In 416 BCE the bringers of Justice came upon a small

militarily weak nation in the Aegean sea. These people, called

Melians, happened to be a lone independent island, surrounded by

many others, which had all capitulated to the will of Athens, a

regional superpower. Through debate, and reason, the Melian

people hoped to convince the Athenians to leave the small island

nation in friendship. According to the historian Thucydides,

this was a major error in judgment:

The Athenian envoys

returned to the army; and the

generals, when they found that

the Melians would not yield,

immediately commenced

hostilities. They surrounded the

town of Melos with a wall,

dividing the work among the


5/7

several contingents. They then left troops of their own and of their allies to

keep guard both by land and by sea, and retired with the greater part of their

army; the remainder carried on the blockade. The Athenians starve out the

Melians, who finally capitulate. In punishment for not surrendering in the

first place, the Athenian generals put to death every male citizen of Melos and

cart off the women and children into slavery.

If the logic of a society deems the above, an act of Justice,

then there is a flaw in that logic. Obviously the Athenians

weren't working to spread Democracy, Justice, order, or anything

positive. They were striving to make their sphere of influence

larger, thus making themselves more powerful.

The above behavior is a repeating pattern in the general

collective behavior of European people. Now, in all fairness, in

every human group there are always those that stray from the

norm of their society. These fence straddlers aren't the shapers

of the policies and laws that structure the society. In Greece

there were those who opposed to the Platonic world view, but the

majority of those in power saw the world in this light, and

acted accordingly. Likewise, during all of the ages of European

imperials, including present day American foreign policy.

Turning on the television and flipping through the channels, one

will find a plethora of different ideas that denounce the

behavior of the American government. None of that mattes though.

The spread of American democracy and capitalism is paramount,


6/7

and goes above all the neigh sayers. There were denouncers of

the Catholic church, even at it's Zenith of power. With their

use of indulgences2, land grabs, inquisitions3, and many other

acts, there were those who opposed it, but their lack of numbers

negated their usefulness to their respective cause. In

observance space in the paper, we are going to now focus on the

early imperial age of northern Europe, through the book

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbs.

Leviathan is broken in to two parts. The second part of

this book talks about the universal path that man walks on. The

path that either leads to domination by those around him, or

domination of those peoples. From the onset, we are greeted with

the same xenophobia, and justification of imperialism that

existed in Platonic times. Before the idea was toppling

governments around Athens, in order to establish a regime of

justice, in the imperial ages, one was to topple those around in

order to preserve one's own sovereignty. When reading old

documents, to understand them, one should step back and view the

contemporary context in which it was written. The year was the

mid 1600's and the human world was falling to the might of

European armies. Thomas Hobbs writes that every nation is just

2an indulgence is the full or partial canceling of punishment from God. One would pay the church a certain amountof money, or resources for forgiveness.

3 Inquisitions are laws and programs the catholic church instituted in order to either force non catholics out of

their lands, or to expose them as heretics. Generally heretics were tortured and executed after being found out.


7/7

lying in wait to attack their neighbors, in truth these rules of

hostilities only applied to Europeans.

These universal ideas put fourth from the mind of these

great thinkers could possibly be the root of the external

hostilities put fourth by Europeans, since their appearance on

the world scene. Without these justifications, the Athenians

would just be conquering neighbors, the majority of their

peoples, might not have agreed with that. If the Romans were

simply vanquishing barbarians, to feel the need for slaves, the

Roman people may have revolted. If the Englishmen and women knew

their government was destroying nations, and wrecking national

infrastructures all around the world, another civil war might

have taken place. Today, if MSNBC, CNN and Fox told us that the

soldiers were killing children, raping women, toppling

democracies on a regular basis, for many centuries, we might not

be as docile as we are in relation to the American foreign

policy. As intellectuals, we need to study all the great works,

find all the patterns, and nuances, and then work to correct

them. Until then, all the strife that exists in the world will

most assuredly continue.

Documents

The Western Man (and Woman): Gods of Perpetual Chaos. (A short look on European history)