They say that Rome was not build in a day. One of the richest civilizations every formed – The Romans were astounding in many ways – Their strong military, the economic system based on markets, Their effective governance and bureaucracy. All these were comparable in many ways to the modern system of society. It is commendable for humans to have reached that high level of sophistication around 500BC!
But then this dominant civilization became stagnant and decaying after reaching their pinnacle of evolution. Barbarians came and the great Roman Empire collapsed. To be precise the Western part of the empire went on the hands of the barbarians. There is one thing very interesting in all these. Till the Roman civilization was prospering and continuing to grow things were ok. But when it became stagnant, contributing little if anything to the march of its evolution, it was taken over by the Barbarians.
Barbarians had a great affinity to the civilized way of living that they inherited from the Romans. They immediately adapted the same, and continued the evolution of Roman memes.
The barbarian role of cultural demolition crew is especially important when you consider how often cultural reconstruction is needed. Many of Rome’s glaring defects – slavery, exploitation, authoritarianism, corrupt self-aggrandizement – flow from deeply human tendencies. Time and again these human vulnerabilities have transformed promising civilizations into decaying, oppressive monstrosities.
It is just not that Romans were now lethargic and were not being able to maintain their cultural supremacy. Rather things are a bit more involved. Romans were just not able to adapt to the technological evolution they themselves started. With coming of standard, universally accepted coins and fully phonetic alphabet, complete with vowels, the potential existed for a more decentralized economy than ever before. So, for example, slavery – the ultimate in exploitation – now carried a higher cost of forgone productivity; the better lubricated the market, the more it can benefit from untrammeled participation. A mind, as they say, is a terrible thing to waste.
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire which survived the collapse of the west, was less guilty of some of these sins. The east seems all along to have had fewer slaves than the west. In the east the economy was less afflicted by such stultifying policies as the virtual ban on changing convocations. And, for historical reasons, the east had a more integrated economy.
The historian Chester Starr once wrote – “Every so often civilizations seems to work itself into a corner from which further progress is virtually impossible along the lines then apparent; yet if new ideas are to have a chance the old systems must be so severely shaken that they lose their dominance”.
Of course, technology isn’t some extraneous force, visited on the planet from outer space. It is selected by human minds through cultural evolution; people are the arbiters of technology. But technologies – in a broad sense, at least – are in turn arbiters of social structures.
The same evolution of memes is so much apparent in the companies and their products. There have been a definite direction apparent in the whole drama in the computing industry – starting from mainframes, to ascent of the Windows, to the rise of Apple, Google, Amazon etc. There have been a directed evolution towards more and more freedom, openness, collaboration, higher sophistication and complexity in every product and service.
Its looks so amazing that these units of culture use humans as vehicles to expand themselves. When one meme becomes stale another meme takes its place, which is more vibrant and complex. The story of the evolution of civilizations after civilizations have been an artifact to this unique dynamics of ideas, information, dreams, hope, expressions, innovations – all creations of human mind!
Certainly it is our responsibility to keep the mind nourished with Newer Ideas, Bigger Dreams, Brighter Hopes, and of course every expanding Love and Compassion!
______________________________________________
Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar
But then this dominant civilization became stagnant and decaying after reaching their pinnacle of evolution. Barbarians came and the great Roman Empire collapsed. To be precise the Western part of the empire went on the hands of the barbarians. There is one thing very interesting in all these. Till the Roman civilization was prospering and continuing to grow things were ok. But when it became stagnant, contributing little if anything to the march of its evolution, it was taken over by the Barbarians.
Barbarians had a great affinity to the civilized way of living that they inherited from the Romans. They immediately adapted the same, and continued the evolution of Roman memes.
The barbarian role of cultural demolition crew is especially important when you consider how often cultural reconstruction is needed. Many of Rome’s glaring defects – slavery, exploitation, authoritarianism, corrupt self-aggrandizement – flow from deeply human tendencies. Time and again these human vulnerabilities have transformed promising civilizations into decaying, oppressive monstrosities.
It is just not that Romans were now lethargic and were not being able to maintain their cultural supremacy. Rather things are a bit more involved. Romans were just not able to adapt to the technological evolution they themselves started. With coming of standard, universally accepted coins and fully phonetic alphabet, complete with vowels, the potential existed for a more decentralized economy than ever before. So, for example, slavery – the ultimate in exploitation – now carried a higher cost of forgone productivity; the better lubricated the market, the more it can benefit from untrammeled participation. A mind, as they say, is a terrible thing to waste.
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire which survived the collapse of the west, was less guilty of some of these sins. The east seems all along to have had fewer slaves than the west. In the east the economy was less afflicted by such stultifying policies as the virtual ban on changing convocations. And, for historical reasons, the east had a more integrated economy.
The historian Chester Starr once wrote – “Every so often civilizations seems to work itself into a corner from which further progress is virtually impossible along the lines then apparent; yet if new ideas are to have a chance the old systems must be so severely shaken that they lose their dominance”.
Of course, technology isn’t some extraneous force, visited on the planet from outer space. It is selected by human minds through cultural evolution; people are the arbiters of technology. But technologies – in a broad sense, at least – are in turn arbiters of social structures.
The same evolution of memes is so much apparent in the companies and their products. There have been a definite direction apparent in the whole drama in the computing industry – starting from mainframes, to ascent of the Windows, to the rise of Apple, Google, Amazon etc. There have been a directed evolution towards more and more freedom, openness, collaboration, higher sophistication and complexity in every product and service.
Its looks so amazing that these units of culture use humans as vehicles to expand themselves. When one meme becomes stale another meme takes its place, which is more vibrant and complex. The story of the evolution of civilizations after civilizations have been an artifact to this unique dynamics of ideas, information, dreams, hope, expressions, innovations – all creations of human mind!
Certainly it is our responsibility to keep the mind nourished with Newer Ideas, Bigger Dreams, Brighter Hopes, and of course every expanding Love and Compassion!
______________________________________________
Copy Right © All rights reserved - Samrat Kar
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