History

For this blog, I’m going back to 1835 British India. For people who’ve ever wondered why English has become the defacto language-of-the- world-you-are-expected-to-know, here is the sort of thinking that enabled that development. Sir Thomas Macaulay was appointed President of the Indian Committee of Public Instruction in 1835 by the liberal colonial administration of Governor General Lord Bentinck. At that time there were two factions in British colonial administration the Orientalists–who looked on South-Asian culture with a sort of condescending respect even though they misunderstood it all the time–and the liberal reformists–who wanted to bring Indian culture out of the “dark ages” and teach western learning.  Macaulay is definitely from the latter. In his ‘Minute on Indian Education’ of 1835 he denounces the teaching of Sanskrit and Arabic in Indian education and promotes English and European culture–obviously with the attitude that European culture is superior. Actually the commonly held view by both Orientalists and reformers was that many of the nonwhite areas of the world–Egypt, China, India, Persia–were once “great” cultures but had dwindled to inferior cesspools of backwater superstition.

However, Macaulay takes this view one step further in proclaiming many times that Arabic and Sanskrit languages and literature do not hold anything that was even previously “great.” To him, any learning of these languages is a waste of time because there is no science or rational thought within the literature. He goes so far as to say, “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.” It is very easy for us to dismiss Macaulay, since he is so blatantly xenophobic, but his thoughts reek of a similar attitude found today in the West. It’s the attitude that the West is built on Science. That our philosophies, political and otherwise, are built on some sort of inherent truth and reason while other cultures are built on superstitious religion. Of course, this is a load of poppycock. One doesn’t need to look far to find instances of Western prejudice that resulted in philosophies, politics, and science that were later proven to be false when the trends changed.

 Macaulay also goes beyond this outlandish claim of superiority and argues for the practical uses of teaching Indians English. He does have a point that the language of the ruling class in the East was English so if an Indian wanted to move up in society, learning English would be the most helpful. But of course why exactly was that? Because the British dominated the East during this time period. There just seems to be something fishy about a people going into an area, taking it over, and then saying, “hmmmm, it would be more practical for them to learn English since we took the place over and refuse to learn their language…” Oh well. I suppose this is all water under the bridge. Macaulay does make a very accurate prediction that as the language of the ruling class of many areas of the world, English would “likely become the language of commerce throughout the seas of the East.” He was right. Of course they needed a little help from America to make this happen.   

I’m currently reading a book called “The Evolution of Civilizations” by Carroll Quigley, a very famous historian who was a consultant for many U.S. government institutions. I’m nowhere near finished yet, and will not be for a little while. I’m not in school so there’s no need for marathon reading, I want to digest every piece. This book is not so much a chronology of civilizations but a book on historical method. What I’ve read so far struck me as so pertinent and succinct that I decided I had to blog about it before I was finished.

Quigley begins with the idea that history can and should be a discipline which uses scientific method. He laments that too often sociological fields are ruled by prejudice and ideology and thus are not considered sciences. He writes this in 1961, however, it is still true today. No one looks at history as a science, yet somehow whatever the history books say become truth. The scientific method is very simple. You make observations. You make a hypothesis and you test the hypothesis. Why can’t historians use this method as well? Some historians, of course, do–but unfortunately, the ones who write most history books do not. We are bombarded by assumptions on all sides. Quigley stresses that all hypotheses stay hypotheses because they will constantly be under the scrutiny of our growing knowledge. If only historians kept this in mind rather than jumping to conclusions because of cultural assumptions.

Connected to this treatment of history as a science is the function of culture. Human culture is the cushion between people and their natural environment. It is obviously made up of interactions between people, their material objects, and their environment. The reason history can be so difficult to pin down is because the facts regarding culture are numerous, yet we can’t really run a controlled experiment. However, this very subjective nature of history and culture is exactly what makes it so influential. Economies and wars are based on these subjective cultural elements and that’s why it’s so important to study the various causes and effects, however complicated they may be.

I leave you with a quote, “The human brain alone, as a kind of central switchboard, has millions of neural connections…The way in which these are connected up, or even the fact that they come to be connected up at all, depends on what happens to the child, how he is trained, and how he grows…Indeed, we might assume that everyone, at birth…has the potentiality for being aggressive or submissive, selfish or generous, cowardly or brave, masculine or feminine…and so forth, and that which of these potential qualities becomes actual…depends, very largely, on the way in which each person is trained or on the experiences he encounters growing up. The fact that there are societies or tribes in which almost everyone is aggressive…and that there are other closely related tribes in which almost everyone is submissive…and the fact that infants, taken from one such tribe and reared in the other, grow up to have in full measure the typical characteristics of their adopted tribe would seem to indicate both that all such people are potentially about the same at conception and that their personalities are largely a consequence of the way in which they are reared. If this is so, it is clear that the way in which people are brought up is very important….Thus there appear in any society certain patterns of action, of belief, and of thought that are passed on from generation to generation…” (pp 50-51) 

Of course, when Quigley wrote this, many discoveries regarding the influence of human genes had not yet been made. However, even genes do not change the fact that human society is extraordinarily influential on the human personality. We definitely cannot forget this element as we collect facts and observations.

George Orwell–born in 1904 and author of such famous books as 1984 and Animal Farm–despite being an imperial workhorse in Burma for some years still remained fairly clear-headed. His book Why I Write makes some surprisingly accurate predications on the future stance of British government and social policy. I was struck by how accurate when I read a little blurb in The Wallstreet Journal this morning about an Oxford University study which found that there is no longer a ‘culture elite’. That is to say that they found that most people, in the UK and a few other countries, consume only popular culture regardless of social status. However, they did find that based on people’s education, some still had more omnivorous cultural tastes and might actually go to an opera every once in awhile. Of course, some people do go to operas to make themselves feel cultured, and then go home quickly to catch the last Survivor episode. Orwell observed this cultural normalization earlier in the 20th century, “To an increasing extent the rich and the poor read the same books, and they also see the same films and listen to the same radio programmes.” (p. 43) Orwell described this cultural change as a natural byproduct of capitalism and democracy. Of course, he did not look at this capitalism as necessarily good. In fact, he describes capitalism as a weak system, too weak to combat the totalitarianism of communism and Hitler. Even as he wrote certain passages in his book he complained of the bombs from the Luftwaffe. The beating of Hitler was of tantamount importance in this book, written at a time when the winning of the war was very far from certain.  Orwell feels that Britain must inevitably progress to a different level of politics if the war is to be won and fascism vanquished. He ridicules both leftists and rich capitalists, while advocating for a sort of hybrid between socialism and capitalism. 

Orwell’s future England: “It will not be doctrinaire, nor even logical. It will abolish the House of Lords, but quite probably will not abolish the Monarchy. It will leave anachronisms and loose ends everywhere, the judge in his ridiculous horse-hair wig and the lion and the unicorn on the soldier’s cap-buttons. It will not set up any explicit class dictatorship. It will group itself round the Old Labour Party and its mass following will be in the trade unions, but it will draw into it most of the middle class and many of the younger sons of the bourgeoisie. Most of its directing brains will come from the new indeterminate class of skilled workers, technical experts, airmen, scientists, architects and journalists, the people who feel at home in the radio and ferro-concrete age. But it will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief in a law that is above the State. It will shoot traitors, but it will give them a solemn trial beforehand and occasionally it will acquit them. It will crush any open revolt promptly and cruelly, but it will interfere very little with the spoken and written word. Political parties with different names will still exist, revolutionary sects will still be publishing their newspapers and making as little impression as ever. It will disestablish the Church, but will not persecute religion. It will retain a vague reverence for the Christian moral code, and from time to time will refer to England as ‘a Christian country’…It will show a power of assimilating the past which will shock foreign observers and sometimes make them doubt whether any revolution has happened.” (p. 83-84)   

When I read this passage I was struck by what an accurate prediction of modern England this really is. Orwell also points out that if WWII did not break Britain in the end it would be the catalyst for this revolution-less revolution. He aptly points out that “war is the greatest of all agents of change.” (p.71)  

It makes me wonder who Orwell really was. Who were his friends? What sort of information was he privy to? Maybe I’m over-suspicious. After all, he did work in British administration, albeit in lowly positions, any thinking person could have seen the trends in political and social thinking. The tendencies and qualities of bureaucrats speak mountains about the system they work for. 

Which, additionally, makes me wonder about America and what it will be like after the next war–which we are at the beginning of–is over. North American Union? New currency? Of course, we don’t have the same traditional cultural ideals that Britain had. Americans have always been more open to change and the only cultural trait that Americans have in common is the pursuit of money. Somehow I don’t think this bodes well for the future revolution-less revolution of the U.S.A.   

“For the past several hundred years intellectual discourse has been shaped by the rhythms and hierarchies inherent in the nature of print. As discourse shifts from page to screen, and more significantly to a networked environment, the old definitions and relations are undergoing substantial changes. The shift in our world view from individual to network holds the promise of a radical reconfiguraton in culture. Notions of authority are being challenged. The roles of author and reader are morphing and blurring. Publishing, methods of distribution, peer review and copyright - every crucial aspect of the way we move ideas around - is up for grabs. The new digital technologies afford vastly different outcomes ranging from oppressive to liberating. How we make this shift has critical long term implications for human society.”

Thus sayeth Bob Stein, the Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book. This institute is dedicated to delineating the role of the written word in the digital age, leaning heavily towards digitized libraries. I have heard many literati of the older generations gripe about the digital coup. People no longer write letters they say. People are losing their literacy and their attention spans they worry. Certainly there is some truth to these concerns, however, didn’t people stop writing letters a long time ago? Hasn’t literacy in America been pretty dismal before everyone had a personal computer? I would argue that the new and popular digital world offers a whole new array of possibilities for popular literature. People who normally don’t really read at all can have a chance to read 16th century books by Francis Bacon, for instance, free thanks to Google Books. Yet, that is one critique, Google seems to be making the most effort to make books available for free on the internet and many find this large corporation suspicious for that very reason.

All in all though, the internet is largely populist. You can find blogs by a redneck in Texas, an Indian poet, or photographers in Sarajevo. All people and all opinions get to be broadcast on the internet with little or no cost. In the past, books tended to be a product of upper and/or white classes. Now anyone can write anything in an internet cafe and someone 3,000 miles away can read about it. I obviously think this is a great development.

However, while all this populism makes for a lovely chaos, the digital world leaves little in the way of long lasting mementos. Whereas medieval Irish sagas written on parchment or the U.S. constitution written on hemp can last hundreds of years, what about digital words? Sure we can read everything as long as the internet is up and running. But oh…let’s say we run out of fossil fuels…or WWIII causes global insfrastructure to fail–what happens to all those digital words? They become lost to the ether. This is kinda scary, yet also a liberating way to ‘live in the now’ as they say. What does the future hold? I have no idea, but right now I enjoy the knowledge free-for-all that is the world wide web.

Okay, I’ve been a bit busy lately, thus, no blogs. However, for all of you waiting on the edge of your seats, I have some general life comments…

I’ve been busy making personal life history. Yes, history is important for many reasons. Not only does it help one to understand the present much better, but on a personal level, a history recognized and dealt with is much better than no history. Now, I am a firm believer in “living in the now” as they say. However, humans live in an alternate reality. It would be nice if we could all just be like cats and dogs “living in the now” with no care for past or future. Yet, we are not. I recently read an article by the famous Carroll Quigley pointing out the erroneus nature of evolutionists feeling that humans have reached evolutionary dominance because we adapted the best to our natural stimulations. In reality, We have reached dominance as a species because we have created an alternate world to what we were naturally given. As early humanoids we were practically wiped out. Then, somehow we miraculously discovered that living in a world other than the natural world would help us at surviving when we were otherwise failing.

Thus, we live in this alternate world. Both symbolic in our minds as well as in our concrete reality. Is this for better or for worse? I don’t know, but we can understand these artificial circumstances better if we know our past…

On a lighter note, I’ve been enjoying a CD of Turkish Roma music that i checked out from the library recently.

Empire, a word that gets bounced around quite a bit in reference to corporations, popularity, and nation states. Ok, so what is an empire after all? For me, the word empire makes me think of stodgy Brits in red costumes (hehe, I mean uniforms) talking about the “white man’s burden.” So obviously, looking back in history we have the Roman empire, the Muslim empire, the Greeks, the British, etc. etc. etc. All of these examples of empires have military conquest at their center, yet, seem to have more factors involved than mere conquest. Would Rome be considered an empire if they had merely taken some lands? Rather we see a sort of cultural hegemony where conquested territories had local puppet rulers who worked with Roman administrators and basically conformed to Roman culture. People spoke Latin and Greek and generally tried to “do as the Romans do” because it enabled one to better climb the social ladder. Thus, there seems to be more involved with being an empire than mere conquest and rule. Read the rest of this entry »

The first article I read in the Wall Street Journal this morning was regarding a change in body standards of the Tamil-speaking movie industry of India. I guess that with India’s increasing economic “effectiveness” their movie stars are becoming more “westernized” i.e. wanting to be thin and wearing western clothing. The example the author gave was of a young actress who was 5′4″ and 121 lbs. Still “fat” by American actress standards but leaning towards the thin in an industry that previously provided many more voluptuous images.

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Mercenaries are nothing new in history. Irish warriors hired themselves out in the Middle Ages and William of Hesse-Kassel made a fortune hiring out German Mercenaries in the 18th century. However, the situation we find today is different than these two historic examples. Today, mercenaries are paid large salaries by private companies who, although they have close relationships with governments, are not actually government organizations themselves. This provides a much different scenario than individuals hiring themselves out to governments (the Irish) or a Prince hiring out his own military to other governments (Hesse-Kassel). I would say this privatized military more closely resembles activities of private European companies in colonization such as the East India Company. The East India Company was given a state sanctioned monopoly by the British crown in 1600 and although made up of private shareholders still contained many government officials in its members. The East India Company started out just trading but employed armies and eventually took over most of what we now know as India, even employing a Sepoy Army made up of Indians to help in this endeavor.

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GREENSPAN SAYS HE KNEW ABOUT ABUSES IN SUBPRIME LENDING BUT FAILED TO FORSEE THEIR PARALYZING MARKET EFFECTS UNTIL LATE 2005
Thu Sept 13 2007 12:30:11 ET

Was Greenspan really as clueless as he claims he was? Let’s look at some recent history to find out…

The clues lie in an article written by a young Greenspan in 1966 for the Ayn Rand journal “The Objectivist”. ‘Gold and Economic Freedom’ gives a simple synopsis of banking practices and the need for a Gold standard. These days precious metal standards to limit lending/inflation of currencies are generally considered an antiquated concept, but back in 1966 the U.S. was still on a pseudo-Gold standard. The objectivist/libertarian nature of Greenspan’s article may raise some hackles, but, please just focus on the overall economic implications of what he says. Keep in mind that Greenspan continues to be a follower of Rand and has never repudiated his previous assertions. So here are some of the things Greenspan has to say about credit practices and interest rates…

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It’s a no-brainer that India is currently in the midst of a large economic boom. However, not very long ago She was suffering. The South Asian economy had been a center of economic activity since ancient times. When European companies arrived on the scene in the 17th and 18th century they attempted to insert themselves into a booming textile and spice trade. South Asian port cities exported spices, foods, and textiles to Asia and the West, some even say that in the mid 18th century 1/4 of all the worlds textiles were provided by South Asia.
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Here is a very interesting article busting misconceptions about Indian economic inequality…

Income Inequality In India: Growth, Health And Development

Filed under: Growth, Health — Dweep @ 10:58 pm

Economists frequently cite economic growth as the surest way out of poverty for the developing world. In this context, China is an often mentioned example, where double digit growth has brought over 300 million people out of extreme poverty over the past few decades. But closely tied to growth is the question of equality - of growing the pie, as opposed to distributing it.

In discussions of equality, India usually does better in comparison to China. Proponents of India’s path to development often point out that income inequality in India has historically been relatively low. The UN Human Development Report 2006 estimated the Gini Index - an indicator of income inequality - for India to be 32.5 in 2000. This compares favorably with much of the world, including the USA and OECD countries (Sweden: 25; Norway: 25.8; USA: 40.8; China: 44.7; Brazil: 58 - low numbers are better).

Yes, India’s income distribution is relatively equal. But inequality is rising - fast.

Rest of Article 

Iraq, a nation since 1920, war-torn, conflict-ridden, plagued by despotic rulers, and western political and economic aspirations. The area we now know as Iraq is also the site of many ancient civilizations. Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Arabians all built their monuments and cities in this area. A little overwhelmed with my self-driven project to find out more about the history of this “nation” I’ve read almost too much. Now I’m faced with the fact that I wrote a blog that is 3 single-spaced pages. Don’t worry I cut the lot and will not bore you with the whole thing. Do people really care about what the Persians called their Iraq province or when the Mongols sacked Baghdad? Well, perhaps a few people care, but I think my blog is already long enough for most of your TV-addled attention spans.

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British history is filled with intrepid adventurers who took off to foreign climes in search of wealth, fame, and freedom from British conventions. While many of these adventurers did tend to look on “natives” with a more sympathetic eye than Brits at home, prejudice and British patriotism still played a large role in their actions. Gertrude Bell is one such famous British adventurer. While her role is unusual because she was a woman, her actions and sentiments are not really much different from her male counterparts. At least not so far as I can see.
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So, I was browsing digg.com when I came upon a delightful article on how the ancient Vedic texts mention nothing of caste that one is born into. I thought this would be an interesting addition to my earlier article, “Caste, Simplified?” Regarding the formation of caste by the British and their Indian collaborators. I don’t really know anything about Vedic texts or Sanskrit, so I can’t corroborate, but I thought it was extremely interesting and the author seems pretty knowledgeable of the language and translation.

Somanatha, an ancient South-Asian city whose temple was allegedly raided by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026, became a rallying point for the British and later, Hindu Nationalists. The British ignored Hindu sources from the time period which made no mention of Ghazni’s raid. Rather, they relied solely on Muslim chronicles trying to legitimate their ruler’s power and legitimacy. In fact, they deliberately mistranslated these chronicles which wrote about various raids simply as war against a neighbouring kingdom–whether Muslim, Hindu, or Jain–and turned these commonplace raids into jihads, or holy wars against infidels. In reality, South Asia around this medieval time period was very diverse, fractured amongst many kingdoms. There was no Hindu/Muslim animosity. Rather Hindus and Muslims lived and worked together quite peacefully. The temple at Somanath around the time of Ghazni’s raid even had a dedication inscription by a local Muslim merchant in both Arabic and Sanskrit. To find the cause of the raid one must look at politics instead of religion.

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We often hear the old adage that History repeats itself. Many people, when they hear I graduated with a B.A. in History make some comment like “oh that is such a wonderful degree…we need to teach people not to repeat history…won’t we ever learn!” Now they could just be being nice as the other school of people say something lame like, “oh history, what’ll you do with that, teach?” Well, not that there isn’t anything to be learned from history, obviously there is. However, when you look closely at any situation, much less an historical one, you are boggled by details. Details, that in essence, make every situation unique and defy simple explanation. Well, considering this I’ve found a slew of famous British historians who’ve stated it clearly, History doesn’t repeat itself. Although there may be similar trends and strategies, expect the unexpected. Every situation must be faced with a fresh perspective. Instead of trying to force the past into the mold of the present we must learn, point blank, what can happen. One revolution is never the same as another, nor one war ever the same as another. However, the way opinions and propagandas can be mobilized is very similar even if the mold is different. So, is there really any significance to saying that history doesn’t repeat itself, exactly? Well, probably not, seems like a little bit of academic mind barfing to me.

Alright, I’ve heard so many misconceptions on this subject that I thought it deserved a little blog…

The caste system of India is looked on by many as a primitive leftover from the ancient past of India, oppressive, backwards, and needing reform. I’ve read a few news articles lately regarding how the current south-asian tech boom is slowly changing the rigidity of the caste system as companies prefer hiring based on ability rather than caste. Now, I’m not really going to go into that issue, sure all cultures are in a state of constant change, albeit some faster than others. However, the caste system itself–as we understand it–is a product of change. Particularly change wrought by the colonial system.

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