Part 10 - Author Notes

(This is Part 10 in a series. The rest can be found here. http://rakestrawjeff.blogspot.com/?m=1)

I thought I would pause for a moment in this journey to stop and explain where we are and what we are doing here and why we are doing it.  I do realize that this is something of a meandering tale which would seem to be taking much too long and not following any rational path.  That is due at least in part to the fact that this is not so much a tale being told as it is a journey. 

We started out with some remarks that Pope Francis made about individualism.  If you recall, I took immediate exception to his remarks and started to pop off a quick rebuttal, explaining to the Pontiff what it was that he did not understand.  I then decided that such a response would be ridiculous and that it would be better to understand why Francis and I had different views. To do so would require a deep look at my own inherent biases.

We started from the beginning, with the Big Bang and the origins of life and humanity as we understand them now.  We looked at the origins of some of the basic philosophical and religious building blocks upon which our belief systems rest.  And we examined some of the ways that we come to understand the past, from geology and archeology to linguistics and genetics and written history.

I should point out that I am not a geologist or archeologist or linguist or geneticist or historian.  I am not a doctor, lawyer or priest, or a general, king, senator, or an author.  I am just a guy who helps people paint things. But I am a fan of authors and historians, and I appreciate the value of their contributions to our society.

Imagine trying to figure out ancient history without Herodotus.  From the introduction to his Histories:

“Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.”

— Herodotus, The Histories

Born on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea in 484 BC Herodotus would have had a few earlier historians to draw from, including Homer and Hecataeus of Miletus, but he was the first to escape the Homeric tradition of ascribing most things to the will of the Gods and to take a more critical look at human history.

 

Herodotus introduced the first attempts at historicity, and he is known as the Father of History.  One of his contemporaries was Thucydides, who was born in 460 BC and who also wrote history, specifically the History of the Peloponnesian War.  Thucydides included a point of view with his history, as did Herodotus.  It is human nature to do so, especially when, like Thucydides, you have lived through events.

 JRR Tolkien served in World War 1 as part of the British Expeditionary Force.  He served in the trenches in the Somme, along with CS Lewis.  Also serving in the trenches on the other side in that war was a young Adolf Hitler, who would also become an author and write about his struggles, and the disappointment and shame he felt at the German defeat.  Winston Churchill was another author who participated in that war and wrote about it.

 

Two thousand years before, Julius Caesar wrote of his exploits, including the conquest of Gaul.  Historians rely on the descriptions of Caesar because they have very few other sources, and because Caesar took the time to provide a relatively rich description of what he saw, even if it is necessarily colored by his perception.

 

The Celts in Gaul did not write things down, and so we do not have their version of the story to compare to that of Caesar.  Likewise the Persian side of the story of their battles with the Greeks will always be overshadowed by the Greek version, which was described in living color by Greek authors and made into a pretty one sided movie.

The Venerable Bede was a monk who lived in England from 673 to 735 and his History of the English People forms the basis of our understanding of early England. Bede drew from an impressive library which included the works of Virgil and other ancient authors.

 

Tolstoy was one of the greatest authors of all time, and War and Peace and Anna Karenina two of the greatest literary works of all time.  His experiences in the Crimean War dramatically changed his life and his outlook, and he became a pacifist.

 

Our history is colored by those who tell the story.  Livy and Josephus and Cicero all tell us the story as they see it, but they can only see it from their own historical lens.  Everyone has their own biases, but the best are aware of them and struggle for consistency and to present facts as much as possible.

 And sometimes they get the facts wrong, too.  In one classic scene from history the great historian Xenophon of Athens (430-354 BC) is with Greek troops in Mesopotamia, trying to make it back home when they came upon the ruins of a great city he calls Mespila, and which he is told was built by the Medes.  The remains were of the great ancient city of Nineveh, built a millennia before…but the locals were living in tents nearby, having no idea who built the great city.

 

Often, human beings forget things. 

 

Once history reaches Gutenberg and the Enlightenment we will have an explosion of authors and perspectives. The 1700’s and 1800’s see a revolution in human learning.  The masses start to get access to literature and ideas they had not had access to before, including the works of Herodotus, which will be translated and made available to people who are not monks like Bede.

 

But in the hills of western Kentucky it will take a little longer for lots of books to enter the typical rural household, with the exception of a family Bible.  My grandpa did not discuss a lot of Herman Melville or Vladimir Nabokov. Eventually we all got television sets and we got all of the information we needed from Walter Cronkite, or we read what we needed to know in the Sebree Banner or Community Press.

In the last 20 years most of the humans on the planet have gained access to just about everyone who ever wrote down words.  And a huge number of the humans on the planet have become writers. We have a thousand options on television and a million blogs to read, if we are so inclined.

 

And we have suddenly become aware of our collective stupidity.  In the past humans were only exposed to a very small segment of the population; those who lived near us, or our relatives, together with a Johnny Carson and an Ed Sullivan and the local news anchor.  Now we get to hear the stupidity of every idiot with a cell phone every hour of the day.

 

Not just the stupidity, but the bias and the ignorance and the hate are on display for all to see.  Never before in human history have we had instantaneous direct communication with anyone around the globe.  Everything that happens can be known almost instantly around the globe, and emotions can be ignited just as quickly.  It adds a complexity and dimension to human relations that we cannot possibly understand right now.

 

We know we are in the midst of change.  We can see it, but we have no perspective.

 

I don’t know what my great grandfather thought about the changes taking place in his world.  I have precious little that would help me understand who he was or what he thought.  People just didn’t write down a lot back then.

 

I am not an author, but I can provide some perspective for those who come after me about what I am thinking during this time. Beyond that, I can try to give them my perspective on my own past, and perhaps some insight on how my past colors my view.

 When Tolstoy wrote War and Peace he arguably changed the course of history, albeit over a longer time range than a battle or earthquake.  When Jefferson sat down to write our Declaration of Independence he was well versed in Herodotus and Xenophon and Plato and Aristotle and Josephus and Plutarch.  He was also aware of much newer works by Montesquieu and Locke and Algernon Sydney. 

 

Great writers borrow from and build upon the ideas of the past.

 

Have you ever gotten a position, perhaps in a group you belong to, where you had to struggle to understand the role and how to perform it and what was required?  Maybe you took a college course and felt completely lost and then someone handed you a FILE that told you what to do and how to do it and gave you tips and suggestions on how people did it before, and it changed everything.  History is kind of like that.

 

I want my grandchildren to understand that life does make sense; that there are predictable patterns and immutable laws and it is our task to understand those laws and that reality.  They also need to understand that we who came before them do not have all of the answers.  All we can do is give them some idea of how we got to where we did, and what mistakes we made.

 If you are reading what I am writing the same year I write it then just keep in mind you are not my primary audience.  And the journey we are taking will not make sense while we are taking it.  But hopefully it will give someone an idea of the journey that they may need to take to understand where they came from, even many years in the future.

 

So we started at the beginning, with the Big Bang, and after a lot of meandering we are ready to look at the next step in our journey, with the Steppe peoples stirring up trouble once again as the Roman Empire leaves a huge vacuum.  I promise we will make it to my story, which begins in the 1800’s.

 

There is lots of time.

 

Below is the second paragraph of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr Paris in August of 1785.  Please note Jefferson’s advice to Peter.

…An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second. It is time for you now to begin to be choice in your reading; to begin to pursue a regular course in it; and not to suffer yourself to be turned to the right or left by reading anything out of that course. I have long ago digested a plan for you, suited to the circumstances in which you will be placed. This I will detail to you, from time to time, as you advance. For the present, I advise you to begin a course of ancient history, reading everything in the original and not in translations. First read Goldsmith's history of Greece. This will give you a digested view of that field. Then take up ancient history in the detail, reading the following books, in the following order: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophontis Hellenica, Xenophontis Anabasis, Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin. This shall form the first stage of your historical reading, and is all I need mention to you now. The next, will be of Roman history (*). From that, we will come down to modern history. In Greek and Latin poetry, you have read or will read at school, Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anacreon, Theocritus, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles. Read also Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakespeare, Ossian, Pope's and Swift's works, in order to form your style in your own language. In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato's Socratic dialogues, Cicero's philosophies, Antoninus, and Seneca. In order to assure a certain progress in this reading, consider what hours you have free from the school and the exercises of the school. Give about two of them, every day, to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you. The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk; but divert your attention by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man; but I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained, by the use of this animal. No one has occasioned so much, the degeneracy of the human body. An Indian goes on foot nearly as far in a day, for a long journey, as an enfeebled white does on his horse; and he will tire the best horses. There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue. I would advise you to take your exercise in the afternoon: not because it is the best time for exercise, for certainly it is not; but because it is the best time to spare from your studies; and habit will soon reconcile it to health, and render it nearly as useful as if you gave to that the more precious hours of the day. A little walk of half an hour, in the morning, when you first rise, is advisable also. It shakes off sleep, and produces other good effects in the animal economy. Rise at a fixed and an early hour, and go to bed at a fixed and early hour also. Sitting up late at night is injurious to the health, and not useful to the mind. Having ascribed proper hours to exercise, divide what remain, (I mean of your vacant hours) into three portions. Give the principal to History, the other two, which should be shorter, to Philosophy and Poetry. Write to me once every month or two, and let me know the progress you make. Tell me in what manner you employ every hour in the day. The plan I have proposed for you is adapted to your present situation only. When that is changed, I shall propose a corresponding change of plan. I have ordered the following books to be sent to you from London, to the care of Mr. Madison. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon's Hellenics, Anabasis and Memorabilia, Cicero's works, Baretti's Spanish and English Dictionary, Martin's Philosophical Grammar, and Martin's Philosophia Britannica. I will send you the following from hence. Bezout's Mathematics, De la Lande's Astronomy, Muschenbrock's Physics, Quintus Curtius, Justin, a Spanish Grammar, and some Spanish books. You will observe that Martin, Bezout, De la Lande, and Muschenbrock are not in the preceding plan. They are not to be opened till you go to the University. You are now, I expect, learning French. You must push this; because the books which will be put into your hands when you advance into Mathematics, Natural philosophy, Natural history, &c. will be mostly French, these sciences being better treated by the French than the English writers. Our future connection with Spain renders that the most necessary of the modern languages, after the French. When you become a public man, you may have occasion for it, and the circumstance of your possessing that language, may give you a preference over other candidates. I have nothing further to add for the present, but husband well your time, cherish your instructors, strive to make everybody your friend; and be assured that nothing will be so pleasing, as your success, to, Dear Peter.

(*) Livy, Sallust, Caesar, Cicero's epistles, Suetonius, Tacitus, Gibbon