First Civilizations or Better Yet: Pharaohs and Frauds - Chapter 2 Ways of the World

‘Paradox’ - the perfect word to describe modern society, particularly when the word ‘strange’ is positioned in front of paradox.”

Scribe - another good word.  Where would we be without scribes?

“Both within and beyond these cities, people were organized and controlled by states whose leaders could use force to compel obedience.”  This sentence sums up the way of the world pretty succinctly, I must say, especially using force to compel obedience.  Well, we need law and order in order to be civilized.

If I have identified correctly, the seven ‘First Civilizations’ are:  Sumerian, Egyptian, Norte Chico (Peruvian), Indus Valley (Middle Eastern), Chinese, Central Asian/Oxus, and Olmec (Gulf of Mexico).

Interesting point: “Civilizations had their roots in the Agricultural Revolution.  But not all agricultural societies or chiefdoms developed into civilizations.”

What a great explanation about winners and losers.  The losers had nowhere to flee; thus, they were “absorbed into the winner’s society as a lower class.”  Opposing forces exist in every aspect of life – a way of maintaining some sort of symmetry.

Just as the First Civilizations emerged simultaneously, similarities emerged with their evolutions, even though they were distantly located from each other – kind of like osmosis.

The description provided of the cities of First Civilizations can still be used to describe today’s cities:  political/administrative capitals; cultural centers; marketplaces; impersonal; and degrees of specialization and inequality.

Major turning point:  urbanization magnifies inequalities as earlier cultures are displaced – where all of society’s ills germinated.  “Exploiting landlords” even then!

Something else that has not changed much:  slavery, which still goes on today in more sophisticated ways, such as human trafficking and prostitution rings.

“The human mastery of nature” and its equation with the inferiority-of-women concept was central in my Way of the Earth” class.   Women were viewed as property to be tamed, just like nature, in a male-dominated society – always a battle of control and domination.

“By the second millennium B.C.E. in Mesopotamia, various written laws codified and sought to enforce a patriarchal family life that offered women a measure of paternalistic protection while insisting on submission to the unquestioned authority of men.”  Well, if that does not sound just like how the mafia operates, then I’ll be damned.  This is organized criminal behavior at its finest.

Sources of state authority:  efforts to defend; adjudicate conflicts; problem solve; protect principles of the upper class; extort from farmers (another mafia move); demand work on public projects; use of force and violence.

Now we’re talking: the invention of writing – a desirable ability to possess and something that can raise the status of a commoner, but was also manipulated with propaganda.  Writing developed a life of its own becoming hard to control.  I can see why, since writers could produce works without applying their name.

A common theme with ancient times and current California: rivalry over land and water.

It’s good to be king

And have your own way

Get a feeling of peace

At the end of the day – Tom Petty

That is, until the Nile’s failure to flood, and you are deemed a fraud.