“History is not a chronicle, but a Hebrew invention about the way the cosmos works…”
Our concrete sense of unidirectional time, moving forward from past, present, to future, only emerges with the writing of history, with the Old Testament, and other archaic Near Eastern documents from Sumer, etc. But if you looked back into the obscure and shadowy history of language, you would find that before the written word there was only talking and oral tradition, passed on through words of mouth and ritual from generation to generation. Written language, emerging approximately six thousand years ago, only fully appeared coincident with the birth of cities – with civilization and history. In fact, we began to make history only when we began to write history! Coincident with a number of other advances attributable to human ingenuity, we became prisoners of time and history, running from our past and hoping for a better future.
In the pre-civilized world, there was no distinct sense of linear time (although there was a recognition of arcadian and natural cycles), and there was no history, only the most cursory beginnings (in the late Neolithic) of what we might call myth!! Why this sudden concern with forward progress; no one is positive. But certainly the advent of large scale agriculture, requiring stricter attention to the timing of nature’s cycles, and the management of the institutional affairs of urban life in newly developed city-states or nations, the management of resources (labor, typically in the form of slave-labor taken from the vanquished boys of opposed nation-states). All of this required the construction of tools by which to manage the affairs of civilization. Hence the development of time telling devices, a sense of strictly linear time, and the growing interest in the progress of civilized life under the watchful eye of Father Time, and the slow destruction of Mother Nature.
Obviously this now raises the problem of freedom. From the slavery of those managed by civil bosses, to the overall slavery to Time, by the populace of the city-state; the problem of freedom becomes an issue for humankind. Freedom from slavery (political/economic), freedom from time (social/cultural) and freedom from history (religious eschatology), becomes a central problematic for human existence. The situation becomes more pronounced after antiquity, and by the end of the Middle Ages, the clock in the public square controls everyone’s life and activities. Except, of course, for the village idiot – he is the only one free to be and do, as he will.
So what changed? Everything! We went from small kinship ordered communities that were free to roam, forage, hunt and engage in small-scale horticulture, with a focus on living in an extensive present. From there we entered into a philosophy of domination: dominate nature, dominate our predators, dominate our fellowmen and women, dominate the globe, and the universe.
Sandy Krolick, Ph.D., the Critical Anarchist, is a former professor of philosophy and cultural studies with appointments at University of Virginia, University of Denver, Hobart College, and the Colorado School of Mines. He was also an executive with General Electric, Ernst & Young, and Computer Sciences Corporation. A published author, he hosts a website at www.kulturcritic.com and a blog at blog.kulturcritic.com; a Facebook Group "The End(s) of Civilization"
Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Humanities Articles Via RSS!
