Assumptions & Theories about History: The Dawn of Conscience & Current Theorists

As preparation for discussing Isis (the goddess), I read The Dawn of Conscience by James Breasted. 

The book was written in 1935 (I actually learned about it from Agatha Christie's autobiography) and is one of those older books that I quite like to read simply for the clear language. The style falls into the same category as that used by writers like Durant and Gibbons. Erudite without being unreadable.

However, the book rests on a premise with which I disagree and for the same reason that I disagree with much critical theory. That is, although many current critical theorists would be offended by Breasted calling people of the past "primitive" and "barbaric," their theories still rest on the same supposition: ideas evolve based on the impact of leaders and environment. "Advancement" (technology/civil institutions) comes first, then the idea.

That is, Breasted is arguing that the Egyptians started out by worshiping in one way (with pyramids) and then "advanced" to worshiping a different way. He makes the correct--and fascinating--point that the pyramids were ancient to the ancient Egyptians. (He also makes the large mistake of arguing that the pyramids must have been built at the cost of human life; in fact, humans of the past were quite capable at building huge monuments out of cooperation.) 

Many critical theorists would get upset at the use of the term "advanced," but they would agree: the Ancient Egyptians were moving or progressing or changing in one particular direction in their beliefs. 

Breasted and the theorists fail to understand one crucial point:

There is a difference between culture/technology changing or advancing and beliefs changing or advancing. 

That is, what historians learn when they research the past is how beliefs/circumstances were communicated in particular settings. 

That certain ideas appear in pyramid texts only indicates that the pyramid texts were used to convey certain ideas. It does not indicate that those were the only ideas in existence at the time or that other ideas weren't floating about.

"We are contemplating a sense of emergence of moral responsibility as it was gradually assuming an increasing mandatory power over human conduct," Breasted proclaims. I love the language, but his idea is, frankly, kind of silly. It's what Stephen Pinker attempts to address in his books about language: the falsehood that people don't think or imagine something until a word comes along for it (that is, until someone gives them permission to think/imagine). 

That's simply not how language and brains and humans work.

Breasted gets closer, later, to the relationship between art and moral thought when he states, "The power of personality...[was] now beginning to find expression...in the art of the time" (my emphasis).

In fact, Breasted, by necessity, continually contradicts himself. At one point, he contends that Osirian beliefs "evolved" to replace or to mingle with Sun-God beliefs, but how exactly does Breasted think beliefs "evolve"? He then argues that Osirian beliefs were popular--okay, so couldn't Osirian beliefs be forerunners to the Sun-God beliefs? After all, the Sun-God beliefs were held by an intellectual minority (who happened to pay for the pyramids and employed people who could write).

At another point, Breasted claims that the "story of the Misanthrope" (an early version of the story of Job, which is recognized as a kind of folk-story) indicates "the long development of self-consciousness, the slow process which culminated in the emergence of the individual as a moral force, an individual aware of conscience." Sounds great (I mean, it really does sound great!) but Breasted has already acknowledged that the tale was copied from an "older original." Like Beowulf (and the Book of Job itself) it may originally have been an oral tale or play that indicates a full awareness of conscience at some earlier date. 

When Breasted states ponderously, "[F]or the first time in history men were awakened to a deep sense of the moral unworthiness of society," I love the language but I start giggling. Seriously? I'm sure there were hunters and gatherers who snarked to each other about the moral unworthiness of their current leader or how bad things had gotten since someone invented new tools. "I remember back in the day...."

Because a bunch of people all decide to write about something in a particular decade does not mean that the something was never written about/discussed before. 

To me, a self-proclaimed geek, the real question is, How much influence does technology have in spreading ideas? 

Imagine if one went online and (1) went to mostly political sites; (2) read the comments. One would deduce that the human race was miserable and divisive and kind of lacking in moral sense. 

And yet there are plenty of people off the Internet who go about their business and believe in kindliness and try to make sense of day-to-day life and use commonsense morality to judge situations  and teach the same approach to their kids. 

Erasmus: forerunner to Luther

I think there is some merit to arguing that certain ideas/theories/stories/views find more support at certain times than others. A lot of Protestant ideas were floating around Christendom before Martin Luther appeared on the scene. On the other hand, he did draw out those people and thoughts. And the printing press was available to circulate what they were all saying to each other.

But those ideas/theories/stories/views already existed, ready to be communicated. Just because certain groups only discuss certain topics doesn't mean the other topics have disappeared. Just because a bunch of stone texts (in part paid for by bureaucrats) emphasize service to the state over individual moral self-awareness doesn't mean individuals of the same time period didn't indulge in moral self-awareness. 

The only reason to give the "streamlined" version of top-down history credence is because it is easier to track. Tracking everyday, ordinary people's beliefs and actions is incredibly difficult and much of it is lost to assumptions by theorists. Rodney Stark points out that when universities did religious surveys many years ago, the survey creators removed all questions about supernatural influences because "people don't believe that way anymore." The survey takers then reported, Americans don't believe in the supernatural anymore!

His group put the questions back in. Guess what, Americans believe in angels and dreams and visions and talking to God!

Breasted's "great man" approach to history comes under a lot of fire in contemporary culture. But it isn't all that different from the supposedly edgy critical theories that float about now. Both approaches insist that time works like an arrow: a bunch of (carefully selected) evidence proves that a (good or bad) single mindset has given way to another (good or bad) single mindset. At least Breasted is less obnoxious about his assumptions than current theorists. One gets the impression that he is operating within a relatively new field, not trying to bully others into submission. Consequently, Breasted is easier to take.