| "body"> | | | | Other emerging disciplines soon set about |
| Human reason so delights in constructions, that it has | | | | constructing alternative ways to dissect or cut up |
| several times built up a tower, and then razed it to | | | | the world, identifying effects and linking them to |
| examine the nature of the foundation. It is never too | | | | causes on a newly established unidirectional temporal |
| late to become wise; but if the change comes too | | | | axis - an historical timeline. Through the proper |
| late, there is always more difficulty in starting a | | | | application of the new logistic - linking universals to |
| reform. The question whether a science be possible, | | | | particulars in the form of laws - prediction and control |
| presupposes a doubt as to its actuality. But such a | | | | were achieved. Scientific laws of course would give |
| doubt offends the men whose whole possessions | | | | predictive control over nature; religious laws, control |
| consist of this supposed jewel; hence he who raises | | | | over human affairs. And history would become a |
| the doubt must expect opposition from all sides. | | | | story of the adventures of these diverse but |
| [Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to any Future | | | | interlaced controlling hierarchies - religious, political, and |
| Metaphysics, Intro: 256] | | | | scientific. |
| We are told that history begins in Sumer, near the | | | | Seemingly locked in eternal strife, science (with its |
| Persian Gulf, where the first civil laws were instituted | | | | "discovered" laws) and religion (with its "revealed" |
| roughly fifty-five hundred years ago. Coincident with | | | | laws) would be enemies in posture only - mutually |
| this founding, there emerged entirely new ways of | | | | dependent sibling rivals, established at the dawn of |
| thinking, acting, and interacting with one's fellow | | | | civilization, providing guidance and control in hierarchical |
| citizens. With those first social laws, citizenship was | | | | institutions now dominating modern life. The |
| born. The overwhelming evidence from anthropology, | | | | conceptual foci of these two siblings - the empirical |
| archeology, paleontology, ethnography and the | | | | and the transcendental - were simply two sides of |
| history of religions strongly reinforces the view that a | | | | the same advancing historical consciousness, reflected |
| new set of problems arose with the transition from | | | | as well in the pre-Socratic philosophical struggles over |
| an egalitarian kinship-based, predominantly nomadic | | | | "being" and "becoming." Quite simply, science and |
| hunting/gathering lifestyle characterizing the Paleolithic, | | | | religion staked out two complementary positions on |
| and autonomous villages representative of the | | | | one and the same "objective" reality appearing in the |
| Neolithic, to more sedentary, hierarchically structured | | | | breach from prehistory to history. |
| life ways, based primarily on intensive plant and animal | | | | In addition to the problem of control, however, there |
| domestication economies, that erupted onto the | | | | also arose the question of meaning, of history's |
| scene at the close of the Neolithic period. | | | | purpose. If we citizens were now locked in a |
| This transformation had an incalculable impact upon | | | | unidirectional historical trajectory, with a present |
| human consciousness over the ensuing centuries, | | | | moment that was simply waiting between an |
| producing entirely novel categories for understanding | | | | historical past bearing down on us and an anticipated |
| and manipulating the world. Reality was constituted | | | | future pulling us forward, then what was the |
| differently after the birth of civilization than it had | | | | purpose, the goal, the endpoint of this forward |
| been previously. This would have resounding | | | | movement? |
| reverberations for all generations to follow, | | | | Scientific rationality certainly provided the scaffolding |
| entrenched as they were in new hierarchies and | | | | upon which to build civilization's "tower" but could give |
| institutions that would appear, including formal | | | | no clear guidance about the ultimate purpose of |
| institutions of education. Borrowing terminology, I will | | | | historical life, or insight into the meaningful "end" of |
| call this new model according to which reality was | | | | history. Religion, on the other hand, offered a vision |
| thereafter constituted, the curriculum of the West. | | | | of the ultimate goal, the telos of history, but needed |
| The burgeoning temperament for this new way of | | | | science to supply it with a fallen world of mere |
| seeing the world affected every dimension of life as | | | | objects, along with the unfolding historical drama |
| civilization spread, and cities continued to populate the | | | | against which the transcendental vision could play |
| globe over subsequent millennia. | | | | itself out. Together they succeeded in focusing |
| Along with the shift from communal sharing of | | | | human intuition and praxis on what appeared to be |
| essential resources, to privatization of access to | | | | the appropriate direction of historical consciousness - |
| those resources, a cardinal issue to surface from this | | | | the future, progress, and achieving the proper "ends" |
| change of perspective was the need for control: | | | | of life. |
| control of the natural world to ensure food supplies, | | | | It seems almost axiomatic today that progress has |
| and control of the citizenry to ensure the protection | | | | become a good in itself - some might even argue the |
| and safety of those supplies. | | | | only legitimate means of achieving "the good life." |
| With respect to control of nature, scientific inquiry | | | | Indeed, scientific rationality and engineering prowess |
| eventually found its voice, leading to the articulation | | | | now appear to constitute the new faith of a new |
| of laws by means of which nature could be | | | | era. The foundation stones of a nascent |
| manipulated. The first formal laws, following an | | | | techno-theocracy, they may be marching us, |
| explicitly scientific logistic, appeared in Greece only | | | | hyper-rationally, to a fabricated and perhaps |
| about twenty-five hundred years ago; but their | | | | apocalyptic Eschaton. Their dominion is so totalizing |
| foundations were laid much earlier - their necessity | | | | they have undermined the simple enjoyment of a |
| issuing from the demands of a sedentary lifestyle | | | | more spontaneous life, lived more simply on mother |
| and early proto-scientific pursuits to gain control over | | | | earth. |
| the agricultural cycle. | | | | In addition to a foundation razing critique of the |
| Second, with the fracturing of kinship in the newly | | | | curriculum, we are in desperate need today of a |
| established social settings of cities, kingdoms, and | | | | vocabulary and a path that allows for a more |
| satellite villages, the need for control over persons | | | | circumspect view of the trajectory of historical |
| also became paramount. This was particularly true in | | | | consciousness, and assists us in understanding how |
| larger urban centers, whose populations were | | | | science and religion have been interlaced from their |
| comprised mainly of displaced villagers and other | | | | very beginnings in creating and driving civilization's |
| relocated strangers. In this context, revealed religion | | | | agenda. By so doing, we may yet "recover the |
| often aligned with already entrenched political | | | | memory of another, perhaps more compelling way to |
| hierarchies - temple and palace together - served to | | | | live," informing a new mode of praxis. But, to Kant's |
| provide sacred law for the conduct of individual | | | | earlier point, is it perhaps too late for such reform, |
| behavior and control of social relations. | | | | and is the opposition simply too great? |