Response post

I saw this post on the class site today and had some similar feelings. I have also found the history of the Americas and the African cultures very interesting. Typically world history lets us into the world of Eurasia. This chapter talks about all of the great ideas, inventions and ways of these once great civilizations. Like Carly, I fond it very resourceful and productive to make books out of the deer skin. If you are going to kill an animal for food it is smart to get use out of the bones and skin also. She then mentions a not so smart move by the Anasazi people. To build a house floor that is a level lower than that of the earth itself is a bit silly. The flooding aspect seems so obvious but I would assume that they felt they were expanding the size of their home rather than making their living situation much worse when the weather gets bad. 

The last comment that Carly makes is about the little treasures that the mound builders put with their dead. She wondered if they thought the stuff stayed with the dead and I would assume that was exactly why. They probably felt that the dead would be in heaven and have all of these little goods with them. The treasures could also have been payment at the gates of heaven. Maybe they felt it was a payment to the gods for their acceptance into the aftyerlife. I have left things in a family members casket before. They are memories that they could have to look at and remember in their new life of eternity. It is a nice way to feel that life goes on and our connections are not forgotten. 

The Minds of the Americas

As I found it intriguing how the mind of Neolithic peoples evolved to discover that great invention of agriculture I find it almost equally as impressive the creation of place notation and the concept of zero. The Mayas did this between 250 and 900. These concepts are huge parts of our mathematical lives today. I know that everything had its day off creation and all were slowly developed but when you think back to the lack of communication and resources they had to develop something so monumental it is that much more impressive a intellectual task. The Mayas did not just come up with these ideas and leave it at that, rather they also then combined these mathematical ideas with their observations of the night sky in order to plot the cycles of the planets, predict eclipses of the sun and moon, to come up with calendars and to the n come p with the length of the calendar year.  All of these things are greatly used today and are usually a part of or daily lives. Amazing to me.

The Maya people thogh were not jst mathematicians and scientists, thogh they also created the most elaborate writing system in the Americas their langage inclded both pictographs and phonetic elements. They kept written records of religious ceremonies and astronomical data. These people were described as a peaceful society that was led by a star gazing priest that was devoted to temple building and intellectal pursuits. It is a shame that more countries are not led by people like this. It is amazing that such a pt together society loaded with so many great minds could not maintain strength and quite rapidly came to its demise.

Along the lines of being impressed, I am pretty impressed by the city lay out and set p of TEOTIHACAN in Mexico. It is said to have had relete boad avenes, spacious plazas, enormous markets, temples, palaces, apartments, ghettos and slums, drain systems and even art along the way. Their even was an elitist part of town and a couple of pyramids. These people and their city mysteriously collapsed around 650CE. Thus making its time to be established and its time in development to get to being established that much more impressive. Cities like New York City are based on the grid system and have extravagant markets, slums, temples or churches and of course many grand aveneues. The people of Toetihacan, as were the Mayans were with their mathamatical concepts and writing skills

Women in History

I have a daughter that is two and a half now and I am so glad that things are not as they were so many years ago for woman as it was for Ban Zhao for example. To lay your new born daughter on the floor to tell her in a sense that she is lowly and weak to me is absurd. Woman today have earned so much equality as they probably deserved back then. I would and have never given my little girl the thought that she could not do or be more than she could ever dream. Then to hand her a broken piece of a pot to say now you must grow into your life of servitude and chores. Woman by all means can do chores and be a stay at home mom who loves to cook and clean, but by no means should that be what they are limited just moments after birth. Writers, artists, engineers, singers, even warriors all disregarded from birth because of their sex. For a society with such bright thinkers and forward thinking leaders they really botched this concept. At this time in history though they were not the only ones though.

Women who then got passed the embarrassing life placement after birth did grow up and they were then expected to follow four qualifications. The first was womanly virtue, which meant to be ordinary, as a woman, do not stand out, just be ordinary. The second qualification was womanly words, which meant to talk ordinary, no humor or clever talk, just ordinary. The third qualification was womanly bearing, which meant to be ordinary in appearance, no need for beauty just be ordinary. Then the last qualification was that a woman follow woman work, which meant do your job, no need to work harder than others but simply do what you are required to do. These four qualifications are appalling in today's society. Woman enjoy looking beautiful and are capable of working hard, in many cases harder than men, so they do. They also are funny and intelligent and the world deserves to know that. Again I am so glad that the world has changed. I raise my daughter in the complete opposite manner of what Ban Zhao witnessed in her time.

The women in Rome seemed to do as they were directed also though they did speak their mind when they felt wronged. After Hannibal invaded the Italian peninsula the Roman authorities looked to restrict women's use of luxury goods so to preserve the resources for the war to come through the Oppian Laws. Twenty years later the women wanted these laws repealed. They protested and demanded change, thus bringing Roman officials to the center of the issue. These women fought hard and won. The law was repealed and one of the first great signs of women's power in this world shined. Though just momentarily it was a big deal in history for women to have their voice heard in such a bold, brave, strong manner. I want the courage of these women to be taught to my daughter. I want her to aim for what she believes in and to fight on until she gets it.

History teaches us so much and I am glad that I read this piece on the Roman women. The Chinese women were a bit discouraging to read about when thinking of if women ever obtain power or a voice in this time. I do not know how much of a voice the Roman women continued to have but they at least had one for a period of time and that voice benefitted future little girls that would later grow up to be women themselves.

          With no readings for the week I was not sure what to blog on or if we were even to blog. I was thinking about the last chapter after I had done my mid term test. I was thinking of the big rush of the seminal thinkers during the years around 500 BC to around 500 AD. We were blessed to get Saddhartha, Jesus, Confucius, Socrates, Plato, the creators of Hinduism and I am sure there may be a few that I am forgetting or do not know of. What has happened since? There obviously have been great minds: Martin Luther King, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Da Vinci, Einstein, etc. Though these minds were great they did not have the dramatic philosophical following the past seminal thinkers had. why? People have only gotten smarter and more intelligent as time has gone on so why has no great mind shown up? Gandhi is pretty close to these seminal thinkers I feel but I do not know much of him. Have all the great ideas been touched on? Has everything been answered or solved by a past man of great intelligence? How about a great woman? There must have been one at some point in our worlds history. I know woman for so long were in the background, unequal, and basically unheard but how about those that were heard... where was their great genius? Is it possible that one of the great thinkers or a later thinker may have been directed by a woman? Maybe she knew she would never be heard and she passed along greatness through a man that she knew would be heard and followed.

        I hope that we learn about so modern day great thinkers at some point this semester. I would really like to hear about a woman that had a great following and had some very meaningful words that would go on to impact the world. The world we live in today is to driven by social media and power and respect. A great mind today would be caught p doing TV interviews, tweeting, blogging or whatever in order to pass along their message. The great minds never intended for themselves to be followed or talked about centuries later. They talked, preached and educated because it is what they felt was right and the people that they talked to felt that their words were so meaningful and amazing that they ensured the words were recorded and made sire to be passed on for all to one day be a part of.

      The Reflections from Jesus in Document 4.4 was interesting. Like Buddha, Sadhartha, and Confucius, Jesus never wrote any of his own material. He preached, healed and educated all for a greater cause as did Confucius and Sadartha. These great wise men were so meaningful and impactful that their followers felt that the words they uttered and the acts they committed needed to passed on from generation to generation. A question one can raise about these later written texts about these great men is how true and accurate are they? They are obviously written by those who these people deeply impacted so who is to say that these people were not seeing the positive and embellishing them just a little bit? A word change here and a message altered there and you have a hero to all. With a bias opinion and view of these influential people it is sometimes hard to know what to think. If there was anything at all written by these men themselves then maybe their words could be pinpointed to their message and their actions. Rather it is a later retelling of these words and message that we the world have to go to today. 

     Jesus was very similar to Confucius. Jesus talked to women and the poor. Confucius may or may not have interacted with women or the poor though his overall messages were definitely directed to all. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."Jesus loved all and looked to share his message with anyone looking for salvation and a path to God. Sadhartha did the same as he went about his way and stayed with the others seeking enlightenment. 

     Jesus seemed to already have enlightenment as did Confucius. Sadhartha was in search of it and did find it. Was any mans level greater or deeper? Is there one level of enlightenment? I feel that the enlightenment of Jesus was easier to obtain. Those who believed in God and his son achieved this. They also got to live with it. Unlike Hinduism where you must live and die over and over in order to hopefully one day achieve this enlightenment. The depth in which people can believe these written historical words is the toughest part of learning about these historical figures. 

     For so many years I have heard about this wise man named Confucius. Now I am understanding more who this man really was. Confucius spent most of his life looking to find a solution to Chinas problems of disorder. He never found such a solution. His followers after his death compiled all of his sayings and teachings and put them together into the Analects. Confucius said things such as, "if the ruler is not a ruler, the subject not a subject, the father not a father, the son not a son, then even if there be grain, would i get to eat it?" Little bitts of knowledge and wisdom like this made people think deep and outside the box. People heard  his words and felt enlightened and better for them. I feel that the longer it had been for these sayings to age the more they made sense to Chinas people and the more that they shed light on what they were acknowledging in life. Confucius saw education as the key to moral betterment.

     Hinduism based their fundamental beliefs on the human soul. The end goal was liberation. A great example from the text was, "a bubble in a glass of water breaking through the surface and becoming one with the surrounding atmosphere. To achieve this was no easy task. It took many lifetimes. The cycle of rebirth and reincarnation were the basis of breaking to the surface of liberation. Karma dictated ones good and ones bad. To be born into a higher caste, one would have proven to lived a full life with absolute good karma. This would earn them another better reincarnated life and another chance to prove their worth. The should would then have to reach elite karma in order to continue on in this extreme cycle. A person that has poor karma may be left stagnant in their life and be reborn into the caste that they are currently in or they may be demoted a caste and must continue to work at achieving good karma. Lifetimes may papa and pass with the hope to end the pain of rebirth. Three paths to this ultimate liberation were: knowledge or study, detached action in the world, doing ones work without regard to consequences or passionate devotion to one god or deity. This sounds like an absolutely tiring process though the ultimate prize I'm sure seems to be so worth it. 

     The establishment of the Roman and Chinese empires was quite impressive. Both covered great distances and had much power. Both empires invested heavily in aqueducts, bridges, roads, canals and protective walls, all so they could have a stronger more superior way of life. The Romans are said to have felt that "almost the entire world" must be under their control while the Chinese felt that "all under heaven" must be theirs. These were two very confident and powerful empires will equally powerful and confident leaders marking the way into the future. 

     The Chinese empire decided to look to Buddhism as their religious background. They took the teachings of Buddhism from India. This mentality meant that all would come to one common agreement to unify and become a stronger empire. The Chinese leaders offered an assimilation process for all those who were not Chinese though were living in Chinese run territory. These non-chinese were integrated in language, culturally and also through intermarriage. The assimilation of all of these "barbarians" or non-chinese allowed those foreign to their new powerful leaders to find a way to fit in and feel as if they belong and want to be a part of this new world. 

     The Roman empire offered an assimilation process also though it was a little different than the Chinese. The Romans offered citizenship to those that offered their service to the empire or that recognized the empire on their own. Becoming a Roman citizen allowed all to become men of public office, to serve in the Roman military, and to wear a toga even. The Romans though did this in terms of legal status and still saw others as being what they are and not necessarily Roman. Greeks were still Greeks and Egyptians were still Egyptians. 

     Another assimilation factor for both empires is that of written language. The Roman empire had their roots of written language in Latin. The Latin writings gave specific sounds that could be used in such languages as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. The Chinese on the other hand had just one standard set of written symbols that had no actual sounds attached to them. These written symbols though could be understood by all literate people that could speak a dialect of Chinese. This would allow for more of the Chinese empire to communicate with one another thus giving a chance for a brighter and bigger future. The Romans, limited by all the diversity in language, cold hit a few speed bumps when in the process of looking to communicate with a fellow countryman, though they may not actually be of the same country as, thus not allowing for any wave of fluid communication. 

     A major problem for both empires seems to be the pollution they both lived in. THe Romans lived in areas of mining operations, and the crazy amount of smelting metals. These led to smoke and noise all throughout the cities. THe Chinese had large scale ironworks and the mass amount of agriculture and logging deprived the land of its rightful nutrients. An empire may be great but that does not mean that all within the empire is great.