Time Of Troubles

Time Of Troubles

Here I will add another indicator, see Indicators.

Anyway why this talk about the indicators of a civilization? Surely a pyramid or a ziggurat or a Chinese wall are strong indicators? Indeed they are! But the point is to find the clear signs of the developmental stages of a typical civilization. When does it start? When is feudalism, the absolute state, modernity? Who is the first universal emperor? These questions are also important for the judgment of the number of civilizations succeeding each other in an area. How can we say that Egypt had one, but Mesopotamia and China had two?

But to today’s point. The Time of Troubles as Toynbee calls it, the Warring States as Spengler terms it taken from the Chinese. This period is at the same time as the modernity phase. It can be regarded as the international aspect of this period, which sees strife and wars internally in and externally between the states. Until the first emperor finishes both.

Why did I not mention this as an indicator of a civilization? Well it is a very strong indicator if it can be seen with certainty. The problem is just that the pattern of wars between smaller states ending by them all being conquered by one state is not something abnormal in history. It can occur in all times and phases. So to be used as an indicator there must be other things pointing in the same direction. At least one of the following:

1. There must be clear signs of a modernity. More or less free thought, rationality, political ideological strife etc.

2. The wars must be large scale with organized bodies of troops.

3. We should be about 600 – 800 years after an feudal, epic heroic time and / or an early religious phase. This type of wars continues some time after the period, as the emperors use this type of warfare against the outside world.

Examples
Mesopotamia I: Between Ur III and Hammurabi, ca. 2000 – 1750 BC. Eternal wars between the states for hegemony. Modernity unclear, perhaps though the disrespectful treatment of the gods in Gilgamesh. But very organized warfare. And about 800 years after the epic time of the original historic King Gilgamesh.

Mesopotamia II: ca. 850 – 550. Original mythic time and the parallel modernity phase obscured, but the warfare very large scale and organized in the wars between Assyria, Elam and Babylonia.

Egypt: In Fact quite unclear. If the heroic and feudal times are around the time of the great pyramids, as it would seem from the records, then the Hyksos period should be the Time of Troubles or modernity. The use of large scale wars in Asia conducted by the New Kingdom would also point to this. There are no signs of a new feudal time after this and no new modernity follows.

Greco-Roman world: ca. 330 – 30 BC. Very clear picture of the parallel Hellenist modernity.

India I: ca. 600 – 300. Also quite clear signs of brutal large scale wars and a modernity. Also the required time after the Veda time.

India II.: Experts in this field can say more than I. I will just point to the very large mass-armies employed by the state Vijayanagar in the wars between more states up to the uniting of India by the Moguls.

China I. 500 – 221 BC. Very clear modernity with very large scale wars between millions of troops.

Less typical examples:

The Oriental-Arab Civilization. Ca. 750 – 1071. The problem here is that after the victory over the Byzantines at Manzikert, one major player was neutralized, but the infights continued. It was first the Mongols and Turks who united the Muslim world. Therefore Toynbee putting most weight on the external affairs, saw the modernity at a very late time, that is after Manzikert 1071. But the rationalism, philosophy and political ideologies are so clear in the first half of the Abbasid period, that modernity should be placed here.

China II. 950 – 1279. Song or Sung Dynasty. Abnormally peaceful internally and externally until the arrival of the Mongols.

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So under the right circumstances the Time of Trouble can be added as another indicator of a civilization. All the indicators mentioned lends support to these civilizations:

Mesopotamia I and II

Egypt

India I and perhaps II

China I and II

Greco-Roman

‘Oriental-Arab

The West

Indus and Peru can only be established as facts because their remains are there.

Mexico is a bit more clear. The feudal time is quite clear from the early inscriptions in the Mayan lands. Feudal lords fighting man against man. At the Spanish arrival there had for centuries been wars fought by organized troops.

Indicators of a civilization

This is just some quick notes on how to identify a civilization or high culture

Indicators of a civilization see civilizations

See also the continuation in Time of troubles

How do we identify a civilization or a high culture? How can we assume that there hvae been this or that civilization? Well we must look for parallels with other civilizations we know like our own. Especially find phases also seen in known civilizations. But if we want to be sure, certain phases should be excluded.

The time of absolute monarchy is difficult to use, because it is easily confused with the imperial rule at the end of a civilization. Of the same reason also the emperors cannot be used as an indicator.

Phases and high points of art are also a problem, because the evaluation of it is so subjective.

Feudalism could be a sign of an early phase of a civilization, but does not have to. It can occur at other times and places like in Japan after 1000 AD.

So what is left?

1) It is safer to look at feudalism in combination with an early heroic time as seen in epics, myths about heroes and other narratives. This is seen in

The West: King Arthur, Chanson de Roland, Nibelungenlied etc.

Greek-Roman civilization: The Iliad, The Odyssey.

China II: The material compiled in Romance of three Kingdoms etc.

India I: Veda.

Mesopotamia I: Gilgamesh, Lugalbanda, Enmerkar..

2) Another sign is the coexistence of feudalism with  a phase of religious intensity and speculation, theology.

The West: Scholasticism.

The Oriental-Arab civilization: New Testament and Christianity 0-500. Corresponding era in Parsism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism.

China II: Buddhism and Taoism 200-700.

3) The third indicator is the existence of a modernity with free and rational thought. This phase is unfortunately often difficult to see, because its history is typically written by the aftertime, which does not understand the radically different and revolutionary ideas. We are already approaching this condition, see http://polybios-2100.blogspot.dk/2012/10/la-condition-postmoderne.html. For more and more people, even educated, the ideas of 1968 and 1977 are becoming incomprehensible. In history writing after modernity, the fights about ideas in the modern phase are seen only as struggle for power.

But if we can see a modern phase, we can be sure, that we see a civilization in a late phase.

The West: 1789 to now.

Greek-Roman: Between Alexander and Augustus: Hellenism. Sciences rtc.

China II: Song Dynasty. Rationalism. Political thought.

China I: Warring States period. Philosophy. Hundred Schools. Political ideologies.

india I: Time of Buddha, where explicit atheism also existed. Buddhism was originally not religion, but it became one after the modernity phase as logos was replaces by mythos, see 4 Ahau - 3 Kankin ...

Oriental-Arab civilization 750-1100. Philosophers putting Allah under the law of reason.

4) the development of cities. Around the time of a modernity, the urbanization culminates with more large cities. New York, Paris, London, Rome Alexandria, Bagdad, Samarra, Babylon just to mention a few.

5) Change in warfare. In the beginning in feudal times cavaliers fighting man against man. In the West after the victory of infantry over chevaliers at the  battle at Sempach more and more focus on organized phalanxes. Corresponding in the development in other civilizations. The modernity times sees large infantry divisions.

So in conclusion we have 5 indicators of a civilization or high culture:

1) Feudalism plus epic heroic myths.

2) Feudalism plus religious intensity and theology.

3) A modernity.

4) Cities.

5) Wars carried out by organized phalanxes.

One could add, that if both 3) and 1) or 2) or both are seen, there should be around 6 or centuries between the culminations of the phases 1) / 2) and 3), between on feudalism with myths and religious intensity and on the other hand modernity.

Organized warfare and the growth of cities culminate in the modernity phases.