Chapter  11          World Views, Old

Part A

               

         Every society must work out and articulate a view of the physical universe, a way of seeing the world, a way which then becomes the base on which the society's values system is to be built. This is no minor matter; while philosophers may dally over the questions in a theoretical way, real folk have to deal with just life. They have to have some code in place that tells them how to act. World view, values, and behaviors must form a coherent thinking and doing system under which each individual can be empowered to make decisions and take action, and the whole society can efficiently operate and so can survive in its always-changing, always-demanding environment.

    All societies in some deep way know this, even though societies up until our time have worked out their world views, values, mores, etc. and lived their lives almost entirely in unselfconscious ways. But people everywhere have always placed great stock in their society’s model of how the material universe is constructed, how it operates, and where it is going. They know that their world view must be used as their guide when they are trying to decide whether an act that feels "right" (i.e. moral) is "right" (i.e. practicable).

 

          So let us keep moving forward in this task of building a new, universal moral code, but let us also move with all the prudence we possess. What is at stake is everything. Before we begin building a new universal moral system, we need to get our thinking into the necessary mindset by considering at least the most salient peaks in the histories of some of the societies of the past, in order to see how systems of world views, values, and behaviors coordinate and evolve.

           G.W.F. Hegel 

     In this chapter, Philosophy students will notice similarities between some aspects of what I have to say and the philosophy of Hegel, and I admit freely that there are similarities. But I have some major points of disagreement with Hegel which I will explain along the way in this chapter. For those readers who are not Philosophy students, I also should say here that even when I bring him up I am going to give only a very superficial version of my way of understanding Hegel. If you find the ideas presented here at all interesting, you really should give Hegel a try. His writing is difficult, but not impossible, and he also has been interpreted by some disciples who write more accessibly.(1.) But in this book, let’s now get back to our analysis of the world views, values, morés, and behavior patterns that are discernible in the history of some of the societies of the West. 

artist's conception of Trojans dragging wooden horse into Troy

        For an instance, let's consider the very ancient Greeks, the ones who came long before Socrates’ time. They portrayed the universe as an irrational, dangerous place. For these people, the gods who ran the universe were capricious, violent, and cruel. This is a quick way of describing these people's world view, in other words. Under their worldview, human beings could only cringe fearfully under the gods' testy humors. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Hades, Athena, Apollo, et al were all lustful, jealous, cruel, and unpredictable, and Zeus especially had thunderbolts while Poseidon could inflict earthquakes.

            

         But as Greek culture advanced, this world view evolved. By the Periclean Age, many Greek stories and plays portrayed humans challenging the gods. At the same time, the Greeks evolved their system of values towards a braver, smarter lifestyle. They began to try to explain the world in ways that left room for the possibility of people understanding and manipulating at least some of the events in the world around them. Once their world view included that possibility, they did begin to create action plans that empowered humans to cause, hasten, or forestall events in the physical world. They tried out the daring action plans and some worked. More and more daring plans followed. (Edith Hamilton articulates these ideas well.) (2.)

Aristophanes, Greek comic playwright 

     It is important to see that human individuals and groups will normally not attempt any action which they believe is not appropriate for humans. In fact, such actions were usually labeled as taboo. Ancient tribes who randomly happened upon an action which seemed contrary to, or outside of, what was seen as appropriate for humans in their worldview only grew upset and fearful. Whether the action got promising results or not, the only thing most of these people learned or wanted to learn in such situations was how to avoid putting themselves in the situation again. They sought to avoid it for fear of bringing divine wrath down upon themselves. Once in a long while, a daring genius might question his society’s worldview and imagine and act on an alternative one, but he or she often paid dearly for such audacity – by being ostracized or put to death.

               

 Euripides, Greek tragic playwright 

            However, changes in a society’s world view and then in the society’s values and morés can also evolve more gradually, helped on by whole bunches of lesser geniuses. By the Golden Age of Athens, writers, artists, and philosophers were attempting all kinds of things that only a few centuries earlier would have been literally unthinkable. Their worldview had evolved to allow for at least some degree of human free will. The works of Euclid, Plato, Euripedes, Archimedes, and Aristotle could only have been produced under a world view in which a person could conceive of actions challenging the orthodox beliefs of the tribe and even the forces of the universe, even though the challenge might succeed only once in a hundred tries. Sadly, also, of course, at the same time the Spartans were evolving their society, the perfect military state. The clash called the Peloponnesian War was inevitable and Athens lost. A few years later, the Macedonians out-Spartanned the Spartans, and then in a generation or two, of course, the Romans ended the matter by conquering them all.

        Spartan warrior 

Notes 

1.Fox, Matthew Allen; "The Accessible Hegel"; Humanity Books;    2005.

2.Hamilton, Edith; "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and    Heroes"; Warner Books, pp. 16-19; 1969.