Chapter 11.                            Part F 

         The loss of much of the Roman's practical skill, especially their administrative abilities, along with a lack of any strong form of practical focus, kept Europe from growing dominant worldwide until the Renaissance. Then these more worldly values were re-born due to a number of factors familiar to scholars (i.e. the fall of Constantinople, the rise of Science, the discovery of the America’s, etc.). Or perhaps, in another, more causally-focused view, we could say that the Christian way, which required every citizen to respect every other citizen, built Western society's levels of overall economic and social efficiency up to a critical mass that made the flowering of Western civilization now called the “Renaissance” inevitable. The new hybrid values system worked and grew its population, and then worked even better. Greek theoretical knowledge, Roman practical skills, in a Christian social mileu.

                                                            Hanseatic League city of Lubeck 

            Western culture finally integrated its most fundamental values systems, Classical and Christian. It took over a thousand years for people who lived lives that focused on worldly matters, instead of only on seeking salvation in the world after death, to be seen as admirable, moral, Christian citizens in the eyes of the community. Artists, architects, even merchants and conquistadores did the things they did as ways of glorifying  glorify God. And in evolutionary terms, we must not forget, a thousand years is almost nothing.

         Handling and mastering the physical world, by Commerce, Science, and Art gradually became acceptable as a way to serve God. The world views, values, morés and behavior patterns - i.e. the total culture package of Christianity, with the value it placed on every individual human being - was finally integrated in a functional way with the knowledge, both abstract and practical, that had been passed down from the ancient Greeks and Romans. That breakthrough unleashed a deluge. Individuals who rose above society's conventions (in "inspired" ways) began to prove that they could be very valuable to the greater community, even if, at first, they did upset the order sought by less daring people. 

            It is interesting to note at least once in this book the intricacies of the socio-historical process. Even societies which seem to have reached equilibrium always contain a few individuals who restlessly test their society’s accepted worldview, values, and morés. These people and their disciples are often the young, which tells us that adolescent revolt plays a vital role in the evolution of society.

         However, what is more important to understand is that many people in the rest of society see these new thinkers and their followers as delinquents, and only a very few see them as great men. What is even more important to see is that the numbers involved on each side really don't matter. What does matter is whether the new thinkers’ ideas attract at least a few followers and whether the ideas work, which is to say, whether the followers of the new ideas then live better than the rest of the society.

            A society, like any living thing, needs to be opportunistic, constantly testing and searching for ways to grow, even though many of its citizens may bitterly resent the means by which it does so and may do all within their power to quell the process. Often they can, but not always. For Western society, until the more practically effective features of its Classical values were integrated with its more respectful, humane Christian ones, Europeans just did not love or support thinkers with ideas and morés that focused on life in this material world. 

                        Le Roy marine chronometer (which enabled precise navigation at sea) 

            Artists, scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs are, by their very nature, eccentric. They don't support the status quo, they threaten it. But the dreamers are the ones who move the rest of society forward toward newer, better ways of doing things. They only really flourish in a society that is not just tolerant of, but proud of, its eccentrics. In a truly dynamic society, cleverness is melded with kindness, which means acceptance of the different. In short, European culture needed a thousand years to even begin to “get its act together" and meld all of its values into a single, smoothly functioning whole.

         A society, to survive, must use resources and grow in the times when it has opportunities to do so, or it will lose out later when events in the physical universe grow harsher or when the competition gets fiercer. How do new, improved ways of doing things become established ways of doing things? One means is by war, as has been mentioned, but the peaceful mechanism can work, and it is seen in tolerant societies when the people who use new ways are allowed to do so undisturbed, and they then just live better. At that point, the majority begins to pay attention to the eccentrics whose ways work.

         Then, in that tolerant society, other citizens, by their own choice, begin to try out and take up the new useful, effective ways. Gradually, more and more choose not to be left behind in what is obviously becoming a stagnant cultural backwater. This market-driven way is the way of peaceful evolution, the alternative to the war-driven one. Worldwide, we have taken a long time to reach it, but, as a species, we are almost there.