The loss of much of the Romans’ practical skill, especially their administrative abilities, kept Europe from growing dominant worldwide until the Renaissance. At that time, these more worldly values were reborn due to a number of factors familiar to scholars (e.g., the fall of Constantinople, the rise of science, the discovery of the Americas, 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 efficiency up to a critical mass that made the flowering of Western civilization now called the Renaissance inevitable. The new hybrid value system worked: Greek theoretical knowledge and Roman practical skills in a Christian social milieu synthesized into a single, functioning whole. (This synthesis is, arguably, most visible in the societies whose cities formed the Hanseatic League.)

   

                                               cities in the Hanseatic League (credit: Wikipedia) 

It took over a thousand years for people whose lives focused on worldly matters, instead of only on seeking salvation in the world after death, to be seen as good Christian citizens in the community. Artists, architects, even merchants, explorers and conquistadores finally could do what they had always done, though now as ways of glorifying God. But in evolutionary terms, a thousand years is almost nothing.

It is interesting to note the intricacies of the socio-historical process. Even societies that seem to have reached equilibrium always contain a few individuals who restlessly test their society’s accepted world view, values, and morés. These people and their disciples are often the young, which suggests adolescent revolt plays a vital role in the evolution of society. Teenagers make us look at our values and, once in a while, we realize that one of those values is due for overhaul or even retirement. Teenage revolt serves a larger purpose in the evolutionary process of cultural change.

However, it’s more important to understand 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 valuable. It is even more important to see that the numbers involved on each side don’t matter. What does matter is, first, whether the new thinkers’ ideas attract at least a few followers and, second, whether the ideas work, which is to say, whether the followers then live better, healthier, happier lives than the rest of the society.