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History 104A, November 21: Where to From Here?

I do have the exams. I've been procrastinating giving them back.

I mean today, I wasn't procrastinating grading them, but I had to get

that tournament done. And since I do them on weekends, the weekend is

over and the papers are here. Since only have a few hours, I did it

the easy way, I flunked everybody. No. I didn't put any comments on

them. I'll try to go over them in class. Obviously for some of you,

as with last time, if you feel like you want some comments at the end

of the class, just give them back to me and say, please comment, and I

will give them back. How were they in general terms? So so. I think

we had more A's last time and they were a little better. This time

maybe the questions were a little trickier or more difficult. They're

within the range, so -- (passing them back).

Okay. Where are we at? Let's go through the questions to give

you a little basis of what I was looking for and hopefully that will

help you get a better idea of why the grade was where it was good or

bad.

Question A -- it really was a tough one. I was trying to getting

is what would tie it together. The end of chapter six was basically

the Hong dynasty, and then chapter seven and eight dealing with most

of the world besides south or Central America. It asked for outside

of Europe; and therefore, there was definitely a section on Africa in

there, in fact, a pretty good one. And so I think a lot of people

were hurt in getting their A's and wound up with B's or B pluses

because they left out Africa or/and the Americas. I didn't penalize

you dramatically like say, hey, you left out one-fourth of the world;

but I definitely had to take away some points in my head on the

grades. It makes a big difference not to cover the whole question.

It was a tough one to prepare for. I was a little disappointed that

there wasn't more -- since the question did ask migration, trade, and

spread of belief systems -- the book definitely had sections on the

Saharan trade routes, the silk as well as the Indian Ocean as an

international trade zone. I would have thought that we would have had

more dealing with those three areas for trade; and that was missing,

although I think a couple of people at least mentioned the silk route.

I would have touched a little more if you were you on the spread of

Buddhism. Some of you did. I think that certainly was somewhat

lacking. Some of you went ahead and took the Muslim and the expansion

of the Muslim religion and faith, and that was fine. It gives a lot

of leeway. There's no one right to approach it. Christianity was a

little touchy because that's mostly Europe. But certainly you could

have brought that over into the Americas, but that's beyond our

period. It's after 1,000. Although, you would have dealt with the

Irish monk having gone, in the sixth century to the new world, at

least the argument that he did. It was a little difficult there. And

certainly the restoration perhaps of Hinduism in India could have been

dealt with. I think we sort of lacked that extra little umph to give

it a solid A. Any questions on the A essay?

I think at least half of you took it. And that was more than I

think last time took the take home.

Explain what the instructor meant by and develop the historical

significance of each of the outlined title and subtitles that follow.

I would have thought this was a little easier, but most people didn't

take it. I think one or two people did. The sense of the universal

truth was that sense that there was one faith, one God in simple

terms. Disruption would have been the disruption perhaps of the

universality of Rome and then its renewal in the Christian church.

And you could have dealt with that. Now, revealed knowledge, what we

were talking about there was that truth came and knowledge came

through those individuals who God chose to select to give it to; and

therefore, authority was the truth, the church fathers and developed

it. Faith and reason -- there we get into, if you had done it, it

should have included the nominalist versus the rationalist. The

rationalists believes that knowledge was revealed only by God and that

you accepted it through faith. The nominalists believing that you

searched it out by examination, that the universals came into being

only because we saw the particulars versus the universals exists

beyond humans and we understood the particulars based on having it

revealed to us. Guilded of course was the guild system tied to the

university system tied to the educational system that I dealt with.

The crusading spirit -- well, we spent time on the crusades and that

spirit continued into some people, say the Don Quixote, the Spanish,

the Portuguese continuing the crusades to the Americas.

A number of people took C. At least one person misread what I

was saying here. Dr. Kirshner said that he really has no love like

other historians. What I meant by that is that other historians have

a love for Rome. I think my words wag a built fault. It doesn't have

a lot to do with the essay. Of the ancient Romans five years of the

republic, five years of the empire. Okay. I told you last time it

was lacking once again this time -- date, dates, dates, general dates.

I gave you 500 years, I gave you 500 years. When is it 500 years from

1500 to 2000 CE? You need to get those in within just a few of them

would make your essays be so much nicer to show me that you know the

period. You could have said from 500 BC or BCE to 500 AD or CE. At

least one person put down basically founding of the republic of Rome

came with Brutus in the year 507 or 509 depending on who you read,

BCE, and it is often given as 467 AD with Romulus Augustus sitting on

the throne of Rome, being the last Roman empire removed. Now, that

tells me that you're writing history papers. It's not a lot of ideas.

It's not a lot of concepts, but it does become necessary even though

the main thrust of the essay was like or dislike.

Now again, I didn't take a lot off for why I didn't say I like

it. A few of you actually apparently just weren't sure, which makes

me wonder if you ever listen to me, but you put in some of the reasons

I said I didn't like the Romans and that was okay. I sort of semi

accepted it, so that at least it showed me you were listening, I think

even if it didn't necessarily indicate, well, that's why Mr. Kirshner

didn't really have a great love for ancient Rome. One I started out

talking about the two-faced God, Janus, and identified the hypocrisy

that I found with a society identified that it keeps its doors closed

during times of peace and its doors open in times of war, that it

claimed peace but it was often at war even during the partial Romana.

Hypocrisy, I talked and some of you put it in there about the founding

of Rome of the one brother -- Romulus killing Remus, and then of

course built on rape and pillage as a foundation. You can have gone

into such things as the dole, the coliseum, the gladiators, the

slavery. There were many things that would have touched on it. What

about what you found positive? Yeah, there were a lot of positive

things. Ahmand always likes the military tactics.

A That's one of the reasons I listed for why you didn't like the

war. And I didn't talk about war being one of their positive aspects.

THE PROFESSOR: I noticed that. I guess you were playing

diplomat with me just in case I got pissed off.

A I just didn't think to put it.

THE PROFESSOR: I think I did figure out it was your handwriting.

It looked sort of like your handwriting.

The other elements, you could have certainly talked about Rome's

ability to absolve all nationalities, the diversity in Rome itself

certainly, that Roman citizenship was open not just to Italians. You

could have, in a sense, perhaps involved in Plebeians and said that

this was positive because they had their own assembly. But it could

have been anything because you really did have a strong patrician

class, to say the least, were aristocratic snobs and they play on that

in the HBO special Rome. You certainly could have dealt with the

justice system in being codified a number of times, finally, in the

2nd century, after the fall of Rome in the West, with Justians cove.

I understand that Dr. Dardell, a history teacher, dances to the

music. He's so straight looking. I never knew he was a dancer.

A He answers them too.

THE PROFESSOR: He picks them up and answers them?

A He'll take it from them and talk.

THE PROFESSOR: I like that, especially if it's a woman's phone.

It's like when notes are passed around the classroom in high school,

you read the notes. I miss that. That was the most fun in the world.

A What's the funniest note you ever found?

THE PROFESSOR: I don't real. Remember, we're talking 70 years

ago when I was teaching high school.

A You're not even 70 years old.

THE PROFESSOR: That's besides the point.

Q Why do people do that, they say that they're older than you

really are? Is it because you're surrounded by youth that you think,

oh my God, he's so old?

THE PROFESSOR: I know what I was 100 years ago when I was young,

I thought they were old.

Q So which one are you, 100 or 70?

THE PROFESSOR: No. I taught 70 years ago, and I would have to

be alive, so that would make me 100.

Any other questions on the exam? What was I talking about?

A Passing notes in high school.

THE PROFESSOR: No, no, no. I meant about the material of

course. I'll never forget though my son when I was in high school, my

oldest son had a fish bowl that he used to fill with the notes. I was

so tempted, but I really didn't not more than once I think. Okay.

Where am I at? Where there any other questions about the exam?

All right. As I said, if there's a need for me to comment further on

your papers, I'll be happy to be more throw thorough on it. There

where to from here is we've been talking about the waning, the

transformation of medieval Europe. Today what I'd like to talk about

is what separates medieval Europe from quote/unquote modern Europe.

As you already know historians are strange?

A You've proven that.

THE PROFESSOR: You've proven that yes. They answer your phone,

read your notes, dance in class, whatever, but we also are perhaps we

do that because we're also very anal structured. We need to have

things in nice little boxes all in a row. And therefore, we put these

patterns of dates on and titles on issues. I should say on history.

We break it up into names and patterns that have very little validity.

Tomorrow is of course one of those days when all history changed.

Well, it had an impact on our lives but I'm not sure it created any

tremendous movement. But then again, there are those who see and set

the specific date. What is tomorrow's date?

A November 22nd.

THE PROFESSOR: And what happened?

A You have to give me the year.

THE PROFESSOR: November 22nd doesn't do it?

A No.

THE PROFESSOR: 1963.

A Sputnik.

THE PROFESSOR: Russian did a skit. When he was doing his comedy

skits in school and he realized all these young women because nobody

knew what December 7th was.

A Huh.

THE PROFESSOR: December 7th would be to us like September 11th

may be or perhaps quote/unquote my generation we might say if I had a

generation, 1963, November 22nd.

A Why don't you just tell us. Obviously we don't know.

THE PROFESSOR: It was the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

A Oh.

THE PROFESSOR: Like December 7th which you did know.

A Yes, Pearl Harbor.

THE PROFESSOR: Yes.

A The date was kind of broad. We needed a subject.

THE PROFESSOR: When you learn them in history, you don't need a

subject such as 1492; right? I just throw that out and everybody

knows that was the Declaration of Independence; right?

A (laughing). That was a date that we learned in elementary

school.

THE PROFESSOR: All right. So we got all these little poems that

you do. But in history, we end the middle ages in 1453 and we enter

modern history. Modern history in 1453 -- weird. If modern history

starts in the 1500s, what do we call our present history? And

historians refer to the history we are now living as contemporary

history.

Q How come the year is so exact?

THE PROFESSOR: Well, in 1453 -- that's why I say historians are

definitely anal in that way. They use it because it was the year that

Constantinople fell. In other words, the Christian city fell to the

Ottoman Turks having existed for over a thousand years as a Christian

outpost constantly besieged. Now why would that be the change in

western or modern times? Well, before -- let me deal with it then.

In answering with that, it was believed at least the mythology, if you

will, the history books, that all of a sudden trade stopped with the

East. It closed off the ports. It prevented the Italian traders from

getting silk and spices and other goodies from the East. And so the

argument is, starting in 1453, western Europe began to look for

another way to get to the orient to get the goodies. And the argument

again being that it opened up a new round world with 1492 Columbus

sailing the blue to prove that the world was round. Now, we know

today that of course geographers knew the world was round. But again.

A Actually, it's more of an egg shape.

THE PROFESSOR: Yeah. And if we keep it up, we're going to crack

an egg. I'm talking about the way the world is going. Yes, you have

that kind of a social science teacher. Yes, it's spinning free in

sort of an egg shape. And Columbus was off by 3,000 miles, in any

case, in his belief on the circumference of the Earth.

However, once again, the myths of history create the reality. If

we believe it, it becomes real. We're going to talk later to point

out that the Portuguese actually began their journey around Africa

starting in 1385 basically and certainly with Henry the navigator in

1450 building certain pilot schools. We certainly have gotten around

basically the base of Africa or at least down to the base of Africa by

1453, at least the Portuguese have.

The point being that this new concept that the world is a world

and it is round and that we need to go around the world to get our

goodies or around Africa creates what's called the early modern period

of the modern period. That translates to that his historians talk

about the period from the 16th century, 1500s, to the nineteenth

century, 1800s, as early modern history, 1500 to 1700 actually to give

you actual dates, as early modern history. And 1700 to when as modern

history. When the when is a question. For me, I would say that

contemporary history began with World War II when I was in college.

The question is today, where do we start contemporary history? I

would say probably with September 11th. I think that had a tremendous

change and awakening to the world that communism was gone and that

there was another threat, fundamentalism, not just in the Muslim form,

which is of course the main one perhaps, but in many forms, be it

Christian, Jewish, or whatever, is that this is an attempt to revert

the world back to the medieval period, getting rid of, if you will,

the modern cultural, the modern technology world. In other words, we

have developed a world movement of Luddites. Jeopardy -- what are

Luddites? At around the 1800 there was a movement in England by

workers to destroy the mills and factories that had been inundated or

taken over with technology, where jobs were being lost by the workers.

They went out and became the Unibomber. They began destroying the

factories and the mills, and the movement was called Luddites, rage

against the machine, if you will. And that, I think, although again

while we can say September 11th, obviously the movement of Luddites,

the Unibomber, whomever, begin before 2001. It was fairly predicable

that with the fall of the Soviet Union's i.e. eastern Europeans,

communism, with the elimination of communism in China, no matter what

name they want to call it, and even Castro having the Pope come and

talk in Cuba, the reality was that the left had failed and that the

right, the desire to return to a past real or not was now

predominating the world. Translation, I grew up in a world looking to

the left, the left being a political movements that want something new

that look to a new society, to the betterment, to progress. The

themes of the enlightenment, the themes of the renaissance coming

forth. Men, people can do all things if they will, people making

themselves out to be as good if not better than God because they can

accomplish and not giving God credit for their values, for their

abilities. The world of the left looked to a new world. The world of

the right looks to the old world, to the past, and wants to restore

those values from tradition. And so basically from the end of World

War II, if you will, until 1990, we were a world of the left. In the

1960s and early 70s, the word conservative was an evil word. Today

the word liberal has become an evil word, although the last election

may have changed that a bit.

One element that really distinguishes the medieval world from the

modern world is nationalism. The nation state emerging out of the

medieval period continues to dominate. We're living in a world of

nations. But once again, the fundamentalist movements, especially the

Muslim movements, wants to return to the a world without nations, the

religious unity. Al Queda is made up of many different nationalities.

They do not see a Jordan. In fact, they'd like to eliminate it. They

do not see a Syria or a Saudi Arabia. What they see is a Muslim world

as they had in the 8th century to the 10th century CE. The

elimination then of national boundaries is the movement of the

present. Some see it from a different perspective. The left would

like to eliminate national boundaries and create a united federation

of planets, but that may take a while yet until we get a Spock to be

able to bring in the Romulans at least and the Clingons. In the

meantime, coming out of the medieval period I talked earlier about the

lion versus the unicorn, how the unicorn symbolized universality of

the church and the lion reflected the king, the monarchy, the selfish

nation. The lion being the enemy of the unicorn in heraldry in

mythology.

I pointed out that we have a myth because of that, that these

nations came and were there forever. Now, it is true that language

existed but as I think I identified earlier, there was no unified

Germany until 1871, a little over 130 years ago, I guess. There was

no Italy as a nation until 1870. So we're talking about nations

because we live in a concept, we are bounded in an idea that nations

and nationalists are the world. The United Nations today recognizes

191 nations, I believe, as members. The post office recognizes some

260 nations. Of course some of them are nations that are no larger

than postage stamps. Did I mention San Marino in this class before?

Has anybody ever heard of San Marino?

A I heard that it's really tiny.

THE PROFESSOR: Yeah, postage stamp size. Do you know where it

is?

A No.

THE PROFESSOR: It a nation in the Apennines in Italy and

it's independent. I'm not sure exactly how large it is, probably

about the size of Fremont, whose made most of its money historically

from postage stamps, literally.

A Leichtenstein.

THE PROFESSOR: No. That's another nation. Many of the small

nations make their money or did, until other countries like the U.S.

began making colorful stamps, by selling postage stamps and sometimes

violating copyrights. They used to sell lots of Disney stamps that

you could literally mail. There are other little countries like

Andorra. Luxembourg is a little bit better. Andorra is in the

Pyrenees between Spain and France. Yeah, there are lots of minor

nations included a recognized independent nation the Vatican. And in

Rome, there is a less than a block where the Knights Templar

have what is considered to be a separate nationality, national state,

if you will. They've got the independent of a nation. The point

being that when we view the world, we view it not in terms of the holy

Roman empire, but of a France, a Spain, a Germany a Poland, a Hungary.

In some recent years it has divided Czechoslovakia into the Czechs and

into the Slovaks. How far do we go to create the little lion cubs

and? The more we break apart into lion cubs rather than the lions,

the more there is no conception of unity being it in world federalism

or about it in the unity brought on by a religious faith or movement.

Q Was there -- because you said that Italy wasn't united as a

nation -- was that a lot because of Spain sometimes being inseminate

into the holy land empire through one of the Charles?

THE PROFESSOR: The Hapsburg family through Charles, you're

right, became holy Roman emperor and also the king of Spain which also

included, what's listed there as Roman principality, the two Sicilies

as well as the Netherlands, including Holland, were all part of this

holy Roman empire. And Spain had nominal control over the two

Sicilies. But no, the Pope controlled the large number of states in

central Italy. Austria -- this was the Hapsburg under Charles

included -- (see map) -- there were Italian cities into the area we

call Yugoslavia in here but that's gone too. And then we had Sardinia

here, some of this area here was, within limitations, French. And

this under the Hapsburgs in Austria. There was many reasons, many

areas there that would prevent, although they spoke basically the same

language within limitations, Italians sometimes have trouble

understanding and talking with people from Venice. But then again,

while TV has brought us together, again 300 years ago, when I traveled

to -- the south during college we used to go from New York to Fort

Lauderdale to the beach. And I got stopped by a cop in Georgia and he

said (mumbled). He was saying, "Are you all going to a fire?" So

again, language is, even in this country, sometimes more difficult to

translate, forget the Brooklyn-ease.

Another coming out of the medieval era into the modern era we

also find, as I identified before, something we now call capitalism,

and we touched on that earlier. We find a faith in human beings, that

men can do all things, people can do all things, if we will. The

medieval period of time is a period of community. The center is the

church. And during medieval times, we see paintings and stained glass

windows. Very seldom do we know who the architects were or who drew

the paintings or painted the paintings, who made the stained glass

windows. The individual identity was not always monks, although they

were involved, or priests, there were many crafts people. There were

many who did their job. I'm trying to think of a really great novel

that shows those individuals coming into and building a cathedral, and

I can't think of it right now. Ken Follet (The Pillars of the Earth) is the author, I think.

It will hit me. Starting with what we call the renaissance in the

15th century, 1400s, we begin to really see the individual coming

forth, the individual, not only name appears, their work appear, they

brag about it, and they even put their own pictures and drawings and

sculptures, they put their own faces into things and more. They begin

to have their portrait painted, so the individual emerges as part of

the modern world. It has been a process for the last 20 years of

education to talk about cooperation, working with community and

eliminating individuality. Again, it's a reversal to perhaps the

desire to return to that past community spirit. I'm not saying it's

bad or good. I'm just talking about some of the changes that have

been taking place in this transitional era. And I'm not sure where

it's going to transition too. Obviously, part of the reason for

individuality and learning is -- and not the need of community -- is

the printing press and literacy. Education changes. We move from

authority being revealed knowledge to individuals believing that they

can learn, they can study, and then find truth through what we call

science. Which translates to, we move from scholasticism to the

beginnings of science to a world based in science. And of course

again, we're finding an attempt to eliminate that world of science

through something known as intelligent design. And the problem is

that science, as I identified early in this semester, often see

themselves now as the -- they're the ones who themselves have set up

this refusal to open the door to possibilities that may not be

acceptable probability -- I'm not saying that well. They become

dogmatic in simple terms.

Q Were we supposed to have a group meeting today?

THE PROFESSOR: Guess what? Why did you wait until the last

minute? I guess I got carried away in my desire. All right. I'll

give you the points for the group meeting unless you want have it

Wednesday.

Q Do we have last class on Wednesday?

THE PROFESSOR: Why wouldn't be? Gobble gobble is on Thursday.

You prepare your turkeys and we'll see you Wednesday.

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