Society and Inequality in Eurasia/North Africa

            The Han Dynasty in China became a place of socioeconomic status which made those at the bottom of the food chain very upset. They had an extensive test that school could have students take. Those with money who could afford private schools had more opportunities. This system is similar to what we have now in the United States. The rich lead the poor is basically what was happening. The Han Dynasty became more about "the elites" or landlords versus the peasants. This unfair system not only degraded the peasants but the rules and regulations were against them. The conditions made the peasants so unhappy that they had the Yellow Turban movement or rebellion. Daoists believed that they would achieve the "Great Peace" which meant they got to a place of equality among everyone. This equality meant that people were treated equally in the physical and spiritual or in other words social harmony would be present. Although they never made it, it was a noble cause and peasants were later honored for their ideologies.

            We think of the Romans as the ones that were advanced in their ruling but in fact, it was the total opposite when it came to slavery. While the Chinese and the Indians had a passive and small slavery group the Romans did things drastically different. Both China and India would only enslave that had broken the law, owed money or were being held in the country because of war. Although this doesn't excuse the want of slaves it is extremely better than what we had in the United States and what the Romans had centuries ago. The Romans were believed to own slaves because it showed your power, otherwise known as your power. Whenever a slave was to be free they weren't treated with all the rights that the people of Rome had. This disgusting method was slightly better in the fact that Romans weren't racist slave owners in comparison to the United States.

Serving, Culture and Ways of Thinking

            There were five seminal thinkers during the classical period and they all had amazing ways of thinking. One of the most interesting of the seminal thinkers was Confucius because of the way he thought people should exist together. Confucius was a person who thought to achieve social harmony people needed to respect the place they belonged in. Although it fit the social environment he was in, today's society wouldn't be able to survive with Confucius' ideas. Another thing Confucius did that I wouldn't agree with is the gender inequality he believed in. Because of the time, he was in it's understandable why it was fine to believe in a patriarchal household. Now people should know that a household isn't lead by one of the parents but by both. He had many humbling saying to live by that many people apply to their life now. Although there are some things I don't agree with when it comes to his way of living overall Confucius had the right idea of social harmony.

            Serving, helping, and fixing gets confused and is easily interchangeable with one another all the time but many people don't know there is a difference. When thinking about helping people usually help those that are in need. Helping is when there is someone that can't-do it for themselves and afterward most people helping are consciously or subconsciously waiting for something in return. Then there is fixing, which is accomplishing to change something that might have not been broken in the first place. It doesn't help the person you are "fixing" if they don't see a need for fixing or if you are fixing them without letting them know how. Now serving is the best way to make a stable environment for both the person trying to serve and the people who are being served. You aren't looking for something in return and you're going at the pace of the person being changed by the experience.

Tacitus and the Germans

            A well-known man describes, in his opinion, a well-known group of people called the Germans. Tacitus describes the German people in his time in comparison to his people, the Romans. "The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse." From this, you can deduce that the Germans were all about their own culture and not mixing cultures. The way Tacitus described it was that why would anyone want to go to Germany because they were strange people. The Germans also were ruled by a king that was chosen through genetic lineage. Which is very different from how Romans chose their leaders. You also get a sense of how their women are seen. The women are seen as meaningful. The female anatomy is seen as pure and knowing and was slightly worshipped in the German society. They were also religious peoples that worshipped Mercury and would even sacrifice their own people for the god they worship. Tacitus doesn't like the way they get their food. Germans are mostly about hunting versus gathering or planting. Another thing that Tacitus didn't agree with was the way they dealt with their money. The way the money is borrowed without loans or anything to him is careless. 

State and Empire

    Many people base the classical era around the Roman Empire because of the greatness that came from it and with it. While they were a great empire there were many empires that lasted longer and were bigger than the Roman Empire but because Western civilization started with the Roman Empire many people choose this as their base. There were many other empires like the Persian  Empire that was one of the biggest and most impressive empires. The Persians had anywhere from 35 to 50 million people they were ruling over. Within those millions of people, they had many different languages, cultures, and state. What made them so great and powerful is the ability to accommodate to their people.  Many of the Jewish people who lived in Babylon and were kicked out, were allowed to go back to Babylon and rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Herodotus, the father of history, thought the Persians were too accommodating in their ways and in that aspect would lose control of their empire.

      On the other hand, there was the Greek Empire which differed greatly in ruling in comparison to the Persians. When people think of the Greeks they think of those in togas and Greek Gods. Many people know that the democracy the United States uses today came from the Greeks but yet they aren't the ones that are being revolved around like the Romans. The act of sport was also given to us by the Greeks which is something we hold high up in our society.   Because the Greeks and Persians were so different with ruling they had many wars. The Greco-Persian Wars were won by the Greeks no matter the circumstance.  Whether they fought on land or they fought at sea the Greeks had the better military and the better support because of their innovative leadership. Overall, it is fascinating how these empires lasted for centuries even when they were a largely sized empire. If we compare the United States with these Empires we are children when it comes to ruling.

First Civilizations

Since 3500 B.C.E., Civilizations started forming.  Again like the start of agriculture, the beginning of these civilizations started around the same time but in different parts of the world. Civilizations started in three different places Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Norte Chico. From the start of these three civilizations it became greater and greater into the civilizations we have now. It is fascinating to know that the civilization we know now came from the ideas of many agricultural civilizations. Throughout thousands of years, civilizations developed everywhere in the world. The Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization went from being separate civilizations to becoming part of the Persian Empire thousands of years later. The fight and change of different civilizations not only happened to the Egyptians and Mesopotamians but the rest of the world. These takeovers are how most of the world came to be.

It isn’t hard to believe that with the civilizations beginning there wasn’t inequality and hierarchy within the civilization. Naturally, those who had power were the ones that had more crops and more food. When you are in power, or upper class, you received many fortunes and could escape the need for physical labor. All the Civilizations had a small amount of those in the upper class and the majority as free commoners, very much like today’s society. Even lower than free commoners were people who were enslaved. Although it isn’t ok to enslave people as we know now through history, people thousands of years ago didn’t have the same rules as those decades ago. Slaves in the past weren’t always used just for hard labor and children that were born into slavery could become “free”. It isn’t the greatest idea to own people but it seems they had better rules for slave-owning thousands of years ago than decades ago.

Agriculture, Horiculture, Pastural.

                About 12,000 years ago the early humans went into what we now call the Neolithic or Agricultural revolution. The "new stone" age is when many of these people started a form of farming and manipulation of nature for our advantage. The start of this era changed how things were to develop for us now. Because of the onset of husbandry in this time period, we have many animals that can be companions instead of a threat. These changes also got us the corn we know now instead of the 1-inch cob they knew then. Although we saw "domestication" as an advantage for us, it was a slight disadvantage for the animals that now depend on people to keep them alive because they can no longer survive in the wild alone. The most shocking among these facts is while all these people were thousands of miles away from each other, they all partook in the domestication of nature as a whole. It is great how around the world different crops and animals were being grown and domesticated to become part of the human ecosystem.

                Even though many of these early homos had an agricultural revolution, there were some areas that strived more than others. The  Southwestern European space that is now known as a dry area where not much grows was once a highly vegetated land. Many archeologists believe that a dry spell happened in the Fertile Crescent which is why we have a desert-like area among other places that were also highly vegetated. These extraordinary facts explain why this less than likely climate condition has been populated by people. Another reason people could live in these harsh conditions is that they adapted to be co-dependent on animals that could be herded like cattle. They found it easy to have these animals eat things that people couldn't eat and make a product that was beneficial to the human anatomy. The pastoral people were mostly in Eurasian and African regions which are where most of the dry spells thousands of years ago happened. An interesting relationship started forming between the pastoral people and those who lived in a high vegetative area. Although some fought because of the two methods of survival, others created a cohabiting living arrangement. Overall I wish the Yahi people were treated better than the massacre that happened to them.

The Hadzas and others

                The prologue was an excellent refresher course on things like The Big Bang theory and in time how it relates to how we have developed into Homo Sapiens. I found that inserting what happened once the big bang occurred into a yearlong event, helps many understand that many human advances have happened in a short period of time in relation to the development of Earth. It's outstanding that while the galaxy happened 13 billion years ago life on Earth wasn't around until many years after the galaxy forming, 600 million years ago. Many years after the first life form appeared (250,000 years ago) the first humans existed on Earth. After the first humans came to be we rapidly advanced, in comparison to how the galaxy developed, to the modern people we are now. It is fascinating to think of world history with the 3 C's; Change, Comparison, and Connection.

                It is quite upsetting that the Hadza people of northern Tanzania are nearing extinction just because they are different in how they survive in the world. Many establishments like missionaries and governments don't accept this "primitive" way of living because it isn't like most of those people do it. The Hadza still keep the nomadic process of our older ancestors, which they did for thousands of years. I find nothing wrong with this way of living yet many people are forcing their ways on these peaceful people. The nomadic tendencies started in Africa, but many early humans decided to leave the African continent and travel to Eurasia and Australia. In these regions, you see many cave paintings and the use of better tools than just a rock. The farther the humans, at the time, went the better the skills they developed. Although most of these people depended on gatherers in their groupings, many  started hunting different kinds of animals. I find it surprising that many of the gatherers were women and that there was more equality between men and women than there is now. Throughout this equality, there were rules and regulation if you wanted to live into an age of approximately 35. Another thing I found interesting is the spirituality that happened later in which most of those religions were based on a female entity that was worshipped, unlike most current religions.