Descriptions:
Video Description
What if civilization isn’t the source of religion and art — but the device built to make an unfair hierarchy look divinely ordered? Professor Jiang reverses the familiar story and reads the old founding epics with fresh eyes. Writing, money, and the myth of the sky god, he argues, were tools to keep people from walking away. Once a myth is carved in stone, it keeps working on us for centuries.
Full Video Transcript
today we discuss the idea of civilization and um first i want to present to you the general
understanding of how we get civilization then i will present to you an alternative okay so the
traditional understanding is the marxist understanding this is idea proposed by Karl Marx
and it’s the dominant idea so in the beginning we were hunter-gatherers and it sucked to be
a hunter-gatherer because you could not find food and then we discovered agriculture farming
and that allowed for surplus food surplus just means that you have more food than you can eat
and so now you have people who don’t have to work okay an elite and as such they can engage in
activities that improve the well-being of everyone and which create the basis for civilization these
things include religion okay which is just myths and stories but also arts dance music song songs
paintings and then of course you have science and technology and with these three things in place
now you can grow as a society okay you can now build cities why because now you
can have irrigation and farming okay you can now direct the river the river flow
so you can use more farmland okay you can now have a hereditary elite and so
if these people can focus their entire time on innovation on science on
progress okay and then you have writing because only a heritage elite has the time and the
resources to learn how to write because remember back then writing is a very difficult activity
you have to spend your entire life learning it and practicing it and then you have the idea of
money and property okay and together these four things are what we refer to as civilization okay
now there are good things that come civilization religion arts and science but there are also
bad things as well which include war slavery and debt and that is historic civilization
that you’re taught in school
and that most mainstream academics understand.
Today, I want to propose an alternative.
And I think this is a much more compelling alternative
than this one.
And the idea is this.
From the very beginning,
we were religious, artistic,
and capable of science, okay?
We do not need an elite to do this for us.
We are all capable of doing this ourselves.
And the examples, of course, are the cave paintings that we discussed,
as well as these religious settlements, Gopal, Taple, Karahoyak.
And as we discussed before, people come together to practice their religion,
building temples, building monuments.
And then slowly, around these temples, you have development of farming
in order to sustain these temples, in order to practice the religion.
But over time, what happens is that the temple people become corrupt.
Rather than being elected by the people, rather than serve the people,
they become hereditary, okay?
They engage in rent-seeking.
And so what people do is, they just leave and build a temple somewhere else.
and for all this time all these temples are being built but in certain locations the temples can
also engage in trade why because they’re the meeting place of many many other communities
and as such their real estate is the most valuable in the world and so it’s hard for people to leave
and the place just grows and grows and grows and as this civilization grows the people in charge
christian call a temple economy okay and this is just a permanent form of taxation basically what
happens is that everyone brings food to the temple and the priests then redistribute the food amongst
everyone else okay that allows for public works projects like irrigation mainly irrigation but
also more temples okay and because of this economy now you need writing you need to record how much
food you have you have to record who gets what food the rations you also need to record trade
right how much um grain you’re getting from here how much cows you’re giving it over there okay
they have a writing system then you have money and but as this civilization develops a strict hierarchy
emerges and the hierarchy goes against the natural order also remember that people anytime can just
choose to leave so how do you make people stay where they are and just follow the natural order
well now you have to create mythology okay which then you encode or write down so that seems as
though it’s coming from the gods themselves okay does that make sense in other words civilization
did not give us religion arts and science we already had these things we could at any time
in our history do all these things civilization is a device meant to gaslight or fool people into
believing that a hierarchy is legitimate when it is not legitimate it is meant to fool people into
thinking of a that this hierarchical system is divinely ordained okay so that’s the argument
i will make to you today before i continue are you clear about this framework this is this is
a traditional framework this is this is what you’ve been taught in school the problem with
this framework is that it assumes that we’re all stupid and if we’re all stupid it’s hard
to explain how we did the cave paintings, how we built Cabelo Tepe, how we did Cajahoya.
It assumes all these things. This new understanding is that we’re all capable of creativity but
eventually because of social development, we have these large cities and now the people in charge
need to create civilization in order to justify the hierarchy. Alright, so having said that,
let’s look at the four earliest major civilizations in our history and they are of course egypt
mesopotamia which is modern-day iraq the in this valley civilization this is all also referred to
as the harappan okay harappan civilization because their capital is harappa and then the last one of
course is china right now the question then is why is that these four are the early civilizations
and they have three unique characteristics okay the first is their latitude they’re actually in
the same latitude they’re not too hot and they’re not too cold which makes them perfect for
agriculture okay that’s the first characteristic second characteristic is that they are by major
rivers right so egypt is of course by the nile uh mesopotamia has been called the tigris and the
and the Euphrates.
Indus Valley, of course, has the Indus River,
and China has, of course, the Yellow River, okay?
That’s the second major characteristic.
This allows for you to build a fairly large city, okay?
Because now you can solve the water
and transportation problem, okay, and also agriculture.
And the last characteristic, which is the most important,
is they’re by the sea, or they’re by the ocean,
which allows for them to engage in trade, okay?
Transportation, bringing in new goods,
new people, and new ideas.
So Egypt has the Mediterranean as well as the Red Sea.
Mesopotamia goes into the Arabian Sea,
which goes into the Indian Ocean.
And so the India is the same situation, okay?
Goes in the Arabian Sea and then the Indian Ocean.
China, of course, goes into the Pacific, all right?
So what will happen over time is that
Because of the trade location, they’re
able to build a very large city over time.
But then what will happen is that as the city becomes
larger and larger, they will develop colonies upstream
and downstream of the river.
So they will build more colonies.
And this is how you get civilization.
You always have a major city.
And as it becomes too big, you have other places
order to um expand your trade reach okay so the priority is trade and as you can see what’s
happening is that these now these areas are able to connect the entire world right so egypt is able
to connect europe and the levant and africa okay uh mesopotamia is able to connect anatolia um asia
central asia and then in this valley is able to do the same thing okay china is a special case
because of the himalayas so there is trade actually between china and these other parts but
not as much and so china is a special case and we don’t so that’s why we don’t we don’t discuss
china in this class okay so this is these three places are what we collectively call western
civilization so you may have thought that western civilization is just europe and america that’s not
true okay just look at the history um these places have always been in contact with each other and
collectively they built the foundations for western civilization let me ask you this question
looking at this map where is the most strategically located place you guys know it’s here right
does that make sense you guys this is right in the center of global trade and guess what this place
is where human civilization began this place is what we call Samaria Samar okay
and this is where writing was invented okay and this is where a lot of trade
happened because if you just look at this map Samaria is what connects
everyone to everyone else right if you’re in the internationalization you
want to get through Egypt you have to first transport your goods to Samaria
which then overnight takes it to Egypt same thing with Egypt okay same thing if
you want to reach everywhere else does that make sense
that’s why Samaria was the first major civilization okay and they invented
writing as well as irrigation as well as a lot of technology and there’s been a
lot of debate about Samaria because one thing that puzzles scholars and
historians is the language of samaritans speak is not the same as the surrounding areas okay
so that’s why a lot of historians believe that the people in samaria came from somewhere else
and that may be true why because this is the major trade route right and it’s possible that
what happened was that different people came together in this area to trade and they formed
their own language that is possible okay um also scholars have been surprised or amazed at the
rapid development of samaria and that’s why okay i don’t know why why but there are some people on
the internet who believe that aliens came samaria and created humans okay these aliens called it
are called the anunnaki and it’s a really stupid idea and what you learn in this class is that
if you put humans together and they need to do something they will do it very well it doesn’t
make sense okay necessity is the mother of creativity it’s because they have to come
together to trade to interact that they create their own writing system okay so if i were to take
different people from from the world and just dumped on the island you guys would really quickly
be able to develop your own language your own writing system your own civilization because
Because again, necessity is the mother of invention.
So that’s the general framework we’re working with.
Any questions before I continue?
Good, all right.
So let’s do the PPT.
So in this class, I want to talk about how,
because of civilization development,
they start to promote writing and promote mythology.
And what I will show you is that by studying mythology
properly you can actually decode or uncover or reveal the history of the civilization even though
it may be lost to us okay all right let’s continue all right so um one principle that i want you to
learn about human history is that it’s a constant process of inversion okay and what i mean by that
is that as humans progress or as humans as human society grows and grows they need to constantly
innovate in their system and they do it for inversion so um during the caping era it was
an egalitarian society uh which was fluid which was dynamic and they were animistic which which
meant that they believed that um everything had god in it okay they were all part of god
and then agriculture you had the mother goddess civilization because you needed fertility right
the mother goddess is able to give you more children as well as help you grow crops but
over time as civilized as as societies became larger and larger they start to go war with each
other okay and now the male overtakes the female rather than worship the mother goddess they now
worship the sky god and before during the mother goddess it was assumed that the mother goddess
serves us because she’s kind she’s compassionate but now the sky god we have to serve the gods okay
um and then as society becomes more hereditary what happens often are civil wars where the prince
kills the king okay the son kills the father in aversion right the last process is that
over time as society becomes more populated you need a bureaucracy what happened will happen is
is that the bureaucrats will collude together
to steal power from the king, okay?
The servant rules the king, okay?
So this is a major pattern of historical development
that I want you guys to remember.
Remember that history is a constant process of inversion,
okay, where the old order is being dethroned
by the new order, okay?
So that’s one idea I want you guys to remember, okay?
All right, so basic framework we’re working with
is that before we said that the mother goddess where woman were in control and they focus on
balance and harmony okay and fertility and their understanding of the mother goddess is that she’s
kind and she’s she’s compassionate okay so you don’t really have to work that much you just have
to uh respect her and she will provide you with a lot of babies and a lot of good food okay now we
go to the sky god and different societies have different sky gods but they’re basically the same
concept. So in Egypt they have Ra, in Babylon they have Marduk, in Greece they have Zeus, in Rome they
have Jupiter, right? And the sky god demands struggle and toil to rape, exploit, control
the earth, to take the mother goddess and to control her, okay? And you do that by building
canals, by building farms. So it’s a constant process of exploitation, okay? Not only exploiting
nature the mother goddess but you’re also explaining each other you go to war you conquer
other people you enslave them okay it’s a constant process of sacrifice and discipline okay so this
is the major transition all right so the four major civilizations we talked about as you can
see from this map they’re the same latitude right china’s over here again because of the himalayas
they’re blocked from the rest of the world okay but these three areas egypt mesopotamia and
in this valley you can see how close they are to each other and how they can easily access each
other through the sea right and once they are able to access each other they can then access
other parts of the world as well so right from the beginning guys it’s really important western
society was integrated through trade for communication and so the ideas the people
were always in exchange with each other okay so you cannot understand development of egypt
in isolation from Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.
They will all influence each other.
Unfortunately, because of Western prejudice,
you’re often taught that these things are separate from each other.
But they existed in dialogue with each other.
All right, so the creative civilization is the Middle East.
Why? Because of the fertile crescent.
So, Sumeria, Sumer, is where we consider the cradle of civilization because as I mentioned to you, it is the center of all global trade.
It’s where all civilizations meet. But as you can also see, it’s also extremely fertile.
So, this has historically been the wealthiest part of the world. Strategically, it’s the most important part of the world and it’s still true even today.
okay that’s why you have all these wars in the middle east that’s why america is so supportive
of israel okay so as i mentioned to you um what will happen is that because of trade
iraq will become a large city and then as the city becomes larger and larger it will establish
colonies elsewhere as well and these will become the major city states of mesopotamia and for
thousands of years they will fight each other until Sargon of Akkad unifies this region, okay?
Sumer is impressive. They’re known for their canals, they’re known for their irrigation.
And again, scholars are sort of mesmerized by how they’re able to do this, but one thing that you
learn in this class is that when humans come together for religious purposes, they’re capable
of doing amazing stuff these are zagrets they’re temples okay and these zagrets were the center of
their civilization remember that also they start off with a temple that then builds out outwards
okay and these zagrets are important because they are literally considered the home of their gods
and these places are sacred so when the priests are allowed to go inside it people can deliver
gifts to the gods through the priest but the people themselves are not allowed to interact
with the priest that’s how the priests are able to control over the cities okay and the priests
themselves are considered servants of the gods this is kunea form right there’s a kunea form
which is the first writing system ever invented um what’s interesting about this is how they did this
so what they did was this they just took clay from the riverbeds okay and then before it hardens
you just take a reed and you write down some marks in the clay and then what you do is this you just
put out in the sun and then it hardens right it’s it’s there forever that’s why we still have them
today because rock does not decay okay and that’s why we know more about sumeria than we know about
other places um for most of agricultural history we celebrate the mother goddess okay but then as
As I mentioned, over time, as society becomes larger and larger, the men start to take control,
and so they inverted the mythology of the mother goddess.
Now the sky god, who is Marduk here, kills the mother goddess to create the world.
A process of inversion.
To understand this process, we will read the most famous epic from Mesopotamia called the
Enuma Elesh.
and emir-e-lesh means fall up high so it’s a bible basically it’s like what god told us
and this is a story of the creation of the world okay so what’s really important to understand
is that all the stories are written down in stone okay and again guys didn’t have to do this
because everyone was able to memorize the story line for line and that’s what we did historically
so why did they um write this in stone for propaganda purposes right the same as in today’s
world you go see a film when you see a film you’re mesmerized you’re hypnotized by the beauty of it
and you must think that this film must be the god speaking themselves okay you don’t think about
okay how do they put this together your mind doesn’t think like that your mind’s like oh my god
this is an image before me therefore it must be true okay and that’s why they wrote stuff down
for propaganda purposes now what’s interesting is that there’s different writing systems around
the world so in mesopotamia they have these k tablets right but in egypt as you may know they
have papyrus okay papyrus are just are these these plants they take out they take out the plants and
then uh put them together in the sun okay and then they become like these scrolls that you can write
on and china of course have the paper so what’s interesting is that when the need arises for
writing we always find find of like creative ways to express ourselves in writing okay papyrus
scrolls don’t really last that long that’s why you know less about egypt than we know about
mesopotamia all right so the eminent lash was written on k tablets so let’s go over
um the story the enumerated lash so um in the beginning there are two major gods apsu
and tiamat apsu means fresh water tiamat means salt water okay fresh water of course
is the river um salt water is the ocean okay when they come together to create all possible life
including their children the new gods tiamat and apsu create these new gods but they’re children so
they’re really loud and absolute is like you know what these children are really annoying i want to
kill them tiamat overhears this and tiamat tells her children who rebel and kill apsu but then
Tiamat’s like you know what they killed my husband so now she’s pissed okay so she decides she’s
gonna go kill her children too she has a general and there is this huge army and they start to
attack their children these children are um thrown back by Tiamat so they elect a new champion called
Murdoch the thunder god the sky god to lead them into battle against Tiamat and in the final battle
um um murdoch who’s also called bl he kills tiamat okay now what happens afterwards is
really interesting because after he kills tiamat the mother goddess he takes her body and then from
her body he built the entire world he builds both the sky and the planet earth okay so let’s read
some lines be out rested serving the corpse in order to divide the lump by a clever scheme
he split her into two like a dried fish okay so he literally cut her like a fish one half of her he
set up and stretched out as the heavens he built the sky from her body he stretched the skin and
appointed a watch while they with the instruction not to let her waters escape he crossed over the
heavens surveyed the celestial parts and adjusted them to match the absolute nominates abode so
absolute was the husband who was killed be it measured the shape of the absolute and set up
ezra of lepka of escala and escala ezra which he had built and the heavens he settled in the shrines
anu nl and l okay so what’s important to understand is this he’s doing this to the mother goddess
okay so not only is monarch proclaiming a new order but he’s also proclaiming new values new
values of struggle exploitation toil right before the mother goddess was a religion of balance and
harmony don’t destroy things worship the animals as they’re your friends if you kill them make
sacrifices to them and now this new religion is no destroy the world and make it yours okay
so this is a civilization that practice irrigation right because irrigation really is about
controlling the earth all right let’s continue all right so what happens now is that after
mardok um creates the world he has to establish a bureaucratic order okay an order a hierarchical
order so he says he fashioned heavenly stations for the great god and set up constellations the
patterns of the stars he appoints the year marked up divisions and set up three stars each for the
12 months okay so he’s basically building a calendar the idea here is that all these
bureaucratic inventions in samaria in order to better govern the people right what this myth
is doing the eminem is doing is proclaiming that the bureaucratic world is divinely ordained okay
this didn’t come from the priest it came from the gods the priests are just the messengers
all right let’s continue all right so now that marduk has built this world he’s like you know
what i’m tired and i want a place to rest so what i’m going to do now is i’m going to build
a house which is my temple and then i’m going to make slaves in order to serve me and these
slaves are called humans okay that’s why we’re invented to to serve the gods before we understood
that the gods served us helped us or loved us and now we must become slaves to the gods beneath the
celestial parts whose floor i made firm i will build a house to me to be my luxurious abode
within within i will establish a shrine i will find my chamber and establish my kingship okay
all right so now he’s going to turn humans into slaves he conceived the desire to accomplish
clever things he opened his mouth addressing eel he counsels that which he had partner in his heart
i will bring together blood to form bone i will bring into being lula whose name shall be man
okay all right and the gods by the way are called the annunaki okay that that’s why there are
conspiracy theorists on internet who say that we’re invented by the annunaki all right so what
murdoch does is that he takes his enemy uh tingu and then he kills him and then from his blood
he will create mankind. They bound him, holding him before El. They inflicted the penalty on him
and severed his blood vessels. From his blood he created mankind, on whom he imposed the service
of the gods and set the gods free.” Now what’s really interesting for us to remember is that
throughout this poem, the monarch has different names, Biel, El. And the reason why is that
what happens in these epics is they take different traditions and they combine
together into one composite story okay all right after the wise eel had created
mankind and had imposed the service of the gods upon them that task is beyond
comprehension for Nimrodot performed the creation with the skill of Marduk
King Marduk divided the gods of the Anunnaki okay the gods into upper and
lower groups he assigned 300 in the heavens to guard the decrees of Anu and
appointed them as a guard okay so now he’s gonna create this
hierarchy so yes all humans are slaves but there’s some humans who are better slaves than other
humans okay that’s what explains the hierarchy so as you can see the enemy alleged it was written
in order to justify the existing power structure and honestly this is a concept that’s still true
today right why do we have schools why do you have media why do we have entertainment it’s to
justify the existing power structure and social order okay all right now we get
towards the end and this is to establish that Babylon is the divine city if it’s
divine it means you can’t leave it you all want to be here even though being
Babylon means your enslavement okay let us make a shrine of great renown your
chamber will be our resting place wherein we may repose let us erect a
shrine to house a pedestal where we may repose when we finish the work when
The Marduk heard this.
He beamed as brightly as the light of day.
Build Babylon the task you have sought.
Let bricks for it be molded and raise the shrine.
The Anunnaki wheeled the pig.
For one year they made the needed bricks, okay?
So Babylon, the capital, is a city made by the gods
for the gods, and then humans are there to serve the gods.
Okay, so this is the divine order.
This is the mandate of heaven.
Okay, and as you will see,
this is not just true for Mesopotamia, for Babylon,
also true for all major civilizations including egypt okay so this is a tapestry from egypt as
you can see the gods are in control the gods are the public masters and the kings are just being
controlled by the gods and then humans just do what the gods demand of them okay this is just
the natural order this is the mandate of heaven this is the way that it should be okay now let’s
talk about the epic of gilgamesh so there are two major literary achievements of mesopotamia the
The first is the Anemone of Lesh,
the second is something called the Epic of Gilgamesh.
As you can see, Gilgamesh, he is a giant human.
He’s a king.
He’s considered the first king of Uruk, okay?
And he’s so big that a lion is his pet.
What happens is that Gilgamesh is a king,
but he’s a tyrant, so he takes the men to war
and he sleeps with all the women.
So the people cry to the gods for relief from Gilgamesh.
So the gods create Enkidu from clay, okay?
And this is very similar to the story of Adam in the Bible.
And Enkidu is like an animal,
but then Gilgamesh sends a prostitute to seduce him
and then become civilized, okay?
And now Enkidu and Gilgamesh fight,
and when they fight, they realize
that they can’t beat each other,
so they decide to become best friends.
They’re best friends now and they embark
on all these adventures together.
They go kill these divine beings.
They go kill the protector of the forest.
They kill a divine bull.
The gods are now kind of pissed at them
because they’re disrupting the natural order, okay?
So the gods have a meeting.
They decide that one of them must die.
So they kill Enkidu.
When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is heartbroken
and he’s scared because he’s afraid
that he will die as well.
So he sets on a quest for immortality, okay?
He goes and tries to figure out how to live forever.
He ultimately fails, okay?
And it ends with Gilgamesh returning home
and he sees happiness in the walled cities,
and his people being happy, okay?
So the moral of the story is that
immortality is not about living forever.
Immortality is about doing great things for your people
so that you’ll be remembered forever.
Celebrate forever.
So the irony is that even though Gilgamesh
failed in his quest, he ultimately succeeded in his mission
because we have his epic,
and so we’re able to celebrate him even today, okay?
So it’s a story that is being told.
The question now is, why is this story being told?
And one theory is that this is a concept of kingship.
Being a king means not doing whatever you want.
a king means to serve the people so that people will celebrate you and remember you forever and
immortalize you in writing okay that’s a theory all right but ultimately gilgamesh is a bureaucratic
creation and i’m going to explain to you how this creation works through this creation process we
can understand how human society develops over time so in the beginning what happens is that
each region has local legends okay and these local heroes are celebrated through stories so
stories of demagogues like hercules right and the epic heroism um they have these stories because
each region has a local king and this local king says well i’m the descendant of hercules and
therefore i should rule over you okay and what will happen is that these stories become a test
for the king if hercules can fight a lion then you are his ancestor uh descendant right you are
you are his descendant, therefore you should go fight a lion.
And that’s how you justify your kingship,
through these acts of heroism
that’s relayed to you in stories.
Okay, that’s the first step.
Second step is what happens is that
as these different areas become consolidated
into a much larger area,
these stories themselves become consolidated.
So Gilgamesh was basically different heroes.
One king comes to dominate a region.
Then what happens afterwards is that
As the regime becomes larger and larger,
you need a bureaucracy.
So, bureaucratic priests come into power,
they add in morality and messaging
to control the people and the king.
Okay, the major message is the king must serve the people,
and then the priests control the king.
But what will happen is that these different bureaucratic
factors will fight each other,
and they will have different versions of the story, okay?
So, bureaucratic priests take power,
the morality and messaging changes, okay?
As different bureaucratic priests take power, okay?
must learn humility so this is a hard thing to understand but it’s really important for us to
understand otherwise you can’t understand the bible and um other literary creations so what
i’m going to do is i’m going to give you an example to help you better understand this
process of storytelling right so let’s imagine three universities ohio state university connecticut
and middlebury and they all have their own local legends okay so in these places something happened
that capture the imagination of all the students so maybe ohio state university michael james gets
drunk the night before examination and he still matches passive and the students are like that’s
a great story okay what happens over time is that basis is a great story a story as a story is told
more and more becomes exaggerated why because it becomes exaggerated it’s much more interesting
it’s become much more memorable okay and over time people add color to it to make it even
more memorable if you don’t do that the story becomes forgotten okay so the only way to keep
the story alive is by constantly exaggerating it and bringing color to it so let’s see what happens
over time the story becomes michael james gets drunk before every examination and he scores 100
okay that’s an exaggeration and then over time naturally for the oral tradition the story becomes
even more exaggerated michael james bet his professor that he could get 100 on the exam
while drunk after james finished the exam he bombed on the professor he flew up on the professor
the professor could not do anything because james had got 100 on the exam okay all right so human
beings just do this naturally if something happens they think it’s they think it’s interesting then
it becomes a legend becomes a story okay and this happens everywhere so connect college a football
player scores a winning touchdown okay and then it becomes exaggerated the guy scores touchdown
every game and then even more exaggerated the guy hits a home run to help his team win the
championship and then later that that day he scores a touchdown to win another okay so becomes
more exaggerated and then look look let’s look at the last one at middlebury college pat jack
drives to canada take a piss okay he just does that for no reason becomes more exaggerated he
goes to a new city every day to take a piss okay and then it becomes to be more exaggerated and
now you add color detail to it pat jack drove to canada and accidentally pissed on a sleeping beer
okay he ran up a tree about his pants and forest rangers had to come rescue him okay all right
so this is what happens naturally the story becomes funnier the story becomes more colorful
more detailed more exaggerated so that we’re able to remember it okay and then over time what
happens is that these stories become consolidated combined together to form a new story okay
harvard’s most legendary student was pitbull james he once rolled an exam that no professor could
pass he wants to hit a home run with one arm he wants piss on sleeping bear just so he could knock
down the bear about with one punch okay so it becomes even more exaggerated becomes consolidated
just as the epic of gilgamesh okay but then what happens is the bureaucrats take over
okay the people in charge take over and they have to change the story in order to better control
people and there are different versions of this process so so let’s look at three all right you
You add just one line and you change the story, right?
In the first version, when he became a billionaire,
he gave it all to Harvard, okay?
So obviously, Harvard wrote this story to say,
you know what, we don’t care what you do
as long as you give us money, okay?
That’s the first version.
Second version is, when he wrote, he found his true love,
he settled down in the woods to write full time, okay?
So this is seemingly the primacy of writers over athletes,
okay, the smart over the brave.
And the third is the bear ate him, okay?
So he punched the bear and the bear decides to eat him,
which is like, don’t be a stupid athlete, okay?
And so when you add these actually lines,
you make the story less interesting, less colorful.
But you do so in order to better control how people think.
And this is a process that we see throughout human history.
So think of these classics, of these Chinese classics, right?
San Guan Yan Yi, Romans of Three Kingdoms,
Siyouji, Journey to the West, Xuehujuan,
Bandits of the Water Margin.
If you read them, they’re not that interesting.
But before, you can imagine that they were interesting,
but the bureaucrats took them and changed them
into boring stories that they can now teach school children
to brainwash them, okay?
Does that make sense?
Okay, so that’s a process of civilization.
All right, so another example is,
he assaults Theogony,
and he’s talking about Greek mythology, okay?
Greek religion.
So the process goes like this.
At first, Gaia, who’s like the mother goddess,
and Chaos, they give birth to the gods.
Gaia marries one of these gods, Uranus, okay?
And they give birth together to 12 titans.
But Uranus doesn’t really like children,
so he beats up his children.
So these children, with help from the mother,
decides to rebel against Uranus.
The youngest son, Cronus, kills Uranus, okay?
Then Uranus marries Rhea, and now Cronus is king,
but he’s afraid that his children
will eventually rebel against him,
just like he rebelled against his father,
therefore he eats all his children.
Rhea, the mother, is upset about this,
so she decides, I’m gonna give birth to Zeus in secret.
So she runs off to an island,
and she gives birth to him in secret,
and he leaves Zeus there to grow up, okay?
Eventually, he grows up, and then he goes back to Cronus,
he becomes cupbearer to Cronus, and then poisons him, okay?
And that’s how Zeus becomes the ultimate king.
What’s really interesting for our purposes
is that this myth influences the origin story
of major historical figures, okay?
So if you look at these major historical figures,
you will find that it’s a very similar story.
So Sargon of Akkad, who found the Akkadian Empire,
Ramos and Remus, who founded Rome,
King David, who founded Israel,
and Genghis Khan of the Mongols, okay?
They all share this similar origin story.
So where do we get this origin story from?
Okay, so going back, we’re seeing three layers, right?
So the first layer is the original layer,
which is the animistic layer, okay?
So different gods come together and they create humans.
The second layer is when Cronus rebels against Uranus
and establishes the kingship, okay?
Right?
The third layer is this.
The third layer is the most interesting.
Usually when you’re king, you need a general.
What often happens is that the king likes to hire
a foreign mercenary to be a general.
Why?
Because first of all, he’s of low birth, right?
Therefore, no legitimacy.
Second, he’s a foreigner,
And therefore, he doesn’t have any political factions behind him.
But often what happens is that this foreign mercenary is so talented
that he’s able to build a political faction to overpower the king
and become king himself because he’s really talented.
This is true for Genghis Khan.
This is true for King David of Israel.
This is true for Sargon of Akan, okay?
So there are lots of historical figures like that.
Even in Chinese history, you have quite a few historical figures like this as well.
So the founder of the Song Dynasty was this sort of person.
The problem though is that once he becomes king,
he has a legitimacy problem.
He’s of low birth, he’s a foreigner, right?
So what do you do?
You create a myth of Zeus, right?
That Zeus himself was of low birth and a foreigner,
but not really because he’s the secret son of the king, okay?
And that’s why you have these stories,
to legitimize the king.
All right, so again, this follows the dynastic cycle, okay?
So in the beginning, the high priestess,
who represents the mother goddess, she has a consort.
And so they establish a hereditary elite.
But this hereditary elite makes people
unhappy with the system.
So then one prince or one of the sons decides, you know what?
I’m going to form my own political faction.
I’m going to become a warlord.
I’m going to overthrow the queen and the king, OK?
And so he slays the consort and marries the high priestess,
which is following the pattern of the mythology, right?
Then what happens is that after the warlord dies,
his son relies on a mercenary as general.
The mercenary is often a foreigner and of low birth.
Mercenary slays the warlord and makes himself king, okay?
Okay, does that make sense?
This is a pattern that we see over and over in history.
This explains why the myths
are constructed the way they are.
Okay, so another way, a metaphor that we can use
is think of myths and stories as like house renovation, okay?
So when you renovate a house, adding different layers to it.
That’s literally what’s happening, okay?
So we will look at one last story
to show you how this writing process works.
Remember, they invent writing
in order to basically gaslight the people.
So even though Samaria, Mesopotamia,
is developing really quickly,
as you can see from this map,
it’s still a very diverse place, okay?
They have different forms of industry and economy.
So maybe in the green, you have agriculture,
but in the red, it’s pastoral,
meaning you’re raising animals,
sheep, goats, you’re going all over the place, okay?
So there are two different types of agriculture.
The first form is you are sanitary,
you just stay in one place and you grow your food,
you grow your crops, you grow your plants.
The second is pastoral, where you’re going around
and you are feeding your sheep and your goats, okay?
If you’re a king, or if you’re a priest,
bureaucrat you prefer agricultural people or pastoral people obviously agriculture why because
it’s better it’s easier to control them okay so what they do now is um they’re gonna create these
mythologies to convince people be to give up the free happy lifestyle of pastoralists and become
an enslaved farmer okay all right and the question is how well this is how this is called the debate
between the sheep and the grain okay so the sheep and the grain have this debate and they appear
before the gods for judgment the sheep says i am i’m the better one the grain says no i’m the
better one okay so that this debate the sheep says this and king the gods make me descend from the
holy place my most precious place all the yarns about o2 the splendor of kingship belong to me
second king of the mountain embossed the king’s emblems and puts his emblems in order
he twists a giant rope against the great peaks the rebel land he the sling the quiver and the
long vows. The watch of the elite troops is mine. The sustenance of the workers in the field is mine.
The water skin of cool water and the sandals are mine. Sweet oil, the fragrance of the gods,
mixed oil, pressed oil, aromatic oil, cedar oil for offerings are mine, okay? So I’m the sheep.
Look how great I am, okay? I provide clothing for people. I provide sandals. I have oil,
which makes people more fragrant. I also provide food for your soldiers. So I’m great. In the gown,
my cloth of white wool the king rejoices on his throne my clothing um is worn by the king himself
is that proof that i’m the greatest my body glistens on the flesh of the great gods after
purification priest incarnation priests and the babe priests have dressed themselves in me for my
holy illustration i walk with them to my holy meal okay so the priest when they make sacrifices they
sacrifice the sheep that’s like the sheep the priests are gonna sacrifice grain they sacrifice
sheep okay but your hero plowshield binding and shops are tools that can be utterly destroyed
what can you put against me and answer me what you can reply okay so that’s the argument from
the sheep the grain says when the beer dough has been carefully prepared in the oven and the mash
ended tended in the oven nikasha mixes them for me while your big bully goals and rams are dispatched
for my banquet on the thick legs they are made to stand separate from my produce your shepherd
on the high plain eyes my produce endlessly when i am standing in the furrow in the field my farmer
chases away your herdsman with his cudgel even when they look out for you from the open country
to the hidden places your fears are not removed from you fang snakes and bandits the creatures
of the desert want your life on the high plane every night your count is made and your tally
stick put into ground so your herdsman can tell people how many eels there are and how many young
lambs and how many goats and how many young kids when gentle winds blow through the city and strong
winds scatter they build a milking pen for you but when gentle winds blow through the city and strong
winds scatter i set up as a equal to iskar i’m green i’m born for the warrior i don’t give up
the turn the vat on legs the endormance of shepherding make up your properties what can
you put against me and to me what you can reply okay well what green says is first of all you
You don’t need to protect me, I can protect myself.
There are no animals that want to eat me, okay?
And I’m powerful, okay, so I’m independent.
You do less work, you get more of me, okay?
That’s the argument.
And of course, the gods say that grain is better.
Even though people who raise sheep and goats,
they’re stronger, they’re more free,
they’re more independent, but kings don’t want that.
So they create these stories, these mythologies,
in order to brainwash people out of their freedom,
out of their independence, okay?
And that’s why we have writing.
That’s why they invented writing, okay?
Does that make sense to you guys?
All right, any questions?
So my first question is,
earlier you mentioned that there are
three ancient civilizations that are very close
to each other, like Egyptian and…
That’s right, yeah, that’s right, yeah.
Yeah, and so my question is,
are there any connections between their distance
and how they made all of this myth
and their methodologies of creating the gods?
Okay, that’s a really good question.
So it’s almost impossible for us to answer
how much they influence each other, okay?
Because even if they were not in contact with each other,
they would still come up with the myths
that they had come up with
in order to justify their hierarchy.
It doesn’t make sense.
So myth-making is a natural part of the human process.
so do they share these stories together probably okay but what’s important to understand is that
these elites are also interested in differentiation so if i’m in egypt i need to prove to my people
that i’m superior to the people in mesopotamia and in this valley civilization and that’s why
i create the pyramids right okay if i’m at mesopotamia i need to prove that i’m superior
that’s why i create the zero gods and the epic of gillamash all right so the actual process it’s
it’s hard to say okay so another way of thinking this is how much are you influenced by american
popular culture probably a lot but how much okay also you what if whatever influence that you have
you still also refracted for your own personal needs as well okay so that’s a great question
And you know, scholars spend a long time, decades,
trying to figure out what the actual influence
of each culture is on the other culture.
And from my perspective, it’s not important.
We just have to assume that there is influence,
that these cultures aren’t caught up with each other,
but ultimately, at the end of the day,
what they come up with has to be unique to their own culture.
They want to prove that their culture is superior,
and they want to, and they have to address
local needs as well, okay?
Does that make sense?
I have another question. I don’t know how familiar you are with the Chinese culture, but in our Chinese culture, there is a god who created the earth. His name is Pangu. There is this mythology of how Pangu creates the earth.
And so my question is, like, you can notice that in the Chinese culture,
Pangu is a male and he is the one who sacrificed himself to in order to create the earth.
And in other myths, like in Egyptians, that the creator is this female character.
So in your opinion, like, do you think there is like what is the why is this different?
Okay, yeah, so it’s hard for us to say what the original myth was, okay?
The process is this, in the very beginning, all myths, all gods should be asexual, okay?
So they are almost, they’re either non-sexual, like it’s not male or female, or they are
both male and female, okay?
Because in all traditions, the god has to be a balance of forces, right?
So the male force and the female force, that’s why we have yin and yang.
But over time, what will happen is
that they will change certain characteristics
to reflect better the hierarchy.
So maybe in the beginning, when females were in charge,
Pengu was a female character.
But over time, they’ll change it to a male character.
It’s almost impossible for us to go back and rebuild
or reimagine what it was like originally.
OK?
Thank you.
All right.
Any more questions, guys?
OK, great.
So I hope this makes sense.
And next class, what we’re going to do
is we will talk about the steppes people, the people
in the steppes.
This is civilization, so people who do agriculture.
But remember that throughout most of human history,
the major conquerors were people from the steppes.
So Genghis Khan came from the steppes.
So we’ll be discussing them next class.
All right, thank you.
Source: Predictive History