Archive for January, 2013

Of all the societies and cultures that influenced the world, none
have been more influential in Europe and the Middle East than the Greeks. The
Greeks sculpted the entire ancient world, while other great empires such as Egypt
and Mesopotamia crumbled and were forgotten Greek culture survived, integrating
itself into its surroundings to survive thoroughly to the modern day.

The Greeks were the first to question and attempt to answer the
mysteries of the world around them, what did it mean to be righteous, why do we
exist, why is the world in the form it is? Without any scientific or spiritual epiphany,
using only pure reason and the power of the mind the Greeks probed into the
deepest and most enormous questions that we still struggle over today.

Greek culture was also especially organized, stressing duty to community
and the importance of the whole while still maintaining individuality and free
thought. It was one’s civic duty to strengthen one’s nation through one’s own talents
and passion leading to an organized society.

It was for these reasons and more that such men as Alexander the
Great, and such empires as Rome, saw fit to incorporate Greek culture into
itself rather than reject it, such to a point that the Roman Pantheon mirrored
the Greek almost to a tee. Throughout history Greek culture has proved itself a
major shaper of the world we live in today.

The Scholastic’s were an extremely influential group. One specific thing I would like to highlight is Ockham’s Razor. Put simply, Ockham’s razor is using logic and reason to solve problems. More specifically, one should choose the hypothesis that requires the fewest assumption. I believe that we still follow this brand of thinking. You often hear the old adage “You know what happens when you assume?” This implies that assumptions are still unwise and one should not be quick to decide or judge without getting all of the facts. Many movies take advantage of the fact that humans like to assume. One such movie is Shutter Island. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a man who we are told is a detective investigating an escape from a mental facility/prison on shutter island. Leo is searching for a specific prisoner that has escaped but is believed to still be on the island. In the end we find out that instead of searching for a prisoner this is actually a test for Leo. He is the prisoner there and the doctor’s are trying to test his mental state by seeing if he could live a stable life. Since we assume that he is a detective the initial realization that he is actually insane is quite a shock. Many other movies take advantage of our assumptions, making us assume one thing only to throw in a twist at the end. Assumptions in movies today create drama.

Shutter Island Trailer

There were many groups throughout history that influenced contemporary thinking. Take the Scholastics for example. This group included a number of men, some of which were Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Peter Abelard, and William of Ockham. I saw their contributions to contemporary thinking as we discussed them in class today. Thomas Aquinas influenced contemporary thinking by demonstrating that much of what Aristotle said was actually consistent with a Christian world view, which no one had pieced together before then. Albert the Great also taught Aristotle’s work and emphasized the value of experience. He believed that we were not born with knowledge, but instead we gain it through our experiences (which I happen to agree with). I think this thought would have made people more open to trying new things. Peter Abelard contributed to contemporary thinking through his gift of dialect. He wrote a book that presented questions and then he answered them by arguing both sides, which I can imagine cause some controversy while expanding people’s views over the questions asked.  William of Ockham became known for his principle, Ockham’s Razor, which states that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily, which means if there are two competing hypotheses, the one with fewer assumptions is the better one. I believe that this encouraged many people to experiment in order to find the best hypothesis. This is how I believe these men influenced contemporary thinking during their time.

Peter Abelard was a scholastic philosopher who challenged the commonly practiced blind faith in authoritative theological figureheads. In his time period, Aristotle’s writings were forbidden from being read for fear of people losing their faith in God and their religious leaders. Abelard not only translated Aristotle’s writing, but also pointed out many contradicting viewpoints held by Christian theologians and in scripture.  From this, Abelard brought forth an idea that one’s religious belief should not be governed purely by a sort of blind faith, but also by logic and reason.

In my life, there have been times when I have doubted the logic behind what is written about in the Bible and believed by the average Christian. Whether you realize it or not, believing in the miracles and resurrection of Jesus is a rather insane notion. We have little evidence of these events actually happening besides a book written from one person’s perspective. Of the books of the gospel, which are written from four different perspectives, a lot of time passed before they were written. With all of this knowledge in mind, the Christian faith would appear to have little logic or reason to defend it. However, this is not the case.

I tend to be a rather logical and reasonable person, which is why I tend to speak about my faith from a logical point of view. If I hadn’t experienced certain events in my life, I can’t be certain that I would be a Christian today. This was the topic of a conversation that I had recently with a few friends of mine. The discussion was mainly between someone with many doubts about the Christian faith and another who is very strong in their faith. After about two hours of hypothetical situations and testimonies the conversation came down to one logical statement about the belief in what is written in the Bible about the story of Jesus Christ. Of all of the people who have been on Earth claiming to be the son of God and who were killed for saying so, why do we still talk about one man in particular who lived over 2000 years ago? People who claim to be the reincarnation of God are written off as crazy before they are ever taken seriously. If someone came up to me today and said that they were the human form of God himself, I’d immediately consider him to be insane. Yet, I believe in a story about a man who did the exact same thing. One of the few logical reasons that I have for this is the fact that the story of Jesus is the only story, as far as I know, where a man claimed to be the son of God and was considered to be a lunatic by many, that we still talk and learn about today.

Naturally, there are many other reasons that I believe in the death an resurrection of Jesus along with many other stories in the Bible. However, most of those stories are thought to be true due to a certain amount of faith that I have. This is also influenced by my personal testimony, but the fact that Jesus’ story continues to be told is my biggest rationale for my faith in God and practice of Christianity.

When I look around at American culture today I see an Aristotelian influence. We are always looking for the answer to our next question. For example, we create drug after drug treating whatever disease we make up that needs to be treated. We have medication that has side effects of making the illness we are treating worse. What kind of solution is that? I’ll tell you:

It is the hydrochloride salt of a phenylpiperidine compound identified chemically as (-)-trans-4R-(4′-fluorophenyl)-3S-[(3′,4′-methylenedioxyphenoxy) methyl] piperidine hydrochloride hemihydrate and has the empirical formula of C₁₉H₂₀FNO₃•HCl•1/2H₂O.

Side effect: pathological laughter.

I can only imagine what Plato would say.

Oh, by the way, that’s Paxil, an anti-depressant. If you are interested in psychiatry and are looking for a laugh check out  http://www.crazymeds.us/pmwiki/pmwiki.php.

Many of Greek culture has influenced our thinking today. There are multiple parallels that I see in today’s society and what I learned about the Greeks. For one, the idea of passion and living from the “appetite” and Plato would say is apparent in the Greek culture. One example is the idea of watching men fight to the death as a pleasurable thing.

Are You Not Entertained?

Although we don’t have gladiators anymore thank goodness, we have a similar concept dealing with sports. We pay big bucks to sit in a stadium and watch two teams spar it out with strategic tackles and immense pressure. I understand that this is mostly voluntary on their part and the ultimate goal is not death, but you have to admit that there are similar qualities in modern day football and greek gladiator.

On a different note, the standard of intelligence and reason as a high value in Greek culture still exists today. In society, we place much emphasis on attending college and getting a masters to be able to get a job. Usually the higher the education, the more wealth you are able to attain. This emphasis of education resulted in government positions and were usually considered the “upper class” in Greek culture.

It is obvious that the Greek way of thinking is different than our own. One way that our thought differs is that the Greeks had to spend more time in discussion to find and solve problems when now days I can just jump on to google and read what other people have written in order to solve my problem. Face-to-face conversations are not a necessity today to find an answer like it was in the time of the Greeks. Something else that I have observed is that deep conversations, at least in college, do not revolve around issues like the position of the earth relative to the sun and the capacity of the mind. More often than not deep conversations today revolve around mistakes and relationships rather than world issues. There is no real problem with this difference, its just a distinction that I have observed. The reasoning behind this is that since we have the internet we do not have to stress to find the answer to any question we type. Therefore we tend to focus on other issues, issues that cannot be strictly solved doing a google search. One last observation that I have is that the Greeks tended to spend more time in discussion than we currently due.

It is difficult to say how much the influence of Greek philosophers impacted contemporary thinking – but then again, I’m allowed to describe it in whatever way I want and using additional mediums as I like.

So I’m going to use my favorite medium: Internet memes.

Two of the most famous Greek philosophers are, Plato, and Socrates. In my personal opinion, Socrates probably had the most obvious impact on the average person (at least the average person I have contact with). The Socratic method of bringing people to realize new ideas through asking them questions is clearly evident in today’s culture.

Although many people view these questions as intentionally convoluted and confusing, in many other cases this tactic can be seen as enlightening a person to something that they never would have been able to figure out on their own.

Still others feel they can stumble upon these truths on their own – through contemplation of the universe they can grow to learn more about it, without use of observation. This thought also follows from Socratic ideology, based on the idea that a person doesn’t need to be educated to know things. Socrates believed that even a slave already understood complex mathematics and did not need to be taught, merely ‘reminded’.

Plato also had significant influence (although probably the most common used of his name is in the word platonic, which fairly few people realize comes from the fact that he described love as having two forms, vulgar and divine). His allegory of the cave is one of his most famous ideas, and I think it is actually fairly well understood by most people who hear it, since he did a very good job of making it accessible to the common man.

I think one of his most profound impacts on modern thought is based off the theory of the forms. Although most people do not consciously believe that there is a perfect version of each thing that all other things are striving to emulate, people do strive for a perfect unattainable ‘something’, oftentimes without even recognizing precisely what that thing is. We seek for a thing that we know must exist, based on other things that we see… Even though what we seek is generally just a concept, rather than a physical reality.

Although I cannot possibly say what all of the impacts of the Greek philosophers are and will be, I definitely think that we are more influenced by them than most people realize. There are, I’m sure, more historically accurate and concise ways of explaining it, but this is a blog, this class is awesome, and I don’t have any more time. I shall leave you with a philosophical question about religion. (Please forgive me for going so incredibly far past the word count – for as we know, a picture is worth a thousand words.)

In our daily life, we basically live the same life as the Greeks did back then only in a more modern way. The Greek culture was extremely intelligent, full of logic, questions, and answers. The Greek culture surpassed all expectations in all that they did. Because of the Greeks and all that they uncovered throughout their year, it is now why we, Americans, believe and act the way that we do. All religion, freedom, rights, success, determination, work ethic, and sensibility comes from the Greeks and what they offered on the table starting from their time and even now. They have influenced us to mimic their ways and act out on our own ambition.

Greek culture is used in a number of movies that citizens watch for entertainment. For example, Hercules is a Disney movie that many children grow up watching. Many of the boys that watch this movie enjoy the thought of a strong, muscular man holding the world on his shoulders. Many girls enjoy the thought have there being a man out that that is strong and willing to take over the role of being a leader in the world. For decades, Hercules has created an image of a hero that has influenced individuals to strive to become. Everyone wants to be that Hercules hero that saves the day and the origin of that hero comes from the Greek culture.

Also, the Greek culture has impacted art and pop culture. The Bangles, an all-girl band in the 80’s, wrote a song titled Venus. The Greek god, Venus, influenced this song.

Greek culture affects us daily without even realizing it. The impact that the Greek culture has on contemporary thinking cannot be understated. Through art, politics, democracy, philosophy, and even Christianity, the Greeks have surfaced through our culture. I believe that Americans would have greatly suffered intellectually and philosophically if it weren’t for the Greek culture and their influence on the human knowledge we have adapted over the years. By gaining knowledge of the Greek theories, behaviors, and methods, Americans have utilized their resources in order to make a more beneficial life. The Greek culture is absolutely luminous and to not employ such incredible tactics from their culture would just be a disgrace. It is imperative that we apply the Greek knowledge because it is conducted in a very radiant manner. The Greek culture has and will continue to influence our culture every single day.

When considering how history and ancient ideas have influenced our modern culture, I am reminded of the principle of hindsight bias (once we know something the thought of not knowing it seems absurd to us). It is easy to think that ideas of dualism and a good life are common sense or intuitive, since most of us grew up with these teachings; however, in the ancient world, ideas like these that are so prevalent in our lives were considered by so many to be absurd. It is key to remember that our culture and worldview are products of thousand of years of progress, paradigm shifts, and philosophical and psychological advancements.
The Greeks were responsible for such an incredibly vast expansion of knowledge, ideas, and sciences. They were one of the first truly individualistic civilizations that we study, which is one of the most significant dynamics in American culture.