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How culture is made

metalabel.com

40 pointssurprisetalk14 comments

"It’s November 28, 1660. Europe is in the early stages of transforming from the Middle Ages into something new"

This is a grotesque misrepresentation of European history! By 1660, universities had existed for more than a half millenia, had redeveloped lost roman engineering capacities and invented world-shattering new technologies.

Oy!

One of the most obvious signs of an encroaching oligarchy is that people who have become successful in the domain of accumulating any non-standard amount of wealth feel this qualifies them to speak on every topic with no preparation.

At a certain point the disregard for truth and emphasis on narrative (and always with a facile material interest!) makes it impossible to engage with the alleged ideas and we have to look at the person behind it.

This is really no different than north korean propaganda in miniature if you are part of this cofounder of Kickstarter's sycophantic proofreaders: something absurd and obviously false is being said, but it can only harm you to point it out.

We can't really decide what is going on right now, let alone get all whizzed up about how funky European history was doing in 1660.

Why should a bunch of Londoners decide: "to start a club devoted to “improving Natural Knowledge.""

Yes, there were Universities etc but what did they actually teach (Classics, Theology etc) Bear in mind that cutting edge medicine until around 2025 involves leeches. Yes I am being a bit cruel but the point largely stands. Leeches are still used but for their anti-coagulant properties.

There was something more needed. More than what the Romans and Greeks had managed. Obviously we are ignoring vast tracts of the planet here with our Western View.

Anyway, that's only one story. There are several more in the article.

There is a final flourish too - why not read the whole article?

A classic medieval university education wasn't theology or reading Greek and Latin literature like epic poetry. It was the Trivium and Quadrivium, which emphasized logic, math, and astronomy, along with analytical writing skills so these ideas could be synthesized and communicated. What we today consider a classical, humanities-based education began to form, I think, near the start of the Renaissance, which in many ways was a reaction to the overly science-based curricula.

The highest degrees were in law, medicine, and theology, but these were professions and prerequisites for the same; i.e. professional degrees, much like today[1].

[1] I'm curious what percentage of those obtaining masters and doctorates in theology today go on to work as pastors, and specifically if still[citation needed] a majority.

Thank you for correcting me. On HN I tend to go for "common knowledge" and wait for someone who knows what they are on about to rock up. You didn't disappoint!

You mention Trivium and Quadrivium, so three and four subjects/things. So, the notion of "University" in the medieval and renaissance needs to be understood, compared to our modern preconceptions.

I studied post scola at a Polytechnic which was a UK thing. That's in living memory and yet many people have no idea what I'm on about. Dealing with notions and ideas beyond living memory soon gets a bit tricky.

I suppose I probably looked at a classical Victorian education (with rose tinted specs) and assumed that a medieval uni might be something like that with rather more Gothic Black Letter, more intransigent word spellings. That's me being lazy.

Would you mind recommending some reading matter? I'll never forget discovering "Courtesans and fishcakes" as a commentary on how ancient Greeks might have seen the world and themselves. Weirdly I found that work in a bookshop in Yeovil in the noughties, despite going to school in Abingdon and regular trips to Oxford and generally being surrounded by Oxbridge as a child.

Your note [1] and query are something I can't answer from authority but I suspect the majority. Theology is no longer considered Science! So if you choose to study Theology, I think you will be inclined towards to wanting to wear some really odd collars as a sign of your work.

By "vast tracts", you mean just China? They invented some technology but I don't think anybody else or anybody at all got to Roman level technology. Certainly nobody did science anywhere else that we have any historical record of.

I have a question on the topic of 1600s history.

Do historians see this as a period of global stagnation or isolation or anything like that? It seems like most of the world's major powers were either stagnating or declining. Spain, Portugal, Venice, the Ottomans, Ming China. Meanwhile Germany was getting ripped apart in the 30 Years War, England in a Civil War, and Japan closed itself off. The Dutch were doing okay I guess.

Then towards the end of the century we see all sorts of new powers emerge.

Am I imagining this?

You're not imagining it. The period roughly between 1500-1800 is usually called the early modern period (with endless debates over the precise endcaps). Rather than stagnating or isolating though, historians usually consider it one of the most dynamic and volatile periods in European history.

The 17th century in particular is usually divided in two between the thirty years war and the post-westphalian era when nation-states begin to exist.

It was also 92 years before Ben Franklin's kite experiment.

Middle Ages arguably, were done with the Black Death of 1346, when a third of agricultural labor was wiped out making land rents much cheaper and in many cases, nil. It ended feudalism because just controlling land was no longer enough to make money - and peasants got plenty of disposable income that they used to spend on rents - enabling consumption of industrial goods - and capitalism began; by the time peasants multiplied again some 150 years later to reverse the situation, America was discovered and those extra people started to emigrate there to make use of those free lands (and also, well, exploit and sometimes genocide locals... but that is another story), so feudalism never returned. By 1660, it was a distant memory.

Yes. With Bach, microscopes, portable and naval artillery, and a patent system that rewarded people for thinking up stuff that worked, paper money (1690) was the last thing needed to make everything since a foregone conclusion.

Ironically, social media has been atomizing. It's just continued the trend towards the isolated individual - now screaming into the social media void. While I don't think the article is wrong (except the bit about the early stages of transforming the Middle Ages being in 1660 -that's really wrong), it doesn't really address the basic problem we face now: how to overcome the increasing atomization. The examples given are pre-internet/pre-social media except the last, I suppose, about forming "metalabel", but even there there it's really light on details and basically suggests "collaborate with some friends". In the past people took action (forming unions, for example) in meatspace. Now we think we're taking action by complaining about the state of the world on social media.

It’s probably a bit by design. If you make the social media engaging and fun, master builders ensure the masters’ tools never dismantle the masters’ houses. The house dwellers are entertained to death and distraction.

Is culture made by convening around shared interests and establishing the means to mobilize them for political gains?

culture isn’t created or changed overnight — it takes time and dialogue

Not unlike propaganda, if you say it and reinforce it, it becomes "real"

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