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As we pass through our eonic sequence
once again, we should this time examine the relationships of diffusion in our
system. This is the last piece of the eonic puzzle that will make it finally
make sense. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to detect diffusion. Another,
or broader, word for diffusion is ‘sequential dependency’. Our eonic sequence is
really two patterns, a synchronous pattern as seen in the Axial Age, and a
sequential one of drumbeat tempo. Their connection is not clear until we study
the effects of diffusion inside our system. Our transitions create a series of
diffusion fields where a high degree of sequential dependency reigns. The fields
or V-cones can overlap, please note, and tracing the layers is often a
considerable study. Because of this factor, among others, it is more useful to
recast our ‘fundamental unit of analysis
’ as a series of transitions and their
fields of diffusion, rather than as a series of civilizations.
Theories of the birth
of civilization, such as Toynbee’s consideration of challenge and response and
many others, are confounded by the relativity of the term ‘civilization’ and the
clear evidence of its gestation, if not outright early appearance as ‘civil
evolution’, in the primordial transition, village, town, state. And yet the
rapid crystallization of the forms of the state, the invention of writing
, indeed most of the foundations of later
social organization, seem to cross a threshold in the centuries clustered around
–3000, to stabilize for an immensely enduring era that will last until a new
period seems to dawn at the time of the Classical Greeks and the world of
Canaanite ‘Israel’. In a word almost everything that comes later is sequentially
dependent on the world of
Sumer. Almost. In a word,
Sumer
was important.
This emergence of
higher civilization, as a relative onset, is highly concentrated in the Fertile Crescent, and we suspect, despite every
possibility of the independent emergence of the discovery of agriculture, that
the appearance of advanced civilizations occurs uniquely in one source. This
challenge to theories of the independent evolution of civilization is
controversial, and depends on the consideration of issues of diffusion. But it
is difficult to defend, for example, the absolute independence of the New World
civilizations from any contact with the Old World
sources. As Cyrus Gordon notes,
Prehistoric and
primitive men may have ‘invented’ in isolation a number of ways of life
belonging to the domain of cultural anthropology. For historians of civilized
man, however, the entire globe has for thousands of years constituted One World.
If high independently invented civilizations have existed, they were not on this
planet.[i]
Although we strongly suspect this to be the case, we need not commit, and
our model is more flexible, and allows a looser, our stream and sequence,
interpretation. Indeed, we have created a two-level construct, and nothing
disallows both the independent
emergence of proto-civilization, and the distinctly driven eonic evolution we
see in our mainline. The eonic sequence simply amplifies a selection of cultures
in its direct path. These independent sources, however, can’t compete with the
impact of the eonic sequence. And, after careful study, it is hard to believe
even the far flung Olmecs aren’t sequentially dependent on Sumer/Egypt in
Transition 1. These two possibilities, stream and sequence, can then interact,
creating a complicated situation. But as time goes on the mainline is likely to
predominate.
This would go a long way toward explaining the complex situation we see
in the New World civilizations, whose status we
cannot determine without better data. But these civilizations, so far from Eurasia, have a hard time, and can’t advance very far.
Finally, the appearance of synchrony as seen especially in the Axial transitions
should advise us to exercise extreme caution about the sources of anything. The
fields of diffusion provide raw material, but the eonic mainline performs the
major effects of advance. Yes, we do see this synchrony, but we also see that in
each case, that there has been diffusion from the Mesopotamian world. Not easy
to discover with China, but it is there. The
advantage of our approach is that it uses ideas of relative changes, and from
this perspective we don’t have to commit our model to extravagant assumptions
about poorly observed civilizations. But, despite this, we should be strongly
suspicious in favor of diffusion in many cases where independent evolution is
claimed.
Our stream and sequence approach
requires both perspectives. But we should predict at once that some element of
diffusion is present in the worlds of the Olmec, Maya, and other New World civilizations. But since we don’t have the full
data we won’t commit ourselves in advance, save as a prediction: you’ll find
that connection someday. Note that the issue is one of
relative free action in a field of diffusion, in this case diffusion
of information (from bad sources like the Phoenicians) and very little direct
imitation. This allows a huge scope for diverse realizations with predominant
stream inertia. Civilizations aren’t autonomous, and ideas and technology spread
rapidly. If someone arrives with new information, that is overlaid on the
resulting civilization. If the information is at second hand often the result is
less than stellar. The New World cultures were no doubt unfortunate to receive
the diffused influences of the Phoenicians, even as their cousin culture in
Canaan is about to spawn the ‘protocols of intertribal mediation’ that we see
emerging in the Old Testament during the Axial interval. These never reach the
New World until too late and defunct in the imperialist form of the
Holocaust of Columbus, Christianity taken over by thugs. This effect of packaged
literature appearing in the Axial interval as diffusion instruments is crucial
for the foundations of modernity, and the struggles over animal (and human)
sacrifice, just to take one example, show the way a new stage of culture is
reached in global form from localized transitions.
This double aspect in our model is clearly present in the New World. As to diffusion, the legends of the Maya, Inca,
Aztecs even said so! It is not prejudicial to take this stance. Quite the
contrary, once we see that there is a mysterious driver behind the great
advances, the sluggishness of many sectors ceases to be some sort of judgment on
other cultures. Behind the rise of civilization in the
Fertile Crescent lies the whole history of the Neolithic. A great
preparation occurred, almost five thousand years! That’s a lot of preparation.
So far all we see in the New World is the
sudden emergence of the Olmec. We don’t see, at least not yet, the equivalent
lead up in the New World. We must therefore
suspect diffusion
.
But note that both viewpoints are possible, up to a point. Civilizations
evolve in isolation, but their integration and manifestation of advanced
features almost always shows direct diffusion from the Sumer and Egypt phase. This does not rule out
prior influences however from an earlier period. With or without extensions to
the eonic sequence. This does not contradict the basic model, but it does leave
the pattern ragged. It would be very nice to know what was going on throughout
the Neolithic, for we see definite cases where diffusion has clearly occurred
from some earlier phase of the Neolithic.
The
Indian anomaly It would be hard
to claim that the advanced yogic ashram world of
India
is the result of diffusion from
Sumer. And yet the realm of the
Indus springs up in clear sequential dependency on Transition 1. A
perfect example of our stream and sequence insight. ‘Civilization’ in our sense
is claimed by the eonic sequence, but only arises via the sequence as the
integration of large-scale infrastructure proceeding toward globalization
.
This relatively crude bulldozer makes no claim on the totality of ‘stream
influences’ existing locally, which might show a higher level, not of
‘civilization’, but of consciousness in isolated effects. Eonic progression or
progress marshals large populations and may generate, so far, only mechanized
ideologies, inferior to prior achievements of earlier isolated cultures. This
kind of possibility can’t be ruled out by our analysis. But then again, this
spiritual tradition must have intersected with the eonic sequence at some point.
The question of Indian spirituality thus remains unsolved, but probably bumps
backward to the Neolithic. In fact, a figure such as Ramakrishna is still
worshipping the Goddess in the nineteenth century, a Neolithic giveaway. We are
obviously missing something. Note the way that our eonic sequence intersects
with this stream (again) in the Axial period, and out pops Buddhism, a global
instrument from a local stream culture packaged and ready to ship globally and
transculturally. This is a perfect example of the eonic effect. Something that
might be lost to the future is pumped into the global system from an isolated
world.
Fourth Ways:
A Sufi Myth Later we will
discuss an ancient myth of the Sufis of a ‘fourth way’ beyond, or integrating,
those of body, emotion, or mind, sometimes referenced as path of Will. We have
lost something here, and sense that the Indic stream shows a special case of a
more general rubric of religion, in which world renunciation and world action
are reconciled, a myth indeed amidst the spurious claimants. The point is that
Indic religion could indeed be a diffusionist off-shoot of something invisible
to the naked historical eye.
In conclusion, the question of diffusion is controversial because it puts
a premium, it seems, on biased cultural sources connected to the eonic sequence.
This and many other examples put our sequence in a somewhat ambiguous light
because it seems to favor the mainline of the sequence. We have to face the fact
that this is what the evidence shows, along with the catastrophe of anti-semitism
and the dangers of Eurocentrism, false universalization, and that we are
nonetheless one world evolving towards a greater unity, and the temporary
advantage of the transitional areas near the mainline sequence is not a function
of cultural superiority but the action of the eonic effect itself. The immense
reserve diversity of greater universal history must not be sacrificed to this.
But small wonder the modern transition produces its convulsions of globalization
and Eurocentric imbalance!
In general, diffusion reigns. As Thor Heyerdahl
notes,
The isolationist sees it as an insult to
the intellect of the American Indian to look for outside inspiration behind the
aboriginal American civilization. But is it not more of an insult to the bulk of
American Indians, who lived outside the high culture areas and who had no
civilization, to overlook the possibility that they simply have lacked
corresponding helpful influence? Can we Europeans say that we descend from
independent inventors of civilization? Do we forget that
Europe
was still the domain of illiterate barbarism when the literate Olmecs erected
masterpieces of sculpture with hieroglyphic inscriptions and complicated
calendar dates...[ii]
Note the implications of the stream and sequence argument, taking the
case of Greece.
The stream of Greek culture shows two periods of early flowering, the first is
the Mycenaean. This is out of the master sequence, and shows diffusion and
sequential dependency on the first phase, the transition of Sumer and Egypt, mediated via the mideonic
world of the Minoan. It actually collapses and goes into decline, then takes off
like a rocket in the next phase of the master sequence. Only a model of the type
we have constructed can do justice to this complex of relations in three and
four dimensions on the surface of a planet.
[i]
Cyrus Gordon, Before Columbus (New York: Crown, 1971), p. 35.
[ii]
Thor Heyerdahl, Early Man and the Ocean (New York: Doubleday,
1979), p. 70. Patrick Huyghe,
Columbus
Was Last (New York: Hyperion, 1992).
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