From: Steve Schear <azur@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 08:55:18 +0800
To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: The End of Politics
In-Reply-To: <v03102803b030ed0b7ecb@[10.0.2.15]>
Message-ID: <v03102806b0310996334d@[10.0.2.15]>
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>Tim May <tcmay@got.net> wrote:
>>At 3:08 PM -0700 9/1/97, Steve Schear wrote:
>>			The End of Politics
>>
>>Every 500 years or so Western history seems to reach a turning point: the
>>founding of democracy (Athens, c. 500 B.C.), the death to Christ, the fall
>>of the Roman Empire and beginning of the Dark Ages (c. 500 A.D.), the
>>ascendancy of the Catholic Church and beginning to the Middle Ages (c. 1000
>>A.D.) and the Renaissance (c. 1500 A.D.).
>
>I sure don't buy any analysis that starts with this kind of "periodicity
>analysis" (Fourier analysis of history?).

No doubt, with so few data points one cannot build a mathematically
compelling case.

>
>Just for starters, these dates are highly arbitrary. The start of Roman
>influence in a major way was 100 B,C.

It may be somewhat self-serving but in light of the past few hundred years
history, few (except Italians) would see the founding of Rome as
significant as the invention of democracy.

>or so, the death of that Jesus guy
>was a minor event (the real event was the rise of the Church, in Rome,
>during the next few centuries,

I think you'd get some major disagreements with that one.

>and esp. with Constantine).

Many historians do not see Constantine's empire as truly the continuation
of the Roman Empire per se, but that of the church (an event which as you
point out began with Jesus).

>And the "Dark Ages" were misnamed.

True, but relatively unimportant.

>I was talking more about the The Norman Conquest was 1066,

Yes, enabled by amoured cavelry which by that date had transformed warfare.

the Crusades were
>circa 1150-1250 (I forget the exact dates), and so on.
>
>And the Enlightenment, c. 1700. And the American and French Revolutions.
>And the Industrial Age. And a huge amount of history, ups and downs, just
>in the last century. The dates you pick, -500, 0, 500, 1000, 1500 are
>artificial, selected to match a theory based on 500-year cycles.

Sure, but almost any attempt to impose a large-scale structure on history
is likely to come under such critcism, just as theories to explain the
evolution of the universe's large-scale structure can be shot full of holes
by 'local' anomolies (the exception proves the rule). If one accepts that
the socio- politico- economic history may have chaotic aspects (e.g.,
Asimov's pyscho-history) then large-scale structures may be fleetingly
exist.  The true test is whether such attempts help explain or predict.
We'll have to wait a while for that ;-)

--Steve