As I remarked in response to BrBourbon's comments about history, I'm not sure that it's legitimate to trace so much of human history to any one event. And, after a little more discussion on IRC, he encouraged me to write a little bit about Chaos Theory, as well as some of the other topics that we touched on.
Chaos theory, at its core, is amazingly simple. It says that when you change something small, it's possible that it will have big consequences. The technical term is something like "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", but that's the basic idea. It can be explained by this poem:
FFor want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
The origins of this poem are unknown. The idea is that a thoughtless act can have enormous consequences, but the basics of Chaos Theory lie in these simple lines. A small change in initial conditions (nail vs no nail) have large consequences (kingdom vs no kingdom). But who is to say that the kingdom would have been won if the nail had not been lost? Even the simplest human equations depend on thousands of variables, many of which we are unable to ever know the values for.
I suggested, for example, that the variety of bean planted by a farmer in his field in the spring of AD328 may have been just as relevant to our current society as was the signing of the Magna Carta, or the outcome of the war of 1812. Perhaps more so, since it has had more time to percolate. And because of the complexity of the system, and the fact that historians only record those events that seem important at the time, we can never know how important that event really was.
So, I posit that trying to trace everything about our attitudes today, back to some source event in the past, is a *VERY* useful exercise, but is necessarily doomed to arrive at only a partial answer. At the very best.
For additional reading on Chaos, I recommend James Glick's book, which makes the whole topic accessible to non-scientists.
Intersting. So how would you say that this applies to the arrival of the "White Man/Missionary" in Africa? It seems that many folk attribute the current state of African States to this event.
Posted by: Bishop on November 4, 2003 08:33 AMWhile I agree that attempting to trace our attitudes to a singular source in the past is problematic.
However I will say that tracing to events that are indicative of a movement in thought or action is a usable exercise. One should ask what were the underlying reasons for this event that seems so linked to our modern culture.
In what ways were the theories and beliefs of the day coloring the actions of the people?
Posted by: Chris J. Davis on November 4, 2003 08:52 AMBishop:
Yes, clearly the invasion of the White Men is a significant influence in the current state of Africa, but there are *many* other factors at work. And many times I've felt that, 40 years on, it's just become de rigour to blame problems on the colonials as a way to avoid responsibility, and actually fixing things.
But there are many other events, some we know about, and others we don't, that are perhaps as influential, and what I'm suggesting is that to pin everything on one event is entirely too simplistic.
I'd suggest that other things, like the reign of Shaka Zulu, the arrival of the Boers (as distinct from the other European "invaders"), the arrival of the Arab and Portugese traders, are all major external events that had a huge influence. (Although Shaka was not really external, per se, but was kinda like the Mule in the Foundation series - a completely unexpected person who radically changed the course of history. Read "Shaka Zulu" for a look at this remarkable man.)
But there are other things, like droughts, locusts, and dust storms, and more human influences like Idi Amin, Haille Sellasse, Mohandas Ghandi, and Michael Jackson, who have had *enormous* influence on the current state of Africa.
Would Africa be the same without the Eurpoean invasion? No, of course not. But the cultural imperialism of the United States has more effect on the daily life of the average African than does the actual political and physical imperialism of whatever European nation claimed that particular country.
And, again, looking to Chaos Theory, (and particularly in agricultural cultures) the crops that a particular farmer chooses to plant in any given year have an *enormous* effect on local, and, eventually, national and global, history. What if Idi Amin had died during the drought when he was a kid? The implications for all of Africa would be enormous. And of course, we'd never know about it.