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08 July 2003 — Western Civilization (22)

Nick is prone to intellectual flights of fancy. (Though, to be honest, so am I.) Nearly every day he comes into my office with some esoteric question.

The first thing he said to me today was: "Who were the ten most influential people in the history of Western Civilization?"

Mostly I play along with these games because, well, they're fun. Today I mumbled something about Grog the Caveman being the most influential person.

This didn't satisfy him; his question was in earnest.

He posited this partial list:

I can't argue with Jesus, and I don't know enough about Alexander the Great and Constantine to comment. However, I disagree with the other two he mentioned.

"Adolph Hitler had more of an effect on Western Civilization than Einstein did," I told him, and I believe it. Albert Einstein? He's influenced the scientific thinking of the past fifty years, but how can he be considered one of the most influential people in the history of Western Civilization?

Mohammed is more problematic. He's probably one of the ten most influential people in world history, but I argued that his influence on Western Civilization is minimal and indirect. He affected Eastern Civilization, but has had less of an impact on Western Civilization. Nick disagreed. And, of course, this led us to argue whether Saudi Arabia is part of Western Civilization or part of Eastern Civilization. Or both! And where exactly does the West end and the East begin? Jerusalem? Turkey? Baghdad?

It seems to me that Nick's definition of Western Civilization is actually restricted to European Civilization. He's looking for the people that most influenced European Civilization. Is Africa part of Western Civilization? Have there been no influential Africans? What about the Americas?

One of my points is that we cannot know who the most influential people have been, because we don't have written documentation for much of history. (Of course, this argument is easily quelled by requiring our list of ten most influential people to be drawn from those about which we do have some knowledge.)

My ignorance of history is laid bare in a discussion like this. I know a lot about American history of the last century (particularly of the 1920s, believe it or not), but am not familiar with much of the history of Western Civilization. During my Western Civ class in high school, I sat in the back of the room with Paul Carlile and:

  1. Read the Time Magazines from Mr. Barnett's desk
  2. Jotted down all of Mr. Barnett's silly quotes (there were plenty of them)
  3. Wrote notes to my female friends
  4. Didn't pay attention to the lectures
I regret that now, and not just because it makes me unable to engage in intellectual flights of fancy with Nick. he wants me to come up with my own list of the ten most influential people in the history of Western Civilization, but it's difficult:Those are the only three I can name without some remedial reading. (And that's not going to happen until I finish with Proust!)

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Sleep Apnea   It's confirmed: I have obstructive sleep apnea.

2004 — Two Neighbors, and a Dream   I met two new neighbors last night: one human, one feline. Also, I take my final vicodin, which prompts a lucid dream of washing clothes.

Comments
On 08 July 2003 (09:10 AM), J.D. said:

Of course a little googling can turn up some interesting related documents, such as:

I'm sure there are more such resources out there. Maybe Dana can help! :)

Now Nick wants to know who the most influential American in history has been. My vote would be for one of Jefferson, Franklin, or Lincoln, but I don't know which. And you?


On 08 July 2003 (09:22 AM), Dana said:

I actually agree with you on Einstein, although he was a great man. But he's too recent for his full impact to be quantified. However, consider that transistors and whatnot were developed because of developments in quantum mechanics, which were in turn a development that followed on from Relativity.

However, Newton (& Leibnitz) must be included. The development of Calculus revolutionized engineering and science for centuries.

I agree with Nick on Mohammed, and here's why. While Europe was going through it's spasms of book burning and rabid anti-intellectualism during the Dark Ages, most of the West's classical learning was kept alive in the libraries of the East. Europe was reintroduced to these technologies and classical texts through two events -- the Crusades, and the Moorish invasion of Spain.

Okay, ten most influential people in recorded history on Western Civilization?

In no particular order:

  • Newton (calculus)
  • Charlemagne (popularized public education, actually learned arithmetic, which was unheard of for a noble of his time)
  • Guttenberg (made books accessable to the masses, hence spread literacy)
  • Euclid(geometry)
  • Shakespeare
  • Galileo (The Earth revolves around the Sun, the Church isn't always right)
  • Prince John (signed the Magna Carta, legitamizing the idea that a monarch was not above the law)
  • Charles Babbage (invented the digital computer)
  • The Authors of the Federalist Papers (yeah, it's cheating to lump them together...)
  • Toss Up: Henry Ford & the Assembly Line, vs. Philo Farnsworth and Television...

On 08 July 2003 (09:34 AM), Dana said:

Most influential American in History?

Hm.

Depends on how you mean Influential.

I could make a case for any of JDs choices (or Aaron Burr or Thomas Payne, or Ben Franklin). I could make a case for Oppenheimer. I could make a case for Neil Armstrong. Or Edison. Or the Wright Brothers.

I'm going to go a different route, though, and suggest one or both of:

  • Mark Twain
  • Martin Luther King Jr.

On 08 July 2003 (09:46 AM), Dana said:

Hurm. Hadn't thought of this. Walt Disney?


On 08 July 2003 (12:30 PM), Rich said:

you have to think that if you made such a list 40 years ago, Mohammed would not make the cut, since he really didn't have a tremendous impact on the West (even though he might rank as #1 on the East All-Star team). however, if look at how much the West has changed over the past 40 years due to the uprise of fundamentalist, extremist Islamics who have decided to take on what they consider to be the Zionist West (most notably the US and the UK) in order to achieve their agenda, and you figure that Mohammed is responsible for that, you would have to think he might start to make the cut. i'm not saying Mohammed wanted that to happen, but i'm saying that his teachings have been interpreted in such a way by some to inspire those actions. so in that way he was influential. while the radical Islamic movement hasn't sparked a world war like Hitler did, it certainly has changed the way many in our generation view their own country, their world, their religion, their security, etc.


On 08 July 2003 (12:48 PM), Kris said:

Margaret Sanger! Look her up at:
http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/sanger.html


On 08 July 2003 (12:54 PM), J.D. said:

Margaret Sanger

Nick said: "What's Kris going to say when she sees there aren't any women on the list?" :)

Shakespeare

As much as I love the Bard (the Mirons and I had a nice chat about our favorite plays just last night), I don't know if I can count him as one of the ten most influential figures in the history of Western Civilization. He is the most influential writer, no doubt, but is that enough to make him one of the ten most influential people? I don't know.

Also: what about Darwin? His work shook the foundations of the civilization, though that was never his intent. Shouldn't that count for something?


On 08 July 2003 (01:58 PM), Dana said:

Well, it was a tossup for me between Babbage, who invented the digital computer, and Ada Lovelace, who invented programming. I was also going to include a suffragette, but I realized I don't really know much about them as individuals. I toyed with including Rosa Parks, Grandma Moses, and Sojourner Truth, though. And Amelia Earhart.

The sad fact with regard to women and history, however, is that for most of it, the people we remember are generals, politicians, royalty, and scientists. And of those occupations, only the royals have a significant proportion of women, and they tend to be eclipsed by their male relatives. That's not to say that womens contributions are less, but they are less recorded and less celebrated. The lack of true (gender/ethnic/etc.) equality in the halls of power today (be they corporate, political, or academic) really tells you something about the continued presence of uncommented and unperceived chauvinism in our culture.

On a different note, I guess I always have a problem with these lists because there's the question of interpretation and emphasis. What these lists reveal is what we consider important and influential in the history of Western Civilization, not the End All Be All Objective List of Important and Influential People. Which is more imporant -- literary influence? Technological influence? Historical record thereof? Military or political influence? Wealth?

Galileo is a good example. While he's the guy we all know at the beginning of the 21st century, most/all of the opinions he was expressing (and getting into trouble for) were expressed earlier by Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake and largely forgotten, and who appears to be where Galileo got some of his ideas from. So, which was more influential? Galileo, who is remembered today, or Bruno, who inspired him?

Our own subjectivity informs our opinions of who (and what) is important.


On 08 July 2003 (02:14 PM), Dana said:

Mohammed and Western Civilization:

Just as no man is an island, so too is no civilization an island. Without the so-called Eastern civilizations, the largely Islamic nations of the Near East and Saharan Africa, Western Civilization would not have the structure it has today. We influence each other in countless ways, through trade, immigration, and idea exchange.

Without the cross-pollination that occured during the Crusades and during the Moor's occupation of regions in Spain, well, European civilization wouldn't have regained a lot of medical, technological, mathematical, and historical information that it had lost, largely through religious purges of stuff that the Church didn't like (ever wondered why they're called 'Arabic Numerals'? Because those are the numbers the Islamic Arabs used. Notice how there's no Zero in Roman Numerals...).

Without this re-exposure, Europe probably wouldn't have had the Renaissance, and certainly not when it did. And we wouldn't have had the re-exposure if Mohammed hadn't started the Islamic faith which explicitely venerates knowledge and learning, which prompted much of the classic knowledge of the Greeks et al to be preserved and built upon over the course of centuries while Europeans mostly ran around killing each other, following leaders who were slowly succumbing to progressive genetic inbreeding.

(Other possibly important people -- Pasteur, for the germ theory, and Fleming for Penicillin.)


On 08 July 2003 (02:19 PM), Dana said:

James Burke got me started. I blame him. Sorry for the long ranting...


On 08 July 2003 (03:13 PM), Joel said:

So there're these two opposed schools of historical criticism (they actually have real academic names, but I'm damned if I can recall 'em) that can be described as "The Great Man" school and "The Big Giant Wave" school. The Great Man-ites are all about: "If it weren't for Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours, all of Christendom would be Mahometan." Needless to say, these are the people that sell well at Barnes & Noble, you've got your biographies of Men (and, very occasionally, Wimmen) who Changed the Course of History! And you've got your lovely illustrated coffee table tomes with names like: "The Time/Life 100 Most Important People Of All Time That You Should Definitely Know About In Order to Do Well At Jeopardy!"
The Great Wavers think this is bunk, that history is shaped by a billion tiny little factors and variables that add up to an irresistable Wave of Trend. They write really boring books like "The Economy of Discursiveness: An Integrated Approach to Bills of Lading and Chattels." They generally feel that World War II would have happened without Hitler, that the Civil Rights movement had more to do with something like educational trends than Martin Luther King Jr. It's no accident, they sneer, that Leibnitz and Newton created calculus simultaneously (Someone other than Darwin came up with evolution too, but damned if I can remember his name), because the historical moment was right for some smart guy to come up with it.
Is the Great Man theory just our human attempt at demonstrating that, as insignificant as you feel you are, if you work hard and stay in school, you too can Be Great? Are the Historical Wavers just a bunch of fatalists? Who's right? Can these schools of thought coexist?


On 08 July 2003 (03:20 PM), J.D. said:

Excellent delineation, Joel!

I am, for the most part, a Great Waver. Social and political and economic conditions converge at certain points in history, and at these points there are Moments of Opportunity. It is when, as you say, smart men (and women) step into these Moments of Opportunity that they become great. And it is primarily in hindsight that these people truly become revered.

Thanks for taking the conversation in a new and interesting direction!


On 08 July 2003 (04:17 PM), Dana said:

Joel,

That is a good summary, but I would go with your allusion at the end. Both of those things happen. There are large scale "wavelike" trends, and the events they precipitate fall out more or less despite any one person.

But at the same time, the actions of the specific individuals is important to the outcome, even of Big Powerful Events.

Yes, we would have had something like WWII in Europe with or without Hitler. But the entire shape of the war could have changed based on where they attacked, who made the first move, and who got persecuted. It was inevitable that conflict would happen, given the previous events. The specific events -- the holocaust, the atomic bomb, the Allies winning -- were not, I think, inevitable in the same way.

Yes, someone would have been president during the Civil War, but if it had been someone other than Lincoln, their decisions might have lead to a vastly different outcome.

Sometimes, a Great Wave happens no matter what. But I think the outcome, how the wave resolves, will be dependent on the actions of individuals. I also think that it's possible for a single individual's actions to start such a Great Wave.

History will conspire to thrust certain people into certain specific situations. Sometimes their actions will be inconsequential, and the wave will continue on. Sometimes their actions will divert, stop, or change the nature of the wave. It all comes down to individuals and their unpredictability.

It reminds me of Quantum Mechanics. You can't know exactly where a particle is, nor can you predict exactly where it will go, but you can kind of guess, and if you have lots of these things you can't pin down all interacting under certain conditions, you can predict with excellent certainty exactly what will happen to the overall group. But the individual behaviors still appear quite random.


On 08 July 2003 (05:23 PM), Kris said:

Clearly, Dana has missed her calling as a history major! Time for more graduate school?


On 08 July 2003 (06:02 PM), Dana said:

Groan!

I think I'm done with formal academia for good long while. I like science as much as I like history. I don't like the academic science culture very much, and I don't think I'd like the academic history culture any more.

On the other hand, I have a great thesis idea (although somebody has probably done it before) -- break down the various 'periods' of western civilization and examine the socio-economic history of women. Women only. What did they do, what sorts of jobs, power, and roles did they have? What was their lot in life? What were their attitudes on important stuff, what was society's official (and actual) attitudes towards them, and what were their interactions with each other and with men like?

I think it's a massive undertaking, but I think it would be fascinating if it hasn't been done. I think just the whole evolution of childbearing must have developed in a fascinating way (which is sort of alluded to in the piece about Margaret Sanger). We have a lot of single mothers in modern society and this is seen as different to 'the past' where everybody was raised in a nuclear family with 2.5 kids and two loving parents. Is that really true? It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to skip out on a pregnant girlfriend at any point in history, and when modern birth control methods haven't been invented, well, you do the math...

So once you have this temporal-socio-economic trend analysis of the women in Western society, compare it to other trends, like poverty rates, literacy, education, the economy, and all that.

I think they pretty much have to be closely related. And I think it's important information that would help guide (intelligent and informed) public policy.


On 09 July 2003 (07:47 AM), miriam said:

Hey, I've never posted here before. I lurk. Wait! that's not true. I've posted once, a long time ago. But I just wanted to add my dos centavos. So far, for the most part, everyone has mentioned "good" people. What about those cats who mess things up, rather unintentionally sometimes. The person who comes to mind is that kid who assassinated Prince Ferdinand back in...eh, 1914 or 15 or so. He pretty much started the world wars. Let me see if I can remember his name.


On 09 July 2003 (07:50 AM), miriam said:

Found him. Turns out, Time had him on their notorious list.

Gavrilo Princip.

He is the 19-year-old Serbian student who assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, which ignited the conflagration of World War I, which yielded the Treaty of Versailles, which deeply embittered an Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler, who in response booted up the great horror of World War II, which yielded the Treaty at Yalta, which divided up Eastern Europe in such a way that another Serb named Slobodan Milosevic felt the need to ethnically cleanse Kosovo.

Gavrilo Princip, Trigger of the Century.


On 09 July 2003 (07:52 AM), Joel said:

Dana,
I think your example of quantum mechanics is extremely apt. Apt! Do you hear me, APT! (Shakes his fist at the sky)
Ahem. If one is sitting up late in a dorm room, possibly in the presence of cannabis, one can easily bring this discussion around to Predestination vs. Free Will and thus distract your friends while you chow all the Corn Pops.
On a personal level, we seem to have lots of free will. For instance, I chose to wear this unfortunate shirt without a belt to work today. Historical trends determine that I would wear SOME KIND of shirt, but it was up to me which one. But even if we pull back from this level a very small amount, instead of looking at an individual we look at a single family and its choices in relationship to history (as many authors have famously done in famously long-ass books: Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks" comes to mind) we see how much our notion of choice and freedom is influenced by historical forces outside of ourselves. Why did the Roths settle in the Willamette Valley? Why did they immigrate to America? I could go on, but I'm sure this'll be enough to send JD into a paroxysm of geneology.


On 09 July 2003 (08:16 AM), J.D. said:

I chose to wear this unfortunate shirt without a belt to work today

Joel, do many of your shirts have belts?


On 09 July 2003 (09:16 AM), Joel said:

I'll give YOU a belt! (Shakes his fist at the sky)


On 30 November 2003 (04:33 PM), THEOROSA said:

What about Copernicus? Who started his theory in work "De Revolutionibus", which asserted that the earth rotated on its axis once day & traveled around the sun once a yr.? he influenced both Galileo &Bruno. Who both were condemned for believing his theory. Bruno was burned at the stake & Galileo was forced to renounce all belief in his work and sentenced to prison for life.


On 10 November 2004 (04:50 AM), dzei said:

My new list of the twenty most influential people in Western history
I have my list of the twenty most influential people in Western world history. Even though it will make me look somewhat capricious, I now agree with Michael Hart's contention that invention and religion generally influence more than war and government.

1. St. Paul
2. Mohammed
3. Christopher Columbus
4. Isaac Newton
5. Aristotle
6. Johan Guttenberg
7. Thomas Edison
8. Augustus Caesar
9. Alexander the Great
10. Charles Martel
11. Thomas Jefferson
12. Julius Caesar
13. Franklin Roosevelt
14. Adolf Hitler
15. King George III of England
16. George Washington
17. Charlemagne
18. Napoleon Bonaparte
19. Peter the Great
20. Pope Gregory VIII


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