Heidi Wyman
1-16-08
Many scholars will tell you that you can learn from the mistakes and success of the past. If this is true, what would the revolutions of the past 600 years tell you that we need to do? Would the revolutions show that we need to keep trying to innovate and learn? David Lands states that we must “cultivate a skeptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to choose means.” Is this the message portrayed from the humanism movement to the technological revolution we are currently going
through? The lesson learned over the past 600 years is that we have to keep trying and move forward.
The first aspect that Landes states is essential to the lesson of keep trying is that we have to cultivate a skeptical faith. To cultivate a skeptical faith is to have a scientific, religious, and or political belief but also to be ready to question, explore, investigate and learn from new information and developments. Both the Humanist movement and the Reformation support the need for society to have a skeptical faith. The humanist movement questioned churches traditional beliefs of the meaning of life. By doing this, it created more then one point of view around how people saw themselves outside the church. They questioned the Catholic Churches traditions and polices. They still wanted to practice religion and be active in the church, while having a life, learning and exploration outside of the church. Maintaining a faith in religion but being able to question the traditional way of life. During the Reformation, Martin Luther exhibited skepticism of faith. He practiced religion while questioning through his 95 theses church traditions and polices he did not agree with. Again he wanted to retain a religious background and be part of the church, but still be able to question aspects of the church he felt were wrong and needed to be changed. Keeping a skeptical faith. Without skeptical faith, society will be come stagnant, does not move forward with knowledge, technological and medical treatment instead just accepts information given to them.(1)
Landes states that as part of the western history we must avoid dogma. Dogma is defined as a principle, belief, or idea especially one authoritatively considered to be absolute truth; avoiding this would be to stay away from accepting a belief, information because someone in charge told you to do so. We see examples of avoiding/fighting dogma during the Renaissance/Humanist Revolution, Scientific Revolution and the Technological Revolution. In the Humanist Revolution the Catholic Church faces serious problems with the society. The society began to question the traditional system of beliefs and the translation of the Bible. Martin Luther, a German monk and professor of
theology, recognized the corruption within the church and started to address them. His first act was to write a list of complaints against the church, the “95 theses”. Martin Luther’s second act was to post his theses on the Cathedral door in Wittemburg, Germany. These were taken and copied by the printing press and posted on many other churches. Luther’s stand led to many priest including Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin, a French born scholar, to preach against church dogma, ritual and pomp.(1) The fight against the church led to different religious beliefs and church dogma. A second fight against dogma is seen during the Scientific Revolution. The church’s traditional belief was that the stars and sun revolve around the earth. Kepler was the first to challenge this traditional belief by publishing his theory that the sun was the center of the universe, with the planets revolving around it. Though Kepler had a theory he did not have evidence to prove his theory and was ignored by the society. During the Scientific Revolution, Galileo was able to prove that the sun was the center of the universe using his invention of the telescope. Galileo published his findings in a book called, Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems. Galileo was challenging societies dogma around the setup of the universe. Which led others to further investigations, knowledge and a continuation of challenging traditional beliefs (dogma). In today's Technological Revolution, societies beliefs about how to do business and be successful is currently being challenged by the growth and changes in technology. Our new technology has made major strides in communication and cooperation, changing the way businesses work in a global society. Businesses that do not embrace this global economy are going to suffer. Freidman points out businesses that have been very successful at adapting and growing in the new global economy. All of these businesses are fighting dogma. These three revolutions all avoided/ fought dogma in different ways. (4)
Another issue when deciding message of history is that we need to keep trying, to consider is if society “listens and watches well” as stated by Landes. Does society learn from and pay attention to the past to help them make today's choices? We see two examples of this in the Industrial and current day Technological Revolutions. The Industrial Revolution started in Britain ahead of the other countries. Britain had industries, machines and a growing economy wanted by many other countries. Britain was “ a country with lots of private wealth and well-funded merchant banks, able to finance enterprise with family resources, small loans and reinvestment of profits.” ( Germany watched the advancement of Britain and learned from them to create a better business economy. Germany took the aspects of the British industries that worked and built on them, also adding schools that would educate their people. Germany listened and watched well, to get ahead and become a strong country. This is also seen in the Technological Revolution of today. People and businesses of today have to attend to and embrace modern technology. Freidman gives us two good examples of this from his book, The World is Flat. The first is the growth of the UPS company. They were an company that dealt primarily with one business aspect, shipping. They watched the world economy and technology changing and realized they has to diversify if they were going to survive. Now instead of only shipping, they went inside your company; analyze its manufacturing, packaging and delivery processes; and then design, redesign, and manage your whole global supply chain. If nessisary they'll even finance parts of it, such as receivable and COD payments. They paid, listened and watched well using what they saw to be more productive and successful. The second example was personal to Freidman. He talks about arriving at the airport early so he could pick up his e ticket for an A seat. He was disappointed when he received his ticket and it was not among the A seats. Upon boarding the plane Friedman discovers that the people who had the A seats were customers who had printed their tickets in the comfort of their home at 12:01 the night before. This new procedure was beneficial to both customers and the airline because customers saved time and got the seats they wanted , while the airline benefited because they no longer had to pay labor to print and handout the tickets. Because Freedman did not pay attention to the technological advancements he missed out on his preferred seating. (3)
The goal of all revolutions is to clarify and define ends; changing how we think and how we live. Each of the revolutions over the past 600 years have changed the way society thinks and lives. The Renaissance Revolution clarified how people saw themselves. People pre-revolution only saw themselves through the church. After the revolution, people saw themselves as individuals. The Scientific Revolution changed the way people saw the truth. It made it acceptable to find new knowledge and not get everything from the church beliefs. The Industrial Revolution changed the world from an agricultural society to an urban society. The Industrial Revolution also changed the rate of production bringing about mass production which greatly increased economic growth more than ever before. The current Technological Revolution has improved how businesses collaborate around the world. It has also improved the supply chains of the world. The technological revolution is still currently happening so we have yet to see the full effect of this revolution.
Finally, Landes says that we need to use all of the pieces he discusses to better choose means. Thus, the challenge for society is to use the knowledge from history to better choose means. Have we used the lessons of the past 600 years to improve our lives? When you bring together the examples from the revolutions over the past 600 years you have support for Landes statement that the lesson of the last 600 years is the need to keep trying. “No miracles. No perfections. No Millennium. No apocalypse. We must cultivate a skeptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to choose means.” The revolutions have combined to continuously change the world in some opinions for the better and some for the worst. Overall the lesson from the past is to keep trying. The challenge for all societies is to use the knowledge of the past to create a better future by continuing to try.
Biographies-
1."Cultures in Transition." Volume Library. 3 vols. Nashville, Tennessee: Southwestern, 2006.
2. Landes, David S. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. New York: Norton & Company, 1999. 168-291.
3.Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
4. Honors History class
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