Humans

 

I started reading this book a while ago.  It is one of those kinds of books that are meant to be read carefully, even slowly, thinking as you do.  It's written by a history professor, and is 'textbook' in it's language.

But I have read other books that attempt to delve deeper into history than the 'usual' 10,000 or so years, when, basically, literacy began to develop.  But Prof. Finkel's isn't the first book I've read that posed the question - how did the growth of literacy change human behaviour and culture/society?

Because it seems to be a watershed moment, this development of the written word.  This is the second book I've read that pinpointed that time, about 10,000 years ago, that humans took up a stylus and began to 'write'.  The written work of Sumer is now able to be read, and boy howdy, have we ever NOT changed.  The copper merchant writing about how his copper supplier is not giving good 'customer service'.  The wife berating her husband for not sending enough money to pay the bills.  The tablets could have been written now, essentially.

So what shifted when humans began to write their thoughts down, not just count cattle or bushels of corn?  (And by 'corn' I'm using the European definition, not maize.)

Both books (I've forgotten the title/author of the first one I read) posited that prior to the wide spread adoption of written language, many cultures were more egalitarian.  Many were likely matriarchal.  That God, was in fact, female.  Why did cultures then shift to be more patriarchal?  And why are men so reluctant to give value to females beyond being pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen? 

And why are we so interested in 'owning' things?  Why are we so interested in collecting what we currently 'value' and then lord it over those people who have not been able to collect a dragon's hoard of gold - which of itself is kind of useless compared to clean water, clean air, and healthy food?

The author is taking time to 'build a case', documenting what is known about indigenous peoples around the world and then what happened when Europeans began colonizing.  A further eroding of human rights and equality between humans.  But it is not just a dry recital of dates and 'famous' figures from what we know about history (in the narrow colonizer definition).  And so I continue to read, in bits and pieces, and then let what I learn settle into my being.

And I think about Penelope, who while waiting for Odysseus to return from another war, weaves all day, then cuts out what she had woven during the day, in order to delay making a decision that causes her to have regrets.  A combination of men not paying attention to what it is that women do, and a woman trying to preserve her life without the constraints of another man telling her what to do.

If you want a little different perspective on that:  

Penelope's Daughter by Laurel Corona

Lately I have become interested in a new translation of The Odyssey, translated from the ancient Greek to modern English.  And she has made some revisions to the accepted 'text' which is putting a new light on the society of Odysseus and Penelope.  I might need to read that next.