Download Overview: Political

Overview: Political-Scale Cultures
Traits: 1) History, 2) Living Conditions, 3) State origin, 4) Social Organization, 5) Food and Technology, 6) Religion/Spiritual Life
Trait Oceania
4000 BC: explorers from Southeast
1
Asia begin to settle Micronesia
1000 BC: Micronesia settled,
exploration of Polynesia
300 AD: Hawaii settled, 800 AD:
Polynesia (New Zealand) settled
2
3
4
Mesopotamia
4000-3100 BC (Uruk): shift from
chiefdom to state organization
3000-2000 BC: well-developed,
stratified, urban, state-organized citystates, writing well established, 7080% living in urban centers
China
4000-2000 BC: Longshan culture,
proto-chinese interaction sphere
2000-221 BC: Dynastic China (Shang,
Zhou), early royal states, urbanization
221 BC-1911 AD: Imperial China
(Chin, Han), emperors, Great Wall
1900: 92% rural, 9% urban
North: temperate, South: subtropical
Two major rivers (Yellow R, Long R.)
North: more fertile (millet, wheat)
South: warmer, wetter (rice)
Chang: no economical determinants as
prime movers, political elites gained
control of the religious system and
used it to increase their power
India
3500-2500 BC: increases in
agriculture and population, settlement,
socio-economic interaction sphere
2500-1500 BC: Harappan civilization
1600: Aryans arrive from the North
1000-600 BC: Aryan chiefdoms
600-300 BC: cities, states, kingdoms
North: temperate, South: tropical
Two major rivers (Tigris, Euphrates)
Micronesia: small, coral islands, no
Three major rivers, each originating in
freshwater/soil/native plants/animals Rivers providing both irrigation and
the Himalayans (=rain shadow to the
Polynesia: large high volcanic islands, hazards (floods, shifting river
more fertile North (better soil))
channels, travelling for enemies)
rich soil, often freshwater
No pristine state: Incorporated
Wittfogel: agromanagerial despotism
Goldman: Status rivalry, intentional
elements of Harappan society,
Maisels: living conditions could have
subsistence intensification by the
influences by Mesopotamia and Persia
chiefs to increase their political power forced some households to become
Erdosy: urban state institutions to
dependent/landless
Carneiro: Environmental
maintain the increasingly complex and
Johnson: increase in the demands for
circumscription
inegalitarian societies as critical factor
information processing as critical
Sahlins: Surplus production
Irrigation played no role: Ganges
Protostates occurred relatively quickly factor
(incised river) no good source for
Æ archaeological record refutes
between 1100-1650 AD
irrigation
irrigation and conflict theories
Micronesia: similar to small-scale s.
• Adachastra: written manual on
• Village-state: loosely structured
• City-states: small, relatively selfPolynesia: chiefdoms and protostates
ancient Indian statescraft (similar to
sufficient states, urban core that drew empire based on a royal capital city
Confucian classics), relied on the use
bureaucracy that extracted tribute
subsistence from the surrounding
• Chiefdoms: two levels
of coercive power (China: ethics and
from essentially self-sufficient
hinterland (dependent farmers)
• Protostates: three levels, chiefs
ritual), religion as a means of power
villages
scattered
over
a
vast
• Temple-city bureaucracy: heads of
similar to kings, taxation, temples
Æ kingdom ideally divided in four
territory
the landholding households formed
BUT: small, no urbanization, no
districts, each containing a fortified
the citizens and ran the temples and • Village system: ~ 18 villages
writing, no metals, no monumental
belonged to a standard market towns, city, 2 smaller cities, 4 towns, 80
the city government
architecture
centres and 800 villages
~ six s.m.t. grouped around an
• Goldman: Status system (traditional, • Secular rulers: military leaders
•
85% lived in rural farm households,
intermediate
market
town
that
was
became kings, buried in great royal
open or stratified)
supporting the other urban 15%
connected to a central market town
tombs
• Tikopia (traditional): chiefs as
(here: lowest level state officials)
• cities divided into sections for
• Polanyi: Nonmarket redistribution
descendants from gods, no landless
specific categories of people (varnas)
system: dominant managerial role of • Social organization based on the
• Hawaii (stratified): chiefs as gods,
Æ early form of the caste system
patrilineal
tsu
(clan
or
lineage),
often
temple
and
palace
at
production
and
class system (landless, slaves)
dominating
one
village/town
• Law: tradition and dharma (religious
distribution (food rations)
law) similar to Li but referring to
• Adoptive and arranged marriages
varnas and life stages
5
6
• Micronesia: Navigation = one oft the • Barely as most important subsistence • Chinese diet typically vegetarian (23% chickens, ducks, pigs, fish)
staple (supplied by animal products,
most important survival skills
fruits, vegetables)
Æ star charts, dragging, wind/swell
• Agricultural strategy: applying
directions, sun, cloud formations
• Food was distributed in standardized human labour intensively to the
Æ highly developed technology of
lands with the greatest return per
units according to age and sex
the outrigger-canoos
acre
• 2400 BC: cuneiform writing wellÆ highly specialized knowledge for
Æ farms concentrated on 8% of the
developed, scribal schools
fishing
land
Æ mainly used for administrative
Æ agricultural involution: incentive
• Gardening: female task
matters but also for sacred temple
for population growth
Æ most important food plant: taro,
literature, epic poetry, royal decrees
cultivated in swamps
• Mechanization is not considered to
Æ others: breadfruit, coconuts, sweet
be an advantage (given the
potatoes, yams, bananas
appropriate labour force and the
• All technologies are passed orally
small landholdings)
Æ BUT: remarkable productivity
• Great Tradition (elite culture):
• Mana: Impersonal supernatural force • Jacobson: religion = human
Confucianism = practical ideas of
experience of the numinous
that manifests in people (inherited),
good government, citizenship and
(“unworldly power”): cannot be
only in the elite, not in commoners
domestic life (state cult)
described, people resorted to
Æ animatism
Æ Li Chi: describes proper behavior
religious metaphors (nature gods)
• Tabu: forbidden actions towards the
for all social classes
• Later: god were called “rulers”
elite, deference behavior (bowing,
• Little Tradition (popular culture):
respect language, keeping one’s head • Cities belonged to a god and
drews freely on elements from
below the chief’s head)
contained zigurrats (temple
formal Confucianism, Taoism,
pyramids) dedicated to the city’s
Buddhism
deity
Æ complementary opposition: YinYang (formalized by G.T.)
Æ concept of the five elements
Æ correlative cosmology: helps
elites and commoners alike
• Sacred Cow Complex: cattle treated
as deities, products of the cow are
important purifying agents
Æ cows are not to be disturbed,
injured or killed
• Controversy: cow surplus because of
religious reasons?
Æ Harris: No, most important
functions as draft animals, producers
of dung (fuel and fertilizer); poor
farmers can’t afford tractors or
industrial fuel/fertilizer, are not able
to maintain well-fed animals
• Art as a powerful tool to experience
contact with an eternal reality
Æ rasa: moment that brings you into
union with god by the experience of
art (music, dance, painting,…)
Æ darsan: religious seeing, two-way
process:the deity must give its image
and the observer must receive it
• Four main goals of the Hindu good
life: righteousness, prosperity,
pleasure, spirituality
Æ linking of pleasure with religion,
of sacred with profane
• Reincarnation: caste depends on
one’s behavior in the last life
• Time is seen as cyclic: krita,
devapora, treta, kali (=now)