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History 104A, September 26: Gold leads to Art, Philosophy, Perfection and even War.

First of all, the gamers association -- I thought it was a

gaming club -- going out and shooting deer or something. The gamers

association at Ohlone is holding a Texas hold em poker tournament

Friday, cafeteria, September 30th, starting at 1:00. The games start

at 2:00. The sign-ups is at 1:00 or it goes until 9:00 o'clock or

until you lose all your money. Noncash prizes only. Proceeds to go

to the hurricane fund Katrina. If any of you are interested in

playing poker, since nobody seems to have any classes on Friday

afternoons. Does anybody have a class on Friday afternoon? I take it

back. Four of you do. Okay. We are preparing, coming down for the

exam that is scheduled for Friday. We have a group meeting Wednesday,

and some of you still have to turn in papers from missing the last

group meeting, just as a reminder.

We left off with the defeat of the Persians during what was

called the Persian wars in 479 BCE. And we are now going into what

has been known as the golden age of Greece. Building economics,

social life, peace, part of what we refer to as a golden age, which is

going to somewhat end in about 50-60 years with the Peloponnesian

wars. Peloponnesia, if you recall, is the peninsula that Sparta is

located on in southern Greece. And this is the war between Athens and

Sparta, between the land power, Sparta, and the sea power, Athens.

What happens at the end of the Persian wars is the beginning of

Athenian imperialism. Athens feeling its oats, feels superior because

of the defeat of Persia begins to not only about an alliance between

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cities, but begins to force certain cities to join when at the name

the Delian League, for the office like NATO, National Atlantic Treaty

Organization. It is the alliance quote/unquote of free states, not

quite so free. Fearful of Athens, as they always were distrustful of

those New York liberals or San Francisco liberals, Sparta retaliates

by creating a Peloponnesian league, a league of basically monarchies,

aristocracies, and more the landlocked powers, although they do

identify with certain colonies overseas. During this expansion of

Athens wealth booms into the city and a tremendous construction

projects are undertaken, including the building of the Acropolis from

wood and miner buildings to major monuments, major structures made out

of rock. And the most famous of which is the Parthenon.

The Parthenon is dedicated to Sparta, Athena. And there was

supposed to be a statute in there some 80 feet high covered in gold

army that was dedicated to Athena. The Parthenon stood for a thousand

years until about 1800 when Greeks went to war with Turkey. And the

Greeks kept their munitions there, and the Turks bombarded it and much

of it blew up. You can see it right behind me here on the hill --

well, you can't see it too well. My batteries are dead, up on top

they're sort of faded in the background.

An individual in the period of 1800 ADCE Greek declared its

independence from Turkey and again war broke out and that was part of

the reason for it. Many Englishmen, romanticizing Greece, including

lord Byron the poet, went to war there. Another man, Elgin, and he

proceeded to bring back to the British museum what were known as the

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Elgin marbles which are many of the pieces of the artwork that were on

the Parthenon along the edges. Now, the Parthenon is a fascinating

structure because it very much reflects the Greek attitude in life,

perfection, but the image of perfection, not necessarily the reality.

The Greeks looked at everything from a sort of intellectual

perspective. And the Parthenon was built in such a way that from the

city, the distances between the columns looked even, the shape of the

columns looked straight up and down. In reality, mathematically, they

had figured out how to create that imaging by creating different

features. The columns would buckle sort of in the middle. The steps

would be a little uneven and slightly bent, so it would look perfect;

in other words, the striving for perfection and certainly during the

golden age. And that's another element that I would add to Greek life

with the hubris, the fates, the polis, is the striving for perfection.

The 1950 comic book heroes were perfect. They were super men and

even Batman had his perfection, maybe a little perverted with Robin,

but we can't be sure. Has anybody seen the new Batman movie yet? Any

good? The 1950s was a period where people strived for perfection.

You lived for only two groupings. One was the working class group

that were imperfect, and I'm talking the ivy league look. You sat in

a classroom like in the 1950s and everybody looked alike. Basically

everybody had crew cuts or flat tops, buttoned down shirts, and the

girls had madras dress and penny loafers for men and women and that's

the way you dressed. They looked like Rich Cunningham from Happy

Days/Nickelodeon again. And the women and the working class blue

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color group, when they went through college, they didn't go. We have

working class people today that didn't go to college. They wore blue

genes, T-shirts with cigarettes rolled up in the sleeves. They had

the long hair and sort of the Fronzerilli motorcycle jackets. The

women in that group wore pedal pushers, white sneakers, sort of like

Grease with the jackets that were too big for them with the gang names

on the back. In the 1960s, and Superman we went through an era that

was similar to the Hellenistic area in Greece. We began to look at

the particulars individually. Today we see the long hair, short hair,

beards, side burns, and that's just on the women. Differences in

choice and appearance. Spiderman was not the perfect body. He was a

brooding hero, always feeling guilty, having trouble sleeping. He

didn't have that superman perfection. And he even wound up with

women, living with a woman as well. Of course, as I said, superman

was faster than a speeding bullet and don't mess around with women

until basically the 1970s, but that's another story for those who know

their comic book heroes.

The Greeks even set the perfections of their heroes and they're

Gods into a ratio so that you had a certain ratio -- two, three,

seven -- anybody remember the ratio they used? For the head, for the

body, for the arm? It was all done to create a certain level of

perfection. This was an am imagining of life. And again goes back to

what I said earlier -- well, maybe I didn't develop this. I talked

about hubris and not being as good as the Gods, and I talked about

fate. I didn't identify the difference between Greek Gods and our

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Gods. Our Gods are images we are supposed to adhere to. We try to

achieve the perfection of our Gods. Our Gods are trustworthy,

healthy, loyal, cheerful, obedient, and reverent. They're all good.

To the Greeks, their Gods were something above humankind. You were

not to emulate them or imitate them because that would be committing

hubris. What they did, you would not do. If Zeus ran around with

other women and turned himself into a swan or became a snake and

impregnated Alexander's mother so that it was a half God, we could not

therefore run around with women because that would be committing a

crime of thinking that they were as good as the Gods. So it was not

looking up to them in that sense. They simply existed, which is

difficult again for many of us to understand. And so that perfection

of the Parthenon or the attempt at making an imaging of perfection was

that same imaging that existed in Greek society.

During most of this golden age in the building and development

the council, the man who reflect Athenian democracy was Pericles who

we have at least a report of his words defending and identifying what

democracy was all about. Pericles received a lot of advise from his

mistress who was educated and well read. She was not Greek. Greek

women, as I said, were to be in the homes bearing children. Pericles'

mistress Aspasia A-S-P-A-S-C-I-A I think was a Persian and of the

class of high class prostitutes. She was a Geisha girl in a sense

like in Japan, highly educated, well dressed, or what we call I guess

in some cities, high paid escorts. Yes, prostitution, the oldest

profession has existed since Lilith as we talked about earlier in the

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semester.

The Athenians, as I mentioned, created an educational system that

pretty much allowed the parents to dictate what the education would

be. And there was this conflict that was occurring in the background

with Sparta. In the year 43l BCE Athens and Sparta went to war. That

war was devastating for lots of Greeks because of the allied cities.

The Spartans pretty well devastated the Athenian army, but Athens had

its walls and could hide in its city; however, at around 429 BCE a

plague broke out, perhaps the bubonic plague, wipes out a large

portion of the city and within some time even killing Pericles, the

counsel of Athens. Yet Athens continued to hold behind the wall of

the city and the Spartans had control of the outside carry. The

Spartans decided to build ships to cut off the trade that was coming

into Athens. And by 404 BCE, a war for almost 30 years, the Athenians

finally fell to the Spartans. The Spartans were magnanimous in the

fact they didn't destroy Athens or didn't burn it to the ground or

occupy it for very long. What they do was set up a government of

Athenians who were favorable to the Spartan philosophy. They created

a puppet government, if you will. It was, at this time, that a man

named Socrates ran into trouble.

Now understand that many times in the books you'll read that

Socrates was a free thinker, that he believed in promoting democracy

and that was this opposition to the Spartan government, that he was a

sophists. None of that is actually valid. Socrates we have some idea

of what his philosophy was from his best known student, Plato. He

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believed in a republic which was a system where an elite group ruled

and made the decisions for everyone else because they were

philosophers, philosopher kings. And it was a caste system, not an

elected democratic structure. And when he had students around him,

when he questioned people in his Socratic method, he was leading them

into a direction that we're going to talk about more when we discuss

Plato, a direction of identifying the superiority of understanding

wisdom, beauty, and justice. He did not believe in the Athenian Gods,

the Greek Gods. And that certainly was detrimental to the ruling

class now in Athens who use the Gods to control the people in the

sense perhaps Carl Marx referred to it, religion is the opium of the

people. And in a church state where the state dictates to be the

religious control, they can dictate to you your method of life through

the religion, and pretty much that's what had now gone on in Athens

In 399 Socrates was brought to trial for basically endangering

the morals of minors, questioning the establishment. And as I

indicated, he was convicted and ordered to take hemlock. And the

jury, as I indicated, of 501 people gave him the death penalty. He

had the option of giving an alternative. And he gave the option, the

alternative that was to give him a pension for life. He said he had

lived his life, he was 70 years old, and he deserved a pension.

The period of 399 to about 353 is still some development, some

art, and much more creative kind of perfection art in Greece. I

mentioned one of the most famous statues from the period the

Discabolos, the discus thrower by a man named Myron showing movement,

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showing the perfection of the body, the Hercules with the steroid

looking body that they did during this period of time. But the Greek

cities still prevail, although once again, somewhat under the

dominance of Sparta at this time. Athens maintained its economic

trade and yet had more of a conservative kind of government.

But in the north of Greece, in a place called Macedonia, there

was a new group arising. And that was the Macedonians, under Philip

of Macedonia and later his son Alexander. But before I move onto

that, I do want to talk a little about the culture of Greece and some

of the philosophies, if you will, of ancient Greece including Plato

and Aristotle. I'm going to cut the computer for a second because I

want to use the board here.

The Greeks again perhaps famous for philosophers because of their

belief in individuality, allowing free thought, emphasizing free

thought, have come up with every kind of development almost that we

have today including the atom theory. Again, it's one of those

periods in history where the individual was allowed to speculate.

Obviously, we don't see much development in the way of science, what

we would refer to them as armchair philosophies. Another, Aristotle

but quite different in philosophy, does develop on what we might call

the beginnings of science in his approach, which is, some

experimentation, some investigation, and some rational thought and

rational interpretation. Maybe I should deal with the Greek Gods

first if I can remember them. Maybe you can help me here. Who are

some of the Greek Gods?

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A Zeus.

THE PROFESSOR: And Zeus was the chief God, the head God. And

the Roman name?

A Jupiter.

THE PROFESSOR: The 12 Olympians. Zeus, Jupiter, identified with

the sun basically. The oak tree was identified with Jupiter -- I'm

sorry, with Zeus and Jupiter. Zeus had two twin brothers basically or

they looked like him and it was often difficult to tell the

difference. Who were they? Who were the basic brothers who looked

like him and when we found statues, we had trouble telling who they

were? One was the God of the sea. And his name? What was the Roman

name for the God of the sea? Poseidon is the Greek name. And the

Roman name -- I'm surprised you didn't pick up on -- Neptune. They

were often made looking very much alike, but Zeus had a lightning bolt

that he threw, where Neptune threw the trident, which is a pitch folk

with three points to it. And of course the other God identified as

part of that trinity was Hades, God of the underworld, whose name for

the Romans was Pluto. Hades reflected wealth. By way, Neptune was

identified with the bull and horses, but guarded the sea. Zeus'

wife -- what was her name? Hera. And the Roman name for Hera was

Juno. She was the God of marriage despite the fact she had trouble

with her own and was identified with the God, the mother Goddess also

with the cow. Any of the other Gods you can think of?

A Athena.

THE PROFESSOR: We mentioned earlier Athena was a Goddess of

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wisdom. She also gave the olive and she was identified as a warrior

God. And as Goddess of wisdom, what animal symbolized Athena?

A An elephant.

THE PROFESSOR: An owl. Many years ago I ran a chess program at

a Chinese school called The Wisdom School. I developed a logo using

the owl. But I found out that the owl is sort of an evil symbol to

the Chinese. It's not that symbol of wisdom, so they said it was

okay, but you have to be careful on those things. What is Athena's

name in Roman Gods? Minerva without my New York R at the end,

Minerva. Goddess of beauty? Did you mention your own name? I

thought so. Goddess of beauty? Come on. What's the Roman name for

the Goddess of beauty? You know this one I'm sure. We're not

studying any of these things in your readings?

Q Is it Venus?

THE PROFESSOR: Yes. Venus is the Roman name for the Goddess of

beauty. Now, you know, yes. But the Greek name for the Goddess of

beauty is Aphrodite. Messenger of the Gods? Flew around with wings

on his heels?

A Hermes.

THE PROFESSOR: Hermes. And the Greek or Roman name or Hermes

was? Mercury. How many have we got? Some of you are writing them

down. How many have we got so far?

A Four.

A Seven.

THE PROFESSOR: Seven. God of war, that's one that everybody

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knows too?

A Aries.

THE PROFESSOR: Aries is the God of war. The Roman name is?

Women are from Venus and men are from --

A Mars.

THE PROFESSOR: Mars. The God of the smith, the God of fire, the

God that loved Venus and who was married to her but she played Sex In

the City. The Roman name was Vulcan?

A Hephstus.

THE PROFESSOR: Hephstus, the God of fire, smith of the Gods.

That should be 10?

A Nine.

THE PROFESSOR: Nine. The God of male beauty and male wisdom?

This God had body and mind, the Greek concept that you have to have a

sound mind and a sound body? And interestingly, the same name in both

Greek and Roman? Apollo. Goddess of the hunt?

A Athena.

THE PROFESSOR: Athena was the God of wisdom and wore armor; is

that correct? The Goddess of the hunt, the Roman name was Diana and

the Greek name was Artemis. That's from the three musketeers. I'm

missing one. Danged if I can figure out which one I'm missing. Okay,

we've got 11 of 12 anyway. There were also some minor deities and

they often fought among themselves, as we can see in the Trojan war.

And they took sides in that war.

We started to talk about philosophy. And the first Greek

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philosopher that we deal with generally is writing in the -- just

coming out of the just ages, the archaic sage and his name is Thales.

He's often described as an absent minded professor, one of those

nerds, constantly thinking. And they talk about him one day staring

at the stars trying to figure out the meaning of life and walking

along and fell into a well. It is also said that because of his study

of the stars, he made a lot of money. We could tell when various

crops would be good. We could predict good weather, poor weather,

probably a meteorologist if you will. And so he knew when to tell

people when to put in large sums of money. And he apparently became

extremely wealthy, made use of it practically. He talked about how

the universe had originated, observing how a large part of water

played in nature and how silt developed in the water and standing

water. And he concluded that all life originated in water. Now,

perhaps it came from outer space on meteors and landed in the water

and therefore we have a so called surface now on tonight. And he

believed that all forms of life would return to water. He believed

that Earth itself rested on an ocean like a floating block of wood and

that the heavenly bodies consisted of burning ground and that the moon

received its life from the sun. Now, remember this is in the sixth

century BCE, some of it not quite as accurate. We don't really -- as

the Earth lie on an ocean, but close in the sense of the magma and the

floating and certainly the floating apart of Earth in early millions

of years ago.

Again, in the early 16th century another Greek philosopher and

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I'll spell this one A-N-A-X-I-M-A-N-D-E-R. Anaximander, he wrote a

book called Nature. He believed that the first principles of life

were infinite and that it embodied all forms of matter. In other

words, he sort of saw it as the big bang thesis, that the heaven and

Earth all had their beginnings at that time and they will return. And

also talked about the rough concept of evolution. I'm not sure you

need to know all these names by any means, but to get a feel for

Thales, yes, Pythagoras, yes, but some of these others, like Heracles

believed that fire was the primary form of life. Pythagoras, of

course you know, of course, because of the Pythagorean theory. He

developed in 474 BC and he migrated to a Greek colony. His philosophy

fell into mathematics and science and he organized it to religion. He

belonged to a discipline sort of like monks in the medieval system.

His whole basic system was pretty much based on numbers. We developed

geometric theorems and he felt that a number held its place like for

them -- water, fair, air -- held for the physicists. Numbers were the

primary methods or the numbers of the expression and he dealt through

numbers. We believed that the Earth was a sphere, round, and he

studied the movement of the Earth and he was a firm believer in the

transmigration of souls, the transmigration of souls. What is the

transmigration of souls? What's the word we use for it? Anybody

here? Anybody ever hear of transmigration of souls? Or our next

governor's sister, being Warren Betty or Beatty. He's saying that

he's going to run against Arnold. Wouldn't that be a first, Hollywood

stars running against each other?

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A Shirley McClain.

THE PROFESSOR: Who is famous for her believe in reincarnation.

Transmigration of souls is reincarnation. And he believed that God

was identified with one, the number one was God. Again, one of those

earlier philosophies.

Xenophanes -- matter is indestructible, the universe always

existed and studied fossils. He believed that the God's crimes were

shameful and that the stories were false, that Gods had to be

basically good.

Well, I've got about five minutes. I think I'm going to jump

ahead -- excerpt Democritus. Democritus was the one who came up with

the concept of atoms moving around an empty space and they were all

part and made up of these atoms, these infinitesimal individual units

called atoms. Again, we're talking about the period 2500 years ago.

Plato, fourth century -- basically again, in his republic and

other writings, we delineate a concept. To Plato, the universe was

created out of basic form and it continued to develop and unfold.

This form was not reality; it was the beginning of reality. If you

will, it was unreal. And with this form's expansion, we saw people

who were becoming an animal, becoming some of whom had more knowledge

of what Plato called the universals. Here we had particulars that

came into being as a becoming and particulars, the parts. The

universals that a few people could understand were wisdom, perfection,

beauty, justice. In our world, we had the imperfect of wisdom,

beauty, and justice, but a few individuals who were to become the

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philosopher kings could understand that perfection. So Plato, we know

this is a table. We know it because somewhere in these universals

there is an image of a table. And so we understand what a table is.

We understand what a cat is. But they're not perfect. You see this

is that Greek sense again of that perfection that we can't achieve.

But some people get closer to it. They understand it better. And

these are the people that come out of these cogs, these wheels, these

spokes that are going to be the rulers of society. This is reality.

This is what is. And for Plato, in a sense, one might say this is

God. And there are people that understand God on a higher level.

They will be the rulers. They may come out of the working class.

They may come out of the military class. You go out and test to find

those who understand it better. It was sort of like a Mandarin system

where, in China, they went around and tested the people in the

villages to see if they could study in the universities and become

part of society.

Again, to Plato, the universals you cannot understand. Most of

us can't achieve this knowledge. Most of us are in the world of

becoming. We see the elephant. We may understand it. But the men in

the cave feeling the trunk, feeling the backside, feeling the tusks,

will put together something else, but there may be someone who has a

better understanding of what that elephant is in reality. And

Aristotle, although a student of Plato, was just the opposite. That's

what we'll finish up on on Wednesday.

---oOo---

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