Originally posted by nemesioExcellent post.
Can individual humans learn? Sure. Can the collective?
I haven't seen any evidence of it since the inception of language.
Note that sociology and psychology both have a great deal of
difficulty predicting the behavior of an individual but are
rather reasonable at predicting communities.
When you say '[b]we can learn. If we will,' I ...[text shortened]... me,
I'd say, no problem. If you mean humanity, I'd say, 'Couldn't
prove it.'
Nemesio[/b]
Statistical analysis.
This is what the Lefties don't get in the recent US election.
They are determined to attribute "evangelical" as meaning. It has none. There are just us idiots trying to do right.
About three thousand years later, the Babylonians will tell of the kings who rose against Sargon, and his rescue by Inanna, the moon goddess, known in the Bible as Ishtar. Later Sargon boasts about his prowess... “In my old age of 55, all the lands revolted against me, and they besieged me in Agade ‘but the old lion still had teeth and claws’ I went forth to battle and defeated them. I knocked them over and destroyed their vast army. ‘Now, any king who wants to call himself my equal, Wherever I went, let him go’!”
but... he was all the time losing. He just didn't know it. Kind of like the USSR from 1917 to the end.
Really. True.
Charles F. Horne: The Code of Hammurabi: Introduction
[Hammurabi] was the ruler who chiefly established the greatness of Babylon, the world's first metropolis. Many relics of Hammurabi's reign ([1795-1750 BC]) have been preserved, and today we can study this remarkable King....as a wise law-giver in his celebrated code. . .
[B]y far the most remarkable of the Hammurabi records is his code of laws, the earliest-known example of a ruler proclaiming publicly to his people an entire body of laws, arranged in orderly groups, so that all men might read and know what was required of them. The code was carved upon a black stone monument, eight feet high, and clearly intended to be reared in public view. This noted stone was found in the year 1901, not in Babylon, but in a city of the Persian mountains, to which some later conqueror must have carried it in triumph. It begins and ends with addresses to the gods. Even a law code was in those days regarded as a subject for prayer, though the prayers here are chiefly cursings of whoever shall neglect or destroy the law.
The code then regulates in clear and definite strokes the organization of society. The judge who blunders in a law case is to be expelled from his judgeship forever, and heavily fined. The witness who testifies falsely is to be slain. Indeed, all the heavier crimes are made punishable with death. Even if a man builds a house badly, and it falls and kills the owner, the builder is to be slain. If the owner's son was killed, then the builder's son is slain. We can see where the Hebrews learned their law of "an eye for an eye." These grim retaliatory punishments take no note of excuses or explanations, but only of the fact--with one striking exception. An accused person was allowed to cast himself into "the river," the Euphrates. Apparently the art of swimming was unknown; for if the current bore him to the shore alive he was declared innocent, if he drowned he was guilty. So we learn that faith in the justice of the ruling gods was already firmly, though somewhat childishly, established in the minds of men.
Yet even with this earliest set of laws, as with most things Babylonian, we find ourselves dealing with the end of things rather than the beginnings. Hammurabi's code was not really the earliest. The preceding sets of laws have disappeared, but we have found several traces of them, and Hammurabi's own code clearly implies their existence. He is but reorganizing a legal system long established.
So Sargon gave up to his kid. And he to his.
And Zagros lost the war.
Too much. Too soon. That is the story we still suffer. Too much. (the UN) Too soon. (dictators on par with democracies).
Too much too soon.
We can't become partners with dictators. If we want to destroy them?
And bring what?
A recognition of universal sufferance?
Maybe. But the thought has to come first. First we try to unite a world. Then we ask if uniting with thugs is good.
Next.
A new alliance of Democracies.
All dictators need not apply. Ain't that a bitch of a dream?
Should you care...
“Sargon the Great.” The International History Project. <http://ragz-international.com/sargon_the_great.htm>(9-24-04)
“The legend of Sargon.” The International History Project. <http://ragz-international.com/legend_of_sargon.htm>(9-24-04)
“Remembering Sargon the Great.”<http://zyworld.com/Assyrian/Sargon%20the%20Great.htm>(9-24-04)
”The Sargon legend.” The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcslmac.cgi?text=t.2.1.4>(9-24-04)
“Biography of King Sargon of Akkad.” Publicbookshelf.com<http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Story_of_the_Greatest_Nations_and_the_Worlds_Famous_Events_Vol_1/biography_hg.html>(9-24-04)
“The Sumerian king list: translation.” The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. <http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm>(9-24-04)
“Curriculum tablet.” TheBritish Museum. <http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/writing/explore/cur_sar.html>(9-24-04)
“Sargon – Founder of Akkad.” Cornellia.fws1.com http://cornellia.fws1.com/Ancientworlds/sargon.htm>(9-24-04)