Condensed History of China

por Paul Frankenstein

Xia (c. 2200 – c. 1750 BC) 13

Shang (c. 1750 – c. 1040 BC) 13

Western Zhou (c. 1100 – 771 BC) 14

Eastern Zhou (771 – 256 BC) 14

Spring & Autumn Period (722 – 481 BC) 14

Warring States Period. 15

Qin (221 – 206 BC) 15

Han (206 BC – 220 AD) 15

Earlier Han (206 BC – AD 8) 15

Wang Man Interregnum.. 15

Later Han Dinasty. 16

Years of Dinunity: Three Kingdoms and Dinasties from North & South (220-590) 16

Sui (589 – 618) 16

Tang (618 – 907) 16

Song (960-1280) 17

Yuan (Mongol) (1279 – 1368) 17

Ming (1368 – 1644) 18

Qing (Manchu) (1644 – 1911) 18

Republican China (1911-1949) 19

The People’s Republic of China (1949- ) 20

C. Pre-imperial china

Xia (c. 2200 – c. 1750 BC)

until fairly recently, most historians thought that it was a myth. But the archeological record has proven them wrong. Xia had descended from a wide-spread Yellow River valley Neolithic culture known as the Longshan culture, famous for their black-lacquered pottery

Shang (c. 1750 – c. 1040 BC)

There are three things to know about the Shang:

1. one, they were the most advanced bronze-working civilization in the world;
2. two, Shang remains provide the earliest and most complete record of Chinese writing; and
3. three, they were quite possibly the most blood-thirsty pre-modern civilization. They liked human sacrifice — a lot.
4. Fourth, the Shang had a very odd system of succession: instead of a patrilineal system where power was passed from father to son, the kingship passed from elder brother to younger brother.

Western Zhou (c. 1100 – 771 BC)

they used a father-to-son succession system. Also, they weren’t too keen on human sacrifice. However, they weren’t as good at working bronze as the Shang.

The Zhou actually didn’t rule all of what was then China. China was then made up of a number of quasi-independent principalities. However, the Zhou were the most powerful principality and played the role of hegemon in the area. They were located in the middle of the principalities, giving rise to what the Chinese call their country — the Middle Kingdom. The Zhou were able to maintain peace and stability through the hegemon system for a few hundred years; then in 771 BC, the capital was sacked by barbarians from the west.

Eastern Zhou (771 – 256 BC)

a) Spring & Autumn Period (722 – 481 BC)

After the capital was sacked by barbarians from the west, the Zhou moved east.

The Spring and Autumn Annals provides a history of period saw a proliferation of new ideas and philosophies. The three most important, from a historical standpoint, were Daoism, Confucianism, and Legalism.

Daoism the oldest great book of Daoism, the Dao de Jing, The Way and Virtue, was allegedly written by a man named Lao-zi.. Daoism profoundly influenced the later development of Cha’an (also known as Zen) Buddhism.

Confucius believed that moral men make good rulers and that virtue is one of the most important properties that an official can have. He also believed that virtue can be attained by following the proper way of behaving, and thus placed a great deal of stress on proper. The Emperor was the Son of Heaven (while Heaven in a Western context is a place, Heaven in the Chinese context is a divine/natural force) and had the Mandate of Heaven to rule.

Legalism derived from the teachings of another one of Confucius’ disciples, a man named Xun-zi. Xun-zi believed that, for the most part, man would look out for himself first and was therefore basically evil. Consequently, the Legalists designed a series of draconian laws that would make a nation easier to control. The fundamental aim of both Confucianism and Legalism was the re-unification of a then divided China, but they took difference approaches. Confucianism depended on virtue and natural order; Legalism used a iron fist.

b) Warring States Period

The politics of the Warring States period were much the same as those of the Spring & Autumn period; the major difference was that while in the earlier period, armies were small and battles lasted only a day, much like in pre-Napoleonic wars, the later period featured what modern strategists would call “totalwar.” Massive armies (half a million per army was not an uncommon figure), long battles, sieges, were all common features of the Warring States battlefield.

D. Early Empire

Qin (221 – 206 BC)

In 221 BC, the first Emperor of China (so-called because all the previous dynastic heads only called themselves kings), Qin Shihuangdi, conquered the rest of China after a few hundred years of disunity. There are two major reasons why he won; the first is that he was a devout Legalist (so much so that he burnt all the books in the country) and did things like execute generals for showing up late for maneuvers.. The other reason is because the state of Qin had a lot of iron, and consequently, at the dawn of the iron age, had many more iron weapons than the other armies did. He linked together many of the old packed-earth defensive walls of the old principalities into the Great Wall of China.

Han (206 BC – 220 AD)

a) Earlier Han (206 BC – AD 8)

Han is an important dynasty mostly because they developed (actually, it was invented by Qin Shihuangdi, but perfected by the Han) the administrative model which every successive chineese dynasty would copy and refine.            China was the biggest country in the world. This is a management issue of tremendous proportions. How are you going to do things like collect taxes, keep the peace, and basically run a government without bureaucracy? The Chinese bureaucratic system is based on the study of the Confucian Classics, which provide an ideological reference point for proper behavior and loyalty to the Emperor. By developing this system, the Han emperors were able to run China with a reasonable degree of efficiency.

b) Wang Man Interregnum

Between AD 8 and 25, a man named Wang Mang ruled China. He had been part of the Han royal household; he himself, however, was a commoner and had no royal blood in his veins. He had been appointed emperor after a power struggle in the Han house. History is mixed on him. While he did seem to have some good, reform-oriented ideas (e.g. power back to the people), he really wasn’t up to the task of ruling.

Wang Mang hoped to gather support from the peasantry be introducing reforms. He declared that a family of less than eight that had more than fifteen acres was obligated to distribute the excess amount of land to those who had none. His next act as Emperor was to devise a new loan system for peasants. Instead of paying the thirty percent interest that private loaners demanded, Wang Mang offered loans to those in needs with only ten percent interest. In an attempt to stabilize the price of grain, Wang Mang made plans for a state granary. He did this, hoping to discourage the wealthy landowner to hoard grain and profit from price fluctuations.

Wang Mang was convinced that his subjects would obey his decrees, but again gentry-bureaucrats gave less importance to Confucianism than to their wealth. They and other landowners did not cooperate with Wang’s reforms, and without large media like newspapers, the local people would remain unaware of any reforms if the landowners withheld the information.

In the year AD 11, the Yellow River broke its banks, creating floods from Shan Dong in the north, to where the river empties into the sea. The people did not have grain stored as Wang Mang said they should have. In addition, the people were left without food shortly after the crisis began. In the year AD 14, they resorted to cannibalism. Thinking that his reforms failed, Wang Mang withdrew them. However, it was too late, because his opposition already took up arms against him.After his death in AD 25, the Han royal family took back the reins of power, and set up the Later Han dynasty.

c) Later Han Dinasty

The later Han were able to keep it together for about 200 years; however, towards the end of their rule, they become more and more dissolute. More importantly, they were unable to deal with two factors: a population shift from the Yellow River in the north to the Yangzi in the south; and they simply could not control barbarian tribal raiders from the north, which were one reason why people were moving to the south. Eventually, in AD 220, the center had lost so much control to the provinces that it collapsed plunging China into 350 years of chaos and disunity.

E. Years of Dinunity: Three Kingdoms and Dinasties from North & South (220-590)

Constants wars ramped through China, with little importance. Perhaps its greatest accomplishment was to reinforce in Chinese thought the importance of having “one Emperor over China, like one sun in the sky.”

Socially, though, there were two important developments. The first was that the ethnic Han Chinese kept on moving south, while ‘barbarians’ moved into the north and assimilated themselves into Chinese society. The second development was Buddhism, which had had its start in India sometime in the 6th century BC. It was introduced into China around the middle of the first century AD but really didn’t catch on until the fall of the Han dynasty.

F. The second empire

Sui (589 – 618)

The most important thing to know about this dynasty is that it was very short (by dynastic standards) and that it did a pretty good job of re-unifying China. Because it had a northern power base, it was part barbarian, as was the Tang. Despite the fact that the royal houses of Sui and succeeding Tang were not entirely Han Chinese, both of these dynasties are considered to be Chinese, as opposed to the Mongols and Manchus later on.

Tang (618 – 907)

The Tang are considered to be one of the great dynasties of Chinese history; many historians rank them right behind the Han. They extended the boundaries of China through Siberia in the North, Korea in the east, and were in what is now Vietnam in the South. They even extended a corridor of control along the Silk Road well into modern-day Afghanistan.

There are two interesting historical things about the Tang. The first is the Empress Wu, the only woman ever to actually bear the title ‘Emperor’ (or, in her case, Empress).The second was the An Lushan Rebellion, which marked the beginning of the end for the

Song (960-1280)

The Song (pronounced Soong) dynasty ranks up there with the Tang and the Han as one of the great dynasties. A time of remarkable advances in technology, culture, and economics, the Song, despite its political failures, basically set the stage for the rest of the imperial era. The most important development during the Song was that agricultural technology, aided by the importation of a fast-growing Vietnamese strain of rice and the invention of the printing press, developed to the point where the food-supply sy
stem was so efficient that, for the most part, there was no need to develop it further. There was enough food for everyone, more or less, the system worked, and it became self-sustaining. Because it worked, there was no incentive to improve it; the system thus remained basically unchanged from the Song up until the twentieth century. In fact, many rice farmers in the Chinese interior and in less-developed regions of south-east Asia are, for the most part, still using Song-era farming techniques.

The efficiency of the system not only made it economically self-sustaining, but also re-enforced the existing social structure. Consequently, society and economics were largely static from the Song until the collapse of the dynastic system in the twentieth century.

This is important because one of the factors behind the Industrial Revolution in Europe was that they didn’t have enough people to work the fields. There was an incentive to create better technology in Europe; there was no need in China. China actually had a surplus of human labor.

While the Song was a time of great advances, politically and militarily, the Song was a failure. The northern half of China was conquered by barbarians, forcing the dynasty to abandon a northern capital in the early 1100’s. Then a hundred and fifty years later, the Mongols, fresh from conquering everything between Manchuria and Austria, invaded and occupied China.

Yuan (Mongol) (1279 – 1368)

While time of Mongol rule is called a dynasty, it was in fact a government of occupation. While the Mongols did use existing governmental structures for the duration, the language they used was Mongol, and many of the officials they used were non-Chinese. Mongols.

The Yuan dynasty also featured the famous Khubilai Khan, who, among other things, extended the Grand Canal. While in many ways, the Yuan was a disaster, the reluctance of the Mongols to hire educated Chinese for governmental posts resulted in a remarkable cultural flowering; for example, Beijing Opera was invented during the Yuan. On the other hand, attempts to analyze the failure of the Song in keeping barbarians out China led to the rise and dominance of Neo-Confucianism, a notoriously conservative (if not outright reactionary) brand of Confucianism that had originally developed during the Song.

Ming (1368 – 1644)

Then came the Ming. The Ming rulers distinguished themselves by being fatter, lazier, crazier, and nastier than the average Imperial family. After the first Ming Emperor discovered that his prime minister was plotting against him, not only was the prime minister beheaded, but his entire family and anyone even remotely connected with him. Eventually, about 40,000 people were executed in connection with this case alone. They were also virulent Neo-Confucianists.

In the early 1400s, a sailor named Zheng He (with a fleet of some 300-plus ships)sailed as far west as Mogadishu and Jiddah, and he may have gotten to Madagascar. But once the sailors came back, the trips were never followed up on. Conservative scholars at court failed to see the importance of them. For the first time in history, China was turning inwards, clinging to an incorrect interpretation of an outmoded philosophy.

G. The Birth of Modern China

Qing (Manchu) (1644 – 1911)

In 1644, the Manchus took over China and founded the Qing dynasty. The Qing weren’t the worst rulers; under them the arts flowered and culture bloomed. Moreover, they attempted to copy Chinese institutions and philosophy to a much greater extent than then the Mongols of the Yuan. However, in their attempt to to emulate the Chinese, they were even more conservative and inflexible than the Ming. Their approach to foreign policy, which was to make everyone treat the Emperor like the Son of Heaven and not acknowledge other countries as being equal to China.

Other problems that plagued the late (1840 onwards) Qing included rampant corruption, a steady decentralization of power, and the unfortunate fact that they were losing control on too many fronts at the same time. Rebellions sprouted like mushrooms after a rain. In hindsight, it is clear that the entire system was slowly collapsing.

The attitude of the Western powers towards China (England, Russia, Germany, France, and the United States) was ambivalent. On the one hand, they did their best to undermine restrictive trading and governmental regulation. On the other hand, they did do their best to prop up the ailing Qing, the most notable example being the crushing of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 by foreign troops (primarily U.S. Marines). What the Western powers were interested in was the carving up of China for their own purposes, and that, paradoxically, required keeping China together.

But two things happened to prevent that. First, in 1911, the Qing dynasty collapsed and China plunged headlong into chaos. Second, in 1914, the Archduke Ferdinand told his driver to go down a street in Sarajevo he shouldn’t have, and Europe plunged headlong into chaos.

Republican China (1911-1949)

During World War I, the Chinese Government, such as it was, sided with the Allies. In return, they were promised that the German concessions in Shangdong province would be handed back over to the Chinese Government at the end of the war. They weren’t, and to add insult to injury, the Treaty of Versailles handed them over to Japan. On May 4, 1919, about 3,000 students from various Beijing universities got together in Tiananmen Square and held a mass protest. In the early 1920s, Dr. Sun Yatsen, as the leader of the (up-to-then unsuccessful) Nationalist Party (KMT), accepted Soviet aid. With the Communist help, Sun Yatsen was able to forge a alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and started the task of re-unifying a China beset with warlords.

Unfortunately, Sun died of cancer in 1925. The leadership of the KMT was then taken over by Chiang Kaishek.

After Chiang took over the KMT, he launched his famous “Northern Expedition” — all the way from Guangzhou to Shanghai. This unified Southern China and, more importantly, let the Nationalists control the Lower Yangzi. Once they got to Shanghai, Chiang, who had never liked the Communists anyway, launched a massacre of CCP members. Among those who managed to escape the carnage was a young communist named Mao Zedong.

The Communists were forced to abandon their urban bases and fled to the countryside. There, the Nationalist forces (aided and abetted by German ‘advisors’) tried to hunt t
hem down, and in the words (more or less) of Chiang, “eliminate the cancer of Communism.” In 1934, the Nationalists were closing in on the Communist positions, when, under the cover of night, the Communists broke out and started running. They didn’t stop for a year. This was the Long March. When the Communists started, they had 100,000 people. A year later, when they finally stopped, they had traveled 6,000 miles, and were down to between four to eight thousand people.

While all this was going on, the Japanese were busy occupying Manchuria. This proved helpful for the Communists — the troops sent by Jiang to the North to contain and eventually eliminate the CCP much preferred to spend their time fighting the Japanese.

In 1937, the Japanese invaded China proper from their bases in Manchuria, using the notorious “Marco Polo” incident as an excuse. Once whole-scale war had been launched, it didn’t take the Japanese long to occupy the major coastal cities and commit atrocities. By the time that the war had ended in 1945, 20 million Chinese had died at the hands of the Japanese. The Nationalist Government fled.

In 1939, World War II started. This initally had little effect on the situation in China, as the Japanese were not involved with war in Europe. However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the main thrust of the Japanese war effort turned away from fighting the Chinese and towards fighting the Americans.

After the Americans entered the war, the Communists started to consolidate their control over North China in preparation for the resumption of the civil war that would occur after the Japanese had been defeated. The Nationalists, in contrast to the Communists, were disorganized and corrupt, problems that would only intensify after the war. Moreover, their attempts to fight the Japanese were ineffective at best.

At the end of World War II, the war between the Nationalists and the Communists started up again. The Communists were hampered by the fact that the Japanese were under orders to surrender only to the Nationalists, not the Communists. This, however, did not end up making much of a difference. By early 1949, the Nationalists were hamstrung by intractable corruption and huge debts; they paid off their debts by printing more money, which only lead to hyperinflation. By that October, the Nationalists had fled to Taiwan and Mao Zedong had proclaimed the creation of the People’s Republic of China.

The People’s Republic of China (1949- )

In 1958, Mao, who was growing increasingly distant from Moscow, launched the Great Leap Forward. The idea was to mobilize the peasant masses to increase crop production by collectivizing the farms and use the excess labor to produce steel. What ended up happening was the greatest man-made famine in human history. From 1958 to 1960, poor planning and bad management managed to starve 30 million people to death. Officially, the government blamed it on “bad weather.”

By 1962, the break with the Soviets was complete,

In 1966, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The origins of the Cultural Revolution are vague, but probably stem, in part, from a growing separation between Mao’s clique and the rest of the CCP. Mao called upon students to rebel against authority, and they did, forming units of Red Guards. China promptly collapsed into anarchy. While the Cultural Revolution ‘officially’ ended in 1969, and the worst abuses stopped then, the politically charged atmosphere was maintained until Mao’s death in 1976.

Deng Xiaoping, who was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution eventually emerged as the paramount leader in 1978, and promptly launched his economic reform program. Deng’s actions, initially limited to agricultural reforms, gradually started to spread to the rest of the country. One of his favorite sayings is “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white; what matters is how well it catches mice.” This is in direct contrast to the ideology of the Maoist years, where a favored slogan was “Better Red than Expert,” which meant, in practice, that totally unqualified ideologues were put in charge of projects that really needed technical expertise.

In 1993, Deng Xiaoping, in one of his last major public appearances, toured the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and emphatically voiced his approval. After that, the Chinese economy exploded.

 

Guilgamesh

A Summary form Wikipedia and SparkNote

The Historic Guilgamesh

Gilgamesh, according to the Sumerian king list, was the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk), the son of Lugalbanda. He probably reigned in about the 26th century BC.

Unlike the heroes of Greek or Celtic mythology, the hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh was an actual historical figure, a king who reigned over the Sumerian city-state of Uruk around 2700 b.c. Long after his death, people worshipped Gilgamesh, renowned as a warrior and builder and widely celebrated for his wisdom and judiciousness. One prayer invokes him as “Gilgamesh, supreme king, judge of the Anunnaki” (the gods of the underworld). Called Erech in the Bible, Uruk was one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia. The historical King Gilgamesh probably raised its walls, which archaeologists have determined had a perimeter of six miles. Today its ruins rest near the town of Warka, in southern Iraq, about a third of the way from Basra to Baghdad. A team of German archaeologists recently announced that they’d detected a buried structure there that might be Gilgamesh’s tomb. Though the military actions of 2003 stopped their work before excavations could begin, their claim has aroused considerable interest.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is written in Akkadian, the Babylonians’ language, on eleven tablets, with a fragmentary appendix on a twelfth. The tablets actually name their author, Sin-Leqi-Unninni, whose name translates to “Moon god, accept my plea.” This poet/editor must have completed his work sometime before 612 b.c., when the Persians conquered the Assyrian Empire and destroyed Nineveh.

Plot Overview

The epic’s prelude offers a general introduction to Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, who was two-thirds god and one-third man. He built magnificent ziggurats, or temple towers, surrounded his city with high walls, and laid out its orchards and fields. He was physically beautiful, immensely strong, and very wise. Although Gilgamesh was godlike in body and mind, he began his kingship as a cruel despot. He lorded over his subjects, raping any woman who struck his fancy, whether she was the wife of one of his warriors or the daughter of a nobleman. He accomplished his building projects with forced labor, and his exhausted subjects groaned under his oppression. The gods heard his subjects’ pleas and decided to keep Gilgamesh in check by creating a wild man named Enkidu, who was as magnificent as Gilgamesh. Enkidu became Gilgamesh’s great friend, and Gilgamesh’s heart was shattered when Enkidu died of an illness inflicted by the gods. Gilgamesh then traveled to the edge of the world and learned about the days before the deluge and other secrets of the gods, and he recorded them on stone tablets.

The epic begins with Enkidu. He lives with the animals, suckling at their breasts, grazing in the meadows, and drinking at their watering places. A hunter discovers him and sends a temple prostitute into the wilderness to tame him. In that time, people considered women and sex calming forces that could domesticate wild men like Enkidu and bring them into the civilized world. When Enkidu sleeps with the woman, the animals reject him since he is no longer one of them. Now, he is part of the human world. Then the harlot teaches him everything he needs to know to be a man. Enkidu is outraged by what he hears about Gilgamesh’s excesses, so he travels to Uruk to challenge him. When he arrives, Gilgamesh is about to force his way into a bride’s wedding chamber. Enkidu steps into the doorway and blocks his passage. The two men wrestle fiercely for a long time, and Gilgamesh finally prevails. After that, they become friends and set about looking for an adventure to share.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to steal trees from a distant cedar forest forbidden to mortals. A terrifying demon named Humbaba, the devoted servant of Enlil, the god of earth, wind, and air, guards it. The two heroes make the perilous journey to the forest, and, standing side by side, fight with the monster. With assistance from Shamash the sun god, they kill him. Then they cut down the forbidden trees, fashion the tallest into an enormous gate, make the rest into a raft, and float on it back to Uruk. Upon their return, Ishtar, the goddess of love, is overcome with lust for Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh spurns her. Enraged, the goddess asks her father, Anu, the god of the sky, to send the Bull of Heaven to punish him. The bull comes down from the sky, bringing with him seven years of famine. Gilgamesh and Enkidu wrestle with the bull and kill it. The gods meet in council and agree that one of the two friends must be punished for their transgression, and they decide Enkidu is going to die. He takes ill, suffers immensely, and shares his visions of the underworld with Gilgamesh. When he finally dies, Gilgamesh is heartbroken.

Gilgamesh can’t stop grieving for Enkidu, and he can’t stop brooding about the prospect of his own death. Exchanging his kingly garments for animal skins as a way of mourning Enkidu, he sets off into the wilderness, determined to find Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah. After the flood, the gods had granted Utnapishtim eternal life, and Gilgamesh hopes that Utnapishtim can tell him how he might avoid death too. Gilgamesh’s journey takes him to the twin-peaked mountain called Mashu, where the sun sets into one side of the mountain at night and rises out of the other side in the morning. Utnapishtim lives beyond the mountain, but the two scorpion monsters that guard its entrance refuse to allow Gilgamesh into the tunnel that passes through it. Gilgamesh pleads with them, and they relent.

After a harrowing passage through total darkness, Gilgamesh emerges into a beautiful garden by the sea. There he meets Siduri, a veiled tavern keeper, and tells her about his quest. She warns him that seeking immortality is futile and that he should be satisfied with the pleasures of this world. However, when she can’t turn him away from his purpose, she directs him to Urshanabi, the ferryman. Urshanabi takes Gilgamesh on the boat journey across the sea and through the Waters of Death to Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood—how the gods met in council and decided to destroy humankind. Ea, the god of wisdom, warned Utnapishtim about the gods’ plans and told him how to fashion a gigantic boat in which his family and the seed of every living creature might escape. When the waters finally receded, the gods regretted what they’d done and agreed that they would never try to destroy humankind again. Utnapishtim was rewarded with eternal life. Men would die, but humankind would continue.

When Gilgamesh insists that he be allowed to live forever, Utnapishtim gives him a test. If you think you can stay alive for eternity, he says, surely you can stay awake for a week. Gilgamesh tries and immediately fails. So Utnapishtim orders him to clean himself up, put on his royal garments again, and return to Uruk where he belongs. Just as Gilgamesh is departing, however, Utnapishtim’s wife convinces him to tell Gilgamesh about a miraculous plant that restores youth. Gilgamesh finds the plant and takes it with him, planning to share it with the elders of Uruk. But a snake steals the plant one night while they are camping. As the serpent slithers away, it sheds its skin and becomes young again.

When Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, he is empty-handed but reconciled at last to his mortality. He knows that he can’t live forever but that humankind will. Now he sees that the city he had repudiated in his grief and terror is a magnificent, enduring achievement—the closest thing to immortality to which a mortal can aspire.

En Ética a Nicómaco CliffsNotes

Main Points of Aristotle’s Ethical Philosophy

La virtud (areth, areté): Significa, literalmente, excelencia, mérito, perfección, inteligencia, fuerza, energía, nobleza de ánimo, generosidad, alteza. Es una disposición del alma, una capacidad y aptitud permanente que inclina a comportarse de una manera determinada. No tiene nada que ver con el intelectualismo socrático, que identificaba virtud con conocimiento. Aristóteles da a la voluntad mucha importancia en relación con la virtud. La conducta sólo será justa o buena si el individuo actúa a sabiendas y mediante una decisión consciente, firme e inquebrantable, decide acometer una acción por sí misma. La virtud incluye conocimiento, voluntad firme y una elección reflexiva de los medios necesarios para llevar a cabo una acción.

La virtud se adquiere mediante el ejercicio (poniéndola en práctica) y el hábito (éthos): «para que un hombre se haga justo es necesario que practique la justicia». De esta manera Aristóteles rechaza que seamos virtuosos por naturaleza (de nacimiento) o mediante aprendizaje. La virtud es el modo de ser de una persona, expresado a través de sus acciones («praxis»). Cuando se convierte en hábito, la virtud expresa la manera de ser de una persona en relación con la realidad que le rodea: es su modo de estar en el mundo, en la política, en la economía, en la cultura y en el Estado. Es su actitud ante el dinero, la familia, el Estado y la felicidad.

1. The highest good and the end toward which all human activity is directed is happiness, which can be defined as continuous contemplation of eternal and universal truth.

2. One attains happiness by a virtuous life and the development of reason and the faculty of theoretical wisdom. For this one requires sufficient external goods to ensure health, leisure, and the opportunity for virtuous action.

3. Moral virtue is a relative mean between extremes of excess and deficiency, and in general the moral life is one of moderation in all things except virtue. No human appetite or desire is bad if it is controlled by reason according to a moral principle. Moral virtue is acquired by a combination of knowledge, habituation, and self-discipline.

4. Virtuous acts require conscious choice and moral purpose or motivation. Man has personal moral responsibility for his actions.

5. Moral virtue cannot be achieved abstractly—it requires moral action in a social environment. Ethics and politics are closely related, for politics is the science of creating a society in which men can live the good life and develop their full potential.

Book 8 Chapter 3: The Three Kinds of Friendship

There are three varieties of friendship, corresponding to the three objects of affection. The varieties of friendship can be distinguished by determining what kind of good is the object of both parties.

1. Friendships based on mutual utility (e.g., two men are friendly because each can be useful to the other in some way). This kind of friendship tends to be short-lived and is easily dissolved when the abilities or needs of one or both parties change.

2. Friendships based on mutual pleasure (i.e., two people are friendly not for what either is or what either can do, but because of the pleasure which each provides the other, e.g., witty conversation). This kind of friendship is also easily dissolved and is most common in general social relationships and among the young.

3. Friendship between good men of similar virtue or excellence who possess intrinsic rather than incidental goodness and who wish the good of each other for the other’s sake and not for any lesser motive. The attitudes of each party in such a relationship are determined by what the other party is and not by any incidental consideration. This is the most perfect and stable kind of friendship, and may be considered friendship in the truest sense of the word. It includes the other kinds, since both parties, by being good in themselves, are also good for each other, and provide each other with that which is both useful and pleasant. Such friendships are beneficial to both parties, but are extremely rare. For such a friendship to develop, much time and intimacy are required as well as personal goodness, for it is easy to desire friendship but difficult to build or deserve a solid relationship of this kind.

xXx

Fundamentos espirituales de Europa

Por J. Ratzinger, Conferencia en la biblioteca del Senado de la República Italiana, el 13.mayo. 2004

Historia del Término Europa. 42

División entre impero romano oriental y occidental: relación Iglesia-Estado. 43

El Concepto de europa en la edad moderna. 43

Europa oriental: cae Constantinopla se levanta Moscú. 43

Europa occidental: protestantismo y colonización de América. 43

Europa contemporánea: el efecto de la Revolución Francesa: Cisma entre cristianismo y Laicismo 43

La universalización de la cultura europea y su crisis. 44

W. Historia del Término Europa

a) Siglos –5 a +6: El Mediterráneo:

Heródoto (484-425 a.C. aproximadamente), quien, de hecho, es el primero en definir Europa como concepto geográfico; y lo hace así: «Los persas consideran Asia como su propiedad y los pueblos bárbaros que habitan en ella, mientras estiman que Europa y el mundo griego es un país distinto». Con la formación de los estados helenísticos y del imperio romano, se había formado un continente que se transformó en la base de la sucesiva Europa, pero que tenía otras fronteras: eran las tierras alrededor del Mediterráneo.

b) Siglos 7 y 8: Por el Islam: Europa es el norte del mediterráneo más Galia, Bretaña y Germania:

Luego  el avance triunfal del Islam en el siglo VII y al inicio del siglo VIII trazó una frontera a lo largo del Mediterráneo: la parte meridional del Mediterráneo queda completamente fuera de lo que hasta ese entonces era un continente cultural. Al mismo tiempo se lleva a cabo una mayor extensión hacia el norte: que ahora abrazaría Galia, Germania, Bretaña como tierras-núcleo propiamente dichas, y se extiende cada vez más hacia Escandinavia.

c) Siglo 9: El imperio carolingio:

En este proceso de cambio de los confines, la continuidad ideal con el precedente continente mediterráneo, medido geográficamente de un modo nuevo, tiene como garantía un modelo de teología de la historia: partiendo del libro de Daniel, se consideraba al Imperio Romano renovado y transformado por la fe cristiana como el último y permanente reino de la historia del mundo en general y, por tanto, se definía la trabazón de pueblos y estados que estaba en vías de formación como el permanente «Sacrum Imperium Romanum». Este proceso de una nueva identificación histórica y cultural se realizó de manera totalmente consciente bajo el reino de Carlomagno. Aquí surge nuevamente el antiguo nombre de Europa, con un significado diverso: este vocablo se utilizaba incluso como definición del reino de Carlomagno.

d) Siglos 17 y 18: el oeste de los Turcos:

el concepto de Europa casi desaparece nuevamente después del fin del reino carolingio y se conserva solamente en el lenguaje de los doctos; en el lenguaje popular sólo se usa al inicio de la época moderna –aunque en relación con el peligro de los Turcos, como modalidad de autoidentificación–, para imponerse en general en el siglo XVIII.

X. División entre impero romano oriental y occidental: relación Iglesia-Estado

Hay también una segunda raíz de la Europa, de una Europa no occidental: el imperio romano de hecho, como ya he mencionado, había resistido en Bizancio.

También este imperio romano de oriente se extendió ulteriormente hacia el norte, abarcando al mundo eslavo. Se diferencia respecto a la Europa latina del occidente en virtud de la renuncia al latín como lengua común enseñada.

Entre estas dos Europas hay una diferencia: en Bizancio, Imperio e Iglesia aparecen casi identificados el uno con el otro; el emperador también es el jefe de la Iglesia. Él se considera a sí mismo como representante de Cristo.  En Roma pudo desarrollarse la posición autónoma del obispo de Roma, como sucesor de Pedro y pastor supremo de la Iglesia; aquí ya desde el inicio de la era constantiniana se enseñó una dualidad de potestad: emperador y papa tienen de hecho potestades separadas, ninguno dispone de la totalidad. El papa Gelasio I (492-496) formuló en su carta el Emperador Anastasio que la unidad de las potestades está exclusivamente en Cristo: «él, de hecho, a causa de la debilidad humana (¡soberbia!) Ha separado para los tiempos sucesivos los dos ministerios de manera que ninguno se ensoberbezca». La manera en que se debe vivir correctamente y concretar política y religiosamente este principio sigue siendo un problema fundamental, incluso para la Europa de hoy y de mañana.

Podemos considerar el surgimiento del imperio carolingio de una parte, y la continuación del imperio romano en Bizancio y su misión hacia los pueblos eslavos por otra, como el verdadero y propio nacimiento del continente Europa.

Y. El Concepto de europa en la edad moderna

Europa oriental: cae Constantinopla se levanta Moscú

En 1453 Constantinopla fue conquistada por los turcos. O. Hiltbrunner comenta este acontecimiento de manera lacónica: «los últimos… doctos emigraron… hacia Italia y transmitieron a los humanistas del Renacimiento el conocimiento de los textos originales griegos”

una de las dos alas de Europa estuvo a punto de desaparecer, pero la herencia bizantina no estaba muerta: Moscú se declara a sí misma como la tercera Roma, funda entonces un propio patriarcado y se presenta, por tanto, como una nueva metamorfosis del «Sacrum Imperium » –como una forma propia de Europa, que, sin embargo, permaneció unida con occidente y se orientó cada vez más hacia él.

Europa occidental: pro
testantismo y colonización de América

Gran parte del mundo germánico se separa de Roma; surge una nueva forma iluminada de cristianismo: el protestantismo.

América fue al inicio una Europa ampliada, una colonia, pero ella también se crea –contemporáneamente a la agitación europea provocada por la Revolución Francesa– su propio carácter de sujeto: desde el siglo XIX en adelante, aunque forjada en sus aspectos profundos por su nacimiento europeo, América se presenta ante Europa como un sujeto propio

Z. Europa contemporánea: el efecto de la Revolución Francesa: Cisma entre cristianismo y Laicismo

Con la Revolución Francesa comienza un proceso de considerable importancia, tanto desde el punto de vista político como ideal. Desde el punto de vista ideal, esto significa que se rechaza el fundamento sacro de la historia y de la existencia estatal: la historia ya no se mide de acuerdo con una idea de Dios precedente a ella y que le da forma; el Estado es considerado, a partir de entonces, en términos puramente seculares, fundado en la racionalidad y en la voluntad de los ciudadanos.

Por primera vez en absoluto surge en la historia el Estado puramente secular, que abandona y deja a un lado la garantía divina y la normativa divina del elemento político, considerándolo como una visión mitológica del mundo y declara al mismo Dios como una cuestión privada, que no es parte de la vida pública y de la formación de la voluntad común. Ésta es concebida únicamente como un asunto de la razón, para la cual Dios no aparece claramente cognoscible: religión y fe en Dios pertenecen al ámbito del sentimiento, no al de la razón. Dios y su voluntad cesan de ser relevantes en la vida pública.

De este modo surge, con el fin del siglo XVIII y el inicio del siglo XIX, un nuevo tipo de cisma, cuya gravedad percibimos cada vez más netamente: la división entre cristianos y laicos. En los últimos dos siglos esta laceración ha penetrado en las naciones latinas como una fractura profunda, mientras el cristianismo protestante, al inicio, tuvo una vida fácil al conceder dentro de sí espacio a las ideas liberales e ilustradas, sin destruir el marco de un amplio consenso cristiano.

El aspecto de política realista de la disolución de la antigua idea de imperio consiste en esto: las naciones, los estados, que son identificables como tales gracias a la formación de ámbitos lingüísticos unitarios, aparecen definitivamente como los únicos y verdaderos portadores de la historia, y, por tanto, obtienen un rango que antes no les correspondía.

El dramatismo explosivo de este sujeto histórico, plural, se muestra en el hecho de que las grandes naciones europeas se consideraban depositarias de una misión universal, que necesariamente debía llevar a conflictos entre ellas, cuyo impacto mortal lo hemos experimentado dolorosamente en el siglo recién pasado.

AA. El presente: la paradoja de la universalización de la cultura europea y su crisis por el encuentro con culturas más ESPIRITUALES no europeas

Ahora tiene lugar la salida hacia los dos continentes hasta ahora tocados sólo marginalmente: África y Asia, que trataron de transformarse en sucursales de Europa, en colonias. Hasta cierto punto, esto también se logró, pues ahora también Asia y África siguen el ideal del mundo forjado por la técnica y el bienestar, de tal modo que también allí las antiguas tradiciones religiosas entran en crisis y estratos de pensamiento puramente secular dominan siempre más la vida pública.

Pero hay también un efecto contrario: el renacimiento del Islam no está solamente unido a la nueva riqueza material de los países islámicos, sino que también se alimenta por la conciencia de que el Islam es capaz de ofrecer una base espiritual válida para la vida de los pueblos, una base que parece haberse escapado de la mano de la vieja Europa, que, no obstante su duradera potencia política y económica, se ve, cada vez más, como condenada al declino y al obscurecimiento.

También Las grandes tradiciones religiosas de Asia, sobre todo su componente mística, que encuentra expresión en el budismo, se elevan como potencias espirituales contra una Europa que reniega de sus fundamentos religiosos y morales.

Yo veo aquí una sincronía paradójica: con la victoria del mundo técnico-secular post-europeo, con la universalización de su modelo de vida y de su manera de pensar, se da en todo el mundo –especialmente en los mundos estrictamente no-europeos de Asia y África– la impresión de que el mundo de valores de Europa, su cultura y su fe, aquello sobre lo que se basa su identidad, ha llegado al final y esté saliendo del escenario; da la impresión de que ha llegado la hora de los sistemas de valores de otros mundos, de la América precolombina, del Islam, de la mística asiática.

Europa, justo en esta hora de su máximo éxito, parece haberse vaciado por dentro, paralizada en cierto sentido por una crisis de su sistema circulatorio, una crisis que pone en riesgo su vida, dependiendo por así decirlo, de trasplantes, que sin embargo no pueden eliminar su identidad.

Hay una extraña falta de deseo de futuro. Los hijos, que son el futuro, son vistos como una amenaza para el presente; se piensa que nos quitan algo de nuestra vida. No se les experimenta como una esperanza, sino como un límite para el presente.

BB. ¿Se puede reinsertar el elemento religioso para salvar a Europa de la decadencia?

Dos diagnósticos sobre el futuro de Europa

Tesis biologísta de spengler: Por una parte, está la tesis de Oswald Spengler, quien creía poder fijar una especie de ley natural para las grandes expresiones culturales: existe un momento de nacimiento, crecimiento gradual, florecimiento, envejecimiento y muerte. Su tesis era que Occidente ha alcanzado su época final.

Tesis de Arnold Toynbee: muestra la diferencia entre progreso técnico-material de una parte y progreso real de otra. Define este último como espiritualización. Admite que Occidente –el mundo occidental– se encuentra en una crisis, y su causa sería el hecho de que se ha
pasado de la religión al culto a la técnica, a la nación, al militarismo. La crisis, para él, significa secularismo.

¿Cómo se ha tratado la cuestión religiosa en la Europa moderna? Modelos políticos para la cuestión religiosa

a) Modelo latino: el laicismo

En las naciones latinas el modelo laicista: un Estado netamente separado de los organismos religiosos, que son relegados al ámbito privado. El mismo Estado rechaza cualquier fundamento religioso y se sabe fundado solamente sobre la razón y sus intuiciones. Frente a la flaqueza de la razón, estos sistemas se han revelado frágiles y se convierten con facilidad en víctimas de las dictaduras; sobreviven, propiamente, sólo porque partes de la vieja conciencia moral continúan subsistiendo aun sin los fundamentos precedentes, permitiendo así un consenso moral básico.

b) Modelo germánico: iglesia de Estado

en el mundo germánico, existen de manera diferenciada los modelos de Iglesia de Estado del protestantismo liberal. En ellos una religión cristiana iluminada, esencialmente concebida como moral ..y con formas de culto resguardadas por el Estado– garantiza un consenso moral y un fundamento religioso amplio, al que cada religión que no es del Estado debe adecuarse. Este modelo en Gran Bretaña, en los estados escandinavos y en un primer momento en la Alemania dominada por los prusianos aseguró durante mucho tiempo una cohesión estatal y social. En Alemania, sin embargo, la caída del cristianismo de Estado prusiano creó un vacío, que después se ofreció igualmente como vacío para el surgimiento de una dictadura. Hoy en día, las iglesias de Estado han caído en todas partes, víctimas del desgaste: de cuerpos religiosos que son derivaciones del Estado ya no proviene ninguna fuerza moral, y el mismo Estado no puede crear una fuerza moral, sino que la debe presuponer para después construir sobre ella.

c) Modelo americano: separación iglesia-estado pero consenso moral cristiano

Formado sobre la base de las iglesias libres, parte de un rígido dogma de separación y por otra parte –más allá de las denominaciones individuales–, se caracterizan por un consenso de fondo cristiano-protestante no forjado en términos confesionales. Consenso que se vinculaba a una particular conciencia de la misión de tipo religioso frente al resto del mundo. De este nodo, daba al factor religioso un significativo peso público, que en cuanto fuerza pre-política y supra-política podía ser determinante para la vida política.

d) Modelo del socialismo democrático: conciencia social

El socialismo democrático fue capaz, desde el inicio, de integrarse dentro de los dos modelos existentes en Europa, como un sano contrapeso frente a las posiciones liberales radicales, enriqueciéndolas y corrigiéndolas. Esto se reveló como algo que iba más allá de las confesiones: en Inglaterra era el partido de los católicos, que no podían sentirse a gusto ni en el campo protestante-conservador, ni en el liberal. También, en la Alemania guillermina el centro católico podía sentirse más cercano al socialismo democrático que a las fuerzas conservadoras rígidamente prusianas y protestantes. En muchos aspectos el socialismo democrático estaba y está cerca de la doctrina social católica; en todo caso, ha contribuido considerablemente a la formación de una conciencia social.

e) Modelo del socialismo totalitario

Sin embargo, el modelo totalitario se vinculaba a una filosofía de la historia rígidamente materialista y atea: la historia se comprende deterministamente como un proceso de progreso que pasa a través de la fase religiosa y de la liberal para alcanzar la sociedad absoluta y definitiva, en la que la religión, como residuo del pasado, se supera y el funcionamiento de las condiciones materiales puede garantizar la felicidad de todos. El aparente carácter científico esconde un dogmatismo intolerante: el espíritu es producto de la materia; la moral es producto de las circunstancias y debe definirse y practicarse de acuerdo con los objetivos de la sociedad; todo lo que sirve para favorecer la llegada de un Estado final feliz es moral. La inversión de los valores que habían construido Europa es completa. Aún más, se da una fractura frente a la tradición moral de toda la humanidad: ya no hay valores independientes de los objetivos del progreso; en un momento dado todo puede permitirse e incluso resultar necesario, puede ser moral en el sentido nuevo del término. Incluso el hombre puede llegar a ser un instrumento; no cuenta el individuo. Sólo el futuro llega a ser la terrible divinidad que dispone de todos y de todo.

Los sistemas comunistas, mientras tanto, han naufragado sobre todo por su falso dogmatismo económico. Pero se olvida demasiado fácilmente el hecho de que han naufragado sobre todo por su desprecio de los derechos humanos, por su subordinación de la moral a las exigencias del sistema y a sus promesas de futuro. La verdadera y propia catástrofe que han dejado a sus espaldas no es de naturaleza económica; consiste en el desecamiento de las almas, en la destrucción de la conciencia moral. Veo

La problemática dejada tras de sí por el marxismo continúa existiendo hoy: la disolución de las certezas primordiales del hombre sobre Dios, sobre sí mismo y sobre el universo. Esta disolución de la conciencia de los valores morales intangibles es precisamente ahora nuestro problema y puede conducir a la autodestrucción de la conciencia europea que debemos comenzar a considerar como un peligro real.

Qué elementos morales hay que insertar en la constitución de Europa para permitir que siga subsistiendo la identidad europea

f)
La dignidad humana y los derechos humanos

Un primer elemento es el carácter incondicional con que la dignidad humana y los derechos humanos deben presentarse como valores que preceden a cualquier jurisdicción estatal. Estos derechos fundamentales no son creados por el legislador ni son conferidos a los ciudadanos, «sino más bien existen por derecho propio, siempre han de ser respetados por el legislador, a quien le son dados previamente como valores de orden superior».

Ahora bien, hoy en día casi nadie negará directamente la preeminencia de la dignidad humana y de los derechos humanos fundamentales respecto a toda decisión política; son aún demasiado recientes los horrores del nazismo y de su teoría racista. Pero en el ámbito concreto del así llamado progreso de la medicina, hay amenazas muy reales para estos valores: sea que pensemos en la clonación, sea que pensemos en la conservación de fetos humanos para la investigación y donación de órganos, sea que pensemos en todo el ámbito de la manipulación genética -la lenta consunción de la dignidad humana que aquí nos amenaza no puede ser desconocida por nadie.

g) El Matrimonio

Todos sabemos cuán amenazados están el matrimonio y la familia tanto mediante el vaciamiento de su indisolubilidad a través de formas cada vez más fáciles de divorcio, como por un nuevo comportamiento que va difundiéndose cada vez más: la convivencia de hombre y mujer sin la forma jurídica del matrimonio. En notable contraste con todo esto, existe la petición de comunión de vida de los homosexuales, quienes ahora paradójicamente exigen una forma jurídica, que debe equipararse más o menos al matrimonio. Con esta tendencia se sale del complejo de la historia moral de la humanidad, que a pesar de toda la diversidad de formas jurídicas del matrimonio, sabía siempre que éste, según su esencia, es la particular comunión de hombre y mujer, que se abre a los hijos y así a la familia.

h) La religión

Un aspecto fundamental para todas las culturas es el respeto de a lo que es sagrado para otra persona, y particularmente el respeto por lo sagrado en el sentido más alto, por Dios. Es lícito suponer que se pueden encontrar este respeto en quien no está dispuesto a creer en Dios. Donde se quebrante este respeto, se pierde algo esencial en la sociedad. En la sociedad actual, gracias a Dios, se multa a quien deshonra la fe de Israel, su imagen de Dios, sus grandes figuras. Se multa también a quien vilipendia el Corán y las convicciones de fondo del Islam. Sin embargo, cuando se trata de Cristo y de lo que es sagrado para los cristianos, la libertad de opinión aparece como el bien supremo, cuya limitación resulta una amenaza o incluso una destrucción de la tolerancia y la libertad en general. Sin embargo, la libertad de opinión tiene su límite en que no puede destruir el honor y la dignidad del otro; no hay libertad para mentir o para destruir los derechos humanos.

Conclusión: Europa debe rechazar el odio que siente por sí misma

Occidente siente un odio por sí mismo que es extraño y que sólo puede considerarse como algo patológico; occidente sí intenta laudablemente abrirse, lleno de comprensión a valores externos, pero ya no se ama a sí mismo; sólo ve de su propia historia lo que es censurable y destructivo, al tiempo que no es capaz de percibir lo que es grande y puro. Europa necesita de una nueva –ciertamente crítica y humilde– aceptación de sí misma, si quiere verdaderamente sobrevivir.

Ciertamente, podemos y debemos aprender de lo que es sagrado para los demás, pero justamente ante los demás y por los demás, es deber nuestro nutrir en nosotros mismos el respeto ante lo que es sagrado y mostrar el rostro de Dios que se nos ha aparecido –del Dios que tiene compasión de los pobres y de los débiles, de las viudas y de los huérfanos, del extranjero; del Dios que hasta tal punto es humano que él mismo se ha hecho hombre, un hombre sufriente, que sufriendo junto a nosotros da dignidad y esperanza al dolor.

Si no hacemos esto, no sólo renegamos de la identidad de Europa, sino que se desvanece un servicio a los demás al que ellos tienen derecho. Para las culturas del mundo, la profanidad absoluta que se ha ido formando en Occidente es algo profundamente extraño. Están convencidas que un mundo sin Dios no tiene futuro. Por lo tanto, justamente la multiculturalidad nos llama a entrar nuevamente en nosotros mismos.

No sabemos cómo será el futuro de Europa. La Carta de los derechos fundamentales puede ser un primer paso, un signo de que Europa busca nueva y conscientemente su alma. En esto hace falta darle la razón a Toynbee: el destino de una sociedad depende siempre de minorías creativas. Los cristianos creyentes deberían concebirse a sí mismos como tal minoría creativa y contribuir a que Europa recobre nuevamente lo mejor de su herencia y esté así al servicio de toda la humanidad.

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