Contaminations, revisions, reinventions: how cultures, ancient and modern, have influenced each other
Retrieved on:
Monday, September 18, 2023
Islamic Golden Age, Theft, Method, Human, Travel, Anecdote, Education, Ithaca, Chauvet Cave, Writing, Diary, Folklore, Light, Benedictines, Monotheism, Humanities, House, History, Muslims, The Pillow Book, Literature, Philosophy, Hindus, Egyptians, Chinese Buddhism, Time, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, Architecture, Colonialism, Knowledge, Grande Bibliothèque, Library, Female, Book, Entertainment, Toy, Management, Stonemasonry, Puchner, Culture
He reflects on the creation of this ancient art across generations, and the recovery of its remnants by new generations.
Key Points:
- He reflects on the creation of this ancient art across generations, and the recovery of its remnants by new generations.
- It is well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way.
- It begins with Queen Nefertiti (c.1370-c.1330 BCE), and ends with Nigeria declaring its independence from Great Britain in 1960.
- Read more:
Friday essay: Simon During on the demoralisation of the humanities, and what can be done about it
Cultural interaction
- This, in turn, leads to a discussion of Nefertiti and her husband, the pharaoh Akhenaten, experimenting with monotheism.
- And there is the epic journey of the Chinese Buddhist explorer, Xuanzang (602-664 CE), author of the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, which Puchner describes as “a classic in cultural mobility”.
- Puchner is not naïve about the realities underpinning his stories of cultural interaction, replete as they are with colonialism, destruction, theft, and getting it wrong as much as getting it right.
- It entails educating the next generation, entrusting them with the preservation of “human inheritance”, so they may proceed with “humility”.
The necessity of education
- He discusses the necessity of education – written and spoken – as a mechanism of preserving culture.
- Puchner’s heroic tales of creative and intellectual interaction are chronicled in historical artefacts and documents, such as The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (c. 966–c.1017).
- The Pillow Book is a hybrid text in the form of a diary, which includes stories, anecdotes, gossip, poems and character portraits.
Methods and paradigms
- The chapter on Plato, for example, shows Puchner to be out of his depth, with ideas not always meshing.
- His accounts of the Egyptian influence on Greek culture and Plato the young playwright falling under the spell of Socrates and turning to philosophy are messy and uncertain.
- Puchner nevertheless challenges us not to get caught up in the traditional Western paradigm of the ancient Greeks as the creators of culture.