Connections

As Taosim is a philosophy rather than a religion, I have no problem calling myself a Taoist Christian. I could apply the same label to Francis of Assisi.

The Taoist influences on his ideas — and those of late medieval Christianity in general — had filtered into Europe via Islamic thinkers and poets, particularly the Sufis. These, in turn, had been influenced by the the Taoist teachings and poetry of T’ang China.

Of course, ideas had always flowed both directions. The premodern world was much more connected than historians used to believe. No culture is unique; all have been touched by outside influences to some degree.

Medieval scholars might not have known the name Li Po nor any of the other T’ang poets, yet they were on the end of a chain of influences that led back to them. They are a part of our culture, just as were the Classical poets of the West.

And, in turn, Hellenistic Neo-Platonism and other philosophies of the West found their way eastward, to India, to China. Ideas are rather portable, you know?

Crusades

A primary cause of the Crusades was too many restless, impoverished knights and noblemen in Europe, who jumped at the chance for loot and lands in the East. That they could tell themselves they were doing it for God was an added bonus, but I doubt many would have gone just for that reason.

History is economics, and all our beliefs and ideals are only along for the ride. Individual motives align themselves, one way or another, with the actual underlying causes.

Alternate Realities

In one of H. Beam Piper’s science fiction stories of ‘alternate timelines’ (a frequent subject of his writing), there is a discussion as to whether an altered event would have little effect, with things canceling out over time and history getting back on an even keel, or make an ever-increasing difference as the changes spread outward from the original point of difference, effecting more and more of reality.

I will admit I believe the first of these; individual actions have little effect on a history largely driven by economics. People simply don’t matter on the largest scale. The names might change in the history books but history would sweep on along pretty much the same path. What could change history? Natural events, certainly—droughts and epidemics and that sort of thing. Again, those are ultimately economic forces (in the broadest sense of the word).

But what if we assume infinite realities? Then every possible outcome exists (if only in potential). History will go on as it did or change radically and everything in between, so there is nothing wrong with a speculative fiction writer imagining any outcome they desire. All should be equally valid. George Washington was assassinated and the United States went on. George Washington was assassinated and the US broke up into warring states. George Washington was assassinated and it prompted an alien invasion. Whatever world we choose to create.

But if we do, we should also pay attention to the underlying economics, to be able to explain why things changed. Even if anything can happen, we should know why!

The Wrong Causes

Individuals fought for all sorts of reasons during the American Civil War, states’ rights, preserving the union, and, yes, definitely slavery. If one asked the ordinary Confederate soldier why he was fighting, he might well have answered ‘Northern tyranny’ (not too unlike the answers you still might get from, say, a Trump supporter today, except ‘Northern’ would become ‘liberal’ or something of that sort). All these ‘reasons’ for fighting were bound up together and difficult to sort out.

However, the cause of the war is not necessarily the same thing as the reasons people fought. I would say the primary underlying cause was the economic domination of the South by northern bankers and industrialists; in many respects, the South had become their colonial possession. Of course, the southerners chose altogether the wrong way to push back, by doubling down on an already broken system—one that relied heavily on slavery.

It is perhaps naive to think that the economic power-brokers of the North, those who financed the war, were concerned about slavery. Individually, of course, many were very much against it, but the establishment wanted to keep the Union intact so they would not lose their power and markets in the South. Preventing secession was good business.

Whom did Jesse James target in his personal continuation of the war? Banks and railroads. As many others, he recognized they were oppressing the common man of the time (but he took it rather personally). The same impulse that led him to rob led others to organize politically, to form unions and the Grange. Seen in this light, the Civil War is part of a great economic upheaval taking place in America. That the South felt it necessary to oppose the ‘robber barons’ by defending an evil system of their own, that is, slavery, was a tragedy.

Perhaps we should see today’s unrest in the same light. People are hurting economically and lashing out but don’t really know at what, and, in the process, are backing the wrong causes.

Again.

 

Stephen Brooke ©2023