Lecture 8 - The Government of Hatti

What struck me right at the beginning was the line about the Great King:

Throughout the domain, his subjects were reminded of his presence, both by a physical infrastructure and by the legal obligations that were laid on them.

How often do we specifically contemplate being American? Often, I'd say. But it's usually because of a poster of a soldier and how proud of them we should be. Supposedly they're fighting 'to make the world safe for democracy' or 'against terrorism', propaganda phrases meant to automatically induce blind patriotism. Why not more of those infrequently seen signs that say "Your tax dollars at work" on road repair or above a Medicaid building where poor Americans are being given money for food and medical attention or perhaps a poster of a deserving college graduate who has made a great humanitarian contribution because of the availability of federal grants? Why always a soldier? Not everyone feels pride in being a world bully. And not everyone agrees that democracy is the correct form of government for every country. Mostly, yes, we wouldn't have it if we didn't believe it was the best, but for other cultures, it may not be. Economies have thrived under other forms of government. Corruption is rampant in these other forms but it is in ours as well! How many are ready to do something drastic because we don't believe our votes count anymore? How many are certain that a 'good old boy' network is really behind things? Or a conspiracy of Jews undermining the typical white culture? We're hardly allowed to be white, Christian, heterosexuals in this country without apologizing! What happened to the diverse population of this country - the one that said as long as you work hard, you can live your own life and believe what you believe. White Americans believed that, made sure to work for that and give everyone opportunity and now it's only accepted to be anything BUT a white American. The culture was successful, why do we disparage it now? Should we regret working to consider everyone equal under the law?
Being American also means having plenty. Are we encouraged to be proud to have enough to share with the poor of the world? How many people are enraged at giving away billions of our hard-earned money to other poor countries because the poor in our own country are going without? Why isn't a donation to another country up for a vote? Yes, we vote for representatives but we should be voting for more specific acts more often, especially when it costs us so much. Charity is meant to be voluntary. Otherwise, it feels like our government is buying intangible power for himself and his cronies with our money and without our consent. Especially when we constantly hear that most of the money never gets further than a beneficiary's government!

The government of Hatti was specifically and totally under the control of the one man, the Labarna, the Great King. I can hardly imagine anyone wanting such a position though he did delegate authority to his family members and representatives - viceroys, magistrates, governors, etc. But all power ultimately derived from the king. In America, all power ultimately comes from the people channeled through the "king", in other words, the President. Too many people no longer believe (have we really ever believed?) that the president is making decisions based on what Americans want but on what he and other government officials can get away with. Unfortunately, we also know that things are going on that we don't and really can't know about, intricate politics, threats, benefits that have to be considered with ramifications that would occur before America could come to a consensus. And how in the world could all these people ever come to a consensus anyway? I'm glad I'm not a politician but we probably all should be more involved instead of being so damned lazy about it.

Quizlet about Hatti's government
password: hattelitelec8

Lecture 7 - The Rise of Hatti

This empire is enough to make me believe in their gods! Reading about the rampant intrigues and murders followed by natural disasters and loss of power in the realm...the gods were revolted and punished them. Why not?

This Hittite culture, Dise says, was based on heroic virtues, a king's status was based on how victorious he was at attacking, plundering, and destroying other kingdoms and how much loot he brought back to his people. We still see this of course, in gangs roaming city streets and maybe this explains some wars. It's not megalomania, it's something quite different. I certainly hope that's not what America is doing by engaging in all these wars. We always have some excuse, some reason, some people we're supposedly saving. Sometimes it may be true, but how much is merely to prove how 'manly', how much of a warrior-king our nation is (ignore the fact that we call America "she"!)
It's very difficult to fathom the Hittite kings considering it a good idea to wander around the world (as they knew it) wreaking havoc and totally destroying cities when they really got nothing out of it. Maybe they did and we don't know, as Dise points out. But the Assyrian trade network that had outposts in Hittite cities, didn't that contribute to the wealth and well-being of Hatti? Didn't it bring goods they wouldn't have otherwise had? Was it merely to put all things under their own control that they destroyed the system? Perhaps the Assyrians controlled commerce more than it sounds like in this lecture, perhaps it was like another country controlling our banking system - we don't want it that way quite obviously, though from what has been happening in this country lately, it's farther along than I like.

The Hittites and their warrior-king values remind me of angry toddlers. Have you seen a small child having a fit? They smash and destroy your things, their own things, and anything they find to let out their frustration and to manipulate the adults. It makes them feel powerful for the short time they manage to get away with it.  Now what if these angry toddlers were a fully armed army of men? Not even angry, just out to 'prove their manhood'? I understand the concept. When we think that men should use their brawn and brains to create and build, it sounds a bit girly. Women create, men don't need to. That's work and the biggest, smartest, strongest men can have others do the work while they reap the rewards. I wish this was a foreign way of thinking to me but the more I write about it, the more it makes sense. Not that I think it's RIGHT, just that it's perfectly understandable. Wow. The veneer of civilization is thinner than I thought.

Quizlet link
Password is Hatmurtellec7

Professor bias - just a note

When discussing the reason the Kassites were successful in being easily assimilated into Babylonian society and then leadership, Dise states that it was due to their recognizing how important a role religion played in Mesopotamian life "so they became very active patrons of Babylonian religious cults..."

That seems to be a very ethnocentric and modernly biased view. It's just as likely they had a prophet of their own send them there. It's also possible they found life in Babylonia better than their life had previously been and 'realized' the Babylonian gods were more powerful or, at least, more beneficient. Perhaps they discovered the gods were all the same, just perceived or named differently. To a modern cynic, Dise's view may seem sensible but really? A whole culture changes, abandoning previous beliefs and gods so they can take over another by infiltration?

This is amusing. In the next lecture, Dise mentions possible modern bias of other historians in putting forth a king's motives as economic when Dise thinks that, since these kings lived in a culture that prided themselves on manly and heroic virtues, going to war may have been the entire point. I really am enjoying these lectures.

Lecture 6 - Mitanni and the Kassites

We need to remember that these kingdoms and empires are not entirely sequential, many things are happening at once. I wanted to make a Power Point or map that would show animated views of the empires rising and falling but I hadn't yet done so or even figured out how - but someone else has already done exactly that! Here's a video: Animated History of the Near East (it even has appropriate music though I muted it after a few seconds).
Here's a timeline with extra tidbits not in the one in the guidebook. It's very long but worth a look so: Timeline of the Ancient Middle East. Notice the title calls it the Middle East and the URL calls it Near East. Same thing. When I use extras like this, then watch the lecture again, it can make it all easier to follow, but sometimes more complicated -- differences send me searching online and in books again.

The Mitanni didn't leave much to posterity that we can attribute to them. Does that matter? It matters to ruled people who is in charge because it obviously affects their daily lives and the levels of thriving or suffering. In TTC's course How Economies Rise and Fall, lecturer Rodriguez states that the whole point of economics is to improve the financial standard of individual lives. The motives of starting an empire come into play here I think. America started with people wanting to find adventure and/or improve a seemingly hopeless lot in life. The whole point was generally to live on one's own terms instead of how a king, an emperor, a government, a group of favored people, dictated. We outlawed slavery because it finally seemed too against nature to deliberately put one man under control of another against his will. In the case of American blacks, it must have been horrifying to see it coming - first they were neighbors, co-adventurers, then slowly being relegated to lower status, then considered not even human but instead, animals. Just like the Jews in Nazi Germany. Like the Gypsies in Europe, like the Orientals in early America, like even the huge Vikings long ago. The Vikings were considered enormous barbarians, animals with some human traits or something but not REAL people. They were too large and violent to be considered civilized human beings. So if we're trying to improve every life with our economy, our society, our government/empire, is it working? Can people do that?
People seem to be naturally tribal, desiring to be with people of like appearance and culture. These ancient empires take over usually by force. Is it to improve everyone's life or is it megalomania on the part of the ruler? I vote megalomania. Biology, politics, scientific understandings - they all come into play and I'm tired of thinking about it. So back to the facts:

Quizlet: Mitanni and the Kassites
password:MitBabKasslec6
  

Lecture 5 - The Empire of Hammurabi

 In the grand scheme of life, if there is one, what does Hammurabi matter? He's remembered for his Code of Law though he wasn't the first to have these as laws; otherwise, he's yet another man who conquered a large section of land and people, then died. He's the first I've heard of that conquered and then stopped, seemingly satisfied. He claimed to have warred at the command of his gods, then he settled in to micromanage the empire he had established.
Dise says that after Hammurabi's death, his empire swiftly collapsed but the end is noted as 1595 B.C. and Hammurabi died way back in 1750 B.C. One hundred and fifty-five years doesn't sound all that swift to me. It sounds more like a slow collapse, a crumbling away over time.
Hammurabi didn't establish an imperial system, he made "all" decisions personally. Hard to imagine running an empire like that but apparently he did. If that was the weakness of his empire, why was the intricate imperial system of Shulgi's Third Dynasty Ur a weakness? Which is weak, an imperial system or no imperial system? Is it just that these rules were both dependent in one way or another and not flexible, adaptable to changing circumstances?
Is America's government adaptable? Is there a weakness that we should see? What is it the Bible says, something about 'in a multitude of counselors, there is wisdom'? At times, this leads to confusion but I can see that having many viewpoints and considerations available is wise. Those whose advice is discounted or at least deemed inadvisable at the time to follow, will likely prepare for when everything falls apart because their advice was ignored. Then, if things DO fall apart, they have a plan ready. If things DON'T fall apart, they may be embarassed but at least glad things worked out (depending on their levels of arrogance, of course).
Perhaps the situations in these empires is far too different from America in modern times, where the entire world is involved. But these people seemed to think it was the entire world, they didn't necessarily know about the other continents so well and they weren't a necessary consideration. Isn't it like all the states of America considering themselves as part of the whole of America? There are still rebellions and uprisings, I think they're just not looked at quite the same way. Why not? Or are they?


Quizlet link and password: Empire of Hammurabi and use: hambablec5

Lecture 4 - The Third Dynasty of Ur

It seems so odd to read of men suddenly proclaiming themselves king and being successful. Obviously they have backing, military resources, we read about that in history all the time. But it made me try to imagine someone doing that in America. Right now, Barack Obama is president, not the same as a king of course, but what would it be like if someone killed him and declared himself president? What would we do? Wait him out and see if he was worthy of the title? Arrest him? With military backing, he could be successful but what would we think of the character of someone who did that? If a president was really unpopular, would most of America back a violent usurper? I'm not really sure of the procedure, I hope we could oust an erring president democratically and lawfully. But in Ur III, like the empires before, once the king was dead, the empire fell apart. Would America fall apart into separate states or regions? There have been rumors of such but they've come to nothing unless they're in the background, still in the works...

I also wonder and worry about the increasing tightening of control in America. Isn't this central government that controlled all aspects of peoples' lives what led to the downfall of Ur III? Everything so interdependent and vulnerable to any disruption that it was unsustainable? Is there a line between being a united country and being a "slave-to-government" economy and society? If so, I wonder just where it is. Here is a discussion of America's coming role in the world by a former National Security Council member: The Autonomy Rule. Click on the words in blue at the bottom of the post to read the PDF.

Here's the link to Quizlet for the Scatter game and practice: Quizlet Ur III  The password for this one is 3Urshullec4.