Karaktär och intention

Kära läsare,

Jag kommer nu med all sannolikhet sätta den här bloggen på paus under överskådlig framtid. Den begynnande höstterminen ger mig fullt upp med studier, arbete och annat som gör att bloggen måste sättas på undantag. Detta är egentligen ingen förlust - låt oss hoppas att jag gör något vettigare av min tid istället och så småningom kommer tillbaka med nya perspektiv!

För tillfället vill jag bara dela med mig av en kort reflektion angående det svenska valet. Jag har själv inte bestämt mig för något särskilt parti att rösta på, men jag har märkt något om politiska ställningstaganden: När du tar ställning politiskt i ett offentligt sammanhang så kommer din karaktär till uttryck, vare sig du vill det eller ej, och om du är uppriktig så märker du snart om dina intentioner är rena eller inte, liksom andra troligtvis kommer att märka det - och på detta sätt kan du ibland komma fram till att en ståndpunkt som företräds av dig själv eller av någon annan inte är hållbar. På detta sätt kan skillnaden i karaktär mellan opponenterna i vissa politiska debatter vara alldeles uppenbar. Det kanske inte är vanligt, men det förekommer att den enes moraliska överlägsenhet och andliga resning gentemot den andre framträder med sådan kraft att segern är given oavsett sakfrågornas innehåll. På detta sätt kan vi ibland se spillror av sanning reflekteras i en annan människas personliga uttryck, och om vi är uppmärksamma så kanske vi kan urskilja dessa spillror i det allmänna pladdret och ta fasta på dem.

Tack för mig.

The Age of Aquarius? Signs of the Zodiac as Archetypes of the Ages

I am not going to delve heavily into astrology in this post. If you think astrology is just some ridiculous pseudo-science, that is fine. It could even be a healthy attitude to some extent. Nevertheless, according to plenty of New Agers, we are now just entering/having entered the Age of Aquarius, leaving behind the Age of Pisces. As I am concerned with the question of how to periodize world history, this is most interesting to me. Periodization, after all, cannot be done objectively: history is divided into periods based on what "makes sense", no more scientific than that. It is a question of the perception and interpretation of patterns.

Oh, by the way - astronomical ages are a bit more objective. As the Earth wobbles round its axis, the sky above us slowly drifts. It takes the Earth roughly 26,000 years to complete one wobbling movement, known as precession. Divided by twelve, this gives on average slightly more than 2,000 years per Zodiac sign. As the visible sky above changes, the Pole Star will not, for instance, be aligned with the North Pole in the future. Other things that change concern the sun: during the spring and autumn equinoxes, as during the summer and winter solstices, the sun will be in some other Zodiac signs than today. For some reason, astrologers have singled out the spring (vernal) equinox as being of special importance. The sign of the sun during the vernal equinox is supposed to mark the age we are presently in.

This video illustrates the movements of the Earth with regard to the celestial sphere in the long run. It shows that we have now just entered the Age of Aquarius - except we haven't.

Reality isn't as neat as described in the video. Some signs are larger than others, Pisces being one of them. An astronomer would tell you that the spring equinox still occurs in Pisces, and will continue to do so until roughly the year 2600 AD, depending on where exactly you posit the boundaries between the signs.

The sun' s position during the spring equinox, years marked in red

Why astrologers frequently ignore astronomy is puzzling to say the least. There is at least one astrologer who has a long-winding argument for why the Age of Aquarius really began as early as 1433, right in line with the dawn of the modern age. But other than that, well, in the musical Hair they sang some fifty years ago that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Then various people picked up on this, including Yogi Bhajan who suggested that the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius would be completed in 2012 (one can only suspect that he was well aware of the end date for the Maya calendar). Whatever the case may be, we proceed to ask: What are the supposed differences between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius? And why do I, skeptical as I might be, consider this periodization to be a most striking one?

You may read up on typical characterizations of the Pisces and Aquarius signs anwhere on the web. Pisces is dreamy, drifting, understanding, connected with deep devotion, intuition and self-sacrifice. It is Pisces who says: "I shall do as my Lord commands", the Lord in this case being a transcendent being of some sort. Pisces is prone to delirium, illusions and possession: for an extreme charicature, picture the protagonist of The Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft: A man arrives at a distant town where the inhabitants bear strange, fish-like features. Soon his very dreams are invaded by visions of the dark sea-monster Cthulhu, and in the end, well aware that he is losing his sanity, he only longs to be united with his master, to worship him beneath the waves in eternal bondage. Granted, this is much too dark and destructive for Pisces generally (and supposedly Lovecraft did have Piscean Neptune in the 8th house in his natal horoscope - the house of the occult). Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied that the world from roughly the time of Christ (who was also associated with fish) was, for a long time, dominated by transcendent religions focused on the worship of the One. Mahayana Buddhism also emerged around this time, and Christianity itself grew up in an environment of Late Antique mystery religions such as Mithraism, with which it shared certain features. Salvation religions had already begun to emerge, that much is true: but originally both Buddhism and Jainism, belonging to the martial Age or Aries, taught that the individual must save himself - no exterior deities were ultimately called for. It is only around the Age of Pisces that grace starts to become a factor. And now, supposedly, God is dead (or in any case forgotten) and we are in the Age of Aquarius.

The Aquarian is cut from a different cloth than the Piscean. Some recurring descriptions are (and I quote):

Aquarius in balance: Unique, objective, charismatic, inventive, fair, cosmopolitan, friendly, broadminded, interesting, unusual, creative, ingenious, idealistic, humanitarian, pioneering, socially conscious, activist, modern, awake, ecumenical, unbiased, visionary, open-minded, calm, patient, steady, gregarious, intuitive, alert, loyal, innovative, liberal, tolerant, communal, experimental, revolutionary, remarkable, rational, galvanizing. 

Aquarius out of balance: Dissociated, non-conforming, rebellious, anarchistic, anti, alienated, bizarre, unstable, belligerent, psychopathic, cruel, cold, sociopathic, aloof, impersonal, unsympathetic, fanatical, inflexible, immovable, cynical, disbelieving, skeptical, disparaging, erratic, overtalkative, anxious, ungrounded, inefficient, vacillating, noncommittal, impractical, spacy, unfocused, avoiding, peace-at-any-price, bewildered. 

Abraham Lincoln is a famous example of an Aquarian. Another person who captures some of the Aquarian spirit at its best is Socrates the way he is described in Plato's dialogues. Also, Karl Marx is said among astrologers to have been born during a Solar eclipse with his ascendant in Aquarius (with Sun and Moon in materialistic Taurus).

Now for the meaty part. It goes without saying that the last two hundred years or so have seemed a lot more Aquarian than Piscean in terms of the development of the world. Innovation has started to take on a stunning pace; the rights revolution has seen the emancipation of slaves, serfs, women, children, homosexuals and to some extent animals (although the majority of farm animals are probably worse off today than in the distant past). Electricity, atomic power, democracy, socialism, feminism and philanthropic capitalism: all these things are in the spirit of Aquarius. God is quickly fading from view, and the idea of submitting to a higher power seems evermore parochial and obscure. New Agers do not ask God for anything, they ask the Universe, as a friend and without submitting to it. Now, astrologers tend to say that Aquarians are driven by a quest for collective consciousness - that is, they are certainly spiritual, but their spirituality is of a different kind from Pisceans. But what does this mean? Why does this non-conformist individualist want to blend with others into some form of higher, collective consciousness?

Consider Socrates. Through his broad-minded, universalist logic he produces an "essence of truth" and then makes it visible to his adversary. The end result is that they both "see the truth" right before their eyes in exactly the same way. But this does not have to be a matter of scholastic debate, not at all: the methods may differ between Aquarians, but the quintessential Aquarian always strives for just this: to achieve a harmony of vision between people. That way, their minds become instances of a higher, universal mind.

There are of course other, more concrete examples of this. Marx posited that workers suffered from "false consciousness" so long as they did not realize their true, objective interests. Many feminist and other political groups frequently hold workshops to "raise consciousness". Yet the New Agers do not want to raise consciousness politically, but spiritually, through music, mantras, yoga and the like. In the tradition of above-mentioned Yogi Bhajan, here is a wonderful example of such a practice with music.

The Piscean morality is built around faith, devotion and submission. The Aquarian morality is built on Reason with a capital R. Pisces may be surprised that Aquarius can be moral without resorting to a higher power, but for Aquarius Reason constitues a kind of higher power, only you do not submit to it, you participate in it!

Now it only remains to be seen whether Aquarian man can keep serving humanity without trampling the natural world in the process; whether he can tame the machines he has created in the service of the greater good.

Political Correctness Has Always Been A Thing

Do not whine about "PC culture". Realize that all societies have taboos on what is considered decent to say in public. Would you really like it to be otherwise? Rather, if you are unhappy with the status quo, you are most likely trying to shift the window of political correctness in another direction. Excepting the most childish Neoliberals, most everyone who cares for the well-being of society understands that it needs boundaries, including boundaries on public expression of opinions.

If you do want to change the window of public expression, start in private. Discuss with close friends and confidantes such issues that you would be afraid to raise in public. In some cases, it may turn out that you simply needed to ventilate something and, having done so, you realize that it did sound kind of stupid after all. No harm done so long as you do it with a trusted friend. We simply need to express an opinion before we fully know if we believe in it, in some cases. We need to taste it, hear what it sounds like after it has left the world of ideas and become manifest as speech. The problem with political correctness - whatever form it may take - is not that it puts up boundaries for public speech, but that it can stifle thought itself. Circumvent this problem through private discussions, and you will also get a better understanding of where the boundaries are. You may, in private, occassionally cross such as boundary - make sure you notice when you do! If you never cross this boundary, if you prefer to stay safe and never even approach it, your boundaries for thought will shrink much more than necessary, or you may suddenly find yourself crossing the boundary in a drastic and crude manner.

It is sometimes puzzling to observe when a populist politician crosses such a boundary without having the slightest understanding of doing so. Last year in Sweden, for instance, the politician Martin Strid from the Sweden Democrats held a speech where he described how all people exist on a scale from being 100 % human/humane or 100 % Muhammedan (creating a pun in Swedish), because Islam at its core constitutes some kind of fanatic death-cult - a view which in itself is rather fanatic, we might add. Only later did it occur to Strid that his political career was now over, thank you very much and goodbye. One newspaper later summarized his excuse (translation mine): 

"It was very unfortunate, I expressed myself very crudely. I apologize for that," says Strid and claims that he had been stressed due to short speaking time.

One may well wonder what on Earth was going through this man's head as he entered the podium to deliver this career-ending speech. Probably he had convinced himself that what he was about to say sounded perfectly reasonable - it sounded outlandish and appalling. A benevolent interpretation would have it that Strid did not at all mean to say "Muslims are not humans", but simply "Muslims are indoctrinated in a way that inhibits their humanity." But 21th century Mass Media does not thrive on nuances, which he should have been well aware of (and for clarity, I care nothing for this latter interpretation of his position either).

In India there is a saying: "When in public, be a Vaishnava. When among friends, be a Shaiva. But in private, always be a Shakta." What does this mean? First a clarification: a Vaishnava is a devotee of the benign Vishnu, Lord of Preservation; a Shaiva is a follower of Lord Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds as well as the limited ego. A Shakta is a devotee of Shakti, the divine feminine power, the Goddess - variously associated with grace, the world as beauty, primordial womb, darkness and mystery. So in public, one behaves as a pious Vaishnava, observing all exoteric rites and rules of propriety, never transgressing against any law, never associating with impure foods, practices or people. When among friends, spiritual seekers celebrate the intoxicating power of Shiva and possibly compete with each other for his favor. They may even push each other to the limit, occassionally engaging in things that would not be appropriate in public. Finally, when one private, the adept retreats even from the bluster and combativeness of his Shaivite friends and basks in the grace of the Divine Mother, the most intimate and serene mystery. This, at least, is my understanding of what the saying means, although I readily confess that I have never had it explained to me.

What this teaches us is that there are various levels of speech, interaction and action - everything is not appropriate at all levels. Establish clear boundaries between your intimate sphere, your private sphere and your public sphere, and know what activities belong where. Perhaps you will even find, ultimately, that there is no need to try to bring certain things into the public sphere, whether opinions, attitudes or transgressive social practices.

Harappans and Aryans

Who were the Aryans? Most people know that the German National Socialists under Hitler called their master race Aryans, comprising Germans and North Europeans broadly speaking (though excluding the eastern Slavs). Less well-known among people in general is from where the idea of an Aryan race was picked up. The historical Aryans were the descendants of a group of nomadic pastoralists that had emigrated from their Urheimat (original homeland) in the Pontic-Caspian steppe (roughly Ukraine) and founded a culture along the southern tip of the Ural mountains known as the Sintashta culture. This culture is known for its development of chariot technology and pioneering of copper working. There are also traces in the burial practices of religious beliefs that would later find themselves into the Vedic hymns of Hinduism. Whereas the Ukrainian nomads spoke Proto-Indo-European - the mother of all Indo-European languages today - the Sintashta culture is associated with Indo-Iranian, a branch derived from the original language. At a later stage, these Indo-Iranians migrated southwards into Central Asia and eventually split up, one branch moving into Iran and the Middle East (and eventually expanding all the way back to the Ukraine), another moving into India. The linguistic branches that now formed are termed Iranian and Indo-Aryan, respectively. But on both sides of the divide, the people called themselves "Arya" - the noble ones.

The Indian Aryans - Indo-Aryans - now began to compose a collection of hymns known as the Veda. This was around 1300 BC, and the language they now spoke was Sanskrit, though a more archaic form than the classical Sanskrit of India today. Through the Veda we know not only what they called themselves, but also how they lived and what they valued. They petitioned with various deities for success in worldly endeavours, ranging from the protection of livestock, to the attainment of sons, to victory in battle. Above all this was a culture of heroic warfare, where the thunder-god Indra played a particular role accompanying fast-flying warriors into battle.

Fast forward to the 18th century, when European contact with and colonization of India began to open up a new field of linguistics to European scholars. One of these was Sir William Jones, who served as a judge in British Bengal during much of the 1780s and 1790s. Jones was not the first one to notice similarities between Sanskrit and European languages, but nevertheless the following paragraph of his has become famous:

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

Jones also suggested that an Aryan invasion of India had established the "racial divide" between light-skinned and dark-skinned people in India, and in this suggestion he seems to have been the first. This would spur ideas among white supremacists in Europe that the Aryans had been bringers of civilization to India, and that the caste system had been established to preserve the purity of the Aryan stock. Nevertheless, after many generations the Aryans had mixed so much with the natives that their culture degenerated and Indian civilization began to stagnate and decline. Ultimately, when this package of ideas has been picked up by Adolf Hitler, the concept Aryan had begun to denote the first speakers of the original Indo-European language - proto-Indo-European - and their role in spreading civilization had been dramatically expanded. The Aryan homeland was variously cited as Germany or Iran among other places. Today the label Aryan is usually reserved for the Vedic Aryans, speakers of ancient Sanskrit, while the Urheimat of the proto-Indo-Europeans has been shown convincingly in The Horse, the Wheel and Language to have been the aforementioned Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Beginning in the 1920s, a new discovery complicated the picture of ancient India. Ancient, planned cities began to be excavated in Punjab and along the Indus river in present-day Pakistan. This ancient civilization, spanning from around 3300 BC to 1300 BC, has been termed the Indus valley civilization, due to its center around the Indus river valley; it is also called the Harappan civilization, Harappa being one of the earliest points of excavation, which conveniently allows us to call the inhabitants Harappans. Who were these Harappans, then, and what was their relation to the Indo-Aryans?

One theory which seems very straightforward is that the Aryans destroyed the Harappan civilization. The Veda, after all, cherishes warfare and describes the god Indra as a destroyer of forts. (As famously put by Sir Mortimer Wheeler: "Upon circumstantial evidence, Indra stands accused.") Another theory, popular among Indian nationalists, is that the Aryans and the Harappans were one and the same. As for the first theory, I shall content myself with stating that scholars today do not believe this to be the case. No evidence has been found for a destructive invasion, and by the time of the Aryan arrival in Punjab (ca 1500 BC) the Harappan cities had already began to decline due to changes in monsoon patterns in the area. Regarding the second theory, it seems to have been rather strongly refuted just now.

At the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi, a genetic study of ancient remains has now concluded that the inhabitants were "Ancestral South Indian" with some degree of "Iranian farmer" ancestry. This means that they were closely related to South Indian people today, which - given the appearance of the Harappan "dancing girl" statuette - hardly comes as a surprise. They had no ancestry from the Eurasian steppe, i.e. no relation to Aryans.



The problem of course is that this is a very sensitive issue in India itself. If the Aryans were not somehow indigenous, then the foundations of the supposedly eternal Vedic religion are trembling. As an outsider, I am naive enough to suggest that since the Vedas were after all composed within India, they are in a sense indigenous and that Hindu nationalists therefore should not feel threatened by this. On the other hand, if one insists on the historicity of the Hindu epic Ramayana which is said to have taken place during the Treta Yuga - about one million years ago or so - then I can appreciate where the problem lies.


Edit: According to Razib Khan at the Gene Expression blog, some pre-Aryan paternal lineages found their way into the (Aryan) Brahmin community, including from the Indus Valley Civilization.

Earth Overshoot and the Liberal Illusion of Social Equality

The first of August was Earth Overshoot Day, according to the Global Footprint Network, meaning that for the rest of the year humanity as a whole will consume resources faster than the Earth can replenish them. According to the website www.overshootday.org we are now "using 1,7 Earths. We use more ecological resources and services than nature can regenerate through overfishing, overharvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ecosystems can absorb." The countries most responsible for this rampant overconsumption are pointed out in a diagram:

The United States and the Gulf states are among the worst sinners according to their data. Most educated people are probably not surprised by this; but some may be surprised that the oh-so-progressive Nordic countries are all in the top ten (except for Norway which is strangely absent). Many Swedes too would be surprised by this, because - dear foreigners - Sweden is a country where we tell ourselves that we are ahead in transitioning to a sustainable economy. Swedish politicians frequently speak of the need for Sweden to "lead by example" on environmental issues. I believe the above picture sufficiently shows how utterly absurd this worldview is.

The question is: what would happen to the liberal, egalitarian, individualistic culture of a country like Sweden if consumption rates could not be maintained at present levels? The welfare state and the world market have together made many Swedes into truly autonomous individuals, not needing to rely directly on any other human being. Of course, the goods that you buy at the supermarket (or increasingly online) were produced by real people, but these are not people that you have to meet in person, thus the illusion of social equality can be maintained within the country's borders. Or take a more concrete example from another north European country:

In Bhilwara district, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, sandstone slabs form a makeshift fence around a field, marking the boundaries of a temporary worksite. In the centre, *Seema, a tall young woman, lifts sandstone cobbles into large wooden crates. 

A firm in Jaipur, the state capital, has ordered the stones for export to Britain, where they will be used to pave streets and build sea defences. 

Employed by a contractor on piece-rate wages, Seema has no idea where the stones will end up. She arrives for work at 8am, after cooking and cleaning for her family, and works through the peak afternoon heat, her thumb bandaged from recurring cuts. She will be paid 60 rupees (66p) for each crate she fills.

Would Britain be able to import this cobblestone if the women working in these mines had British wages? Be the answer yes or no, it is merely one example of where the wealth and liberty of modern countries and individuals rests on the backs of the super-exploited poor. This has little to do with "capitalism" per se - exploitation such as this is arguably less severe today than in past eras. Nor do I want to fall into the Marxist trap of thinking that "inequality" is the problem here which must be uprooted. Any complex societies must have hierarchies - there are simply no examples of the opposite being true. Rather, what I find rather devious is the collective illusion held in certain wealthy countries that "we are all equals", an illusion that is built on an invisible division of labor between the "core" and the "periphery" in the world system. This illusion allows for a culture to develop within a country where titles are abolished, where social etiquette is no longer required, where everything is just "casual" and "funny" and a little bit childish. Imagine instead if the entire world was one country, where extreme wealth and poverty co-existed door to door (which is of course the case in many dysfunctional states). In such a world, the well-off could not afford to be casual liberals; they would have to fight tooth and claw to maintain their property and privileges, and in the process they would have to explain to themselves and others why they should be entitled to such privilege. Perhaps they are fundamentally different from the poor? Perhaps they have a divine origin or something? Thus backward in time from the illusion of equality to various illusions of inequality. 

Brocialists

Will "the patriarchy" ever go away? Perhaps that depends on your view of human - and masculine - nature. If men and women are "essentially the same", then there is no reason why it could not go away, given the right circumstances. In fact, some would argue that it already has gone away, more or less, in a great number or countries. And yet, it keeps reappearing all the time - fashionably put, "the power structure keeps reproducing itself", despite social reforms intent on eradicating differences in power and indeed behavior between the sexes. Just as socialism could not eradiacte class inequality (although for a time it seemed to be succeeding), feminism does not seem able to get rid of gender roles, aspiring patriarchs or anti-feminist women.

In this article, Apoorva Sripathi identifies the "Brocialist" as a specimen of man who, outwardly progressive, behaves as a jerk toward women in private. Harvey Weinstein is one example. In a Swedish context, Fredrik Virtanen is another: a self-proclaimed feminist journalist who stands accused of rape and sexual assaults. A third one (also Swedish) would be the comedian Soran Ismail, also accused of rape during the MeToo campaign, since aquitted, but still judged since "everyone knows" that he is guilty. Whatever the case, he has publicly made highly disrespectful ("sexist" in modern parlance) jokes towards women, which in itself is enough to include him in the category. Thus he once commented during a gala on a duo of young female artists (Rebecca & Fiona): "They are favorites of mine, partly because I love their music, and partly because I have a fantasy about a three-way with Rebecca and anyone." Seemingly, the reason why he can say this is because a) he is a feminist, which means that he automatically respects women, and b) since he basically does respect women, and because men and women are supposed to be truly equal now, why could he not make such a joke? After all, a woman could (in theory) make such a joke without being labelled a sexist, couldn't she? Therefore, in the worldview of the Brocialist, men and women are essentially the same, and a joke about a threeway directed at a vulnerable, young woman is merely friendly. We are all just friends now, right? Nevertheless, below this public worldview lies another one, where Ismail and his likes understand deeply that a) there are differences, and b) in this being-different-from-men, they do not respect women in the least. They can (sometimes) respect women as friends, but not as women.

Yet perhaps that is precisely what is needed, regardless of how "reactionary" it will be deemed by some. Men need to respect women as women, as mothers, sisters, daughters and in a sense as goddesses. Let every man who automatically classifies women into "available" and "unavailable" shift his focus from the earthly womanliness of a particular woman to the divine femininity of all.

Judaism: The Chosen Few

With my last post in mind, let me first of all clarify that I am by no means a supporter of Israeli occupation policies - it's just that I am no fervent anti-Zionist either. Israel is a curious phenomenon, with its special relationship to the US particularly in mind. Somehow or other it often appears as the face of the American world order: a place where so many of the world's fears and expectations converge and become visible; a place where the guardians of this order will continue to defend their brand of imperialism with any means necessary. It is easy to condemn a great many things about Israel, but it is perhaps more worthwhile to hold back judgment and observe the unfolding of things before one definitely takes a stand.

A more fruitful attempt to understand the history of the Jews and Judaism than Shahak's is - I believe - the book The Chosen Few by Botticini and Eckstein. For no matter how mysterious Judaism and Jewish success in the modern world appear to some, it can to a great degree be explained through the economic theory of rational choice.

The main argument of the book goes as follows: in ancient times, the Israelite religion had been based on two pillars: first, the temple, which was originally built around 1000 BC, later destroyed by the Babylonians but rebuilt; and second, the Torah, which was in place at least a few hundred years BC although its history is more obscure. In the first century CE, several things happened: Judaism had become splintered into various sects, of which Christianity was ultimately going to be the most successful. The other two most influential sects were the Sadducees, keepers of the temple cult, and the Pharisees, teachers of Torah who, unlike the old-school Sadducees, had started to believe in a life after death. Now, in 64 CE the Pharisee Yehoshua ben Gamla was appointed as high priest of the temple. During his short office, he instituted a rule requiring all Jewish parents to ensure that their boys learn to read the Torah. Shortly therafter, a Jewish uprising against Roman rule took place throughout Judea. The Romans massacred the inhabitants of Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple. With the fall of the temple, the Sadducees disappeared as a faction within Judaism. It remained to the Pharisees to define what a post-templar, post-independence Judaism was going to look like. This they did by - slowly over the centuries - beginning to establish the rule on public education for boys throughout the Jewish community.

This had several consequences. First, many Jews, being farmers and pastoralists, had little use for literacy, and as the cost for remaining inside the Jewish community increased, they increasingly opted out and converted to other faiths: Christianity in many cases, and later also Islam. Over time, this led to a sharp decrease in the number of Jews relative to non-Jews living in the Middle East and elsewhere. At the same time, those who remained within the Jewish fold increasingly began to adopt urban occupations, not least involving trade, but also other kinds of professions that required literacy, numeracy, the ability to communicate by mail, the power to keep and enforce contracts, among other things. Universal male literacy allowed Jews to establish themselves in lucrative, urban niche professions, while also maintaining a network with other Jews abroad. By the Middle Ages, and especially after the rise of urbanisation under Islam, Jews spread widely across the world and started to mark themselves out as educated, affluent and urban.

Thus Judaism had embarked on a great transformation from ancient times; the Pharisees, of course, became the rabbis of Rabbinical Judaism. As for the illiterate Jewish men, trying to stay as part of the Jewish community was usually not an option. They became increasingly marginalized and, since they could not take their bar mitzvah (during which they are supposed to read aloud from the Torah), they could not officially enter Jewish manhood, and so the rabbis advised others against marrying their daughters to such men. Much better then to enter into the fold of the dominant creed, where even the poor and illiterate were welcomed with open arms, and where - at least in Christianity - the ritual demands made on the devotee were much more relaxed than in Judaism.

In line with this pattern, Jews tended to concentrate in urbanized societies: Abbasid Mesopotamia, Iberia under Muslim rule and, later, the Christian polities in Italy and northern Europe. When urbanization took hold of Europe, Jews started to appear in its cities; and when the Mongols wrecked the infrastructure of the Middle East, the Jewish share of the population collapsed drastically, even though they were not targeted by the Mongols, as the Sunni Muslims were. "Can Judaism survive when trade and urban economies collapse?" the authors ask, and the answer is a decisive "No".

By the Early Modern period, a great share of European Jews specialized in money-lending. This was simply the most profitable activity available to them, and one in which they had the comparative advantage of education, so why should they have refused it? Later still, the Jewish tradition of education would pay dividends as new occupational fields opened up from the 19th century onwards.



Botticini and Eckstein overturn many conventional wisdoms regarding Jewish history, perhaps a topic for another time. For now I merely want to say that it is rather frustrating when standard histories of Judaism leave out the decision by Yehoshua ben Gamla about universal education for boys. There is no doubt that this ruling together with the destruction of the temple (only a few years later, oddly enough) constitute a decisive breaking point in the history of the Jewish religion.