Gauguin S Questions (P.1 35)

A Short History of Progress 2

Gauguin’s Questions (p.1 – 35)

Wright begins his book with the chapter, Gauguin’s Questions. This person, Paul Gauguin, was a French Painter and writer who lived in the 1800’s. He was on a quest to find the “savage” – primordial man (and woman) which took him to Tahiti and other South Sea islands (p.1). After suffering the loss of his favourite child, he created a painting which demanded answers to our human existence. He wrote 3 questions on the painting, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Wright uses the first two questions to attempt to answer the third in this book. For this course, we will use this information to help us understand how our history has shaped the way business works and will try to understand where it might be headed.

Wright continues to explain how examining various civilizations before us can help us avoid the same faults that led to their extinction. He continues to explain how important it is we change our ways before something disastrous happens. Wright explains that us, humans, have the ability to change and we need too because other creatures do not have this ability. On page 3, he continues to show the importance of this, by stating, humans have made their way in the world so far by trial and error; unlike other creatures, we have the presence so colossal that error is a luxury we can no longer afford.”

 How has trial and error progressed in the world of business?

 Do you believe that corporations take advantage of the trial and error method by ignoring the other facts stated by Wright (e.g. “error is a luxury we can no longer afford?”).

 Do you believe trial and error is the best form of progression or is there something better?

Wright introduces the Victorian ideal of progress, which he says is still evident today. He uses information to describe this from the historian Sidney Pollard who defines this period as, the assumption that a pattern of change exists in the history of mankind...that it consists of irreversible changes in one direction only, and that this direction is towards improvement (p.3). Human’s direction of improvement as he states, is our development of technology and its advancements. Our progress is determinant on all material items and this advancement, which Pollard notes, is a recent one. However, with these advancements, we have stopped thinking about what we may be hurting in the process. Wright notes, We no longer give much thought to moral progress – a prime concern of earlier times – except to assume that it goes hand in hand with the material (p.3).

 Do you agree with Wright?

 How has this progression influenced the way business as we see it now from when it originated?

 Do you believe corporations have used material progress, without thinking of moral progress for their own profit making and corporate interests? In what ways? On page 7, Wright notes that Alexander Pope said, a little learning is a dangerous thing. Wright refers to this as the development of technology and how we are always trying to better these products each time. Until one day, it will have gone too far and it will be the end, of the product but also us.

Who is Alexander Pope?

Alexander Pope (c.1727)

An English poet best known for his Essay on Criticism, Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad Born 21 May 1688 London Died 30 May 1744 (aged 56) Occupation Poet

Pope's formal education ended at this time (around 1700), and from then on he mostly educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden. [2] He also studied many languages and read works by English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from the London literary society such as William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth, William Trumbull, and William Walsh.[2][3]

From the age of 12, he suffered numerous health problems, such as Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis that affects the bone) which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes, and abdominal pain.[2] He never grew beyond 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in) tall. Pope was already removed from society because he was Catholic; his poor health only alienated him further. Although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters. He did have one alleged lover, his lifelong friend, Martha Blount

An Essay on Criticism published in May 1711 was another great work of Pope. At the time the poem was published, the heroic couplet style (in which it was written) was a moderately new genre of poetry, and Pope's most ambitious work. "An Essay on Criticism" was an attempt to identify and refine his own positions as a poet and critic. The poem was said to be a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past.[8]The poem begins with a discussion of the standard rules that govern poetry by which a critic passes judgment. Pope comments on the classical authors who dealt with such standards, and the authority that he believed should be accredited to them. He concludes that the rules of the ancients are identical with the rules of Nature, and fall in the category of poetry and painting, which like religion and morality, reflect natural law.[8]The poem is purposefully unclear and full of contradictions. Pope admits that rules are necessary for the production and criticism, but gives importance to the mysterious and irrational qualities of poetry.[9]He discusses the laws to which a critic should adhere while critiquing poetry, and points out that critics serve an important function in aiding poets with their works, as opposed to the practice of attacking them.[9]The final section of "An Essay on Criticism" discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who, Pope claims, is also the ideal man. In March of 1713, Windsor Forest was published and was a well known success.

Pope's next well known poem was The Rape of the Lock; first published in 1712, with a revised version published in 1714. This is sometimes considered Pope's most popular poem because it was a mock-heroic epic, written to make fun of a high society quarrel between Arabella Fermor (the "Belinda" of the poem) and Lord Petre, who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without her permission. In his poem he treats his characters in an epic style; when the Baron steals her hair and she tries to get it back, it flies into the air and turns into a star.

The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended this poem to be the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. It was a piece of work that Pope intended to make into a larger work; however, he did not live to complete it.[12]The Essay on Man is an attempt to justify the ways of God to Man, and that man is not himself the centre of all things. The essay is not solely Christian; however, it makes an assumption that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation.[12]The Essay on Man consists of four epistles that are addressed to Lord Bolingbroke. Pope presents an idea or his view on the Universe; he says that no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe appears to be, it functions in a rational fashion according to the natural laws. The natural laws consider the Universe as a whole a perfect work of God. To humans it appears to be evil and imperfect in many ways; however, Pope points out that this is due to our limited mindset and limited intellectual capacity. Pope gets the message across that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain of Being" which is at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. If we are able to accomplish this then we potentially could lead happy and virtuous lives.[12]

Reference: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope

Pope died the greatest poet of his age. However, by the mid-eighteenth century new fashions in poetry started to emerge. A decade after Pope's death, Joseph Warton claimed that Pope's style of poetry was not the most excellent form of the art. In the twentieth century an effort to revive Pope's reputation began and was successful. Pope's work was now found to be full of references to the people and places of his time and these aided individuals' understanding of the past.

 How do you feel about Pope’s reflection?

 Why would Wright refer to a poet to explain the way technology is advancing too quickly?

 How does “a little learning” affect the way in which corporations market products to consumers?  How has this statement influenced consumerism today?

 What do you think will happen to the world of business if this further progression continues?

Herman Norrie Northrop Frye, CC, FRSC (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957), one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century. American critic Harold Bloom commented at the time of its publication that Anatomy established Frye as "the foremost living student of Western literature."[1] Frye's contributions to cultural and social criticism spanned a long career during which he earned widespread recognition and received many honours.

Contribution to literary criticism

The insights gained from his study of Blake set Frye on his critical path and shaped his contributions to literary criticism and theory. He was the first critic to postulate a systematic theory of criticism, "to work out," in his own words, "a unified commentary on the theory of literary criticism" (Stubborn Structure 160). In so doing, he shaped the discipline of criticism. Inspired by his work on Blake, Frye developed and articulated his unified theory ten years after Fearful Symmetry, in the Anatomy of Criticism (1957). He described this as an attempt at a "synoptic view of the scope, theory, principles, and techniques of literary criticism" (Anatomy 3). He asked: "what if criticism is a science as well as an art?" (7), Thus, Frye launched the pursuit which was to occupy the rest of his career—that of establishing criticism as a "coherent field of study which trains the imagination quite as systematically and efficiently as the sciences train the reason" (Hamilton 34).

Contribution to the theorizing of Canada

Frye's international reputation allowed him to champion Canadian literature at a time when to do so was considered provincial. Frye argued that regardless of the formal quality of the writing, it was imperative to study Canadian literary productions in order to understand the Canadian imagination and its reaction to the Canadian environment.[6] During the 1950s, Frye wrote annual surveys of Canadian poetry for the University of Toronto Quarterly, which led him to observe recurrent themes and preoccupations in Canadian poetry.[7] Subsequently, Frye elaborated on these observations, especially in his conclusion to Carl F. Klinck's Literary History of Canada (1965). In this work, Frye presented the idea of the "garrison mentality" as the attitude from which Canadian literature has been written. The garrison mentality is the attitude of a member of a community that feels isolated from cultural centres and besieged by a hostile landscape.[8] Frye maintained that such communities were peculiarly Canadian, and fostered a literature that was formally immature, that displayed deep moral discomfort with "uncivilized" nature, and whose narratives reinforced social norms and values.[8]

Frye collected his disparate writings on Canadian writing and painting in The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination (1971). He also aided James Polk in compiling Divisions on a Ground: Essays on Canadian Culture (1982). In the posthumous Collected Works of Northrop Frye, his writings on Canada occupy the thick 12th volume.[9]

Based on his observations of Canadian literature, Frye concluded that, by extension, Canadian identity was defined by a fear of nature, by the history of settlement and by unquestioned adherence to the community. However, Frye perceived the ability and advisability of Canadian (literary) identity to move beyond these characteristics. Frye proposed the possibility of movement beyond the literary constraints of the garrison mentality: growing urbanization, interpreted as greater control over the environment, would produce a society with sufficient confidence for its writers to compose more formally advanced detached literature.[1

On page 15, Wright continues to discuss human development and describes various people throughout history who have tried to determine what exactly is a man? Wright states the development of speech as being one of the most important factors to development of cultures across the world. The human word, Northrop Frye wrote in another context, is the power that orders our chaos. Northrop gave this quote while giving a lecture “Humanities in a New World” while working at Victoria College. He argued, the two great instruments that man has devised for understanding and transforming the world are words and numbers. The primary concern of the humanities - language and literature – is the disinterested study of words. This kind of knowledge is crucial to society (Frye, Denham, O'Grady, French).

 Why would Wright use this quote from Frye to describe human development?

 How was the “human word” significant to human development according to Wright?  If the human word did not develop in human beings, how do you think the progression of business would be different? Would there be any similarities?

References:

Collected works of Northrop Frye: Northrop Frye’s writings on education http://books.google.ca/books? id=aAevZoPMrMYC&pg=PR30&lpg=PR30&dq=Northrop+Frye+The+human+word+is+the+pow er+that+orders+our+chaos&source=bl&ots=5qDTQKrT7z&sig=vMjK- QR149DoszJISUU73iCJh2Q&hl=en&ei=A4tZTP_rCsuTnQfIp5D6CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct= result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

University of Toronto Press

By Northrop Frye, Robert D. Denham, Jean O'Grady, Goldwin Sylvester French

On page 20-21 Wright discusses when fire was first used. At about this same time, around half a million years ago, is the evolution of homo erectus. Wright begins to discuss modern apes and how they teach their young traditions and habits, just as humans do. Wright states, In short, apes have the beginnings of culture. So do other intelligent creatures...but no species except humankind has reached the point at which culture becomes the main driver of an evolutionary surge, outrunning environmental and physical constraints (p.21).

 How is the driver of culture in humankind relevant to what we know about the current world climate change issues?

 In your opinion, how has development of culture in humans, effected the way consumers think and buy.

 What other observations can you make regarding Wright’s notes on human development and its significance on what we know about ourselves today?

The Great Experiment (p.37 – 71)

1. Wright titles this chapter, the great experiment. What is the great experiment to which he is referring?

 Why is this experiment so important?  What does he believe this great experiment is leading us to?

 Discuss what Wright means when he describes the “traps.”

Wright begins to discuss that our modern subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens, are older than the oldest civilization. Wright defines both culture and civilization in anthropological ways. By culture I mean the whole of any society’s knowledge, beliefs, and practices. Civilizations are a specific kind of culture: large, complex societies based on the domestication of plants, animals, and human beings. He ends this discussion with this quote: All civilizations are cultures, or conglomerates of cultures, but not all cultures are civilizations (p.42).

 Discuss what Wright means when he says, All civilizations are cultures, but not all cultures are civilizations.

 Discuss aspects of culture and your thought about its influence on the origin of business.

At the gates of the Colosseum and the concentration camp, we have no choice but to abandon hope that civilization is,in itself, a guarantor of moral progress. Wright states with this quote that when we talk about past civilizations and how they lived, we always refer to the peoples as savages. He explains no matter if it was during the times of the Colosseum, or concentration camps, we are still killing each other unmercifully so how we cannot call ourselves savages still? He is saying no matter the civilization we are still progressing the same as we did throughout history (p.42-45).

 Can you give any current examples which may prove this to be true?

 Compare a corporation to the idea of Wright’s “savage.” How are they similar and different?

On page 47 Wright begins to discuss the culture phenomenon. Culture, he says, is fast paced in our society and continues to be with our development. During the Old Stone Age, the creation of fire helped us survive and with this weapons were developed. Wright describes this as our societies evolving with culture, developing items we need to live, not developing them because we were getting more intelligent as we evolved. ...this spurt of art and technology cannot (as some claim) be evidence that we suddenly evolved into a new species with brand new cognitive powers. But it is evidence of a familiar cultural pattern: leisure born of a food surplus. The hunters and gatherers were producing more than mere subsistence, giving themselves time to paint the walls, make beads and effigies, play music, indulge in religious rituals. For the first time, people were rich (p.47).  Do you feel with the rise of a capitalistic culture we have lost this leisurely time to essentially do what we want?

 As a culture have we lost the drive to leisure or are we only concerned with money making no matter what cost

Next Wright discusses the move of humankind 15, 000 years ago across the world. During these travels and settlements, humankind begins to rip the lands of big game and leave a lasting print of ecological damage. Wright finishes with this description; a bad smell of extinction follows Homo sapiens around the world (p.48).

 What does Wright mean with his last quote?

 Do you agree with Wright? Why or why not.

 Can you make any connections with present day using Wright’s statement?

The perfection of hunting spelled the end of hunting as a way of life. Easy meat meant more babies. More babies meant more hunters. More hunters, sooner or later, meant less game. Most of the great human migrations across the world at this time must have been driven by want, as we bankrupted the land with our moveable feasts. (p. 54).

 Driven by want is a powerful statement within this paragraph, is this a relevant observation to make in today’s society? Why or why not.

 How has the drive of want effect the way business market to consumers?

 Do you believe this want is just progression of materials like Wright states, or is innate in humans?

 How do businesses affect our wants and needs?

Wright begins to tell us about domestication of animals and the new world beginning to plant their own food. This growing gave humans the ability to gather their own food instead of going to hunt for it. Since they had ripped the land of all the big game, they found new ways of producing their food, by agriculture. He states, the more predictable the food supply, the bigger the population. (p.60)

 In today’s news we continue to hear about food shortages, however, our populations are still growing. We also know that much of the food being grown is fed to animals that are slaughtered to feed us. Do you think this is one of the further progressions, at which may become the end of us, which Wright discusses in the first chapter?  How has our capitalist culture influenced food supply in the world?

 Do you think we should abandon capitalism and begin supplying our own food to our own people, or do you believe it is those countries who have not developed a capitalist/democratic culture own faults for not adopting the ways of the western cultures?

On page 66, Wright explains how early towns and villages after the last ice age were communities where everyone shared in the responsibilities. Everyone owned the land and others who had more, shared with the less fortunate.

 In our culture today, do you think we could get away from capitalism and begin to run our country using these old ideologies of true democracy? Do you believe it could work? Or can this only work if we see a major world crisis occur of food shortages, environmental disasters and deaths?

 Could a business adopt the model of equal community sharing? Where everyone in the company has the same amount of power or does it need to hold true the ways of businesses today, an hierarchy of power?

Fool’s Paradise (p. 72 – 107)

Archaeology is perhaps the best tool we have for looking ahead, because it provides a deep reading of the direction and momentum of our course through time: what we are, where we have come from, and therefore, where we are most likely to be going, (p. 74). Wright uses archaeology to describe findings from past civilizations which we may have forgotten about; which can help us understand better where we may be headed as a civilization.

 What can we use from this to reflect on what we know about the business world?

 How can it help us understand the origin of business and where it’s going?

On page 75 through 85, Wright begins to discuss Captain Cook’s discovery of Easter Island.

 What did they find at Easter Island when they first arrived?

 What did scientists later find out was the truth of Easter Island and how did they determine this information?

 Can you make any connections with what we are doing today in our own environment?

 What was significant about the stone images found at Easter Island?  What did we learn from Easter Island?

On page 86, Wright discusses the earliest civilization, Sumer, what is now Southern Iraq.

Sumer (Sumerian: �� ki-en-ĝir15 "Land of the Lords of Brightness",[1][2] Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar) was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq. It is the earliest known civilization in the world and is known as the Cradle of Civilization. The Sumerian civilization spanned over 3000 years[3] and began with the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period (mid 6th millennium BC) through the Uruk period (4th millennium BC) and the Dynastic periods (3rd millennium BC) until the rise of Babylonia in the early 2nd millennium BC. Sumer was the birthplace of writing, the wheel, agriculture, the arch and irrigation.

The cities of Sumer were the first civilization to practice intensive, year-round agriculture, (from ca. 5300 BC). By perhaps 5000 BC, the Sumerians had developed core agricultural techniques including large- scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and the use of a specialized labor force. The surplus of storable food created by this economy allowed the population to settle in one place instead of migrating after crops and grazing land. It also allowed for a much greater population density, and in turn required an extensive labor force and division of labor. This organization led to the development of writing (ca. 3500 BC).

Social and family life A reconstruction in the British Museum of headgear and necklaces worn by the women in some Sumerian graves

In the early Sumerian period (i.e. Uruk), the primitive pictograms suggest[17] that:

 "Pottery was very plentiful, and the forms of the vases, bowls and dishes were manifold ; there were special jars for honey, butter, oil and wine, which was probably made from dates, and one form of vase had a spout protruding from its side. Some of the vases had pointed feet, and stood on stands with crossed legs ; others were flat-bottomed, and were set on square or rectangular frames of wood. The oil-jars - and probably others also - were sealed with clay, precisely as in early Egypt. Vases and dishes of stone were made in imitation of those of clay, and baskets were woven of reeds or formed of leather."  "A feathered head-dress was worn on the head. Beds, stools and chairs were used, with carved legs resembling those of an ox. There were fire-places and fire-altars, and apparently chimneys also."  "Knives, drills, wedges and an instrument which looks like a saw were all known, while bows, arrows and daggers (but not swords nor, probably, spears) were employed in war."  "Tablets were used for writing purposes, and copper, gold and silver were worked by the smith. Daggers with metal blades and wooden handles were worn, and copper was hammered into plates, while necklaces or collars were made of gold."  "Time was reckoned in lunar months." Language and writing Main articles: Sumerian language and Cuneiform

The most important archaeological discoveries in Sumer are a large number of tablets written in Sumerian. Sumerian writing is the oldest example of writing on earth. Although pictures - that is, hieroglyphs were first used, symbols were later made to represent syllables. Triangular or wedge-shaped reeds were used to write on moist clay. This is called cuneiform. A large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in the Sumerian language has survived, such as personal or business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, daily records, and even libraries full of clay tablets. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects like statues or bricks are also very common. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes-in-training. Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become the ruling race. The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no known language family; Akkadian, by contrast belongs to the Afro-Asiatic languages. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian to other language groups. It is an agglutinative language; in other words, morphemes ("units of meaning") are added together to create words, unlike analytic languages where morphemes are purely added together to create sentences.

Religion Main article: Sumerian religion

Tell Asmar votive sculpture 2750-2600 B.C

There was no organized set of gods; each city-state had its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings. The Sumerians were probably the first to write down their beliefs, which were the inspiration for much of later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology.

The Sumerians worshipped:  Anu as the full time god, equivalent to "heaven" - indeed, the word "an" in Sumerian means "sky" and his consort Ki, means "Earth".  Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki was the god of beneficence, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath the earth, a healer and friend to humanity who was thought to have given us the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law-book was considered his creation,  Enlil, lord of the ghost-land, in the north at the temple of Nippur. His gifts to mankind were said to be the spells and incantations that the spirits of good or evil were compelled to obey,  Inanna, the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple (shared with An) at Uruk.  The sun-god Utu at Sippar,  the moon god Nanna at Ur.

These deities were probably the original matrix; there were hundreds of minor deities. The Sumerian gods thus had associations with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with those cities' political power. The gods were said to have created human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. If the temples/gods ruled each city it was for their mutual survival and benefit—the temples organized the mass labor projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple which they were allowed to avoid by a payment of silver only towards the end of the third millennium. The temple-centered farming communities of Sumer had a social stability that enabled them to survive for four millennia.

Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a tin dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).[citation needed]

Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification.[citation needed] The temple itself had a central nave with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. After a time the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the later Ziggurat style.[citation needed]

Mathematics Main article: Babylonian mathematics

The Sumerians developed a complex system of metrology c. 4000 BC. This metrology advanced resulting in the creation of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. From 2600 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period.[23] The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the abacus, and a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.[24] The Sumerians were the first to use a place value numeral system. There is also anecdotal evidence the Sumerians may have used a type of slide rule in astronomical calculations. They were the first to find the area of a triangle and the volume of a cube.

Reference: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_civilization In the early days, Sumerian land was owned communally, and people brought their crops, or at least their surplus...As time went by, the cities grew layer by layer into manmade hills crowned with the typical Mesopotamian step-pyramid, or ziggurat, a sacred mountain commanding the human realm (p.91).

 Discuss the ways in which what happened to the communal living environment reflects the ways hierarchy in business work.

The Sumerians had farmland however, lacked most other things town life required (for example, timber, flint, metals, etc.)Trade and property became highly important, and have been close to the heart of Western culture ever since.

 Why do you think this is significant?

 How may it relate to the origins of business?

On page 93 and 94, Wright discusses the Sumerians rise of power for only certain individuals.

 What connections can you make between the Sumerians and our society with regards to capitalism?

On page 101, Wright states, In civilization, it has always mattered who you are.

 Why do you think this statement is significant?

 Was this important to the Sumerian civilization?

On page 102, Wright discusses how the “food growers” always outnumbered the wealthy, just like in today’s society. However, the wealthy were to share the food with the poor during times of crop failure. He explains that most of the civilizations did not have the resources or storage at times of major crisis. Effective food security was as rare in the past as it is today in the Third World (p.74).

 How is this a current example of capitalism?

On page 106, Wright describes one of the most seductive progress traps in Southern Iraq.

 What is the trap he is describing?

 Why is it the most seductive trap?

Also on page 106, Wright describes a new technology by the Sumerians which failed them.  What is the new technology?

 What happened to it and why?

On page 106, Wright states, Like the Easter Islanders, the Sumerian failed to reform their society to reduce its environmental impact

 Describe the environmental destruction similarities and differences between Easter Island and the Sumer civilization.

Pyramid Schemes (p. 107 – 148)

In this chapter, Wright describes the fall of Rome and Maya civilizations however, differing from Easter Island and Sumer because they do not destroy themselves completely. He also looks briefly at China and Egypt.

On page 114, Wright discusses the difference between the Sumerians and Greeks with regards to deforestation and how each civilization dealt with this problem.

 How did the Athenians deal with their deforestation problem?

 What happened to Southern Italy and Sicily well wooded areas?

Current Greek Environmental Issues:

Acid rain

Acid rain is a widespread problem throughout what world, which affects not only agricultural aspects of the environment, as well as affecting the health of Greece's lakes, but also man-made buildings too. Acid rain has had a detrimental effect upon the Parthenon and other Ancient Monuments in Athens though a partial reconstruction process has been underway for some time now.

Deforestation

In the summer of 2007 Greece suffered heavily from arson induced forest fires which stripped the country of a significant proportion of its forests.

Current policies Greece is a signatory member of the Kyoto Protocol but there has been much sharp criticism from the failure to meet their intended targets for cutting carbon emissions, many have claimed that policies have not been tough enough and the protocol has not been implemented in full owing to large business interests, though the Government denies this. The Government has also attracted sharp criticism about its waste management plans, as has the Mayor of Athens, though there are plans for new plants to be built to deal with the surplus of waste the city has. However, spatial planning is being promoted for the protection of resources from exhaustion, destruction and pollution and is part of a wider Government plan addressing Environmental issues. The Athens Metro has also relieved some pressure in terms of car pollution in Athens and the planned Thessaloniki Metro will undoubtedly help the situation there too. The municipality of Athens has also announced a plan to deal with pollution in the city, though the exact details are as yet unknown.

Reference: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_Greece

On page 115 there is a picture of a goat with the subtitle; one of the worst features of the goat is that it can climb up into lower branches, killing even mature trees by gnawing off the bark. Below the picture Wright briefly describes what he means by this picture.

 Why does Wright have an illustration and brief story about goats on this page?

On page 118, Wright discusses Rome’s conquests which were private enterprises. Roman citizens who went to war came back with booty, slaves and a flow of tribute exacted by local agents on commission whose techniques included extortion and loansharking. Cicero claims that Brutus lent money to a Cypriot town at an interest rate of 48% - evidently a common practice, and an early precedent of Third World debt.

 Why can this tell us about the early origins of capitalism? Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero Born January 3, 106 BC Arpinum, Italy Died December 7, 43 BC (aged 63) Formia, Italy Occupation Politician, lawyer, orator and philosopher Nationality Ancient Roman Subjects politics, law, philosophy, oratory Literary movement Golden Age Latin Notable work(s) Politics: In Verrem, Catiline Orations, Philippics Philosophy: De Inventione

Marcus Tullius Cicero (pronounced /ˈsɪsɨroʊ/; Classical Latin: [ˈkikeroː]; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.[1][2]

He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia)[3] distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. An impressive orator and successful lawyer, Cicero thought that his political career was his most important achievement. Today, he is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st-century BC biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters contained such a wealth of detail "concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need for a history of the period.[4] Cicero's speeches and letters remain some of the most important primary sources that survive on the last days of the Roman Republic.

During the chaotic latter half of the first century B.C. marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. However, his career as a statesman was marked by inconsistencies and a tendency to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate. His indecision may be attributed to his sensitive and impressionable personality; he was prone to overreaction in the face of political and private change. "Would that he had been able to endure prosperity with greater self-control and adversity with more fortitude!" wrote C. Asinius Pollio, a contemporary Roman statesman and historian.[5][6] Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and subsequently murdered in 43 BC.

Reference Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero

 Compare Ancient Rome with Canada. What conclusions can you make about their society and ours (refer to government and business).

Wright discusses Joseph Tainter’s book on social collapse to explain Rome’s fall on page 123.

 What is Parkinson’s Law?

 Why does Wright refer to Joseph Tainter’s book?

Parkinson's Law From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law

Parkinson's Law is the adage first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955:[1][2]

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

It was later reprinted together with other essays in the book Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress (London, John Murray, 1958). He derived the dictum from his extensive experience in the British Civil Service.

The current form of the law is not that which Parkinson refers to by that name in the article. Rather, he assigns to the term a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time. Much of the essay is dedicated to a summary of purportedly scientific observations supporting his law, such as the increase in the number of employees at the Colonial Office while Great Britain's overseas empire declined (indeed, he shows that the Colonial Office had its greatest number of staff at the point when it was folded into the Foreign Office because of a lack of colonies to administer). He explains this growth by two forces: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He notes in particular that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done."

In 1986, Alessandro Natta complained about the swelling bureaucracy in Italy. Mikhail Gorbachev responded that "'Parkinson's Law works everywhere."[ Reference: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law

Rome exported environmental load to colonies, becoming dependent on grain from North Africa and the Middle East (page 126).

 What does this tell us about business with regards to trade?

 What eventually happened to the mass Empire of Rome?

Refer to the picture of the black zero on page 130.

 Who was said to invent the number zero?

 What is the Long Count and who invented it?

 What month did Julius Caesar name after himself?

On page143, Wright describes what happened to the Mayan’s once they reached the crisis of drought.

 What did they do?

 Compare this occurrence to a business organization when faced with crisis (for example, financial crisis).

 What is a major crisis today that we can compare with what happened to the Mayan’s that is occurring (ie. Oil wars).

How did Egypt and China’s farming technology differ from the Rome and Maya civilizations?

The Rebellion of the Tools (p. 149 – 190)

On page 107, Wright describes Joseph Tainter’s 3 kinds of trouble, The Runaway Train, The Dinosaur, and The House of Cards.

 Give an example of how these work together, from the book and your own example. Joseph A. Tainter (Born December 8, 1949) is a U.S. anthropologist and historian.

Tainter studied anthropology at the University of California and Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975. He is currently a professor in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. His previous positions include Project Leader of Cultural Heritage Research, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Albuquerque, New Mexico and professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Tainter is also the author or editor of many articles and monographs. His best-known work is The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988), which examines the collapse of Maya and Chacoan civilizations,[1] and the Roman Empire, in terms of network theory, energy economics and complexity theory. Tainter argues that sustainability or collapse follow from the success or failure of problem-solving institutions[2] and that societies collapse when their investments in social complexity and their "energy subsidies" reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. He recognizes collapse when a society rapidly sheds a significant portion of its complexity.

Social complexity

According to Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, societies become more complex as they try to solve problems. Social complexity can be recognized by differentiated social and economic roles and many mechanisms through which they are coordinated, and by reliance on symbolic and abstract communication, and the existence of a class of information producers and analysts who are not involved in primary resource production. Such complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning the consumption of resources, or other forms of wealth). When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of energy, or difficulty in gaining access to it, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Tainter applies his model to three case studies: The Western Roman Empire, the Maya civilization, and the Chaco culture.

For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses (in the concrete forms of metals, grain, slaves, etc). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory. Intense, authoritarian efforts to maintain cohesion by Domitian and Constantine the Great only led to an ever greater strain on the population. The empire was split into two halves, of which the western soon fragmented into smaller units. The eastern half, being wealthier, was able to survive longer, and did not collapse but instead succumbed slowly and piecemeal, because unlike the western empire it had powerful neighbors able to take advantage of its weakness.

We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe for everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off. Archeological evidence from human bones indicates that average nutrition actually improved after the collapse in many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome complexity of empire. Tainter notes that in the west, local populations in many cases greeted the barbarians as liberators.

Reference Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter

With what we know about climate change and our continuous technology advances, do you think we could prevent our own destruction? Or do you agree with Wright who argues it is inevitable based on our history? While prevention might have been easy, a cure may be impossible, a city isn’t easily moved.This human inability to foresee – or to watch out for – long range consequences may be inherent to our kind...” (p.151).

 Do you think a cure is impossible for what we have done in the world today (degradation, poverty, drought, etc).

 Do you think business is headed in this direction of an impossible cure, based on what we see with business today?

On page 157 Wright begins to describe the young empires of the Aztecs (Mexico) and Incas (Tawantinsuyu) in the 1500s, which were invaded and came under Spanish rule. Both had roughly 20 million people, midway in scale between ancient Egypt and China.

 What happened to the Aztec and Inca Empires?

 What did authors Crosby and McNeil show was the consequences to these Empires? (refer to illustration and quote on page 158 – 9).

The invasion of outsiders (The Europeans) affected the Aztec and Inca Empires destructions by bringing new germs which these Empires could not sustain.

 Discuss this theme of “invasion of outsiders” and how this relates to corporations spreading their capitalist interests to other parts of the world. On page 162, Wright discusses the Europeans affect on the New World. The Europeans used the surviving Aztec and Inca people to work the mines for gold and silver. The Europeans used these treasures to finance shipbuilding, gun foundries and wars. Also their new found crops led to better diets but also exporting to Africa, Asia and other areas of Europe. Certain crops, such as maize and potatoes, were twice as productive, which led to less land use and workforce. This workforce (African slaves) was moved by the Europeans across the Atlantic to grow sugar, cotton, and coffee items they did not grow in that area of Europe. Also refer to illustrations on page 163-4).

 Discuss the connections between slavery of Africans by the Europeans Wright discusses on page 162 - 165 to modern day corporate slavery.

 What can these connections tell us about our labour force?

Also on page 165-6, Wright discusses the invention of farm machinery and rediscovery of guano. This was a good thing based on the new crop demands; however commercial farming became dependent on chemical fertilizers made from oil and gas.

 Wright uses this quote; Fossil energy not only powers but feeds the modern world, to describe this arising issue.

 Why is this significant to our society today?

Guano (from the Quechua 'wanu', via Spanish) is the excrement (feces and urine) of seabirds, bats, and seals.[1] Guano manure is an effective fertilizer and gunpowder ingredient due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. Superphosphate made from guano is used for aerial topdressing. Soil that is deficient in organic matter can be made more productive by addition of this manure.

Composition

Guano consists of ammonia, along with uric, phosphoric, oxalic, and carbonic acids, as well as some earth salts and impurities. Guano also has a high concentration of nitrates. Currently vast volumes of phosphorus are needed to produce fertilizer, as it is an essential plant macronutrient. Guano is rich in phosphorus and is an intensely effective phosphorus fertilizer.

Properties

In agriculture and gardening guano has a number of uses, including as: soil builder, lawn treatment, fungicide (when fed to plants through the leaves), nematicide (decomposing microbes help control nematodes), and as composting activator (nutrients and microbes speed up decomposition).[ Reference Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano

Wright describes new machinery and dependence on oil throughout this chapter, discuss your thoughts on the role of technology and how it is changing the face of business with regards to employment and what might the future of where technology is going will affect employment.

Continuing with the theme of technology advancements and threat of machine, on page 170, Wright describes the ancient story of “The Rebellion of the Tools” in the Maya creation epic, the Popol Vuh, where human beings are overthrown by their farm and household implements.

And all [those things] begin to speak...”You...shall feel our strength. We shall grind and tear your flesh to pieces,” said their grinding stones...At the same time, their griddles and pots spoke: “Pain and suffering you have caused us...You burned us as if we felt no pain. Now you shall feel it, we shall burn you.”

 What conclusions can you make from this very powerful statement?

With the increase production of machines in the early 19th century, writers began to wonder how much else would happen in their century. What Gauguin question was Victorian novelists trying to answer and why?

 Why is this currently significant?

On page 177, Wright describes a dystopian novel, A Scientific Romance, which he published in 1997. He calls it depressing because certain “fictious” incidents he wrote about, actually occurred in the world. He then connects these disasters to our ideas of hope for the world and ourselves. He uses our hope to describe the capitalist world we live in. Hope, like greed, fuels the engine of capitalism.

 How is this quote reflected in the way corporations run their businesses?

 Why is this significant to Wright?

Wright ends his book describing all of the progress we continually make everyday all over the world. Progress that is ripping up our environment, giving control to corporations and the wealthy, increase population growth and decreasing food supply, to name a few. Now is our last chance to get the future right, p. 191 – 193

 How does this statement make you feel?

 What changes can we make within corporations to ensure a safer future for the business community but also the world?