The Zeitgeist of Déjà Vu

The German as well as the French language have imbued the English language with some unmistakably descriptive nomenclature. Philologists will concede that some words in certain languages encompass more information than the sum of their parts. The second word in the title of the article, Déjà Vu, is no stranger to native English speakers. Although the components together mean simply, already seen, the implications on a particular topic or situation can be exponential. The same is true for the German word zeitgeist. Disentangled it translates as time spirit. However, the vernacular usage in the English language has evolved to convey a collective episodical psychosocial belief. In more prosaic terms it is used to explain historical prevalences of visceral thoughts and paradigms.

What are the components of a zeitgeist? How do various mechanisms influence it's formation? Of course, these questions are the bedrock of the social sciences: psychology, sociology, anthropology and combinations thereof fused with historiography. This recombination of social sciences, like social history or cultural history, lends more currency to straight forward political histories. For those who shy away from historical writings might associate their ill taste for history because of the way in which history is taught: political history (name, place and date) as the touchstone.

According to French Historian, Fernand Braudel, there are 3 basic tenets by which history is shaped. He is often seen as the forerunner of modern cultural studies in the realm of historiography. Braudel merged the anthropological and sociological paradigms of the French Annales School into a second generation of historical theories.

In his academically most significant book, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Braudel detailed his theory of what motivates history. He outlined the rise to power and affluence of Mediterranean Empires. The first principle is that of geography and the environment. It is this epoch which requires the most amount of time to bring about its sway on a people. The environment is slow and methodic where change is almost indiscernible. The second epoch entails prolonged social, economic, psychological and cultural history. These are the long term social movements and transitions of economies and can last from a single decade to a half a century. Lastly, the final period is that of particular events or histoire événementielle. What characterizes this period of short duration are individuals and sudden events. Presidents, religious leaders, despots, military leaders, crackpots are all part of the fabric which make up this last epoch.

All of these epochs are cyclical. Even if the time frame of change is thousands of years the tides still ebb and flow; lands are formed and destroyed. What Braudel hints at, but doesn't delve into with any conviction, is the interplay between the three in a retrospective manner. For instance, how does an event change or steer a social movement or economical paradigm? In other words, how does the interplay of the three epochs manipulate the zeitgeist?

The world stood still as it remembered 9/11. There have been many “events” which have elicited remembrances from Americans throughout modern history. It appears now as if some Americans want a mandated public remembrance of Benghazi. Here follows a few “remember” themes which certainly redirected and reshaped the American Zeitgeist.

Remember the Alamo 

Mexican dictator/General Antonio López de Santa Anna was attempting to squash a rebellion of Texans who were attempting to form a new nation. American President Andrew Jackson was a keen adherent of American expansionism as typified by his forays into Florida during the Seminole Indian Wars. An almost mythologic cottage industry of “remember the Alamo” emerged which ensured that a Zeitgeist was established. This zeitgeist thwart anyone infringing on American western expansion.

Remember the Maine

Fueled by the need for salt water colonies because contiguous North America was already divvied up; America set forth on acquiring the low hanging fruits of Spain's former colonies. “Yellow journalism” papers like the Hearst print empire and the Pulitzer newspapers, jarred the American Zeitgeist to prepare for war on an encroaching feeble Spanish Empire in the Western Hemisphere. An out of date and in need of decommissioning US battleship was sent to Havana harbor in Cuba. On the evening of 15 February 1898 the ship “unexpectedly” exploded while anchored in the harbor. The yellow journalism press and the US government were quick to lay blame to the Spanish which launched a series of land grabs from Spanish control: Guam, Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico.

Remember the Lusitania

The Lusitania was a British ocean cruiser which was torpedoed on 7 May 1915 by German U-boats. The British were keen on stirring the American people to declare war on Germany and subsequently continued with a propaganda campaign until 1917. Remembering the Lusitania came to a head in 1917. That year the Zimmerman Telegram, stating Germany's reinstatement of unrestricted U-boat activity, was the straw that broke the camel's back and pushed the Zeitgeist of the American's to declare war on Germany.

Splitting Hairs with Occam's Razor: The First Temple

The Enemy of My Enemy's Friend is My?

The historical record on this Pale Blue Dot, as the deceased astro-physicist Carl Sagan once deemed the  Earth, has been fraught with violence and war. Carl Sagan used the Pale Blue Dot nomenclature as a metaphor to humanity in order to reflect on the infiniteness of the universe and subsequently the Earth's place within this vastness. When Voyager 1 took its last instructed photograph as it exited our solar system, that speck of blue in the lower left corner was the place where everything and everyone we know happened. There dangling in space was the epicenter of our history which constitutes only a fraction time in the space time of the universe.

The present day infighting amongst various religions, some which have emphatically entwined lineages, only strengthens the concept sent forth by Carl Sagan. Violent clashes between groups of people is sadly endemic to the human species. Taken to the extreme war then becomes the penultimate expression of violence between groups. There is a biology infused anthropological premise that resources and access to them precipitates groups to resort to violence. This theory is called the “protein theory” which romantically applies to hunter gather societies. Societies which Rousseau labeled the “noble savage”.

In the modern age not much has changed in the way of motivation which sways the “noble savage” to conduct violence in the form of war. Yet as societies developed more abstruse ways of differentiating themselves from other societies their intrinsic motivations also evolved. Of course, the fundamental reason might be an overextended population which was in competition with its neighbors for resources. But with an extended philosophical and metaphysical palette the society could paint a richer and more convoluted rationale for war. The desire for the “US” feeling is defined by psychology as a sense wanting to identify and belong to a group. A sense of “brotherhood” is this psychological concept as it is borrowed and tweaked by sociology when they apply it more widely to societies.

Brotherhood is a term with a thousand faces. It can allude to nations, subcultures, secret societies and even ethnic groups. However, the one pervasive group throughout modern history which the concept brotherhood is inextricably linked is that of religion. From the Christianization of pagan Europe through to the bellicose clashes of Europe and Asia Minor during the Crusades then the upheaval of the Counter Reformation when the Catholic Church attempted to reassert its hegemony over Christian doctrine, modern history is defined by the careening of ideologies wrapped in the concept of brotherhood. It is not a level of sophistication which mans the wheelhouse of derision between brotherhoods and leads them to war. Rather, it's an inability to collectively gaze at the Pale Blue Dot.

Sometime before the Neolithic Revolution about 12-13,000 years ago disparate groups were able to meld their sense of brotherhood and create a landmark to religious unity. They accomplished this without the aid of a priest class or arcane philosophical tenets. These devices enable a modern stratified society to set parameters for the brotherhood concept to function. Yet the earliest religious temple built tells a different tale even if the scientific community isn't able to see the Pale Blue Dot.

Göbekli Tepe is the earliest sophisticated temple constructed by man before the neolithic revolution which belies a level of sophistication and societal diversity that wasn't developed for thousands of years later. From the weird to the wonderful a handful of theories have been postulated for the sociological quantum leap. The theories run the gamut from a benevolent extraterrestrial assistance to a culmination of hitherto undiscovered advancement in technology and familial cohesion.

Science and scientific discovery are driven by a conjecture motor made up of guess work and hunches. The allure of unraveling a mystery by using an avalanche of intricate data and detail often befuddles the basal goal which is to explain. Sometimes removing the cadre from scientific protocol is what is truly propels knowledge and discovery. The refocussing on more concise and simple explanations will facilitate the development of ones which prove to be the most plausible. This is sometimes referred to as Occam's Razor which posits that if you are confronted with two competing theories the simplest of the two is usually right. Put another way, if you are able to think outside the box you might be able to see a container.

So what is Göbekli Tepe? Why is it a mystery? How does it shape and mold our perception of the sociological and anthropological leap forward? As will become apparent; the enigma wrapped in a mystery is also cloaked orthodox scientific paradigms which untangle neatly when we slice them open with Occam's Razor.

The theory goes that the evolution of a nation state journeys through immutable phases until it reaches it peak of a stratified society. The domestication of plants and animals theoretically frees the entire clan/tribe from necessarily foraging and hunting for food. A key factor is that it call in a de facto cooperation mechanism with strangers. In the case of Göbekli Tepe it was a shared codified belief system presumably in an afterlife. The fact is that there had to have been a fully functioning cosmology beyond a basal animistic/totem belief. The complexity of the temple suggests that a diverse array of animals and demigod like deities existed in their shared cosmology because of the wide variety of stone carvings. But they were not a settled, stationary society. 

My claim is they were semi-nomadic and came together during an immense abundance of food stuff which grew naturally around the area of Göbekli Tepe. The climate did not afford the builders of Göbekli Tepe to remain year round in this place and thusly they convened only during the more hospitable weather months. The fact is that they needed to have time and expertise to practice and perfect these new building techniques and artistic trades. No social or evolutionary advancement occurs in a vacuum. But how did they acquire the technology to carve and build? Moreover, why are there no jewelry or ornamental beads or adornments found in situ? Clearly, if they were able to produce the carvings they should have been able to make animal bone necklaces or trinkets like totems or tikis to travel with on their semi-nomadic treks to warmer climes during the winter and autumn? Perhaps several different ethnic groups gathered in the same area and the same time during the wet and cold months of the year. During these periods they were able to swap technologies and stories and building techniques through diffusion or enculturation. These accomplishments were made with basic stone tooled flint flake technologies. The point is that the temple was constructed and it was done so outside the confines of orthodox scientific theories.

To illustrate the axiom of Occams Razor as it applies to the confounding theory of how Göbekli Tepe was erected a brief overview the Calusa Indians of Florida will be discussed. The Calusa Indians society will prove that a fully developed an functioning stratified post Neolithic Revolution society is not required to evolve culturally. Of course there are other examples, like the Monte Sano Middens in present day Louisiana or the dissemination of Polynesia culture from the Marquesas Islands, but for sake of space I have limited it to one example.

The Calusa were a people who inhabited the coastal regions and interior waterways of Southwest Florida from about 5000 BC until the Spanish encountered them on their explorations in the early 1500's. The Calusa had a vast kingdom built upon a tribute system to a single chief who had many thousands of subjects encompassing a huge amount of territory. They erected large religious middens and settlements as well as waterways for irrigation and transportation. These accomplishments seem tame almost benign at first glance. However, all of these advancements were made without sedentary farming and agriculture. The Calusa culture, also referred to as the Caloosahatchee culture, was based on estuarine fisheries. This means to say that the classic model employed by scientists to trace the evolution and therefore the ability for complex societal endeavors is turned on its head. In other words, similar to Göbekli Tepe there was a “goldilocks” scenario in the region where the climate was right for staying in one place.

The Calusa didn't construct anything quite on the magnitude of the religious edifice found at Göbekli Tepe but they did prove that the evolution of societies are like snowflakes; each one is unique. So what does this tell us about brotherhood and war? The commonality of the human experience is what binds those details of that experience, like religion, culture and brotherhood. But what binds us more as we move forward is the global brotherhood we share as we gaze in our minds eye at the Pale Blue Dot.