Table of Contents
I. Instruction
II. The Thought of Hegel
III. Culture Change
IV. The Thought of Bernal
V. Marxist’s Social Structure
VI. View of Shapiro’s Idea
VII. The Evolution of Feminism
VIII. Conclusion
I. Instruction
This paper will provide some of my findings from my readings and class discuss in Anthropology. It will be comment specifically on Hegel’s ideas, and Bodley’s thoughts. Additionally, It will be briefly addressed Bernal’s thoughts about his Black Athena. Another area it will be mentioned the Reader: Evolution and Culture.
II. The Thought of Hegel
Hegel says, “History is the development of Spirit in Time just as Nature is the development of the Idea in Space. His whole system is built on the great triad: Idea-Nature-Spirit. The Idea-in-itself is that which develops, the dynamic reality of and behind-or in the later Hegel-the world. Its antithesis, Idea-outside- of -itself, namely Space, is Nature. Nature develops into vegetable kingdom, into man, in whose consciousness the Idea is Spirit, the antithesis of Idea and Nature, and the development of this consciousness is history. History and the Idea are interrelated. History is the autobiography of God. History, for Hegel, is the reality of God.” (p. xxi) The whole system of Hegel’s thought is Idea--Nature--Men--Self-Consciousness-Spirit-History-God. I think this kind of philosophy is a kind of dialectic philosophy which is not a perfect philosophy. According to Buddha’s teaching, everything is originally co-arising and related each other. Nothing exists by itself. The Buddha’s teaching is not like Hegel’s thought: Idea-Nature-Spirit. Buddha says that the existence of everything was formed by many conditions. When the condition is formed, the complete event exists. When the conditions loses one of the parts, the event can not exist. For example, a car is formed by many parts. If the car loses one of parts, the car would not be able to run. Buddha told us nothing exists forever. Everything is impermanent. For instance, the anthropology class meets in room seven on Monday night. If the professor does not come, the lecture would not be given to students. Then students would go home. The classroom would be empty at this particular time. Another example, if a chair loses a part, the chair can not be used again and it is no longer called a “chair”. People will call it “a broken chair”. Buddha’s teaching is so simple ad not like Hegel’s thought. Hegel’s thought is idealism and dialectic. Buddha’s teaching is to tell us of an original co-arising that everything is impermanent, that everything is non-self, and of the existence of Nirvana-(extinction of individual existence, the extinction of suffering and delusion). Buddha says that reality will not stay permanent. Hegel’s thought is that certain subjects change to other subjects. For instance, from idea to nature to spirit, and from history to God. It is completely a dialectic change from one subject to another subject.
Hegel says, “The science of Spirit is that of Time, namely, history. History is both in Space and in Time; it occurs in Nature as well as in Mind. Since history is the result of the dynamic of the divine idea, this Idea is creative of all that is in history.” (Hegel, 1953) This statement seems true. But my personal view is that time is what human beings use to record events. When something happens. It is recorded in time, according to Buddhist view, “time is generally understood to have something to do with change, as evident in the common view that change take place in time.” (Inada, 1974) Thus, the Nagajuna view of time is that “time is as an ontological reality containing change.” For Nagarjuna, “time does exist as a conceptual ordering of temporal experience.” This is true because time as a conceptual ordering of transcendental our minds because time does not give us any stress. Time is just here and there.
Buddhist thought is permanent with the notion that life is transitory; not only in the fact that life terminates in death, but, more philosophically, that between birth and death we live in monentariness. Life is a series of experiential moments, each one unique and infinitesimally small. Thus Buddhist sutra, Thus Buddhist sutra, Anguttara-Nikaya, asserts as follows: “Arising is revealed, duration is revealed, and dissolution is revealed. There are the three marks of the compunding nature of things.” This assertion points at several things:
1. The Experiential process is a compounding phenomenon. Many factors or elements are involved in the so called creative process.
2. The moment of existence or an experieince event can be referred to or inferred by way of the three characteristics.
3. The three characteristics are reveals after the moment has “transpired,” that is, after the compounding phenomenon becomes a fact. They are characteristics or afterglows of the moment, so to seak. Thus they are not moments persure but visible markers of the moment for our reference.
4. It points to the fact that a compounded phenomenon or a moment of existence is smaller than the conscious moment. Thus, it would take more than the conscious mind to “grasp” the moment.
The Buddhist view of time is a theoretical construct to explain temporal becoming and is itself a metaphysical view, and also has three temporal periods-past, present, future. It is a function of the mind, after all, to conceive of time in that order, or indeed to give order to the nature of things. Thus whether it is simple clock time, physical time (measurement of movements), or psychological time, the mind knows or senses time because of its obstructive quality. To this extent, time is conventional but very useful.
III. Culture Change
Studying the Victims of Progress enabled me to know the life of people is coexistence, progress, cultural change, and modernization. Understanding how change promotes and improves people’s lifestyles made me interested in studying this subject. Anthropological studies enable culture and economics, and create social structure. These studies also help me understand how beings work in the fields with tools, and how to improve their health conditions and living environments. All of these are very interesting ideas in Bodley’s book. One of his sujects is education. Bodley quoted Bull’s statement, “Morality was the first subject taught.” The meaning of morality was “good habits, cleanliness, order, politeness, respect, and obedience.” This subject reminds me that our schools need to emphasize this subject in curriculum because moral education is very important in order to modify contemporary society, and to avoid violence. The other major subject that was taught was language-French. Language is to communicate people’s thoughts. People live together and their own language to communicate, the more they understand each other. I think our schools must offer many languages so that young children can learn about different cultures, especially in diversified area, and such as California. There languages may be Chinese, german, and Spanish, for instance, learning foreign languages should begin at a young age because it is easier to learn then.
VI. The Thought of Bernal
Bernal’s book, Black Athena, volume I, is a historio-graphical study of the origins of ancient Greece. This book enables me to comprehend an overview about the course of Western history, including the development of cultures. Languages, religions, and social structures. For example, religions developed to include Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. But later on only Christianity and Islam survived after the revolution of religions. Bernal says in his article, “I will take the physical site first. There is no mental or spiritual difference between black and white people.” I totally agree with him because they are all human beings. They ar all the same spiritually and intellectually. Why do we want to distinguish them, to separate them and to criticize black people? If human beings treat each other equally, we will not have discrimination problems. Marx and Buddha’s idea is to treat everybody equally.
V. Marxist’s Social Structure
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