Episode Highlights

Highlights

• In the second millennium BCE, Aryans from the northwest migrated to the Indian subcontinent and gradually subjugated the indigenous people—perhaps originating the caste system.

• Hinduism, India’s oldest faith tradition, venerates innumerable aspects of a single divinity, positing cosmic unity in diversity.

• Like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism share a deep suspicion of sensory experience and a rejection of the material world.

• The Indian rulers Ashoka (3rd century BCE) and Akbar the Great (16th century CE) sought to blend elements of India’s religious traditions; both stressed nonviolence, compassion, truthfulness, right conduct, and tolerance for all faiths.

Questions to Consider

1. How would you contrast Hinduism’s concept of the deity with that of Judeo-Christian or Islamic monotheism? What implications do the differences have for humans’ relationship to nature in the three traditions?
2. Wood notes that, in rejecting materialism, Indian traditions gave the gift of conscience to the world. Do you agree or disagree?
3. What aspects of modern liberal democracy do you recognize in the empires of Ashoka and Akbar the Great? In what respects did those cultures differ from our own?

Highlights

• Confucius envisioned a just, stable, and moral society based on mutual respect and trust. Humans aren’t born good, he said; both rulers and their people must learn goodness.

• As taught by the sages Zhuang Zi and Laozi, Taoism provided a mystical parallel to the practicality of Confucianism. It sought harmony with nature, rather than exploitation or resistance.

• Buddhism introduced the concept of eternity and the importance of inner life to Chinese culture.

• Throughout history, China has vacillated between engaging the outside world and shunning it.

Questions to Consider

1. Confucius famously shrugged his shoulders at questions about God and the afterlife, saying, “I don’t know about those things.” Do you think it’s possible to build a truly moral society without any concept of a deity? Why or why not?
2. In the 15th century, after Admiral Zheng He had sailed to Ceylon, the Persian Gulf, and Africa, Ming dynasty officials forbade further voyages, initiating a new era of introspection for the Chinese empire. Had you been a counselor in the Chinese court, how would you have advised the emperor on this decision?
3. What aspects of the Chinese legacy do you admire most? Least?

Highlights

• The annual Nile floods ensured fertility for small, egalitarian farming communities that unified into a single Egyptian state before 3000 BCE; the optimistic civilization that developed evinced confidence in the stability of the cosmos.

• As the architectural embodiment of centralized power, royal ritual, and the cult of the dead, the pyramids symbolized the Egyptians’ yearning for immutability; their shape represented the sun’s rays spreading over the earth.

• After the Greek conquest in 332 BCE, Egypt turned away from its roots and became a crossroads for Eastern and Western ideas. Later, Christianity and Islam further eroded the ancient beliefs and traditions.

Questions to Consider

1. How did the ancient Egyptians’ belief in the afterlife affect the development of their civilization?
2. What role do massive public monuments such as the pyramids play in society?
3. Why does Wood title this episode “The Habit of Civilization?” To what degree was the ancient civilization of Egypt more “habitual” than other civilizations in the series?

Highlights

• Though they arose independently, Central American civilizations showed striking parallels with those in Asia, both in broad themes and in minute ritualistic details: advances in mathematics and astronomy, the development of writing, and the construction of pyramids, for example, in addition to the use of jade in death rites, the recurrent symbolism of the tortoise and the bat, and the practice of divination.

• The peoples of Central America both feared nature and respected it, viewing their own bodies as extensions of the earth.

• The Aztecs believed that human sacrifice was central to the continuity of the cosmos; such bloody practices may be remnants of primitive hunter-gatherer societies.

Questions to Consider

1. Why do you think the Maya and Aztecs were so obsessed with time?
2. In what sense did European Christians “rescue” the Aztecs from an abhorrently bloody, self-destructive culture? Does that mitigate in any way the Europeans’ subsequent exploitation of the native peoples?
3. What lessons do the Aztec and Mayan civilizations offer us today?

Highlights

• The Greeks developed the concept of humanism: that human beings are the measure of all things, and that fulfillment of an individual’s potential is the goal of all civilization.

• Christianity filled the cultural void left after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 4th century CE, bringing with it a sense that history was driven to an appointed purpose.

• Late marriages, nuclear families, property-based economies with inheritable wealth, and the free enterprise system all conspired to elevate individual rather than collective values in Western Europe.

• Advances in science and technology allowed Western Europeans to subdue not only other peoples, but also nature itself, leading to a utilitarian culture.

Questions to Consider

1. Do you agree with Wood’s assessment that violence lies at the core of Western civilization, more so than in other cultures?
2. What are the characteristics of the spiritual and environmental crises that Wood claims Western civilization now faces?
After watching this series, what do you consider the primary purpose of civilization? Which culture best exemplifies your ideal?