Cultural Frames Of The Axial Age
When looking at Network Flows, they carry three major complexes. These three complexes include things such as physical goods, which are objects of trade and items of exchanges. The second bring people, who not only move these physical goods but as well as themselves across societies and civilizations. The movement of people brings the act of migration, which brings about colonization allowing for the network flow of the human race to move amongst networks. With the influx of movement, these people not only bring physical goods but as well as essential ideologies of political settings, frame values, and schools of thought and philosophies that are brought with them from place to place. With the constant and consistent movement of people and circulated ideas, tensions were created especially in hierarchies. When looking at the Axial Age as a whole, this society faced a much more complex way of living as they were in the height of change in an interconnected society. With this rapidly changing world and society in front of them it was made clear that cultural frames in general were outdated and in need of some sort of change. These new cultural frames were led by four major key areas known as North India, China, Persia, and Greece. Movement of the Aryans occurred into North India after the decline of what was formerly known as the Harappan society which was a civilization that was cultured and formed in the Indus valley near the city of Mohenjo-Daro, one of the bigger cities of the Indus Valley civilizations. With this new age of civilization migrating into North India they brought with them the ideologies of their pantheon of gods that were essentially rooted in oral tradition.
When looking at the initial political systems of North India it was rooted with societies known as warrior chiefdoms which were normally controlled and ruled by a chief in brutal hierarchy. However, according to the textbook, after 600 BCE many small kingdoms began to branch off and were ruled by Brahmins. The Brahmins, in the North Indian culture, were simply known as the highest priest whose ultimate job was to preserve the Vedas, which can be defined as composed hymns containing scriptures and rules of the life citizens were supposed to live by.
A major central idea in the North Indian culture that created a huge developmental aspect was the idea of reincarnation. Reincarnation is the idea of one’s soul migrating to different bodies as a result of karma. Karma, as the text book defines it as “act well, move up; act badly, move down”. The idea of Karma shaped the way many people of this particular civilization’s morals were shaped and aimed to put forth good into the world. By putting forth good, would be rewarded by the rebirth into a higher class or caste system. This way of life was known as dharma, which essentially is the responsibility or “law” of one to assist in the survival of the body and soul by doing right my one self and one’s community. This idea contributed to the social classes of the Indian culture and led to a broad division between people of said society culturally. With these basic universal concepts, the first school of thought in Indian culture, Hinduism was exposed.
When visiting the thought processes of Hinduism, the ultimate aim of souls being trapped in reincarnation is to reach the goal of moksha, or liberation to rejoin the universal soul, Brahman and to never be reborn again. The practice of Hindus focused on the daily acts of dharma and the end goal of moksha. In contrast to this first school of thought, came the practice of Buddhism. The practice of Buddhism came around 400 BCE as a man by the name of Gautama Siddhartha took an egalitarian view on the entire caste system of Hinduism. Egalitarian meaning that he himself advocated for all people to be equal and for all to deserve equal opportunities. After finding no satisfaction in the life of luxury, Gautama Siddhartha realized that no matter what life you live, luxury or in contrast poverty, that ultimately all life is suffering. With Four Noble Truth’s and the Noble Eightfold Path and ridding themselves of attachment one would be free from the act of reincarnation and reach nirvana.
Buddhism, strayed away from the hierarchical views of society and although open to interpretation by anyone it became commonly known as a monastic religion. Souls were the universal purpose throughout the Axial Age Indian thought process due to the fact that souls engulfed the nature of the cosmos. The issue of souls in the world of the cosmos allowed for Indian thinkers to construct the social order of the Indian Society. This led to the framework of political systems to be ran by a fairly smaller elite warrior class, however much informal involvement circulated from the elite class of the Brahmins who gained a higher influence over society than the warriors mentioned previously. To add, although much involvement occurred from the warriors and Brahmins, much of local government was self-sufficient by the people due to the fact of how stressed the ideologies of dharma and the caste system had on civilization ultimately making this system self-governing.
Unlike India in the Axial Age, China adopted the state-level organization which primarily existed in Northern China near the Yellow River valley for nearly a millennium. After 770 BCE, the Zhou Dynasty dispersed into a large quantity of states. Differing from India, after the course of warfare was completed it was established that there was an expectation for political unity in Chinese society under Shang and Zhou. From this came two fundamental views that frame worked the Chinese society, one being the unity of everything in the universe in regard to seasons, elements, and bodily function with a strong belief in ying and yang. The other stemmed from the religious practice of much of China, that ancestor worship and family order were an important model for the social order of this civilization. From such strong beliefs came amazing thinkers in society that shaped and influenced the political and philosophical competition of this era.
Confucius, an egalitarian thinker around 551 BCE to 479 BCE, believed that “the way to better behavior was through education, and that anyone can be improved by education”. However, hierarchy was implemented in the ideology of the “five great Confucian relationships”, which were as followed, father-son, ruler-subject, husband-wife, older brother-younger brother, and older friend-younger friend. These five great relationships followed the ideal of “filial piety” which is the law of respect given to one’s elder. After Confucius, Mengzi came around 312 BCE to 289 BCE. He saw humans as fundamentally good and believed that governing should be done on behalf of the people. In contrast to Mengzi was Xunzi, 312 BCE to 230 BCE, who saw humans as evil and with the ideal that governments should use punishment in order to keep the people in order.
The author of Daodejing, Laozi, influenced the teachings of Daoism which stressed “The Way”. This particular ideology stressed the importance of the natural universe and came as a solution to warfare and disunity as a whole. Lastly, Legalism came to the ultimate conclusion that “…people are stupid and selfish. Strict laws therefore the only way to create personal security and order.” Legalism saw state power as a central goal. Qin, by far the most Legalist state in China, defeated any rivals and began to ban other philosophies by 280 BCE. After the fall of Qin came Han, which kept in remains most of the Legalist structure that was primarily built by Qin but as well as implemented and adopted the philosophical teachings of Confucianism, adopting many economic regulations from Daoism.
The migration of Indo-Europeans came as early as 2000 BCE to the civilization and land of Iran. With the expansion of the Assyrian Empire in or around 745 BCE the Medes civilizations began to include more of the Iranians and later in 605 BCE created the first pan- Iranian state. The Persian religion focused deeply in the ideologies of Ahura Mazda which was an all-powerful deity and commonly known as the creator of universe. These ideals stem similarly to the practice and traditions of Zoroastrian which religious beliefs focus on the universe as a good creation and that the universe is characterized by truth and order. Zoroastrianism is an anti-monastic religion and the fate of its follower’s rest in the hands of Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda judges how each person performs in their life and if results are good or bad to determine the eternal fate of one’s soul. Essentially much of the cultural frame has a direct impact on individual ethics. However, social order is the framework of righteous rule which is in the hands of a just god in this particular society.
Unlike India and China, Persia’s cultural frame essentially lies in the hands of god’s way. After migration into Greece and the fall of the Mycenaean Empire, the city-states known as poleis became a culture centered around the ideas of an open market and governed the surrounding land rooted in agriculture. The Greeks, with the help of the Phoenicians and the Mediterranean, focused on a long tradition of poetry allowing for their world to be engulfed in written tradition. When looking at the framework of the Greek society, although divided especially politically into many separate city-states, they conceived their cultures as a unified one. In China, the framework particularly stressed the importance of unity, politically. However, now comparing Greece, the unity expressed was one of culture and language, including the shared concept of pantheon gods. The competition expressed in poleis was not political unity however the Greeks valued the art of competition. Challenging themselves in sporting events, such as the well-known Olympic Games, by creating offerings to the gods, and lastly in the art of warfare. The political system of Greece started with kings, however due to the small size of these communities, kings were commonly out ruled by the way of a group. Essentially very commonly so, all poleis were governed by and led in warfare by the warrior elite.
The culture of Greece was a male dominated culture, leaving absolutely no say to women. In the Axial Age, came three very influential thinkers known as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who implemented huge fundamental ways of life into the Greek culture. Socrates, strayed a way from much of the sophist ways and questioned the ultimate inconsistency of many people’s definition of “good”. He was condemned of death for going against the Grecian way by the Athenian jury has he sort of questions could’ve raised potential threat to an order social society. After Socrates came the thoughts of Plato who formed a theory of Truth. He believed and stress that knowledge ultimately came from the acts of meditation and reasoning. However, Plato’s political views stressed the ways of an undemocratic elite. Lastly a student of Plato’s, Aristotle, came to question the beliefs of Plato and proved to be entirely analytical in much of his thinking. The book defines his views as, “bottom-up and inductive” which hinted at the more abstract way of analyzing a much larger picture. Essentially a stress of the final answer mattered much more than the search required for that answer in the Greek culture. However, the search that was done as equally as important.
The cultural frames that were introduced during this age of time were increasingly more complex and complicated and allowed for a new view of cultural frame and political views to emerge. The Axial Age forever shaped the future as essential ways of life and thoughts were determined and are referenced in many societies today. Each of these societies were rich in tradition and allowed them to be carried throughout history making an impactful influence on the way many live there life today even outside the realms of the four societies mentioned throughout. With the developed way of thought, it allowed for surrounding cultures to grow and there was a new age of much larger interconnected societies.
