Because so much of what survives - the impressive works that people think of when they hear âGreece,â âRome,â âEgypt,â âSumer,â etc. is not the result of âscholarsâ but was built off the labor and skills of laborers who were not âscholarsâ in the modern sense, were not âeducatedâ in the same manner as someone from fucking middle-class USA or whatever, but who were trained and informed about their particular discipline in a way that most of us cannot even begin to fathom. And their labor was built off the unseen efforts of other workers - slaves, farmers, weavers, potters, quarrymen, smiths, etc - with similarly specialized, period-specific knowledge that I think is impossible to fully appreciate if you do not respect blue-collar work and manual labor.
Like, you can say you âknow moreâ than the average person in antiquity - but you donât. Maybe in a conceptual manner - yeah, we know about distant planets and galaxies, weâve got germ theory, we have made a collection of the entire human genome, we have walked on the fucking moon - but from the perspective of someone from 500 BCE (if I may be allowed a dash of speculation here), does that matter?
In our industrialized, globalized world, I think we forget the sheer effort that went into everything. The sheer degree of skill needed to create homes, tools, clothing, ceramics, fine jewelry, statues, and everything in-between. The skill, knowledge, and effort that went into everyday subsistence activities, like farming, herding, and weaving; and into other trades such as shipping and manufacturing. These are not mindless tasks, devoid of calculation and forethought; to pretend they are in even the slightest is disingenuous.
I would even go so far as to say it is extremely classist & sexist, because - shocker - people still work in these fields. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the streets you walk, the buildings you eat and sleep and live in - these did not spawn out of a vacuum. Constant effort - unending, backbreaking labor, time, and skill has gone into the world we walk through today, so people can go on pretending like theyâre somehow âsmarterâ than those who came before them, when the only difference is that we* are able to concentrate on something besides our own survival. something otherwise âuselessâ for everyday survival, and i say that as an archaeologist. Excavating a Bronze Age brewery does not provide food, it does not provide you with clothes (it actually damages them), it does not give you shelter, it mostly provides you with broken potsherds and a whole lot of dirt destined for floatation. Yes, it requires practical skills too - but many of these are essentially also used, even more frequently, in manual labor and agriculture.
And - in this broken, frightful world - we are so damn lucky** that people can even spare time for this, to learn more about the ancient world. And we are even more lucky that - when we are born with health complications, are disabled, or are faced with diseases like pneumonia, measles, and COVID - that these are not death sentences. Artificial scarcity, corporate greed, and fearmongering can make them so, but there is still that ability to live. To focus on the past, instead of making it to the next day, the next week, the next month.
But - I want to emphasize here - this is all entirely reliant on the work of people who continue to carry out the same manual labor done by countless individuals - enslaved and free - up through antiquity. People whose calculations were their survival, whose understanding of the natural world and local resources made the difference between life and death.
To pretend like we are somehow more knowledgable, more capable, more âadvancedâ intellectually than those who laid the foundations for the entire fucking world we live in today, is a lie. A smug, disgusting little lie that spits on all we have done as a species (and all the progress we are trying to make) with the idea that âweâve done itâ, weâre âsuperior,â this idea that only encourages rotting in self-assured apathy while the world burns.
And you cannot appreciate the past when you approach it with false assumptions which are based on nothing except preconcieved notions of modern superiority and the belief that knowledge is both âquantifiableâ and absolute. We are just as capable of joy, wisdom, compassion, and love as the ancients; and we are just as susceptible to fear, anger, and hatred as they were. Iâm not saying everyone has to know the ins and outs of every ancient industry ever to appreciate the fucking Parthenon, but if someone cannot approach the ancient world with an open mind, a sense of humility, and self-reflection - then I suspect they cannot appreciate the fucking Parthenon.
*When I use the term 'we,' I am referring to individuals who do not specialize in manual labor/blue-collar industries and/or engage in subsistence agriculture.
**I know that these are all very situational and that the management and medicine available to people is inextricable from their class, identity, and nationality. I am merely trying to stress that it is possible. I would be dead without modern medicine; and I know countless others who are the same way.
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