Re: The Degeneration of Mankind

On 21 Nov 2007 03:52:54 GMT, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by John McKendry
<jlastname@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:54:08 -0800, Wombat wrote:

On 19 Nov, 00:22, Bob Casanova <nos...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:36:01 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Johnmuthukat
<Johnmuthu...@xxxxxxxxx>:

This is about the sudden and across-the-board degeneration that has
set in on the species man as a whole in modern history, which is all
set to mark the end of mankind as a species. Or, it is about the
modern social development and as to how man and nature, contrary to
their co-existence for millions of years as mutually interconnected
and interdependent, have suddenly entered on a collision course in
modern history, and embarked on its eventual and inevitable fallout.
The concept describing the "degeneration" of Man is inseparable from
that of the evolution of Man. In truth, people of the modern world
have been taught to view the history of mankind almost entirely upside-
down. We speak of "the rise of Man" and assume "the ignorance of
ancient peoples", when in actual fact nothing could be more the
contrary. From a more objective point of view, the history of mankind
on this Earth has apparently been a progressive descent or
degeneration; a degeneration which appears to have reached it's nadir
in exactly this period in which we are now living.

In this respect, I am inviting the attantion of the esteemed members
of this group to my blogs on:

'Experts and Master Parasites'
http://muthukat-on-professionalism.blogspot.com/

'Truth: the ultimate Savior'
http://truthpowerjohn.blogspot.com/

'Professionalism : Bane of Human Civilizations'
http://www.fireflysun.com/book/john.php

"Everything's going to hell." Wasn't it Aristotle who
recorded the first complaint that traditional values were
ignored and/or overturned by the younger generation? This
attitude probably goes back *at least* as far as Ur of the
Chaldees, and I suspect as far back as spoken language.

Someone once used the following as a sig.

The Earth is degenerating these days. Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer mind their parents, every man wants to write a
book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.
- Assyrian Stone Tablet, c.2800BC

The more I look into this the more doubtful I am. Google gives
179 hits for "the earth is degenerating these days" + assyrian,
and not a single one gives a source (except possibly one that's
hidden behind a subscription-only page at the Optical Society
of America, and I suspect that one does not point to a real
source either). The problem is that the Old Assyrian kingdom
and language didn't appear on the stage until the 20th century
BCE. The earlier stage of the language, Old Akkadian, appears
in connected texts from about 2500 BCE. Cuneiform texts from
2800 BCE would be written in Sumerian, an unrelated language.
(And it would be a clay tablet, not stone, but that's a smaller
issue.)

http://www.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/dialects.html for the languages,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyria for dates of the Assyrian
kingdoms and empires.

A tablet with this text from c.2800BC would be Sumerian,
not Assyrian. Now, there is a Sumerian text on this general
subject, but it's about a millennium more recent than 2800
BCE. Samuel Noah Kramer, in "History Begins at Sumer", records
a dialogue between father and son from ~1700 BCE (that's
the date of the tablet; he says the composition itself may
be several centuries older). Excerpted:

"...Come now, be a man. Don't stand about in the public
square, or wander about the boulevard. When walking in the
street, don't look all around. Be humble and show fear before
your monitor <teacher, I think>. When you show terror, your
monitor will like you... Your grumblings have put an end to
me, you have brought me to the point of death. I, never in
my life did I make you carry reeds to the canebrake. The reed
rushes which the young and the little carry, you, never in your
life did you carry them...'Go, work and support me', I never
in my life said to you. Others like you support their parents
by working. If you spoke to your kin, and appreciated them,
you would emulate them...
Night and day you waste in pleasures. You have
accumulated much wealth, have expanded far and wide, have
become fat, big, broad, powerful, and puffed. But your kin
waits expectantly for your misfortune, and will rejoice at
it because you looked not to your humanity."

Far more eloquent than "kids these days don't show no
respect", although it seems to be directed at a specific
individual rather than at "the younger generation" as a
class.
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless

.

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