Where are the non-interventionist gods?
Retreating from modern toxic radio to the non-interventionist 30s as usual, I heard an account of the 'Battle of the Eclipse' on good old Strange.

In 585 BC the Medes (exactly modern Kurds) and the Lydians (part of modern Turks) were having an all-out war**. A total eclipse struck. Each side consulted its priests and gods. Both gods saw the eclipse as a sign of defeat and recommended negotiating for peace. Both sides obeyed their gods and stopped fighting.

This leads to two questions, one for history and one for me.

For history: Where are the modern non-interventionist gods? Jehovah is confused. Some of his denominations are all for war, a few are total pacifists. Rome has a theory of "just war" but always ignores it when it threatens Empire. The Hindu and Buddhist priests talk a lot about peace, but both groups are currently making aggressive war against Allah. Like Rome, Allah speaks of "just war" but blesses aggression.

For me: This exposes a contradiction in my recent ramblings, and pushes me toward one side. Sometimes I say that SHOW YOUR WORK is a universal rule. Sometimes I advocate preserving and guarding the experience-based knowledge of a craft or skill.

The action of the priests in this battle tends to support the latter.

I don't buy the standard notion that "primitive" people were unaware of eclipses. Cultural learning, generally recorded and preserved by the priestly class, includes the patterns of seasonal events like eclipses. So I'd assume that the priests on both sides knew what was happening but didn't tell the kings and generals. The priests saw an opportunity to end a costly and pointless war. Maybe they collaborated or maybe they were just equally sensible.

If everyone had known how to predict an eclipse, the SKILL of the priests would be dissipated and wasted. Because the SKILL was preserved and contained, the priests could spend it to achieve an immensely valuable peace. Huge return on investment.

Conclusion: Transparency is usually a good policy, but when transparency wastes skill-estate it's bad.

= = = = =

**Footnote: This sentence doesn't really need a date, does it? You could write it as a trivial constant function:

def IsAtWar(Kurds,Turks):
return TRUE

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 2:07 PM