Humanity needs government in order to thrive and progress. According to the documents that describe the Neolithic error, which will later be discussed in depth, the laws that were set up by government were there to guide the people in moral and spiritual conduct. Furthermore if it were not for the ‘social ladder created by government, there would be no aspiration for elevation which resulted in competition among the people. The government also generated the need for specialists.
As the state grew, people began to specialize in various areas; the need for documentation in the form of writing grew, therefore scribes and artisans were established. With the rise of agriculture, new challenges arose, and the man who showed extensive knowledge of the land and who was willing to capitalize on his skill became the leader of the people. This further pioneered the establishment of the government system consisting of the leader, followed by his officials, priests and armies. In the code of Hammurapi the first thing the king does before issuing the codes is legitimizing his reign.
He lists out the things he has accomplished for the people but first make sure that the people knows that he was exalted by the gods who put him in this position. He takes the title of “the exalted prince, worshiper of the gods” he tries to show the people that he too worships the gods and that he acknowledges the same religion as them. This makes the people believe that he also serves the gods which will result in the people being more accepting of his laws. The king lets the people know that his laws destroys the wicked and lets justice prevail.
Concisely his laws are ethical doctrines that instruct the people in life. Many of Hammmurapi’s codes mention the ownership of slaves and how slaves should be dwelt with. The codes also touched on the topic of the Babylonian family and showed the people how the household should be conducted in order to attain peace and harmony in the family. Thus government laws are there to guide and instruct the people in ethical judgement. Similarly when the Hebrews left Egypt, one can see the establishment of laws in the form of the Ten Commandments.
These laws showed the people how to live and essentially guided them in the wilderness. The Hebrews, when they escaped from Egypt was led by Moses who was chosen by God. Essentially they were starting a new society and would be known as the Israelites. Thus they needed the laws to govern them. When they left Egypt the people was not always content with Moses leading them. When Pharaoh and his army were marching on them, they were mad at Moses, and they told him that it would have been better to serve the Egyptians than die in the wilderness.
It is only in the twentieth chapter of Exodus that the people really begin to respect Moses and see him as their spiritual leader. The people tell Moses that the voice of God makes them tremble and afraid. So they told Moses “You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die. ” They were afraid of God and when the Commandments were given they accepted and strictly followed it. Here one can see the role fear has to play in the following of the commandments. If God said that ‘thou shall not kill then there was a high possibility that people would abstain from murdering.
Thus it can be seen how the laws advocated morality which was contrary to humanity’s sinful nature. The new discovery of agriculture has propelled a new system of life. No longer is man in one with nature but they now own it, working the land in order to yield crops to feed the people. The leader must find a man who can oversee all the workers, record and report back to him. This task paves the way for the development of writing.
According to Advice to the Ambitious Young Egyptian from a Royal Scribe, the job of the scribe is to record taxes as well as religious events. They are in charge of verseeing what happens to the crops harvested and also collecting them. The royal scribe gives an example to the young apprentice showing the life of a peasant, and the role of the scribe in the analogy. He tells him of how the peasant toils for crops but none is produce and how the man’s wife tries to batter with merchants but is unsuccessful. Then he says “Now the scribe lands on the shore.
He surveys the harvest…. There is none (refers to the harvest)…. He (the peasant) is beaten savagely. ” He is showing the young Egyptian that the life of a scribe is far better than a peasant. Every man seeks to raise himself up. Take note of it! ” How does one raise himself up? One can think of it like this: many people few positions. Competition to win the kings favor was created. Thus new inventions or the perfecting of old ones in order to impress their leader were created. Thus the advice of “Befriend the scroll, the palette. It pleases more than wine” should not be taken lightly by the student. The royal scribe was pleading with the student to forsake the simple things and perfect the craft of reading and writing in order to attain advancement.
One can speculate that if there was no king, then the need by so many to learn how to become a scribe or any other specialist, to impress one man in order to attain position would have never transpired. Thus essentially writing was conceived in order to gain the leaders favor and ultimately move the one who invented the skill to a higher class in society. Consequently, without government there would be no new ideas like the wheel invented for the chariots, or arts that can so accurately display culture.
Furthermore the developing of writing which is not only used to record but also, used by others as instruction when building the long standing ancient pyramids, would have never occurred if government did not exist. In the modern world, everyone has to pay tax to the government via tax collectors or IRS. This same system while not as complex as todays did exist in the Neolithic period. Across the globe in South America the Aztecs and Incas had a tax system set up by their governments. They had specialist, tiquillatos that were the math people in their day.
In the Aztec Tribute the peasants had to pay tributes while the leaders and the specialist were exempted from paying tributes. These tributes were in the form of crops, and the tiquillatos were like the tax collectors of their society. They went to survey the harvest and count how much each person reaped. He then did the calculations to find out how much corn each person needs to last them until next harvest, and reports that number to the leader. Here we can not only see some math being implemented, but someone doing a job provided by the government, which would not have transpired if the government was not established.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk is seen as an arrogant and greedy ruler who lives to please himself only and does not care about the people. He takes sons away from their father, presumably for his army, and he rapes the women. The people have had enough, and they plead to their gods to help them. The gods hear them and grant them their petition in the form of Enkidu. “He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land. ” Cultivated land speaks about agriculture.
Enkidu represents the people but also how the people were before the system of government; wild and free, with no one telling them what to do or how to behave. Made by the goddess Aruru, he was like a wild beasts and innocent and had no knowledge of agriculture which was what brought about the system of government and specialist like astrologist who knew when to plant crops based on the sky. Enkidu is then taught human ways by a woman and thus he becomes civilized. No longer is he accepted by the wild beast because he no longer thinks like them. He becomes knowledgeable in things, and essentially this implies that government brings knowledge.
The Neolithic revolution sparked the events that changed the course of mankind; the effects of which can still be observed today as in the case of government. It gave rise to city states like Mesopotamia and empires like Egypt and within this period the birth of a new nation, Israel, transpired. This revolution pioneered the unveiling of people who were specialist and inventors, who contributed to the development of society, which would better mankind. All of this would not have been accomplished; humanity would not have thrived and progressed, if it were not for the formation of government.
