Texas Meditations

By Michael Gos

How Do We See Each Other?

Palestine, Texas

You know how it is. When you feel like you need a slice of lemon pie, you just have to act on the urge. It was decision time; do I go to Round Top for Royers, or will it be Palestine and the Oxbow? A coin flip later, with Jill alongside, we headed for Palestine. Three hours later, were sitting with our pie slices on the porch of the old Oxbow when Jill mentioned that, since we were already in town, why not check on what was going on at the Texas State Railroad. We hit the jackpot. It was a “Wine in the Pines” trip. We called and made a reservation.

On the train, you sit at tables of four and everyone there is smiling, and having a great time. In addition to your own conversations, it is easy to overhear some of the things people around you are saying. I was fascinated by a conversation behind me about politics. During the discussion, one woman quoted Aristotle’s most famous line as, “Man is a political animal.” That caught my attention. While I admit that interpretation is often heard, I was still surprised that no one at the table pointed out that it was actually a mistranslation of the quote. In truth, Aristotle was saying that man is an animal whose characteristic it is to live in a polis (city). While I was impressed by their choice of topics, I couldn’t help but wonder what else most of us are missing about the Classical period.

The great societies of ancient Greece and Rome are today known for their impressive scientific and cultural accomplishments. Their art, especially sculpture, was spectacularly realistic. While the statues were once painted, making them even more realistic than what we now see, today we so love the look of the white and gray marble that we don’t care, and don’t even want to see, these great works colored. The Greeks understood that math, particularly the concept of the divine proportion, was the basis for art, music and all of creation. This certainly helped them to create those things we so revere today. But I believe the main reason for their spectacular success is they truly “saw” their fellow man—the individual man. Let me explain.

The Greeks, and later the Romans, had a different view of the universe than we have today. This is easily seen in their work in science. They believed that the workings of the universe and everything in it were logical and that man was born with an intellect beyond bounds. As a result, anyone who thought seriously about it, could figure out most anything. Keep in mind they didn’t have the scientific tools we have today like telescopes and microscopes. Sure, they got a few things wrong, like the structure of the solar system, but also remember, in the fifth century B.C. Democritus was the first to determine that matter was made up of atoms, a structure he not only named, but diagrammed to a remarkable degree of accuracy.

I think the biggest difference between these cultures and ours today can be seen in their art, especially those incredibly accurate sculptures of people. When the Greeks and Romans looked at their fellow citizens, or their gods, they saw them as distinct individuals. And because they looked at only the one person, not any entangling affiliations with others, they could concentrate their thoughts on that individual. They could see the minute details of the face and body—and then reproduce them accurately.

Not all societies in history have done that. After the fall of Rome, we entered a period commonly referred to as the Dark Ages. Literacy rates dropped from nearly universal to a point where only the top courtiers and the monks could read and write. But the most impactful difference seems to be that people no longer saw each other as individuals. They started viewing everyone as a member of one or more groups: there were courtiers, the peasants on Lord X’s land, members of this parish, etc. That switch in perspective changed society, and especially culture, dramatically. “High Art” from this period looks to us today like the work of grade schoolers. The artists of the time could no longer see the man, the individual. Instead, they were limited in their view of people as members of groups. And what you can’t see, you can’t paint, or sculpt, with any degree of accuracy..

Then came the fall of Constantinople (1453 A.D.). As European travelers got their first chance to see this last vestige of Roman civilization, they quickly realized that this civilization was light-years ahead of theirs, culturally and technologically. That created a fascination that led to the much more serious exploration of the ruins of Rome and Greece, which prior to this, tended to be overlooked. They saw the art and architecture and, more importantly, read the writings. Can you imagine the typical man of the Middle Ages seeing these wonders? Might he have thought this was all the work of space aliens?

As it turned out though, that was just the spark that was needed. Immediately, man had a new goal: to copy these works as best he could and try to get as good at it as these ancient people were. In the process, this new man discovered the writings of these ancient civilizations and saw that, unlike themselves, the emphasis of these Classical people was not on humanity as a whole, but on the individual person. As a result, they once again focused on the individual and culture soared. That brought to us the Renaissance, the rebirth of human greatness. For a long time, we never looked back.

But then, something happened. By the late 20th century, we started to again identify people as members of groups, and our policies and philosophies once again became based on group affiliation, not on the individual. The good of the individual was now sacrificable to the good of the group. As a result, the culture has suffered tremendously. Pick any genre: theatre, writing, sculpture, painting, music. Note the decline since the 1950s.

It is critical that the individual always be our prime concern. As the Greeks and Romans showed us, not only is that best for each individual person, but it is critical to society’s well-being as a whole and to the quality of our culture. Today it seems that everyone from corporations to government insists on viewing us as merely members of a group, as numbers in a set. We are in a world where hiring, college admissions and even access to some basic needs are determined by age, race, socioeconomic class, or sometimes even political beliefs. There are now societal pressures to do this in law as well. But justice can only be real if applied to the individual without concern for any affiliations.

When a society’s obsession with group affiliation starts leading to a deterioration of both civilization and culture, that direction must be changed. The change can only begin within each of us, individually. When we look at someone, we must choose to see only the single individual, not entailed affiliations. Only then will we do our part to preserve and improve our lives, our civilization and our culture. It is up to each of us to be that single “voice” in the wilderness, to really see every person we encounter as an individual, as someone important in and of himself.