OHagan 1 Respecting the Past

When you begin delving into the culture and history of our ancient ancestors there are many things that you may find familiar about the way they lived, the things they celebrated, and the ideals that they fought for. Most people tend to believe that in contemporary times we as humans are much more intelligent and superior in our thinking and actions than our predecessors. When you start to learn about the civilizations of our past and the things they accomplished this way of thinking tends to become obsolete. I believe that most of the activities in our daily lives that we think of as modern or sophisticated can be traced back to key elements of society and human interaction. Our views on religion, and the reasons we have education are good examples of this connection. Now I want to take you back approximately 6,500 years ago to the beginning of the worlds first known civilization, the Sumerians. This group of people resided in ancient Mesopotamia, or modern Iraq, as we know it. These people believed in a tale of creation that explained how their world worked. In this story the gods created humans originally to be their servants, but when humans began to be too much to handle they granted them their freedom. The Sumerians believed that the universe was an enormous dome based around the earth, with a saltwater sea encircling it. Beneath the earths surface there was a freshwater ocean named Apsu. The earth was named Ki, the dome above the earth (the sky) named An, and the sea encircling the earth was named Namu.

OHagan 2 The people of Sumer had questions about how they were created and they answered the unanswerable with stories that they passed down through the generations. All throughout history there are many legends and tales that make up the different cultures of the world. These stories are embellished, cultivated and changed over the ages, but there sole purpose of explaining things that we cannot explain are still seen in all of modern religion today. Now I would like you to consider the education system in contemporary America. Why do we need an education? How do we benefit from being taught to read, write, and utilize mathematics? A good answer to this question is for us to gain the abilities to find work and support ourselves throughout our lives. The reason we need to learn these things to survive in our culture is because many of the basic needs we have as humans are already being met. These needs being things such as shelter, a food source, and a way of protection from our enemies. Now lets say for a moment these basic needs are taken away from us. For example, if we took a group of contemporary American citizens and deserted them on an island for 1,000 years. Do you think that they would be concerning themselves with analyzing the literary works of William Shakespeare? Perhaps writing their autobiographies? No, figuratively speaking they would be sent back in time. The sole purpose of their lives would divert back to survival. They would need to learn to hunt and gather food, how to build structures to keep themselves safe from the elements, how to protect themselves if there are any hostile indigenous population. Over time these people may reproduce and develop their own society. Now how would they explain to there children how they came to be? Perhaps they would

OHagan 3 tell them tales of the old world that they were once a part of. What kinds of things would these children need to learn to survive in this society? What sort of education would they need to have? These are the questions we must ask ourselves when looking into the civilizations of the past. When we start to think of ourselves as superior to our ancestors I think we need to take a moment to realize that the reason we have such an advanced society, and the privileges of higher education is all thanks to the hard work and innovations of the past. We as humans have not changed as much as we think we have, and I believe we must be humble to that fact.