12.03.08

The confusion over the term ‘Axial Age’

Posted in Evolution at 10:21 pm by nemo

Hucklebird comments on The Dawkins mistake on climbing Mt. Improbable, and I reply below in another comment. Thanks to Hucklebird for the comment: he’s right, the term ‘Axial Age’ has become confused in its usage.

Stephen P. Smith said,
December 3, 2008 at 6:21 pm ·
So much is written about the “non-random pattern” in history that stands out during the said “Axial age.” But then the discussion seems to fall short. A clear definition of the Axial age, and a clear description of the non-random pattern will help us readers!
By “Axial age,” I am assuming your talking about a point in history 2000 years ago, or so, where civilization first emerged with the worlds religions?
See this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age

And by the “non-random pattern,” I am assuming you are talking about the way religion emerged with civilization all over the world and all at once? The pattern show a break in the deterministic chain that points to the past? Hense, evolution and history show two faces? And so we can infer that something is holding the two together as one evolution?

_____________________

nemo said,
December 3, 2008 at 9:54 pm ·
[I am putting these comments into posts, to attempt to answer your question.]

I rarely use the term ‘Axial Age’ in World History And The Eonic Effect! I get desperate. People can’t handle abstractions about eonic transitions, so sometimes I relent and use something that is in people’s experience, forgetting that this is mostly confused.

The discussion is about the distribution of innovation in the relevant time-frames of the transitions defined, in this case from -900 to ca. -600. If that is ‘an’ or ‘the’ Axial Age over the cultures where this happens (Greece/Rome, Middle East/Israel, India, China), fine, otherwise let’s switch to my terminology. It actually corresponds quite well with some differences to Karl Jaspers, but not to Karen Armstrong or the host of religious links on the Internet (see google) turning the Axial Age into something it is not.
Thus this is not really an issue of religions. The Axial Age encompasses the progression of a world system, and that includes all categories. Note especially the case of Greece. You must study a secular case before attempting the Israelite (which isn’t the ‘Judaic’) case. The latter is too confusing. The case of Greece is transparent: an absolute whopper of innovations appear out of the blue in a very fixed time-frame. by -400 it is all gone. An ‘Axial’ interval. The really seminal part is over by -600, followed by a spectacular realization period that wanes within two centuries. Once you see the isomorphism of the Israelite and Greek case (then the Indic…) the issue of ‘Axial Ages’ producing religions won’t seem relevant any more.

FORGET WIKIPEDIA on the Axial Age, it is not very useful, even as it is relatively straightforward, based on Jaspers. But this version emphasizes brilliant sages, prophets, people. Dig deeper you see a whole transition applied to a particular culture. Look at the whole period of Archaic Greece, for example. The Axial interval includes a lot more than what Jaspers mentions.
Karen Armstrong is even worse. Her book, as noted here many times, is a distortion of mine.
She stripped the question of its larger eonic context, confused the issue of the modern transition with the discussion of rationality, excised the discussion of evolution, and of Darwinism. Keep it non-controversial to sell books and please the establishment. There are a lot of establishments that don’t want you to grasp or see the Axial Age. Since the data is right out in the open, keep people confused. And don’t reprint Jaspers’ book. Get a PR deception going with safe people like Karen Armstrong. Small wonder the world has lost some priceless data useful for understanding universal history, and evolution.

I fear the notion of the Axial Age has fallen into terminal confusion thus. So use my different terminology.
As per your request for a clarification.
In the eonic model of the eonic effect we see what are essentially three transitions equally spaced and about three centuries in length, over five millennia since Egypt/Sumer ca -3300 to -3000 to the modern transformation 1500 to 1800 (in the relevant transition zones, this not a global phenomenon), three transitions, two middle periods. The second is sometimes called the Axial Age, but the only clear case is completely secular, the Greek transtion, as archaic Greece most remarkably starts to take off in the period after -900.

The case of Israel is very confusing if you are a Christian. You won’t ever understand it.
It is NOT (I repeat, NOT) about divine relevation via Jahwey acting in history. OK. I will have to repeat it. It is NOT about God acting history.

The concept of the Axial transformation, revised in light of the eonic effect shows that we are seeing a macrohistorical dynamic at work.
Keep in mind that the idea of the emergence of ‘religion’ in the Judaic ‘Axial’ is misleading. The term ‘religion’ is changing meaning. In Israel we see the old pre-Axial temple culture changing gears. It never quite completes its transformation. Note that animal sacrifice persisted into Roman times!
The concept of monotheism arises, slowly, crystallizing ca. -600 (in part influenced by Zoroastrianism also) in the context of a tribal/state culture and its theocratic religious beliefs. The Exile era and after shows crystallalization of a new literature roughly monotheistic. But this is a ‘religion’ of the Israelite temple cult. The seeds latent in the Axial/eonic transition mature slowly and we see later men creating new religions, but these were not created in the Axial period.
Many of the elements of later religion begin to emerge in Israelite times. But our idea of religion, e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, are NOT Axial creations. This requires therefore careful use of the term ‘religion’. And of the term Axial. Karen Armstrong has terminally confused the question by sloppy usage of the term Axial even for the very late Islam. It is not comment on Islam to say that it wasn’t emergent in the Axial Age. But the damage has been done by Armstrong.

The issue of the non-random pattern then is of three transitions over five millennia from Egypt/Sumer to modern times. The clustering of innovations in these transitions is what creates the overall non-random pattern.

I need reminding that the idea of the Axial Age is hopeless confusion in most people’s minds. I rarely used the term in the first edition, but allowed it in in the second and third, but in the final analysis the analysis of the eonic effect has to mention and then set aside the terminology of the Axial Age.
I have discussed multiple times the confusion sown by Karen Armstrong on this question, along with many others on the internet. The Axial Age for me is simply a vague reference to the brief interval of generative innovation that brings into existence a new age of world history, between -900 and -600, with an aftereffect of about two centuries, to -400, as the new explodes into form. That’s something far more than the question of religion, which has confused the issue. Israelite culture in this ‘Axial’ transtion produced prophets, and tended to critique its polytheism, just as the modern Enlightenment in the modern transition critique monotheism. The overall pattern of culture was not religion generation in our sense. All that we consider religion now arose in the wake of the Axial Age.

It is much better to study these issues with the Greek example where the issue of Axial Ages producing religions doesn’t even arise.

To clarify these questions is not hard if you follow the periodization set up in the text of World History And the Eonic Effect. Since my result (in terms of dates) is not far from that of Karl Jaspers it is OK up to a point to use the term Axial Age as long as it is clear what is being referred to.

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