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The point I want to make here is that I have no idea what people with changed minds will do. Paul was in the same condition as he traveled the empire changing minds in the middle of the first century. He couldn't possibly have predicted the institutional development of the papacy or the shape of Christian society in feudal Europe. By contrast, the early science fiction writer Jules Verne could make a century's worth of excellent predictions, because nothing changed between his time and ours in terms of vision. If people in the coming century have a new vision, then they'll do what is completely unpredictable by us. Indeed, if this were not the case--if their actions were predictable by us--then this would prove that they didn't have a new vision after all, that their vision and ours were essentially the same." The Story of B
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UNIT 9 Vanished Peoples
According to the author, those who vanished just "took up less conspicuous ways of making a living, either by foraging or by some mixture of foraging and farming." What do you suppose happened to the ruling and noble classes when this happened? [No one knows or is likely to know, so this is purely conjectural.]
After millennia of overgrazing and poor agricultural practices, much of the Fertile Crescent became the desert it remains today. What do you suppose happened to the farming peoples of the area?
Two guys are working at computers when the power fails. One keeps on working, the other sits there idle till power is restored. What did the first have that the second didn't? [An uninterruptible backup power supply.] Come up with other (perhaps less easy) riddles of this sort.
Quinn says you can't talk people into accepting an absurd idea on the spur of the moment, they have to hear it from birth. Can you think of any "absurd" ideas that people accept because they've heard them from birth?
As a writing assignment, have students survey our history of "underclass insurrections, revolts, rebellions, riots, and revolutions." You might consider dividing the class into three groups, one to investigate the classical period, one to investigate the period following the fall of Rome, and one to investigate the period from the Renaissance to the present, then compare their results.
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