Lucrative Persuasion

It has nothing to do with science, the world goes round because of money. Economics really is the behind the scenes force driving in each and every new revolution that happens to come along. You can get anything done with enough money. You can create an army to destroy your opponents with enough money. The gathering of money from the masses causes general unrest. As well as the lack of money makes people do things they would never do otherwise. Economics are the most influential thing in the world, and the Medici knew it.

"Democracy depends on consensus, consensus on persuasion. And what is more persuasive than money?" Medici Money Page 88. That statement is entirely amazingly true. With enough money you can get just about anything you want done. This is because people are willing to take any risk for cold hard currency. Cosimo fully realized this and utilized it often, along with his other favorite tactics which is taking advantage of the fact that if you are funding someones endeavors (or their livelihood in general) are very hesitant to the point of outright against speaking against you, and your own endeavors. It is relatively simple to see how this can be used in correlation with spurring on a revolution. One simply has to place a few coins in the pockets of those opposed to this new radical change, and on the hugely strange chance that that is not enough to persuade the individual or organization to stop hindering your efforts, just hire someone to help you discreetly. With enough money your revolution will come about.

"Even when it most resembles a sport, even when it is most futile, war is always cruelly expensive. And where war is never conclusive, a constant supply of money becomes absolutely essential." Medici Money page 72. For the Revolution of Humanism would not have spread so easily and far, had Italy not been in a constant state of war within itself. The fact that this dissension among the various city states existed, meant that the Church did not have full control over everything, and with that came a chance for the ideals of Humanism, which seemingly challenged the traditional thinking of the Church to spread and flourish without being widely recognized until it was to large to stop. This level of chaos does not come cheaply, and requires a very healthy economy before the start, if it is to sustain for long enough for a true revolution to take place. Also in other Revolutions which developed in the form of wars, namely the French Revolution, and the American Revolutionary war, vast armies fought, and without proper food, equipment both of which do not come cheap. Without enough money, your revolution will fall apart.

"As an order, they were virtually exempt from paying taxes of any kind. They collected rent from the peasant population who lived on their lands. They also collected an extraordinary amount of customary dues from the peasantry." http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture11a.html. That is speaking of course of the nobles before the French Revolution. For some reason there seems to be a pattern throughout history that those with money seem to be corrupted by it, and develop a need to gain more in whatever way possible, ethical or not. That was the case for the nobles of France in the late eighteen hundreds, and the British midway through that same century. In both cases the upper class became obsessed with an idea that they were entitled to the wealth of all those below them, and thus they taxed them cruelly, to the point where the ones being oppressed financially finally couldn't take anymore and decided drastic changes had to take place. Those drastic changes ended up being revolutions. Hording all the money you can, causes a revolution from those you have horded this money away from.

"There [China] it produces the very same product in the very same way, only with cheaper labor, lower taxes, subsidized energy, and lower health-care costs." The World Is Flat page 137. The impoverished do things no one in a decent financial situation would ever consider. It's called acts of desperation, and it is a road towards revolution. As the malnourished french peasants rose up and fought for equality a few hundred years ago. the Chinese, and Indian citizens today are doing the same thing much more quietly, with less literal bloodshed. The horrible economic state of China and India is allowing their highly skilled workforce to do the same work at a fraction of the cost that an American worker is forced to do it for, based on cost of living.Those without enough money to survive will inevitably attempt to start a revolution.

Every major change in history has been caused in a large part by economics. Every change in history rather. No matter how many ideals people try to throw in front of their causes, to make them seem just, every single one of them comes down to one thing in the end. Money. It is one of the most sickening realizations I have ever made, yet there is no denying it. I wish we lived in a world where money wasn't on the mind at all times of those that gain power, but that's just it, the people who want money, gain power as a result of gaining the money they seek. It's a vicious circle of horrible, greedy people telling us what to do, and I see know way to put an end to it. There will always be those people, like the Medici who are willing to destroy any pretense of morality to gain meaningless wealth; and these will always be the people that have the means to start a revolution. Money causes every shift in history, it really is what makes the world go round, however sickening that is.

(All information pertaining to the French Revolution courtesy of http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture11a.html
All information pertaining to the American Revolutionary war courtesy of http://www.historycentral.com/Revolt/causes.html)

The Future=A Humanistic society in a Flat world?

Revolution, according to webster.com a revolution is "a sudden, radical, or complete change". Humanism certainly wasn't sudden, but it was radical, that's for sure. Following in Humanism's footsteps however is another revolution that looks to be happening much more suddenly, and possibly even more radical and complete. The flattening of the world, is without a doubt, very similar in many aspects such as idealistic goals, individuality, and empowerment based on availability of knowledge, and as such there are conclusions which can be drawn about what it's end effects will be, by comparing the two.

Humanism as a concept is simply that the human experience is indeed meaningful, and is not just a test as to whether or not you are worthy of eternal bliss in Heaven. Ancient Rome and Greece embraced this way of thinking, and as such their arts, education, and overall quality of living were higher then during the middle ages. The extreme change in style of art is really one of the biggest indications to the change in thinking that Humanism entails, no longer focusing all efforts on conveying a religious theme, time and effort from a humanist artist, is spent on creating detail in the people; the people who had personal struggles, and accomplishments. In brief, Humanism is simply a mindset in which achievements of people alive, and on earth, are celebrated because their life means something.

The flattening of the world as a concept is simply that due to technological advances distance no longer matters in relation to what you can accomplish. With a flat world you can communicate, do business with, and share ideas with anyone in the world... instantly. A flat world eliminates any barrier to how far someones voice can be heard. People are no longer limited by the resources of their immediate physical community, their community from which they can draw upon is now everyone else in the world. There are no limits.

Before Humanism, everyone based everything they did in their mortal life to reach an idealistic goal of reaching heaven, and attaining eternal bliss there. With Humanism people started realizing that not everything they did had to be working towards that goal. Comparatively, in a flat world you could say that children are now pushed to compete against everyone else in order for them to grow up and be successful; this in essence is a step back to the middle ages where everyone based their entire lives trying to attain that idealistic goal of heaven. Simply put getting a good, untouchable job is the new heaven. Getting to heaven for eternal bliss is no longer thought of nearly as much, or frequently; and with the flat world we are told we need to do everything we can in our short time before we are thrown in the real world, to ensure that we will be happy for the rest of our lives.

Both Humanism, and the Flat world gave people greater availability of knowledge then had ever been possible previously: Humanism by challenging the churches habit of collecting all knowledge, as well as encouraging the search for knowledge not of a divine origin, and with the flat world simply through the accessibility through the Internet. With this greatly increased knowledge comes a great sense of empowerment, that didn't exist before. In Humanism this causes people to start to question things, to think for themselves, and to delve into the arts, everyone developed their own voice. In the flat world the empowerment comes in the form of people being able to express their thoughts, and ideas through blogs, or youtube, or many other ways, and have it be seen by an astronomical amount of people, everyone's voice has power.

Where the Flattening is looking to impact economics, being driven by technological advances, Humanism impacted the religion hugely. With Humanistic thinking, people started to question things, even (especially) the previously unquestionable, the epitome of unquestionable was the church. Humanism unintentionally caused the splitting of the Church. The Flattening however will have no affects on the religious state of the world, it does though affect the world economy drastically. Humanism also wasn't in the slightest spurred by technology, in fact it was influenced by the discovery of ancient documents, quite the opposite of scientific advances.

With the similarities between the two concepts there are a few things that can be assumed will occur as a result of the flattening of the world (which is still in progress), from what was caused by Humanism. One, like the gigantic source of power that was the Catholic church in the middle ages, America will lose it's overall prosperity. Fear not about this, because like the church America will not disappear entirely, it just simply won't be superior to basically everything on the planet; and quite possibly as the church had some questionable characters in it's midst before Humanism, so might America become a more purely good establishment after the revolution is all said and done. Two, people will again reach a new level of artistic, and creative prosperity as the great Renaissance artists created, only with the flat world it won't be from the focus on the human experience, but rather, other humans who you are competing, to get paid, with. All in all, Humanism created huge ripples in the fabric of society, and the flattening looks to mirror those ripples.

Faustian Bargain

In Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe, Faustus hungers for fame and power; in order to gain said fame and power he sells his soul to the devil. As time goes on, and it grows nearer to the end of the twenty four years he had to live before being forced into an eternity in hell, Faustus tries harder and harder to back out of his deal, however his efforts remain fruitless. From this, a Faustian bargain is one in which you don't quite comprehend the full price you are paying when agreeing to it, and which after (if ever) you finally do understand the full extent of what you have done it is to late to change. At the time of signing the deal Faustus didn't either realize or take seriously the amount of suffering he would endure in hell, and once he did it was to late to back out of the deal. A Faustian bargain at first appears to be asking for something you are willing to pay, until you realize the true value of what you have already given away.