The story of civilized stupidity began with civilization. From the beginning, it has been a story of maladaptive, pretentious claims to eternal grandeur with each case becoming something more than just a tragedy for those involved if it also became a lesson wasted on those who followed. Usually, the specific examples repeated a generally cyclical pattern of conquerors becoming civilized and weakened by easy affluence and internal strife until they were conquered in turn by later bands of invading nomads. Old rulers and ruling classes would thus be replaced by new versions without anything fundamental changing, and then the process would begin again. So were the Sumerians swallowed up, their genes dispersed through interbreeding and their languages lost as they gave way to the Semites who gave way to the Aryans, with the Persians dominating until the time of Alexander (ca. 330 B.C.).

Those Sumerians founded western Asia's first known empire in the Euphrates-Tigris valley about 8,000 years ago. It lasted about 4,000 years so they must have done something right, and if stability were the sole criterion of success, it was among the most successful empires ever. During much of this time, however, it was divided into city-states which anticipated those of Greece (and the military tradition of Western states generally) by warring upon each other because there was no one else around to fight. For thousands of years, intra-imperial battles raged, and the only people to conquer Sumerians were other Sumerians. As in Renaissance Italy, the chauvinistic separatism of the cities of Sumer stimulated life and art but also led to civic violence and fratricidal strife that weakened each petty state and finally destroyed the empire. In this way, the Sumerians slowly wore themselves down and out until eventually they were replaced by the Semitic peoples.

Thus, in the early history of Mesopotamia (the Land Between the Rivers) began the struggle of Semites vs. Non-Semites. Since the dynastic clashes between the city-kings established at Semitic Kish (4500 B.C.) and Non-Semitic Ur (ca. 3500), the conflict between these peoples and cultures has remained one of the bloody themes in the story of the Near East. Contemporary statesmen committed to settling such a long-running dispute would do well to bear this in mind and modify their ambitions accordingly.

We might also note that in this early stage in the development of civilization, there was not yet a clear distinction between religion and politics. In fact, government was bound up with religion in the person of the patesi, meaning "Priest-king". Within this context of religious politics, an occasional reformer arose to oppose domestic oppression. Most notable among these was patesi Urukagina of Lagash (ca. 2900). He railed like a Luther against the exactions of the clergy, accused them of corruption, denounced them for their voracity, and charged them with over-taxing the workers. He had some success combatting bribery of officials and protecting the helpless against extortion, but neither the reforms nor the liberty he boasted he had given the people outlasted him. All was ended by Lugl-zaggisi, who invaded Lagash at the height of its prosperity, overthrew Urukagina and sacked the city.

With the passing of Urukagina, the priests recovered their power, as they would do in Egypt with the passing of Akhenaton, and abuse and corruption were restored as official norms. Such iniquities might best be viewed and accepted as the price of mythology. People apparently need myths, and if the priests were overcharging for inferior products as they presumed to provide this eternal and unfathomable necessity, then that just makes them seem all the more like our modern day myth mongers.

By 2800, the growth of trade made the pettiness of the patesi and municipal separatism impractical. Empires were thus effectively generated very much in the way that developing commerce would break down the provincial isolation of medieval Europe and pave the way for nationalism some 4,000 years later. The reigning Sumerian despot subjected the various cities and their patesi to his power, but he lived in a Renaissance atmosphere of calculated violence. Always with him was the gnawing fear that someone might apply the Golden Rule of Imperial Succession and dispatch him by the same means he had used to gain his power.

About 2400, Ur-engur brought all of western Asia under his pacific authority, proclaimed the first extensive code of laws in history and announced "By the laws of righteousness of Shamash forever I establish justice". It is with both relief and gratification that we learn justice was established forever more than 4,000 years ago. Despite all the legal righteousness of Shamash, the regal justice, peace, prosperity, leisure and glory enjoyed under Ur-engur endured only until 2357, when the city of Ur was invaded and sacked by some not so peaceful, prosperous and leisurely neighbors.

Around 2350, a Semitic people under Sargon I built a kingdom at Akkad, 200 miles north-west of the Sumerian city-states. Sargon modestly called himself "King of Universal Dominion" as he ruled a small portion of Mesopotamia, and historians have since called him "The Great" because he invaded many cities, captured much booty and killed a lot of people on his way to conquering the Sumerians. He never did live up to his self-proclaimed title, but in trying to do so, he established the first "Great" empire in history by extending his domain from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. However, his empire may have been more vast than great as at the close of his fifty-five year reign, it was in revolt.

The Sumerian culture survived Sargon, but the importance of Sumer was more in its formation than its extended demise. As one of the first if not the first civilization, it was a civilization of firsts. For the first time on a large scale, people indulged in the civilized sins of slavery, despotism, ecclesiasticism and imperialism. The natural inequality of people was supplemented by cultural inequities and iniquities which provided comfort for the strong and labor for the weak. Yet, it lasted until Hammurabi, King of Babylon, rose to power.

Babylon was a theocratic state always under the collective thumb of the priests. There was a solemn union of church and state, with the king invested with royal power by the priests and acting as an agent of the gods. Of course, this arrangement was one of reciprocal, mutually reinforcing advantages. On the one hand, the supernatural aura about the throne made potential rebellion less probable because it was a civic impiety which was not only illegal but heretical. On the other, tax money was collected in the name of the gods and found its way into temple treasuries. In fact, the church became even richer still as it amassed dividends the uneasy wealthy shared with the gods.

Beyond mere wealth, however, the religious Establishment had an edge over the temporal tyrants in that it was founded on the tradition of divine permanence. Kings came and went, but the 65,000 gods were eternal. Al- so, the council of priests had a corporate perpetuity that made possible the long-range planning and patient policies which still characterize the great religious institutions of the modern era.

Nevertheless, Babylon's most famous name is that of its founder and greatest secular ruler, Hammurabi. He reigned for forty-three years (1729 -1686) and is still remembered for his code of laws which was inspired, according to the prologue, "...To cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak,...to enlighten the land and to further the welfare of the people". In the epilogue, he claimed to have established prosperity for his people for all time. If Babylon was not quite the Heaven on earth he intended it to be, it did in his time reach a level of material civilization which, according to Christopher Dawson, has never been surpassed in Asia—except, according to Will Durant, maybe in Persia, India and/or China. Morally however, many of the ideals embodied in his Code were never realized in Babylon and remain, to our shame and embarrassment, unfulfilled throughout the world today.

Part of the reason the ideal state envisaged by Hammurabi was not realized in Babylon may have been that the Code represented a commitment to the principle of equal justice qualified according to social class and sex. More likely, its realization was inhibited by the fact that the secular, legal Code was officially complemented by a conservative religious philosophy designed to promote civil obedience and faith in the Establishment. According to going explanations, of which royalty approved, evil was good in drag—some part of a divine plan invisible to humans, who were simply to believe and obey. Eventually, faith and courage would be rewarded and enemies somehow punished by gods who were standing by to heed calls for help.

Actually, the reality of Babylonian life not only contrasted sharply with secular ideals but seemed to be running counter to the theological explanations as well. As noted by an anonymous observer, who probably will not mind being paraphrased: "Men exalt the work of the great murderer. They disparage the poor who have not sinned. They justify the wicked. They drive away the just. They help the strong steal from the poor. They strengthen the mighty. They destroy the weak." If it sounds as though civilization has not changed much in the last 4,000 years, it is because in some fundamental ways it hasn't. The modern priests of our secular religions (the media moguls who would have us believe in and buy into the Establishment) still side with the largest fortunes (the corporate sponsors) as did the priests of power in Babylon.

Despite all the apparent injustices of Babylonian life, and even though prosperity eventually waned and Hammurabi's ideals faded into the distance, it is not really surprising that the people remained faithful for so long to a religion that gave them so little consolation. True believers simply had no option but to continue humbly to seek favors from the biased gods and to heed devoutly the powerful priests. There certainly was no way for anyone to challenge the haughty, who had an arrangement of reciprocal support with the mighty. The only way the validity of any belief system can be checked is through knowledge, and personal experiences of the citizens notwithstanding, the only knowledge officially recognized in Babylon came from the priests through divine revelation. Not surprisingly, this invariably validated the established system.

Nor is it surprising this knowledge produced myths which justified and explained the system. Mesopotamian myths differ somewhat as to how the gods created man, but it is clear that when they became dissatisfied with their handiwork, they sent a flood to destroy him. It must be some consolation to our God to know that occasionally the Babylonian deities also did something stupid, and this was a case in point. No sooner had they unleashed the flood than the gods wept and gnashed their teeth at their divine idiocy. "Who will make the offerings now?", they asked. Fortunately for them and us, Ea (the God of Wisdom yet), out of pity for humanity, had saved one couple—Mr. and Mrs. Shamashnapishtim—who built an ark, survived the flood and made an offering to the surprised and grateful shortsighted gods.

Such legends aside, the general effect of theology on the early cultural life of the pre-imperial city of Babylon was that of intellectual stagnation. This was particularly true, for example, in medicine—a field in which the priestly influence which held back science was reinforced by superstitions of the people, who demanded supernatural diagnoses and cures. Sorcerers and necromancers were more popular than physicians, and through their influence on the people, they encouraged irrational medical practices. Hence, disease in Babylon was due to sin and was usually treated by incantations, magic and prayers. Such drugs as were used were designed to appease or disgust the demon possessing the patient.

By the time of Hammurabi, however, physicians had separated themselves from the clergy, and the medical profession was legally established with both fees and penalties fixed by law. A patient would thus know in advance just how much he would have to pay, and if he was poor, fees were lowered to match his means. In cases of malpractice, doctors had to pay damages, and in extreme cases, a bungling surgeon could have his fingers amputated so that he could not bungle again. This lesson was certainly not lost on other surgeons of the day as it was on later, more civilized and squeamish societies.

Medical liberation notwithstanding, the priests generally reigned supreme in Babylon, and to put their influence in a positive light, it can be said they provided an element of cultural continuity to society while promoting a decent docility among the lower classes. However, the upper classes seemed beyond the reach of religion particularly in the latter days of the empire. As cultural stagnation led to civic corruption, Babylon surrendered itself to revelry, drifted into its notorious decadence and became the sink of iniquity which was to serve the ancient world as a scandalous example of luxurious laxity and shocking immorality.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the long-enduring stability/stagnation complex which characterized the most successful ancient civilizations found expression as the vital cultural principle of repetition. Egyptians possessed no dynamic sense of progress but were content to apply certain formulae as called for by a constant environment dominated by a perpetual sun, endless sand and an eternal river. Officially, they were dogged record keepers, and these records were invariably couched in conventional terms which were used over and over again to describe things done over and over again.

Even private correspondence became reduced to bland and blank formality, so the overwhelming impression of Egypt is that of impersonality. Egyptians had no desire to express originality or individuality but aspired to behave as much like each other and their dead ancestors as possible. Their major philosophical preoccupation was to ignore time and live outside it. Further, they lacked curiosity and never speculated about themselves or anything else. This makes them strangers to us in that not only did they not answer the questions historians ask about their dynasties— they did not even ask the questions.

Our answers indicate that in predynastic, fifth millennium Egypt, there were—what else?—two warring states. In Upper Egypt (i.e., the headwaters of the Nile or southern Egypt), the king wore a white crown while in the Delta, the king wore a red crown. The warring factions were thus referred to as "Whites" and "Reds", and it is somewhat humbling to think that 6,500 years ago, the Nile may have echoed with the Egyptian equivalents of "Better red than dead" and "Better white than right". In one of those rarities of history—an extended period of peace, the kingdoms coexisted for nearly 1,000 years until about 3300, when hostilities were resumed. Finally, the Uppers got the upper hand and Narmer (alias Menes) unified the two lands and became the first king of dynastic Egypt.

In the next millennium, Egypt nearly wrecked itself building the pyramids. As symbols of Egypt and monuments to stupidity and death, they remain unsurpassed. Around 2650, Cheops raised the Great Pyramid, which was originally about 500 feet high and weighed more than five million tons, with most of the stone being lugged into place by human muscle. The ultimate significance of this and the other burial piles was that they left Egypt exhausted and wasted as if devastated by war.

In the second millennium, Egypt was confronted with the reforming impulses of Akhenaton (1370-1352). He recognized as the sole god of Egypt, Aton, the creative principle of the sun, rather than Amon-Ra, the spiritual fountainhead of his own dynasty. Although to know Aton was to enjoy gaiety and intellectual freedom, Akhenaton proceeded against Amon-Ra with all the fury of a joyless bigot. Actually, this self-destructive theological rage was a thinly disguised attempt on the part of Akhenaton to break the iron power of the priesthood at Thebes. However, the attempted reform failed, and the king capitulated because he had clearly underestimated both Amon-Ra's popularity among the people and the power of the priests, who held the dynastic purse strings.

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