Comparison and Contrast between 1688 and 1988 - Essay Example

Comparison and Contrast between 1688 and 1988 It is often surprising to learn how similar we are to a different culture or group of people. This is an often-discussed topic in today’s world of increasing globalization in relation to people of differing nations, but isn’t often a conversation regarding similarities between time periods. However, this is just the type of conversation John Wills introduces in his book 1688: A Global History. By providing a global perspective of world events as it is represented, artificially, through the lens of a single year in history, Wills illuminates what it means to be modern and, in his representation of a world poised on the brink of modernization and the many parallels that can be traced through that time period to this, he anticipates the world’s balancing act on the verge of the technological age in which we have recently entered. By comparing and contrasting the events of the world in 1688 and 1988, we can begin to see patterns of activity that have only changed slightly in terms of their exterior appearances and depth of development. One of the most obvious comparisons between the world of 1688 and 1988 was the suddenly increased global reach and its effects that were being experienced through the trading companies of the seventeenth century and the emerging internet technology of the late twentieth century. The concept of global trade was present in many places in 1688. According to Wills, Potosi in the Americas was one of the hot spots of world trade, connecting this seemingly remote region of the world with northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the near East, India and into China. “Every luxury good in the world was for sale – Chinese silks, Italian paintings, Persian carpets, French beaver hats” (24). In 1988, exactly 300 years later, the internet was at its infant stages, connecting every research laboratory in the world to a superconnected supercomputer system in which all luxury goods, services and information would soon be accessible to anyplace in the world (Cerf, 1994). Although this expansion took different forms, taking place upon small wooden ships and through perilous open water crossings in 1688 as opposed to the relative safety of an electronic age with information zipping along through cable and telephone wires, the effects of this expanded reach had long-term repercussions on virtually every society present on the globe. Even the Aborigines of Australia, long acknowledged among the most pure of all indigenous groups to have survived into 1988, were impacted by the expansion of the European nations with the greater navigation and reach of their amazing sailing ships just as they have been impacted with the advent of computerized technology and the possibilities for remote learning in the contemporary era. Another close comparison can be found in the presence of the big trading companies that restricted or allowed trade depending upon the profits available to them. This was present in 1688 in the form of the East India Trading Companies as they struggled to dominate the spice trades or worked to encourage the relocation of Huguenots as a means of providing their outposts on the Cape with more trade goods. It was equally present in 1988 as well as continues to be present today in the form of companies such as Nike and McDonalds, who have expanded their operations overseas and attempted to edge out smaller competitors or take advantage of dismal living conditions. While the trading companies would ruthlessly destroy entire villages as a means of preventing them from producing too much of a particular product or spice and thus drive down prices, companies such as Nike have been accused of exploiting desperate conditions in third world countries to exact labor from workers for miniscule fractions of what the finished product will sell for in the Western market. Many of the poorest people of the world today, rural Chinese or other Asians and Blacks from the regions of Africa and even in the Caribbean, were also singled out by Wills as being the worst treated of the peoples of 1688, frequently exploited and with little to no recourse for justice. Both the year 1688 and 1988 saw a great deal of cultural mixing as people were brought into closer association with each other. As businesses expanded and settlers arrived in previously unheard of locations such as Batavia, it became obvious that the world was not populated by a single group of people or operated upon a single idea. Instead, the great ports of the world grew up with a more or less peaceful, yet sometimes strained, mixture of often widely different beliefs. In Batavia, for example, “The voyager arriving by sea for the first time was amazed to find, on the low-lying north coast of Java … a bustle of Indian, Indonesian, Chinese, and European ships; an ordlerly realm of islands used as recreation grounds for the Dutch rulers and shipyards for the company; a formidable fortress, Batavia Castle, commanding the entrance to the inner harbor; streets of Dutch-style houses along canals; a thriving and well-organized Chinese community; and abundant facilities for drink and other pleasures of the flesh” (78). In addition, Wills informs his readers, “There was a large population of Portuguese-speaking people of mixed ancestry and an influential Chinese community with its own headman” (79). This was the same sort of climate that was present in 1988 as world leaders worked together to try to restore order among various factions, such as Russia and Afghanistan in the Geneva Accords (World History Database, 2007). In Siam, despite its strong Buddhist ties, the city was home to Chinese and Portuguese, Catholic Japanese and Muslims from Persia and India. The world of 1988, with its emphasis on world peace, saw the end of the Russian/Afghanistan war, the end of Iran-Iraqi conflict and a Summer Olympics held in previously war-torn Seoul, South Korea (Grosvenor, 2007). The advances in the computer technology quickly had university leaders from various different cultures working together on projects from locations as disparate as the United States and China. This same technology was paving the way for the future development of great networks of like-minded individuals from all walks of life freely able to engage in general conversation through such software technologies as email, chat, instant messaging and message boards. Again, while the changes were of a more virtual nature rather than a physical one, the cultural mixes that occurred as a result of events of the 1980s nevertheless introduced the same dilemmas into the general conversation – what is the ‘true’ culture, what are the ‘correct’ interpretations of symbols used in art and media, who is in possession of the ‘truth’ of the world and are there any universal truths to be had. Not surprisingly, the great question of religion has remained an issue to be faced from 1688 and before through to 1988 and beyond. It is perhaps surprising to learn that in many centers of commerce, the question of religion did not often stand in the way of progress. For example, Wills indicates that “The Chinese cemetery of Manilla, whose central chapel displays both Chinese and Buddhist images, is one of the world’s finest exhibits of a tolerant syncretism that now is more conspicuous than the bigotry of the seventeenth century” (31). The slave trade similarly brought together the world’s disparate religions as Christian missionaries and Muslim traders moved in and worked to instruct African peoples away from their traditional, often nature-based religions. One of these groups, the Jesuits, in an attempt to bring their knowledge to the indigenous peoples rather than through any true desire to learn of the traditional ways of the tribes, even went so far as to learn as many of the languages that were encountered as they could. “There was a growing fascination with the multiplicity of tongues and with the lost Adamic language as ocean-crossing Europeans discovered the full variety of human speech” (54). This attempt to find a common belief system, or at least a means of peacefully existing with others of different belief systems has continued into the twentieth century and beyond, although perhaps without the attempts at peaceful existence for the sake of progress. In 1688, those who did not agree with the general public had plenty of workable land in which to retreat. Those who wished were usually able to find some place however remote that would provide them with the materials they needed to survive and sometimes even find a comfortable level of existence. In the modern age, though, what is considered comfortable often involves conveniences that can only be obtained through proximity to a greater civilization – conveniences such as clean water, adequate food supply, medical knowledge and electricity to power other modern conveniences. Religious disagreements have taken on tremendous proportions by 1988, with the new inhabitants of Israel engaged in bloody warfare with the area’s previous inhabitants the Pakistanis and Muslim terrorists making graphic demonstrations of their quarrel with Christian world leaders. While the battle between Catholics and Protestants has taken a back seat to these larger issues, contention could still be found in areas such as the United Kingdom as the Irish Republican Army, a predominantly Catholic group, continued to fight their tireless war against the English Protestant Government that was seen to have usurped their country. In conclusion, while there have been some significant changes in how people live their daily lives from 1688 to 1988, society in general has not changed all that much. Both years saw the world’s civilizations perched on the very edge of a prodigious expansion around the globe with a tremendous mingling of cultures, belief systems and economic activities. Both have seen the world’s poorest peoples taken advantage of for the economic gain of greedy and already prosperous nations with better access to technology and education. Both have seen a redefinition of society, with a blurring of those concepts that had once been considered absolute and the admittance of shades of grey into the discussion. While religious differences and big business have continued to emerge as the two most difficult issues to overcome in working toward a more harmonious world, both 1688 and 1988 saw events emerging that would encourage greater dialogue among the various factions, greater efforts made towards bringing about world peace and increased acknowledgement among the populace of the world that there might be more than just one answer to the world’s greatest questions. Works Cited Cerf, Vint. “Guidelines for Conduct on and Use of the Internet.” All About the Internet. Reston, VA: Internet Society, (2007). June 24, 2007 Grosvenor, Charles R. Jr. “Timeline of the 80s: 1988.” In the 80s. June 24, 2007 Wills, John E. Jr. 1688: A Global History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. World History Database. “Year 1988.” (2007). 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