Two great men were born in the year 1564; one was William Shakespeare
in England, the
other was Galileo Galilei in Italy. When Shakespeare writes about the drama of power in his
own age, he twice brings the scene to the Republic of Venice: once in the Merchant of
Venice and then in Othello. This is because in 1600 the Mediterranean was still the centre of
the world, and Venice was the hub of the Mediterranean. And here ambitious men came to
work, because they were free to work without restraint: merchants, and adventurers, and
intellectuals, a host of artists and artisans crowded these streets, as they do now.
J Bronowski
The period from the age of Shakespeare and Galileo through the next four centuries
to the present,
defines the third phase of cultural evolution.
This has seen the development of technologies such as the clock, the microscope, the
steam
engine, the discoveries of physics, microbiology and chemistry, and their applications to civil
engineering, medicine and warfare. Then there are the inventions of business techniques to
support the marketing of mass production, such as the cheque and the stock exchange. Ideas of
humanitarianism have asserted the principle of human freedom and rights and the parliamentary
system.
All of these European innovations have spread throughout the world. Paradoxically,
Europe is now
on the retreat at the moment when the industrial way of life that was originally developed by
Europeans is taking over the planet. This involves the adoption of consumerism as a powerful
cultural force, but consumer demand linked with population growth also spreads the seeds of long-
term unsustainabilty all over the world. In other words, we are on the threshold of the fourth
phase
of cultural evolution which will inevitably involve adjusting human wants downwards to match a flow
of resources that planet Earth can supply.
