Charles Lindbergh - a philosopher in life and death

Charles Lindbergh

An american reader of my german blog has asked me about the content of my german posts about Charles Lindbergh. Here I give some parts of my answer to him. My English is very bad. Sorry for this. If there is anyone out there, who would like to go through it and make it better, I would appreciate it very much. Mostly I'm interested to communicate content - and not to look for the best style. But I'm aware that this is not very polite.

It would take some time to translate into english everything I have written about Lindbergh on my blog. But if I learn about more interest into it, in the future I can try to write more about Lindbergh in english - if there is an opportunitiy for me. - As you can see: Mostly my thoughts about Lindbergh are based on the english literature.

But I can try to give you here a short account of my thoughts about Lindbergh.

1. Lindbergh died a very “philosophical” death

The first step for me was, that I was very impressed to learn in A. Scott Berg's biography about all what was going on in the days before the death of Charles Lindbergh. In my eyes he died like a "king". With a lot of philosophical souvereignty. And about this I was deeply impressed. And all my other questions stem from there: What sort of man was Lindbergh, that he was able to die with such an attitude? (With such earnestness and at the same time with such "coolness".)

So, first, I thought, it is important to understand, what it had meant in those days to be a pioneer with planes: always risk of death. In this posting I refer mostly to a letter and other thoughts, that his wife Anne has written, when one of his best friends, Phil Love came to death by an accident on 4th June 1943. I think this is the most important part of the diaries of Anne between 1939 to 44, because here she speaks about things, Charles Lindbergh for himself seldom is speaking about: "Death is always side by side with you." - And she speaks about the meaning of friendship for Lindbergh that is formed in days when they lived with every-day possibility of death by accident.

2. His interest in science

And as a pioneer you know more about this than everyone else. But there is more. There is his interest into the science of Alexis Carrel. Here I hope to learn a lot new things from the forthcoming book "The Immortalists". (Amazon) They had a lot of philosophical discussions of which not very much is known to us yet (as it seems to me - I do not know the literature very well). But may be this new book has more about all that. It is at the one side his pragmatic attitude in thinking about life and death - like a pure materialist - and on the other side ... difficult! It has something to do with courageness, with the will to live, with his idealism. In simple words: To be aware of death gives you more conscienceness for life.

This easily sounds like a triviality. But I think, this is all, what Charles Lindbergh's life has to say to us. And if you see, that someone shows in his own life, what this insight means for him, everything has another looking. And all this we can find in another aspect of his life mostly: his three german wifes and his seven german children. This story is very new and full of surprisings. The new german book of Rudolf Schröck (2005) (Amazon) has a lot of content, non-german-speaking readers cannot be aware of. I have tried to give an overview about the most important content of this book in my german posting. But I have not the opportunity now, to repeat all that here. "Life will work it out" was one of Lindbergh's words and his german children are happy to have had such a father. They learned and know more about their father than his american children - this is often the impression you get, if you read this new book. And all this has shown (to me): Philosophy and life were one thing for Lindbergh.

For example it is very surprising to learn, that Lindbergh - according to the diaries of his wife - in 1941 (or so) said to her, that it is most impressiv, that a women who is handicapped (not inherited) can have children, that are not at all handicapped. And 20 years later he came together with two sisters in Munich and had children with them, who were handicapped (not inherited). His german children had often discussions with their mother about death. And his first german wife had the same attitude to death and her own death as Charles Lindbergh had. She died 2001 with very like the same souvereignty.

3. His three german families

And she had the same "will for life" and the same will to give birth to children - even in a world, that can give you only pessimistic outlooks. Lindbergh was disappointed about his wife Anne, when she said in 1946 or so, that she had enough children now. He always wished to have as many children as the Kennedy family had - or more. He spoke about 12 or so. This was his will for life and his longing for "immortality", I think. - But may be with the new book we will learn more about that.

I was disappointed about the autobiography of Lindbergh himself. I were not able to find there very much of what I had hoped for: A better understanding of his deeper personality. He makes a lot of very nice words. But I have learned more about his attitude towards life and death from his german children in the mentioned book of Rudolf Schröck.

So, this is only a "shorter version", of what I had to say yet about Lindbergh on my german blog. May be I will write more, if I have read the new book "The Immortalists".

The Sogdians in China II

The comments on "Gene Expression" give some more information. My own:

The Sogdians were part of the Persian Empire. We know Persian art and from that we know, what sort of people the elite of the Persian Empire was. We know Scythian art and from that we know, what sort of people the Scythians were. The Sogdians were a part of this "spectrum" between these peoples.

In this book

Haussig, Hans Wilhelm: Archäologie und Kunst der Seidenstraße. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1992

you can find at least 12 pieces of old chinese (or japanese) art of the Tang area showing "Westerners". Mostly No. 438 (p. 255) is very convincingly for me ("five musicians on a camel"). But several others too.

In this book

Etienne de La Vaissiere: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden 2005

you can find also some pieces of art. Plate IV: "Chinese statuettes representing Sogdians: 1 Caravaneer, 2 Merchant on foot, 3 Groom."

(It is very interesting also, that the Huns, who made history in Europe after 375, had made a lot of "experiences" before and after that with the Sogdians in Central Asia. Mostly the Sogdians were allies of the Huns like like the Goths and other germanic tribes in the West.) (Yu Hong was an ambessedor between China and the Huns.)

The Sogdians had long traditions of political experiences with several great cultures (Chinese, India, Persia, Byzanz, the Huns, the Tocharian kingdoms in the Tarim ...) and they were proud of that. They were embassadors between the huns and Byzanz also (in favor of "free market and trade"). On their wall pictures of Old-Samarkand and Pentshikent they had historical scences of several empires, their regents and their religions.

I'm not fully clear yet about the relationships between Tocharians and Sogdians. It seems that Tocharians flet from the invasion of the Huns to the Sogdians (and to Ferghana?) and founded new kingdoms there. Another part of the Tocharians stayed in the Tarim and in Kansu. But the Sogdians clearly were different from them, probably were more "specialists" in far distance trade.

And the very informed comment by John J. Emerson, a specialist in Chinese history:

The Sogdians were sometimes part of the Persian Emperor and sometimes not. They spoke what might be called a dialect of Persian, though it could also be called a related language. As time went on they became increasingly Turkified, with long periods of bilingualism and intermarriage. There remain Tajiks speaking Turkish in that area today, though I don't believe that they're specifically descendants of Sogdians; Sogdian specifically is probably extinct, or perhaps linguistically represented by a small mountain people long separated from the Sogdian past. As far as I know they were Middle Eastern in type.

The geographical perspective on these peoples is the most interesting. Central Asia East of Persia, north of India, south and east of the steppe, and west of China (i.e. Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, and neighboring areas) was a mix of deserts, mountains and oases. This area has been the farthest reach of China, Persia, Russia, Alexander the Great, and the Arab Muslims, but the area was often independent and was the home base of Tamerlane, Genghis Khan (in a sense), and the Mughals. It also served as a refuge for survivor peoples such as the Manichaeans, the Tokharians, and the Nestorians.

The small but very productive oases were urbanized very early, and their main world significance was as a trade link between China, the Persian Middle East, and India.

Anyway, the Sogdians ere dominant here from 300 BC or earlier but gradually became Persianized and/or Turkified. (However, Sogdians were a force in China as late as 900 AD). The process seems to have been mostly peaceful rather than by conquest or extermination -- the Sogdians were middlemen who had to be multilingual, and they were always cutting deals with the more powerful peoples of Persia, Mongolia, and China.

The Tokharians were a whole different story, and seem to have come from the NW. Their dialect and race are thought to have been W. European rather than Middle Eastern. They survived (as Buddhists) in Xinjiang up until 1000 AD or later, and around the period 100 BC -- 200 AD they may have been (it's not certain) the rulers of the Kushan kingdom in approximately Afghanistan. The Kushans are very poorly known. One interesting thing about them is that they were in some ways heirs of the Bactrian Greeks (using Greek script on some coins), and the Kushans played a major role in the development of Mahayana Buddhism and its transmission to China.

Most empires privilege specialized minority peoples or sects, either as middlemen to the outside world, as mercenaries, or as agents dependent on and loyal to the ruler. This is much different than multiculturalism and multinationalism; it's more a divide and conquer strategy. Historically favored minorities (and trading minorities) I can think of immediately include Jews, Armenians, Albanians, Sogdians, Uighurs, Baha'is, Lombards, Norse (in Constantinople), Lebanese, Greeks, Italians, Gurkhas, Irish, Quakers, Chinese (in SE Asia), and some of the peoples of India. (I've mixed up mercenaries, technical experts, and trading peoples, but the dynamic is about the same).

My point, anyway, is that cultural uniformity is really not often found, and that a degree of cultural pluralism is characteristic of empires and large trading networks.

I have problems with his assumption, that the Sogdians were "Middle Eastern in Type". The Persians and the Scythians weren't Middle Eastern in type in their art and the Chinese art shows no Middle Eastern type for Sogdians also. And Chinese art was very aware of all the slightly physical differences of all the diverse ethnies in the West (Tibetians, Huns, Sogdians, Indians ...) But John Emerson is right, that the Sogdians "became Persianized and/or Turkified". - May be partly "Tocharianized" too?

The point of all this for me is: Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, Usbekistan and Xiangjang are very poor countries today, but this wasn't always so. Highly urbanized cultures sunken in the sands comparable to Egypt, Meso-America, Irak, Greece ... New examples of the collapse of complex societies.

Another new comment from me over there:

Here is some usefull information about Sogdians and their graves in China today.

And this is interesting too:

"According to Chinese monk-pilgrim of the 7th century Xuan Zang, half of Sogdian population was engaged in farming, whereas the other half carried on trade. (...) At the age of five, the boys studied books, and after getting their teens they were sent to learn trading. Having reached their 20th year, young men went to neighboring lands to engage in profitable trade."

And La Vaissier ("Sogdian Traders", 2005) says about the Sogdian communities in every larger Chinese city and their leaders, the "Sabaos" (p. 152): "But it is quite exceptional that every hu" (that means Sogdian) "community of at least 200 households - the equivalent of a large village - should have been provided with a representive of mandarin rank. The smallest Chinese area having at its head a representative of the central power was normally the district (xian). The leaders of the township, and a fortiori those of the village and quarter, were chosen among the local notables and did not have mandarin rank. The sabao, therefore, should not have had such a position. Only the fact, that they were in charge of foreign communities explains this special treatment, which attests to the economic importance of the communities, incommensurable with the number of their members."

The Sogdians in China

National Geographic has a new article about the genetical studies concerning the Sogdian leader Yu Hong in a Tang-chinese grave. (Studium generale)

Yu Hong was a "Sogdian". Dienekes had some links to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had more information about this people and about this grave.

I have made some studies about the Sogdians in the last weeks. (Studium generale) The Sogdians came mostly from Samarkand and the rich and economically whealthy "Sogdiana". Roxana, the first wife of Alexander the Great was a sogdian princess. The Sogdians were mostly rich traders (caravaniers) between Korea and Byzanz. And they made a lot of politics in this area. They had communities in the Tarim-area and far beyond.

In the chinese art of the Tang area often you can find pieces that shows "Foreigners", "Westerners". Mostly they were Sogdians. Often they are shown as comedians, dancers, musicians. They made several religions spread in East Asia (Buddhism, Manichaeism and others).

In China they have now found several graves of Sogdian leaders. Often they were mandarin's and had high positions in the chinese administration.

Over on my german blog I have more information (and some pictures and english links) about them. (Studium generale) And "Gene Expression" has something.

Emotions in history

Emotions can rise high discussing the greater aspects of world history: Why rise of culture? Why decline of culture? Why first agriculture around 10.000 BC? Why cultural change around 400 AD? A lot of details have to be taken into account, if you want to get the story right.
And because history is made by the emotions of humans, it is possible, that discussion about (such) causes of history can also rise emotions. ;-)
So there were some quite interesting discussions on "Gene Expression" about those questions (here and here), that I do not want to repeat here.
But surely, possibility to continue discussion exists.

Ok, only to put an answer to Razib's last argument. Razib says: "when i say i did 'research' on the peasant's war of 1525, i mean that i took a course where we studied primary sources about that war for the whole term. i tend to, obviously, disagree with the assertion that there would have been 'No peasant's war in that scale without Luther,' but you'll have to take my word for it since i'm not going to dig up the books i have on the topic and go chapter & verse."

It is possible to say to this, that we know about peasant "revolts" all over Europe before and after the peasant's war of 1525, but never again and never before in that scale, ranging from Saxonia to Austria to Alsace, Tyrol ... . For some of the peasant leaders it was meant to be a national (mostly political) revolution. That's right. But all that couldn't have taken place without the massiv attack of Luther against the pope in Rome and his famous "Freedom of a Christian" ("Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen"). This gave the peasants the arguments and the "emotions" for longing for political and local freedoms also against the local authorities, against the nobility, against the bishops. In that scale it was never seen before, never seen again.