From: bil@burka..aix.kingston.ibm.com (Igor Belchinskiy)
Subject: Re: Lev Gumilev, was "democratic" Estonia
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 16:25:51 GMT
Organization: Be. I am.

In article <17mqbqINNdv9@agate.berkeley.edu> muh@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Yury M. Mukharsky) writes:
>Again, no sarcasm, what is the theory? Classification I got, it seems
>pretty obvious, and as usual with history has lot of exclusion: sometimes
>you have re-vitalization of etnoses, sometimes not and many examples like this.
>But what is the theory?

Theory - ages of ethnoses, and typical behaviour of ethnos at given age.
Prediction of longevity of ethnos life and epoches and typical
tendencies in ethnos lifes.
Isn't it persuading to see that expansion of Russia empire in last two centuries
and creation of Roman empire and Columbus happened what their ethoses
were in almost the same age. Or that the same ethos age gave Platon/Socrat &Co
in Greece, Pushkin/Dostoevskiy/Tolstoy(Or Solov'ev - for my taste) in Russia,
Leonardo/Michelangelo/Macchiavelli in Renessaince Italy. And so on.
Maybe, if somebody may post short Gumilev's table of dominant psychology 
in ethnos depending on time it would be useful.
Revitalization of ethnoses - are you sure, you read it in "Ethnogenesis
and biosphere of the Earth" (EBM)?

>Sorry, modern concept of energy was worked out later, and I as far as I
>got it Gumilev refers to the law of the consevration of energy as accepted
>in physics. 

I didn't got it that way. Maybe the law of dissipation of ethnos energy - 
but not the conservation - and especially not the physics law of 
energy conservation.

>is not done at least in a book a red. It is fine to mean some other
>thing when you speak about the energy, but first at least tells the
>rules of behaviour of this thing.

He uses conception of something, that gives strength and drive to ethnos.
He calls it ethnic energy - you may use other identifier. 
He gives detailed rules. Really in EBM he gives mostly facts and
descriptive material first 300 pages. Then he deduce rules. And only
last part of this definitive book he tries to 

>One who says that behaviour of a child is different from that of 
>an adult is not called a scientist, scientist answered the questions
>like why or how.

You may think of Gumilev as psychologist of ethoses. He answered question
how, and propose his ideas about why.
What's more, you can apply his rules to current world and be able
to understand, e.g. what's happens globally in Arab world 
(so quiet 100 years ago).

>>Btw, what does it mean "energetic men"? :-)
>
>You are not supposed to answer this question by stating that energetic
>man has a quality that called energy and he loses this quality when
>he gets old blah, blah,blah

How should you answer?

>>Completely irrelevant to general theory. And is this example supposed
>>to say something about Gumilev or reader?
>
>I would not put places irrelavant to mine point in mine book. Maybe reader,

So he is not you, what else can I say without long explanations? :-)

>Yury

I believe, now anybody who is interested may find Gumilev's books and 
make his own opinion. 
Your opinion is strong so why should I bother
to change it. And vice versa - why should you bother to change mine.

	-igor
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