Dlubanka swidnica dugout (from Wikipedia)
As I was driving by Concord Lake the other day, I watched the speed boats, fishing boats, and jet skis moving through the waters. This influx of activity helped to focus some of my thoughts on change in one specific area: boats. Here is an ancient form of transportation. According to Wikipedia, boats have been found, dating back somewhere between 7,000 to 10,000 years old.
This form of transportation that dates back to a variety of early civilizations, and yet, it’s still here. The category of transportation has changed over time and changed rather dramatically in the last two hundred years, but the boat is still here. The change didn’t eliminate the boat, but it has led to changes within the boating category.
Different types of boats emerged at different times and places within history. A variety of cultures have used some form of a canoe made from a dugout tree. Ancient canoes have been discovered in Africa, Europe, America, the UK, and even the Pacific Islands. Even those this form of boat is ancient, we still have canoes today. The material may change or the way the canoe is made may change from place to place, but we still have canoes exploring our waterways and for rent at our parks.
The canoe may fit with a category of human-powered boats, which could range from one man vessel to large sea-going Viking ships. Over time, other types of boats emerged such as air-powered boats and motorized boats. Within these three large categories of human-powered boats, sailboats and motorized boats, changes continue to take place that may improve specific features of boating, may address certain challenges of the user or the region, or may simply improve cosmetic aspects of boating.
Now this highlight is cursory. But as I think about change within the boating category, I might detail a few observations.
- Dramatic changes in size, capacity and power have not eliminated older forms of boats. So in spite of change, the old and the new co-exist, serving different applications.
- Just as major changes have occurred in size, capacity and power, other changes continually occur in small details of a specific boat such as shape, paints or other type of protectant, and so on.
- Change in boats has led to changes in non-boating areas. From winning or losing wars to spreading culture to solving environmental challenges, one change has led to other changes that may be good or bad.
- Change has sometimes resulted in specific environmental challenges such as shallow waters, rough seas, navigation, and so on. (Solving one aspect of the navigation challenge led to a change in maps (use of true north) and eventually to the introduction of wristwatches.)
I’m not through thinking about change but by thinking about boating certain aspects of change come into focus that may be relevant in other areas when we thinking about change in our lives and our cultures.
April 27, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Thanks Doug, and very interesting. This may be irrelevant to what you’re trying to do, but I couldn’t help but think of the relatively ancient which coexists alongside the relatively recent in “nature,” i.e. in the realms of the geological and biological. In the geological we have mountain chains such as the Himalayas (recent) and Appalachians (ancient). In the biological we humans (recent) co-exist alongside crocodiles (ancient). New species continue evolving, sometimes daily (even hourly!)alongside the old.
Relevant to what you’re talking about in culture, we could say that we have old and new modes of scientific inquiry which co-exist, e.g. the amateur store-bought telescope alongside the Hubble Space telescope. Or even more recently consider that it was largely Newtonian science which put us on the moon some forty years after the Einsteinian revolution in physics occurred. Lastly, and following TFT, consider how what is considered “science” in the popular mind is the outmoded Newtonian, mechanistic outlook which has been dead in the field of physics now for about a century. Hope this helps!
April 27, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Thanks Ben. Very helpful. Yes, I wanted to think about all aspects life, so looking at mountain chains, creatures and methodologies help expend three direction so inquiry. Your comment about science makes me think about how we can have a group of people with vastly different ways of seeing and thinking can co-exist. We they try to speak between their worlds, the message is confused since they each in some ways speak a different language.
April 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm
A question occurred to me: out of curiosity, how does your floydian language on “culture” and “change” translate in biblical language with terms like “kingdom,” “church,” “world,” etc?