Day Two Continued: Isaac Botkin

Entrepreneurialism and the History of Technology

After Arnold Pent's excellent teaching, we took a short break, and reconvened in room 006c, for a lesson that Isaac gave at the World History Conference, slightly retouched to be appropriate for the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp.

Isaac Botkin started off by making the brilliant observation that a culture's religious values will ultimately define which technologies it pursues, and how it first uses them. He listed for an example, the printing press. It was creatively developed to spread the word of God around the world.

Several providential facts made the invention of the printing press perfect for this time frame, namely the fact that Europe had just discovered a new mechanical method of mass producing paper. Also, it was a time of higher literacy rates than any other previous time in Europe, and Catholic church was at the moment being particularly tyrannical. Interestingly enough, my Pastor Dr. Richard Bacon gave a lecture at our church about how the bible came to be, and spoke about some of the same exact provisions that God had made for the spread of his Word.

Of course, at a time like this and with an inventor like Johann Gutenberg, the printing press was predominantly Christian in use. It was used to reprint theological papers and the bible, and it spread like wildfire.

In two other main cultures, Islam and the Orient, the printing press was also a known invention. However, in China, the government owned the press and used it only to print and spread it's propoganda. The printing press didn't have much development or use, and as such, the people remained in fear and illiteracy for a good length of time. Islam also had the printing press, but in the same attempt to continue keeping the people illiterate as the Chinese had shown, the printing press was illegal in Islam until the mid 1800's.

Isaac went on to explain that unlike what the mainstream history textbooks teach, Europe of the middle ages was actually one of the most inventive and wealthy societies in history. They designed the heavy plow, as opposed to the simple plow. They developed a strong concept of private property, and maintained it. A Christian culture would naturally do so. Many farming techniques like crop rotation were developed during this period for the first time in history. Of course, it wasn't done by some major development industry, but rather by individual families who would maintain farms for multiple generations. This again showed their christian view of culture and dominion, in that they were being fruitful, multiplying, and recording the wisdom of their fathers and grandfathers. It was family entrepreneurship at it's best. Other inventions such as waterwheels and windmills showed their ways of using technology instead of slavery to take dominion of the world, as opposed to Islam or China, which were slave-holding cultures.

Isaac covered the invention of the clock by Christian civilization, and how they were using it in an attempt to create order and 'redeem the time'. He also compared Europe in the middle ages with China and Islam again, and how they utilized, or did not utilize, technologies and sciences. China outlawed entrepreneurship, and in 1436, they even made world exploration illegal. Shortly afterwards Columbus sailed from Europe to discover and explore America as a part of a dominion mandate worldview. In China meanwhile, building multimasted ships meant the death penalty. This was basically the chinese mindset toward all inventions. Don't let the people have them. Sure, the government can have these things, and maybe eventually we'll pass the technology on to the people, but in the meantime let's illegalize it.
Islam was very similar to China, in that there were no private property rights and modern inventions were virtually unknown. Even though there were some very good observations in Islam about things like glass and it's properties, never did they put these scientific observations to any use whatsoever. Isaac pointed out the similarities between the Islamic view of science and invention, and Charles Darwin. This was an interesting comparison, I thought.

While Islam and China were busy maintaining a totalitarian control over the people, Christians in Europe were developing and utilizing the inventions of gunpowder, clocks, and any natural resources available. Really, Islam and China were marxist nations in their construct, and of course marxism is opposed to Christendom and entrepreneurial industry on every level.

Isaac wrapped up the lecture by stating that we need to exploit all technologies and inventions in our vision for dominion. He explained the definition 'exploit' as being 'to employ the greatest possible advantage of an object or talent'.

He then wrapped up the lecture with a brief Q & A session. After he stepped down from the podium, I told him how much I appreciated the lesson, and commented on his opening remarks in regards to technologies being utilized primarily for the religion of any given culture, and talked about the use our culture has applied to the internet. He then told me that video technology has also been first adopted by pornographers. Disappointing, but not at all surprising. Due to this lecture, I am still looking at how new computer technology is being developed and trying to apply this principle in discovering the goals and purposes of modern inventions. It's been very interesting. If you get a chance to hear this lecture from either the History of the World Mega Conference CD set, or the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp CD set, I recommend it highly.

~ John.