The Renaissance was a Cultural Movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century. It started in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spread to the rest of Western Europe.
After the Dark Middle Ages, controlled by the Church of Rome, aimed at the Inside (Spirit and Soul), many people wanted to discover the Outside.
The Renaissance is the Age of Discovery. It is the time of Columbus.
The printing press, invented in 1450, made it possible to distribute all the new knowledge all over the known world.
The new knowledge is in reality very old knowledge. Renaissance means re-birth and the Renaissance is the re-birth of the knowledge (and wisdom) of the Greek and the Romans.
This knowledge was forbidden and destroyed by the Rulers in Rome. It came back because of renewed contacts with the Arab Culture. At that time Arab Culture was at the top of its cycle.
Art (Leonardo Da Vinci) and Science (Copernicus (1514)) exploded. Both of them were funded by the rich merchants (Medici, Venice).
Scientists started to experiment and used advanced tools (Microscope, Telescope) to study the external world and the internal world (the Body). They looked with their own Eyes and not with the Eyes of the Bible.
In the Arts the Perspective was invented. Artist used advanced tools (“camera’s) to support their own eyes to project the outside world on a flat surface.
Another Re-Birth was the Reformation (Luther, 1517). The Bible was translated in many languages and distributed by the printing press to many people.
For the first time people outside the Church could read and study Religious documents and compare them with Scientific Evidence from Greece, Arabia and Rome.
The need to convert others to the Christian faith was huge. Many expeditions, Crusades, were send out to unknown territory to find convertible humans.
The missionaries used the old fashioned trick learned from the Huns to force people to accept the Faith by violence. Millions of people were tortured and killed.
At the outside of the Christian Empire the Arabs were attacking all the time. They were also very wealthy.
The search for Gold stimulated the weapon-industry of the west.
Not only the weapon industry flourished also the transport industry (Maps, Navigation, Big Ships) made a lot of progress.
The combination of both of them (The Navy, “War-Ships”) helped the West to Rule the Sea.
Production in the Renaissance was carried out by the Guilds, a Cooperation of Craftsman. They were almost in total control of every craft in the big cities.
The Renaissance (Creation) is part of the Cycle of Western Culture.
In this Cycle it was preceded by the rule of Roman Church (Control) and followed by the Industrial Revolution (Social).
The rebirth was fuelled by an Expansion Phase (Fire).
In this phase not only Arabic Culture expanded and rose to a high point also the new rulers of the West (Celts, Germans), the descendants of the Huns, created new Kingdoms and build the Cathedrals. The Cathedrals contained all the occult knowledge of that time (Sacred Geometry, The Spiral, The Light, The Four Forces,.).
On a macro level we see an interesting pattern.
The phase of Fire (Expansion, Practice, Summer, Sensory, …) fuels the phase of Creation (Up, Spirit, Idea, Eye, Winter, Mythic,…).
Ideas are put into Practice or Practice generates Ideas. The combination of Sensory and Mythic (A Game) is called Invention or Exploration by Will McWhinney.
The game of Exploration is an Infinite Game. Infinite games are about continuing the Game.
Going Back to Jump to another Level is also a pattern that is visible in the most advanced theory about ecologies promoted by the Resilience Alliance (RA).
The Ecology of the Roman Church dominant in the Dark part of the Middle Ages collapsed. It collapsed because of many factors.
In this time the Plague killed millions of people. The Climate was very instable (An Ice-Age) and the new Kingdoms of the Huns and Celts were heavily expanded. They started to fight for dominance.
According to the theory of RA a collapsing ecology reverts to a previous stage to rise again.
What does this say about Innovation?
Innovation is fuelled by an earlier (expansion) stage in history. It is triggered by a collapse of an Ecology.
If we look at the current state of the world we see a Collapse (a Compression) of the World Wide Ecology. It will certainly generate a stage of Ideas and Creativity.
This is needed to solve the current problems. In contrary to many ideas about Innovation the only way to solve the problems is to Look Back and Learn from History.
We can learn from the Control Stage of the Middle Ages where one paradigm was enforced. At this moment Science is enforcing again one paradigm, the paradigm of Control, Abstraction, Technology, the Computer, Statistics and the Factory.
They were created during the Industrial Revolution that was aimed at creating Unity (Every Thing is the Same).
At this moment we are moving into the stage of the Center, Balance and Harmony. In this stage we always jump to a new level of Conscioussness. In the last Center-Stage the Religion of the Islam was born so the chances are high that a new World Religion will appear or re-appear.
People that explore contradicting paradigms are excluded from the scientific community. This community controls the world of Inspiration just like the Guilds were controlling the crafts in the Renaissance. To innovate we need Freedom of Paradigm.
We can learn from the Idea stage of the Renaissance. It teaches us that a Union of Art, Science and Spirituality is needed to support real innovation.
We can also learn from a comparable phase in the Cycle, the phase of Harmony. In this phase the old is completely destroyed by an invasion of people outside its territory (The Huns).
The West is trying with all its force to block a huge part of the Earth (the “Under-Developed” countries) to take part in its innovation. It creates (Economic and Legal) Walls just like the Roman Empire and the Chinese Empire created Walls to protect their territory from the Huns and The Celts when they were in their end-stage.
The Under-Developed countries are of a Lower Culture. Perhaps these cultures carry something the West desperately needs. In these cultures the collective is more important than the individual. In these cultures the sick, the poor and the old are still taken care of.
Funny.
I believe this was the message Christianity wanted to bring to the World.
Something went wrong in the West don’t you think?
LINKS
Lectures about the Renaissance part 1
Lectures about the Renaissance part 2
Lectures about the Renaissance part 3
