One of my old friends, Stewart Brand, started the Long Now Foundation to build a 10,000 year clock. The intent is to provoke more long term thinking. Good goal. The Long Now people now have a blog.
The point I would make for Stewart and the Long Nowsers are to look at the four oldest human institutions carefully.
*The
Roman Catholic Church is 1,700 years old and still thriving. It is a
most unusual combination of decentralized financial authority and
centralized doctrinal authority.
*Jews are a cohesive ethnic group that have a written history going back nearly three thousand years. Jews have been a decentralized but cohesive group for 2,000 years and carried on a fully active dialog and written record of that dialog for the whole 2,000 years (Talmud). Jews play a central role in the current world, as does the Jewish nation, Israel. The Jerusalem Post is the most regularly read online site for English speaking journalists.
When I am around Jews, I can make the statement that "George W. Bush is the
best friend the Jews have had in 2,500 years" and get a vigorous
argument from nearly any Jew. Many Jews disagree and argue that President Bush has to be compared to
Cyrus the Great, a Persian ruler 2,500 years ago who allowed the Jews
to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. For Jews, our whole
history is alive, present and debatable.
*
Japanese. Every Japanese student learns in their high school history
class the names of the 124 previous emperors. The list of 124 goes back
2,500 years of continuous succession. The 31st emperor was
historically validated by Chinese visitors nearly 1,500 years ago.
* The Japanese shrine at Ise is rebuilt every 20 years and has been for 1,600 years of recorded history. The lumber used is always from trees that are 200 years old.
A German scholar who was studying the Ise Shrine pointed out to me that there are three ways to preserve a tradition. One is to build a monument, like the Sphinx in Egypt, out of durable material. This form of preservation has the problem that meaning is lost. The second is to have an annual cycle of rituals. This has the risk of loosing some of the details. The third is the Ise shrine, which is rebuilt every 20 years in the original style with new materials.
Are these items in the Long Now dialog?