Win the War, Write the History
It matters greatly who wins the war because the winners write the history and they rarely — if ever — characterize events accurately. That’s what makes history fun. It’s a puzzle and it’s always changing. In this case I’m talking about Caesar, who in 58 A.D. destroyed the Celts in Gaul (France), killed and enslaved millions, took the gold, propagandized the history, and went on to rule Rome as Emperor. Nice guy. That is of you like vicious dudes running psychotic military dictatorships. But whatever. The point is that the Romans won, so their view of things survived throughout the ages. But I’m more interested in what was lost? What did the Romans conveniently leave out of their history?
For that, check out The Primitive Celts, an entertaining and fascinating look at the Celts, who the Romans say were mere barbarians. But were they? Seems some archaeologists are discovering the Celts actually had a highly developed society with the most advanced calender at the time and a sophisticated economy based on a variety of trades. They minded gold all across Europe, and they built a vast network of roads to facilitate international trade. Generally, the contrast to Rome was nearly total. Where the Celts decentralized things into a web and community-like structure, the Romans centralized them into a rigid hierarchy. And that proved a critical and fatal difference — at least in ancient times. Centralization won. Big time, actually.
But I wonder if that distinction remains true today. What’s the better concept around which to build a society in 2010? And, more importantly, who wins the war when these differences collide for whatever reason? Surely the world today is substantially different than when the Romans were wrecking the place two thousand years ago, but would their systems prevail today? You can look at this from the perspective of a county or a company or even a project. It’s just the management of resources to achieve a goal. Nothing more. But my question asks which is better and who wins now?
Both. First of all, most projects and companies are not zero sum. Second, "Wining" and "being better" is dependent on systems at the next level down from just a centralised or decentralised high-level system, then on the next level down and so on. For example, consider two systems, let us say a decentralised group A and a centralised group B. A & B now need to have systems to pass information and decisions, set clear goals for the group, modify resource allocations to meet the goals. Now, A & B will totally different systems(or sub-systems, if you will) for these. How effective are these systems? We can then drill down further and further. For the complete system to "win", most of the individual subsystems must "win" too.
I am sure we can think of examples of successful projects, companies and countries with decentralised systems and examples of them with centralised systems. As they say, "the devil is in the details".
AD
February 7, 2010 at 8:21 am
Hey Jim
I like your new picture.
Since we historians get to write history, we also get to name it. Alas, Caesar went to war against the Gauls in 58 *BCE* not 58 AD. Not suggesting that we start a flame war about political correctness but since atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and representatives of just about every religious faith with a following of at least five people tend to write history, we now call historical eras BCE – Before the Common (or Current) Era – and CE – Common Era.
But you’re quite right, modern Gauls (i.e. the French) still consider themselves to be very much in the fray, unlike the Romans who collapsed 1500 years ago, so the history of the Gallic Wars is still being written; thus archeology and those epic warriors Asterix and Obelix continue to regularly make new claims against Roman Imperialism. See http://www.asterix.com.
weknox
February 7, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Jim, it’s about Celtic sun and oracle Roman Empire?
imants
February 8, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Short term, centralization is better; a lot of people, while knowing more together, usually don’t have the necessary focus. They get lost.
That’s why one person with a single minded focus usually leads the people to victory (be it military, or market domination). And this person is usually an a**hole, or at least people perceive him as such.
Examples: Caesar, uncle Steve, uncle Bill, uncle Larry.
Long term, decentralization is better, because every region knows what’s best for it and what it needs, and how it needs it.
UX-admin
February 9, 2010 at 6:06 am
[...] this article reminds me of Caesar’s blood-thirsty lust for wealth and power. Back then power and wealth were secured via the military, and in Julius Caesar’s case [...]
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