Madison Rotermund

December 5th 2016

1. If a Hindu or Hammurabi were to give Mr. Salutari advice about how to keep the
upperclassman under control during pep rallies and sports events, Mr. Salutari would
hear two very different yet effective ways of doing so. A hindu, believing in the process of
samsara (being reincarnated over and over), would remind him that he must do his job
the best he can in order to be reincarnated higher and become closer to brahman.
Considering that Mr. Salutari is a principle, it kind of classifies as him being a teacher,
which would then make him one life away from achieving moksha by reaching brahman,
which would than mean he would be closer to breaking out of the process of samsara.
The hindu would make sure that Mr. Salutari was aware that he is held responsible for
the upperclassman behavior, so if he fails to keep them under control, than that is failing
to fulfill his job. Mr. Salutari would also be warned that he needs to be firm but not brutal,
and still remain respectful of the students. Hammurabi would take a different approach.
He would remind Mr. Salutari who is in charge, and tell him that he needs to set out bold
punishments. Hammurabi would most likely suggest the death of students who
misbehave, however since this is a school system and Mr. Salutari doesnt have that
kind of power over us, Hammurabi would suggest expolsion or suspension. Of course,
as this would work, Hammurabi was a little extreme, so Mr. Salutari may consider
detentions and after one student misbehaves too many times, suspension will then come
into play. All in all, both methods of ending the issue Mr. Salutari is having with
upperclassmen are effective, yet in their own ways.
2. Today, we can learn many things from Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient India.
Ancient Mesopotamia has had many great rulers, such as Hammurabi, king of babylon
and Gilgamesh, king of Ur. Both Hammurabi and Gilgamesh have taught us many
things. One key concept we can take away from Hammurabi is deterrence. In the story
of Hammurabi, he keeps order by being a brutal person, and saying that almost any
crime is punishable by death. He wrote this in Hammurabis code, which offered a great
amount of protection to his people. By making such rules, little crime occurred, keeping
the people of Babylon safe. This is a deterrence. By setting rules that are punishable by
death, he deters people from doing bad things. We can apply this technique in an
attempt to combat the ethnocentrism in society today by deterring people form
committing crimes like Hammurabi did, therefore allowing the growth of a healthy
country occur, where we dont have riots or lashing out on the country. Another key
concept from Mesopotamia is from the story of Gilgamesh. In the story of Gilgamesh, we

Madison Rotermund
December 5th 2016
see how religion keeps order in a society. The gods that Gilgamesh and the people of Ur
believe in sent Enkidu, who fixed Gilgamesh's greediness and poor behavior. Gilgamesh
then turned to be a good king, and kept order not by using fear as a tactic, but by being
a genuinely good person and caring about his people. The reason he became this way
was because of Enkidu, who was sent by the gods, therefore religion is the reason why
order was kept in a new, more effective way and the city of Ur was saved from
Gilgamesh's horribleness. Today, if the USA all were, for the most part, one religion, we
could use the tactic of religion to keep order. This would help us battle ethnocentrism
because order would be kept very easily, allowing the country to develop. Since we dont
all believe in the same religion, we are not able to grow as well, letting ethnocentrism
start to win the battle. Using what we know fromt the story of Gilgamesh to now, we
could attempt to fight the enemy of growth by making specific things for specific
religions, or attempting to incorporate all, like the religion of Hinduism. Another place
where we see a key concept is in Ancient India, where hinduism was developed. We can
take away the same thing we did from Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia, which is that religion
can be used to keep order. In Ancient India, there was/still is the caste system (a set of
social classes), which was developed to give everyone a place and a job. Many would
be upset over this if they are lower in the caste, however considering it relates to their
religion, they get through it. Most people were/are hindus over there, therefore they
believe that if they do their job to their full potential, in their next life they will become
reincarnated higher in the caste system, which is higher in samsara (the process of
being reincarnated over and over), which brings them closer to achieving Moksha (by
reaching Brahman). This caste system and belief still exists in India today, so clearly it
has been effective. Both Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient India have taught us many
things that can aid us in our battle to grow as a country.