Will Strait: Social Structure by

Social Structure

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:10:48 UTC

In my opinion, Social Structure had the most influence on Mesopotamian's, and people in general. I think it was the most influential because it put people into different groups that helped people categorize each other, and it also led to the creation and better social structures.

Evidence 1

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:21:37 UTC

One piece of evidence for this is from Elements of Civilization: Social Structure where it states; “Mesopotamia was one of the earliest civilizations to establish a social structure. Many social structures are based on a hierarchy in which some people are valued more than others.”

Reasoning 1

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:29:53 UTC

This shows that Mesopotamia was one of the first to establish a social structure, and as we can see from the second part of this evidence, this influenced other people to create hierarchy based social structures aswell

Evidence 2

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:33:09 UTC

Although just because it was influential, doesn’t mean it was perfect, from the same article as Evidence 1, it says “While the Code of Hammurabi was supposed to make society more fair and just, it ultimately created more inequity. It clearly favored men and the upper class.”

Reasoning 2

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:36:23 UTC

This shows that despite the social structure that was important to Mesopotamia, it was so important to them that some people were unfairly treated, and some people in upper classes were praised just because they were born into that family. But this still does show just how important it was to the people that they trust the system so much that they discriminate against others. It may be bad, but it's still evidence for Social Structure.

Counterclaim Evidence

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:38:29 UTC

Although many people may not agree that Social Structure was the most important, they think it’s food supply, where they may bring up the quote from Elements of Civilization: Stable Food Supply where it says the idea of a stable food supply is “there is enough food for everyone all the time, even when crops are struggling.”

Counterclaim Reasoning

835698 — 2024-10-07 17:40:44 UTC

But in my opinion, just because food is one of the most important things that a human needs to survive, I wouldn’t say it’s the most important part of Mesopotamia or a society. First of all, the crops struggling isn’t going to be an everyday occurance, it’s a little circumstantial. Second of all, you could say that it provides food for everyone, but people still need to buy it, so people of a lower class may not be able to access it. But with Social Structure, it led to many of the decisions of the country, and gave us ideas still used to this day, such as kings and merchants. So that’s why I think that Social Structure is more important even more than food supply, and why social structure is the most important part of ancient Mesopotamia, and in civilization.