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Close your eyes
and go back in time,...back...back..back...about 800 years
to a time when school does not exist. People are dead by age
30, and little kids must work from the time they can walk
until the day they die. This time in history is commonly referred
to as "the dark ages" , (a
time in western European history stretching from the 5th century
into the 15 century),
because the
light of knowledge is almost totally extinguished.
*Photo by Eric Valli and Diane Summers
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It
is a time when
SUPERSTITIONS RULE! |
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Imagine
not knowing that germs cause sickness.
One day you are the picture of health, working hard in your
field, breathing deeply the warm fresh air. You come upon
a pile of human excrement, you kick it aside and continue
on your way.
The next morning
you wake up all achy and burning up with fever. Your stomach
is turning inside out. You vomit uncontrollably and cannot
hold your bowels either. Your mother cleans the mess you make
by scooping it up and throwing it in the back yard where all
the animals can run through it and actually eat it.
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the end of two days of this you are so dehydrated that
you pass into a fever induced coma, and you die on the
third day. All the members of your family are terrified.
You were just fine three days ago. How could this have
happened? Will it happen to them next? |
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Your family desperately
needs to understand what caused your horrible death, but they
lack even the most basic scientific knowledge to help explain
it; so their human need to understand
this loss will force them to invent a reason. This
is how superstition is born and grows strong.
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In your case,
your family chooses to believe that an evil demon in
the form of a black bird came upon you in the field,
and as he flew over you, he screamed out your name,
and placed this curse of death upon you.
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After this, all the members of your family will try to kill
every black bird they see. They will also wear pieces of wool
stuffed into their ears while working in their field so that
they cannot hear if a similar bird calls out THEIR name.
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Okay, so where
does percent fit into all of this? We'll tell you now.
Even though in
the dark ages, most people were totally uneducated and chained
by superstition, not everyone was. There was one group of
people who did have knowledge. They were a very select group
who knew that they could control the masses if they could
keep them ignorant. For they knew that ignorant people always
believe what they are told, especially if they are scared,
and if they are told by someone whom they view as an "authority
figure" or powerful person.
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This
select group were the priests. To gain and keep the ignorant
people under their control, they told them that bad things
happened because of evil demons. The only way to keep
the demons away was to give the priest their allegiance,
labor, money and food. For this the priest would pray
that the demons would not strike. Believe it or not, the
people bought into this. They believed it through and
through. |
Now
to keep the people ignorant about money and math
so that they would not realize how much was being stolen from
them, the priest told them that numbers of any kind were devil
symbols. It was forbidden to talk of money or mathematical
matters. To disobey would surely bring the black demons of
death to your household. Imagine, they believed that saying,
"2+2=4," would send you to hell.
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Now imagine
you are a peddler with a cute little covered wagon filled
with toys, cloth, herbs, pots, even a few jewels, and
you are trying to conduct your business in this superstitiously
infected land. You enter a village, set up your wagon,
and beckon the folks to come and buy.
However as
soon as you say, "That beautiful piece of silk
is only 50 cents," the villagers pick up rocks
and begin stoning you for the devil that you surely
are because you said the number fifty.
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It was impossible
to conduct monetary business in this culture. The only form
of exchange allowed was barter: I'll give you this if you
give me that. Finally these peddlers had enough of being stoned
and spit at and run out of towns. They got together and decided
to fight superstition with superstition.
They
decided to invent a word and a symbol
that would "cast the devil out" of every
number it came after. Thus the percent symbol was born.
The
peddlers told the people that God had spoken to them in multiple
dreams and showed them this ancient, powerful symbol. The
name of the symbol was PERCENT,
and if you said this word after saying a number or wrote the
symbol after writing a number, the evil spirits would be vanquished
and spirits of wealth and prosperity would take their place.
Thus using the percent concept could actually increase the
luck of a family and protect them against evil.
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Now to make their lives easier, these medieval businessmen
decided to let the word "percent"
represent 1 cent. So if they wanted 50¢ for a
piece of cloth, they would say, "That will be 50 percent
please."
When
writing the prices on signs, they would write, "120%"
for something that they wanted 120 cents. Of course today
we would write $1.20 as the price, because we use decimal
notation, and 120 cents is equivalent to 1.20 dollars.
SO
JUST REMEMBER,
"percent" means cent(s). If you need to think
in terms of fractions, remember a cent is 1/100. So "percent"
also means parts out of 100.
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ONE
FINAL NOTE: The concept
of "percent" was what allowed a money mode of
exchange to develop towards the end of the dark ages.
Once commerce slowly began to thrive and the Protestant
reformation came about, the church had less of a stronghold
upon the masses and the Renaissance began to blossom. |
Even
today, the concept of percent persists. We no longer need
the % sign to cast out the demons, and most people have no
idea that % was born from a need to fight superstition. Nevertheless,
it is so deeply ingrained in our culture that we continue
to use it. You will see percent signs wherever money is involved:
the stock market, stores, banks, insurance rates, etc. The
concept of "parts out of 100" is so widespread that
you will even see it used in other areas today such as reporting
the weather, "There is a 40% chance of rain today."
REMEMBER
though, none of these percent numbers can be used in a calculation
until it is changed into a decimal or a fraction! So
in actuality they are a waste of time, because they
add an additional step to every problem of which they are
a part.
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