nerdgirl 0
skybytch 273
QuoteI think the rulers of China simply liked the system they had built. I don't think they lacked competition to innovate as Diamond would suggest, but their culture was more based on ancestor worship and maintaining the status quo, not upsetting the nature of things. Taoism. Which, ultimately is a about how to rule your kingdom (be that home or country) and a large part of that says to not go on "adventures" because they are expensive and lead to wars which leads to rebellion and an overall bad time.
I think you're right that Chinese rulers liked the system they had built. But I think you're wrong in saying that Taoism is the reason.
Confucianism was far more important to the rulers of China than Taoism was. Both philosophical traditions came out of the Warring States period (c~500 BCE); both were attempts to stabilize Chinese government. Confucius looked to the past (in his case, the Zhou Dynasty) to legitimize and systematize the patriarchal, hierarchical society that the "ancients" had built ("I am not one who has innate knowledge, but one who, loving antiquity, is diligent in seeking it therein"). Taoism also looked to the past but further back; it claims that no structure at all is the better way to rule ("In the highest antiquity, the people did not know that there were rulers").
The words of Confucius, not the words of Master Lao, were the focus of Chinese civil service exams. That alone should suggest which philosophical tradition was most important to Chinese rulers.
I see where you're going with this I think, but I still disagree. I think the rulers of China simply liked the system they had built. I don't think they lacked competition to innovate as Diamond would suggest, but their culture was more based on ancestor worship and maintaining the status quo, not upsetting the nature of things. Taoism. Which, ultimately is a about how to rule your kingdom (be that home or country) and a large part of that says to not go on "adventures" because they are expensive and lead to wars which leads to rebellion and an overall bad time.
Contrast that with the west that seems obsessed with conquest.
If you're obsessed with empire building, crusades and conquest of countries, you develop better weapons to do it. Again, this is part of Diamonds point, but I still think he gets the emphasis wrong.
Um ... no, that's not Diamond's thesis. What you suggest is largely a cultural/constructivist explanation. Diamond's trying to find positivist factors when possible.
Now you may argue that over-simplifies the course of human history ... and on a micro-scale, I agree completely. On the (relative) macroscale, less so.
W/r/t social receptivity to technology, Diamond descirbes 4 factors of social receptivity, of which he asserts that inventiveness is not dependent on independent actors (heroic genius) but the receptivity of the society to innovation, to change, to progress.
(1) Relative economic advantage. E.g., Wheels … independently invented in Mexico but used for toys as they had no large domesticated animals to hitch carts to in order to realize mechanical advantage over human porters.
(2) Social value & prestige … e.g., Gatorade - most Americans who drink it don't need expensive salt "electrolyte" sugar-water.
(3) Compatibility with vested interests of powerful & elites (Japanese swords vs guns) … or large amounts of people (QWERTY keyboard)
(4) The ease with which advantages can be observed. To a military with only cross-bows, a cannon is immediately impressive.
But beyond that still doesn't get to the *why* were a multiplex of disunified European states more amenable to technological inventiveness than a unified Chinese state developed around the single, large Yellow River Valley?
/Marg
Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying