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Regarding manners, it really depends on what those manners are. Chinese medieval society was very orderly and mannered; there were clear standards of behavior
by Banthum 10y ago
Regarding manners, it really depends on what those manners are.
Chinese medieval society was very orderly and mannered; there were clear standards of behavior (at least for the elites). But the manners in question were conservative and did not encourage innovation, so they did not advance rapidly and ended up far behind Europe despite having a head start. The enforced homogeneity of thought and thus destroyed opportunities to advance or get past their own biases. Read about the Imperial exam system for some reference on how this was achieved, and note that Chinese geography has the most fertile regions highly centralized.
In the west we developed this system of manners based on freedom, where we let people do things we think are wrong, as long as they're not hurting us. This permits intellectual diversity, which means that when the mainstream experts have it wrong, at least someone else can come and knock them over with reality. Rationalism, not authority. Objective evidence, not subjective feelings.
My main worry is that the modern mainstream morality seems to be all about intensive efforts to homogenize thought, opinion, and policy as widely as possible, to exalt collective justice over individual rights, and to privilege subjective "lived experience" over objective evidence. Freedom of conscience and freedom of speech seem to be "out" these days and it's gonna create some real unpleasant results. It already is.
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(Slightly off topic as well:
It's kind of a myth that society didn't move forward through the Middle Ages. While western medieval society remained in the Malthusian trap up until the 1800's, in other ways it did advance continuously over that time.
For example, studies of documents signed reveal that literacy increased continuously from the 1200s all the way until it hit nearly 99% in ~1900.
Similarly, studies of recorded ages reveal that most people didn't know their age in 1200, but more and more people knew it up until the present day. (You can tell this because people who don't know their age tend to round it to end in a 0 or 5, so you can count the over-representation of this in the data, or even by just looking at tombstones).
Something was changing through the whole medieval era.
And there are other markers (e.g. interest rates went down continuously, rationalism advanced, etc etc).)
- watwut 10y ago"In the west we developed this system of manners based on freedom, where we let people do things we think are wrong, as long as they're not hurting us." I agree that west is more free then anything else. However that freedom in general sense or relatively new thing for large parts of population. And for that matter, marihuanna is still illegal and harms no one. I think that west ultimately created system where groups were able to succesfully win fight for their right to not harm others. But it took fight and abuses happened every single time.
- pm90 10y agoI'm assuming by "manners" you are talking about societal norms and regulations. And you're correct in your diagnosis that China has the most fertile regions in the world. However, these manners didn't really affect Chinese "development" as much as you imply. The imperial exam is good example of just how advanced the Chinese nation was for most of history. China as a country remained politically united for most of known history, quite a remarkable feat if you think about it. One of the enablers was a professional bureaucracy that allowed the state to remain strong without being challenged by regional usurpers. This is a huge topic of course but one of the reasons why China fell behind is because certain isolationist policies took hold just when the modern era dawned, pushing China farther and farther behind simply due to the backbreaking speed of modern development. Another reason why I don't think "manners" matter is Japan; isolationist until the Meiji Restoration, rapidly modernized after despite the "manners" remaining intact.
- astrange 10y ago> Another reason why I don't think "manners" matter is Japan; isolationist until the Meiji Restoration, rapidly modernized after despite the "manners" remaining intact. Japan abolished social classes (or pretended to) and nobody gets killed for insulting a samurai these days. The voluntary-then-forced Westernization was a pretty major changes.
- theoh 10y agoLived experience is all any of us has got, in terms of experimental data. If someone thinks they are having a bad time, it's difficult and dangerous to discount that: right now there is no way to assess the validity of someone else's subjective judgement. To rule it out completely is going to far, almost denying the reality (pleasant or unpleasant) of one's own life...