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> (1) multiple, competitive peer states, (2) freedom of travel for intellectuals, and (3) a shared intellectual tradition creating a marketplace of ideas, prope

> (1) multiple, competitive peer states, (2) freedom of travel for intellectuals, and (3) a shared intellectual tradition creating a marketplace of ideas, propelled by high literacy and the printing press. How would this fail to apply to the area we now call China? It consistent of a bunch of different states which regularly went to war with each other, conquered each other and broke apart again, not unlike the various European states. It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe.

throw0101a 5y ago
> It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe. It had a rigid top-down bureaucracy where any innovation was probably stifled. The telescope was invented in 1608 and revolutionized Europe. The Jesuits brought it to Imperial China and it basically did nothing because the government didn't want anything to do with it, and so ordered the technology to ignore. The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_Chi...
- karpierz 5y ago
  Sure, but now we're not saying "Europe had an intellectual tradition, thus it succeeded", but "Europe didn't have a centralized bureaucracy, thus it succeeded". It wasn't an issue of nourishing intellectuals, which China had been doing for centuries, and it wasn't an issue of regular war against peer armies, which again, had been happening in China for centuries. So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? My intuition is that telescopes didn't solve any problems for Chinese emperors/subjects, and so they didn't care about their invention. Similarly, if it were important for China to know that the Earth was round, they would've figured it out. > The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/copernicus_and_heliocentrism_met_with_a_lot_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/coper...
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? Copying another comment I made in this thread (much hand-waving and unsubtly/non-nuance): ---- Literacy, individualism, lack of tribalism/clans, a 'mechanistic'/logical/Aristotelian view of reality (which led to the development of science), a 'general' of separation spiritual and civil powers (Matthew 22:15–22, Mark 12:13–17, Luke 20:20–26). Max Weber (1864-1920) was one of the first people to ask this question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber For more recent thoughts, see The WEIRDest People in the World by Heinrich: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... And Toby Huff (The Rise of Early Modern Science, Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff Intellectual Curiosity makes some interesting observations from the historical record: the telescope was invented in 1608 (where it ended up revolutionizing things), and the Europeans brought the technology to Imperial China and Mughal India. They brought it as 'supplicants' to the court to try to grant greater access to each nation; the Jesuits in China used it to show that their 'superior' knowledge of the universe and reality to help with converting folks to Christianity/Catholicism (e.g., by better predicting eclipses). Neither country was interesting and continued, through a top-down decree, to simply do things the way they always did them. The telescope arrived in the the Ottoman Empire by osmosis, and they didn't do much with it either. Fast forward 100+ years and the scientific/technological advances made through curious minds allowed by a different worldview allowed the Europeans to develop more efficient (product output per energy input) economies and then walk all over the rest of the planet. The Indians and Chinese were arguable equally (if not more) advanced in the 1600s, but by the 1700s and later they were 'primitive' in comparison to the Europeans. ---- * https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 > I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant To add nuance to nuance: IIRC, the only way to really "prove" or provide evidence of the Earth's motion around the sun was through parallax of stars. Things came close with Bradley and stellar aberration in ~1728: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley Giuseppi Calandrelli finally directly measures parallax in α-Lyrae in 1806. The Earth's motion (rotation) around its axis was demonstrated by Guglielmini: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini And it's not like folks didn't think of the possibility, as even Aristotle wrote in De Caelo (II.14): > Again, everything that moves with the circular movement, except the first sphere, is observed to be passed, and to move with more than one motion. The earth, then, also, whether it move about the centre or as stationary at it, must necessarily move with two motions. But if this were so, there would have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars. Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars always rise and set in the same parts of the earth. * http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens
zdragnar 5y ago
This is at least partly explained by the Qing dynasty; the emperors and ruling class were Manchurians, who were initially outsiders. To better rule, they assimilated themselves into Chinese culture by embracing a very traditional, conservative form of Confucianism. Unfortunately for them, this coincided with exposure to western countries expeditions, and rather than embrace your marketplace of ideas, they rejected anything that was not traditional thinking. Feudalism, rebellions, drug trade, the opium wars and more all together helped to give china the "sick man of the east" moniker.

throw0101a 5y ago

> It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe. It had a rigid top-down bureaucracy where any innovation was probably stifled. The telescope was invented in 1608 and revolutionized Europe. The Jesuits brought it to Imperial China and it basically did nothing because the government didn't want anything to do with it, and so ordered the technology to ignore. The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_Chi...

karpierz 5y ago
Sure, but now we're not saying "Europe had an intellectual tradition, thus it succeeded", but "Europe didn't have a centralized bureaucracy, thus it succeeded". It wasn't an issue of nourishing intellectuals, which China had been doing for centuries, and it wasn't an issue of regular war against peer armies, which again, had been happening in China for centuries. So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? My intuition is that telescopes didn't solve any problems for Chinese emperors/subjects, and so they didn't care about their invention. Similarly, if it were important for China to know that the Earth was round, they would've figured it out. > The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/copernicus_and_heliocentrism_met_with_a_lot_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/coper...
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? Copying another comment I made in this thread (much hand-waving and unsubtly/non-nuance): ---- Literacy, individualism, lack of tribalism/clans, a 'mechanistic'/logical/Aristotelian view of reality (which led to the development of science), a 'general' of separation spiritual and civil powers (Matthew 22:15–22, Mark 12:13–17, Luke 20:20–26). Max Weber (1864-1920) was one of the first people to ask this question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber For more recent thoughts, see The WEIRDest People in the World by Heinrich: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... And Toby Huff (The Rise of Early Modern Science, Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff Intellectual Curiosity makes some interesting observations from the historical record: the telescope was invented in 1608 (where it ended up revolutionizing things), and the Europeans brought the technology to Imperial China and Mughal India. They brought it as 'supplicants' to the court to try to grant greater access to each nation; the Jesuits in China used it to show that their 'superior' knowledge of the universe and reality to help with converting folks to Christianity/Catholicism (e.g., by better predicting eclipses). Neither country was interesting and continued, through a top-down decree, to simply do things the way they always did them. The telescope arrived in the the Ottoman Empire by osmosis, and they didn't do much with it either. Fast forward 100+ years and the scientific/technological advances made through curious minds allowed by a different worldview allowed the Europeans to develop more efficient (product output per energy input) economies and then walk all over the rest of the planet. The Indians and Chinese were arguable equally (if not more) advanced in the 1600s, but by the 1700s and later they were 'primitive' in comparison to the Europeans. ---- * https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 > I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant To add nuance to nuance: IIRC, the only way to really "prove" or provide evidence of the Earth's motion around the sun was through parallax of stars. Things came close with Bradley and stellar aberration in ~1728: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley Giuseppi Calandrelli finally directly measures parallax in α-Lyrae in 1806. The Earth's motion (rotation) around its axis was demonstrated by Guglielmini: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini And it's not like folks didn't think of the possibility, as even Aristotle wrote in De Caelo (II.14): > Again, everything that moves with the circular movement, except the first sphere, is observed to be passed, and to move with more than one motion. The earth, then, also, whether it move about the centre or as stationary at it, must necessarily move with two motions. But if this were so, there would have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars. Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars always rise and set in the same parts of the earth. * http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens

zdragnar 5y ago

This is at least partly explained by the Qing dynasty; the emperors and ruling class were Manchurians, who were initially outsiders. To better rule, they assimilated themselves into Chinese culture by embracing a very traditional, conservative form of Confucianism. Unfortunately for them, this coincided with exposure to western countries expeditions, and rather than embrace your marketplace of ideas, they rejected anything that was not traditional thinking. Feudalism, rebellions, drug trade, the opium wars and more all together helped to give china the "sick man of the east" moniker.