When Did the ME Go Wrong?

[Oexmelin]

The indicia of "progress" are not hard to describe - increasing population, increasing reliance on mechanical (as opposed to human) power, increasing knowledge and technology; increasing utilization of foreign materials (imported plants and animals being the most significant).

Why is this progress at all ?

[Malthus]

The notion that there has been no progress until modernity sprung mysteriously out of Europe like Athena from the forehead of Zeus defies observed facts; the notion that there can be no progress unless some intellectual dreams up a historiography of progress makes no sense.

If you re-read the posts in this thread you will see that there are good reasons why progress was achieved and those good reasons have a lot to do with the way in which some countries in the West created a paradigm shift toward progress.  Before that, the big advantage that the Muslim world had over Europe during the European dark ages was that Muslims had ready access to the ancient classics over time they became known Latin Europe as well.   That is not progress by the way that is trying to copy and understand a level of intellectual sophistication that had already been achieved and was largely lost - some of it forever which then had to be rediscovered.

If Latin Europe continued to live in a paradigm of conservative anti-intellectualism - largely enforced by the Church (everything there is to know is already known and it is in the Bible blah blah blah) this would be a very different world.  So yes, progress is very much influenced by the view that particular societies take.

The examples you have put forward in this thread assume that historical figures have the same world view as you, a post-modern information age law talker.  I forget what the name of that logical fallicy is but in any event you are guilty of it.

Man, you got owned by Timmay. 

I'm not making any assumptions at all about what historical figures believed.

[Malthus]

The indicia of "progress" are not hard to describe - increasing population, increasing reliance on mechanical (as opposed to human) power, increasing knowledge and technology; increasing utilization of foreign materials (imported plants and animals being the most significant).

Why is this progress at all ?

Okay, I'll play. What sense of the word "progress" are *you* using?

If you look at the arguments in this thread, the way *I'm* using the word has to do with the thread topic - mainly, why "the West" has been in a position to essentially dictate to and impose its culture and way of life on the rest of the world - why "modernity" happened here and not there, if you will.

If you are going to deny that there has been any meaningful difference in power, influence etc. between the modern West and the rest, we simply don't have enough language in common to meaningfully discuss the matter - indeed, when people begin to deny that there has been any meaningful progress since Sumerian times until the 19th century, I start to wonder what planet they are observing.

[Oexmelin]

indeed, when people begin to deny that there has been any meaningful progress since Sumerian times until the 19th century, I start to wonder what planet they are observing.

Are you interested in discussing this or not ?

[garbon]

If you look at the arguments in this thread, the way *I'm* using the word has to do with the thread topic - mainly, why "the West" has been in a position to essentially dictate to and impose its culture and way of life on the rest of the world - why "modernity" happened here and not there, if you will.

If you are going to deny that there has been any meaningful difference in power, influence etc. between the modern West and the rest, we simply don't have enough language in common to meaningfully discuss the matter - indeed, when people begin to deny that there has been any meaningful progress since Sumerian times until the 19th century, I start to wonder what planet they are observing.

How is this progress? At different times, different state actors have been able to influence other regions for a long time (see the Mongols and Rome as good examples).  Is it progress that the West can now do the same on a global scale?

[crazy canuck]

Man, you got owned by Timmay. 

I'm not making any assumptions at all about what historical figures believed.

Your first mistake is accepting any defence offered by Timmay.  Your second mistake is forgetting what you wrote:

I would disagree - to my mind the progress was more or less inevitable and the only question was where the conditions would be right. At the beginning of the 1200s an impartial observer would have picked out three possibilities: China, Europe and the Islamic ME, with three secondary possibilities - Russia, N. India and Japan. I would think the overwhelming smart money would have been on China.

The "conditions" as I see them are:

You then go on to list the important conditions that you think are important that would also be viewed as important by an impartial observer in the 1200s.  You have been challenged on this notion for a number of reasons, one of which is that someone in the 1200s would see the world in much different terms then you.

[Queequeg]

They still plant them right?  At it's most basic (which is what I thought JR was talking about it) it's still put in seeds and take out crops.

Plop a peasant from the time of pre-Roman Gaul into France at the time of the Sun King or even Louis XVIII - there would be serious culture shock, but he could adjust.  The rhytms of agrarian life would be similar, he would find himself in hierarchical social system but one that is rather localized - the methods and means of production would differ somewhat, but many of the basic tools and concepts would be the same.

What about city dwellers, Minsky?  I'd argue that a wealthy merchant Roman Merchant of the Plebian class from the late Republic would probably recognize a lot of things in mid 19th Century Istanbul or Paris. 

[Malthus]

indeed, when people begin to deny that there has been any meaningful progress since Sumerian times until the 19th century, I start to wonder what planet they are observing.

Are you interested in discussing this or not ?

Sure I am, but it is hard to create a meaningful discussion out of questions like "why is this progress?".

If you have a definition you wish to offer, please do so.

[Malthus]

If you look at the arguments in this thread, the way *I'm* using the word has to do with the thread topic - mainly, why "the West" has been in a position to essentially dictate to and impose its culture and way of life on the rest of the world - why "modernity" happened here and not there, if you will.

If you are going to deny that there has been any meaningful difference in power, influence etc. between the modern West and the rest, we simply don't have enough language in common to meaningfully discuss the matter - indeed, when people begin to deny that there has been any meaningful progress since Sumerian times until the 19th century, I start to wonder what planet they are observing.

How is this progress? At different times, different state actors have been able to influence other regions for a long time (see the Mongols and Rome as good examples).  Is it progress that the West can now do the same on a global scale?

Are you of the opinion that "modernity" is *not* something different from previous ages?

[Valmy]

What about city dwellers, Minsky?  I'd argue that a wealthy merchant Roman Merchant of the Plebian class from the late Republic would probably recognize a lot of things in mid 19th Century Istanbul or Paris. 

Yeah I have seen it pointed out that our rather recent ancestors from the 1820s or so lived a lifestyle more similar to the ancients than what we live today.

[Malthus]

Man, you got owned by Timmay. 

I'm not making any assumptions at all about what historical figures believed.

Your first mistake is accepting any defence offered by Timmay.  Your second mistake is forgetting what you wrote:

When he's right, he's right. 

You then go on to list the important conditions that you think are important that would also be viewed as important by an impartial observer in the 1200s.  You have been challenged on this notion for a number of reasons, one of which is that someone in the 1200s would see the world in much different terms then you.

Which is a notion imposed by others. I was originally thinking of a person not from any of the implicated cultures at all - a time traveller or an alien, able to view matters objectively. It is you who are hung up on the identity of the observer, not I.

[The Minsky Moment]

Assume for the moment that your hypothetical observer at year 1200 was an alien from another planet or better, a time-traveller. I disagree that he would look at these figures, examine the relative technology of the various eras, and conclude that nothing has really 'progressed' from the time of the Sumerians . . . I am sort of flabbergasted

That's just it - in looking at the past, *we* are truly aliens from another planet.  Part of what is making you so flabbergasted I think is that you are being confronted with a past that is alien to our mindset and experience.  To foist our own mindset and analytical apparatus onto this alien world is to misunderstand it on a fundamental level. 

Looking at relative technological levels as an alien (modern) my answer would be that that I see some technological progress up to the classical period which then slows down considerably.  There are some incremental improvements - but nothing revolutionary - and considerable amount of older theoretical and applied knowledge appears to have been lost.  I would see a long history of cycles of rising and collapsing empires. So even applying my alien mindset of "progress" I would be skeptical that any of the civilizations I am looking about would make a revolutionary transition into a post-malthusian world anytime soon.    But if I took the next step and actually tried to understand the world as the natives understood it (putting aside the impossibility of crossing that hermeneutical chasm) - then the conclusion is unavoidable: absent some kind of major ideological shift, these societies aren't going there, no matter how much incremental technological tinkering they achieve on the margins.

For one, world population has increased - by a factor of six.

By that reasoning, rat populations could be projected by an alien observer to be on the verge of some scientific-technical breakthrough.  In any case, as I already pointed out, that argument is not helpful because most of that proportional increase occurs in the 1000 years prior to the year zero.  It supports a post-classical stagnation hypothesis - coincidentally roughly what most contemporary observers thought.

[Razgovory]

If Latin Europe continued to live in a paradigm of conservative anti-intellectualism - largely enforced by the Church (everything there is to know is already known and it is in the Bible blah blah blah) this would be a very different world.  So yes, progress is very much influenced by the view that particular societies take.

Since this didn't happen, I'm not sure why you bring it up.

[The Minsky Moment]

Minsky-Oex; Could you really argue that the notion of progress was unknown throughout the entire pre-Industrial history of Agriculture? The Muslim idea (to return to the topic) of the constantly expanding dar el-islam leading irrevocably to the End Times? 

That is eschatological time - not "progress" as we understand it.

The pre-Sullan Republic might have had something similar before the breakdown into Optimates-Populares, as would the Greeks in certain periods. 

The Greeks and Romans both believed in cyclical time, or alternatively in degeneration from a past, semi-mythical "golden age".  The Roman Republican senators treasured stability.  Their territorial expansion was aggressive but it was sporadic, responsive, and ideologically it was driven by the belief that it was needed to protect the core.  There was no grand master plan of expansionary conquest.

[garbon]

Are you of the opinion that "modernity" is *not* something different from previous ages?

No, but I don't think what you've said supports a steady increase in "progress."  Nor do I think imposition of one's culture on others to be an indicator of progress.