When Did the ME Go Wrong?

[Malthus]

An impartial observer in the early 1200s would have done no such thing, because an impartial observer of that time would have no understanding of the concept of "progress" as we understand it.  The only understanding of social evolution at the time centered around one of two theories - cyclical time (eternal cycles of rise and fall - e.g. ibn Khaldun's schema) or millenarian time (a fall from a golden or prelapsarian age to present decadence to be followed by a future return to a just order).  The idea of steady material and political progress would have been totally alien.  This is not merely an academic point - it explains the the fundamental reality of human existence starting from the urban revolutions some 5000+ years ago to the extraordinary revolution in productivity of the last 200 years.

That is really the key point.

It doesn't make any sense at all. Why is it so significant how people at various times thought about progress? it happens whether you have a "concept" for it or not.

[crazy canuck]

It doesn't make any sense at all. Why is it so significant how people at various times thought about progress? it happens whether you have a "concept" for it or not.

How?  Progress just happens?  How do explain the Inca using wheels for childrens toys but for no practical application?

If what you say is true then how can there possibly by differing rates of progress between societies in similiar situations.  It just happens right?

[Malthus]

[
That is true enough.  My point is that the ways in which these societies evolved over time was the norm for all societies -- whether Islamic, Buddhist, Confucian or Christian; whether European or Asian or African; no matter the race or language or ethnicity or socio-economic origin of the ruling elite, for thousands of years.  There is no reason to believe that progress as we understand it was inevitable; the course of history over the centuries suggests otherwise -  instead, it was a small group of socities located on the edge of the Eurasian landmass, at a particular time in a particular place, that started to behave in a historically bizarre and aberrant fashion, that was so outlandish that even when the crude practical advantages of that odd path became apparent, the "normal" societies of the world still took their time to "catch up" - typically relunctantly, and in some cases, not at all.

I disagree. The progress since the last ice age has been pretty near continuous - from hunter-gatherers, the development of agriculture, the creation of cities, etc.

Really?

Empires have risen and crumbled.  Dark ages have lasted for hundreds of years in various regions before they recovered and some never did.

One of the great fallacies is to look at where western society is now and try to trace a continuous thread of development from the beginning of human society to where we are now.  It doesnt exist.  There are too many twists and turns along they way.

"Continuous" doesn't mean that it was steady.

Just look at the indicia - has world population increased (on average) over time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

Estimated world population (in thousands):

10,000 BC: 1,000

5,000 B.C: 15,000

1,000 B.C: 50,000

0 A.D: 200,000

1000 A.D: 310,000

1750 A.D: 791,000

Where is the unchanging world? Seems to me that a significant change is happening - more or less continuously.

Or perhaps you mean technology didn't change? People didn't start out with tools of wood and flint, and gradually adopt new technologies over time - in spite of wars, famines, and dark ages?

[Oexmelin]

It doesn't make any sense at all. Why is it so significant how people at various times thought about progress? it happens whether you have a "concept" for it or not.

Because human activity is influenced by the diagnosis we make of it. If a specific type of «growth» is measured and put forward as an objective, and if societies are organized in a way to measure and answer to that objective, that is the important thing.

A society where the important «growth» is measured as that of the soul will organize itself along different principles as one where the material is paramount, just like a society which entertain the notion that all men are equal will organize itself, with specific results, in a different way that one which believes in unequal castes.

One good example is honor killing: in the end, a man dies. In many societies, it is seen as a problem. In others, as a solution. In one it is computed as murder. It another one, it might never be computed at all. Is this a problem in honor-killing societies ? Why should the honor-killing societies act differently ? For an answer to these questions, you have to refer to values and what you «think» about progress.

Unless, of course, you share with the Marxist the notion of materialist determinism.

[Malthus]

It doesn't make any sense at all. Why is it so significant how people at various times thought about progress? it happens whether you have a "concept" for it or not.

How?  Progress just happens?  How do explain the Inca using wheels for childrens toys but for no practical application?

If what you say is true then how can there possibly by differing rates of progress between societies in similiar situations.  It just happens right?

That has nothing to do with what historians of the time & culture happen to think about the concept of progress, but rather with whether Incas lived in places where wheeled transport made sense, and adopted it for that purpose.

[Barrister]

I was going to argue violently with those numbers until I noted the key words "Estimated world population (in thousands):"   

[Razgovory]

It's not romantic at all.  But the fact is that the fundamental economic realities of peasant life and even basic methods and technologies of production didn't change much from the times ancient riverine civilizations to the late 19th century and beyond.

Well the fundementals of farming aren't going to change much at all.  I mean farmers still dig a hole, toss seeds in, and harvest what grows out.

wow.  I don't even know where to begin.

Farmers do that right?

the only thing in common with peasants is the "harvest what comes up" part. my take, we've had maybe three fundamental shifts in ag over the last century, involving:
1) mechanisation
2) chemical (post ww2)
3) biological (80's onward, includes both GMO and Organic philosophies.)

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.

[Razgovory]

One of the great fallacies is to look at where western society is now and try to trace a continuous thread of development from the beginning of human society to where we are now.  It doesnt exist.  There are too many twists and turns along they way.

Indeed, the loss of many great Greek texts for hundreds of years should point that out.

To bad they got lost.  Otherwise we would have them to point it out for us.

[Malthus]

It doesn't make any sense at all. Why is it so significant how people at various times thought about progress? it happens whether you have a "concept" for it or not.

Because human activity is influenced by the diagnosis we make of it. If a specific type of «growth» is measured and put forward as an objective, and if societies are organized in a way to measure and answer to that objective, that is the important thing.

A society where the important «growth» is measured as that of the soul will organize itself along different principles as one where the material is paramount, just like a society which entertain the notion that all men are equal will organize itself, with specific results, in a different way that one which believes in unequal castes.

One good example is honor killing: in the end, a man dies. In many societies, it is seen as a problem. In others, as a solution. In one it is computed as murder. It another one, it might never be computed at all. Is this a problem in honor-killing societies ? Why should the honor-killing societies act differently ? For an answer to these questions, you have to refer to values and what you «think» about progress.

Unless, of course, you share with the Marxist the notion of materialist determinism.

I neither agree with Marx nor with Weber. That doesn't mean that I believe that actual, physical material progress is meaningless and it all has to do with how someone intellectualizes about it.

Historiography like that of Ibin Kaldun were the pursuit of only a tiny minority. Their effect on whether or not a society "progressed" was tiny.

[Oexmelin]

It is not about historiography: it is about «world-view» (for lack of a better term). Unless you think that only the elite reflects upon the world.

[The Minsky Moment]

Estimated world population (in thousands):

10,000 BC: 1,000

5,000 B.C: 15,000

1,000 B.C: 50,000

0 A.D: 200,000

1000 A.D: 310,000

1750 A.D: 791,000

Where is the unchanging world? Seems to me that a significant change is happening - more or less continuously.

Change /= progress.

Let's look a little more carefully at those numbers.  In the thousand years between 1000 BC and 0, population quadrupled.  In the next thousand years, it went up barely over 50 percent.  This in spite of the fact that extensivity of cultivation increased substantially (ie people spread over the landscape and chopped down forest).  Even the growth over the next 750 years doesn't look that impressive in context of what came before (and as to what was to come - fuhgettaboutit).

So one way that an observer c. 1200 or even c. 1700 would look at this data (which of course he wouldn't because nothing of the sort would be available) - would be to confirm the belief that an ancient times, great civilizations rose and did mighty things, culminating in the achievements of Rome or the Han.  And since then the unmatchable height was reached, civilization has suffered cycles of stagnation of recovery.  With the "rennaissance" of the bygone classical age being the idea to be sought (but rarely achieved).  And what is more - that observer would be "right" in the sense that the basic material underpinnings of civilization were fundamentally the same.

[jimmy olsen]

An impartial observer in the early 1200s would have done no such thing, because an impartial observer of that time would have no understanding of the concept of "progress" as we understand it.  The only understanding of social evolution at the time centered around one of two theories - cyclical time (eternal cycles of rise and fall - e.g. ibn Khaldun's schema) or millenarian time (a fall from a golden or prelapsarian age to present decadence to be followed by a future return to a just order).  The idea of steady material and political progress would have been totally alien.  This is not merely an academic point - it explains the the fundamental reality of human existence starting from the urban revolutions some 5000+ years ago to the extraordinary revolution in productivity of the last 200 years.

That is really the key point.

Does it really matter what people at the time thought?   I'm sure there are societal changes going on right now that we don't recognize but later historians will say were obvious.

Just imagine an alien anthropologist came across Earth in 1200. I agree with Malthus, China would like a better bet for advancement than Europe.

[The Minsky Moment]

Does it really matter what people at the time thought?   

it matters because "progress" requires a society that is specifically set up to achieve it.  it requires an ideology of progress to have progress.  It's not like the economy grows at a trend rate of 3 percent and applied innovations roll out of research facilities on their own.  The material progress of the modern age flows from a vast social infrastructure that is specifically designed to create and foster it.  And there is no way to create such an social infrastructure until the idea of it exists and takes hold.

[Oexmelin]

Just imagine an alien anthropologist came across Earth in 1200. I agree with Malthus, China would like a better bet for advancement than Europe.

Read above. You are assuming that alien antrhopologist shares your valued of what advancement is and so, will diagnose China accordingly.

Once again: this is not about changes that happen, but the types of changes we wish to implement and how we go about organizing these changes. Unless, once again, you believe in determinism (that of the market, the State or the Climate, who knows...) or happenstance - that is, that amorphous «change» happens, regardless of anything.

[crazy canuck]

Continuous" doesn't mean that it was steady.

...

Where is the unchanging world? Seems to me that a significant change is happening - more or less continuously.

Or perhaps you mean technology didn't change? People didn't start out with tools of wood and flint, and gradually adopt new technologies over time - in spite of wars, famines, and dark ages?

You are the Bloke that is trying to argue that there has been continuous (whatever you want that word to mean) progress.

The world is neither unchanging nor has there been continuous (in any sense of the word) progress.  Rather great civilizations rise and fall.  Some are replaced by other great civilizations some are not.  World history is a tale of creation followed by destruction and loss of civilization.  Far from this notion of continuous progress you want us to adopt.