Languish.org

I've read a few books by Bernard Lewis on the subject, but I'm interested in what people here have to say.

The initial Muslim Empire was flawed, certainly, but it managed to produce some of the greatest minds in history, in a few cases as great as any of the Renaissance or the Hellenes (al-Khwarizmi, Persian admittedly, ibn Khaldun, Avicenna, also Persian, al Kindi, Geber, also Persian, etc..).  It was also by most accounts a decent place to live; relatively common literacy, an okay life expectancy, thriving economy, tolerance for People of the Book (later on some for Zoroastrians), and was generally just a better place than the West or, in most respects, the Byzantine Empire. 

Now a lot of areas have gone through bright spots and dark spots (China, probably more impressive than the whole of Islamic Civilization and thousands of years older, was in lot of shit until Deng Xiaoping), but it seems remarkable to me that the same people who once were as fanatical and in some ways more impressive in their love of knowledge as the ancient Greeks now decapitate people for teaching women how to read. 

I have my own theories, but why do you think this happened?  Was there some kind of Arab Sonderweg (different path though history producing completely alien society)?  Was it because of the poor Political and Economic models the Arab world adopted in the aftermath of decolonization, or was the humiliation of finding out about the superiority of other civilizations after Napoleon's Egyptian victory too much to handle? 

BTW, I'd really appreciate it if we tried to keep the LOL ARABS DIDN'T DO SHIT DURING UMMAYAD AND ABBASID PERIODS stuff down to a minimum.  There were some very, very impressive thinkers and for the time it was a very, very, very impressive society.

The constant dominance of Central Asian rulers destroyed the emerging Islamic culture.  That's why the areas least affected by their rule (the Maghreb and Iberia) was the area that demonstrated the most exciting and interesting cultures at the time the Central Asians were, whether as mercenary troops or dominant powers, destroying Baghdad and raping Egypt.

Effectively from around the 13th century until the 1940s there's almost no Arab self-government.  That has an effect on a people.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2009, 08:12:30 PM
The constant dominance of Central Asian rulers destroyed the emerging Islamic culture.  That's why the areas least affected by their rule (the Maghreb and Iberia) was the area that demonstrated the most exciting and interesting cultures at the time the Central Asians were, whether as mercenary troops or dominant powers, destroying Baghdad and raping Egypt.

Effectively from around the 13th century until the 1940s there's almost no Arab self-government.  That has an effect on a people.

Pretty close to my view.

But still doesn't totally explain it.  Why didn't the Ottoman Turks share in the scientific advancements of the west the same as the Christian world did from the Muslim during the age of Averroes, Avicenna, al-Khawizmi and ibn Khaldun)?  Why didn't the Arabs rise up against the Ottomans when the primary reason the Turks dominated (the superiority of the horse-archer) was gone?

When did the ME go wrong?  With the advent of Islam.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 08:16:53 PM
But still doesn't totally explain it.  Why didn't the Ottoman Turks share in the scientific advancements of the west the same as the Christian world did from the Muslim during the age of Averroes, Avicenna, al-Khawizmi and ibn Khaldun)?  Why didn't the Arabs rise up against the Ottomans when the primary reason the Turks dominated (the superiority of the horse-archer) was gone?

I think it was a consequence of a shift of European civilisation.  Prior to, say, the 16th century the Levant and the Mediterranean is the centre of the world and a hugely important area for cultural mixes and trade and so on.  After the discovery of the New World Europe's interests, her trade and her whole cultural focus shifts to the Atlantic, or as the Arabs call it 'the sea of obscurity'.

Plus I think the Ottomans were generally a pretty philistine Empire.  They had no interests in great libraries like that in Baghdad that the Arabs amassed.

The Middle East was the richest and most advanced area of the world for millenia prior to the Islamic conquest. Would it be totally out of line to consider that rather than Arab Muslims creating an advanced civilization, they were through good fortune able to conquer an already advanced Middle East and gradually run it into the ground?

QuoteThe initial Muslim Empire was flawed, certainly, but it managed to produce some of the greatest minds in history, in a few cases as great as any of the Renaissance or the Hellenes (al-Khwarizmi, Persian admittedly, ibn Khaldun, Avicenna, also Persian, al Kindi, Geber, also Persian, etc..).  It was also by most accounts a decent place to live; relatively common literacy, an okay life expectancy, thriving economy, tolerance for People of the Book (later on some for Zoroastrians), and was generally just a better place than the West or, in most respects, the Byzantine Empire.

Maybe in the palaces of Bagdad and Cordoba maybe but generally most of the Islamic Empire seemed to be a bunch of local lords with high taxes and endless military adventures and that does not strike me as massively superior to anything going on in Western Europe.  It sounds pretty much the same to me.  The Muslims just had more money since they conquered the wealthy Eastern Empire whereas Western Europe was in the land of Germans and Gauls.

That is sort of like claiming Constantinople was typical of the Byzantine Empire, rather than the only signicant city or cultural center.

Quote from: Ancient Demon on April 11, 2009, 09:05:45 PM
The Middle East was the richest and most advanced area of the world for millenia prior to the Islamic conquest. Would it be totally out of line to consider that rather than Arab Muslims creating an advanced civilization, they were through good fortune able to conquer an already advanced Middle East and gradually run it into the ground?

Yes.  Because what the Arabs acheive for around 500 years is remarkable.  They aren't, in that period, creative in any significant way but they are almost uniquely brilliant and mixing cultures.  So they have Persian literary style and pretension (as well as that of the Quran, the great achievement of the Arab tongue), they have Indian astronomy and mathematics and Greek philosophy, mathematics and astronomy.  They mix all of the above and produce something that's totally different and distinctive and intellectually remarkable.

It's also fair to say that way and ahead of European history the Arabs get their, that may be their only truly 'original' science.  They also have some of the best travel writing around at this time, in my opinion the best since Herodotus.  If you can get the abridged translation of ibn Battutah I really recommend it it's a great read.

Now to take an example from what I understand the Arabs had very developed irrigation that was there from the Roman and Byzantine period.  They took it and maintained it and developed it (in the early Caliphates the civil service was, essentially, Syriac after all).  Indeed, in contrast with most of Europe, they improved on it.  The destruction and decline of that agriculture, of the great centres of learning comes with their dependence on hired Central Asian armies that become more and more powerful and eventually replace the Arab regimes.  That and the Mongols.

Do they gradually run it into the ground?  Baghdad's peak at the time it's probably the greatest city in the world is brought to an end by the Mongols not some slow degeneration of Arab culture.

I thought this thread was going to be about Windows Millenium.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2009, 09:17:01 PM
Do they gradually run it into the ground?  Baghdad's peak at the time it's probably the greatest city in the world is brought to an end by the Mongols not some slow degeneration of Arab culture.

Well to be fair by the time the Mongols showed up Baghdad was not what it once was.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:24:18 PM
Well to be fair by the time the Mongols showed up Baghdad was not what it once was.

That's true but in the intervening 200 or so years Baghdad had hugely worn down by Seljuk Turks ruling in the name of the Abbasid Caliph under their protection.  Again, the same Central Asian dominance that removed Arabs from power.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 08:07:01 PM
I have my own theories, but why do you think this happened?  Was there some kind of Arab Sonderweg (different path though history producing completely alien society)?  Was it because of the poor Political and Economic models the Arab world adopted in the aftermath of decolonization, or was the humiliation of finding out about the superiority of other civilizations after Napoleon's Egyptian victory too much to handle? 

One thing that baffled me was where the obsession with thought and belief purity on the part of the Muslims in Spain come from?  I mean history goes on and on about the Golden age of Spain was the tolerance of different beliefs and then suddenly you have things like the massacre of the Jews of Grenada and the strict enforcement of Islamic law and so forth.  Shortly after that the Christians start gaining serious momentum as the Jews switch sides.

Was that symptomatic of a sort of intellectual decline on the part of the Muslim world or some sort of local Spanish-North African thing?  I presume no Asian mercenaries or Mongols had anything to do with that.

Sheilbh is right, and AD is further wrong as the ME was a disaster zone at the time of the Arab Conquest (which is why there WAS an Arab conquest).  The Romans and the Persians had been fighting each other into oblivion for over half a millennium, leading to plague, mass depopulation, constant religious conflict (I've read a convincing theory that Islamic Jihad was based on the the Roman recruitment of Arabian Christians to fight in a "Holy War" against the heathen Sassanid) and, immediately before the conquest, a war fought on three continents that destroyed both the Sassanid and Byzantine ruling apparatus.   The Arabs brought peace, a renewed interest in science and some of the most innovative thinking in civilized history.

I tend to prefer the Byzantines and Sassanids on an aesthetic and emotional level (Muslim iconoclasm ftl, Zoroastrianism and Christianity ftw), but the Arab's accomplishments were impressive.

Sheilbh is right about the Central Asians (read Turks).  Think of it like SKYNET; the Arabs enslave some Turks who fight well, then they convert to Islam and merge their warlike nature with the ghazi tradition and they fight REALLY well, and before you know it they become self aware and are taking over the world.

The destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the imposition of colonial rule.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2009, 09:27:34 PM

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:24:18 PM
Well to be fair by the time the Mongols showed up Baghdad was not what it once was.

That's true but in the intervening 200 or so years Baghdad had hugely worn down by Seljuk Turks ruling in the name of the Abbasid Caliph under their protection.  Again, the same Central Asian dominance that removed Arabs from power.

The Seljuks hadn't been in the area of Mesopotamia for a century by the time of the Mongols, and before that they' fractured into the Great and Rum Seljuks. 

Also, Sheilbh, wouldn't the rise of the fanatical Berbers in the Islamic West be analogous to the rise of the Turks?

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:42:21 PM
The destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the imposition of colonial rule.

Um...I think things were already pretty sucky before 1919.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:44:24 PM

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:42:21 PM
The destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the imposition of colonial rule.

Um...I think things were already pretty sucky before 1919.

Actually this is debatable.  The ME would have been quite a bit wealthier than East Asia in the immediate Post-War.  Turkey was a lot, lot wealthier than South Korea up until the 1960s, IIRC.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 09:46:12 PMActually this is debatable.  The ME would have been quite a bit wealthier than East Asia in the immediate Post-War.  Turkey was a lot, lot wealthier than South Korea up until the 1960s, IIRC.

If things were so great how come the Arabs hated the Turks so much?

And being wealthier than Korea, savaged by war and colonial tyranny, is not exactly a thing to hang your hat on.  Neither is being wealthier than East Asia in 1920 unless you mean that the ME was wealthier than Japan.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:44:24 PM

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:42:21 PM
The destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the imposition of colonial rule.

Um...I think things were already pretty sucky before 1919.

Well yea, but were they really much suckier than in Russia, or China?

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:47:24 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 09:46:12 PMActually this is debatable.  The ME would have been quite a bit wealthier than East Asia in the immediate Post-War.  Turkey was a lot, lot wealthier than South Korea up until the 1960s, IIRC.

If things were so great how come the Arabs hated the Turks so much?

A few reasons; the Young Turks were, well, crazy; but I don't think they'd have lasted. Moreover, you can't associate what the Hashemites did with the rest of the Empire's Arabs.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:47:24 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 09:46:12 PMActually this is debatable.  The ME would have been quite a bit wealthier than East Asia in the immediate Post-War.  Turkey was a lot, lot wealthier than South Korea up until the 1960s, IIRC.

If things were so great how come the Arabs hated the Turks so much?

The same reason South Korea hated China and Japan?

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 09:48:39 PM
The same reason South Korea hated China and Japan?

I hardly think the rule of the Ottomans, who had ruled the area for five hundred years and were recognized as the leaders of the Islamic world, can really be compared to the brutal and dehumanizing rule of the Japanese in Korea.

Give me more details.  I understood the ME was pretty impoverished, particularly Mesopotamia in the 19th century.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:48:35 PM

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:47:24 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 09:46:12 PMActually this is debatable.  The ME would have been quite a bit wealthier than East Asia in the immediate Post-War.  Turkey was a lot, lot wealthier than South Korea up until the 1960s, IIRC.

If things were so great how come the Arabs hated the Turks so much?

A few reasons; the Young Turks were, well, crazy;

QFT.  Fascism and similar Totalitarian ideologies were the dominant ideologies throughout the Middle-East for the better part of the 20th Century in the entire area.  That was as big (probably a bigger) problem in the recent history of the middle east than anything that happened 200+ years ago.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:47:53 PM
Well yea, but were they really much suckier than in Russia, or China?

Yeah and both of those countries were in the midst of bloody revolutions and upheaval.

When did the Middle East go wrong?

From 634 and onward.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:48:35 PM
A few reasons; the Young Turks were, well, crazy; but I don't think they'd have lasted. Moreover, you can't associate what the Hashemites did with the rest of the Empire's Arabs.

They were pretty prone to desertion while fighting in the Ottoman Army IIRC.

But yeah between Abdul Hamid II and then the Young Turks the Ottoman Empire had seen better times.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 09:51:21 PM
QFT.  Fascism and similar Totalitarian ideologies were the dominant ideologies throughout the Middle-East for the better part of the 20th Century in the entire area.  That was as big (probably a bigger) problem in the recent history of the middle east than anything that happened 200+ years ago.

Any speculation as why that would be?

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:35:34 PM
One thing that baffled me was where the obsession with thought and belief purity on the part of the Muslims in Spain come from?  I mean history goes on and on about the Golden age of Spain was the tolerance of different beliefs and then suddenly you have things like the massacre of the Jews of Grenada and the strict enforcement of Islamic law and so forth.  Shortly after that the Christians start gaining serious momentum as the Jews switch sides.

Well it was broadly true within the context of the Medieval world that al-Andalus was more widely tolerant than any other part of Europe.  But we shouldn't confuse tolerance with equality, non-Muslims had less rights and paid different taxes, but they were tolerated.   What's more during the period of the continuation of the Umayad Caliphate I believe they were relatively protected this is the period of the Cordoba Caliphate and this, early period, is what most people talk about when they describe the tolerance.

The pogroms that took place in Iberia took place under two dynasties.  In this case the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties, who were Berbers.  The latter threatened death, exile or conversion on Jews and Christians.  I believe the basis of the Granada pogrom was a powerful Jewish vizier.  The Sultan was away and a mob stormed the palace, killed the vizier and then murdered Jews in the city.  Maimonedes, of course, also had to leave al Andalus.

But the fact remains that of the estimated 250,000 Jews in Iberia in 1492 100,000 were in the remnants of al Andalus and 50,000 in Granada itself.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2009, 09:58:10 PM
But the fact remains that of the estimated 250,000 Jews in Iberia in 1492 100,000 were in the remnants of al Andalus and 50,000 in Granada itself.

I think by 1492 the Jews had been suffering persecution and went back over to the Muslim side.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:52:02 PM

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:47:53 PM
Well yea, but were they really much suckier than in Russia, or China?

Yeah and both of those countries were in the midst of bloody revolutions and upheaval.

I'm not sure why you said that the Mideast was suckier than Russia or China; if you read accounts from the Russo-Ottoman War of 1878, you find Russian soldiers surprised that the Balkan regions they invaded seemed richer than their hometowns.

Of course, even by the early 20th century you'd had the Capitulations in effect for a while, but still.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 10:01:07 PM
I'm not sure why you said that the Mideast was suckier than Russia or China; if you read accounts from the Russo-Ottoman War of 1878, you find Russian soldiers surprised that the Balkan regions they invaded seemed richer than their hometowns.

Did I say that?  If I in any way implied that I apologize.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:59:53 PM
I think by 1492 the Jews had been suffering persecution and went back over to the Muslim side.

That could be the case.  I mean the 14th and 15th centuryies are pretty bad for Jews all over Iberia.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 10:01:07 PM

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:52:02 PM

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:47:53 PM
Well yea, but were they really much suckier than in Russia, or China?

Yeah and both of those countries were in the midst of bloody revolutions and upheaval.

I'm not sure why you said that the Mideast was suckier than Russia or China; if you read accounts from the Russo-Ottoman War of 1878, you find Russian soldiers surprised that the Balkan regions they invaded seemed richer than their hometowns.

Of course, even by the early 20th century you'd had the Capitulations in effect for a while, but still.

Those areas were in most ways the most productive parts of the Empire, providing the Pharonite Greek population that ran the government the Empire and the Albanians and Yeni Cheri that won the wars.  The Cossacks who raided into Central Anatolia would not have been as impressed. 

I've heard a theory on a podcast by Yale University (which, as you would guess, spends most of its time egowanking about how great Yale is) that tolerance is the greatest requirement to becoming a "hyperpower".  Its an interesting, remarkable theory I think.  She talked about how the greatest Empires are built up by their minorities as much/more so than the dominant populace (the Armenians, Greeks and Balkan Slavs in the Ottoman Empire, Syraics in the Ummayad Caliphate, Persians in the Abbasid, Greeks in the Roman Empire, Scots in the British, everyone in America).  These Empires tend to break apart when the dominant populace becomes anxious, inward looking and seeks to create some kind of mono-ethnic, 'pure' state.  Quite an elegant little theory, would explain quite a bit in the Mid-East I'd think.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:54:10 PM

Quote from: Faeelin on April 11, 2009, 09:48:35 PM
A few reasons; the Young Turks were, well, crazy; but I don't think they'd have lasted. Moreover, you can't associate what the Hashemites did with the rest of the Empire's Arabs.

They were pretty prone to desertion while fighting in the Ottoman Army IIRC.

But yeah between Abdul Hamid II and then the Young Turks the Ottoman Empire had seen better times.

It's a tricky subject, actually, because attitudes towards the empire differed in various regions. Syria and Palestine were fairly integrated, the Hijaz was restive, Yemen was hostile, and Mesopotamia indifferent. Also, Abdul Hamid had put a lot of effort into promoting development in the Arab provinces, and built ties with local notables. This kind of made the 1908 revolution ill received.

What would have happened had the Ottomans, say, stayed out of the war is an interesting question, but I I think it's hard to dispute the region would be far, far better off.

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 11, 2009, 08:25:23 PM
When did the ME go wrong?  With the advent of Islam.

My thoughts as well.
I think that the "Arab Golden Age" happened despite the existance of Islam. Not thanks to it.

Quote from: Ancient Demon on April 11, 2009, 09:05:45 PM
The Middle East was the richest and most advanced area of the world for millenia prior to the Islamic conquest. Would it be totally out of line to consider that rather than Arab Muslims creating an advanced civilization, they were through good fortune able to conquer an already advanced Middle East and gradually run it into the ground?

Exactly.

The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 10:18:03 PM
I've heard a theory on a podcast by Yale University (which, as you would guess, spends most of its time egowanking about how great Yale is) that tolerance is the greatest requirement to becoming a "hyperpower".  Its an interesting, remarkable theory I think.  She talked about how the greatest Empires are built up by their minorities as much/more so than the dominant populace (the Armenians, Greeks and Balkan Slavs in the Ottoman Empire, Syraics in the Ummayad Caliphate, Persians in the Abbasid, Greeks in the Roman Empire, Scots in the British, everyone in America).  These Empires tend to break apart when the dominant populace becomes anxious, inward looking and seeks to create some kind of mono-ethnic, 'pure' state.  Quite an elegant little theory, would explain quite a bit in the Mid-East I'd think.

How about 19th and 20th century Germany.

Russia and China also seem to rely on their dominant population.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 11:48:17 PM
The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

Urban legend. They just passed to us classical writtings.
Do you have any idea how much of the classical period was lost?

Russia's a big cocktail of every ethnicity from France to Manchuria, and that's not even true anyway.

China is a bit different mostly as for its entire history its been as big as the Roman Empire, and thus what was presumably diverse during the Qin and Han Dynasties is now mostly Han.  I would argue that China's homogeneity is still overblown, though.

Quote from: Siege on April 11, 2009, 11:57:36 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 11:48:17 PM
The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

Urban legend. They just passed to us classical writtings.
Do you have any idea how much of the classical period was lost?

Do you have any idea how brilliant the Muslim mathematicians were?  Or ibn Khaldun?  The Greeks were fantastic at many things, but our modern math is essentially a result of the Caliphate's work. 

ME went wrong when Hulagu Khan left the region the first time.

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:50:11 PM
I hardly think the rule of the Ottomans, who had ruled the area for five hundred years and were recognized as the leaders of the Islamic world, can really be compared to the brutal and dehumanizing rule of the Japanese in Korea.

Where do you get this notion of brutal and dehumanizing Japanese rule in Korea from?  I seem to recall you mentioning it before.

(Pardon the intrusion.)

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 12, 2009, 12:42:21 AM

Quote from: Valmy on April 11, 2009, 09:50:11 PM
I hardly think the rule of the Ottomans, who had ruled the area for five hundred years and were recognized as the leaders of the Islamic world, can really be compared to the brutal and dehumanizing rule of the Japanese in Korea.

Where do you get this notion of brutal and dehumanizing Japanese rule in Korea from?  I seem to recall you mentioning it before.

(Pardon the intrusion.)

Korean nationalists tend to play up the brutality (particularly in the godforsaken North), but my impression was that Japanese rule was benign in Korea, particulalrly when compared to their treatment of the mainland Chinese.  Weren't a few of the great Post-War South Korean leaders supposed to have been pro-Japanese at what point?

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 08:07:01 PM
The initial Muslim Empire was flawed, certainly, but it managed to produce some of the greatest minds in history, in a few cases as great as any of the Renaissance or the Hellenes (al-Khwarizmi, Persian admittedly, ibn Khaldun, Avicenna, also Persian, al Kindi, Geber, also Persian, etc..). 

It might be interesting to find out how many of these really great thinkers are to be considered really a part of the islamic world as many had themselves and/or their works condemned (often during their lifetime) as unislamic. Iirc,; something that starts happening pretty soon in islamic history.

Of course having a leader (muhammed) who raped, pillaged, murdered, put people into slavery and was generally unsavoury and created a religo-political way of life based on these facts (as well as making it clear that the world must be conquered, muslims are superior and all the rest at best second class), and impressed on his people that this system was basically immutable, doesn't help either. And while for the next few centuries the theologes were able to tinker with and adapt the system to fit their needs something of a rubberband effect set in, making it harder and harder to continue adapting to an ever changing world. The result being that the best their religious thinkers can up with nowadays seems to be no more than a return to the 7th century or declaring mobile-phones haram. Outright stupidiy or irrelevant declarations in other words, reminiscent of the "Angels on a pinhead" debate of yore.

So while saying that they went wrong with the advent of islam sounds like an easy answer, it might probably be the right answer in this case due to the way the particular ideology is set up.

edit:
Alternatively once could say that the mid-east started to go wrong earlier when the roman concept of tolerance for all religions made way for the Christian (and in "lesser" amount Zoroastrian) obsession with getting rid of wrong sects and general intolerance of everything not christian. Something that carried over nicely into islam with its concept of dhimmis. And lets not be mistaken about that: it was not tolerance, it was subjugation and humiliation.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 12, 2009, 12:00:23 AM

Quote from: Siege on April 11, 2009, 11:57:36 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 11:48:17 PM
The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

Urban legend. They just passed to us classical writtings.
Do you have any idea how much of the classical period was lost?

Do you have any idea how brilliant the Muslim mathematicians were?  Or ibn Khaldun?  The Greeks were fantastic at many things, but our modern math is essentially a result of the Caliphate's work.

Seems that a lot of the credit for modern math goes to the Indians and their solution to the wacked out concept of nothing, i.e. "0"

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 10:18:03 PM
I've heard a theory on a podcast by Yale University (which, as you would guess, spends most of its time egowanking about how great Yale is) that tolerance is the greatest requirement to becoming a "hyperpower".  Its an interesting, remarkable theory I think.  She talked about how the greatest Empires are built up by their minorities as much/more so than the dominant populace (the Armenians, Greeks and Balkan Slavs in the Ottoman Empire, Syraics in the Ummayad Caliphate, Persians in the Abbasid, Greeks in the Roman Empire, Scots in the British, everyone in America).  These Empires tend to break apart when the dominant populace becomes anxious, inward looking and seeks to create some kind of mono-ethnic, 'pure' state.  Quite an elegant little theory, would explain quite a bit in the Mid-East I'd think.

Actually that fits 100% for Hungary as well. Sure, not a hyperpower by any means, but it was a multi-ethnic regional power, with minorities regularly reaching the higher echelons of power.
As a matter of fact, during the greatest trial of the country, the centuries long struggle with Ottomans, two foreign generals were the most extraordinary: János Hunyadi's father was by all probability a Romanian. Miklós Zrinyi's family was Croatian, yet not only he was a most excellent general, but also he quickly became the champion of the magyar cause vs. the Habsburgs, after he realized how marginal importance the hungarian frontline was for the emperor. He was assasinated btw.

The whole peaceful co-existence went out of the window in the late 1840s when the magyars managed to get themselves national rights from the Habsburgs (use of language and stuff), but the very same magyar leaders denied these rights from the minorities, in an effort to turn all people within the borders into a "single nation"

The ME went wrong with the emergence of oil. As long as you could ignore the ME it didn't hurt anyone you knew or cared about.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 11, 2009, 11:48:17 PM
The early Muslims contributed almost as much to Western Science as the ancient Greeks, a thousand years before them.  Guess again.

You're asking when the ME went wrong, and the ME went south beginning with Islam and its spread by the sword.

Ijtihad - or the end of it in the 10th century - thats when the ME starts to go wrong... After that the Muslim world is dominated by the nomadic tribes and their fighting ability.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:01:22 AM
It might be interesting to find out how many of these really great thinkers are to be considered really a part of the islamic world as many had themselves and/or their works condemned (often during their lifetime) as unislamic. Iirc,; something that starts happening pretty soon in islamic history.

My knowledge of history is sketchy, so could you remind me what happened to Galileo?

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 12, 2009, 06:21:10 AM
You're asking when the ME went wrong, and the ME went south beginning with Islam and its spread by the sword.

Islam was born between two religions with swords: the Byzantine and the Persian.  It's not like the other religions at that time were peaceable.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 08:06:47 AM

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:01:22 AM
It might be interesting to find out how many of these really great thinkers are to be considered really a part of the islamic world as many had themselves and/or their works condemned (often during their lifetime) as unislamic. Iirc,; something that starts happening pretty soon in islamic history.

My knowledge of history is sketchy, so could you remind me what happened to Galileo?

quite irrelevant since the modern western world doesn't claim that it's advances are christian in nature, nor does it claim that everything it does has to be okayed by whatever church there is.
Unlike what you see in the muslims world: where there's endless energy spent on figuring out if something is haram or halal and where an authority of religiour or state nature saying that something isn't islamic effectively kills off the idea.
In other words: the church coming out against Galileo didn't stop the train of thought Galileo worked on. Various muslims clerics/authority figures coming out against whatever philosopher of the time and denouncing him and his works as unislamic had the effect of closing a lot of doors of human thought.
edit: What has been created in the ME (and further afield in the islamic wqorld I guess) is an atmosphere where it is forbidden to doubt, resulting in a society where there is little doubt when it comes to viewing the world: allah is supreme, the kuran is immutable and islam and the muslims are destined to rule the world regardless of the cost.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 12, 2009, 08:40:11 AM

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 12, 2009, 06:21:10 AM
You're asking when the ME went wrong, and the ME went south beginning with Islam and its spread by the sword.

Islam was born between two religions with swords: the Byzantine and the Persian.  It's not like the other religions at that time were peaceable.

the difference is their origins:
Islam was never really a religion of peace, whereas Christianity (and iirc Zoroastianism) were. Especially Christianity didn't have access to statepower for the first few centuries of its existence. It's initial leaders, the examples to be followed basically, are generally not warriors.
Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior. And one of kind that would get him a ticket to The Hague or Nuremburg in todays world.

Well yes, but that's also because early Christianity operated within a comparatively peaceful world in which there was an almost global Empire and a number of common languages from Britain to Egypt.  The initial leaders of Christianity aren't warriors, Paul is God's Leninist.  They build a party.  That makes the peaceful spread of Christianity rather easier than Islam.  Islam is founded in a fractious and warlike part of the world - at that time - and immediately to the North is a devastated region racked with numerous barely understood heresies about the nature of the Trinity and two religious empires with swords in their arms.

Now the Arabs initially come out of the Arabian peninsula and Islam is a faith for Arabs, it's like Judaism.  That changes with the Abbasids and conversion spreads, though isn't forced.  It's as far as we can tell initially very slow and then really gains pace.  Personally I think after inquisitions and wars over Arianism, Monophytism, Monothelitism and so on the central message of Islam is deeply appealing: 'There is one God'.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 09:17:29 AM
Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior. And one of kind that would get him a ticket to The Hague or Nuremburg in todays world.

Disagree.  Mohammed tended to win his wars, and winners don't get punished.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 09:17:29 AM
Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior.

:huh:

I thought he was a merchant.

The problem (it does not matter why this happens) was/is that Islam is a religion of peace, they *must* turn everyone Islamic. If you know that someone wants to conquer/convert you, if you low your guard, you can never low your guard...

I'd say the whole Persian Renaissance starting with the Samanids is a proof that the Arab Empire was simply another conqueror of the area. We know very little about the cultural achievements of the last Sassanids but judging by the few clues, it must have seen as a beginning of a great age. No wonder most persian writers remembered that period as a golden age for Persia. I would add here the famous medical school, the jewish diaspora in Mesopotamia and the folklore that oozes from the work of Ferdowsi...

The Hispanic/Northern African cultural center did not appear out of nothing. Spain was already, under the late romans and vizigoths an early Christian cultural center (think Isidor of Sevilla) and I can't forget Carthage under Augustin. But if Spain can be explained by the use of the Ummayads (the same ones that managed to attract the Syrians on its side surely did the same with the hispanic elites), I really did not find a good explanation for Magreb. Not only it inspired countless religious movements, here were the best scholars of jurisprudence, here appeared the best philosopher of history, hell it even made way for Timbuktu and its weird position in the middle of nowhere.

Who knows? Maybe the muslim faith simply provided the lingua franca for so many great minds, something that the 400 year Sassanid-Roman wars were unable to provide.

The ME went wrong with the Crusades and 19th-20th century imperialism.

I thought everyone knew that.   :huh:

Quote from: Barrister on April 12, 2009, 01:26:05 PM
The ME went wrong with the Crusades and 19th-20th century imperialism.

I thought everyone knew that.   :huh:

:huh:
Sarcasm?

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:01:22 AM
Of course having a leader (muhammed) who raped, pillaged, murdered, put people into slavery and was generally unsavoury and created a religo-political way of life based on these facts (as well as making it clear that the world must be conquered, muslims are superior and all the rest at best second class),

Of course, we know what the Israelite prophets did. I Hail Moses, slaughterer of First Born sons!

This post is frankly ridiculous. Tens of millions of people died within the last fifty years in China, but I don't see any posts here about the intrinsic failures of Chinese culture.

Why is that? Because China is reforming and economically developing, and so even the historiopgrahy of China has started to change, going from "Autocratic hermit empire" to "one end of a thriving global trade network."

I'm curious if you also see Nazism as the inevitable culmination of Charlemagne's decision to expand Eastward in the 8th century, setting in motion one of the cornerstones of Germany's heritage: the extermination of those it didn't consider civilized.

Quote from: Alexandru H. on April 12, 2009, 01:24:39 PM
The Hispanic/Northern African cultural center did not appear out of nothing. Spain was already, under the late romans

I'm curious if you can cite any historical works, since the consensus AFAIk among academics is "Urban infrastructure decaying under the Visigoths, who treated Jews sufficiently poorly that they all flocked to the Arab invaders."

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 01:35:36 PM

Quote from: Alexandru H. on April 12, 2009, 01:24:39 PM
The Hispanic/Northern African cultural center did not appear out of nothing. Spain was already, under the late romans

I'm curious if you can cite any historical works, since the consensus AFAIk among academics is "Urban infrastructure decaying under the Visigoths, who treated Jews sufficiently poorly that they all flocked to the Arab invaders."

I did not mention jews  :huh: I'm part jewish but I don't know much about the jewish communities outside Mesopotamia during the 6th-8th centuries. Is the jewish community considered a founder of the "Andalusian" culture center or just one of its representatives? Because I always thought of them as being inspired by the Muslim scholars, not the other way around... at least until their breakthrough during the Taifas Kingdoms...

I guess my point isn't clear; you portray Visigothic Spain as place with a brilliant culture, which the Umayyads just got to claim credit for. The problem is that no historians I have ever come across think this was the case.

I've checked one of my books and the earliest representative of a true jewish intellectual in Hispania during the muslim rule is Samuel ibn Nagreka (993-1056).

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 01:43:12 PM
I guess my point isn't clear; you portray Visigothic Spain as place with a brilliant culture, which the Umayyads just got to claim credit for. The problem is that no historians I have ever come across think this was the case.

Ah, no  :lmfao:. Isidor of Sevilla (I have a soft spot for him) was a Catholic, like all the other minds of that peninsula, therefore not very much loved by the arian Visigoths. What I said is that Spain wasn't some fringe ex-roman territory, it was perhaps, with Italy and Carthage, the intellectual pot of the Western Empire.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 09:17:29 AM
Especially Christianity didn't have access to statepower for the first few centuries of its existence. It's initial leaders, the examples to be followed basically, are generally not warriors.

You are accepting the description of Jesus as nothing but a peaceful rabbi on blind faith here.

The fact that "Christianity" didn't have access to statepower does not mean it wasn't militant. The teachings of Christ were in fact both revolutionary and militant and absolutely at odds with the status quo, be it Roman occupation (or rule) of Judea or the power structure within judaism.

I think if you are going to use other sources than the Quran to prove Mohammed was worse than Hitler, it would serve you well to perhaps look beyond the Gospels when it comes to sources about Christianity. Just a tip.

Quote from: Barrister on April 12, 2009, 01:26:05 PM
The ME went wrong with the Crusades and 19th-20th century imperialism.

I thought everyone knew that.   :huh:

Sure. Blame it on the white man. That always work.

How about tagging the Shia-Sunni split as the beginning of the end?  Before that, Islam had no real clerics, just religious philosophers.  After the split, though it became important not just to be Muslim, but the "right kind" of Muslim, and those religious philosophers started to gain the power to say what was, and wasn't, the "right kind" of Islam.

I am not claiming to know enough whether I am over-simplifying the case, but my tenuous read on Islam's Nightfall tends towards this split as a significant change in Muslim (and Arab) identity.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 01:32:25 PM

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:01:22 AM
Of course having a leader (muhammed) who raped, pillaged, murdered, put people into slavery and was generally unsavoury and created a religo-political way of life based on these facts (as well as making it clear that the world must be conquered, muslims are superior and all the rest at best second class),

Of course, we know what the Israelite prophets did. I Hail Moses, slaughterer of First Born sons!

This post is frankly ridiculous. Tens of millions of people died within the last fifty years in China, but I don't see any posts here about the intrinsic failures of Chinese culture.

Why is that? Because China is reforming and economically developing, and so even the historiopgrahy of China has started to change, going from "Autocratic hermit empire" to "one end of a thriving global trade network."

I'm curious if you also see Nazism as the inevitable culmination of Charlemagne's decision to expand Eastward in the 8th century, setting in motion one of the cornerstones of Germany's heritage: the extermination of those it didn't consider civilized.

Completely agree.  Sonderwegs tend to be bullshit.  Twenty years ago India's history lead irrevocably to a minuscule economic growth rate.  Today it all leads to massive potential for growth. Same with China and Latin America. 

Quote from: grumbler on April 12, 2009, 01:54:21 PM
How about tagging the Shia-Sunni split as the beginning of the end?  Before that, Islam had no real clerics, just religious philosophers.  After the split, though it became important not just to be Muslim, but the "right kind" of Muslim, and those religious philosophers started to gain the power to say what was, and wasn't, the "right kind" of Islam.

I am not claiming to know enough whether I am over-simplifying the case, but my tenuous read on Islam's Nightfall tends towards this split as a significant change in Muslim (and Arab) identity.

Most of the great Muslim accomplishments were hundreds of years in the future when the Battle of Kerbala happened.  Perhaps you are making a distinction between the Sunni-Shi'ite split and the popularization of the Shi'ite faith under the Safavids?

There is one thing that troubles me about the whole muslim conquest. Most maps show this huge mass of land, expanding with each ruler until the Abbasids. But the truth of the matter is most areas in Persia weren't even pacified until the Abbasids left business in the hands of native dynasties. This is especially true with Maghred, led by natives from the 740s.

Quote from: The Nickname Who Was Thursday on April 12, 2009, 01:03:24 PM

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 09:17:29 AM
Mohammed, who is the example to be followed in Islam, is a warrior.

:huh:

I thought he was a merchant.

One of his wives was, which would make mohammed a golddigger alongside all the other bad stuff.

Quote from: Norgy on April 12, 2009, 01:45:45 PM

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 09:17:29 AM
Especially Christianity didn't have access to statepower for the first few centuries of its existence. It's initial leaders, the examples to be followed basically, are generally not warriors.

You are accepting the description of Jesus as nothing but a peaceful rabbi on blind faith here.

The fact that "Christianity" didn't have access to statepower does not mean it wasn't militant. The teachings of Christ were in fact both revolutionary and militant and absolutely at odds with the status quo, be it Roman occupation (or rule) of Judea or the power structure within judaism.

I think if you are going to use other sources than the Quran to prove Mohammed was worse than Hitler, it would serve you well to perhaps look beyond the Gospels when it comes to sources about Christianity. Just a tip.

Nevertheless, the example of jesus is what we'd generally call a "good guy". Someone who doesn't go around raiding caravans, conquering villages, killingthe men and sending the rest into slavery. So whatever he was in reality doesn't matter as it is unknown due to lack of sources and due to editing of the gospel. All christians acknowledge that via their acknowledgement (tacit or not) that the bible has been edited many times.

Now the mohammed that comes to us is most certainly not a "nice guy" (he may not be a hitler, but he'd certainly be tried for human rights violations on a large scale). Wether or not the primary source on mohammed has been edited or not is still up for debate, given that it wasn't written down at once on can assume that some stuff did end up different than it was. However, that is not something a faithful muslim will ever admit: the quran is the word of god and there ends the debate. Yet the result is still that this mohammed, which islam considers the example to follow, is a nasty man.

And that is the big difference. With what is know it is nigh on impossible to portrait jesus as anything but a man of peace. Something which cannot be said about mohammed.

Quote from: grumbler on April 12, 2009, 01:54:21 PM
How about tagging the Shia-Sunni split as the beginning of the end?  Before that, Islam had no real clerics, just religious philosophers.  After the split, though it became important not just to be Muslim, but the "right kind" of Muslim, and those religious philosophers started to gain the power to say what was, and wasn't, the "right kind" of Islam.

I am not claiming to know enough whether I am over-simplifying the case, but my tenuous read on Islam's Nightfall tends towards this split as a significant change in Muslim (and Arab) identity.

Eh. I'm still leery of projecting things backwards. The idea that a society is doomed for mistakes made over a thousand years ago seems iff.

Spellus, you might know the answer to this; I've read one of the reasons Abdul Hamid got rid of the parliament after 1878 was that the Russians demanded it; (Abdul Hamid wasn't shedding any tears given the way it acted, but still.) Have you ever this?

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:18:14 PM
And that is the big difference. With what is know it is nigh on impossible to portrait jesus as anything but a man of peace. Something which cannot be said about mohammed.

My problem with it is that:

a) It doesn't seem to square with much fo Christian history, where Jesus wasn't considered a good guy, but rather a model to emulate in a series of holy wars.

b) Ignores the entire Old Testament.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 03:26:47 PM

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:18:14 PM
And that is the big difference. With what is know it is nigh on impossible to portrait jesus as anything but a man of peace. Something which cannot be said about mohammed.

My problem with it is that:

a) It doesn't seem to square with much fo Christian history, where Jesus wasn't considered a good guy, but rather a model to emulate in a series of holy wars.

b) Ignores the entire Old Testament.

a) most, but not all. The holy wars start when christianity gains statepower. And it was the desire of the state that it remained unified. As such the attempts to squash dissent within christianity are a continuation of the attempts by the empire to suash christianity. The result of imperial policy rather than a jesus te emulate. Jesus himself doesn't, iirc, call for his followers to go out and smite the unbeliever. The source material, such as it is, seems more to point to a guy who doesn't really care what religion you are, what nationality you are or what your social status is. He even refuses to fight his arrest, unlike swordwielding petrus who jumps to his masters' defence and cuts of the ear of a hapless roman.

edit: basically my point is that the "beginning" of history (of the religion) has a profound influence on said religion and how subsequent generations will deal with it. Especially given the inevitability of fundamentalists (people wishing to return to the way of life of the "first christians/muslims/...).
And we've still ignored the small fact that there's 4 gospels in the Bible, 4 chosen out of many, something which is accepted by christendom at large. Whereas there's just one quran that came to us as is, something which is accepted by the ummah at large.

b)that's because they ain't jewish anymore. The OT isn't as important by far as the NT. The moment christianity stopped being an exclusive jewish sect the OT had to lose its importance. It is, after all, a collection of books dealing with the history of the jewish people, as well as laying down rules for the jewish people. Whereas the Christians came from all corners of the empire.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 03:26:47 PM

My problem with it is that:

a) It doesn't seem to square with much fo Christian history, where Jesus wasn't considered a good guy, but rather a model to emulate in a series of holy wars.

b) Ignores the entire Old Testament.

My suggestion would be to work a bit more on history and then theology.  Some of those problems might be cleared up.

Quote from: Barrister on April 12, 2009, 01:26:05 PM
The ME went wrong with the Crusades and 19th-20th century imperialism.

Well the Crusades did fuck everyone up.  I mean the Greeks and Muslims had been at war for around 400 years by the time the Crusades came along and not very long afterwards they'd become allies because the damage inflicted by marauding Franks was so high.

QuoteHe even refuses to fight his arrest, unlike swordwielding petrus who jumps to his masters' defence and cuts of the ear of a hapless roman.

But that's not because Jesus is a peaceful man.  It's because he's the lamb of God, the son of God, the Word made flesh whose ultimate purpose is to die for the sins of mankind.  If he resists arrest he's sort of missing the point of his divine purpose.

I'd also say that I think the Mohammed of the Quran is far more sympathetic and interesting than you're painting him out to be.  My objection would be with the Mohammed of some of the Hadiths.  But there is within Islam a new criticism of Hadith as an acceptable source of religious reasoning, something that hasn't really happened since the Medieval 'golden age' we're discussing.

But then I generally quite like Islam, though my tastes run more to some of the Shi'i groups than the Sunni majority.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 12, 2009, 03:18:14 PM
Nevertheless, the example of jesus is what we'd generally call a "good guy". Someone who doesn't go around raiding caravans, conquering villages, killingthe men and sending the rest into slavery. So whatever he was in reality doesn't matter as it is unknown due to lack of sources and due to editing of the gospel. All christians acknowledge that via their acknowledgement (tacit or not) that the bible has been edited many times.

Now the mohammed that comes to us is most certainly not a "nice guy" (he may not be a hitler, but he'd certainly be tried for human rights violations on a large scale). Wether or not the primary source on mohammed has been edited or not is still up for debate, given that it wasn't written down at once on can assume that some stuff did end up different than it was. However, that is not something a faithful muslim will ever admit: the quran is the word of god and there ends the debate. Yet the result is still that this mohammed, which islam considers the example to follow, is a nasty man.

And that is the big difference. With what is know it is nigh on impossible to portrait jesus as anything but a man of peace. Something which cannot be said about mohammed.

I guess my problem with all of this is that the comparison of a real person to a fictional (or fictionalized) one is not only silly, but has nothing to do with the contention that one religion is more violent than another.  Judaism is far more bloodthirsty in its writings than Islam, for instance, and the founders of its religious principals liable to the modern mind for far worse crimes than Mohammad.

All real men are nasty men.  Only in comics books and Bibles do we find saints.  So, calling Mohammad "nasty" is a pretty silly insult.  What is more amusing than that you would bother with it is that you think it is significant!  :lol:

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 01:32:25 PM
I'm curious if you also see Nazism as the inevitable culmination of Charlemagne's decision to expand Eastward in the 8th century, setting in motion one of the cornerstones of Germany's heritage: the extermination of those it didn't consider civilized.

Perhaps not inevitable, but certainly natural.

Quote from: grumbler on April 12, 2009, 05:03:21 PM
All real men are nasty men. 

:console: You'll find Mr. Right someday, I know it.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 12, 2009, 04:12:27 PM
My suggestion would be to work a bit more on history and then theology.  Some of those problems might be cleared up.

Hrmm. The fact that you are wrong doesn't persuade me to do so.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 07:09:09 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 12, 2009, 04:12:27 PM
My suggestion would be to work a bit more on history and then theology.  Some of those problems might be cleared up.

Hrmm. The fact that you are wrong doesn't persuade me to do so.

Well that's to bad.  If you don't want to learn stuff it only reflects poorly on you.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 01:32:25 PMbut I don't see any posts here about the intrinsic failures of Chinese culture.

That's because I've used other threads for that.

QuoteBecause China is reforming and economically developing, and so even the historiopgrahy of China has started to change, going from "Autocratic hermit empire" to "one end of a thriving global trade network."

No it's not.  But keep drinking the tiger penis soup, Maoboi.

My take is that there are two basic causes:

1. Islam never developed a workable method of succession agreed to by all Muslims, leading to the Shia-Sunni split; and

2. Somewhat related to that, Islam grew to be dependant on/prey to the military power of the steppe nomads (and in north africa the Berbers), which barbarized their society from the top down & made it extremely conservative. Kinda hard to progress when your lords and masters are a tiny minority of barbarian aristocrats, "slave" or not ... also when your cities are under threat from their wild cousins back on the steppe.

Think for a second about the world economic situation in the 1950s.  There is the developed world - consisting of Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia.  There is a second tier consisting of Japan and the more prosperous Latin American countries like Argentina and Venezuela.  There is a large bottom tier where masses of people lived at near subsistence level - encompassing China, India, and much of Africa.

The ME at this time was mostly in the "middle income" tier between the high-middle countries like Argentina, and the subsistence-level low income countries.  The per capita incomes of countries like Syria and Lebanon outpaced those of Spain, Portugal, and eastern Europe - and while Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Jordan etc trailed a bit behind - there were still way ahead of countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea. 

By the 70s there started to be significant divergence among the ME countries.  Iran was developing very quickly and made it into the second tier.  Iraq was not far behind.  The other major ME countries - Syria, Lebanon, Turkey - were lagging signigicantly.  Since the mid-70s the main developments are that Iran and Iraq have fallen way back, while Turkey has made significant advances.

The main point is that from the standpoint of economic development, the ME at the end of WW2 doesn't really look that much different from the mass of countries that are not part of the charmed "west".  In certain respects it appears well-positioned for the future if the right decisions were made.  Even as late as the mid-70s, at least couple of countries look like they could have a positive future.

I don't chalk up the failures of the ME countries to Islam any more than the apparent failures of east Asian economies c. 1950 could be ascribed to confucianism or buddhism (both claims commonly made for quite a long time).  I do think that failures of political development, self-defeating responses to perceived neocolonism, the corrupting effects of oil, and the replacement of reformist insurgent Islamism by Salafist (or Khoemeinist) insurgent Islamism all played roles.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 01:35:36 PM

Quote from: Alexandru H. on April 12, 2009, 01:24:39 PM
The Hispanic/Northern African cultural center did not appear out of nothing. Spain was already, under the late romans

I'm curious if you can cite any historical works, since the consensus AFAIk among academics is "Urban infrastructure decaying under the Visigoths, who treated Jews sufficiently poorly that they all flocked to the Arab invaders."

Well whatever else you can say about the Goths it is true they were no friends to the Jews.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 13, 2009, 10:27:22 AM
Think for a second about the world economic situation in the 1950s.  There is the developed world - consisting of Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia.  There is a second tier consisting of Japan and the more prosperous Latin American countries like Argentina and Venezuela.  There is a large bottom tier where masses of people lived at near subsistence level - encompassing China, India, and much of Africa.

The ME at this time was mostly in the "middle income" tier between the high-middle countries like Argentina, and the subsistence-level low income countries.  The per capita incomes of countries like Syria and Lebanon outpaced those of Spain, Portugal, and eastern Europe - and while Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Jordan etc trailed a bit behind - there were still way ahead of countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea. 

By the 70s there started to be significant divergence among the ME countries.  Iran was developing very quickly and made it into the second tier.  Iraq was not far behind.  The other major ME countries - Syria, Lebanon, Turkey - were lagging signigicantly.  Since the mid-70s the main developments are that Iran and Iraq have fallen way back, while Turkey has made significant advances.

The main point is that from the standpoint of economic development, the ME at the end of WW2 doesn't really look that much different from the mass of countries that are not part of the charmed "west".  In certain respects it appears well-positioned for the future if the right decisions were made.  Even as late as the mid-70s, at least couple of countries look like they could have a positive future.

I don't chalk up the failures of the ME countries to Islam any more than the apparent failures of east Asian economies c. 1950 could be ascribed to confucianism or buddhism (both claims commonly made for quite a long time).  I do think that failures of political development, self-defeating responses to perceived neocolonism, the corrupting effects of oil, and the replacement of reformist insurgent Islamism by Salafist (or Khoemeinist) insurgent Islamism all played roles.

I think though the issue is not the modern history of these countries per se, but rather why the Islamic world lost out over the long term to the Western Europeans - that is, why the "charmed west" for the last few centuries has been made up of Western European nations & their colonies, and not the civilization of the Islamic ME.

After all, the very division of the ME into their modern "nations" is a development dictated by the West. Why was the West in a position to dictate, and not vice versa?

I'd agree that this was not a development that simply arises out of Islam, though I do think that the inability of the Islamic world to develop a satisfactory method of dealing with political leadership has something to do with it - the notion of a universal Caliphate having more detrimental effect seemingly than the parallel notion of Christendom unified under a Roman Empire/Pope combo. More significant IMO was the ability of the barbarians to penetrate right to the centre of Islam as its military slaves & rulers - as if the Vikings took over all of Europe & retained the shield-wall as the primary method of waging war. The parallel here may be the Normans attempting that trick with heavy horse; of course eventually the Turks replaced steppe archers with musket armed Janessaries, but essentially never developed any more sophisticated method of leadership than blood tanistry and military slavery ... a legacy of the steppe, not Islam.

Quote from: Malthus on April 13, 2009, 10:50:43 AM
I think though the issue is not the modern history of these countries per se, but rather why the Islamic world lost out over the long term to the Western Europeans - that is, why the "charmed west" for the last few centuries has been made up of Western European nations & their colonies, and not the civilization of the Islamic ME.

I don't think it is a question of the Islamic world per se losing out, as opposed to a relatively small core western group pulling ahead of everyone - including the Islamic world, the South Asian world, China, Japan, southeast Asia, and even other parts of Europe.  The Islamic world's apparent failings are not unique in this respect.  The problem of figuring out the causes of the "rise of the west" remain, but that is a different question.

That's why I think it may be more fruitful to focus on the post WW2 era, in which certain formerly developing nations have made major strides, others have made incremental improvements, others have stagnated, and others fallen back (at least in relative terms).  There is richer material for comparative analysis.

Quote from: Malthus on April 13, 2009, 10:50:43 AM
I'd agree that this was not a development that simply arises out of Islam, though I do think that the inability of the Islamic world to develop a satisfactory method of dealing with political leadership has something to do with it - the notion of a universal Caliphate having more detrimental effect seemingly than the parallel notion of Christendom unified under a Roman Empire/Pope combo. More significant IMO was the ability of the barbarians to penetrate right to the centre of Islam as its military slaves & rulers - as if the Vikings took over all of Europe & retained the shield-wall as the primary method of waging war. The parallel here may be the Normans attempting that trick with heavy horse; of course eventually the Turks replaced steppe archers with musket armed Janessaries, but essentially never developed any more sophisticated method of leadership than blood tanistry and military slavery ... a legacy of the steppe, not Islam.

I agree with this approach, but would note that Islam was a religion designed by and for Bedouin, and the social/political/economic differences between the desert and steppe were not all that great.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 08:46:45 AM

I don't think it is a question of the Islamic world per se losing out, as opposed to a relatively small core western group pulling ahead of everyone - including the Islamic world, the South Asian world, China, Japan, southeast Asia, and even other parts of Europe.  The Islamic world's apparent failings are not unique in this respect.  The problem of figuring out the causes of the "rise of the west" remain, but that is a different question.

That's why I think it may be more fruitful to focus on the post WW2 era, in which certain formerly developing nations have made major strides, others have made incremental improvements, others have stagnated, and others fallen back (at least in relative terms).  There is richer material for comparative analysis.

I still believe there is merit in the original question.

To my mind, the problems in the other centres of civilization - Russia, China, and India - are not dis-similar to those of the Islamic world: all border the barbarian steppe and are more or less absorbed in the (to us) alien problem of resisting barbarian incursions or dealing with foreign barbarian military overlords.

Japan is a special case - they self-conciously chose isolation in response to Western influence. SE Asia was never really a contender.

As you point out progress is relative. It may not be so much that the West was gifted with some sort of unique spirit or cause of its "rise", but simply that it did not suffer the same massive forces holding it back - it isn't so much the "rise of the West" but the "failure to rise of China, Russia and India". 

My point is that simply examining Islam as the source of the difference isn't sufficient, the issue has to be looked at on a world-wide basis.

Quote from: grumbler on April 14, 2009, 09:01:00 AM
I agree with this approach, but would note that Islam was a religion designed by and for Bedouin, and the social/political/economic differences between the desert and steppe were not all that great.

This may be a trifle overstated. The image of the Islamic warrior bedoiun springing from the desert has some merit, but it should not be overlooked that Mohammad and his immediate followers were not barbarians, but relatively sophisticated city types - he came from an aristocratic family of long range merchants and traders based in Mecca, he wasn't an unlettered bedouin patriarch (Genghis and company were much more ... primeval). He wasn't nearly as alien to the civilizations his followers invaded as the Mongols or Turks, and his followers very quickly acculturated to the higher civilizations they took over.

But you are correct in that there may be an affinity to the desert/steppe barbarian lifestyle built in to Islam that made penetration by Turkic converts and the like easier.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 09:06:14 AM
To my mind, the problems in the other centres of civilization - Russia, China, and India - are not dis-similar to those of the Islamic world: all border the barbarian steppe and are more or less absorbed in the (to us) alien problem of resisting barbarian incursions or dealing with foreign barbarian military overlords.

But that wasn't as big a problem for the gunpowder empires of the Ottomans, Manchus, Mughals, Romanovs, etc. as it had been in the past.

QuoteAs you point out progress is relative. It may not be so much that the West was gifted with some sort of unique spirit or cause of its "rise", but simply that it did not suffer the same massive forces holding it back - it isn't so much the "rise of the West" but the "failure to rise of China, Russia and India".   

I am not so sure.  The "failure to rise" was a worldwide phenomenon for centuries, arguably even millennia.  I do think it is a matter of something odd and different happening in the west as opposed to something happening everywhere else to prevent what otherwise would be a natural (yet historically entirely unprecedented) rise in material capabilities.  As to what that odd and different thing(s) was or were and when exactly it (they) started, I've yet to be wholly and fully convinced by any of the many explanations offered.  But I do think that is the question.

QuoteMy point is that simply examining Islam as the source of the difference isn't sufficient, the issue has to be looked at on a world-wide basis.

Oh yes - on the same track with you there.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 12:31:58 PM

But that wasn't as big a problem for the gunpowder empires of the Ottomans, Manchus, Mughals, Romanovs, etc. as it had been in the past.

Not sure I understand this - of the four dynasties you cite, three had steppe nomad origins. The Ottomans, Manchus and Mughals were foreign military overlords, and as such it was less possible for them to adopt & adapt modernity.

QuoteI am not so sure.  The "failure to rise" was a worldwide phenomenon for centuries, arguably even millennia.

Don't agree at all. Sung China was much, much more notably "modern" than the Han (and moreso than Europe) - there was progress, all right.

Certainly there was a certain 'take off point' beyond which the ball of science, industrialism and progress got rolling - but I'd say that China was 'almost there' (think paper money, printing and blast furnaces, among many other things) when they got crushed by a massive invasion of particularly nasty Mongols.

I highly recommend Needham's huge series of tomes on science in China.

QuoteI do think it is a matter of something odd and different happening in the west as opposed to something happening everywhere else to prevent what otherwise would be a natural (yet historically entirely unprecedented) rise in material capabilities.  As to what that odd and different thing(s) was or were and when exactly it (they) started, I've yet to be wholly and fully convinced by any of the many explanations offered.  But I do think that is the question.

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:

- already have a high material culture;

- not locked into some ultra-conservative form of government (such as a "gunpowder empire" ruled precariously by a foreign military elite); and

- at least the possibility of political pluralism, either formally or more likely informally (such as city-states within a titular empire, or guilds or estates weilding a certain amount of power under a monarch).

The problem with a steppe barbarian invasion is not solely that it destroys material culture, but rather that it eliminates the internal possibilities for progress - either the barbarians win and become a military aristocracy, or they lose and inspire their former victims to become much more centralized and absolutist than they had been before (the Ming, following the Yuan Mongols, was much more absolutist that the Sung had ever been; likewise the Muscovite empire following the Kevian 'Rus). In either case the possibility for a civilization reaching the inflection point of modernity becomes impaired.

To my mind, the great historical question is not just "why the West", but rather "why not China, and earlier?". The Islamic world was never as likely as China to be the place where modernity happened, but what happened to prevent China from being that place more or less happened to the Islamic world also - only more so, since the Islamic world had been penetrated by Turkic types long before the devestating Mongol invasion.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 13, 2009, 10:27:22 AM
The other major ME countries - Syria, Lebanon, Turkey - were lagging signigicantly.

I'm not questioning the rest of your post, as I happen to agree with the majority of it, but I did note that you placed Lebanon in with the other group.  Were they really lagging in the 70s?  I've always been taught that, until their civil wars started in the mid-70s, they were rather exceptionally prosperous in comparison to their contemporaries.  Indeed, to the point where Beirut was known for a good amount of time as the "Las Vegas of the Middle East" or somesuch.  Not true?

I heard that Ulugh Beg's Observatory was pretty horrible.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 01:03:40 PM
Not sure I understand this - of the four dynasties you cite, three had steppe nomad origins.

Your earlier point was that China, Islamic world etc was constrained b/c they had to face the danger of the steppe hordes - my point was the gunpowder empires no longer had to face that threat.  It is true that they themselves had steppe origins - but then again, the origins of the western European monarchies was no less "barbaric" - even the vaunted English Parliament had its origin in a cabal of turbulent and conspiratorial feudal barons.

QuoteCertainly there was a certain 'take off point' beyond which the ball of science, industrialism and progress got rolling - but I'd say that China was 'almost there' (think paper money, printing and blast furnaces, among many other things) when they got crushed by a massive invasion of particularly nasty Mongols.

I don't agree.  The industrial takeoff was not about access to scientific knowledge or technology as it was about ways of organizing production and social life.  The ancient Greeks had the scientific knowledge and techology to be "almost there" - but in reality they were never close.  Scientific knowledge was a gentleman's pursuit of truth and technological applications were used to produce toys and parlor amusements (with occasional military applications).   

The Sung and the Abbassids had impressive civilizations - highly urbanized, an educated elite, tolerant, developing scientific knowledge, technologically innovative (optics, gunpowder, medicine, printing etc).  But like other similar pre-19th century societies, this was a thin elite veneer on what at essence was a mass subsistence agrarian society similar in essential nature to other urbanized agrarian socities dating back to the heydey of Sumer.  The fundamental basis of these societies was a river valley and irrigation system that was capable of producing high relative yields with relatively low tech inputs (human and animal hard labor and basic implements).  The agricultural surplus allowed an decently sized non-productive elite population to exist and an even larger population of craftsmen, builders, artists, entertainers, merchants and soliders to serve that elite.  But these societies were not oriented around exanding economic growth (the very concept did not exist) - they were oriented around reaching a stable state and satisfying the aesthetic imagination of the elite.

To take one example, paper money under the Sung was adopted for administrative convenience and in response to specie shortages.  It ceased to be used due in part to abuse, but more likely because the flow of specie into China from long-distance trade made it uncessary.  Actually a more significant innovation then government issued paper money was the adoption of private negotiable instruments (bills of exchange) by late medieval Italian banking houses.

QuoteI 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.

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.

Of course it is true that technological innovation occurred within this period, and that at times such innovation tended could outpace the loss of knowledge through forgetfulness and dark ages.  Practically, this meant that a privileged elite could have a more sophisticated standard of living than prior elites.  In special cases -- ancient Greece and Rome, the Ummayyad and Abbasid peaks, Song and Yuan China -- where a technological base was yoked to an effective extractive system of military tribute or conquest -- relatively high standards of living could be spread to a fairly broad urban strata.  But these were fragile achievements subject to collapse - and more importantly - they were not perceived as an intermediate stage in a trajectory of continuous progress.  On the contrary, these societies sought and idealized the achievement of a stable state to preserve themselves, and feared too much innovation or change as a danger to that stability.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 08:46:45 AM


That's why I think it may be more fruitful to focus on the post WW2 era, in which certain formerly developing nations have made major strides, others have made incremental improvements, others have stagnated, and others fallen back (at least in relative terms).  There is richer material for comparative analysis.

I would agree with you for the most part, but as Malthus said there is the question as to why the Islamic world couldn't keep up with the West in the first place, seeing as how it was frankly far more innovative than the West or even China for a crucial period.

And I don't think the that the recent failures are unrelated to the failure that started a millennium ago.  Arab Socialism drew upon the humiliation of Turko-Mongol rule and defeat by the West and the resulting superiority-inferiority complex.   

I'm guessing you've read Bernard Lewis?

Quote from: Habbaku on April 14, 2009, 01:12:18 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 13, 2009, 10:27:22 AM
The other major ME countries - Syria, Lebanon, Turkey - were lagging signigicantly.

I'm not questioning the rest of your post, as I happen to agree with the majority of it, but I did note that you placed Lebanon in with the other group.  Were they really lagging in the 70s?  I've always been taught that, until their civil wars started in the mid-70s, they were rather exceptionally prosperous in comparison to their contemporaries.  Indeed, to the point where Beirut was known for a good amount of time as the "Las Vegas of the Middle East" or somesuch.  Not true?

I had thought as you, but the per capita GDP numbers don't support the hypothesis.

The numbers for Lebanon in 1990 dollars were $2429 in 1950, $2393 in 1960, and $2917 in 1970.  A peak of $3700 is reached in 1978(!) which then fell back to below $2000 by the mid-1980s.  I found the numbers surprising at well, but assuming they are correct, it would appear that the success of Beirut's finance and tourism sector did not have deep positive effects on the Lebanese economy as a whole, at least not until the early stages of the Civil War were already underway.

That would make a certain amount of sense, though, as the gains in the well educated, Christian/Native Lebanese economy might be offset by the apeshit, dirt poor Palestinians coming in throughout the period and helping to set off the Civil War.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 14, 2009, 02:03:53 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 08:46:45 AM


That's why I think it may be more fruitful to focus on the post WW2 era, in which certain formerly developing nations have made major strides, others have made incremental improvements, others have stagnated, and others fallen back (at least in relative terms).  There is richer material for comparative analysis.

I would agree with you for the most part, but as Malthus said there is the question as to why the Islamic world couldn't keep up with the West in the first place, seeing as how it was frankly far more innovative than the West or even China for a crucial period.

And I don't think the that the recent failures are unrelated to the failure that started a millennium ago.  Arab Socialism drew upon the humiliation of Turko-Mongol rule and defeat by the West and the resulting superiority-inferiority complex.   

I'm guessing you've read Bernard Lewis?

It has been a few years since I read What Went Wrong but as I recall it my difficulty with Lewis' analysis is that he pits "Europe" as a whole against the whole of the Muslim World and tries to draw broad themes from that analysis.  But obviously within both groups there have been great successes and even greater failures.  If we were to compare age old enemies Austria-Hungary and The Ottoman Empire we would probably conclude that they both had a good run, both declining in power as WWI approached and both empires ending at the end of WWI as their component ethnic groups gained independence.

I dont think it is so much a question of why the Muslims didnt keep up (the question Lewis sets for himself) as a question of why some (underline some) of the European nations did so well.  It is a story of nations who were best able to take advantage of new technologies which allowed world wide exploitation of wealth and resources.   But that analysis doesnt take us into the modern world.  I agree with JR, a more interesting question is why those nations that were intially successful were able to hold onto their gains and improve on them. 

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 01:56:16 PM

Your earlier point was that China, Islamic world etc was constrained b/c they had to face the danger of the steppe hordes - my point was the gunpowder empires no longer had to face that threat.  It is true that they themselves had steppe origins - but then again, the origins of the western European monarchies was no less "barbaric" - even the vaunted English Parliament had its origin in a cabal of turbulent and conspiratorial feudal barons.

I thing my point, as expanded, has a trifle more to it that 'the risk of the barbarian hordes'. Certainly that risk, or threat, played its part, but more significant in the long run was the effect of invasion & resistance on the gov't and society - whether successfully invaded or not.

QuoteI don't agree.  The industrial takeoff was not about access to scientific knowledge or technology as it was about ways of organizing production and social life.  The ancient Greeks had the scientific knowledge and techology to be "almost there" - but in reality they were never close.  Scientific knowledge was a gentleman's pursuit of truth and technological applications were used to produce toys and parlor amusements (with occasional military applications).

I agree that a simplistic "the Greeks had steam engines, why not industrialism?" analysis misses the point - the Greeks indeed had steam engines (and impressive automatons), but as you say, they were mostly toys.

Again, I'd point out that my analysis is somewhat more sophisticated than that. Impressive technological acheivements are necessary but not sufficient - what is needed is a receptive sort of society.   

QuoteThe Sung and the Abbassids had impressive civilizations - highly urbanized, an educated elite, tolerant, developing scientific knowledge, technologically innovative (optics, gunpowder, medicine, printing etc).  But like other similar pre-19th century societies, this was a thin elite veneer on what at essence was a mass subsistence agrarian society similar in essential nature to other urbanized agrarian socities dating back to the heydey of Sumer.  The fundamental basis of these societies was a river valley and irrigation system that was capable of producing high relative yields with relatively low tech inputs (human and animal hard labor and basic implements).  The agricultural surplus allowed an decently sized non-productive elite population to exist and an even larger population of craftsmen, builders, artists, entertainers, merchants and soliders to serve that elite.  But these societies were not oriented around exanding economic growth (the very concept did not exist) - they were oriented around reaching a stable state and satisfying the aesthetic imagination of the elite.

I'd agree that no state prior to the 19th century was "modern', but that begs the question - I reject as overly deterministic the notion that there was any fundamental "orientation" to these societies that determined their destiny.

Moreover, the fact that no such "concept" as "economic growth" existed makes zero difference - the existence of growth does not depend on there being a recognized concept of growth.

QuoteTo take one example, paper money under the Sung was adopted for administrative convenience and in response to specie shortages.  It ceased to be used due in part to abuse, but more likely because the flow of specie into China from long-distance trade made it uncessary.  Actually a more significant innovation then government issued paper money was the adoption of private negotiable instruments (bills of exchange) by late medieval Italian banking houses.

It is not my understanding that paper money was used *solely* in response to specie shortages.

QuoteAn 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.

Again, the existence of a *concept* isn't determinative of the existence or not of progress - that happens whether people at the time believe it is happening or not. The intellectual conceptualizations of historians may have some tangental effect on progress, but they do not dictate it, and it is certainly untrue by any measure that China under the Sung resembled in any significant ways Neolithic China (despite the odd fact that the Chinese written language may uniquely be that old).

QuoteOf course it is true that technological innovation occurred within this period, and that at times such innovation tended could outpace the loss of knowledge through forgetfulness and dark ages.  Practically, this meant that a privileged elite could have a more sophisticated standard of living than prior elites.  In special cases -- ancient Greece and Rome, the Ummayyad and Abbasid peaks, Song and Yuan China -- where a technological base was yoked to an effective extractive system of military tribute or conquest -- relatively high standards of living could be spread to a fairly broad urban strata.  But these were fragile achievements subject to collapse - and more importantly - they were not perceived as an intermediate stage in a trajectory of continuous progress.  On the contrary, these societies sought and idealized the achievement of a stable state to preserve themselves, and feared too much innovation or change as a danger to that stability.

Again your focus appears to be on perception. For the purpose of this exercise, I'm not so concerned with what historians at the time believe to be true, but what is actually true in hindsight.

I think that the romantic legend of an unchanging pesantry is just that - a romanic legend. It is certainly one in which the Chinese themselves (for example) believed - that there were ancient sage-kings who presided over golden past era(s) - but there is no reason to think this is actually true; acrhaeology tends to confirm that, in pont of fact, Shang Dynasty types to have been rather barbaric and brutal. Ritual cannibalism by ferocious war-chiefs does not really resemble the golden age Chinese historians believed in (even if they *did* make fabulous bronzes).

In my opinion it is absurd to believe that Sung Dynasty China was more akin to the Shang than to modernity

Interesting discussion.

I agree with those who're saying the question is better framed as "what was it that led the West to succeed to the degree as it did" rather than "how did the ME go wrong."  At various times it has been widely different civilizations that were at the peak of culture and technology.  Where did the Romans go wrong?  Where did the Egyptians go wrong?  The Chinese (pick your favourite dynasty)?  The Indians (pick your favourite empire)?  And so on.

If I had to go with anything I'd say the industrial revolution (like everyone else is saying in one way or another, I think) including the way society was significantly reorganized to reflect and harness the technological changes.

That said, I tend towards a cyclical view of time as well.  The Middle East that Spellus refers to had its moment and eventually it passed.  The West is having its moment as well, but that too will pass.  Doesn't mean "it went wrong."

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 03:01:31 PM
I'd agree that no state prior to the 19th century was "modern', but that begs the question - I reject as overly deterministic the notion that there was any fundamental "orientation" to these societies that determined their destiny.

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.

QuoteIn my opinion it is absurd to believe that Sung Dynasty China was more akin to the Shang than to modernity

I would put it stronger than that - just about any post-agrarian, pre-modern urbanized society has more in common with other such societies than it does with any modern society.  Even France under the Sun King is closer to ancient Mesopotamia than it is to France c. 2009.

Quotethink that the romantic legend of an unchanging pesantry is just that - a romanic legend

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.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
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.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
[
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.

QuoteI would put it stronger than that - just about any post-agrarian, pre-modern urbanized society has more in common with other such societies than it does with any modern society.  Even France under the Sun King is closer to ancient Mesopotamia than it is to France c. 2009.

This is simply factually false - the use of the deep plough, changes to harness which allowed horses to be used instead of oxen in farming, developments in the storage and processing of foods, use of wind and water mills, the introduction of important new crops - all transformed farming and the pesantry utterly since mesopotamian times, in ways that are quite fundamental.

Hell, even the staples of the European diet such as corn, potatoes and tomatoes are imports from the new world.

QuoteIt'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.

Again, simply not true.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 03:53:19 PM
This is simply factually false - the use of the deep plough, changes to harness which allowed horses to be used instead of oxen in farming, developments in the storage and processing of foods, use of wind and water mills, the introduction of important new crops - all transformed farming and the pesantry utterly since mesopotamian times, in ways that are quite fundamental.

The deep plow allowed the harder European soils to be tilled more easily; horses drawn plows allowed tilling to be done faster and more efficiently, powered mills made the process of making flour to be more efficient.  But all these technological changes did not boost yield efficiency in Europe even to levels reached by Sumer in its heydey.  They were incremental improvements that allowed European agriculture to come close to producing the surpluses that could be generated by the Nile and the great river valleys.  They did reduce some of the physical burdens on the European peasantry.  But "tranform utterly"? - I think not.  A 17th century European peasant still followed the same rhythms of farm life, and employed similar (if improved versions of) tools, and had a similar lifestyle as a 16th century European peasant or a 13th century European peasant or a Celtic European peasant.   What wholly and utterly changed that was  mechanical reapers and threshers, the railroad, the canals, the telegraph -- the whole series of revolutions in transport, communication and mechanical production - all married to new ideology of production and organization of work that was fundamentally different from everything that had come before.  An ideology that would annihilate the very concept of peasant-dom.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 04:19:50 PM


The deep plow allowed the harder European soils to be tilled more easily; horses drawn plows allowed tilling to be done faster and more efficiently, powered mills made the process of making flour to be more efficient.  But all these technological changes did not boost yield efficiency in Europe even to levels reached by Sumer in its heydey.  They were incremental improvements that allowed European agriculture to come close to producing the surpluses that could be generated by the Nile and the great river valleys.  They did reduce some of the physical burdens on the European peasantry.  But "tranform utterly"? - I think not.  A 17th century European peasant still followed the same rhythms of farm life, and employed similar (if improved versions of) tools, and had a similar lifestyle as a 16th century European peasant or a 13th century European peasant or a Celtic European peasant.   What wholly and utterly changed that was  mechanical reapers and threshers, the railroad, the canals, the telegraph -- the whole series of revolutions in transport, communication and mechanical production - all married to new ideology of production and organization of work that was fundamentally different from everything that had come before.  An ideology that would annihilate the very concept of peasant-dom.

Not fair.  For one, Europe and the Nile aren't comparable.  They are different places.  The Nile is much more naturally fertile.  Second in the country that mechanical reapers and threshers and railroads didn't annihilate the concept of peasantdom because that concept was already gone by the time they were invented.  It did in other countries that were less technologically advanced. It was the end of the mediveal concepts of peasentry that led to these labor saving devices.  Not the other way around.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 03:41:27 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
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.

Quote from: saskganesh on April 14, 2009, 04:42:26 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 03:41:27 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
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?

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 04:44:53 PM

Quote from: saskganesh on April 14, 2009, 04:42:26 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 03:41:27 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
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.)

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 04:19:50 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 03:53:19 PM
This is simply factually false - the use of the deep plough, changes to harness which allowed horses to be used instead of oxen in farming, developments in the storage and processing of foods, use of wind and water mills, the introduction of important new crops - all transformed farming and the pesantry utterly since mesopotamian times, in ways that are quite fundamental.

The deep plow allowed the harder European soils to be tilled more easily; horses drawn plows allowed tilling to be done faster and more efficiently, powered mills made the process of making flour to be more efficient.  But all these technological changes did not boost yield efficiency in Europe even to levels reached by Sumer in its heydey.  They were incremental improvements that allowed European agriculture to come close to producing the surpluses that could be generated by the Nile and the great river valleys.  They did reduce some of the physical burdens on the European peasantry.  But "tranform utterly"? - I think not.  A 17th century European peasant still followed the same rhythms of farm life, and employed similar (if improved versions of) tools, and had a similar lifestyle as a 16th century European peasant or a 13th century European peasant or a Celtic European peasant.   What wholly and utterly changed that was  mechanical reapers and threshers, the railroad, the canals, the telegraph -- the whole series of revolutions in transport, communication and mechanical production - all married to new ideology of production and organization of work that was fundamentally different from everything that had come before.  An ideology that would annihilate the very concept of peasant-dom.

Comparing agriculture in the valleys of mesopotamia to the pesantry of Europe is not comparing apples with apples. They were quite utterly unlike. The total yeilds of grains is not the best comparator for similarity.

Also, it was not the railroad and the like that transformed pesantry in Europe so much as the ending of serfdom - which in some places predates the industrial revolution and in other places lagged behind. Certainly a 17th century Dutch farmer resembled a labouring peasant of Sumer not at all in any meaningful sense, had more in common with a family farmer in modern day southern Ontario.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 04:33:42 PM
Not fair.  For one, Europe and the Nile aren't comparable.  They are different places.  The Nile is much more naturally fertile. 

That is true, but doesn't respond to my point.  Fairness is not at issue.

QuoteSecond in the country that mechanical reapers and threshers and railroads didn't annihilate the concept of peasantdom because that concept was already gone by the time they were invented. 

Not so - you are confusing peasantdom with the juridical concept of serfdom.  There were French and German and Italian peasants in the 19th century.  In the 20th century in fact.

This isn't a commentary on their social status, or their rights before the law, or even their relative levels of freedom.  All these things could differ radically from place to place and time and time.  It is a commentary on the basic physical and economic realities of pre-industrial agricultural life.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 01:56:16 PM
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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 03:53:19 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
[
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 the way.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 14, 2009, 05:06:11 PM
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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 04:57:31 PM
Comparing agriculture in the valleys of mesopotamia to the pesantry of Europe is not comparing apples with apples. They were quite utterly unlike.

They are unlike in many details, but like in critical respects.  The are like in the key respect that peasant life is characterized by being completely subject to the seasons the weather and the climate; subject to the cycles of famine and plenty, and living a highly localized life rooted in the land, involving heavy labor powered by human and/or animal power.  And in that the vast majority of producers lived just at or above subsistence.

QuoteThe total yeilds of grains is not the best comparator for similarity.

No such claim was made.  The point is that technological innovation in European agriculture was simply a pre-requisite for closing in the yield advantage enjoyed by the riverine empires.  It didn't fundamentally change the nature of life or society.  It just made work more efficient and made it easier to produce surpluses.  It didn't change them into radically different socities.

QuoteAlso, it was not the railroad and the like that transformed pesantry in Europe so much as the ending of serfdom - which in some places predates the industrial revolution and in other places lagged behind. Certainly a 17th century Dutch farmer resembled a labouring peasant of Sumer not at all in any meaningful sense, had more in common with a family farmer in modern day southern Ontario.

I notice you changed my example from a Frenchman to a Dutchman.   ;)

I don't know much about 17th century Dutch farming per se but it is true that the "great divergence" begins in northern Europe and its roots can be traced back to the 18th and perhaps the 17th centuries.  At some point, groups of agricultural producers in this time and place do become connected to the emerging market system in a more autonomous way.  So you may be right about your Dutch farmer - but that doesn't respond to my argument.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 14, 2009, 05:02:25 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 01:56:16 PM
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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:19:05 PM
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?

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 14, 2009, 05:06:11 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 03:53:19 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
[
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?

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:19:05 PM
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.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 14, 2009, 05:22:42 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:19:05 PM
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.

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

Quote from: saskganesh on April 14, 2009, 04:57:11 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 04:44:53 PM

Quote from: saskganesh on April 14, 2009, 04:42:26 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 03:41:27 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
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.

Quote from: garbon on April 14, 2009, 05:08:36 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 14, 2009, 05:06:11 PM
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.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 14, 2009, 05:30:31 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:19:05 PM
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.

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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:28:13 PM
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.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 14, 2009, 05:02:25 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 01:56:16 PM
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.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 14, 2009, 05:42:50 PM
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.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 14, 2009, 05:42:50 PM
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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:28:13 PM
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.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 05:31:28 PM
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.

Now take the early 19th century French peasant and make him proprietor of a modest-sized modern French farm.  Now he has to think about things like hybrid and clonal selection, pest management techniques, types of fertilizer, purchasing and maintaining machinery, managing a workforce, insurance, depreciation accounting, commodity hedging, transport options, fuel, export markets, CAP regulations, etc.  It is an entirely alien universe.

I note that the argument between Minsky and Malthus has turned to Malthusian dynamics - with Minsky being the more Malthusian. (Plus royaliste que le roi?)

I think it would be interesting to apply some principles of population to the matter of Islam and war. The beliefs of Islam took shape during an era of military victory and expansion. It was for a long time customary to slay the men of defeated peoples and keep the women as spoils of war, as indeed the God of the old testament at times instructs his people to do. War in itself, of course, leaves a shortage of men. It is thus probable that there were many women to every man, and indeed we find that a man is allowed four wives.

This works well in a time of expansion, as was the time of early Islam. In times of peace, however, you end up with the rich having many wives and the poor none at all. The sexually frustrated masses of people, then, eagerly risk their lives in battle hoping either for victory and wealth or death as a martyr and virgins in heaven.

Anyway I agree with Minsky - the pre-industrialised world was essentially caught in a malthusian trap where increases in material wealth soon begot an increase in population. For the masses of people material standard of living never stayed above sustainance for long - and similar material conditions begets similar ways of life (hence stratospheric societal organizations with a small elite cultured for otherwise impossible specialization).

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 05:54:08 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 05:31:28 PM
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.

Now take the early 19th century French peasant and make him proprietor of a modest-sized modern French farm.  Now he has to think about things like hybrid and clonal selection, pest management techniques, types of fertilizer, purchasing and maintaining machinery, managing a workforce, insurance, depreciation accounting, commodity hedging, transport options, fuel, export markets, CAP regulations, etc.  It is an entirely alien universe.

Two things:  First off you underestimate the complexity of the agrarian worker in the pre-modern world.  Second you are mixing two separate occupations.  The pre-modern French peasant's modern equivalent would be a laborer at an agro-business not the proprietor of a modest sized farm.  If we plop him from his peasant work to a modern equivalent he'd do okay.  The proprietor fellow is the equivalent of a schenchel or manor lord and he does have to worry about management techniques, transport, export, etc.

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?  This is especially true of traditional Sunni Islam.  The pre-Sullan Republic might have had something similar before the breakdown into Optimates-Populares, as would the Greeks in certain periods.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 14, 2009, 06:32:30 PM
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?  This is especially true of traditional Sunni Islam.  The pre-Sullan Republic might have had something similar before the breakdown into Optimates-Populares, as would the Greeks in certain periods.

I have often wondered if pre-modern peoples understood technological progress.  I really don't know.  I mean you often have art work depicting historical or mythical events in a comtemporary setting.  Such as medieval illuminations showing plate clad knights sieging Troy or something.  I don't know really.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 05:47:41 PM
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. 

Are you arguing that western Europe c.1500-1800 was "set up" to achieve progress? 

Quote from: dps on April 15, 2009, 12:34:54 AM
Are you arguing that western Europe c.1500-1800 was "set up" to achieve progress?

Progress is even more modern than that, I'd say it's a relatively 18th century thought.  I think it came out of a combination of knowing that modern Europeans had surpassed even the Greeks and Romans in certain aspects of knowledge and the exhaustion of religious war which often carried a strong millenarian impulse.  The failure of the sort of cores of Medieval knowledge (the superiority of classical civilisation and eschatology) had a huge intellectual impact.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2009, 12:49:03 AM

Quote from: dps on April 15, 2009, 12:34:54 AM
Are you arguing that western Europe c.1500-1800 was "set up" to achieve progress?

Progress is even more modern than that, I'd say it's a relatively 18th century thought.  I think it came out of a combination of knowing that modern Europeans had surpassed even the Greeks and Romans in certain aspects of knowledge and the exhaustion of religious war which often carried a strong millenarian impulse.  The failure of the sort of cores of Medieval knowledge (the superiority of classical civilisation and eschatology) had a huge intellectual impact.

Yeah the Europeans were still unsure if they could achieve the glory of Rome and Greece as late the 18th century.  I think Jonathen Swift commented on this inferiority complex.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 05:42:03 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:28:13 PM
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.

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.

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

For another, technology has changed fundamentally.

I am sort of flabbergasted that many of you appear to be arguing otherwise.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 14, 2009, 05:51:30 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2009, 05:28:13 PM
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.

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). All of these have demonstrated a tendancy to increase over time world-wide, in spite of local rises and falls of civilization - the fall of Mycenae was a disaster for the Mycenaens, but the Greeks that followed far surpassed them, and were surpassed in their turn by others; and this was hardly noticed in China.

Naturally, this "progress" has by no means been smooth - rather it has been punctuated by events, set-backs, dark ages. But the overall trend is clear.

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. 

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 14, 2009, 05:49:41 PM

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 14, 2009, 05:42:50 PM
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.

Incorrect - this is exactly about "changes than happen" and not about "changes we wish to implement".

A person can easily make changes without knowing their ultimate impact. Gunpowder was invented by Taoists seeking an immortality potion.

Quote from: Faeelin on April 12, 2009, 08:06:47 AM
My knowledge of history is sketchy, so could you remind me what happened to Galileo?

Died peacefully at his home?

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 08:28:15 AM
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.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 10:27:29 AM


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.

He's not assuming anything about the world view of historical figures as he makes clear in his last post. You're simply projecting this fallacy onto him as means to discredit his argument.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 08:28:15 AM
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 ?

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 10:27:29 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 08:28:15 AM
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.  :D

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

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 10:47:21 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 08:28:15 AM
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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:15:18 AMindeed, 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 ?

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:15:18 AM
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?

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:09:31 AM


Man, you got owned by Timmay.  :D

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:

QuoteI 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.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 05:54:08 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 05:31:28 PM
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. 

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 11:20:36 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:15:18 AMindeed, 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.

Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2009, 11:25:22 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:15:18 AM
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?

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 11:32:02 AM
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.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 11:27:43 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:09:31 AM


Man, you got owned by Timmay.  :D

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.  :lol:

Quote
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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 08:20:04 AM
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.

QuoteFor 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.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 10:27:29 AM


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.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 14, 2009, 06:32:30 PM
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.

QuoteThe 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.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:35:25 AM
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.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 15, 2009, 11:43:35 AM
Since this didn't happen, I'm not sure why you bring it up.

Especially as it's even an inaccurate depiction of the Church which saved much of Europe's intellectual life in the period and was to foster the climate that led directly to the renaissance.  It wasn't conservative and anti-intellectual.  It horded knowledge, but sought it, and was far less anti-intellectual than the illiterate lords that ruled much of Europe.

I'd also say that religion is I think over-emphasised.  A large intellectual problem for Europe was that we inherited, from the Greeks, a rational but not a scientific tradition.  It was based on geometry and maths rather than empirical observation, I think the reverence Classical civilisation was held in was as much an ideological restraint as Christian belief.

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

Religion cannot be a component of our conception of time?  But surely the Protestant-Reformed notion of movement towards the Second Coming had something to do with the modern notion of progress?  The two world views seem to be remarkably similar in some regards.

Quote
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.

The Senatorial class wouldn't, but wouldn't Caesar and some of the Optimates have held something different?  Caesar, with his aspirations of conquering Persia and the Steppe, probably saw Rome bringing progress to the world in a way not entirely dissimilar from the European powers of the Colonial period.  While the initial expansion was haphazard and driven by the need for slaves or security, by the time of the conquest of Gaul I think Rome was expanding as much for traditional colonial reasons as anything.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 06:29:50 PM
Two things:  First off you underestimate the complexity of the agrarian worker in the pre-modern world. 

I don't think so - put the modern farmer in the pre-modern world and he or she would also have a hard time of it.  I don't question the complexity - the argument is that the nature of that complexity didn't change that much over time.

QuoteSecond you are mixing two separate occupations.  The pre-modern French peasant's modern equivalent would be a laborer at an agro-business not the proprietor of a modest sized farm.  If we plop him from his peasant work to a modern equivalent he'd do okay.  The proprietor fellow is the equivalent of a schenchel or manor lord and he does have to worry about management techniques, transport, export, etc.

First of all, some peasants cultivated respectable size plots.  Second, even very small farmholders in modern times (say a small vineyard or berry farm) face many of the issues I just described.  For example many 21st century Burgundian wine growers are working highly fractionated plots -- their peasant great-great-great-grandparents actually worked much larger plots.  The nature of the work however has changed beyond recognition in many respects.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:34:07 AM
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.

Matters of perspective: I am trying to get you to define what you seek to measure by looking at the past and finding hints of progress. I am trying to get you to define the standards which you seem to ascribe to progress as opposed to either «change» (i.e.: an increase in population) or «domination» (i.e., The West imposing its will upon the.Rest of the World)  If you think this is meaningless and worthless, I'll not waste your time nor mine.

I don't have a good definition of progress. It is not a word I appreciate much, because it raises -- to me, at least -- many more questions than it helps answer. I usually prefer «modernity», precisely because it encompasses a number of processes that I recognize as part of my world, and different from that which came before: disenchantment of the World and the removal of God, perfectibility of men, the division between the Natural and the Social, the invention of the great conceptual solvents of State, Society, Market, Self... This, to me, has the advantage of including both the Enlightenment and its notion of progress (walking towards an undefined Light) and its critiques. It also puts the emphasis on its «presentist» quality.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 15, 2009, 11:40:02 AM

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. 

I disagree. We are often in a better position to understand what is happening in the past than the people actually living through it.

To many living through the Black Death, it would appear a truly apocalyptic event, the actual end of the world. We know this was not literally true.

Similarly, people in the past may have believed in past Golden Ages - but we know this is mostly romantic legend. People in the Renaissance may believe that they were only recapturing abilities well known to the ancients - we know they were surpassing them.

QuoteLooking 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.

And here we simply disagree. Where you see "tinkering on the margins" I see fundamental changes being made - admittedly in incremental and peacemeal manner, but with an increasing momentum leading inevitably, at some point or other, to a technological break-through. Gunpowder, the development of printing, the gradual evolution of ship-building ... all leading to the take-off point.

QuoteBy 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.

Sure, assuming that those rats develop agriculture and run printing-presses, and I'd agree ... in fact, as you probably know, the increase in rats is directly caused by *human* progress. Humans increase rat habitat, humans spread rats over the globe, humans make agricultural surpluses that rats eat, etc.

I'm not arguing that there have *not* been localized "dark ages" (and indeed if you read my arguments I'm in fact arguing for the fundamental importance of such "dark ages" in determining the time and place of the break-through to modernity).

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 15, 2009, 11:53:55 AM


First of all, some peasants cultivated respectable size plots.  Second, even very small farmholders in modern times (say a small vineyard or berry farm) face many of the issues I just described.  For example many 21st century Burgundian wine growers are working highly fractionated plots -- their peasant great-great-great-grandparents actually worked much larger plots.  The nature of the work however has changed beyond recognition in many respects.

Really?  The Latifundae (sp?) were profit motivated and as mechanized as possible for the period. 

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 11:52:50 AM
The Senatorial class wouldn't, but wouldn't Caesar and some of the Optimates have held something different?  Caesar, with his aspirations of conquering Persia and the Steppe, probably saw Rome bringing progress to the world in a way not entirely dissimilar from the European powers of the Colonial period.  While the initial expansion was haphazard and driven by the need for slaves or security, by the time of the conquest of Gaul I think Rome was expanding as much for traditional colonial reasons as anything.

There might be something to this: I would think that the Imperium, the domination of the civilized world (rather than the Republic, the City where citizens engage as part of their nature of citizen) is certainly a break, a rupture in ways to understand polity, and the goals associated with it. Especially when it united with the King-Shepard of Christian tradition. But, then, it morphed into the unification of Christianity in another brand - albeit slightly different - of eschatology.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 11:55:57 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:34:07 AM
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.

Matters of perspective: I am trying to get you to define what you seek to measure by looking at the past and finding hints of progress. I am trying to get you to define the standards which you seem to ascribe to progress as opposed to either «change» (i.e.: an increase in population) or «domination» (i.e., The West imposing its will upon the.Rest of the World)  If you think this is meaningless and worthless, I'll not waste your time nor mine.

I don't have a good definition of progress. It is not a word I appreciate much, because it raises -- to me, at least -- many more questions than it helps answer. I usually prefer «modernity», precisely because it encompasses a number of processes that I recognize as part of my world, and different from that which came before: disenchantment of the World and the removal of God, perfectibility of men, the division between the Natural and the Social, the invention of the great conceptual solvents of State, Society, Market, Self... This, to me, has the advantage of including both the Enlightenment and its notion of progress (walking towards an undefined Light) and its critiques. It also puts the emphasis on its «presentist» quality.

Perhaps an example will help.

When I was a kid in university archaeology class, I had a prof who made knives out of flint. We were encouraged to actually use these flint knives to do everyday tasks.

We have all heard that flint knives can be extremely sharp, and it is true - but frankly, in terms of usefullness, flint knives suck shit. For one, they are very unforgiving - they chip easily if not used exactly right. Knapping a good edge is extremely laborious and difficult.

Contrast this with a knife made out of steel. Much better, more useful in every way. It is no wonder that native americans valued such stuff as trade goods - anyone would.

The design of knives has progressed, from a less developed less useful inferior-for-its-purpose form to a better, more useful form. This is a fact quite independant of ideology. It is an exampe of progress.

Now, there are numerous such examples of progress since Sumerian times, I would assume most would agree. The technological examples (i.e. steel knives and not flint) are I would think obvious - and they tend to transcend cyclical rises and falls of empires, dark ages, etc. The impact of technological progress on other forms of progress (such as in human abililties to govern themselves and knowledge about their world) are not as obvious but nonetheless there - occasionally suppressed, occasionally subject to regression, but overall the tendency over all of human history has been to increase - to move from flint knives to steel, and not the other way.

Quote from: garbon on April 15, 2009, 11:50:36 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 11:35:25 AM
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.

It is a symptom, not an example, of progress in the case of modernity.

Way too teleological, Malthus.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 12:10:47 PM
Perhaps an example will help...

I think it is precisely trying to isolate these kinds of examples which creates an illusion.

How did metal knives came about ? Who cares when a single individual creates a single metal knife ? Unless you think the material preceeds the social or the cultural, I find it very hard to separate the metal knife from the culture that produced it, and the type of polity they bring about, which is all about the uses of the metal knife...

Consider that metal knife in the 17th century, in the Americas. Why were they exported to the Americas ? Would you characterize the Native's shift from stone tools to metal tools as progress ? Were the technical systems which sustained the expansion of the European monarchies a progress over Natives' consensual-style of politics? Warfare, within Native societies with stone tools, created hundreds of deaths. Warfare, within European society, created thousands of deaths. Is this progress ? This is why I wanted you to define the values which you must associate with progress.

I once heard in a grad seminar the best definition of Progress - it was "Paved Roads."

Quote from: PDH on April 15, 2009, 12:26:10 PM
I once heard in a grad seminar the best definition of Progress - it was "Paved Roads."

Toilet paper.

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 15, 2009, 12:27:31 PM
Toilet paper.

You are wiser than she was.

Quote from: PDH on April 15, 2009, 12:31:01 PM

Quote from: Ed Anger on April 15, 2009, 12:27:31 PM
Toilet paper.

You are wiser than she was.

I will write a paper on that. 2-ply.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 12:24:21 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 12:10:47 PM
Perhaps an example will help...

Who cares when a single individual creates a single metal knife ?

Will you care when he cuts your face off and shows it to you?

Quote from: The Brain on April 15, 2009, 12:33:37 PM
Will you care when he cuts your face off and shows it to you?

Spoon on testicles.

Quote from: PDH on April 15, 2009, 12:21:31 PM
Way too teleological, Malthus.

On the contrary. I am not stating that these things were designed for a result - that appears to be the position of my opponents.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 12:24:21 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 12:10:47 PM
Perhaps an example will help...

I think it is precisely trying to isolate these kinds of examples which creates an illusion.

How did metal knives came about ? Who cares when a single individual creates a single metal knife ? Unless you think the material preceeds the social or the cultural, I find it very hard to separate the metal knife from the culture that produced it, and the type of polity they bring about, which is all about the uses of the metal knife...

Consider that metal knife in the 17th century, in the Americas. Why were they exported to the Americas ? Would you characterize the Native's shift from stone tools to metal tools as progress ? Were the technical systems which sustained the expansion of the European monarchies a progress over Natives' consensual-style of politics? Warfare, within Native societies with stone tools, created hundreds of deaths. Warfare, within European society, created thousands of deaths. Is this progress ? This is why I wanted you to define the values which you must associate with progress.

There are of course various meanings of "progress" and I beleve by "values" you are questioning the moral aspect of it. Certainly individual humans are no more "good" now than in Sumerian times ... if your concern is the moral implications of the term, I would agree - the relationship between moral and material progress is complex.

However, that is not my immediate concern, which is (to paraphrase Jared Diamond) why "the West" ended up with "all the cargo" - why, for example, we are here communicating over the Internet and not using smoke-signals, or speaking Chinese -- or for that matter, Arabic.

This is "progress" more of the steel-knives variety. I'd agree that knowing "how metal knives came about" is important - that's a study in progress.

Quote
There might be something to this: I would think that the Imperium, the domination of the civilized world (rather than the Republic, the City where citizens engage as part of their nature of citizen) is certainly a break, a rupture in ways to understand polity, and the goals associated with it. Especially when it united with the King-Shepard of Christian tradition. But, then, it morphed into the unification of Christianity in another brand - albeit slightly different - of eschatology.

This seems to at least partially acknowledge a kind of progress.  Rome went from a Greek-style Polis to  a kind of Proto-Nation (Middle Republic, union of all Italian peoples) to an Empire (expansion into Sicily, Sardinia) to a universal state (Scipio, Marius and later).  Technology improved, for most of this period the living standard of everyone improved, and, most importantly, there was a huge shift towards "modern" business management and the profit motive. 

This is something Joan seems to have studiously avoided; the average Gaul transplanted into a rural Russian mir  in the 17th Century or a Sumerian farm would have been able to adjust with only a degree of culture shock, but the same could be said of the Roman merchant transplanted into any nearly any urbanized, economically advanced society.  The Roman running a Latifunda in modern day Burgundy would likely recognize his modern Burgundian counterpart.  Similarly, the Venetian merchant trying to bring nutmeg to Paris would have run into some of the same problems as the Greek, Chinese, Indian or Persian merchant of a similarly advanced period, as well as some of the same problems of the contemporary Italian capitalist. 

I think Joan is wrong in that the Celt would feel at home as a Sumerian farmhand because he would have been similarly powerless and have little or no understanding of monetary economics or a government beyond a tribe or primitive city-state; the serf/slave of the period would naturally have more in common with other serfs/slaves of any other period.  But within an advanced society we see more primitive versions of nearly all the same professions we see today (or perhaps saw until the advent of the information age).  The Hellenistic world had its factory workers and stevedores, same as early 19th century Britain. 

While I am unwilling to pigeonhole 'progress' I think it is safe to say that continued technological improvement and gradual increase in economic activity are two key parts of it, and it is very safe to say that those two things showed (on the whole) steady improvement over the last 5,000 years and at some specific points in history this would be apparent (specifically the early Caliphate, which, upon further reflection, is as good a proxy for the 19th Century European Imperial state as I can think of in terms of innovation and mindset).

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 12:24:21 PM


Consider that metal knife in the 17th century, in the Americas. Why were they exported to the Americas ? Would you characterize the Native's shift from stone tools to metal tools as progress ? Were the technical systems which sustained the expansion of the European monarchies a progress over Natives' consensual-style of politics? Warfare, within Native societies with stone tools, created hundreds of deaths. Warfare, within European society, created thousands of deaths. Is this progress ? This is why I wanted you to define the values which you must associate with progress.

This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.  The Aztecs were one of the few people on earth who could make the Spanish appear like liberators.  Without some kind of statistical evidence I find it hard to believe that pre-modern society (or rather "uncivilized" society) is less violent; all the evidence I have seen argues against this.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM
This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.

Compared to what.

Do you think that if a powerful potential ally appeared on the scene during any of the violent clashes in Europe that the underdogs wouldnt have jumped at the chance to take advantage of that?

Quote from: PDH on April 15, 2009, 12:26:10 PM
I once heard in a grad seminar the best definition of Progress - it was "Paved Roads."

This seems to very elegantly include technological progress and growth of civilian economy.  However, it doesn't seem to account for areas where paved roads are not necessary or useful (the Steppe's caravans were complex and effective without a whole lot of traditional paved road).

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 02:10:30 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM
This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.

Compared to what.

Anything?
The only societies that I think can compare to the Aztecs in terms of the level of violence would be the Mongols, Nazis and Assyrians, and I'm not totally sure about the last two.  Aztec religion was based upon continuous genocide to keep the sun in the sky, it's really hard to get that nightmarish outside of Lovecraft. 

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 12:24:21 PM


Consider that metal knife in the 17th century, in the Americas. Why were they exported to the Americas ? Would you characterize the Native's shift from stone tools to metal tools as progress ? Were the technical systems which sustained the expansion of the European monarchies a progress over Natives' consensual-style of politics? Warfare, within Native societies with stone tools, created hundreds of deaths. Warfare, within European society, created thousands of deaths. Is this progress ? This is why I wanted you to define the values which you must associate with progress.

This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.  The Aztecs were one of the few people on earth who could make the Spanish appear like liberators.  Without some kind of statistical evidence I find it hard to believe that pre-modern society (or rather "uncivilized" society) is less violent; all the evidence I have seen argues against this.

An anthropologist studying the "peaceful" !Kung San bushmen (beloved of cultural anthropologists everywhere) discovered that a goodly portion of them died by violence at the hands of other !Kung San. In contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

Albeit obviously Bushmen are a lot less "progressed" than most n. american native societies. 

The view of aboriginal humanity as descending from a golden age of peacefullness to modern violence seems to go through periodic re-assessments - some anthropologists have even taken the view (very popular in the '90s) that the development of agriculture was a "Malthusian trap" and humanity would have been better off without it, living the happy carefree life of the hunter-gatherer - my own view is that this is nonsense, much overstating the actual degree of happiness and care-freedom of living as a hunter-gatherer.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:14:34 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 02:10:30 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM
This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.

Compared to what.

Anything?
The only societies that I think can compare to the Aztecs in terms of the level of violence would be the Mongols, Nazis and Assyrians, and I'm not totally sure about the last two.  Aztec religion was based upon continuous genocide to keep the sun in the sky, it's really hard to get that nightmarish outside of Lovecraft.

First, you are using the Aztecs and then saying that "Many" Native civilizations were just as violent?  Maybe you mispoke and you really only meant that the Aztecs were "fantastically violent" - although you may also have in mind the Mayans.  That still leaves a whole range of Native civilazations that were not as violent as the rest of the world.

Second, you yourself are able to think off the top of your head of other civilizations that were just a violent.  Btw no chance the Aztecs killed as many as the Nazis in the same amount of time.  I think you have to rethink your comparisons.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PM
The view of aboriginal humanity as descending from a golden age of peacefullness to modern violence seems to go through periodic re-assessments - some anthropologists have even taken the view (very popular in the '90s) that the development of agriculture was a "Malthusian trap" and humanity would have been better off without it, living the happy carefree life of the hunter-gatherer - my own view is that this is nonsense, much overstating the actual degree of happiness and care-freedom of living as a hunter-gatherer.

I knew you would eventually say something I could agree with.

The studies of why civilizations collapsed say has a lot to do with the Malthusian trap they created for themselves.  However that doesn't mean that hunter gatherer subsistence living is better.  Its not.  It is the default position after a collapse.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 02:19:54 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:14:34 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 02:10:30 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM
This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.

Compared to what.

Anything?
The only societies that I think can compare to the Aztecs in terms of the level of violence would be the Mongols, Nazis and Assyrians, and I'm not totally sure about the last two.  Aztec religion was based upon continuous genocide to keep the sun in the sky, it's really hard to get that nightmarish outside of Lovecraft.

First, you are using the Aztecs and then saying that "Many" Native civilizations were just as violent?  Maybe you mispoke and you really only meant that the Aztecs were "fantastically violent" - although you may also have in mind the Mayans.  That still leaves a whole range of Native civilazations that were not as violent as the rest of the world.

Second, you yourself are able to think off the top of your head of other civilizations that were just a violent.  Btw no chance the Aztecs killed as many as the Nazis in the same amount of time.  I think you have to rethink your comparisons.

Not for want of trying. Of course, the Aztecs themselves may well have inflated the figures to make themselves appear more fearsome.

The comparison is explicitly made here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture#Estimates_of_the_scope_of_the_sacrifices

QuoteFor the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days, though there were probably far fewer sacrifices. According to Ross Hassing, author of Aztec Warfare, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[32] The higher estimate would average 14 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. As a comparison, the Auschwitz concentration camp, working 24 hours a day with modern technology, approached but did not equal this pace: it executed about 19,200 a day at its peak. Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple.[33] Nonetheless, according to Codex Telleriano-Remensis, old Aztecs who talked with the missionaries told about a much lower figure for the reconsecration of the temple, approximately 4,000 victims in total.

Michael Harner, in his 1977 article The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice, estimates the number of persons sacrificed in central Mexico in the 15th century as high as 250,000 per year. Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, a Mexica descendant and the author of Codex Ixtlilxochitl, claimed that one in five children of the Mexica subjects was killed annually. Victor Davis Hanson argues that an estimate by Don Carlos Zumárraga of 20,000 per annum is "more plausible."[34] Other scholars believe that, since the Aztecs always tried to intimidate their enemies, it is more likely that they could have inflated the number as a propaganda tool.[35]

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 02:25:32 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PM
The view of aboriginal humanity as descending from a golden age of peacefullness to modern violence seems to go through periodic re-assessments - some anthropologists have even taken the view (very popular in the '90s) that the development of agriculture was a "Malthusian trap" and humanity would have been better off without it, living the happy carefree life of the hunter-gatherer - my own view is that this is nonsense, much overstating the actual degree of happiness and care-freedom of living as a hunter-gatherer.

I knew you would eventually say something I could agree with.

The studies of why civilizations collapsed say has a lot to do with the Malthusian trap they created for themselves.  However that doesn't mean that hunter gatherer subsistence living is better.  Its not.  It is the default position after a collapse.

Wait - isn't that a judgment on the "progress" from hunter-gatherer to civilization? On what basis are you holding that being a hunter-gatherer isn't "better"?  :D

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PMIn contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

The hunter-gatherers on the streets of Stockholm suggest that the lifestyle is complete crap.

Recently one of them called me a fucking "psycho killer". The song is better than her personal hygiene.

Quote
First, you are using the Aztecs and then saying that "Many" Native civilizations were just as violent?  Maybe you mispoke and you really only meant that the Aztecs were "fantastically violent" - although you may also have in mind the Mayans.  That still leaves a whole range of Native civilazations that were not as violent as the rest of the world.

Care to name any?  Classical Mayan civilization wasn't as violent as the Aztec, but the Aztecs, Toltecs, post-classical Maya, and to some extent the Incas were all brutal civilizations.  The Comanche (incidentally closely related to the Aztecs), Apache and many of the other Steppe/Prairie Native American tribes were also quite brutal, probably as or more brutal than their Mongol equivalents.  That said, I don't know enough about pre-Columbian agricultural people of North America to comment on the level of violence there; I suppose that without the horse and wheel it would be hard for a Eurasian style upper class to develop, as taking grain and forming a central government would be very difficult.   

Quote
Second, you yourself are able to think off the top of your head of other civilizations that were just a violent.  Btw no chance the Aztecs killed as many as the Nazis in the same amount of time.  I think you have to rethink your comparisons.

The Nazis prove my point entirely.  They are horrible in that they combined modern technology and thought with the brutality of the Aztecs.  They are horrible because they came close to being like the Aztecs in a far more advanced society, a society that has progressed.

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony. 

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 03:06:14 PM

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony. 

I dunno, that would have slown them down a bit at least.

Jew is notoriously tough.

Quote from: Berkut on April 15, 2009, 03:09:15 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 03:06:14 PM

Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony. 

I dunno, that would have slown them down a bit at least.

Jew is notoriously tough.

Yeah I was going to say that this wouldn't have been as effective on a mass scale.  My point still stands though; the Holocaust had to be reasonably well hidden so that your average Euro maybe had some idea of what horrible suffering was going on "in the East", while with the Aztecs the visibility of genocide was half the point, and was elevated to the status of keeping the sun in the sky rather than being some kind of necessity as it was for the Nazis.

It would have been just horrible, HORRIBLE, if the Nazis had EATEN the Jews after murdering them in their millions. It would have made the whole business A LOT worse.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:29:41 PM
Wait - isn't that a judgment on the "progress" from hunter-gatherer to civilization? On what basis are you holding that being a hunter-gatherer isn't "better"?  :D

I have never denied that the move from one means of production (for want of a better description) to another isnt progress in the general sense.  What I have been quibbling with you about is your argument that this has happened in a kind of linear manner whereas I point to the collapse of various civilizations around the world and say it is far from linear or certain.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 03:06:14 PM
The Comanche (incidentally closely related to the Aztecs), Apache and many of the other Steppe/Prairie Native American tribes were also quite brutal, probably as or more brutal than their Mongol equivalents.  That said, I don't know enough about pre-Columbian agricultural people of North America to comment on the level of violence there; I suppose that without the horse and wheel it would be hard for a Eurasian style upper class to develop, as taking grain and forming a central government would be very difficult.

If you dont know much about precontact agricultural people in N. America then you shouldnt be making broad generalizations about them.  Btw you are going to have to cite something to get me to believe your assertion that the steppe/Prairie Native American Tribes were "probably more brutal then the Mongols".  What are you basing that on?

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 03:06:14 PM
Even in the Holocaust there is evidence of this progression, as the Nazis would have been far more terrifyingly awful if they'd ever taken to cutting out the heart and eating the corpses of Jews and Russians as some kind of religious ceremony.

There is evidence that the Nazis would have progressed to eating the Jews?....  I dont think that is the kind of progress Malthus has in mind.

Quote from: Jacob on April 15, 2009, 02:56:05 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PMIn contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

The battlefield was horrible to be sure - but most Euros never saw one. In contrast the cviolence among the !Kung San tended to be of the Hatfield vs. McCoy type feud, involving a much greater portion of the population over a much longer period of time - the worry was not of facing a war, but of waking up dead because a member of a rival family yours is fueding with happened to spot your campfire ... and of course in that society there is no such thing as police or laws, the only thing restraining people is fear of reciprocal violence, and every person is trained in the use of hunting weapons. 

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 15, 2009, 03:14:50 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:29:41 PM
Wait - isn't that a judgment on the "progress" from hunter-gatherer to civilization? On what basis are you holding that being a hunter-gatherer isn't "better"?  :D

I have never denied that the move from one means of production (for want of a better description) to another isnt progress in the general sense.  What I have been quibbling with you about is your argument that this has happened in a kind of linear manner whereas I point to the collapse of various civilizations around the world and say it is far from linear or certain.

Well, in that case we aren't really disagreeing, since I have never denied the existence of local collapses & dark ages.

What I take issue with is the assumption, stated above, that there has been no real "progress" since Sumerian times until the present (modern) age . To my mind, there has quite obviously been such - as obvious as the fact that civilization is a "progress" from hunting & gathering.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 03:26:03 PM

Quote from: Jacob on April 15, 2009, 02:56:05 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PMIn contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

How is this any different then marching/charging into a melee? The first few ranks were almost always killed.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 15, 2009, 03:50:31 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 03:26:03 PM

Quote from: Jacob on April 15, 2009, 02:56:05 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PMIn contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

How is this any different then marching/charging into a melee? The first few ranks were almost always killed.

But is that really true? Most pre-modern professional-type armies attempted to avoid inevitable death - the Romans for example had a system worked out to rotate the front rank fighters during battle as they got tired, in medieval times protective armour & the value of ransoms made capturing & not killing your opponents the ideal (save in dire necessity as at Agincourt), etc.

Moreover, many peoples (steppe warriors notably) preferred to harrass the enemy with missile weapons from a distance and avoid direct fighting until the enemy was certain to lose.

In terms of non-violent warfare the condotierri have to come first.  Now that was progress.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 03:54:38 PM

But is that really true? Most pre-modern professional-type armies attempted to avoid inevitable death - the Romans for example had a system worked out to rotate the front rank fighters during battle as they got tired, in medieval times protective armour & the value of ransoms made capturing & not killing your opponents the ideal (save in dire necessity as at Agincourt), etc.

While warfare is, of course, rather violent and bloody, the casualty rates of individual battles are never as horrific as people imagine them to be.

I once really pissed someone off because I told them that the USAF could never sustain 10% losses on a per mission basis during the strategic bombing campaign of WW2, which he found to be insulting and ridiculously untrue since he KNEW that they commonly lost that many planes.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 05:31:28 PM

Quote from: saskganesh on April 14, 2009, 04:57:11 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 04:44:53 PM

Quote from: saskganesh on April 14, 2009, 04:42:26 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2009, 03:41:27 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 14, 2009, 03:25:01 PM
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.

of course, they still plant them. to argue that because this fundamental persists, we don't have to pay attention to changes, even paradigm-shifting ones, pretty much obliviates history.

it's like saying there is no difference between modern war and stone age brawls,  because fundamentally, it's always about men killing other men. the rest is mere details.

given this 20 page long thread is about history, and how civilizations change or do not change, its a curious argument.

Quote from: Berkut on April 15, 2009, 03:58:22 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 03:54:38 PM

But is that really true? Most pre-modern professional-type armies attempted to avoid inevitable death - the Romans for example had a system worked out to rotate the front rank fighters during battle as they got tired, in medieval times protective armour & the value of ransoms made capturing & not killing your opponents the ideal (save in dire necessity as at Agincourt), etc.

While warfare is, of course, rather violent and bloody, the casualty rates of individual battles are never as horrific as people imagine them to be.

I once really pissed someone off because I told them that the USAF could never sustain 10% losses on a per mission basis during the strategic bombing campaign of WW2, which he found to be insulting and ridiculously untrue since he KNEW that they commonly lost that many planes.

I'm kinda curious. Is there any work which actually addresses the relative casualty rates of battles in different eras? I'd imagine someone must have made a study of this.

My impression is that wars such as the Civil War & WW1 had particularly horrific casualty rates (horriffic in context meaning that *both* sides suffered horribly - many a premodern battle ended with a massacre of the losers). But it's an impression only.

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 03:26:03 PM

Quote from: Jacob on April 15, 2009, 02:56:05 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 15, 2009, 02:17:24 PMIn contrast, "modern" war is horrifically violent, but doesn't actually impact as many persons.

What do you mean by modern war?

More or less as shorthand for what Oex is talking about - Euro-style war from colonial time on, cannons & guns.

It is sometimes unbearable to read how these guys would stand to be shot at, and suffer horrible injuries and casualties stoically (Keegan writes that it is no wonder most other peoples wouldn't stand for this).

The battlefield was horrible to be sure - but most Euros never saw one. In contrast the cviolence among the !Kung San tended to be of the Hatfield vs. McCoy type feud, involving a much greater portion of the population over a much longer period of time - the worry was not of facing a war, but of waking up dead because a member of a rival family yours is fueding with happened to spot your campfire ... and of course in that society there is no such thing as police or laws, the only thing restraining people is fear of reciprocal violence, and every person is trained in the use of hunting weapons.

Ah... just a reading comprehension thing on my part then.  I thought you said that "modern" wars didn't impact as many people as your !Kung example, which I think is wrong.  But that's not what you're saying, so nevermind :)

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM
This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.  The Aztecs were one of the few people on earth who could make the Spanish appear like liberators.  Without some kind of statistical evidence I find it hard to believe that pre-modern society (or rather "uncivilized" society) is less violent; all the evidence I have seen argues against this.

I know very well how «violent» Native societies are. I believe this sort of violence is incommensurable with that of early-modern Europe. My point, once again, is to show that if you want to compare these and trace a measure of «progress you *have* to make a judgement call. That tools should be valued for their productive uses (rather than, say,  their magical uses), that the aesthetics of the Renaissance are superior to those of the Ancients, that the idea of the equality of men is better than castes, that limited but brutal warfare is superior to limited casualty, endemic warfare of hunter-gatherers.

Once you have defined the goals, then things that contribute to said goals are seen as progress and those that do not are seen as setbacks. You can then argue for linear, general trends or dark ages but in the end, this is what PDH mentionned: it is teleological. It is the inevitable march towards Reason, or whatever other goal you have in mind. Things will happen regardless. The problem is then to try to make all the aberrant data fit the model or, indeed, to explain change.

If, philosophically, you are happy with the unexplainable nature of change, or the inevitable nature of change, that mankind «gets» universal Things once in a while (more often than not, technical things which are curiously unrelated to any sort of society), and that these things hint at the direction of things to come, then, indeed, progress can be equated with domination, and progress can be equated from less to more. That is, I believe, the common ground of the Enlightenment.

My point, and, I believe, Keynes' own, is that such a view is, in and of itself, historically situated. If you *do* believe that, then you organize a whole system of society based around producing more, imposing such and such idea, such and such conception of man. You create, in a way, a self-fulfilling prophecy, hinting at things that should be crushed, things that should be banished, things that should be fostered. You create systems who hint at the inherent superiority of man over Nature, of the White man over the Other, of the removal of God or Powers from the world, of all-governing self-interest, of a State separate from the personna of the governed and of the governors, of a rationale for which to use the weapons, of the private property of land, of ideas, etc. *That* to me, is the ensemble which made for the fact that Europe fostered technological discoveries, transformed the relationship of man to agregate, abstract processes, churned out cannons, tried to spread its own ideas about the equality of mankind, undermined other systems of values and beliefs, enslaved millions,  etc. Trying to pin it down to simple technological advances is, IMO, seeing the tree but neither the forest, nor the seed and care it took to nurture its growth.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 04:44:32 PM
seeing the tree but neither the forest, nor the seed and care it took to nurture its growth.

Thats a nice turn of phrase. 

Quote
I know very well how «violent» Native societies are.

For the record I didn't doubt that you did; iirc you've done some work on First Nation peoples in Canada and Quebec.  javascript:void(0);

Quote*That* to me, is the ensemble which made for the fact that Europe fostered technological discoveries, transformed the relationship of man to agregate, abstract processes, churned out cannons, tried to spread its own ideas about the equality of mankind, undermined other systems of values and beliefs, enslaved millions,  etc. Trying to pin it down to simple technological advances is, IMO, seeing the tree but neither the forest, nor the seed and care it took to nurture its growth.

I'd agree that civilian economic growth and technological advancement are symptoms of success rather than the cause of it (or rather the two re-enforce each other).  That's the reason I started this thread, after all; I wanted to know why fantastic economic and scientific progress, combined with an innovative and scientific mindset, didn't result in 'modernity' in the Islamic World, and why this specific kind of near-constant progress didn't take hold in Europe.

This is not, however, the question I was addressing.  There is a clear distinction between what constitutes progress and the circumstances in which progress (or, in this case, regress) happen. While my initial post inquired into the latter, my last few posts have been about diagnosing progress.

Quote
(more often than not, technical things which are curiously unrelated to any sort of society)

Don't agree.  I think the most technically innovative societies are, as a rule, among the most culturally innovative and militarily superior. 

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 05:18:05 PM
Don't agree.  I think the most technically innovative societies are, as a rule, among the most culturally innovative and militarily superior.

Indeed (apart from «culturally innovative»). I was describing how technological analysis is often (wrongly, in my view) examined as disconected from its context.

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 05:25:56 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 05:18:05 PM
Don't agree.  I think the most technically innovative societies are, as a rule, among the most culturally innovative and militarily superior.

Indeed (apart from «culturally innovative»).

Hmm.  I suppose there is a correlation, but on second thought I don't think the relationship is as strong.  I wouldn't describe the early Caliphate or the Dutch Republic as particularly innovative in a strictly cultural sense (at least when compared to the Greeks, Renaissance Italy or Enlightenment France).  Oddly enough, I'd argue Islamic culture becomes a lot more interesting as it declines, particularly with the Samanids, Ghaznavids and Seljuks. 

QuoteWhile I am unwilling to pigeonhole 'progress' I think it is safe to say that continued technological improvement and gradual increase in economic activity are two key parts of it, and it is very safe to say that those two things showed (on the whole) steady improvement over the last 5,000 years and at some specific points in history this would be apparent (specifically the early Caliphate, which, upon further reflection, is as good a proxy for the 19th Century European Imperial state as I can think of in terms of innovation and mindset).

The Umayyad Caliphate is entirely unlike 19th century Britain or France in nearly any respect that matters - political ideology, concepts of legitimation, the very basis of nationhood and "subjecthood".  In terms of organization of economic life, there is no comparison.

EDIT - oh crap, I lost the entire rest of answer.

Short summary - I dont agree that Rome was anything like the modern concept of a nation, I don't agree that a Roman or Venetian merchant could slot in to being a modern conglomerate CEO or a managing director at Goldman Sachs without massive culture shock and wholesale re-education.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 15, 2009, 05:38:27 PM
Short summary - I dont agree that Rome was anything like the modern concept of a nation, I don't agree that a Roman or Venetian merchant could slot in to being a modern conglomerate CEO or a managing director at Goldman Sachs without massive culture shock and wholesale re-education.

Come on JR, surely trading derivatives is the same as trading cloth on the pier.

Quote
The Umayyad Caliphate is entirely unlike 19th century Britain or France in nearly any respect that matters - political ideology, concepts of legitimation, the very basis of nationhood and "subjecthood".  In terms of organization of economic life, there is no comparison.

The Abbasid was more what I had in mind due to the Ummayad's Arab supremacist inclinations.  I think a comparison could be made with Napoleonic France, but with that said I think I said "closest" rather than "exact".  I see parallels rather than exact correspondences (Napoleonic view of France encompassing Europe-Abbasid's expansion of Islam to include non-Arabs, creativity, universalism, land-based, scientific mindset, fanaticism).  That said, France's secularity and the importance of the slave trade to the Abbasids are glaring, fundamental differences that I can't wish away through parallel.

Quote
Short summary - I dont agree that Rome was anything like the modern concept of a nation, I don't agree that a Roman or Venetian merchant could slot in to being a modern conglomerate CEO or a managing director at Goldman Sachs without massive culture shock and wholesale re-education.

1) Venetian trade goods merchant isn't comparable to a banker in a lot of ways.  This isn't a totally fair comparison; the Medicis and the Rothschilds would have been doing vaguely similar things well into modernity, the same can be said of people in the shipping/transport business (and with the increasing importance of the Orient we seem to be witnessing a return of sorts to history).
2) A lot of the most fundamental change I think has happened not in the last 200 years of European Industrialization but rather in the last, say, eighty.   I remember reading about people, when watching The Great Train robbery for the first time, running out of the theater to avoid the train.  Moderns won't do that unless they are Graduate Students in East Asian Philosophy at Boulder.  Forty years ago your average hotel desk manager would have used a ledger similar to one the Romans used to keep track of clients, rooms and payment due.  Now we have computers, blackberries, cellphones, etc...

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 15, 2009, 04:44:32 PM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 02:01:53 PM
This seems dangerously close to ignoring how fantastically violent many of the Native civilizations were.  The Aztecs were one of the few people on earth who could make the Spanish appear like liberators.  Without some kind of statistical evidence I find it hard to believe that pre-modern society (or rather "uncivilized" society) is less violent; all the evidence I have seen argues against this.

I know very well how «violent» Native societies are. I believe this sort of violence is incommensurable with that of early-modern Europe. My point, once again, is to show that if you want to compare these and trace a measure of «progress you *have* to make a judgement call. That tools should be valued for their productive uses (rather than, say,  their magical uses), that the aesthetics of the Renaissance are superior to those of the Ancients, that the idea of the equality of men is better than castes, that limited but brutal warfare is superior to limited casualty, endemic warfare of hunter-gatherers.

Once you have defined the goals, then things that contribute to said goals are seen as progress and those that do not are seen as setbacks. You can then argue for linear, general trends or dark ages but in the end, this is what PDH mentionned: it is teleological. It is the inevitable march towards Reason, or whatever other goal you have in mind. Things will happen regardless. The problem is then to try to make all the aberrant data fit the model or, indeed, to explain change.

If, philosophically, you are happy with the unexplainable nature of change, or the inevitable nature of change, that mankind «gets» universal Things once in a while (more often than not, technical things which are curiously unrelated to any sort of society), and that these things hint at the direction of things to come, then, indeed, progress can be equated with domination, and progress can be equated from less to more. That is, I believe, the common ground of the Enlightenment.

My point, and, I believe, Keynes' own, is that such a view is, in and of itself, historically situated. If you *do* believe that, then you organize a whole system of society based around producing more, imposing such and such idea, such and such conception of man. You create, in a way, a self-fulfilling prophecy, hinting at things that should be crushed, things that should be banished, things that should be fostered. You create systems who hint at the inherent superiority of man over Nature, of the White man over the Other, of the removal of God or Powers from the world, of all-governing self-interest, of a State separate from the personna of the governed and of the governors, of a rationale for which to use the weapons, of the private property of land, of ideas, etc. *That* to me, is the ensemble which made for the fact that Europe fostered technological discoveries, transformed the relationship of man to agregate, abstract processes, churned out cannons, tried to spread its own ideas about the equality of mankind, undermined other systems of values and beliefs, enslaved millions,  etc. Trying to pin it down to simple technological advances is, IMO, seeing the tree but neither the forest, nor the seed and care it took to nurture its growth.

See, this is exactly the nature of the debate - you are comming at it from a totally different angle, that of value - judgments. I'm not talking about value-judgments at all, and I disagree that they are inevitably necessary to understand why some cultures are expansionist and others are not.

The question is how one society got to the place where it was capable of spamming the world with cannons and McDonalds. Merely wishing to do so is not an adequate explaination. To that end, it is obvious to me at least that the culture or ideology of dominion develops hand in hand with the technology that enables that dominion to happen: no amount of colonialism and will-to-dominance on the part of the Aztecs (and they had plenty) would have enabled the Aztecs to colonize Spain - rather than the other way around. Your position (and that of Minsly) seems to posit some type of spirit or ideology a la "the Protestant Work Ethic" to explain western domination - my own position does not rely on such; in my opinion, the question is better explained, not through some innate cultural "conception of man" that differs from Europe and say China (such differences have traditionally been highly overstated by people who know a lot about Europe and less about China), but through historical contingencies -  China suffered from Mongol & Manchu invasions and Europe by and large did not.

In short, you are seeing the beauty of the forest when the question at hand is why *some* people are capable of making chain-saws to cut that forest down and make it into Ikea furniture, and others are not. To state that those who are not simply didn't want to is IMHO to put the ideological cart before the historical horse.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2009, 06:02:30 PM
1) Venetian trade goods merchant isn't comparable to a banker in a lot of ways.

The fair comparison is either with the CEO of a conglomerate trading company or someone running a commodities trading desk.  Either way the Venetian would be baffled.

Quotethe Medicis and the Rothschilds would have been doing vaguely similar things well into modernity

Historically, the Rothschilds were the link between the pre-modern court bankers and modern banking.  What made the Rothschilds so successful is that they were truly revolutionary in the way they handled information - to the degree that the old-style court bankers they competed were left in the dustbin of history.  But the Rothschilds themselves, despite their business savvy and innovation, were themselves soin passed by the new-style bankers based on the financing of the new limited liability corporations.  It is a testament to the speed of change during this time that within a few decades the Rothschilds transformed the business of finance, and yet within a few decades after that, receded from the front rank of finance as a result of new developments they failed to keep pace with.

To put it more pithily, while it is possible that the Medicis might have been able to catch on to high finance as practiced by the Rothschilds in the 1830s, they would have been baffled by the world of finance as practiced by the House of Morgan in the 1890s.

Quotethe same can be said of people in the shipping/transport business (and with the increasing importance of the Orient we seem to be witnessing a return of sorts to history).

I think this a poor example for you.  It may seem like shippers are doing the same thing - ie sending cargo in boats.  But the 19th century revolutionized the *business* of shipping in radical ways -- the way in which capital is raised and deployed, how risks are managed, the role of communications, labor practices, leasing markets, and so forth.  16th century English or Italian ship owners would have no clue what to do if placed in charge of even a relatively small modern shipping company.

The present day "Oriental" shippers you refer to are really in the business of asset management (ownership vs. leasing of fleets), derivatives trading (freight forward contracts), raising and deploying capital in creative ways, and regulatory arbitrage.

QuoteA lot of the most fundamental change I think has happened not in the last 200 years of European Industrialization but rather in the last, say, eighty.

I do agree with that point.  The 19th century (at least in Europe) saw more fundamental change in human society than the previous 2000 years combined.  But the 20th century was even more revolutionary than the 19th.  That is the consequence of organizing an entire society on the animating principle of material and technical progress.  "Growth" can have the effect of compounding interest, acting upon the stock of capital of technological know-how, thus causing a geometric acceleration in the pace of change.  (how long that pace can be sustained I can't say).

Thus, your argument looks stronger when you pick a date not far into the period and somewhat removed from the core geographic areas of advancement (say Istanbul in 1850   :) ).  My argument looks stronger if the comparative is say New York in the 1920s or Singapore in the 1990s. 

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 15, 2009, 05:38:27 PM
EDIT - oh crap, I lost the entire rest of answer.

See, my students use this ploy as well.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 08:34:19 AM
The question is how one society got to the place where it was capable of spamming the world with cannons and McDonalds. Merely wishing to do so is not an adequate explaination.

But you have argued quite persuasively that several societies were capable of doing so.  So wishing to do so takes on great significance.

QuoteYour position (and that of Minsly) seems to posit some type of spirit or ideology a la "the Protestant Work Ethic" to explain western domination - my own position does not rely on such; in my opinion, the question is better explained, not through some innate cultural "conception of man" that differs from Europe and say China (such differences have traditionally been highly overstated by people who know a lot about Europe and less about China), but through historical contingencies -  China suffered from Mongol & Manchu invasions and Europe by and large did not.

There is a radical ideological shift - I will say that.  Such a shift is in itself a historical contingency so I am not sure about the distinction being made here.  It seems that (like Diamond) you are wary of an explanation (like Weber's classical formulation) that implies is some way that there was some special human character that certain western people had that other (inferior??) people lacked.  It is right to resist such an implication but neither Oex or I are proffering anything like that.  Historical contingency -- not innate ethno-religious character -- is at the root of the ideological shift.  But it is a different sort of historical contigency than the Manchu invasion, which seems to be a poor explanation of why China did not initiate the transformation to the modern.

QuoteIn short, you are seeing the beauty of the forest when the question at hand is why *some* people are capable of making chain-saws to cut that forest down and make it into Ikea furniture, and others are not.   

Everyone is *capable* of making a chain-saw to cut down forests to make Ikea furniture.  For it Ikea to happen though, you need an international market, cheap shipping, limitied liability corporations, complex systems of advertising, marketing and distribution, an autonomous legal system, radical new conceptions of property rights.  In short a vast and complex social infrastructure.  Such a thing does not spontaeneously spring forth like Minerva from the head of Zeus, as a natural outgrowth of inevitable social evolution in the absence of pesky steppe nomads.  Rather, it requires a rather jarring shift in ideological perspective to even conceive of doing such a thing.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 09:38:10 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 08:34:19 AM
The question is how one society got to the place where it was capable of spamming the world with cannons and McDonalds. Merely wishing to do so is not an adequate explaination.

But you have argued quite persuasively that several societies were capable of doing so.  So wishing to do so takes on great significance.

The one does not follow from the other. Several societies had the capacity to achieve the breakthrough to modernity - but I would argue that they were prevented or retarded from doing so, by historical contingencies. Not by "not wishing to".

QuoteThere is a radical ideological shift - I will say that.  Such a shift is in itself a historical contingency so I am not sure about the distinction being made here.  It seems that (like Diamond) you are wary of an explanation (like Weber's classical formulation) that implies is some way that there was some special human character that certain western people had that other (inferior??) people lacked.  It is right to resist such an implication but neither Oex or I are proffering anything like that.  Historical contingency -- not innate ethno-religious character -- is at the root of the ideological shift.  But it is a different sort of historical contigency than the Manchu invasion, which seems to be a poor explanation of why China did not initiate the transformation to the modern.

Disagree. How can the invasion of a nation by a tribe of nomadic Manchus, who then proceed to fossilize that society in its most backward and conservative form, not have a major impact on it?

I agree that the shift to modernity is a "contingency" (we all agree on that) - what we disagree is on what caused that contingency to occur. I believe it is based on other contingencies, and from what I've seen so far, it would appear that you & Oex are the ones arguing that it sprang into being Athena-like.

QuoteEveryone is *capable* of making a chain-saw to cut down forests to make Ikea furniture.  For it Ikea to happen though, you need an international market, cheap shipping, limitied liability corporations, complex systems of advertising, marketing and distribution, an autonomous legal system, radical new conceptions of property rights.  In short a vast and complex social infrastructure.  Such a thing does not spontaeneously spring forth like Minerva from the head of Zeus, as a natural outgrowth of inevitable social evolution in the absence of pesky steppe nomads.  Rather, it requires a rather jarring shift in ideological perspective to even conceive of doing such a thing.

And you are proposing that this "jarring ideological shift" came from where ... ?

No, the whole point is that everyone is not capable of doing it. The Aztecs could not have done it. Why do I say that? Because the Aztecs lived on a planet in which, compared to other civilizations they were quite comprehensively backwards. The Aztecs were never going to be the ones spamming the world with McDonalds, no matter how much their ideology changed, because when compared to Euros and Asians, they were a bunch of stone age primitives (in spite of their impressive cities etc.).

This appears to be the vital point you are missing, in holding tha things haven't "progressed' since Sumer. Progress is relative and compared with civilizations such as the Aztecs, *all* of the high civlizations of Europe, the ME and Asia were very "progressive" indeed - and the balance between then was fine. There was nothing inevitable about Euro dominance and, while that dominance was accompanied by many changes in ideology, the ideology did not *cause* the dominance - it was a *symptom* of it.

Malthus, you seem to always want to blame the Steppe Nomads.

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 10:11:31 AM
Malthus, you seem to always want to blame the Steppe Nomads.

"Blame"?

If anything, we should be celebrating.  :lol:

I believe their influence to be quite fundamental in the development of Asian & Middle-Eastern history - but this is just fact, not value judgment. I cannot see any reason for arguing otherwise, when the Turks, Manchus, and Mughals all had their origins there.

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 10:11:31 AM
Malthus, you seem to always want to blame the Steppe Nomads.

His tribe came from the more hilly regions of Judea.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:14:15 AM
If anything, we should be celebrating.  :lol:

Celebrating? You've send on multiple occasions that the influence of the mongols et al has retarded their growth.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:14:15 AMI believe their influence to be quite fundamental in the development of Asian & Middle-Eastern history - but this is just fact, not value judgment. I cannot see any reason for arguing otherwise, when the Turks, Manchus, and Mughals all had their origins there.

That doesn't have to mean that they retarded development or progress...nor that their influence was everlasting. I'm not sure that Babur would have been entirely comfortable around his grandson.

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 10:19:29 AM

Celebrating? You've send on multiple occasions that the influence of the mongols et al has retarded their growth.

Progress, not growth ... the point being that such things are relative and (our) Euro ancestor's success is in large part due to this.

QuoteThat doesn't have to mean that they retarded development or progress...nor that their influence was everlasting.

I disagree. The societies they set up tended to be very conservative.

Consider the alternatives. It is an observed fact that Euros surpassed other civilizations in reaching that mix of material and ideological progress that we label modernity. Why did that happen?

Oex and Minsky believe, it would appear, that the difference is ideological.

Others have proposed some sort of innate Western abitlity, either racial or, more persuasively, cultural (and in spite of their protestations, the latter is closer to the Oex-Minsky theory than they are confortable with admitting).

Yet others have proposed that "Islam" and "Confuianism" are to blame (again, somewhat similar to the above, only the obverse).

I am stating that the difference is rooted in the actual history of these regions.

What is your favorite explaination?

I blame Ranke.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:30:48 AM
Progress, not growth ... the point being that such things are relative and (our) Euro ancestor's success is in large part due to this.

Perhaps, I'd still be in Africa then.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:30:48 AM
I disagree. The societies they set up tended to be very conservative.

Consider the alternatives. It is an observed fact that Euros surpassed other civilizations in reaching that mix of material and ideological progress that we label modernity. Why did that happen?

Akbar setup an entirely new religion (although clearly it failed :D)

Besides, Europe had very conservative societies at that time as well.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:30:48 AM
I am stating that the difference is rooted in the actual history of these regions.

What is your favorite explaination?

I don't have one, as I think the whole thing is a lesson in fruitlessness.  I think speaking of the West as a whole is misleading.

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 10:38:36 AM

Perhaps, I'd still be in Africa then.

See? Should be celebrating.  :D

QuoteI don't have one, as I think the whole thing is a lesson in fruitlessness.  I think speaking of the West as a whole is misleading.

Well, if the question is pointless then you don't need an answer. I don't think the question is pointless.

Malthus, I don't see how you are escaping the cultural. Instead of the traditional argument that falls along the lines of Western culture was adapted for said gains and Middle Eastern / Asian was not, you bring the specter of it, in what you are calling "the actual history of these regions." Instead of looking at the benefits of Western culture or the deficiencies of Asian / Middle Eastern, you posit the influence of the Steppe Nomads.  That's a cultural component right there.

Also, how does India play out in all of this? Truly the mongols (and descendants) did not have a strong influence on the majority of the peninsula until the time of the Mughals. Was the central region / south just a backwater?

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:14:15 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 10:11:31 AM
Malthus, you seem to always want to blame the Steppe Nomads.

I believe their influence to be quite fundamental in the development of Asian & Middle-Eastern history - but this is just fact, not value judgment.

And us Indo-Europeans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis

We invented nomadic pastoralism. 

(Though as an Anglophone Jew, I'm not sure where to place you in terms of Indo-Europeanness).

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 11:20:43 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:14:15 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 10:11:31 AM
Malthus, you seem to always want to blame the Steppe Nomads.

I believe their influence to be quite fundamental in the development of Asian & Middle-Eastern history - but this is just fact, not value judgment.

And us Indo-Europeans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis

We invented nomadic pastoralism. 

(Though as an Anglophone Jew, I'm not sure where to place you in terms of Indo-Europeanness).

Well, as Ashkenazic, some would argue that we are at least in part descended from the Khazars ...  :D

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 11:22:30 AM
Well, as Ashkenazic, some would argue that we are at least in part descended from the Khazars ...  :D

Ashkenazi are descended from Germanic converts -_-

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 11:20:03 AM


Also, how does India play out in all of this? Truly the mongols (and descendants) did not have a strong influence on the majority of the peninsula until the time of the Mughals. Was the central region / south just a backwater?

You clearly don't know much about Indian history.  Steppe invaders of India in Chronological order:
Indo-Aryan tribes (celebrated in the Rigveda)
Indo-Iranian invaders
Scythians (Shaka)
Kushan-Yuezhi
Hepthalites
various other Turkic groups
Pashtuns
Mughals.

If anything the Steppe influence on India is far more obvious than in China.  Hinduism a is a clear offshoot of the steppe Indo-Aryan religion, and various kshatriya groups (most clearly khatris) are clearly descended from the original Steppe conquerors of the region. 

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 10:10:29 AM
Disagree. How can the invasion of a nation by a tribe of nomadic Manchus, who then proceed to fossilize that society in its most backward and conservative form, not have a major impact on it?

So is your position that the Ming, if left alone, would have "progressed" inevitably into a modern-style society?  I seriously doubt it.  I also question your characterization of the Manchus as being unusually backward or conservative.  The Manchus could be quite flexible and adaptive.  It's not that they were unsually conservative, it is more that they were not unusually radically.

QuoteNo, the whole point is that everyone is not capable of doing it. The Aztecs could not have done it. Why do I say that? Because the Aztecs lived on a planet in which, compared to other civilizations they were quite comprehensively backwards. The Aztecs were never going to be the ones spamming the world with McDonalds, no matter how much their ideology changed, because when compared to Euros and Asians, they were a bunch of stone age primitives (in spite of their impressive cities etc.).

For most of human history, northern Europeans were also "comprehensively backwards" compared to other civilizations.  This did not prevent them from ultimately being the first societies to transition to the modern.  To the extent that your point is that it is very difficult for a "backward" society to make such a transition, you are making my argument.  Modernity is the aberration, not what came before.

The one point where I would agree with you (and Diamond) is that the non-Eurasian civilizations were comparatively disadvantaged because there was less opportunity for diffusion of ideas and knowledge.  Thus, I would agree that assuming that some civilization would make a transition to modernity, it is more likely that civilization would be a Eurasian one, than a non-Eurasian one.  But I would not grant the assumption that such a transition was inevitable a priori absent some kind of adverse outside agency like malevolent steppe nomads (who inconveniently for this argument cease to be a major problem for all Eurasian societies about 200 years before the transition occurs).  The entire course of history prior to the point suggests otherwise - stable and innovative pre-modern civilizations often lasted for centuries without serious barbarian threats to the core, but also without any indication of making the ideological and social shift to a modern world-view and modern means of production.

Quote(who inconveniently for this argument cease to be a major problem for all Eurasian societies about 200 years before the transition occurs)

Not really; the Mughals, Ottomans and Manchus all clearly had nomadic roots and had far more in common with the horse archer empires before them than native dynasties or European nation-states. 

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 11:24:12 AM
You clearly don't know much about Indian history.  Steppe invaders of India in Chronological order:
Indo-Aryan tribes (celebrated in the Rigveda)
Indo-Iranian invaders
Scythians (Shaka)
Kushan-Yuezhi
Hepthalites
various other Turkic groups
Pashtuns
Mughals.

If anything the Steppe influence on India is far more obvious than in China.  Hinduism a is a clear offshoot of the steppe Indo-Aryan religion, and various kshatriya groups (most clearly khatris) are clearly descended from the original Steppe conquerors of the region. 

So it is any place that ever was invaded by any type of steppe nomad? :unsure:

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2009, 11:35:10 AM

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 11:24:12 AM
You clearly don't know much about Indian history.  Steppe invaders of India in Chronological order:
Indo-Aryan tribes (celebrated in the Rigveda)
Indo-Iranian invaders
Scythians (Shaka)
Kushan-Yuezhi
Hepthalites
various other Turkic groups
Pashtuns
Mughals.

If anything the Steppe influence on India is far more obvious than in China.  Hinduism a is a clear offshoot of the steppe Indo-Aryan religion, and various kshatriya groups (most clearly khatris) are clearly descended from the original Steppe conquerors of the region. 

So it is any place that ever was invaded by any type of steppe nomad? :unsure:

Not really.  The thing is, for most of Indian history native dynasties have been the exception.  This isn't true of China, but even when there was a native dynasty they spent most of their time trying to beat the nomads back.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 11:36:31 AM
Not really.  The thing is, for most of Indian history native dynasties have been the exception.  This isn't true of China, but even when there was a native dynasty they spent most of their time trying to beat the nomads back.

So progress (in the way that it leads to modernity) happens in places where a native culture sits by unperturbed?

I was under the impression that, while India has been conquered repeatedly by foreign invaders, those invaders almost always assimilated rapidly... which I think is what happens most everywhere unless disease/genocide does away with most of the locals.... the point being that it sounds weird to me to class the Mughals as a non-native dynasty, even though that might technically be true.

Quote from: Caliga on April 16, 2009, 11:39:25 AM
I was under the impression that, while India has been conquered repeatedly by foreign invaders, those invaders almost always assimilated rapidly... which I think is what happens most everywhere unless disease/genocide does away with most of the locals.... the point being that it sounds weird to me to class the Mughals as a non-native dynasty, even though that might technically be true.

Well as much as anyone could get assimilated into the complex ethnocultural map that is India.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 11:32:57 AM

Quote(who inconveniently for this argument cease to be a major problem for all Eurasian societies about 200 years before the transition occurs)

Not really; the Mughals, Ottomans and Manchus all clearly had nomadic roots and had far more in common with the horse archer empires before them than native dynasties or European nation-states.

I already responded to this re Malthus.  The answer is: so what?  The roots of the English ruling class was a pack of violent, unruly, plundering barons -- the Tudors arose from a particularly cunning and ruthless member of one of the turbulent baronial factions.  The House of Orange arose from an imperial feudal magnate turned religious fundamentalist.  The Bourbons arose from a backward mountain principality.  Ancestry is not destiny.  Suleiman the Magnificent was pretty far removed from the dynastic roots of wild Ghazi warriors; he certainly seems a more "modern" man than his contemporary Henri III.

If the argument is that the threat of nomadic incursion is what holds societies back, the argument doesn't work.  If the argument is that having a ruling dynasty that traces its ancestry to nomads is what holds society back, that doesn't work either because historically the "native" dynasties weren't more innovative than the nomadic ones.  Your own argument about the Arabs (desert nomads) supports this.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 11:29:04 AM

So is your position that the Ming, if left alone, would have "progressed" inevitably into a modern-style society?  I seriously doubt it.  I also question your characterization of the Manchus as being unusually backward or conservative.  The Manchus could be quite flexible and adaptive.  It's not that they were unsually conservative, it is more that they were not unusually radically.

Not at all - you will recall that I originally made the argument that the Sung would have.

The Ming were a product of reaction to the trauma of the Mongol invasion - and the fear of a repetition of the same (not an unnatural fear - after all, the Manchu did it!). This is symbolized perfectly in the reasons given for the ending of the Chung Ho Expeditions - which cleared the Indian ocean 50 years before Europeans visited the place: that the resources were needed to shore up the anti-barbarian barrier. Which they were. 

The Ming were tio the Sung what Muscovy was to the Kievian 'Rus - a suspicious, conservative, and comparatively authoritarian place. The Mongol invasion is what made the difference and diverted who civilizations into new channels - ones less conducive to future modernity (and of course in the case of China, a double whammy in actually being invaded *yet again* by Manchus).

To claim that these repeated invasions have had *no effect* on the capability of China to achieve modernity defies reality. 

QuoteFor most of human history, northern Europeans were also "comprehensively backwards" compared to other civilizations.  This did not prevent them from ultimately being the first societies to transition to the modern.  To the extent that your point is that it is very difficult for a "backward" society to make such a transition, you are making my argument.  Modernity is the aberration, not what came before.

Heh, "Northern Eurpopeans" made the transition to modernity not by relying on their own internal civilization, but by absorbing that of the Mediteranian world. Your point is as valid as claiming that, if in the future Mexico was to become a world power, it is equivalent to the aztecs doing so.  :lol:

QuoteThe one point where I would agree with you (and Diamond) is that the non-Eurasian civilizations were comparatively disadvantaged because there was less opportunity for diffusion of ideas and knowledge.  Thus, I would agree that assuming that some civilization would make a transition to modernity, it is more likely that civilization would be a Eurasian one, than a non-Eurasian one.  But I would not grant the assumption that such a transition was inevitable a priori absent some kind of adverse outside agency like malevolent steppe nomads (who inconveniently for this argument cease to be a major problem for all Eurasian societies about 200 years before the transition occurs).  The entire course of history prior to the point suggests otherwise - stable and innovative pre-modern civilizations often lasted for centuries without serious barbarian threats to the core, but also without any indication of making the ideological and social shift to a modern world-view and modern means of production.

Heh when discussing an event that can, by its nature, only happen once - such as the transistion to modernity - naturally the "whole course of human history" is going to suggest it is unique.

My point is not that a lack of barbarian invasions = modernity at any time (which would indeed be silly), but rather that the civilizations of Eurasia were approaching, collectively, that accumulation of technological and intellectual capacity which would, inevitably, lead to modernity sooner or later; it could only happen once because anywhere it happened would gain such an advantage over the others as to be insurmountable and tend to spam itself; and that it could have happened in any one of the major centres - but the other contenders were knocked out of the game at the critical time by disaster (namely, steppe invasions). Europe escaped this particular disaster and this, more than any other factor, explains why modernity happened in Europe and not elsewhere.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 12:02:28 PM
Not at all - you will recall that I originally made the argument that the Sung would have.

Then stop picking on the poor Manchus.    :)

The Sung had 300 years - they didn't do it.  Much the advances you tout - paper money, iron smelting, gunpowder, printing - were well established by the mid-11th century and some well predated the Song.  The dynasty had another two centuries to run.  I just don't see it - if they "would have", they would have.

Meanwhile, it appears you look down on the Yuan as mere steppe barbarians, but they conserved the Song achievements, while accomplishing very impressive engineering projects and fostering long-distance trade. 

QuoteTo claim that these repeated invasions have had *no effect* on the capability of China to achieve modernity defies reality. 

One would think that fundamentalist religious revival, a long period of devastating warfare that had direct demographic impact on the population, and climatic change bringing endemically recurring famines would have a serious adverse impact as well.  That would describe western Europe in the first half of the 17th century.  Hindsight bias is powerful, but it is still bias.

QuoteHeh, "Northern Eurpopeans" made the transition to modernity not by relying on their own internal civilization, but by absorbing that of the Mediteranian world.

I don't know what you mean by "internal civilization".  But I do know that the Mediterranean world itself had many opportunities to make the transition to modernity at a number of historical junctures.  It didn't happen.  And steppe barbarians had little to do with it.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 12:37:40 PM
One would think that fundamentalist religious revival, a long period of devastating warfare that had direct demographic impact on the population, and climatic change bringing endemically recurring famines would have a serious adverse impact as well.  That would describe western Europe in the first half of the 17th century.  Hindsight bias is powerful, but it is still bias.

Yeah, that's the one thought that popped into my head.  If you look at the beginning of the 17th century Europe, you don't really see the seeds of modernity.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 12:37:40 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 12:02:28 PM
Not at all - you will recall that I originally made the argument that the Sung would have.

Then stop picking on the poor Manchus.    :)

The Mongols were worse.  :lol:

QuoteThe Sung had 300 years - they didn't do it.  Much the advances you tout - paper money, iron smelting, gunpowder, printing - were well established by the mid-11th century and some well predated the Song.  The dynasty had another two centuries to run.  I just don't see it - if they "would have", they would have.

That's not an argument. Europe had many centuries before they achieved modernity. What has that got to do with anything?

QuoteMeanwhile, it appears you look down on the Yuan as mere steppe barbarians, but they conserved the Song achievements, while accomplishing very impressive engineering projects and fostering long-distance trade.

The Mongols - even the non-Yuan ones - "fostered long-distance trade" (that is after all how the Polos got there), but the imposition of the Pax Mongolica was hardly a triumph for civilization.

QuoteOne would think that fundamentalist religious revival, a long period of devastating warfare that had direct demographic impact on the population, and climatic change bringing endemically recurring famines would have a serious adverse impact as well.  That would describe western Europe in the first half of the 17th century.  Hindsight bias is powerful, but it is still bias.

Certain types of disasters have a different effect than others. They are not apples and apples.

To give just one example, the most horrific disaster in European history - the Black Death - is thought by many to have had a positive effect on social progress - essentially helping to break the back of serfdom in some places.

In contrast, other disasters have a different effect.

The problem with steppe nomads as a disaster is not so much the pyramids of skulls they leave behind - you are correct in that Europe has its share of skull-pilers, figurative if not literal. It is in the effect of creating governments which are intensely conservative and autocratic.

This is not "hindsight", it is simply the case - almost universally, the effect of being subject to nomad invasion was to create reactionary governments - whether staffed by the nomads (now aristocrats) like the Turks or Manchus or in reaction to them (Ming, Muscovy).

It is then not a huge leap of imagination to see that "inward looking, intensely conservative, reactionary and despotic governments" tend to do less well in terms of progress than ones lacking these characteristics. 

QuoteI don't know what you mean by "internal civilization".  But I do know that the Mediterranean world itself had many opportunities to make the transition to modernity at a number of historical junctures.  It didn't happen.  And steppe barbarians had little to do with it.

Heh never heard of the Huns?  :lol:

Or for that matter Vandals, Visigoths, etc.?

Barbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads.

Again, I think Rome etc. was simply not advanced enough to accumulate sufficient social, technological and cultural traits to make the transition to modernity - barbarians or not. They may have done so, were they not ended by (you guessed it) barbarians.

I will not pick upon points Keynes Robinsky has answered - it seems we share much of the same outlook, including due appreciation for caveats à la Diamond - but simply point out that:

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 09:38:10 AM
There is a radical ideological shift - I will say that.  Such a shift is in itself a historical contingency so I am not sure about the distinction being made here.  It seems that (like Diamond) you are wary of an explanation (like Weber's classical formulation) 

Weber's formulation of the Protestant Work Ethic is usually poorly summed up as being one of the causes of capitalist development, while Weber (not so clearly, due to Weber's own style) actually insists upon said work ethic working to reinforce, reorient, foster previous cultural and technical developments that existed. In other words, the Protestant Work Ethic emerged out of a particular historical situation in a way that made it suited to foster, in relation to its own doctrine, development in contingent fields. It was not the only way, and Weber takes pains to point them out as well: Catholic countries also found ways to justify or to lift the barrier of traditional Christian doctrines re: credit, loans and interests (see the very interesting recentm work on antidora and the Moral Economy).

This is why I am not ashamed of finding Weber convincing against Predigested Weber, or Misunderstood Weber: because there is no inevitability nor simplistic causal connections in it. (Which I am not accusing anyone here to engage in).

Quote from: Oexmelin on April 16, 2009, 01:32:25 PM
I will not pick upon points Keynes Robinsky has answered - it seems we share much of the same outlook, including due appreciation for caveats à la Diamond - but simply point out that:

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 09:38:10 AM
There is a radical ideological shift - I will say that.  Such a shift is in itself a historical contingency so I am not sure about the distinction being made here.  It seems that (like Diamond) you are wary of an explanation (like Weber's classical formulation) 

Weber's formulation of the Protestant Work Ethic is usually poorly summed up as being one of the causes of capitalist development, while Weber (not so clearly, due to Weber's own style) actually insists upon said work ethic working to reinforce, reorient, foster previous cultural and technical developments that existed. In other words, the Protestant Work Ethic emerged out of a particular historical situation in a way that made it suited to foster, in relation to its own doctrine, development in contingent fields. It was not the only way, and Weber takes pains to point them out as well: Catholic countries also found ways to justify or to lift the barrier of traditional Christian doctrines re: credit, loans and interests (see the very interesting recentm work on antidora and the Moral Economy).

This is why I am not ashamed of finding Weber convincing against Predigested Weber, or Misunderstood Weber: because there is no inevitability nor simplistic causal connections in it. (Which I am not accusing anyone here to engage in).

I have no problems with this sort of Weber, but I'll simply point out that, as an explaination, it does not in fact attempt to explain; it does not in itself attempt to have predictive power. The emphasis has to be then on analysis of the "particular historical situation" which "fostered" it; that is exactly what I'm attempting to do ... 

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PMBarbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads.

I think that is basically false.

The various Jurchen, Manchu and Mongol conquerors of China certainly "absorbed" much of the civilization they conquered, ditto the various steppe conquerors of India.

The Mongols in particular absorbed and adapted to the cultures they conquered - witness the Il-khanate and Yuan China.  Nor would I say that culture such as it was in the Golden Horde suffered particularly.  Nor did the Mughals seem particularly incapable of absorbing civilization.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PMThe Mongols - even the non-Yuan ones - "fostered long-distance trade" (that is after all how the Polos got there), but the imposition of the Pax Mongolica was hardly a triumph for civilization.

I recently read a book that argued that it was exactly that.  The administration of the Pax Mongolica facilitated the exchange of ideas and scholarship that sowed the seeds of modernity.  Without the Mongols introducing a variety of administrative practices and technologies to Europe, Europe would not be in the position to develop as it did.

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:04:31 PM
I recently read a book that argued that it was exactly that.  The administration of the Pax Mongolica facilitated the exchange of ideas and scholarship that sowed the seeds of modernity.  Without the Mongols introducing a variety of administrative practices and technologies to Europe, Europe would not be in the position to develop as it did.

Careful now everybody tries to take credit for Europe.  If that was true wouldn't Poland and Russia then have led the developement and not lagged behind the Western Europeans?  After all they were living right beside the Mongols.

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:01:34 PM
I think that is basically false.

The various Jurchen, Manchu and Mongol conquerors of China certainly "absorbed" much of the civilization they conquered, ditto the various steppe conquerors of India.

The Mongols in particular absorbed and adapted to the cultures they conquered - witness the Il-khanate and Yuan China.  Nor would I say that culture such as it was in the Golden Horde suffered particularly.  Nor did the Mughals seem particularly incapable of absorbing civilization.

I think Malthus means nomads that for some reason remain nomads.  But that gets to the criticism Oex and JR have been making all along.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PMThis is not "hindsight", it is simply the case - almost universally, the effect of being subject to nomad invasion was to create reactionary governments - whether staffed by the nomads (now aristocrats) like the Turks or Manchus or in reaction to them (Ming, Muscovy).

I don't think this argument is solid.  If the steppe nomads implement reactionary governments (like you say the Turks and Manchus did) then it's a feature of steppe nomad culture, if they are not reactionary but rather progressive (the Mongols) then the gov'ts that come after (Min and Muscovy) will be reactionary.

That's rather "just so" don't you think?  If there is any sort of reactionary government in any proximity of steppe nomads, it's their fault.  This does not explain reactionary governments not related to steppe nomads, nor does it explain why some successor govt's are not reactionary and why some steppe nomad gov'ts aren't either.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PM
That's not an argument. Europe had many centuries before they achieved modernity. What has that got to do with anything?

It has everything to do with everything.  One obvious conclusion that it suggests is that there is nothing about possessing the technical pre-conditions of modernity that (absent some sinister monkey-wrench deus ex machina) ineluctably leads to modernity itself.  Ie it is quite possible for "advanced" but non-modern societies to conitnue on for centuries as such.  Indeed, that is the historical norm.  To paraphrase Ornette Coleman, to get to modernity, you need Somethin' Else.

QuoteCertain types of disasters have a different effect than others. They are not apples and apples.

To give just one example, the most horrific disaster in European history - the Black Death - is thought by many to have had a positive effect on social progress - essentially helping to break the back of serfdom in some places.

In contrast, other disasters have a different effect.

This is just confusing historical correlation with cause and effect.  The plague that hit Byzantium in the age of Justianian is said to have had a negative effect on progress because historically, "dark ages" follow; the same kind of plague that hits medieval Europe is said by some to be positive because historically the Italian Rennaissance follows.  Is the Black Death the "cause" of the Italian Rennaissance?  No more or less than the Salem Witch trials are the cause of the birth of American republicanism.

QuoteThe problem with steppe nomads as a disaster is not so much the pyramids of skulls they leave behind - you are correct in that Europe has its share of skull-pilers, figurative if not literal. It is in the effect of creating governments which are intensely conservative and autocratic.

So the government of the Ottoman former steppe nomads was more conservative and autocratic than the late Byzantines?  I don't think so.  For that matter, the rise of medieval European civilization dates from the reaction against the last wave of steppe nomad invasions into Europe (and the parallel invasions of the "glacier barbarians" from the North).  The neat cause-and-effect doesn't hold.

Moroever, this analysis doesn't refute the example.  The governments that emerged out of the early 17th century crisis were also conservative and autocratic.  Indeed the ideology of central, princely abolutism flowed out of the Westphalian settlement.  A priori there is no reason to think the religious fundamentalist revivalism (on both Prostestant and Catholic sides) that arose during the crisis would have any beneficial effect on future development.  The only reason to think so is knowledge of what happened later.  And one cannot legitimately infer cause and effect from that correlation.

QuoteHeh never heard of the Huns?  :lol:

Or for that matter Vandals, Visigoths, etc.?

Barbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads. 

The history of the Roman Empire is actually quite damaging to your case.  The Roman Empire lasted over 400 years before steppe nomads came into the picture (note -- he Goths, Vandals, Franks, etc. were not steppe nomads).  The early empire had the the technical know-how and the resources needed to create an industrial civilization.  It even had an extraordinary talent for applied engineering, and a very practical outlook on filling material needs.  Yet long before the Huns are even a glimmer in the imagination and even long before the settled barbarians pose even the suggestion of a risk to the security of the core provinces, it is clear that was never in the cards.  If the Huns never show up and the Goths stay calm on the other side of the Danube for perpetuity, it's not like there is any sign that Mediterranean civilization is going to advance steadily into modernity.  Au contraire - it looks like it is going the other way.

Even after Rome is gone, there is a second rise of Mediterranean civilization - the Italian communes and city-states which start their rise in the 12 century.  No steppe nomad threat there.  Also no transition to modernity.  Then comes the rise of the Atlantic civilization of Spain.  Again that would not be the source of the transition to the industrial world.  Again, steppe nomadism is a non-factor.

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:01:34 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PMBarbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads.

I think that is basically false.

The various Jurchen, Manchu and Mongol conquerors of China certainly "absorbed" much of the civilization they conquered, ditto the various steppe conquerors of India.

The Mongols in particular absorbed and adapted to the cultures they conquered - witness the Il-khanate and Yuan China.  Nor would I say that culture such as it was in the Golden Horde suffered particularly.  Nor did the Mughals seem particularly incapable of absorbing civilization.

The did not "absorb" the civilization they took over - they were absorbed by it.  They did not take Chinese or Persian civilization back to mongolia with them - they set themselves up as aristocrats engrafted onto the civilizations they took over, making use of them without attempting to change what they had taken.

This accounts for the theme of my theory - the quite noticable conservatism of such dynasties. The nomad aristocrats were always a tiny purportion of the population, their rule tended to be precarious (witness what happened to the Il-Khans and the Yuan ... ). They did not wish to see any change in the structure on which they had fought to the top.

They did not wish to see change, particularly change which put power into the hands of "native" Chinese or Persians, since any change was likely to be change for the worse - for them.

Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2009, 02:06:05 PMCareful now everybody tries to take credit for Europe.  If that was true wouldn't Poland and Russia then have led the developement and not lagged behind the Western Europeans?  After all they were living right beside the Mongols.

The point was, if I recall correctly, that much of the technology which formed the basis for the advancements in Europe arrived through the diffusion and scholarly exchanges facilitated by the Mongols.  No more.  So why Poland and Russia didn't go further than they did is not the point.  The argument isn't "everyone who's next to the Mongols did awesome" the argument is "many of the specific knowledges and technologies from Asia which Europe expanded upon as it developed only reached Europe when the Mongols encouraged and facilitated the exchange, something that was made possible by their vast control, their peace and their inclination to seek out and diffuse knowledge independent of its sources."

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:04:31 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PMThe Mongols - even the non-Yuan ones - "fostered long-distance trade" (that is after all how the Polos got there), but the imposition of the Pax Mongolica was hardly a triumph for civilization.

I recently read a book that argued that it was exactly that.  The administration of the Pax Mongolica facilitated the exchange of ideas and scholarship that sowed the seeds of modernity.  Without the Mongols introducing a variety of administrative practices and technologies to Europe, Europe would not be in the position to develop as it did.

My post was in response to that theory.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PM

Heh never heard of the Huns?  :lol:

Or for that matter Vandals, Visigoths, etc.?

Barbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads.

You are going to have to be more careful about this.  Vandals and Visigoths were both able to absorb the civilization that they conquered.  A quick trip to Ravenna will tell you about how well the Visigoths did and the Vandals held on in North Africa essentially absorbing Roman culture there until the Eastern Empire drove them out.

Not sure whether you lump those groups into the steppe or non steppe categorie you have created or on what basis you might do that.

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:09:05 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PMThis is not "hindsight", it is simply the case - almost universally, the effect of being subject to nomad invasion was to create reactionary governments - whether staffed by the nomads (now aristocrats) like the Turks or Manchus or in reaction to them (Ming, Muscovy).

I don't think this argument is solid.  If the steppe nomads implement reactionary governments (like you say the Turks and Manchus did) then it's a feature of steppe nomad culture, if they are not reactionary but rather progressive (the Mongols) then the gov'ts that come after (Min and Muscovy) will be reactionary.

That's rather "just so" don't you think?  If there is any sort of reactionary government in any proximity of steppe nomads, it's their fault.  This does not explain reactionary governments not related to steppe nomads, nor does it explain why some successor govt's are not reactionary and why some steppe nomad gov'ts aren't either.

It seems to me a strange sort of coincidence that those nations taken over by violent, backwards barbarians just happen to suffer the ills of the sort of governments that tend to appeal to their barbarian overlords.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:21:06 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 01:31:20 PM

Heh never heard of the Huns?  :lol:

Or for that matter Vandals, Visigoths, etc.?

Barbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads.

You are going to have to be more careful about this.  Vandals and Visigoths were both able to absorb the civilization that they conquered.  A quick trip to Ravenna will tell you about how well the Visigoths did and the Vandals held on in North Africa essentially absorbing Roman culture there until the Eastern Empire drove them out.

Not sure whether you lump those groups into the steppe or non steppe categorie you have created or on what basis you might do that.

You aren't carefully reading what I wrote. The parts you quote address this. See emphasized bit.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:14:49 PM
The did not "absorb" the civilization they took over - they were absorbed by it.

Now play fair.  Your first argument was that they could not absorb the culture because they remained nomads.  Now you are claiming they were absorbed by it....

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:14:49 PMThe did not "absorb" the civilization they took over - they were absorbed by it.  They did not take Chinese or Persian civilization back to mongolia with them - they set themselves up as aristocrats engrafted onto the civilizations they took over, making use of them without attempting to change what they had taken.

I disagree.  They reorganized the economies (esp. trade) and in their administration relied gathered scholars and experts from all their domains, facilitating the exchange and development of ideas.  Marco Polo was an official in Kublai Khan's government, for example.  Ideas and technologies and goods were exchanged across the breadth of the Mongol domains.  This is far from a conservative outlook or impact in my opinion.

QuoteThis accounts for the theme of my theory - the quite noticable conservatism of such dynasties. The nomad aristocrats were always a tiny purportion of the population, their rule tended to be precarious (witness what happened to the Il-Khans and the Yuan ... ). They did not wish to see any change in the structure on which they had fought to the top.

Again, I don't think the way the Mongols handled the administration of their domains and the facilitation of the exchange of knowledge can be characterized as conservative.  Yes, they wanted to stay at the top and defend their priviliges, but that's hardly convincing.  The captains of industry who created the material foundation for modernity also wanted to gain a position at the top and maintain it.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:23:07 PM
You aren't carefully reading what I wrote. The parts you quote address this. See emphasized bit.

I am reading quite carefully.  You are shifting.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:24:20 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:23:07 PM
You aren't carefully reading what I wrote. The parts you quote address this. See emphasized bit.

I am reading quite carefully.  You are shifting.

How can I be "shifting" when what I said was in the part you quoted?

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:17:41 PMMy post was in response to that theory.

Your response to the theory is "no, that's not the case"?

I remain unconvinced.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:23:13 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:14:49 PM
The did not "absorb" the civilization they took over - they were absorbed by it.

Now play fair.  Your first argument was that they could not absorb the culture because they remained nomads.  Now you are claiming they were absorbed by it....

Obviously the emperor of the Yuan did not "remain a nomad".

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:25:30 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:17:41 PMMy post was in response to that theory.

Your response to the theory is "no, that's not the case"?

I remain unconvinced.

It depends on what the "case" is.

If the "case" is that they fostered long-range trade - that they did.

If the "case" is that, overall, this made the Mongols a net boon for world civilization - no, it doesn't.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:25:04 PM

How can I be "shifting" when what I said was in the part you quoted?

Answer the question Malthus.  Do you think the Vandals and Visigoths were steppe or non steppe nomads.  Why do you characterize them so.  If you characterize them as steppe then you are just wrong about nomads remaining nomads.

You are shifting because in answer to Jacob you now say that nomads from the steppe dont actually remain nomads - as you originally asserted but instead become absorbed by culture insteand of absorbing it...

Nice gymnastics but your argument is getting thin will all the twists and turns you are making.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:25:04 PMHow can I be "shifting" when what I said was in the part you quoted?

I too am finding your argument getting muddled.  This is understandable as you're fielding questions from a variety of people who are disagreeing with you.  Maybe if you took a step back from all the separate lines of argument and wrote one large post that contains your thesis and the supporting arguments?  I'm sure we'd all rather avoid having long arguments based on misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of peoples' arguments, so a restating might be useful :)

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:28:29 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:25:04 PM

How can I be "shifting" when what I said was in the part you quoted?

Answer the question Malthus.  Do you think the Vandals and Visigoths were steppe or non steppe nomads.  Why do you characterize them so.  If you characterize them as steppe then you are just wrong about nomads remaining nomads.

You are shifting because in answer to Jacob you now say that nomads from the steppe dont actually remain nomads - as you originally asserted but instead become absorbed by culture insteand of absorbing it...

Nice gymnastics but your argument is getting then will all the twists and turns you are making.

I'm not twisting at all. Go back and read what I wrote.

For your convenience I'll quote it here:

QuoteHeh never heard of the Huns? 

Or for that matter Vandals, Visigoths, etc.?

Barbarians (both steppe and otherwise) had lots to do with the fall of Roman civilization, which was the culmination of Mediteranian civilization. The main difference between steppe and non-steppe barbarians being, of course, that the non-steppe variety was capable of absorbing much of that civilization even as it destroyed it - by its nature, nomads cannot do so and remain nomads.

Now the explaination (though I'm sorry it is necessary):

1. Huns were steppe nomads.

2. Vandals and visigoths were barbarians, but *not* steppe nomads.

3. All of these barbarians helped to destroy Roman civilization.

4. There is a difference between the steppe kind and not steppe-kind.

5. The difference is that the non-steppe variety - Visigoths and Vandals - were capable of absorbing Roman civ..

6. Nomads can't do this, as the nomadic lifestyle precludes this.

7. Nomads who take over an advanced civ (like the Manchus) set themselves up as aristiocrats on top of the civ. they have taken over. They cease to be nomads.

8. Others - like the Huns or, better, the Golden Horde - remain nomads by refusing to take over such civilizations - they act more are gangsters or predators, taking tribute.

Is this clear enough?

The Huns at the origin were steppe nomads.  By the time they penetrated into the limnes though the "Huns" were far from the steppes - the armies that fought at Chalons (both sides!) were a highly ethnically variegated mix of peoples whose side had more to do with pledges of personal allegiance than ethnic identification.  The actual steppe nomads were a distinct minority in the Hunnic invasion force.

As to whether the "Huns" were capable of absorbing Med civilization or not, there is no way to know because their empire collapsed shortly after it was put together.  The Goths were - and not I suspect because they were "not nomads".  The Goths took considerable care to maintain their separate legal status and their separate quality as a warrior band - that didn't stop them from being acculturated.  The irony is that it was the Byzantine reconquista, not the barbarians, that finally sounded the deathknell of classical civilization.

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:28:44 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:25:04 PMHow can I be "shifting" when what I said was in the part you quoted?

I too am finding your argument getting muddled.  This is understandable as you're fielding questions from a variety of people who are disagreeing with you.  Maybe if you took a step back from all the separate lines of argument and wrote one large post that contains your thesis and the supporting arguments?  I'm sure we'd all rather avoid having long arguments based on misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of peoples' arguments, so a restating might be useful :)

This would be a great idea, but a lot of work, and I'm out of time to goof off. Plus, is anyone really interested in doing more that picking nits?

Why do you characterize the Goths and the Vandals as not being Steppe nomads or put another way What is the essential difference between Steppe and Non-Steppe nomads that makes the Steppe nomad unable to absorb culture?    This I think is your weakest link since Jacob has already listed examples of where they did.  I dont fully understand you distinction between absorbing and being absorbed by culture.  It seems to me that Khans were pretty successful at both particularly in relation to China.

Other side issues:

Why do you say the Visigoths destroyed Roman civilization.  From what I saw in Ravenna they perpetuated it.

Why do you say the Huns remained nomadic?  Didnt large numbers settle in the Hungarian plateau?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 02:39:52 PM
The Huns at the origin were steppe nomads.  By the time they penetrated into the limnes though the "Huns" were far from the steppes - the armies that fought at Chalons (both sides!) were a highly ethnically variegated mix of peoples whose side had more to do with pledges of personal allegiance than ethnic identification.  The actual steppe nomads were a distinct minority in the Hunnic invasion force.

As to whether the "Huns" were capable of absorbing Med civilization or not, there is no way to know because their empire collapsed shortly after it was put together.  The Goths were - and not I suspect because they were "not nomads".  The Goths took considerable care to maintain their separate legal status and their separate quality as a warrior band - that didn't stop them from being acculturated.  The irony is that it was the Byzantine reconquista, not the barbarians, that finally sounded the deathknell of classical civilization.

The invasions of Justinian were the quietus, but the Western empire had been dying for years and years before that. Thec fact that there were barbarians on both sides of Chalons is a symptom of this.

The Goths were an agricultural people. The Huns were not, though it is true that they were able to put together a coallition which included agricultural peoples.

I suspect the Huns looked on Rome like the Golden Horde looked on the Rus - a source of plunder.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:44:45 PM

Why do you say the Huns remained nomadic?  Didnt large numbers settle in the Hungarian plateau?

You're thinking of the Gyppos.

Quote from: The Brain on April 16, 2009, 02:47:56 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:44:45 PM

Why do you say the Huns remained nomadic?  Didnt large numbers settle in the Hungarian plateau?

You're thinking of the Gyppos.

I am not thinking about the modern era.

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 02:16:07 PM
The point was, if I recall correctly, that much of the technology which formed the basis for the advancements in Europe arrived through the diffusion and scholarly exchanges facilitated by the Mongols.  No more.  So why Poland and Russia didn't go further than they did is not the point.  The argument isn't "everyone who's next to the Mongols did awesome" the argument is "many of the specific knowledges and technologies from Asia which Europe expanded upon as it developed only reached Europe when the Mongols encouraged and facilitated the exchange, something that was made possible by their vast control, their peace and their inclination to seek out and diffuse knowledge independent of its sources."

Well now wait a second.  Poland, and Eastern Europe in general, were closer to and associated with Easterners all the time.   They also were close by and associated with Westerners.  So my question woud be if bringing forth all this Eastern knowledge through Islam, Mongols and so forth was so instrumental wouldn't it have had a larger impact in places that associated with those cultures on a regular basis than those that interacted less?  Why didn't the renaissance start in Spain or Poland if it was all about Westerners being influenced by the East?

I am always a bit leery of the whole idea of the East facilitating the rise of the West.  it just makes no sense culturally or geographically.  Great ideas were taking off from Western Europe...not from Greece, Spain, Poland, and Russia which is where one would expect it to originate from if Eastern ideas were really as central as they were often presented.

That is not to say that Asian ideas did not have an influence (or that the Italians were not involved in the Eastern Mediterranean because they were) but the whole 'The Renaissance would never have happened with <insert pet Eastern culture here>' thing is a bit overstated IMO.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:47:18 PM
The invasions of Justinian were the quietus, but the Western empire had been dying for years and years before that. Thec fact that there were barbarians on both sides of Chalons is a symptom of this.

But only if you define a fall as not being run by Romans.  The Visigoths were doing a pretty good job of governing until Justinian decided to reclaim the lost parts of the Empire.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:53:53 PM
But only if you define a fall as not being run by Romans.  The Visigoths were doing a pretty good job of governing until Justinian decided to reclaim the lost parts of the Empire.

The Visigoths were in Spain, the Ostrogoths were in Italy just FYI.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:44:45 PM

Why do you characterize the Goths and the Vandals as not being Steppe nomads or put another way What is the essential difference between Steppe and Non-Steppe nomads that makes the Steppe nomad unable to absorb culture?    This I think is your weakest link since Jacob has already listed examples of where they did.  I dont fully understand you distinction between absorbing and being absorbed by culture.  It seems to me that Khans were pretty successful at both particularly in relation to China.

Other side issues:

Why do you say the Visigoths destroyed Roman civilization.  From what I saw in Ravenna they perpetuated it.

Why do you say the Huns remained nomadic?  Didnt large numbers settle in the Hungarian plateau?

Put it this way: When the Mongols invaded China, did they take the secrets of Chinese civilization back to Mongolia, make all of the Mongols living there cease using Yurts and erect towns and cities on the Chinese plan, and transform their own people into farmers?

The answer is that they did not - rather, the Mongol invaders set themselves up basically as Chinese aristocrats. The steppe remained more or less exactly as it had been before the invasion. It would remain that way for hundreds of years.

In contrast, the various Germanic barbarians surrounding the Roman empire tended to themselves over time absorb the traits of civilization - create their own cities, often on the sites of Roman cities but not always, even though their ancestors had been directly instrumental in destroying the same (see: Alfred the Great the Saxon - Saxons had ruined Roman Britian).

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:56:07 PM
Put it this way: When the Mongols invaded China, did they take the secrets of Chinese civilization back to Mongolia, make all of the Mongols living there cease using Yurts and erect towns and cities on the Chinese plan, and transform their own people into farmers?

But that is because of climate and geography.  Of course you are not going to grow rice on the Mongel Steppe.  That says nothing about the ability of nomads to absorb culture.

:bleeding: Is this discussion: train wreck? Circle-speak marathon?

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:59:58 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:56:07 PM
Put it this way: When the Mongols invaded China, did they take the secrets of Chinese civilization back to Mongolia, make all of the Mongols living there cease using Yurts and erect towns and cities on the Chinese plan, and transform their own people into farmers?

But that is because of climate and geography.  Of course you are not going to grow rice on the Mongel Steppe.  That says nothing about the ability of nomads to absorb culture.

We disagree on this. It has everything to do with the ability of nomads to absorb culture.

Maybe you aren't seeing my point because it is too obviously true or something.

I am not saying that nomads are racially or genetically incapable of absorbing culture, but that the lifestyle they lead precludes it .

At the same time it is exactly this lifestyle - the hardihood of a life in the saddle, the ultra-high mobility of leading a string of horses, the fact that every man knows the use of the "Turkish" bow - which makes such people militarily powerful.

Thus the dilemma: the nomads are capable of beating civilizations, but once they have, what then? They cannot absorb the secrets of these civilizations themselves - their lifestyle does not permit of that; if they set themselves up as aristiocrats, they run the risk of rotting the very basis of their military power - they get absorbed by civilization.

One tecnnique to solve this dilemma was military slavery - in essence, to *buy* steppe nomads to fight for them (as in the Mamluks). The Turks used internal military slavery - the Janessaries.

Both Mamlucks and Jannesaries tended over time to sieze power for themselves - and both as institutions were intensely conservative.

Malthus, you have done what every good advocate does.  You have characterized the debate in a way you cannot fail.  You are down to making an argument that nomads can only remain nomads because once they become something else they are no longer nomads.

Can't disagree with that.  But I dont see where that gets us.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 03:13:29 PM
Malthus, you have done what every good advocate does.  You have characterized the debate in a way you cannot fail.  You are down to making an argument that nomads can only remain nomads because once they become something else they are no longer nomads.

Can't disagree with that.  But I dont see where that gets us.

Is that all you are getting out of what I'm writing?  :lol:

It's hardly a fair characterization.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 03:10:18 PM
Both Mamlucks and Jannesaries tended over time to sieze power for themselves

The Jannesaries were not really like a nomad corps though. They were infantry and their conservatism and style was more in the mold of the Streltsy in Russia or the Praetorian Guard in Rome than comparable to the Mamelucks.

Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2009, 03:15:34 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 03:10:18 PM
Both Mamlucks and Jannesaries tended over time to sieze power for themselves

The Jannesaries were not really like a nomad corps though. They were infantry and their conservatism and style was more in the mold of the Streltsy in Russia or the Praetorian Guard in Rome than comparable to the Mamelucks.

I think a very good analogy for the Janissaries is the Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Court (though it's slightly better for the Mamluks than for the Janissaries).

Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2009, 03:15:34 PM

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 03:10:18 PM
Both Mamlucks and Jannesaries tended over time to sieze power for themselves

The Jannesaries were not really like a nomad corps though. They were infantry and their conservatism and style was more in the mold of the Streltsy in Russia or the Praetorian Guard in Rome than comparable to the Mamelucks.

I know, they were recruited from Christian boys. They were not themselves nomads; they were recruited by a government descended from nomads.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:36:20 PM
5. The difference is that the non-steppe variety - Visigoths and Vandals - were capable of absorbing Roman civ..

Isn't that just an issue of terminology?   You state that the Mongols stem from nomadic areas and never really absorbed the civs they invaded, as after all, they didn't bring that civilization back to their homeland.  Similarly, the Visigoths stemmed from an area that would be rather nomadic for a bit...and yet you do say that they were able to asborb Roman civ.

Oh and the confusion of terms bit is that we don't tend to link the Visigoths to the people living in the region after they left (even though there must have been demographic overlap) whereas one, especially you Malthus, would link the Mughals and Manchu directly to the nomads left behind on the steppe.

Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2009, 02:51:34 PMWell now wait a second.  Poland, and Eastern Europe in general, were closer to and associated with Easterners all the time.   They also were close by and associated with Westerners.  So my question woud be if bringing forth all this Eastern knowledge through Islam, Mongols and so forth was so instrumental wouldn't it have had a larger impact in places that associated with those cultures on a regular basis than those that interacted less?  Why didn't the renaissance start in Spain or Poland if it was all about Westerners being influenced by the East?

I am always a bit leery of the whole idea of the East facilitating the rise of the West.  it just makes no sense culturally or geographically.  Great ideas were taking off from Western Europe...not from Greece, Spain, Poland, and Russia which is where one would expect it to originate from if Eastern ideas were really as central as they were often presented.

That is not to say that Asian ideas did not have an influence (or that the Italians were not involved in the Eastern Mediterranean because they were) but the whole 'The Renaissance would never have happened with <insert pet Eastern culture here>' thing is a bit overstated IMO.

You are exaggerating what I'm saying to refute it.

If the preconditions for the rise of modernity is A + B + C + D and someone says that D (in this case, certain technological advances) only got to Europe through Mongol facilitated spread of ideas and cultures (which is what I'm saying) it does not mean that D is the only important factor (which is what you say you have a problem with).  A and B and C are equally important, and where absent modernity would not develop.  However, without D it won't either.  Perhaps D will eventually reach Western Europe or perhaps it'll be developed independently, however as it happened it got there as a result of the Mongol policy if cultural, philosophical, merchantile and technological exchange throughout their territory.

As for why Russia and Poland didn't make the leap even though they were closer to the source of D, I don't know.  Perhaps it was because they were missing B and C (whatever exactly those were) which were present further West.  This in no way invalidates the suggestion that D was critical to the rise of the modern world and that Europe got those through the Mongols.

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:56:07 PM
Put it this way: When the Mongols invaded China, did they take the secrets of Chinese civilization back to Mongolia, make all of the Mongols living there cease using Yurts and erect towns and cities on the Chinese plan, and transform their own people into farmers?

The answer is that they did not - rather, the Mongol invaders set themselves up basically as Chinese aristocrats. The steppe remained more or less exactly as it had been before the invasion. It would remain that way for hundreds of years.

In contrast, the various Germanic barbarians surrounding the Roman empire tended to themselves over time absorb the traits of civilization - create their own cities, often on the sites of Roman cities but not always, even though their ancestors had been directly instrumental in destroying the same (see: Alfred the Great the Saxon - Saxons had ruined Roman Britian).

So steppe nomads could acculturate, just like trans-Rhenan tribes and Viking seafaring raiders.  In all cases, they conquered, they acculturated and stayed put.

Other random points:
+ the post-Roman barbarians didn't create their own cities.  Urban life in Europe vanished for about 800 years, except for those cities in the Med that they inherited from Rome.
+ I am no huge fan of the Saxon but they didn't ruin Roman Britain.  The Romans managed that on their own.  You can't take Duggan's fiction as history. 

Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2009, 02:56:07 PM
In contrast, the various Germanic barbarians surrounding the Roman empire tended to themselves over time absorb the traits of civilization - create their own cities, often on the sites of Roman cities but not always, even though their ancestors had been directly instrumental in destroying the same (see: Alfred the Great the Saxon - Saxons had ruined Roman Britian).

That is a LIE! :o

Quote from: The Brain on April 16, 2009, 02:47:56 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 16, 2009, 02:44:45 PM

Why do you say the Huns remained nomadic?  Didnt large numbers settle in the Hungarian plateau?

You're thinking of the Gyppos.

:D

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2009, 02:09:12 PM
The history of the Roman Empire is actually quite damaging to your case.  The Roman Empire lasted over 400 years before steppe nomads came into the picture (note -- he Goths, Vandals, Franks, etc. were not steppe nomads).  The early empire had the the technical know-how and the resources needed to create an industrial civilization.  It even had an extraordinary talent for applied engineering, and a very practical outlook on filling material needs.  Yet long before the Huns are even a glimmer in the imagination and even long before the settled barbarians pose even the suggestion of a risk to the security of the core provinces, it is clear that was never in the cards.  If the Huns never show up and the Goths stay calm on the other side of the Danube for perpetuity, it's not like there is any sign that Mediterranean civilization is going to advance steadily into modernity.  Au contraire - it looks like it is going the other way.

Even after Rome is gone, there is a second rise of Mediterranean civilization - the Italian communes and city-states which start their rise in the 12 century.  No steppe nomad threat there.  Also no transition to modernity.  Then comes the rise of the Atlantic civilization of Spain.  Again that would not be the source of the transition to the industrial world.  Again, steppe nomadism is a non-factor.

How about 300 years of constant warfare with the Parthians and continued problems with the Sarmatians?  This works almost exactly; the Romans didn't have a clue how to deal with horse-archers until they adopted some eastern styles of warfare (Syrian archers) and eventually the whole Persian shebang (grivpanvar=clibanarii, cataphracts).

It's worth remembering that the real death of "Classical Civilization" was the continued Sassanid-Byzantine wars combined with the plague and the continued militarization of the steppe lifestyle.  They fought each other into oblivion. 

Sorry to play Brutus here Malthus, but you seem to be overplaying your hand.  There were nomads who gave up their ways to live a settled lifestyle by choice rather than by necessity or by assimilation.  The nomadic Parni and Dahae in modern day Turkmenistan were famously adequate agriculturalists and superior  architectsbefore they moved into Parthia and became the Parthians.  As you would expect, there is something of a scale of civilization, with pure central Mongol nomadism on one hand, mixed pastoralism in the middle and settling down/becoming landed aristocracy on the other. 

In general though I agree, obviously.  I think one of the best examples of Malthus' case is the difference between the Parthians and the Sassanids; the Parthians were, in general, great warriors and had their own unique culture that contributed to the Persian tradition, but they ruled like the head of a conspiracy; if one tribe got too strong (say the Suren, who famously fucked up the Romans a lot) they'd kill everyone in it, or if one settled people started getting uppity they'd send in some of their more nomadic kin from the ancestral lands of the Parni.  On the other hand the Sassanids self consciously thought of themselves as a united Iranian monarchy and helped reconquer lands from the Nomads, Romans and really everyone else, and ushered in a new Golden Age.   

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 04:58:11 PM
How about 300 years of constant warfare with the Parthians and continued problems with the Sarmatians?  This works almost exactly; the Romans didn't have a clue how to deal with horse-archers until they adopted some eastern styles of warfare (Syrian archers) and eventually the whole Persian shebang (grivpanvar=clibanarii, cataphracts).

That's not Malthus' argument and for good reason - endemic conflict with other settled peoples characterized early modern European states as well.  The conflict with the Parthians was not over Roman control of the Med, which was unquestioned - it was over control of northern Mesopotamia, and by and large the Romans had the better of it.  There were costs of course - but even taking into account the massive defense costs, the eastern provinces were still a net gain economically.

QuoteIt's worth remembering that the real death of "Classical Civilization" was the continued Sassanid-Byzantine wars combined with the plague and the continued militarization of the steppe lifestyle. 

But classical civilization in the central Med collapsed long before than, in significant part due to Justinians military adventures.

Quote
That's not Malthus' argument and for good reason - endemic conflict with other settled peoples characterized early modern European states as well.  The conflict with the Parthians was not over Roman control of the Med, which was unquestioned - it was over control of northern Mesopotamia, and by and large the Romans had the better of it.  There were costs of course - but even taking into account the massive defense costs, the eastern provinces were still a net gain economically.

True, but then again the Steppe was still developing; the stirrup was not in useage, and the Turkic division between close bow-regular bow was not developed, the classic steppe division into multiples of ten was just invented, and the nomad way of life was less explicitly militaristic and (essentially) parasitic.  Even in this period the cavalry archer was effective enough to stave off the greatest military machine in the world, and with time was so effective that it adopted and ended up replacing (as the dominant element) the Roman style of combat.   

Also worth noting that that edge of Mesopatamia is, for whatever reason, about the place nomadic warfare starts to loose some of its luster; the Mongols had similar difficulty there, as did the Seljuks. 

Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2009, 03:55:14 PM

Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2009, 02:51:34 PMWell now wait a second.  Poland, and Eastern Europe in general, were closer to and associated with Easterners all the time.   They also were close by and associated with Westerners.  So my question woud be if bringing forth all this Eastern knowledge through Islam, Mongols and so forth was so instrumental wouldn't it have had a larger impact in places that associated with those cultures on a regular basis than those that interacted less?  Why didn't the renaissance start in Spain or Poland if it was all about Westerners being influenced by the East?

I am always a bit leery of the whole idea of the East facilitating the rise of the West.  it just makes no sense culturally or geographically.  Great ideas were taking off from Western Europe...not from Greece, Spain, Poland, and Russia which is where one would expect it to originate from if Eastern ideas were really as central as they were often presented.

That is not to say that Asian ideas did not have an influence (or that the Italians were not involved in the Eastern Mediterranean because they were) but the whole 'The Renaissance would never have happened with <insert pet Eastern culture here>' thing is a bit overstated IMO.

You are exaggerating what I'm saying to refute it.

If the preconditions for the rise of modernity is A + B + C + D and someone says that D (in this case, certain technological advances) only got to Europe through Mongol facilitated spread of ideas and cultures (which is what I'm saying) it does not mean that D is the only important factor (which is what you say you have a problem with).  A and B and C are equally important, and where absent modernity would not develop.  However, without D it won't either.  Perhaps D will eventually reach Western Europe or perhaps it'll be developed independently, however as it happened it got there as a result of the Mongol policy if cultural, philosophical, merchantile and technological exchange throughout their territory.

As for why Russia and Poland didn't make the leap even though they were closer to the source of D, I don't know.  Perhaps it was because they were missing B and C (whatever exactly those were) which were present further West.  This in no way invalidates the suggestion that D was critical to the rise of the modern world and that Europe got those through the Mongols.

That's not a bad way of conceptualizing my argument with Minsky.

What I'm saying is that most of the civilizations of Eurasia had about the same amount of A+B+C ... being the various technological, cultural and social abilities which are the preconditions for creating modernity. When one looks at the differences between them, there appears one vital factor - call it [- X], using a minus sign to indicate that it is a negative or retarding factor - that afflicted certain civilizations, and not others.

Now, as in the theme of this thread, some see this [-X] factor as being ideological - namely, that the cultures of the ME had Islam and the cultures of China etc. had Buddhism and Confucianism, and that *this* was the retarding factor. I do not agree. To my mind, the Minsky/Oex theory is close to this more traditional or ideological explaination.   

As stated, I see the retarding factor as historical - the invasion by barbarians at the "right time".

Minsky challenges this by stating that, if such were the case, modernity would surely have happened at some previous time - say under the Romans. My response to him is more or less what you have said - that modernity appears to require some threshold, some concatination of factors A+B+C ... etc., and the Romans did not as of yet possess.

Minsky's response to this was to assert that nothing of signicicance had really changed since Sumerian times until the modern era. If that is the case, then the transmission of technology via Mongols is surely a meaningless event.  If that is not the case, if the Mongols transmitted some tech vital to reaching that threshold - that supports my theory, and simply adds an element of irony to it: the very Mongols that suppressed China also aided Europe by acting as a conduit for those techs (the last 'letter' in the A+B+C ... sequence) necessary fpr Europe to reach the threshold for the take-off to modernity.

Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2009, 05:04:14 PM
Sorry to play Brutus here Malthus, but you seem to be overplaying your hand.  There were nomads who gave up their ways to live a settled lifestyle by choice rather than by necessity or by assimilation.  The nomadic Parni and Dahae in modern day Turkmenistan were famously adequate agriculturalists and superior  architectsbefore they moved into Parthia and became the Parthians.  As you would expect, there is something of a scale of civilization, with pure central Mongol nomadism on one hand, mixed pastoralism in the middle and settling down/becoming landed aristocracy on the other. 

In general though I agree, obviously.  I think one of the best examples of Malthus' case is the difference between the Parthians and the Sassanids; the Parthians were, in general, great warriors and had their own unique culture that contributed to the Persian tradition, but they ruled like the head of a conspiracy; if one tribe got too strong (say the Suren, who famously fucked up the Romans a lot) they'd kill everyone in it, or if one settled people started getting uppity they'd send in some of their more nomadic kin from the ancestral lands of the Parni.  On the other hand the Sassanids self consciously thought of themselves as a united Iranian monarchy and helped reconquer lands from the Nomads, Romans and really everyone else, and ushered in a new Golden Age.

Well, yes; in fact on the border of China there was a constant process of cultural assimilation going both ways: some nomads settled and became "civilized" and some Chinese took up nomadism.

This is a mere bagatelle, though.

Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2009, 09:17:26 AM


This is a mere bagatelle, though.

What? :unsure:

I looked this term up on wikipedia and still don't get what you mean by that.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 17, 2009, 09:47:32 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2009, 09:17:26 AM


This is a mere bagatelle, though.

What? :unsure:

I looked this term up on wikipedia and still don't get what you mean by that.

It means something of small importance.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bagatelle

trifle.

Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2009, 09:50:37 AM

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 17, 2009, 09:47:32 AM

Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2009, 09:17:26 AM


This is a mere bagatelle, though.

What? :unsure:

I looked this term up on wikipedia and still don't get what you mean by that.

It means something of small importance.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bagatelle

Ah, wiki had an in depth description of a billiard game by that name.

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 17, 2009, 09:52:24 AM

Ah, wiki had an in depth description of a billiard game by that name.

In context that would be a bit odd.  :lol:

Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2009, 09:14:36 AM
Now, as in the theme of this thread, some see this [-X] factor as being ideological - namely, that the cultures of the ME had Islam and the cultures of China etc. had Buddhism and Confucianism, and that *this* was the retarding factor. I do not agree. To my mind, the Minsky/Oex theory is close to this more traditional or ideological explaination.   

Early on, I specifically rejected cultural determinism as explantory.  It is plainly false, as "confucian" or buddhist societies have made very successful transitions to industrial and post-industrial development.  And as Oex explained a few posts ago, the argument isn't that "protestantism" or "western culture" per se was the triggering factor.  Rather, the triggering set of ideas can substantiate themselves within the context of any number of broader cultural groupings.  It just so happens that historically it first happened in the context of a few societies in northwestern Europe that were predominantly (but not entirely) Protestant.  This may or may not be coincidental - to be honest I am not sure.  But I am pretty sure it isn't necessary - ie it is possible that it could have started first somewhere else.  Although I do think that the odds of it happening *anywhere* (or in any particularly place) were fairly long a priori.  Given enough time, it was probably bound to happen sometime, but it could have easily been another 1000, 2000, 3000 years.

QuoteMinsky challenges this by stating that, if such were the case, modernity would surely have happened at some previous time - say under the Romans. My response to him is more or less what you have said - that modernity appears to require some threshold, some concatination of factors A+B+C ... etc., and the Romans did not as of yet possess.

The Romans inherited the entire corpus of Greek science and philosophy.  They were brilliant practical engineers.  If they had had the appropriate animating ideologies, they could have harnessed steam power for productive applications, developed joint-stock companies, etc.  They just didn't.  What is the "C" they were missing?

QuoteMinsky's response to this was to assert that nothing of signicicance had really changed since Sumerian times until the modern era.

That is starting to veer towards strawman territory.  My point is that the gap between pre-modern workers and 20th century workers in a fully industrialized society is greater than the gap between any two sets of pre-modern workers.  That is testament to the sheer chasm involved in the former gap as opposed to a claim that there is no gap in the latter case.  I also contended that from the POV of the mass of farmers, the basic patterns of life and material conditions changed relatively little from ancient times to the immediate pre-modern era, as compared to what came after.  This is different from a claim that *nothing* of significance changed.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 17, 2009, 10:02:58 AM

Early on, I specifically rejected cultural determinism as explantory.  It is plainly false, as "confucian" or buddhist societies have made very successful transitions to industrial and post-industrial development.  And as Oex explained a few posts ago, the argument isn't that "protestantism" or "western culture" per se was the triggering factor.  Rather, the triggering set of ideas can substantiate themselves within the context of any number of broader cultural groupings.  It just so happens that historically it first happened in the context of a few societies in northwestern Europe that were predominantly (but not entirely) Protestant.  This may or may not be coincidental - to be honest I am not sure.  But I am pretty sure it isn't necessary - ie it is possible that it could have started first somewhere else.  Although I do think that the odds of it happening *anywhere* (or in any particularly place) were fairly long a priori.  Given enough time, it was probably bound to happen sometime, but it could have easily been another 1000, 2000, 3000 years.

Oex identifies himself as a Weberian, albeit his understanding of Weber is not crudely deterministic ... but nonetheless the underly assumption throughout this thread at least *appears* to favour some sort of ideological or cultural determinism. Why else all that stuff about how it is necessary for there to be a theory of progress for there to be progress?

QuoteThe Romans inherited the entire corpus of Greek science and philosophy.  They were brilliant practical engineers.  If they had had the appropriate animating ideologies, they could have harnessed steam power for productive applications, developed joint-stock companies, etc.  They just didn't.  What is the "C" they were missing?

And this is the point where I re-state Jacob's point - you can't take one thing from isolation and say "this thing was necessary". Rather, there seems to be some critical mass required.

QuoteThat is starting to veer towards strawman territory.  My point is that the gap between pre-modern workers and 20th century workers in a fully industrialized society is greater than the gap between any two sets of pre-modern workers.  That is testament to the sheer chasm involved in the former gap as opposed to a claim that there is no gap in the latter case.  I also contended that from the POV of the mass of farmers, the basic patterns of life and material conditions changed relatively little from ancient times to the immediate pre-modern era, as compared to what came after.  This is different from a claim that *nothing* of significance changed.

But you undermine this position in your very response above, where you state that maybe it could have taken another 3,000 years to reach modernity. My point is that you seem to hold that there has been no change significant in terms of progress - that modernity has, as it were, no anticedents and comes mysteriously out of the blue.

My point is that there is clearly a slow but cumulative development going on - the transition of metals technology from bronze to iron; the development of printing and other common mechanical contrivances; the stirrup and the plough; chemistry and gunpowder; increasing population densities; all diffused througout Eurasia - gradually reaching a critical mass. Barring significant disaster on the lines of an extinction event, there is simply no way that Eurasia would have taken another 3,000 years to reach modernity.

Minsky/Oex, I'm curious what you two would make of the following hypothetical.

It is 1000 AD, and a dedicated, slightly vicious explorer in the Cordoban Caliphate of mixed Sicilian Arab/Jewish extraction from Lisbon proposes to the Caliph that he sail to the Indies to compete with the growing Ghaznavid/Turkic influence there exceptionally well made, large baghlah. 

Do the Andalusians take advantage of this as well as their Spanish descendants/opponents?  Does this change the entire tide of human 'progress'?  Or does this much earlier Europe still colonize much of the Americas?

Quote from: Queequeg on April 18, 2009, 12:27:21 AM
Minsky/Oex, I'm curious what you two would make of the following hypothetical.

It is 1000 AD, and a dedicated, slightly vicious explorer in the Cordoban Caliphate of mixed Sicilian Arab/Jewish extraction from Lisbon proposes to the Caliph that he sail to the Indies to compete with the growing Ghaznavid/Turkic influence there exceptionally well made, large baghlah. 

Do the Andalusians take advantage of this as well as their Spanish descendants/opponents?  Does this change the entire tide of human 'progress'?  Or does this much earlier Europe still colonize much of the Americas?

The South will end up using dino cavalry in the Third War of Northern Aggression 1941-45, in which they are allied to the Congo Free State and Byzantium.

Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2009, 12:20:55 PM
Oex identifies himself as a Weberian, albeit his understanding of Weber is not crudely deterministic ... but nonetheless the underly assumption throughout this thread at least *appears* to favour some sort of ideological or cultural determinism. Why else all that stuff about how it is necessary for there to be a theory of progress for there to be progress?

Culture is a dangerously imprecise word that comes with a lot of baggage.  Disparate cultures are capable of mobilizing similar sets of ideas - they may come about it in different ways but the basic results are similar. 

QuoteAnd this is the point where I re-state Jacob's point - you can't take one thing from isolation and say "this thing was necessary". Rather, there seems to be some critical mass required.

I like the metaphor.  But mechanically, is there any way to determine when the critical mass is assembled or what the components are?