Prime Minister BoJo It Is.

[Razgovory]

What oppressive religious doctrine held China back?

Being conquered and made second class citizens by foreign Manchu invaders? Confucianism?

Are you guessing?

[Valmy]

What oppressive religious doctrine held China back?

Being conquered and made second class citizens by foreign Manchu invaders? Confucianism?

Are you guessing?

Well I have not done intense research on the subject, but given my general knowledge of Chinese history those might be good theories.

[Valmy]

Both the Christian and Islamic traditions have a strong aversion to lending at interest.  Religion can't explain why those scruples were overcome more easily in one part of the world then another.

It can't? I mean it might not, but I don't see why it is absolutely certain that it can provide no explanation.

For example: Islam is more legalistic than Christianity. Islam is sort of designed as a political system. So in Christianity there was this arbitrary notion you could charge an amount of interest but not an exploitative amount...what ever that meant...at least according to the Catholic Church.

[The Minsky Moment]

According to the medieval Catholic Church, usury meant charging any interest, there wasn't an acceptable or de minimus amount.  Aquinas defines it as such in the Summa:

Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury: and just as a man is bound to restore other ill-gotten goods, so is he bound to restore the money which he has taken in usury.

Hence the practice of employing Jews as money lenders, who were not bound by the Christian prohibition.

By the 5th Lateran Council (16th century) the Church was recognizing exceptions but in a way that characterized the charge as something other than interest - basically a similar kind of dodge that occurred and occurs in "Islamic banking"

Of course by the 16th century it was common for Christian bankers like the Medici to lend at interest and had been so going back centuries. 

The explanation is not that Christian doctrine was fundamentally different or more lenient. It was that political control and legal jurisdiction in Christian Europe was less organized and more balkanized such that the rules could be more easily evaded.

[Valmy]

The explanation is not that Christian doctrine was fundamentally different or more lenient. It was that political control and legal jurisdiction in Christian Europe was less organized and more balkanized such that the rules could be more easily evaded.

If it truly was then wouldn't this prohibition be a factor across all Christian denominations? Yet I don't really hear about this outside medieval Catholicism. If it is so essential to Christianity that it is universal Christian doctrine to the point it is a law then please explain that.

[Monoriu]

What oppressive religious doctrine held China back?

Being conquered and made second class citizens by foreign Manchu invaders? Confucianism?

Are you guessing?

Well I have not done intense research on the subject, but given my general knowledge of Chinese history those might be good theories.

I have read theories that China failed to industrialise because labour was much cheaper.  There was no incentive to replace cheap labour with machines.  You only need to replace expensive labour with machines. 

[Monoriu]

What oppressive religious doctrine held China back?

Being conquered and made second class citizens by foreign Manchu invaders? Confucianism?

The Manchus didn't treat the Hans too badly.  Second class citizens, sure.  But lots of high ranking officials were Hans.  There was also an unspoken rule that the top three scorers in the imperial exams would not be Manchus (who already have much better ways to advance, no need to block all Hans).

The decay of the exam system in China is a perfect example of how religion is not necessary to have an ideology that stifles innovation.

When the exam system was first developed, it was centuries ahead of anything in the West - a mostly impartial, merit-based system of choosing officials.

Over time, however, the *content* of the exams became increasingly standardized and ossified - the so-called "eight legged essay" format, in  which exam-takers were forced to repeat stale thoughts on the Confucian classics in an extremely rigid manner, success at which demonstrated the ability to learn by rote rather than to think independently. Since all that mattered was passing the exams, all teaching effort was put into crafting the perfect essay; teaching of knowledge for its own sake was not prioritized.

The Chinese at the time lamented the stifling effect of this system, but since worldly success depended on mastering it, nothing was done to change it.

Some scholars have made exaggerated claims about the deleterious effect of the exam system on Chinese innovation - I think it was as much a symptom as a cause.

As early as the 17th century, the form's adoption was blamed for the decline of classical poetry and prose during the Ming Dynasty.[citation needed] The critic Wu Qiao wrote that "people exhausted themselves on the eight-legged essay, and poetry was only composed with their spare energy."[citation needed] Writing at the same time, the political theorist and philosopher Huang Zongxi echoed these sentiments.[8][11] Also, the essay did not allow for any personal opinion and was completely impartial.[12] As a result, it led to the gradual narrowing of people's innovative thinking and consequently their minds, thus achieving a constraining effect on Chinese people and the nation.[2] The eight-legged essay has been associated with the "petrification in Chinese literature" and "China's cultural stagnation and economic backwardness."[1][12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay

Well, if the goals were to unite the country and secure the ruling dynasty, then the exam largely achieved its aims before westerners showed up. 

[mongers]

Back on topic with this sobering thought, just 5 days to go before Johnson's coronation as king of all Englanders. 

[Razgovory]

The explanation is not that Christian doctrine was fundamentally different or more lenient. It was that political control and legal jurisdiction in Christian Europe was less organized and more balkanized such that the rules could be more easily evaded.

If it truly was then wouldn't this prohibition be a factor across all Christian denominations? Yet I don't really hear about this outside medieval Catholicism. If it is so essential to Christianity that it is universal Christian doctrine to the point it is a law then please explain that.

What other denominations are you thinking about?  I think the Catholic Church still has a prohibition against Usury.  It doesn't mean much today, but the Church has an extensive legal system, and at one time trained specialized lawyers.  Christianity was very much a legal system.  It sort of fell apart as church weakened and royal power grew.  The first Italian banks were founded during the Western Schism.

[Valmy]

The explanation is not that Christian doctrine was fundamentally different or more lenient. It was that political control and legal jurisdiction in Christian Europe was less organized and more balkanized such that the rules could be more easily evaded.

If it truly was then wouldn't this prohibition be a factor across all Christian denominations? Yet I don't really hear about this outside medieval Catholicism. If it is so essential to Christianity that it is universal Christian doctrine to the point it is a law then please explain that.

What other denominations are you thinking about?

What other denominations, in the hundreds if not thousands that currently exist, use the medieval Catholic canon law? I mean probably some do. Some weird radical Catholic breakaway cult or something.

I think the Catholic Church still has a prohibition against Usury.  It doesn't mean much today,

That is true. But to be frank this prohibition was like most things in that era: an ideal. An ideal that never meant much in practicality.

but the Church has an extensive legal system, and at one time trained specialized lawyers.

True. There is and was canon law.

Christianity was very much a legal system.

I mean yes there was a legal system derived from it but you can derive a legal code from anything.

It sort of fell apart as church weakened and royal power grew.  The first Italian banks were founded during the Western Schism.

Ok but did Christianity fall apart? Did it decline in this era? No. Quite the opposite. If anything religion became a much bigger deal. So if this legal system is inherently Christian and something all Christians share as part of being Christians then surely the legal code should have become stronger as religiosity became more intense, not less.

The point you make about royal power is key. The church primarily did this because of the collapse of secular authority, it was filling a social need and a void. Once secular authority was re-established it faded away.

[The Minsky Moment]

If it truly was then wouldn't this prohibition be a factor across all Christian denominations? Yet I don't really hear about this outside medieval Catholicism. If it is so essential to Christianity that it is universal Christian doctrine to the point it is a law then please explain that.

My understanding is that Luther and Zwingli accepted the existing doctrine; Calvin was more moderate and would permit some interest to be charged on commercial loans if not abusive.
Generally speaking, I don't think mainline Protestantism differed on this issue, but at the same time they left legislation to secular rulers.

Henry VIII did permit lending at interest and set a maximum rate; however, that law was revoked under the staunchly Protestant administration of Edward V when the Duke of Northumberland declared usury to be a vice prohibited by God.  Elizabeth eventually restored the lending law, but this was not so much a change of doctrine as a political and financial expedient.

The principal mechanism of commercial finance in the later medieval and early modern period is discounting bills of exchange, which can be seen as a workaround to prohibitions on interest. Another work around was that forced state loans were viewed as not violating the usury prohibition because it wasn't a voluntary transaction by the lender. Eventually the workaround aspect is dropped and straight lending at interest emerges.  Bills of Exchange existed in the Islamic world (may have originated there) but discounting was not permitted.

Long story short, Christians didn't wake up one day and decide God was OK with interest.  But the extreme pressures of state competition and costs of financing wars led states to issue interest bearing bonds and to provide some encouragement to private finance.  After lending at interest became commonplace, doctrinal views began to shift to reflect the reality on the ground.

[Malthus]

Well, if the goals were to unite the country and secure the ruling dynasty, then the exam largely achieved its aims before westerners showed up.

That's the thesis in a summary: that the overriding goal was social stability and unity - and that things like freedom of thought and expression took a definite second (or third) place. The exams may have started as a way of impartially choosing officials while valuing scholarship, but ended up as a tool for conformity and orthodoxy - with no religious component whatsoever (in this context, "Confucianism" is not a religion, but rather a theory of governance). 

In the West, it isn't like everyone suddenly valued freedom of thought over unity and social stability - far from it! - but rather, that the unity necessary to enforce such conformity and orthodoxy was notable by its absence: instead, what arose was a bunch of nations, each permanently in competition with all the others, and scrambling for every advantage they could find. In such an intensely competitive atmosphere, freedom of thought became more possible; the new technologies of navigation exported European inter-state squabbling all across the world. 

The irony of course is that nations in competition (and armed with increased freedom of thought) resulted in highly accelerated development - eventually spelling all sorts of trouble for everyone else, including the mighty united Manchu empire: united and more or less socially stable - until the European nations came to carve it up into spheres of influence, destroying its unity and stability in the process.   

[Valmy]

Yeah but foreign invasion regularly did that to China. It is kind of funny how it fits so neatly into their cyclic history. Now a new dynasty has power.

[Berkut]

Why is that when it comes to Islamic religious views and how they have influenced policy and behavior, we all seem to have this need to come up with some other reason why some outcome was the result of some non-religious factor? But we are happy to talk about the relative influence of Catholic versus Protestant ideas around usury and how they impact policy and laws, and how those laws an policies then impact actual results in the human condition?

You said earlier that the enlightenment was (to some extent) the result of the Protestant Reformation. We can argue that I suppose (it is certainly an interesting discussion on its own merits), but what I find more interesting is this desire to find a *religious* reason for something that is seen as a positive outcome - but of course the flip side to that coin is that there was a *religious* reason that said Enlightenment (if the argument is correct) did not happen earlier - presumably Catholic suppression of whatever forces the Protestant Reformation unleashed.

I know the flip flip side to my argument is that there are in fact actual Islamophobes who do over-state the horrors and evils of the religion for their own reasons.

But it seems to me that the left has gone full on the other extreme, and there is this reflexive defense of Islamic ideas that in the specific we all recognize as terrible, but we consistently dismiss as having any actual impact on results for the societies that embrace them, both historically and contemporaneously.

Here is what I think:

Ideas matter. They influence behavior, they influence decisions, they influence policy, economics, and societies. They do so in complex, often very difficult to analyse matters, but the *fact* that they do so (even if difficult to measure precisely) is not disputable. Religious ideas specifically do so as well, and what is more, have historically done so in profound ways.

There is nothing magical about religious ideas that make them necessarily bad or good per se. Many religious ideas are excellent, and have excellent influences. Many of them are terrible, and have terrible influences. What does set them apart from non-religious ideas is that they can be incredibly pervasive in that by definition they are often very difficult to change by reason, since their proponents tend to hold them as being outside of reason and rational appeals. This means that once in place, they tend to not change quickly. They are not impervious to reality of course, but it often takes reality making them untenable for them to change, and then they often change grudgingly, slowly, or along with great strife. (As an aside, I will note that religious ideas are not unique in this either - many non-religious ideas have and can be taken with religious fervor and become just as impervious to reason, and often have resulting horrific consequences).

The content and details matter. You cannot generalize that religious ideas are bad or good, because it depends on the idea and the time and context.

That is all the general stuff.

Specifically, in regards to Islam, I think right now, of all the major world religions, it has some of the worst ideas when it comes to advancing human well being, today. Not all Islam, and not all Islamic ideas, of course, but enough of them that it is and should be seen as a specific challenge to liberal ideals, today. And I think the left, in particular, and likely as a response to bigotry and intolerance (and a healthy dose of naval gazing wokeness) has taken on this bizarre attitude that any questioning or noting that Islam today, because of many of their specific ideas that are pretty obviously terrible, can only come from the standpoint of right wing bigotry.

Finally, this results in actually strengthening the very forces it is supposed to be opposing. The unwillingness of political figures on the left to honestly talk about these problems means there is a significant number of people who care about this who are presented with the choice of one side that insists that there is no problem when there is clearly a problem, and another side that exaggerates the problem, but at least is willing to admit it exists. This is, if nothing else, a tactical error on the part of the left.

[Josquius]

I don't get it: the Guardian was trying to steer up a scandal over a 2007 BoJo article where he accused Islam of holding back the Muslim world for centuries, and what an "outrage" this generated.

Surely the guy is terrible enough without trying to crucify him for opinions that might be offending sensibilities but otherwise quite clearly supported by history and reality?

Except they aren't.
The reasons for Europe surpassing the Islamic world have nothing to do with religion

Islamic fundamentalists and their values were absolutely instrumental in ending the golden age of Arab science. I mean yes the Mongols invaded and that was certainly bad but the entire Muslim world was not taken over by the Mongols and in any case that era had already passed by at that point. And they were empowered by the lack of separation of religion and state in the Islamic world. I don't see on what basis one could claim that would have happened otherwise but I am interested to here more substance to your claim here.

Do you not think conservative politically charged religion being the dominant force in society does not have a regressive impact? I guess I never pictured you are this big proponent of religion.

Except reformed Islam is a pretty modern development, particularly as a powerful force. Its important not to ascribe modern wahabist thinking to Ottoman rulers.

Long beyond the Islamic Golden Age the Islamic world remained ahead of Europe.
The reasons for this ceasing to be the case are less to do with the Islamic world falling and more to do with Europe rising.

The reasons for the various Islamic powers to fall behind can't all be neatly summed as "because they're muslim", as they were pretty diverse places. You're looking at a huge difference between the unsustainable economy based on conquest, loss of trading monopolies, family feuds and stagnation of the Ottomans to the collapse in central authority of the Mughals.