Oh, and this whole “well, if so and so didn’t invent “x,” then someone else would have” thing is complete nonsense of the highest order. The point is that someone else did NOT.
The question is not whether the Chinese claim a continuous civilization. The question is whether, if they were to be held up to the same standards as Western nations, (such as Rome, Greece, Britain, or France) would the history books actually corroborate this claim?
What?Like I said, my American high school World History textbook stated explicitly that it was so, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t written by a Chinese guy. And frankly I’m not sure what you mean by “the same standards” as the West. What standards are those exactly? I’ve already told you where can easily find the relevant information. But it seems like you would rather stand here and flaunt your ignorance. Like I said, if you were so intellectually lazy that you are unwilling to read a short, basic, and FREE wiki article, your opinions (and your questions, for that matter) are essentially worthless on this topic.
Oh, and this whole “well, if so and so didn’t invent “x,” then someone else would have” thing is complete nonsense of the highest order. The point is that someone else did NOT.
No. The point is it is nonsense to say that “if so and so didn’t invent X, no one else would have and we’d all still be living in the stone ages”. No one is claiming that the people who invented something shouldn’t get credit for it.
And frankly I’m not sure what you mean by “the same standards” as the West. What standards are those exactly?
Listen, mister calls-me-lazy: I’m not disputing historical facts, so there’s nothing to look up! I’m saying that China just isn’t the same kind of thing as western nations. So I’ll thank you to stop your pointless insults!
There do exist people today in Greece and they are called Greeks but nobody pretends that they’re the exact same civilization that existed thousands of years ago. They’ve conquered, fell, been conquered, changed rulers, changed the form of rule, etc etc. Britain was conquered by Normans, who became their ruling class, and nobody makes claims that this doesn’t count and that it was actually the Normans who were “culturally conquered.”
Your claim - that China has existed continually as a civilization - rests on you defining its civilization differently than you define that of western nations. Because China most certainly has been conquered, has changed names, has changed ruling dynasties, etc. Even the word and concept of “China” is a relatively modern addition. There was Xin China, Han China, three kingdoms China, Mongol China, Ming China, Manchu China, and many others.
I’m not saying that this is invalid , as there is a very real sense in which “China” has been continuous: as a cultural entity, and - for a much smaller amount of time - the part of the state which is the civil service. But what is invalid is to compare it directly to western nations on the basis of longevity. It is too different.
That is my point.
The point is it is nonsense to say that “if so and so didn’t invent X, no one else would have and we’d all still be living in the stone ages”. No one is claiming that the people who invented something shouldn’t get credit for it.
Well, good. But then it’s completely pointless to speculate at all about who would or would not invent what. We can only say who did invent what. Which once again leaves us with the fact: China did not invent a reason-based philosophy.
Furthermore:
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Longest-lasting does not equal best ideas. Longest-lasting primitivism is, if anything, an indictment. Although, again, we have the problem of how to define “China.”
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China did not advance to the modern age - they were advanced to it, at gunpoint, by the West.
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You cannot claim Modern China’s “achievements” under the banner of ancient China.
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Modern China’s “achievements” are not so great. They are hardly a “powerhouse;” they have billions upon billions of people and their GDP is below even the sick old man that is the EU.
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Furthermore, Modern China is still a hostile freaking communist dictatorship (and since you’re from the ROC I can’t fathom why you’re claiming otherwise!) that is a threat to the free world. Its “achievement” is that it makes war - cold and otherwise - on us to this day. That US leadership of the last century has been too spineless and altruistic to crush this threat is not an achievement of the PRC; it is the shame of the USA.
Listen, mister calls-me-lazy: I’m not disputing historical facts, so there’s nothing to look up! I’m saying that China just isn’t the same kind of thing as western nations. So I’ll thank you to stop your pointless insults!
Listen. You asked a question, and I told you where you can find the answer. Then you asked the same “question” again. If you have an opinion, then just go ahead and say it. Don’t frame your accusations behind thinly disguised “suspicions” or questions, then ask other people to “debunk” it.
Your claim - that China has existed continually as a civilization - rests on you defining its civilization differently than you define that of western nations. Because China most certainly has been conquered, has changed names, has changed ruling dynasties, etc. Even the word and concept of “China” is a relatively modern addition. There was Xin China, Han China, three kingdoms China, Mongol China, Ming China, Manchu China, and many others.
I’m not saying that this is invalid , as there is a very real sense in which “China” has been continuous: as a cultural entity, and - for a much smaller amount of time - the part of the state which is the civil service. But what is invalid is to compare it directly to western nations on the basis of longevity. It is too different.
It’s not “my claim” that China is the longest continuous civilization on Earth. It’s an accepted fact among historians. But let me get this straight – so DO YOU or DO YOU NOT consider China a continuous civilization?
Now it is true that there has been dynastic changes. But they are in essence a series of civil wars. In virtually all cases, it is the Chinese fighting other Chinese for the right to rule. The dynasties were in essence a political change, but there is no change in its cultural identity. Now there are two exceptions – the Mongol rule, which lasted for about 90 years, and the Manchurian rule, which lasted for about two centuries. In both cases, an extremely small minority of invader (in terms of numbers) moved into China, then proceeded to adopt Chinese cultures and customs, proclaiming themselves the king of China, set their government up as Chinese institutions, and are rapidly assimilated within one or two generations. The identity of China remained unchanged, the culture of China remained unchanged, the language of China remained unchanged, the title of the Chinese empire remained unchanged, and the people of China were not displaced. So no matter how you look at it, the civilization and the culture remained intact for all intents and purposes. That is, unless you for some reason consider a country a completely different civilization whenever a coup happens.
Now compare this to say, the Egyptians (I’m talking the original Egyptians, not the people that occupy Egypt today) or the Romans. When their empires collapsed, it was gone – both in title and in reality. Their people were dispersed, their culture was scattered or suppressed, and their language (both written and oral) disappeared. The Greeks on the other hand is somewhere in between – their territories were conquered by the Romans, whose culture was in turn conquered by the Greeks (not unlike the Chinese). After the fall of the Roman empire, Greece once again became a major power during the middle ages, until they became a part of the Byzantine Empire (at which point their culture became essentially a Christian one), then part of the Ottoman Empire (ruled by the Ottomans). During this time there were also several Greek migrations where their population was dispersed. So I would hardly call them a continuous civilization, since their were ruled by other, stronger civilizations for long periods, dispersed on and off, and ended up with a Christianity based culture far removed from the Classical Greek culture.
So that’s my personal reasoning why the Greeks civilization should not be considered a continuous one. Now, instead of saying “oh well they are just too different to compare”, why don’t you use your reasoning and think of a more concrete, objective reason why you object to these comparisons?
Well, good. But then it’s completely pointless to speculate at all about who would or would not invent what. We can only say who did invent what. Which once again leaves us with the fact: China did not invent a reason-based philosophy.
Uh huh. And I never disagreed with this point. So?
- Longest-lasting does not equal best ideas. Longest-lasting primitivism is, if anything, an indictment. Although, again, we have the problem of how to define “China.”
Well alright. So if you don’t consider a country that has called itself China, spoke and wrote Chinese, had the same culture and tradition continuously for more or less 5,000 years regardless who the emperor is “China”, how would YOU define “China”?
Because as far as I can tell, you stand alone as someone that has this “problem” regarding definition.
- China did not advance to the modern age - they were advanced to it, at gunpoint, by the West.
Wait, but they DID advance into the modern age, right? I never disputed or even brought up the means with which they did it. That statement is as irrelevant as saying “oh well the Europeans forced each other into the modern age at gun point”.
- You cannot claim Modern China’s “achievements” under the banner of ancient China.
Why not? They are continuous. But we don’t have to, if for whatever unknown reason it really bothers you.
You cannot claim Modern China’s “achievements” under the banner of ancient China.
Modern China’s “achievements” are not so great. They are hardly a “powerhouse;” they have billions upon billions of people and their GDP is below even the sick old man that is the EU.
Furthermore, Modern China is still a hostile freaking communist dictatorship (and since you’re from the ROC I can’t fathom why you’re claiming otherwise!) that is a threat to the free world. Its “achievement” is that it makes war - cold and otherwise - on us to this day. That US leadership of the last century has been too spineless and altruistic to crush this threat is not an achievement of the PRC; it is the shame of the USA.
- Modern China’s “achievements” are not so great. They are hardly a “powerhouse;” they have billions upon billions of people and their GDP is below even the sick old man that is the EU.
Yes their GDP is low on a per capita basis. Is that the only way you know how to measure economic, military, and political power? Because there are many reasons why that is flawed, and perhaps you can think of a few yourself. I don’t really want to get into a discussion on the definition of “power house”, but suffice to say that by many projections, the Chinese economy will likely surpass or equal the United States within our life time. Goldman Sachs for instance projected that China will surpass the US economically as early as 2040. Of course this is far from a scientific fact, so in the meantime we will just wait and see. Personally I am okay with it either way.
And it’s funny that you brought up the EU by the way, considering currently they seem to be having a stronger economy than the United States.
- Furthermore, Modern China is still a hostile freaking communist dictatorship (and since you’re from the ROC I can’t fathom why you’re claiming otherwise!) that is a threat to the free world. Its “achievement” is that it makes war - cold and otherwise - on us to this day. That US leadership of the last century has been too spineless and altruistic to crush this threat is not an achievement of the PRC; it is the shame of the USA.
Yeah I live in Taiwan. So what? I know what China is, and I judge it objectively and based on what I see in reality. For one thing, they are not a dictatorship, although they are a totalitarian state. For another, they are communist in name only, with a thriving capitalistic interior underneath. They are an extremely productive society that forms an integral and inseparable part of the global supply chain. And I would hardly call them hostile to the US – compared to the US-Russia relationship during the cold war I’d even call them down right warm and fuzzy. Yes, they operate in their best interest and are not always cooperative with the United States, but then why should they be? If the United States really want to end this so-called “threat”, our best course is to HELP THEM develop their economy and to inject our ideologies of freedom and capitalism further into their culture.
But let me get this straight – so DO YOU or DO YOU NOT consider China a continuous civilization?
I told you - there is a validity to that claim, but it was not one in the same sense that Western nations are considered.
Now compare this to say, the Egyptians (I’m talking the original Egyptians, not the people that occupy Egypt today) or the Romans. When their empires collapsed, it was gone – both in title and in reality.
Now, for Egypt, you refer to when Islam conquered and gutted it? That was certainly a collapse.
With Rome, you have hundreds of years in which the language and culture continued onwards despite the fragmentation of the Roman state. Their culture did not collapse, it merely moved to different centers which evolved separately. Can you claim that the modern Italian language would not be what Romans would speak had Rome endured? If a culture is to be defined by such inessentials, then you could make the argument that Rome never collapsed.
Of course, it did collapse. But you can blame the Christians for that one.
Anyhow, can you claim that all of China has never gone through such periods? That there was always one, monolithic and unchanging cultural and political entity “China?” The thing is, no history book claims this. The better history books never even use the package-term “China.” They are careful to enumerate which “China” they mean.
The Greeks on the other hand is somewhere in between – their territories were conquered by the Romans, whose culture was in turn conquered by the Greeks (not unlike the Chinese). After the fall of the Roman empire, Greece once again became a major power during the middle ages, until they became a part of the Byzantine Empire (at which point their culture became essentially a Christian one), then part of the Ottoman Empire (ruled by the Ottomans).
(bold added)
I do not believe that is an accurate statement. The Greeks didn’t become a part of the Byzantine Empire after the middle ages. This “Byzantine” thing is just another name for the Eastern Roman Empire, of which the Greeks were a continuous part from its beginning until its collapse.
And the change to a Christian culture was not the result of some “fall” or foreign invasion like in the destruction of Egypt. It was a cultural shift - a self-inflicted and self-generated change. It would be like saying that China was no longer China after the spread of Buddhism. The difference, of course, is that Christianity’s effect was so destructive compared to Buddhism.
The problem with your claims is that they are not specific enough. You use the general term, “civilization.” Well, define that term and stick to one definition. Do you mean the language? Religion? Political entity? A lack of population dispersion?
Now, instead of saying “oh well they are just too different to compare”, why don’t you use your reasoning and think of a more concrete, objective reason why you object to these comparisons?
This is inaccurate. I have given you several concrete reasons alreadyk, even before this post.
Uh huh. And I never disagreed with this point. So?
Oh, yes you did. Here:
If we truly believe that man is rational, there will always be capable, rational men that move those around them towards the right direction. Like I said earlier, if the man that discovered fire hadn’t, someone else would have done so sooner or later (probably sooner, if the need was great enough). We’re rational beings, and that’s what rational beings do.
Here, you make the claim that all advancement is somehow historically inevitable - so long as the “need [is] great enough.” That any achievement is interchangable and no big deal at all.
No.
Mankind’s capacity for the stifling and oppression of rational thought is just as great as his capacity to create it. It is entirely possible for men to stagnate in a frozen culture across countless millennia, living on bare subsistence until the sun exhausts its nuclear fuel.
Well alright. So if you don’t consider a country that has called itself China, spoke and wrote Chinese, had the same culture and tradition continuously for more or less 5,000 years regardless who the emperor is “China”, how would YOU define “China”?
I wouldn’t. Except very loosely. “China” in this usage refers not to a nation but to the collected peoples of that entire part of the world. They were at times (mostly) united under a single political body, and at other times not. They had a language, or to be more accurate a language family, which did by the way greatly change over time - at least as much as Latin changed to the modern Romance languages.
This loose association is actually more of a factor of primitivism than anything else - more akin to Europe’s feudal system before the development of nation-states. I.e. before the nation of Germany developed, there were simply “German people” who shared the basics of language and culture. There was no “Germany” that can trace its existence back thousands of years. This is the sense in which there was a continuous “China.”
Now, apart from this, China had a relatively stable administrative system that survived conquests and regime changes and civil wars - that’s something. But a willingness to swap one dictator for another - or of the various dictators which conquered to not mess with the status quo - is not really something to be all that proud of.
What does this leave? Details like customs, food (?), dress, and the like? But then how is stagnation in these things a virtue?
Listen, the fact is that there is a thing which is “China” that did survive a long time and does continue on, in a certain sense, today. I don’t think it’s a good thing, this “China;” in fact it represents a primordial force of oppression that reaches out from the dark ages of mankind to strangle us.
But, whether you agree with that or not, the point here is that this thing that is “China” is not in any way directly comparable to Western civilizations. In fact, I think the whole idea of comparing civilizations is impossible and doomed to degenerate into rationalistic nonsense.
Wait, but they DID advance into the modern age, right? I never disputed or even brought up the means with which they did it. That statement is as irrelevant as saying “oh well the Europeans forced each other into the modern age at gun point”.
No, they did not “advance” into the modern age. “Advance” implied that they achieved modernity through their own efforts.
Yes their GDP is low on a per capita basis. Is that the only way you know how to measure economic, military, and political power? Because there are many reasons why that is flawed, and perhaps you can think of a few yourself.
Actually, since the modern nation China is not the same thing as Ancient China, the discussion has gone so far off the rails that it’s pointless.
Of course this is far from a scientific fact, so in the meantime we will just wait and see. Personally I am okay with it either way.
Considering that they are hell-bent on conquering and oppressing you and every other citizen of the ROC as one of their most immediate goals in their ambitions for world domination, I really have to wonder why you are “okay” with it.
For another, they are communist in name only, with a thriving capitalistic interior underneath.
That’s a dangerous mistake. There is a name for a system where property is privately owned in name, but everyone still answers absolutely to the total state. It’s called Fascism.
And I would hardly call them hostile to the US – compared to the US-Russia relationship during the cold war I’d even call them down right warm and fuzzy.
That’s nothing but the product of their propaganda. They are currently engaged in a massive military buildup and arms race while trying to put on a diplomatic face and pretend that nothing is happening. (Partly because this is a preferred method of warfare for them and partly because US leadership seems to be so eager to accept such a ruse) The fact is that they have been providing tactical, diplomatic, and material support to many of America’s enemies in a deliberate, generations-long attempt to undermine us and destroy our will to defend ourselves and our allies. If you watch the news closely, you will see a constant stream of espionage, hacker attacks, and development aimed specifically at neutralizing and destroying The US military. The whole thing is very, well, Chinese. No, they don’t have a man who pounds a shoe on a podium and threatens to bury us. That’s not their style. But make no mistake: they do mean to bury us.
With Rome, you have hundreds of years in which the language and culture continued onwards despite the fragmentation of the Roman state. Their culture did not collapse, it merely moved to different centers which evolved separately. Can you claim that the modern Italian language would not be what Romans would speak had Rome endured? If a culture is to be defined by such inessentials, then you could make the argument that Rome never collapsed.
Of course, it did collapse. But you can blame the Christians for that one.
Italian and Latin are clearly different languages. There is no point speculating what Latin would sound like if Rome had survived, but just to humor you, I would guess that it would sound nothing like modern Italian.
And yes, as you’ve admitted yourself, my point was merely the Rome did in fact collapsed. Christianity is but one of the factors. Although on the other hand, Christianity did united and defined what the West was, and still is – arguably even more than philosophy.
Anyhow, can you claim that all of China has never gone through such periods? That there was always one, monolithic and unchanging cultural and political entity “China?” The thing is, no history book claims this. The better history books never even use the package-term “China.” They are careful to enumerate which “China” they mean.
Has China ever gone through what period? Where their country was thoroughly destroyed, their language obsolete, and their culture surviving only as shadows of other cultures? Yeah, I can honestly say China has never gone through that. And when historians refer to the Ching, the Han, the Yuan dynasties, it’s a reference to the time period and the rulership. The country is still called China, the language is still called Chinese.
Mankind’s capacity for the stifling and oppression of rational thought is just as great as his capacity to create it. It is entirely possible for men to stagnate in a frozen culture across countless millennia, living on bare subsistence until the sun exhausts its nuclear fuel.
No, actually that’s not possible. Not if you believe that man is a rational being by nature – which I happen to believe.
I.e. before the nation of Germany developed, there were simply “German people” who shared the basics of language and culture. There was no “Germany” that can trace its existence back thousands of years. This is the sense in which there was a continuous “China.”
Actually the early Germans lived as tribal units, while the Chinese lived in cities with clearly defined territories. They can in fact trace, with a map even, the country “China” back thousands of years.
But, whether you agree with that or not, the point here is that this thing that is “China” is not in any way directly comparable to Western civilizations. In fact, I think the whole idea of comparing civilizations is impossible and doomed to degenerate into rationalistic nonsense.
Right. Because they’re soooo different.
To say that you cannot compare two civilizations because they’re different is utter nonsense. You might as well say you can’t compare a sports car to an SUV because they’re different.
No, they did not “advance” into the modern age. “Advance” implied that they achieved modernity through their own efforts.
Hang on a second. So if China didn’t achieve modernity through their own effort, who did it for them? They saw the superior European science, technology, and economy, so they sent their students out to learn these things and bring it back to China. Then they proceeded to rebuild their country with the things they’ve learned. Sounds like their own effort to me.
Considering that they are hell-bent on conquering and oppressing you and every other citizen of the ROC as one of their most immediate goals in their ambitions for world domination, I really have to wonder why you are “okay” with it.
Once again you are speaking out of ignorance. If China was “hell-bent” on conquering Taiwan, they can do it in about two weeks. Their goal, coming from someone who lives in Taiwan, is to maintain the status quo. They are so inter-connected with Taiwan economically that there really isn’t any incentive to start a war.
And to extrapolate from this into a plan for world domination is frankly laughable.
That’s a dangerous mistake. There is a name for a system where property is privately owned in name, but everyone still answers absolutely to the total state. It’s called Fascism.
Call it what you like. All I know is that every year China grows stronger economically, and with it their freedom, albeit in small steps. Do I think they have the perfect system? No. But I think they are moving in the right direction, and getting better every year.
That’s nothing but the product of their propaganda. They are currently engaged in a massive military buildup and arms race while trying to put on a diplomatic face and pretend that nothing is happening. (Partly because this is a preferred method of warfare for them and partly because US leadership seems to be so eager to accept such a ruse) The fact is that they have been providing tactical, diplomatic, and material support to many of America’s enemies in a deliberate, generations-long attempt to undermine us and destroy our will to defend ourselves and our allies. If you watch the news closely, you will see a constant stream of espionage, hacker attacks, and development aimed specifically at neutralizing and destroying The US military. The whole thing is very, well, Chinese. No, they don’t have a man who pounds a shoe on a podium and threatens to bury us. That’s not their style. But make no mistake: they do mean to bury us.
So a country can’t build up it’s military now? All the things that you’ve described, the United States does, or has done in the past. Rational or not, that is how nations -especially powerful ones- compete for power. Although I’m not sure what they have done in actuality to “destroy” the US military. Maybe you can give me an example. Note that America is not exactly a perfectly rational country either (riddled with Christian ideology and fervid nationalism), although granted much more so than China. The US has already proved that we’re willing to use force without actual provocation, so it seems perfect natural for China to want to defend itself.
Is it actually true that China has had one long, continuous culture throughout its history?
It depends on what you mean by culture (and by civilization). For one thing, the word has two common meanings, (1) “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (AHD), whether for humanity as a whole or for a particular group of people over the generations, and (2) intellectual and artistic achievements of a particular people. The former is the anthropological definition, the latter the intellectual. In both cases, however, there was significant continuity in culture throughout Chinese history. Certainly there was a great deal of change throughout history, but the intellectual and religious basis of the state and the education of the elite remained largely unchanged.
I don’t know if it is just the historians, or the people of the area, but simply calling the dominant culture “Chinese,” even if it is conquered and falls, seems a bit like trying to cheat and claim credit for a thing which doesn’t actually exist.
Here you’re equating a culture and a state. Even when native Chinese dynasties were overthrown by non-Chinese invaders, that certainly doesn’t imply that the culture of the Chinese people simply vanished; the Chinese were far more numerous than semi-nomadic invaders from the steppes. They had some influence on Chinese culture, certainly, particularly on the Chinese of the North China Plain between the Han and Sui dynasties, who adopted certain aspects of Turkic culture (greater independence of women, for example). However, you had rather greater changes in Chinese culture under the native dynasties–the decline of the “big families” starting with the Tang Dynasty, for example, as examination instead of recommendation by current officials was made the dominant form of recruitment.
A bit like how the “Holy Roman Empire” claimed the mantle of the Roman Empire, but was really nothing of the sort. Only on a much larger, and longer, scale.
That’s a pretty lousy comparison, actually. If it’s the one that you implicitly have in mind, however, I can see why you’ve pretty much been calling anyone who’d disagree with you names (revisionists) even before one word of reply had been written to you. The Holy Roman Empire was founded by people of an entirely different ethnicity (Germanic), cultural background (a warrior aristocracy in personal attendance on a king ruling an illiterate people) and language (the Franks) on what had been border Roman provinces and on non-Roman territory, and who established an empire with a quite different political structure and no historical ties to the political traditions they claimed as their own. A better comparison would be of China to the Byzantine Empire, which was the direct continuation of the Roman Empire and saw itself as so. The Holy Roman Empire would compare better to the various states on the border of China that used time-honored Chinese political forms as a pretty gloss for their non-Chinese cultures, languages, and political systems.
I invite any historians to confirm or debunk my suspicions.
That’s a dubious undertaking. Seems to me you’d make for a much more fruitful discussion if you actually made some concrete claims, or at the very least defined what you actually mean by “culture” in the first place, rather than asking people to box with your shadowy suspicions.
Your claim - that China has existed continually as a civilization - rests on you defining its civilization differently than you define that of western nations.
Perhaps, perhaps not. How do you define civilization? How is it different from culture?
Because China most certainly has been conquered, has changed names, has changed ruling dynasties, etc. Even the word and concept of “China” is a relatively modern addition.
Actually, there has been a conception of China since at least the Zhou dynasty; the modern term in Chinese, Zhongguo, has been in use since around the time of Confucius and has referred to China in something like the western sense since the fall of the Han dynasty. Changes in ruling dynasties also don’t mean that there’s a change in culture; in many cases the In any case, the fact of political conquest does not imply that the culture is changed; that’s a separate fact depending on the relative numbers of rulers and ruled and their respective cultural levels. It’s a simple fact that most of the foreign invaders of China who established states that ruled large numbers of Han Chinese quite rapidly assimilated to Chinese culture.
There was Xin China, Han China, three kingdoms China, Mongol China, Ming China, Manchu China, and many others.
First, I assume you mean Qin China; the Xin was a very short-lived dynasty between the two halves of the Han. In any case, there’s little difference in the long view between the Qin, (Former and Latter) Han, and Xin, which were essentially the same state with different ruling houses. Three Kingdoms China was essentially a continuation of the Latter Han Dynasty after its splintering; it’s the period of disunion after that and the reunification of the Sui that presents a real example of major changes in Chinese culture. Second, you neglected the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which predated the Han by a millennium and a half or so, and you also neglected the extremely important Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (581-1279), another significant stretch of time–again, the Sui and Tang were essentially the same state with different ruling houses, and the Song was much like the Tang after a few decades of disunion in culture, though quite a bit smaller in extent.
I’m not saying that this is invalid , as there is a very real sense in which “China” has been continuous: as a cultural entity, and - for a much smaller amount of time - the part of the state which is the civil service. But what is invalid is to compare it directly to western nations on the basis of longevity. It is too different.
I agree, and I’m still eager to know just what your conditions of comparison are.
Now it is true that there has been dynastic changes. But they are in essence a series of civil wars. In virtually all cases, it is the Chinese fighting other Chinese for the right to rule.
In many cases, it was rival states ruled by Han Chinese dynasties fighting to conquer their rivals; in some cases it was a simple coup (the Xin dynasty in 9 AD, for example, or the change of the Western Wei to the Northern Zhou in 557 AD). “Dynasty” is a catch-all term and changes in dynasty subsume a wide variety of vastly different situations, and both you and Inspector are greatly oversimplifying things by taking only one of the different implications of a change of dynasty as the predominant one (though you’re closer to historical usefulness than he is). The changes from Capetian to Valois to Bourbon hardly marked and most certainly did not cause fundamental changes in French culture, for example, and many of Inspector’s examples are just as insignificant in a cultural sense. But there are more of the ones he’s somewhat right about than you allow.
The dynasties were in essence a political change, but there is no change in its cultural identity. Now there are two exceptions – the Mongol rule, which lasted for about 90 years, and the Manchurian rule, which lasted for about two centuries. In both cases, an extremely small minority of invader (in terms of numbers) moved into China, then proceeded to adopt Chinese cultures and customs, proclaiming themselves the king of China, set their government up as Chinese institutions, and are rapidly assimilated within one or two generations.
No, this is wrong. First, there were other non-Han dynasties who ruled great parts of China–the Toba Wei, for example, and the Liao and Jin, all of whom ruled the North China Plain, the traditional home of Chinese culture, for several centuries (though they did not rule Southern China), and had important effects on Chinese culture. Second, the Mongols most certainly did not adopt Chinese culture and customs, even under Khubilai, who at least had some familiarity with Chinese culture. It’s largely true of the Manchus, however.
The identity of China remained unchanged, the culture of China remained unchanged, the language of China remained unchanged, the title of the Chinese empire remained unchanged, and the people of China were not displaced.
To take these in turn:
(1) What do you mean by the “identity” of China?
(2) Chinese culture evolved throughout its history and it was influenced, sometimes a good deal, by non-Chinese cultures, including some of the cultures who ruled parts of China (though probably just as much in the long run by the peopes of South China that the Han Chinese assimilated from the later Zhou dynasty onwards). You want either to argue that the culture of China was not fundamentally changed by foreign rule (and you’d have to define what that means), or that the significant changes in Chinese culture that did occur over history were largely internally driven–changes seeping throughout Chinese culture from native sources in response to internal events. This latter is a more natural view of things, but unless you take some perverse standard of fundamental change for the former, it’s lso quite defensible.
(3) The language of China was not lost, but it most assuredly did change over time just like any other human language. The changes in the spoken language are masked by the uniformity in literary Chinese, which is itself an important factor in the continuity of Chinese culture.
(4) The concept of a unified Chinese state, and for all but the last century and a little more under an emperor having certain common characteristics throughout Chinese history (accession through the Mandate of Heaven, succoring and fathering the people, aided by wise advisors, governing through a bureaucracy based on uniform codified laws, and so on), is common throughout much of Chinese history. However, whenever China was disunited, there was no single name for an empire that itself did not exist in fact.
(5) This is a significant factor in the continuity of Chinese culture–the fact that there were so many Chinese who stayed even in the lands conquered by outsiders, and who saw themselves as a single people at a higher cultural level than their non-Han rulers, holding through generation after generation of highly literate study to the same basic beliefs and view of society and the state as had won out at the end of the Zhou dynasty and codified under the Han.
So no matter how you look at it, the civilization and the culture remained intact for all intents and purposes.
How do you distinguish civilization and culture?
Now compare this to say, the Egyptians (I’m talking the original Egyptians, not the people that occupy Egypt today) or the Romans. When their empires collapsed, it was gone – both in title and in reality.
Bad examples, again because of the wide variety of situations grouped together under a change of dynasty. Some dynastic changes accompanied foreign conquest; others marked the rise of one family and its displacement of the ruling house.
Their people were dispersed, their culture was scattered or suppressed, and their language (both written and oral) disappeared.
Again, I think this is a serious misunderstanding of a great deal of Egyptian history, and is not fully true of Roman culture in Italy or imperial Roman culture in its Greek guise in Byzantium.
Perhaps, perhaps not. How do you define civilization? How is it different from culture?
I’m not the one making a positive claim here. It is my contention that comparing “civilizations” in the way that this thread calls for is basically a fool’s errand.
I agree, and I’m still eager to know just what your conditions of comparison are.
Limited, and in keeping with the context of each individual comparison. Much like you are doing.
Here you’re equating a culture and a state.
Only because he was; and only to show it shouldn’t be done.
Actually, there has been a conception of China since at least the Zhou dynasty
Yes I know; that’s, what, a couple hundred BC? It doesn’t go back the 5,000 years that he claims.
That’s a pretty lousy comparison, actually.
It wasn’t meant as a comparison; only an example of someone claiming the mantle of another civilization in their name.
Seems to me you’d make for a much more fruitful discussion if you actually made some concrete claims, or at the very least defined what you actually mean by “culture” in the first place, rather than asking people to box with your shadowy suspicions.
You’ve got the wrong man, there. I’ve been critical of Moebius’ claims of what merits are to be ascribed to Chinese culture and have sought to point out that he has (knowingly or unwittingly) been switching definitions to suit his needs and using double standards that favor China and denigrate the West. I’m not here to make claims about the “greatest civilization” and it’s not my faulty definition of “culture” that is the problem here.
If it’s the one that you implicitly have in mind, however, I can see why you’ve pretty much been calling anyone who’d disagree with you names (revisionists) even before one word of reply had been written to you.
I haven’t called anyone who “would” disagree with me names. I posited a question, which I thank you for answering. I knew there was something wrong with Moebius’ claims.
I appreciate your answering my questions and bringing some more clarity to this topic.
With Rome, you have hundreds of years in which the language and culture continued onwards despite the fragmentation of the Roman state. Their culture did not collapse, it merely moved to different centers which evolved separately.
So why then do you fail to admit that at the very least the exact same thing is true of Chinese culture? That Roman culture continued for centuries (!) after the fragmentation of the Roman state, but that in some vague, unspecified way the fragmentation of the Chinese state means that Chinese culture must have somehow been severed–and anyone who knows better is probably a revisionist? More than that, Chinese culture was always literate and prized scholarly attainment, particularly in the traditional books that held up a model of state and society that was never lost from Chinese culture even under the Mongols (Confucian scholars were not recruited for rule throughout much of the 90 years of Mongol rule of South China, but they continued to teach students of the younger generations with the same books and methods in the same ideas and ideals, and these students were there to be recruited by the founder of the Ming dynasty). There were local variations in the rest of Chinese culture, but this uniformity in education and outlook prevented the fragmentation of Chinese culture–Chinese scholars drew from the same body of ideas and aimed for pretty much the same social and political ideals. This is quite different from the situation in the former provinces of the Roman Empire.
Can you claim that the modern Italian language would not be what Romans would speak had Rome endured? If a culture is to be defined by such inessentials, then you could make the argument that Rome never collapsed.
Again, I ask you, what do you mean by culture? If language is an inessential part of culture, then what is the essential part of culture? If you restrict it to, say, a body of political and social ideals, then in Chinese culture those social and political ideals were explicitly stated from the time of Confucius, formed the fundamental part of the education of anyone who became literate, and were taken as the basis of legitimacy by every Chinese state. But me, I’d take those as essentially synonymous with civilization, and prefer to use culture to include such things as language.
Anyhow, can you claim that all of China has never gone through such periods? That there was always one, monolithic and unchanging cultural and political entity “China?”
That’s not what I’m claiming; I’ll let Moebius answer for himself.
The thing is, no history book claims this. The better history books never even use the package-term “China.”
Which would these be? What term(s) do they use instead? And do you mean “better” as in standard works for scholars, or do you just mean the ones that you agree with?
They are careful to enumerate which “China” they mean.
They also make clear that there was an ideal view of Chinese society and state that Chinese people aimed for throughout history. The details might have changed, but you can’t understand the dynamics of Chinese history without recognizing this ideal.
The problem with your claims is that they are not specific enough. You use the general term, “civilization.” Well, define that term and stick to one definition.
After you, Alphonse.
“China” in this usage refers not to a nation but to the collected peoples of that entire part of the world.
False–it refers to the culture of a particular people (the Han) of that part of the world. (In the original sense of the word, in fact, it does refer to a nation but not necessarily to a state.) The Chinese state included other peoples, but they were not Han Chinese. They could be assimilated, however, and elements of Chinese culture did spread to other peoples (the Koreans especially, the Japanese, Vietnamese, and others to lesser extents). And the Han Chinese were devoted to a particular model of imperial government that they erected time and again over the millennia.
They were at times (mostly) united under a single political body, and at other times not. They had a language, or to be more accurate a language family, which did by the way greatly change over time - at least as much as Latin changed to the modern Romance languages.
But to be even more accurate, they had a single unified written language that was the basis of education and the common currency of administration regardless of which province an official was stationed in or from whence he came.
This loose association is actually more of a factor of primitivism than anything else - more akin to Europe’s feudal system before the development of nation-states. I.e. before the nation of Germany developed, there were simply “German people” who shared the basics of language and culture.
More precisely, there were simply distinct Germanic peoples (note the plural!). They did not see themselves as one single people who by their common ideals should be unified under a particular type of state that they had all been unified under in the past. The Chinese did. Nor was the structure of Chinese society or the state comparable in any sense more rigorous than Marxist abuse to feudalism after about the Warring States period.
I believe I have made my point on the ancient civs topic. As to the rest:
No, actually that’s not possible. Not if you believe that man is a rational being by nature – which I happen to believe.
That’s nice. However, I will remind you this is a discussion board for Objectivism, which holds that such a thing most certainly is possible, and if you wish to debate that point you should start a thread in the debate forums. What you should not do is advocate anti-Objectivist positions which are based on this anti-Objectivist premise.
Once again you are speaking out of ignorance. If China was “hell-bent” on conquering Taiwan, they can do it in about two weeks.
First, in order to conquer Taiwan, they would have to actually cross a little bit of water, and Taiwan does have the defense capability to have a chance at stopping them from doing that. So, no, that statement is not accurate at all.
And to extrapolate from this into a plan for world domination is frankly laughable.
I’m not extrapolating merely from that, so laugh all you like but it won’t be at me.
So a country can’t build up it’s military now? All the things that you’ve described, the United States does, or has done in the past. Rational or not, that is how nations -especially powerful ones- compete for power.
Here comes the whole moral-equivalence-between-nations drek that is taught in every hive of the Left… If you don’t see the difference between a free state building its military and a Communist state doing so, then you have deeper issues than I’m willing to get into here.
I’ll just point out that the technologies, tactics, and other military developments that China is pushing for are very obviously directed at defeating a specific enemy: the US Military. A short list (by no means exhaustive) of examples includes: hacker attacks against the pentagon, stealing nuclear secrets, squall hypercavitating torpedoes designed to bypass anti-ballistic missile measure, and anti-satellite weapons. These are all systems designed to attack United States technology.
In the short run, this is because we do play a major role in thwarting their invasion plans for Taiwan. But in the long run, their goals are quite a bit more ambitious. They play in the long-term - far longer than our range-of-the-moment political leaders are capable of thinking within - and they play for keeps.
I’m not the one making a positive claim here. It is my contention that comparing “civilizations” in the way that this thread calls for is basically a fool’s errand.
In that case I agree with you.
Yes I know; that’s, what, a couple hundred BC? It doesn’t go back the 5,000 years that he claims.
No, the 5,000 years is a traditional exaggeration, but the Zhou dynasty was traditionally founded about 1122 BC; judging from the archeological record (which is partly historical, since an important part of its archeology consists of bronze sacrificial implements given as rewards for service by the Zhou emperors that contain inscriptions), this is probably quite close to the actual figure. (But the Zhou emperors only reigned and did not really rule after about 771 BC, which was the beginning of the period of Chinese history that really can be fruitfully compared to European feudalism–but even then it was a system of feudal rulers, many related distantly to the Zhou imperial house, competing for the most part within a mutually understood political system and culture. This culture evolved over time, of course, especially after the aristocracy essentially killed and enslaved itself in centuries of wars–whenever a state was conquered, its ruler and his nobles would usually be enslaved. This made the way for scholars of common stock to come into political influence; this was Confucius’s background and influenced his thought.) The earlier Shang dynasty is much sketchier, and very little can be said about it.
So why then do you fail to admit that at the very least the exact same thing is true of Chinese culture?
I’m not failing to admit this. I’m saying that he applies the one, looser, standard to China and the other, stricter standard to the West. As I said, there is a sense in which China existed continuously: the sense in which you talk about it, and not the sense he does. You’re only proving my point.
Again, I ask you, what do you mean by culture?
Again, ask him. He is the one that is making these claims. I’ve simply been noting the contradictory nature of his claims, and you have somehow confused this with me claiming those same contradictory things.
That’s not what I’m claiming; I’ll let Moebius answer for himself.
Yes, let’s do.
Which would these be? What term(s) do they use instead?
They talk like you and not like him. They use the term “China” specifically and not colloquially.
They also make clear that there was an ideal view of Chinese society and state that Chinese people aimed for throughout history.
Well, since its inception, anyhow.
False–it refers to the culture of a particular people (the Han) of that part of the world. (In the original sense of the word, in fact, it does refer to a nation but not necessarily to a state.)
When you use it, yes. But when he uses it, it refers to whatever is most convenient for what he is arguing for.
But to be even more accurate, they had a single unified written language that was the basis of education and the common currency of administration regardless of which province an official was stationed in or from whence he came.
Yes, the written language was unified. I don’t dispute that.
More precisely, there were simply distinct Germanic peoples (note the plural!). They did not see themselves as one single people who by their common ideals should be unified under a particular type of state that they had all been unified under in the past. The Chinese did.
Yes, thousands of years after he starts granting credit to “Chinese civilization.”
Nor was the structure of Chinese society or the state comparable in any sense more rigorous than Marxist abuse to feudalism after about the Warring States period.
Yes… after the warring states period, which is precisely my point. His claims reach much further back than that.I’m not disagreeing with you here, Adrian.
No, the 5,000 years is a traditional exaggeration, but the Zhou dynasty was traditionally founded about 1122 BC; <snip>
That’s some good info right there. I appreciate your presence in and contributions to this thread.
Wow. There’s a lot to respond to. Let me just say that I’m done with the discussion with Inspector because I am sick of his continuous evasion of questions posed to him. The only thing I “claimed” was that China was the longest continuous civilization – a claim corroborated by most historians. There is no such thing as a “double standard” that I apply to the West (quite a broad term, considering we were discussing specific civilizations), given that I didn’t even brought up these other civilizations until Inspector brought it up.
So, Inspector, stop pinning your own inconsistent arguments on me.
Now,
“Dynasty” is a catch-all term and changes in dynasty subsume a wide variety of vastly different situations, and both you and Inspector are greatly oversimplifying things by taking only one of the different implications of a change of dynasty as the predominant one (though you’re closer to historical usefulness than he is).
This is true. I glossed over many things. I was trying (and failed) to keep things short. It was obvious that Inspector only posed his “question” so that he would not have to take responsibility for his veiled accusations, and I did not want to provide a history lesson.
No, this is wrong. First, there were other non-Han dynasties who ruled great parts of China–the Toba Wei, for example, and the Liao and Jin, all of whom ruled the North China Plain, the traditional home of Chinese culture, for several centuries (though they did not rule Southern China), and had important effects on Chinese culture. Second, the Mongols most certainly did not adopt Chinese culture and customs, even under Khubilai, who at least had some familiarity with Chinese culture. It’s largely true of the Manchus, however.
Khublai Kahn was really the last legitimate Kahn from the Mongolian empire. His successors essentially thought of themselves as the Emperor of China. And while the Mongol government did at first imposed harsh segregation laws in an attempt to distance themselves form the Chinese identity, the Mongols became progressively more Chinese. By the time Renzong became the fourth Emperor of Yuan he had actively adopted mainstream Chinese culture and made a series of reforms caused by the incompetencies of his predecessors. Khublai Kahn’s successors became so thoroughly sinicized in fact that they had eventually lost all influence among Mongols beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the Mongol empire later splintered into numerous small Kahnates.
So I think it’s fair to say that the original Mongol invaders eventually became thoroughly assimilated into the Chinese culture. It did not of course happen overnight.
(1) What do you mean by the “identity” of China?
(2) Chinese culture evolved throughout its history and it was influenced, sometimes a good deal, by non-Chinese cultures, including some of the cultures who ruled parts of China (though probably just as much in the long run by the peopes of South China that the Han Chinese assimilated from the later Zhou dynasty onwards). You want either to argue that the culture of China was not fundamentally changed by foreign rule (and you’d have to define what that means), or that the significant changes in Chinese culture that did occur over history were largely internally driven–changes seeping throughout Chinese culture from native sources in response to internal events. This latter is a more natural view of things, but unless you take some perverse standard of fundamental change for the former, it’s lso quite defensible.
(3) The language of China was not lost, but it most assuredly did change over time just like any other human language. The changes in the spoken language are masked by the uniformity in literary Chinese, which is itself an important factor in the continuity of Chinese culture.
(4) The concept of a unified Chinese state, and for all but the last century and a little more under an emperor having certain common characteristics throughout Chinese history (accession through the Mandate of Heaven, succoring and fathering the people, aided by wise advisors, governing through a bureaucracy based on uniform codified laws, and so on), is common throughout much of Chinese history. However, whenever China was disunited, there was no single name for an empire that itself did not exist in fact.
(5) This is a significant factor in the continuity of Chinese culture–the fact that there were so many Chinese who stayed even in the lands conquered by outsiders, and who saw themselves as a single people at a higher cultural level than their non-Han rulers, holding through generation after generation of highly literate study to the same basic beliefs and view of society and the state as had won out at the end of the Zhou dynasty and codified under the Han.
How do you distinguish civilization and culture?
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By “identity of China”, I meant that the Middle Kingdom was viewed both internally and externally as essentially Chinese (Han in particular), and that all of its core cultures remained intact.
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The later. There are definitely many foreign cultures that penetrated China, and my view is that in all cases the Chinese internalized and sinicized it. An example that illustrates my view is Buddhism, which originally came from India, but was thoroughly sinicized by the Chinese. This is of course not a situation unique to the Chinese, since virtually all dominant cultures do this, from Rome to the United States. China is simply the oldest.
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This isn’t actually a question, but I agree. The fact that the written Chinese, passed down in the form of classical books and scrolls, played an extremely important role in the cultural continuity of the Chinese.
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This I agree also. During periods of disunity, the Empire was carved into various smaller states. Most of these states though nevertheless consist of Han Chinese that used the same language and practiced the same values. Furthermore, these sort of situations are generally short-lived, and ruled with the goal of reuniting the “Middle Kingdom” territory. The Three Kingdom period illustrates this point, where each major power claiming their rightful succession (or had set up their own successor) to the Empire.
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I don’t think there is a hard distinction between the term “civilization” and the term “culture”. In many cases they are synonomous and used interchangeably. If you must make a distinction, then I would say that a culture is the sum total of shared traditions, practices, language, arts, and core values, whereas a civilization is the sum expression of the said culture.
I’m done with the discussion with Inspector because I am sick of his continuous evasion of questions posed to him. The only thing I “claimed” was that China was the longest continuous civilization – a claim corroborated by most historians.
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I have not engaged in evasion, and it is dishonest of him to claim that I have.
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It is ludicrous for him to say - after all of the things he has said in this thread - that the only thing he has claimed is that China was the longest continuous civilization.
- I have not engaged in evasion, and it is dishonest of him to claim that I have.
Then answer the questions posed to you, instead of hiding behind the “oh but I am just responding to what he was saying”, especially when what I said had said had nothing to do with those simple questions.
- It is ludicrous for him to say - after all of the things he has said in this thread - that the only thing he has claimed is that China was the longest continuous civilization.
You are responding to my “claim” that China is the oldest continuous civilization, are you not? In the context of this particular tangent of our discussion, that was all I said – from which you accused me of utilizing a double standard, and of denigrating the West.
You have got to be kidding me. I am sick of your BS, and refuse to respond to you any further.
Then answer the questions posed to you, instead of hiding behind the “oh but I am just responding to what he was saying”, especially when what I said had said had nothing to do with those simple questions.
There is no such lack of response. I am not “hiding” behind anything; all of my responses are facts, including where I have shown that I was using a reducto ad absurdum on Moebius.
You have got to be kidding me. I am sick of your BS, and refuse to respond to you any further.
I have no BS. You, however, are right full of it and the same refusal is extended to you.
Again, ask him. He is the one that is making these claims. I’ve simply been noting the contradictory nature of his claims, and you have somehow confused this with me claiming those same contradictory things.
Since that’s what you were doing, never mind then; it was frustrating as all get-out trying to figure out what definition you were using of culture.
Since that’s what you were doing, never mind then; it was frustrating as all get-out trying to figure out what definition you were using of culture.
Sorry for any confusion. Again, I’m glad you weighed in.