# North America and Europe going to be like the fall of the Roman Empires? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333 "2015-02-10T21:30:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/41 "2015-02-12T21:33:32Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The Roman state never had any interest in science and education. It was all private. I’m not aware they were much in debt either. Who would they have borrowed \*from \*? They were at war with any and everyone rich enough to lend… Their economy eventually tanked due to its over-reliance on slave labour and plunder. I think the former got solved in the US relatively recently, but y’all might look into bringing back plunder actually - since you seem so eager to fight all of the wars all of the time… People in Roman where educated and knowledge of human body and science. After was middle ages where the church was norm and major player. And lost knowledge a lack of interest in science,invention and technology. It was not to the renaissance that people got interest in science,invention and technology. The roman empire was lot more advance than middle ages having running water, sewage system,large drinking fountains. And emphases on being clean. All that was lost. Just look at some of the inventions. Roman inventions -Aqueducts -Concrete -Newspapers -Welfare -Bound Books -Roads -Roman Arches -The Julian Calendar -The Twelve Tables and the Corpus Juris Civilis -Battlefield Surgery > **[10 Innovations That Built Ancient Rome | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/10-innovations-that-built-ancient-rome)** > > The Romans were prodigious builders and expert civil engineers, and their thriving civilization produced advances in technology, culture and architecture that remained unequaled for centuries. And Romans had tools, painkillers,surgeons,catheters, scalpels and forceps, and hospitals. > [@](#): > > **hey used to sterilize their equipment in boiling water before usage.** > [@](#): > > Surgical procedures were performed using opium and scopolamine as painkillers, and acid vinegar (acetum) to clean up wounds. Roman doctors learned lots about the human body. > [@](#): > > They promoted facilities for personal hygiene in a big way by building public baths, toilets and sewage systems. Although their focus was on maintaining a motivated and healthy army, their citizens also benefited. > > Public baths - there were nine public baths in Rome alone. Each one had pools of varying temperatures. Some of them had gyms and massage rooms. Government inspectors enforced high hygiene standards vigorously. > > Hospitals - hospitals started in Ancient Rome. The first ones were built to treat soldiers and veterans. [http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/medicine/ancient-roman-medicine.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/medicine/ancient-roman-medicine.php) All this got lost to the renaissance. Well I don’t think North America and Europe today are going to lose knowledge they just declining to point soon most new knowledge, new science,new technology and new inventions will come out of Asia than North America and Europe. And China is really getting into this now. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/42 "2015-02-12T21:41:12Z")
You are equating engineering skill with education (and general education at that…I’d hazard a guess that Kobal2 is as well aware of Romes engineering abilities as anyone in this thread, and that’s not what the point was). Also, your assertion that all, most or even a good percentage of scientific breakthroughs are coming out of ‘Asia’ a.k.a. China (which is what you are implying) is just ridiculous. I’d ask for a cite to back up what you are asserting, but really what would be the point? You’ve shown in this thread that you really don’t know much about the subject and are impervious to people trying to educate you on the various aspects of the ‘debate’. The US and Europe aren’t going to fall like Rome, we aren’t falling behind, and it’s not a zero sum game. That pretty much summarizes things. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/43 "2015-02-12T21:55:18Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > There is a weird phenomenon on sports-related message boards where a handful of coaches and players are adulated as being “great” and everybody else “sucks.” Which obviously isn’t true and it’s also not true that not being the “Number One” country in the world means that the country sucks. > > We will always thrive if we make ourselves a place that others want to be like or move to. Having the biggest military or the biggest economy doesn’t really define that. China gone through same thing ups and downs in history similar to Europe. And doing Ancient times put emphases on Inventions. Some China Inventions. Writing compass Movable Sails & Rudder Coal & Iron Refining Great Wall Porcelain Canals & Locks Roads & Relay Hostels Gunpowder Mechanical Clock Smallpox Inoculation Abacus Spinning Wheel Movable Type Paper Money [http://www.vhinkle.com/china/inventions.html](http://www.vhinkle.com/china/inventions.html) Silk Tea Porcelain Paper Printing [http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/readings/inventions\_ques.htm](http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/readings/inventions_ques.htm) If China never had dynastic and open its borders up, and not being so isolated in the world China would be ahead of US and UK by now than 2050 time line. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/44 "2015-02-12T21:56:30Z")
[http://fareedzakaria.com/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the-rest/](http://fareedzakaria.com/2008/05/12/the-rise-of-the-rest/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/45 "2015-02-12T22:00:00Z")
And as recently as 2001, Gordon Chang was predicting [_The Coming Collapse of China._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Collapse_of_China) ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/46 "2015-02-12T22:27:29Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Why is it inherently better for North American and Europe to be dominant globally? Uhh… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/47 "2015-02-12T22:37:51Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Uhh… Is that a “What a stupid question!” Uhh… or a “You know, that never occurred to me before!” Uhh…? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/48 "2015-02-12T22:45:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is that a “What a stupid question!” Uhh… or a “You know, that never occurred to me before!” Uhh…? Uhh… ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/49 "2015-02-13T00:31:41Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > China gone through same thing ups and downs in history similar to Europe. > > If China never had dynastic and open its borders up, and not being so isolated in the world China would be ahead of US and UK by now than 2050 time line. Isolationism a.) has been exaggerated for China relative to the overall scope of its history and b.) was probably not intrinsic to its relative collapse in the 19th century. Severe imbalance of trade ( very largely driven by opium, which was not a domestic crop when the trade started ), ossification of a formally vigorous civil administration, a population explosion that placed huge strains on said administration, unequal and ill-structured attempts at modernization and the massive civil strife that stemmed in part from the above issues all served to cripple China at a critical juncture in world history. A certain degree of political isolationism on behalf of the late ( but not really early ) Ming and late ( but not really early ) Qing certainly may have exacerbated some problems. But it probably was not the ultimate source of most of China’s structural issues. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/50 "2015-02-13T00:42:12Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > People in Roman where educated and knowledge of human body and science. Um, no. Like, hell no. Only (some) aristocrats did, and only because they had copious free time to fuck around thanks to all of the work and agriculture being done by a solid mass of slaves. But the mob of Rome was just as uneducated and illiterate as that of the Middle Ages. > [@](#): > > After was middle ages where the church was norm and major player. And lost knowledge a lack of interest in science,invention and technology. It was not to the renaissance that people got interest in science,invention and technology. Wrong. Wrong wrong. Wrong wrong wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. Like, _so_ wrong. It’s, for example, in the Renaissance that people started asserting that the Earth was flat and the center of the Universe - scholars of the Middle Ages, much like the Greek math wizes before them, knew full well it was sort of round-ish. The witch burnings, the condemnation of science and scientists, the forbidding of anatomical dissections… all of that is from the Renaissance or later - it only got attributed to the Middle Ages because people from the 17th century, who saw the Church having become very influential and very repressive (in large part due to the happenings of the Protestant Reformation), and megalomaniacally seeing themselves as the only social force opposing it, assumed things were even \*worse \*in the year 1000. Without bothering to, yanno, check. It’s a fundamental misreading of history, and historical fact. Or, if you prefer, bullshit. > [@](#): > > The roman empire was lot more advance than middle ages having running water, sewage system,large drinking fountains. > > And emphases on being clean. All that was lost. Again, WRONG. The \*Renaissance \*was dirty as hell, thanks to a spreading notion that it was cleanliness that caused the big epidemics of plague, typhus and cholera that happened around the 15th. The body, absent a protective of grime and shit, was ill-equipped against ill humours and noxious gases you see. Ancient and Medieval Frankish culture on the other hand was very much into bathing and cleanliness, as were the Vikings. Nor were the Romans particularly focused on hygiene - they just loved their hot baths, because… well, have you ever taken a hot bath ? It’s niiiice :). As for Roman sewage, yeah, maybe, kind of. In (some) major cities. But a) that’s not everywhere in the Roman Empire and b) the early Middle Ages saw the devolution of cities for a variety of factors. No huge cities, no need for complex sewage systems. > [@](#): > > Just look at some of the inventions. > > Roman inventions > > -Aqueducts > -Concrete > -Newspapers > -Welfare > -Bound Books > -Roads > -Roman Arches > -The Julian Calendar > -The Twelve Tables and the Corpus Juris Civilis > -Battlefield Surgery Romans didn’t have newspapers or bound books, arches were well understood (and in fact improved upon) in the Middle Ages, metallurgy improved, agricultural techniques improved, boats improved… There was \*some \*technological lossage in the wake of the fall of Rome, but the Middle Ages were not static in that regards, not by a long shot. And once you move south or east of the Mediterranean into the Muslim world, oh boy. Did they ever leave the Romans in the dust. > [@](#): > > And Romans had tools, painkillers,surgeons,catheters, scalpels and forceps, and hospitals. Hospitals are for the most part a medieval invention, copied from the Muslim \*bimaristans \*during the early Crusades, and were religious charity projects of the church you seem to loathe so. That’s why they’re all called “Hospital Saint Something” or “Hospital of the Sacred Whatever”. As far as Roman ones go, their construction spread somewhat after the Council of Nicaea in 325. The first major one is mentioned in the Justinian Code… in 529. So, \*still after \*the Christian shift, still linked to religion, and closer to the so-called Fall of the Roman Empire than to its roots. And they weren’t really hospitals anyway - more like public safety quarantine zones, to lock up lepers and other contagious folks to die. TL;DR : wrong _again_. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/51 "2015-02-13T00:51:26Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Severe imbalance of trade ( very largely driven by opium, which was not a domestic crop when the trade started ), ossification of a formally vigorous civil administration, a population explosion that placed huge strains on said administration, unequal and ill-structured attempts at modernization and the massive civil strife that stemmed in part from the above issues all served to cripple China at a critical juncture in world history. Also, perhaps . . . it was crippled by just not **wanting** industrial progress all that much, because the Chinese liked what they had and saw no need for change. From Bertrand Russell’s [_The Problem of China_](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13940/13940-h/13940-h.htm#CHAPTER_I) (1922): > [@](#): > > . . . Our industrial and commercial civilization has been both the effect and the cause of certain more or less unconscious beliefs as to what is worth while; in China one becomes conscious of these beliefs through the spectacle of a society which challenges them by being built, just as unconsciously, upon a different standard of values. Progress and efficiency, for example, make no appeal to the Chinese, except to those who have come under Western influence. By valuing progress and efficiency, we have secured power and wealth; by ignoring them, the Chinese, until we brought disturbance, secured on the whole a peaceable existence and a life full of enjoyment. It is difficult to compare these opposite achievements unless we have some standard of values in our minds; and unless it is a more or less conscious standard, we shall undervalue the less familiar civilization, because evils to which we are not accustomed always make a stronger impression than those that we have learned to take as a matter of course. > > \ > > One of the most remarkable things about the Chinese is their power of securing the affection of foreigners. Almost all Europeans like China, both those who come only as tourists and those who live there for many years. In spite of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, I can recall hardly a single Englishman in the Far East who liked the Japanese as well as the Chinese. Those who have lived long among them tend to acquire their outlook and their standards. New arrivals are struck by obvious evils: the beggars, the terrible poverty, the prevalence of disease, the anarchy and corruption in politics. Every energetic Westerner feels at first a strong desire to reform these evils, and of course they ought to be reformed. > > But the Chinese, even those who are the victims of preventable misfortunes, show a vast passive indifference to the excitement of the foreigners; they wait for it to go off, like the effervescence of soda-water. And gradually strange hesitations creep into the mind of the bewildered traveller; after a period of indignation, he begins to doubt all the maxims he has hitherto accepted without question. Is it really wise to be always guarding against future misfortune? Is it prudent to lose all enjoyment of the present through thinking of the disasters that may come at some future date? Should our lives be passed in building a mansion that we shall never have leisure to inhabit? > > The Chinese answer these questions in the negative, and therefore have to put up with poverty, disease, and anarchy. But, to compensate for these evils, they have retained, as industrial nations have not, the capacity for civilized enjoyment, for leisure and laughter, for pleasure in sunshine and philosophical discourse. The Chinese, of all classes, are more laughter-loving than any other race with which I am acquainted; they find amusement in everything, and a dispute can always be softened by a joke. > > I remember one hot day when a party of us were crossing the hills in chairs—the way was rough and very steep, the work for the coolies very severe. At the highest point of our journey, we stopped for ten minutes to let the men rest. Instantly they all sat in a row, brought out their pipes, and began to laugh among themselves as if they had not a care in the world. In any country that had learned the virtue of forethought, they would have devoted the moments to complaining of the heat, in order to increase their tip. We, being Europeans, spent the time worrying whether the automobile would be waiting for us at the right place. Well-to-do Chinese would have started a discussion as to whether the universe moves in cycles or progresses by a rectilinear motion; or they might have set to work to consider whether the truly virtuous man shows complete self-abnegation, or may, on occasion, consider his own interest. > > One comes across white men occasionally who suffer under the delusion that China is not a civilized country. Such men have quite forgotten what constitutes civilization. It is true that there are no trams in Peking, and that the electric light is poor. It is true that there are places full of beauty, which Europeans itch to make hideous by digging up coal. It is true that the educated Chinaman is better at writing poetry than at remembering the sort of facts which can be looked up in Whitaker’s Almanac. A European, in recommending a place of residence, will tell you that it has a good train service; the best quality he can conceive in any place is that it should be easy to get away from. But a Chinaman will tell you nothing about the trains; if you ask, he will tell you wrong. What he tells you is that there is a palace built by an ancient emperor, and a retreat in a lake for scholars weary of the world, founded by a famous poet of the Tang dynasty. It is this outlook that strikes the Westerner as barbaric. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/52 "2015-02-13T04:30:00Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > If China never had dynastic and open its borders up, and not being so isolated in the world China would be ahead of US and UK by now than 2050 time line. But ending isolation did wonders for Japan. So what do you do with that? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/53 "2015-02-13T04:35:03Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > arches were well understood (and in fact improved upon) in the Middle Ages Apparently sweat209 hasn’t heard of Notre-Dame de Paris. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/54 "2015-02-13T06:42:17Z")
Let’s also remember that the US has little in the way of ethnic tensions. At least in terms of people who are virtually identical fighting each other. There are no Catholics fighting Protestants here. A black-white race war is innnncredibly unlikely. There will continue to be incidents where Muslims are targeted, but there will not be out and out riots as seen in France …I THINK. I grant that the chance a mob of non-Muslims looking for Muslims to beat and pull out of their temples is non-zero. But frankly the kind of thing seen in an X-Men comic\* seems very unlikely to me and would be incredibly condemned afterwards. The Government would break its back bending over trying to bring to justice those perps. \*Sorry for the silly, insensitive example. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/55 "2015-02-13T12:59:09Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Apparently sweat209 hasn’t heard of Notre-Dame de Paris. Earlier example, [Merovingian cathedrals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_art). Note arches, domes, spires… It’s not like Roman and Gallo-Roman architects all suddenly imploded :), and Vitruvius’ treaty was like a Bible to these guys (much like _De Re Militari_ would be the general’s primer all the way to the contemporary ere). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/56 "2015-02-13T16:10:46Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > But ending isolation did wonders for Japan. So what do you do with that? Different culture. The Japanese have always had a national genius for borrowing things from foreign cultures and, in the process, changing them and making them distinctly Japanese. They learned writing from the Chinese, and they simplified the characters. They learned deep-frying from the Portuguese, and they invented tempura. But the Chinese historically believed, and maintained as official state doctrine for centuries, that they had nothing of value to learn from barbarians. And for most of their history it was largely true – all their neighbors were primitive by comparison, or else civilized in slavish imitation of China. It became false when the Europeans arrived. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/57 "2015-02-13T16:15:45Z")
Again, from Russell’s _The Problem of China:_ > [@](#): > > In the year 1793, a British ambassador, Lord Macartney, arrived in China, to request further trade facilities and the establishment of a permanent British diplomatic representative. The Emperor at this time was Chien Lung, the best of the Manchu dynasty, a cultivated man, a patron of the arts, and an exquisite calligraphist. (One finds specimens of his writing in all sorts of places in China.) His reply to King George III is given by Backhouse and Bland.[25] I wish I could quote it all, but some extracts must suffice. It begins: > > > [@](#): > > > > You, O King, live beyond the confines of many seas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have despatched a mission respectfully bearing your memorial… To show your devotion, you have also sent offerings of your country’s produce. I have read your memorial: the earnest terms in which it is cast reveal a respectful humility on your part, which is highly praiseworthy. > > He goes on to explain, with the patient manner appropriate in dealing with an importunate child, why George III’s desires cannot possibly be gratified. An ambassador, he assures him, would be useless, for: > > > [@](#): > > > > If you assert that your reverence for our Celestial Dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilization, our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilization, you could not possibly transplant our manners and customs to your alien soil. Therefore, however adept the Envoy might become, nothing would be gained thereby. > > > > Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State; strange and costly objects do not interest me. I … have no use for your country’s manufactures. …It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter. > > He can understand the English desiring the produce of China, but feels that they have nothing worth having to offer in exchange: > > “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves,” the limited trade hitherto permitted at Canton is to continue. > > He would have shown less favour to Lord Macartney, but “I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire.” He concludes with the injunction: “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!” > > What I want to suggest is that no one understands China until this document has ceased to seem absurd. The Romans claimed to rule the world, and what lay outside their Empire was to them of no account. The Empire of Chien Lung was more extensive, with probably a larger population; it had risen to greatness at the same time as Rome, and had not fallen, but invariably defeated all its enemies, either by war or by absorption. Its neighbours were comparatively barbarous, except the Japanese, who acquired their civilization by slavish imitation of China. The view of Chien Lung was no more absurd than that of Alexander the Great, sighing for new worlds to conquer when he had never even heard of China, where Confucius had been dead already for a hundred and fifty years. Nor was he mistaken as regards trade: China produces everything needed for the happiness of its inhabitants, and we have forced trade upon them solely for our benefit, giving them in exchange only things which they would do better without. > > Unfortunately for China, its culture was deficient in one respect, namely science. In art and literature, in manners and customs, it was at least the equal of Europe; at the time of the Renaissance, Europe would not have been in any way the superior of the Celestial Empire. There is a museum in Peking where, side by side with good Chinese art, may be seen the presents which Louis XIV made to the Emperor when he wished to impress him with the splendour of Le Roi Soleil. Compared to the Chinese things surrounding them, they were tawdry and barbaric. The fact that Britain has produced Shakespeare and Milton, Locke and Hume, and all the other men who have adorned literature and the arts, does not make us superior to the Chinese. What makes us superior is Newton and Robert Boyle and their scientific successors. They make us superior by giving us greater proficiency in the art of killing. It is easier for an Englishman to kill a Chinaman than for a Chinaman to kill an Englishman. Therefore our civilization is superior to that of China, and Chien Lung is absurd. When we had finished with Napoleon, we soon set to work to demonstrate this proposition. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/58 "2015-02-13T17:45:38Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Different culture. The Japanese have always had a national genius for borrowing things from foreign cultures and, in the process, changing them and making them distinctly Japanese. I don’t disagree but the lesson there is that every culture responds differently. Trying to make parallels between the US and Rome and then extrapolate a common conclusion is so tenuous as to be pointless. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/59 "2015-02-13T19:06:22Z")
> [@XT](#): > > The US and Europe aren’t going to fall like Rome, we aren’t falling behind, and it’s not a zero sum game. That pretty much summarizes things. Beyond that, this is just a variant of the old inferiorist “Country X works harder/invents more/saves more/has school on Saturdays/has more tanks/has more missiles/has better missiles, etc…” contention that I’ve been hearing since sometime in the early 1980s. It’s a cousin to the “Europeans are SOOO civilized and we’re SOOO barbaric” statements that every knuckleheaded college kid comes back after a summer in Europe with. First it was the Soviet menace and how their military was as well equipped as ours, and was SO much larger, that we were doomed. Simultaneously it was the Japanese and their manufacturing prowess being poised to crush ours. In reality, neither the Soviets nor Japanese amounted to squat. Now it’s the Chinese on the economic, military and innovation fronts… and the argument is as equally flawed for them as it is was for the Soviets and Japanese. If I had to guess, it’ll be that the Chinese military is never a real threat, and that the real innovative stuff will come from elsewhere, while the Chinese will end up following the same exact path that other countries have- they’ll eventually develop a middle class who’ll demand worker protections and higher pay, and they’ll quit being so competitive, and they’ll have a few sectors they’ll dominate due to some sort of competitive advantage, while the less sophisticated manufacturing will move somewhere that requires cheap labor more than expertise. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333/60 "2015-02-25T04:14:55Z")
Well, at any rate, [China does appear to be a rising power](http://www.salon.com/2015/02/24/the_21st_century_belongs_to_china_why_the_new_silk_road_threatens_to_end_americas_economic_dominance_partner/). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-america-and-europe-going-to-be-like-the-fall-of-the-roman-empires/712333.md?page=2)