Why have some cultures retrogressed?

Great Debates
1

I am going to make a very sweeping generalisation now which will no doubt provoke outrage and off topic debate but it is only a convenient tool to make the foundation of a discussion of a point that honestly perplexes me.

I honestly believe that at this moment in time Western civilisation is the most advanced on Earth.

Standards of living,commerce,the advancement of science,human rights and the desire to do good for the rest of the world whether for the enviroment,foreign aid for third world countries or even misguided military adventures.
No I do not agree with everything we’ve done and we’ve messed up ALOT.

But the intentions have been philantropic in the main.
I will now make another gross generalisation.

Russia and China and other parts of the far east seem to be living in the mind set of the 19th c.

The Muslim world seems to be stuck in the middle ages and sub Saharan Africa seems to be still living mostly in the stone age.
Now racists will say Ah Ha thats because White Caucasians are superior to the other races/cultures but history simply does not bear this out.
Civilisation itself started in the M.E.and consistantly stayed civilised,from Ur to the Persians ,to the Parthians to the Turks.

Next door the subcontinent of India was the same,alongside them the Khmers and China had an incredible civilisation.

But then it all seemed to stop.

Europe started off well with the ancient Greeks,Romans and Carthaginians but then came the dark ages,but there was a recognisable reason for their onset .
Plague on the eastern Steppes caused warrior tribes to move west which displaced other tribes until the knock on effect meant that displaced tribes were forced into the Roman Empire which in the end was its downfall.
In the middle ages Arab culture was far superior to Europes ,as was the F.E.s

So what happened?

2

[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
So what happened?
[/QUOTE]

I think, roughly speaking, what happened is that you stopped reading history books and magazines. There are modern hospitals and universities and high rises and shopping malls in Russia and China and “The Muslim world” and most African nations. Places that don’t have those things (yet) don’t have them because they can’t afford them or the infrastructure (power plants, water lines, fiber-optic whoozeewhatsits, etc.) to support them, not because they don’t want them (with a very few tribal no-contact-with-Whitey exceptions).

Do you have an example of a society which has been able to afford such things and refused to install them, or one which has had them and dismantled them?

3

[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
So what happened?
[/QUOTE]
The industrial revolution. It started in England in the late 18th Century and the rest of the world has been playing catch-up ever since. Parts of Europe and the United States caught up in the 19th Century. Most of the rest of Europe and parts of Asia caught up in the 20th. China and India will catch up in the 21st Century.

So it’s not that other societies have regressed. Rather they’ve been left behind.

Why have some societies industrialized faster than others? A whole slew of reasons. Some had the wrong form of government. Some lacked access to crucial natural resources. Some were so dirt-poor they didn’t have access to enough capital to prime the pump. Some were so isolated they couldn’t trade with anyone.

4

Right, but the industrial revolution was a product of Britain being an advanced society in the first place. The Muslim world had already fallen by the wayside, had it not?

5

[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan]
Right, but the industrial revolution was a product of Britain being an advanced society in the first place. The Muslim world had already fallen by the wayside, had it not?
[/QUOTE]

Not exactly. Up until the 17th century, the Ottoman empire was as advanced as any nation in Europe, and more so than most. Its stagnation and decline is probably what held much of the Muslim world back.

In fact, the problem with much of the world prior to the Industrial revolution was that it was too successful. The Ottoman, Mughal, Chinese and Japanese empires had all managed to secure their borders, and turned inward; the lack of outside competition was a major reason for them lagging behind Europe. The way they all saw it, things were perfect as they were, so why change?

6

“Advancement” (defined in several different ways) requires that a significant portion of the population have access to liesure. (Significant does not equate to large poulation, but to a sufficiently large population in terms of the exercise of power and the disposition of resources.)

Any society that is threatened with destruction will begin to recede as it expends efforts in defense that might otherwise go to investment in “productive” leisure. The (Western) Roman empire is an easy illustration of this. Faced with first Germanic and later Asian barbarians overwhelming its borders and its farms, Rome stopped building roads, aquducts, theatres, etc. A similar (although less familiar to most American students), would be the changes in Greece following the Peleponnesian War. Even while the war went on, Athens was able to continue a high tradition of art and literature, but following its defeat (and the near bankruptcy of many of its vassals and foes), there was a serious reduction in artistic output.

Defense, in these cases, does not mean simply waging a war, even if one loses, but in fighting for the very survival of one’s culture. Thus, the Europeans of the sixteenth through twentieth centuries had their “leisure” to fight very many quite destructive wars because those wars were over power and geography. The culture on both sides of the battle lines was never seriously threatened. Similarly, the Indian sub-continent had numerous warring kingdoms thrughout history and continued to thrive. It was only when the entire region was dominated by a hostile force that the culture suffered setbacks or stagnated.
Other factors also play a part, of course. As noted, the Chinese, Japanese, and Turkish empires all “turned their backs” on the outside world at times when they could ill afford to do so, resulting in successful disruptive attacks by Europeans, later.

The European conquests of the Americas and Africa and Pacific Oceana were overwhelmingly destructive of cultures. The European domination of Asia was a middle ground in which there was cultural disruption, but not cultural destruction.

7

I think the OP is looking at a snapshot in time and might be missing out on some important trends. I think you could make the case that the US and the western world is beginning a period of regression while Asia is gaining ground.

China, in particular, is an odd choice for a country that is less advanced than America. China, does afterall, hold a huge part of America’s debt and is rapidly growing. There are modern cities in China that did not exist a decade ago.

8

[QUOTE=madmonk28]
I think the OP is looking at a snapshot in time and might be missing out on some important trends. I think you could make the case that the US and the western world is beginning a period of regression while Asia is gaining ground.
[/quote]

I keep hearing this, but I don’t see it. The US and Europe are both at the forefront of technology and have robust economies. Yes, we’ve hit a period of diminishing returns while other nations are just firing up, but I don’t see regression. Right now we’re in a period of economic stagnation, and our education system is the pits (US) but I don’t see that as a regression. I think university systems are the best indicator of the health of a culture, and the US and Europe have amazing ones. Western schools will continue to educate the cognoscenti of the entire world. Sure, there are plenty of people losing employment in the US, but I also see entrepeneurial opportunities not tapped regularly. Did you know there are hardly any hat block makers? One could probably carve out a decent niche business for millinery supplies. Certainly not a huge market, but it’s a need that could be filled, and there are others. Lots of hats to be sold to those burgeoning asian markets.

People will be coming to the US and Europe for their designer proteins for decades to come. Just wait until a few designer proteins become staples of nanotech products, and there are only a few chemical fabs in the world to produce them. You know, it’ll be an awful lot like computers are today. If you want design and innovation, you still often go to an American or European firm to get it. Sure there’s more competition, but at the same time, the firms that sell to your competition are potential customers, so the market gets bigger as well.

American and European peasants are having a worse time of it, perhaps not receiving what they feel entitled to, but IMO the real indicator is pedagogical tradition.

9

[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
Russia and China and other parts of the far east seem to be living in the mind set of the 19th c.
[/quote]

This would be a terrible shock to people in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and a lot of other places. I don’t think it’d be at all accurate in Russia, either, but I’ve never been. The point being that I think you’ve missed some significant outliers in making these generalizations.

The bottom line, I guess, is that history doesn’t take an even course. Civilizations build up and get destroyed by wars, natural disasters, plagues and all sort of other things. While I doubt that “stone age” is accurate for much of sub-Saharan Africa, I’d say that colonialism is a major factor in what happened there.

10

[QUOTE=mswas]
People will be coming to the US and Europe for their designer proteins for decades to come. Just wait until a few designer proteins become staples of nanotech products, and there are only a few chemical fabs in the world to produce them. You know, it’ll be an awful lot like computers are today..
[/QUOTE]

Speaking as someone with decent experience actually carrying out protein expression products and with a reasonable idea about what it takes to carry out large scale protein production, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about here.

If anything, the technology required to carry out the biological production of protein that has already been designed is much simpler and requires far less infrastructure than say microchip manufacturing, and it certainly isn’t as if there aren’t a lot of nations that can print decently modern and competitive microchips.

11

[QUOTE=Lust4life]
In the middle ages Arab culture was far superior to Europe’s … So what happened?
[/QUOTE]
Read What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response by Bernard Lewis. It examines how the Islamic world went from being at the forefront of the scientific, cultural and military spheres to being surpassed in all of these by the Europeans. You can read a summary of the book here

12

[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
Standards of living
[/quote]

Standards of living are not going to be equal for everyone in a culture in most non-primitive cultures. Most cultures are going to include people with very different standards of living (rich people aren’t going to have the same standard of living as poor people, urban dwellers aren’t going to have the same standard of living as rural dwellers, and other differences).

When you’re making a comparison, make sure you’re not comparing the standard of living of, say, a rich urban American to that of a poor rural Chinese. Those aren’t going to be equal, but that doesn’t tell you much about differences between the cultures- you’d see a lot of the same differences if you compared a rich person and a poor person within a single culture.

13

[QUOTE=threemae]
Speaking as someone with decent experience actually carrying out protein expression products and with a reasonable idea about what it takes to carry out large scale protein production, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about here.

If anything, the technology required to carry out the biological production of protein that has already been designed is much simpler and requires far less infrastructure than say microchip manufacturing, and it certainly isn’t as if there aren’t a lot of nations that can print decently modern and competitive microchips.
[/QUOTE]

Well what you say directly contradicts an article I just read in Sci Am about the subject. You’re right though, I don’t really know it that well.

14

[QUOTE=mswas]
Well what you say directly contradicts an article I just read in Sci Am about the subject. You’re right though, I don’t really know it that well.
[/QUOTE]

Would you happen to have a link available?

15

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
I think, roughly speaking, what happened is that you stopped reading history books and magazines. There are modern hospitals and universities and high rises and shopping malls in Russia and China and “The Muslim world” and most African nations.
[/QUOTE]

Its not a case of just reading history books or even watching documentaries on my part,I have actually travelled extensively throughout the world(though i confess that i haven’t been to China yet)

Yes there are modern hospitals,universities etc.in all those places you mention but they are western transplants,using western ideas and western tachnology.

When the Romans colonised Britain many if not most of the natives adopted Roman technology and Roman culture eventually(Bathing,using a written language etc.)but you couldn’t say that it was British culture.

Likewise when Crusaders brought back a Muslim artifact,soap,as in the stuff you use for washing,us smelly Brits were adopting an arab custom .
Utilising ideas from another culture does not mean that your own culture is necessarily advancing.

16

If there’s one thing China isn’t doing, it’s retrogressing. I think the only time China retrogressed in the past few hundred years is during the Japanese occupation, Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Those tragedies, and ideology, aside, overall what the commies have achieved for the life of Chang Q. Peasant is astonishing, compared to life under the feudal lords. And now the urban centres of China are getting as modern as you like and there’s money slopping around everywhere.

Sure, this is causing its own problems with corruption, pollution, dying rural communities and inward urban migration, but to say China is retrogressing is to ignore what’s actually going on there.

17

[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
The Muslim world seems to be stuck in the middle ages.
[/QUOTE]

Greetings from the Middle Ages!

:rolleyes:

18

[QUOTE=jjimm]
If there’s one thing China isn’t doing, it’s retrogressing. I think the only time China retrogressed in the past few hundred years is during the Japanese occupation, Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Those tragedies, and ideology, aside, overall what the commies have achieved for the life of Chang Q. Peasant is astonishing, compared to life under the feudal lords. And now the urban centres of China are getting as modern as you like and there’s money slopping around everywhere.

Sure, this is causing its own problems with corruption, pollution, dying rural communities and inward urban migration, but to say China is retrogressing is to ignore what’s actually going on there.
[/QUOTE]

I agree in hindsight that retrogressing is probably the wrong word,I dont wish to suggest something along the lines of losing the ability to work iron and readopting bronze to give a not so great analogy.

The point would maybe be better expressed as some cultures losing their lead over others so that while not actually going backwards socially and technologically their position has regressed from say first to third or whatever.

If Chinas incredible technological and community organisation of olden times had continued unhindered into the present era they might well have been colonising the galaxy by now,who knows?

My belief is that their watershed occurred when after a period of pragmatic world exploration a new emperor (Whos name I just cant think of,apologies),banned all further exploration,had the fleet burnt and even moved coastal communities inland.

I dont believe that the present days nation is an advanced culture as its state capitalism shows no concern about its citizens welfare,they appear to be considered as little more then biological machinery to keep industry running instead of being the whole point of their society,infact the tail wagging the dog.

Also enviromental damage being considered irrelevant.

China has for many years been a technological plagiarist ignoring international patent and copyright law.

Why waste time and money in scientific research when you can steal the work of others?seems to be their mindset.

For me it is encouraging that they have pledged to participate in space exploration whatever their motives.

19

[QUOTE=Marley23]
This would be a terrible shock to people in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and a lot of other places. I don’t think it’d be at all accurate in Russia, either, but I’ve never been. The point being that I think you’ve missed some significant outliers in making these generalizations.

that “stone age” is accurate for much of sub-Saharan Africa, I’d say that colonialism is a major factor in what happened there.
[/QUOTE]

I saw a CNN report recently about white collar workers in Japan dropping dead at an incredibly early age after being literally worked to death,according to the report this was not only not a rare occurrence but their was talk of legislation being introduced to discourage this in the future.

Apart from going home to sleep,shower and change it said many workers are spending their every waking moment excluding commuting time at work.

This is Dickensian to say the least and his period was Victorian times.

As for sub Saharan Africa many of the countries quality of life,life expectancy and individuals security advanced after colonisation and plumetted after the colonials left.

Apart from other sources I was told this by the nationals of the very countries themselves during my periods in them quite recently.

Look at Kenya,Mauretania,Zimbabwe,Uganda,Somalia and the former Congolese republics for just some of the examples.

Many of the excolonised countries peoples are voting with their feet to emigrate to the countries of their former colonisers

And before anyone jumps in I am not advocating recolonising any ex colony,those times are past.

20

[QUOTE=threemae]
Would you happen to have a link available?
[/QUOTE]

The gist I got from the article was that they were having a lot of problems causing proteins to fold the way they want them to. Now, I don’t know squat about Organic Chemistry, I’d like to, but I don’t as of yet, so I can’t put up an argument about it. Let me know what you think of the article.