To Her Majesty Wu the Gifted:



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送交者: mangolasi 于 2006-1-11, 08:10:27:

I am thinking of several examples to seek support/(hopefull not) refute my idea: A prosperous(difficult to say high-growth economy because those histories are quite remote) society is indeed more tolerant and open-minded. However, this kind of open minded might not last long or have very long-lasting effect. The tolerance in a generally prosperous society is simple making its people more comfortable. But this pure-economic tolerance is quite vulnerable. To make it more long lasting rather than subject to the volatillity of economy, luck or some outside shock to install a better institution a priori is the most important thing.

Not very long-lasting prosperousity and economic-driven tolerance:
Han Dynasty (we have our Chinese counterpart of Francis Bacon if we have to find one: 王充)
Tang Dynasty: general impression of tolerance
Italy's merchant society during 1400s-1600s (???): Galileo and Renaissance
Arabian merchant-oriented society during the middle age: more tolerant than the Christiandom. Keeping those acient Greek and Rome literature in science, medicine and others.

Quite long-lasting prosperous:
England after QEI: Even England was quite backward and barbarous by her time, QEI, tired of the religious wars b/w Protestants and Catholics, decided to establish a tradition of religious tolerance. The effect of this period is still lingering in the western civilization. Science, philosophy about government and society and individual liberty, merchant tradition etc. Including the French enlightenment, which got lots of inspiration from John Locke and Issac Newton. Another significant Protestant country German doesn't experience this kind of greatness in my view (I don't think the German tradition of Idealism is a superb intellectual tradition because it is asking some abstract, difficult and useless questions). So I am always doubting the significance of Protestant culture on shaping the modern world. I think QEI had given a great push, which propagates in a non-linear way.

And I am thinking of how to catagorize this: Ancient Athen. It doesn't last long but its ideas are so influencial. Besides, the prosperousity of acient athen is the mix of both merchant tradition and good luck--endowed with silver mine (if I remember correctly).

Ancient Rome is also troublesome.

Need to look at the details of those hisotrical period before having more confirmation/refutation. And of course, the plural of anecdotes is not data.





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