Week 1 and 2:
Impressions and Historiography
Significant terms (significant to our study of Early Chinese History):
* "Myth of Asia"
*Orient
*Aristotle
*Teggart
*Marx
Review questions are in red:
Our Impressions: What are the origins of most of our impressions in early childhood and in our more recent experience? Of what value do these impressions have in our studies in Early Chinese History?
Early childhood -- Kung Fu, "Red Communists, evil people, starving people, no geographic knowledge, "Japan and China are the same country").
Recent -- still determined by mass media but some philosophies (Confucianism and Taoism) and geography (Yellow river) are present. Chinese government limits on number of children citizens can have, and the Tienamen incident make the government look totalitarian to many of us.
See all of our impressions here (http://www.worldclass.net/China/week1.htm).
Western Impressions and Historiography (based on Andrew March's 1974 article, "The Myth of Asia" (http:www.acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/mythofasia.html
"Asia" -- historically, Asia has represented the "Other," or counter-piece for good and evil in their turn. (What do you think is the overall affect of the image of the "Other," i.e., China, or "Asia" in the development of Western nation-states? See also #3 and #5 below on Aristotle's and John Stuart Mill's images of "Asia.")
Bible -- exemplifies a more positive view of Asia, or the
Orient, historically. Eden faces the East, the light comes from the East
from the constellation Orion (root word for Orient). Here are some bible
excerpts (Why does the Bible image of the
"East" appear more positive?):
'There came wise men from the east [ab Oriente] . . . we have
seen his star in the east [in Oriente]' (Matthew 2.1-2); 'Arise, shine; for
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen [orta est] upon thee'
(Isaiah 6o.i); 'Behold the man whose name is The Branch [Onens]; and he shall
grow up [orietur] out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord'
(Zechariah 6.12); 'Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring
[oriens] from on high hath visited us' (Luke 1,78). By comparison with the
East, where salvation has its source, the West is late and secondary: 'For as
the lightning cometh out of the east [ab oriente], and shineth even unto the
west [usque in occidentein]; so shall also tile coming of the Son of man be'
(Matthew 24.27). At worst, in this pair Orient/Occident, the Occident could be
not just passive but positively dark, evil, heathen. In Carolingian times, the
two terms (also in the forms ortus and occasus) could be divorced from actual
regions of the earth, as for example in Rabanus Maurus (C776-856): 'If by
Orient [Orientem] is meant the kingdom of God, then indeed by Occident [Occasuml
is meant hell, which is so far removed from the seat of the blessed as when
Abraham says, "Between us and you a great chasm is established." '
Greece -- condescending toward
"Asia." Greece is the best of
both worlds. Asia represents excess and oppression. The west represents
individualism (although lacking in wisdom) and freedom. Aristotle posited
that the Asian climate was responsible for their apparent docility and
conformity. (See question #1 above) Here is the quote:
Those who live in a cold climate and in Europe are full of
spirit, but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they retain
comparative freedom, but have no political organization, and are incapable of
ruling over others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive,
but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of
subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them,
is likewise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also
intelligent. Hence it continues free, and is the best-governed of any nation,
and, if it could be formed into one state, would be able to rule the
world."
Catholic Church -- became increasingly wary of the strength of China and their image because it did not fit clearly into the Aristotelian world view in which all human progress emanates from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Examples of progress in Asia or Africa was sometimes accredited to Prester John, a mythic Christian king who Marco Polo claimed ruled the Tartars and later Catholics claimed ruled Ethiopia. (Since no one has ever verified the existence of Prester John, what do you might have motivated Marco Polo to include John in his story, Travels of Marco Polo?)
During the Reformation, however, individualism and non-conformity were hailed and held up against the apparent uniformity of the Orient. John Stuart Mill contrasted European diversity over Chinese uniformity, although he tried to justify the continuing poverty of England's lower classes. (See question #1 above)
World History -- with the Scientific Revolution after the
Enlightenment in Europe, new approaches to studying Asia and China arose, but
they still kept Asia disconnected from the Christian world, and held it up as the
counter-weight to European diversity, freedom, and individualism.
Nevertheless, Hegel kept a linear
view of world history, believing that a World Spirit moved from one
civilization to another. He theorized that the World Spirit had left China
and was now in Europe he argued. Ranke avoided it altogether because he did
not have enough evidence to do adequate historical research. Many
increasingly described Asia as isolated. March attacks this position:
But the picture of China as cut off from the world is false from the start,
and loaded with Europocentrism. Because of our indoctrination in them, the
particular elements present in the 'West' seem natural and necessary and we
persistently overvalue them. In the matter of religion, for example, we assume
that our heritage of Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Judaic, Christian,
Druidic and whatever other strands presents a richer and more stimulating
array than what was available to China; yet in China too, besides the native
Taoism, Confucianism, and the old 'classical' religion," there flourished
at various times Judaism, Islam, Manicheaism, Nestorian Christianity, and the
many diverse schools of Buddhism. Again, a Chinese scholar would be less
likely than a European to know a 'foreign' language-but he had to learn
classical Chinese just as the European cleric learned Latin, and whatever
familiarity he had with Chinese 'dialects' acquainted him with languages
differing from each other as much as do many of the Indo-European idioms of
Europe. Similar arguments can be made respecting the economies, governments
and other cultural elements that interacted in East Asia. In terms of sheer
numbers, the fact that roughly one-quarter of the human race has, apparently
for thousands of years, lived in what is now China makes absurd the
connotations of smallness and sparseness in 'isolated' ('islanded', with a
suggestion of solus, 'alone'). It is true that the Confucian tradition of
state and gentry did minimize external contact in its written record, but
ordinary people-traders, pilgrims, bandits, migrants-continually came and
went.
Twentieth century approaches to Chinese History break from the isolationist versions. (What use do each of these theories have to contribute to our study of "Early Chinese History"? What approach(es) do you prefer and why?)
Karl A. Wittfogel: Hydraulic Societies Theory--all civilizations developed cultural traits that reflect their relationship to the local water through natural disaster, need for social organization for irrigation, etc.
Frederick J. Teggart argued that there is an interconnected "Eurasian" history in which there are ripple effects between the two, exemplified especially during the Roman and Han periods (200 BCE -- 200 CE). He argues that fall of Han China caused disruption among nomadic peoples on the Silk Road to spur the invasion of the Huns.
Karl Jaspers -- argued that there were concurrent ages in which philosophers in Asia (China and India) and Europe (via Mesopotamia) developed similar responses to contradictions in their respective civilizations. Such a concurrent age, or Axial Age, occurred around 500 BC.
Marxist/Economic historians -- every society goes through stages of economic development, from primitive communism, slave production, feudalism, capitalism, and modern communism. Most recent interpretations, since the 1970s and the successful industrialization of East Asian countries, "Asian capitalism," or "Confucian Capitalism" has come into the lexicon of economic historians.