Avoiding Arbitrary Penalties and Euro-Centrism

[ANO1453]

Knowledge of the Greeks, Arithmetic, Optics, architecture, history?

Knowledge of the Greeks? European libraries were full of them, as Regine Pernoud tells us. And in them, the Greek volumes, there was the Arithmetics, the optics, the architecture and the history.

This sums it up pretty nicely, and there are many other older examples throughout Europe:

 

[Merrick Chance']

European libraries were full of the Greeks when? Because I'm not arguing over the whole period of EU. I'm arguing that at the very beginning of the game that Europe is still "Languishing in the Dark Ages". It was only after the reinsertion of Greek philosophy into Western culture after the fall of Constantinople that you got the widespread growth of the Renaissance.

edit: With regards to the Church: Butressing occurred in Byzantium and in the Arab world centuries before it did in the Western world, as did the use of domes to create larger and larger churches. Without those innovations (which, yes, the Christians did improve on: the Dark ages weren't as dark as they're suggested to be) you could not create Cathedrals as large as Notre Dame de Paris.

 

[Immortal Impi]

Regardless of the acquired knowledge of the European churches it would be disingenuous to state that the Arabic states did not have a far higher form of technological knowledge particularly in the areas which Merrick stated. Nothing was produced in Europe to rival the libraries of Baghdad and Cordoba until the 15th century. Byzantium is a different story but in this case I don't think it's being discussed.

 

[ANO1453]

European libraries were full of the Greeks when?

Medieval monasteries. So, before the EU4 timeframe.

It was only after the reinsertion of Greek philosophy into Western culture after the fall of Constantinople that you got the widespread growth of the Renaissance.

That is precisely what Regine Pernoud says: Greeks were already known and studied before what we call the Renaissance. The difference is that they did not feel the need to imitate them.

 

[Homero]

Europe just happened to have all the right conditions at the right time for the 'enlightenment' to occur and the 'modern' world to emerge.
There's nothing 'Euro-centric' about simulating the fact that Europe was the center of technological and cultural evolution in the time period covered by these games.

This. The fact remains that world history has been dominated by initiatives from Western Europe. Why the West? well, read the Chronicle of the discovery and conquest of Guinea; furthermore, a peculiar culture of exploration/adventure did exist in West Europe at the time: read the English romances of seaborn chivalry, or read Gil Vicente,
"Sailor, declare
If ship or sail or star
Can be as fair.
Rider, declare,
If horse or arms or war
Can be as fair"

 

[ANO1453]

Regardless of the acquired knowledge of the European churches it would be disingenuous to state that the Arabic states did not have a far higher form of technological knowledge particularly in the areas which Merrick stated.

Any examples of that higher form?

Nothing was produced in Europe to rival the libraries of Baghdad and Cordoba until the 15th century.

Ah, what we are discussing is how Europe took centuries after the EU timeframe start to catch up with the Muslims. Not how they start the game (15th century) with roughly the same tech.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

I should maybe have been clearer. The Arab world stagnated about 1200-1300, but Europe didn't catch up with it until about 1500-1600. Thus the "several centuries", which would mostly be prior to the EU era.

 

[Merrick Chance']

Any examples of that higher form?


Ah, what we are discussing is how Europe took centuries after the EU timeframe start to catch up with the Muslims. Not how they start the game (15th century) with roughly the same tech.

The Ottoman dominance over the Med was only challenged in the late 16th century by Portugal. Now, I don't think that this is a fully fair comparison, but I personally would put the point where European knowledge surpassed Arabic knowledge at some point in the 16th century.

 

[Grubnessul]

No, I haven't read it, and I don't intend to. I know well enough what it claims to be able to reject it.

The West did not have all of those things simultaneously, or at least, several Western countries didn't, and yet managed to be among the most powerful in the world. Democracy appeared in the West centuries *after* the Divergence had begun, and the places that had it weren't on average significantly more developed than the places that didn't have it. Prussia/Germany, for one, managed to be one of the leading states of the West despite being autocratic and authoritarian. Medicine? It was a luxury of the upper classes during the EU era, things like mass vaccination only happened in the 19th century, after the Divergence had gone on for centuries already.

I know about Max Weber, and the fact that someone else thought of the same before Ferguson doesn't make it true. Anyone who believes the ascendancy of the West is due to the fact that Protestants have better work ethics than others should get acquainted with some of the sweatshop workers who make our sneakers for us, or with guest workers toiling away in inhuman conditions in the Gulf states to be able to support their families back home. Then get back to me and tell me how Protestants rule because heathens are lazy :huh:

I'll grant that Ferguson is onto something when he invokes the importance of property rights for economic development, but the rest, bleh.

So, you claim a book is wrong without having read it? From your posts you clearly have no clue what the book claims to be able, which is describing six features of Western Europe which allowed it to surge ahead of the rest of the world. Your focus on only one of these six shows you have no clue what your talking about.

Please do your homework before you start to make claims next time.

 

[ANO1453]

The Ottoman dominance over the Med was only challenged in the late 16th century by Portugal.

When did Portugal challenge Ottoman dominance in the Med? I don't even know of any Portuguese battle in the Med...

 

[Merrick Chance']

So then, how did medicine advance so much further in the West during the EU period, considering that the standard procedure up until the 19th century was to bleed people and force them into purges?

How did consumerism advance in Europe past the rest of the world, considering that consumerism as we know it today only started with the advent of advertising in the 19th or early 20th centuries?

The book seems to take Western advantages as they are now and put them on Westerners for all time. Which is sad: by mythologizing the strengths of the West you're actually removing the human element from Western history, and making the story not so much how the West rose to become world hegemon in the mid 19th century but rather a deterministic narrative where the advances of the West or the Rest don't matter.

And if you can't adequately argue the books points without telling us to read the whole thing (Yeah I'll get right on that, after the 4 other books I have to read this week) then you haven't understood it yourself.

When did Portugal challenge Ottoman dominance in the Med? I don't even know of any Portuguese battle in the Med...

The Holy League challenged the Ottomans in 1571 and didn't include: I was actually thinking of the later 16th century battles between the Portuguese and Ottomans in the Indian Ocean. derrr

 

[Immortal Impi]

Any examples of that higher form?

You're welcome to find me examples of a European literary tradition during the middle ages compared to the immense historical works published by Muslims during the period (Ibn al-athir, Tabari, etc). Not to mention the large amount of Islamic works focusing on the sciences which were not at all touched on in medieval Europe. There was no Omar Khayyam or al-Khwarizmi in Europe.

Ah, what we are discussing is how Europe took centuries after the EU timeframe start to catch up with the Muslims. Not how they start the game (15th century) with roughly the same tech.

Catch up is a silly term since Muslims were advancing at the same time the Europeans were. Europeans surpassed the Muslims in areas such as statehood institutions and stability even before the timeframe of EU3.

 

[icedt729]

The book seems to take Western advantages as they are now and put them on Westerners for all time. Which is sad: by mythologizing the strengths of the West you're actually removing the human element from Western history, and making the story not so much how the West rose to become world hegemon in the mid 19th century but rather a deterministic narrative where the advances of the West or the Rest don't matter.

That's really not a fair description of the book at all. Obviously the West didn't develop all six attributes at once, nor were they universal to all Western countries. The book makes a point of the fact that the divergence really only hit full swing with the industrial period and the development of capitalism, that Western medicine only began to produce major gains in life expectancy in the Victorian era, etcetera. Even by Ferguson's analysis the only real advantages Europeans would have enjoyed during the Renaissance and Reformation would have been in long-range travel, finance and military science.

 

[Merrick Chance']

And then military science was only applied to sieges until Jomini and Clausewitz which is at the very very end of the game.

But regardless, if the book talks about the rise of factors which primarily occurred in the 19th century, then why are we talking about it in the context of a game that ends in 1789 (or at the very latest at 1820)?

 

[Homero]

I was actually thinking of the later 16th century battles between the Portuguese and Ottomans in the Indian Ocean. derrr

Well, right.
----

ANO1453

I don't even know of any Portuguese battle in the Med...

Well, not exactly. Google Botafogo, Galleon.

The São João Baptista (English: Saint John the Baptist), commonly known as the Botafogo, was a Portuguese galleon warship built in the 16th century, around 1534, considered the biggest and most powerful warship in the world at the time.The Botafogo was used both in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean, where it became famous during the conquest of Tunis. In that battle, the Botafogo was commanded by Infante Luís, Duke of Beja, brother of John III and brother-in-law of Charles V. According to historians, it was the Botafogo spur ram that broke up the chains at La Goletta, which defended the port entrance of Tunis, allowing the Christian allied fleet to reach and conquer the city.

The Spanish conquest of Tunis is also part of the Ottoman-Portuguese conflicts.The Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts refers to a series of different military encounters between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire, or between other European powers and the Ottoman Empire in which relevant Portuguese military forces participated.

 

[Sun_Wu]

No, I haven't read it, and I don't intend to. I know well enough what it claims to be able to reject it.

The West did not have all of those things simultaneously, or at least, several Western countries didn't, and yet managed to be among the most powerful in the world. Democracy appeared in the West centuries *after* the Divergence had begun, and the places that had it weren't on average significantly more developed than the places that didn't have it. Prussia/Germany, for one, managed to be one of the leading states of the West despite being autocratic and authoritarian. Medicine? It was a luxury of the upper classes during the EU era, things like mass vaccination only happened in the 19th century, after the Divergence had gone on for centuries already.

I know about Max Weber, and the fact that someone else thought of the same before Ferguson doesn't make it true. Anyone who believes the ascendancy of the West is due to the fact that Protestants have better work ethics than others should get acquainted with some of the sweatshop workers who make our sneakers for us, or with guest workers toiling away in inhuman conditions in the Gulf states to be able to support their families back home. Then get back to me and tell me how Protestants rule because heathens are lazy :huh:

I'll grant that Ferguson is onto something when he invokes the importance of property rights for economic development, but the rest, bleh.

Yes mass vacinations took an extremely long time to become widespread except in backwards places like China where smallpox vaccinations were widespread in the 16th century (about a century after the game begins), the fatality rate from vaccinations was like a whole percent!

Everyone knows non-whites such as Chinese and Japanese have absolutely no work ethic whatsoever and the Catholic didn't either what with French peasants getting 180 days off a year.

Regarding the Arab world, a more correct representation would be to let it have a large head start, but a fairly slow rate of growth. The Arab world had largely stagnated already in the 13th century after having been wrecked by the Mongols and having had most of Andalusia lost to Christian kingdoms. Yet, it was so far ahead at the time that regardless of stagnating, it still took centuries for Europe to catch up.

The Ottomans though are another matter, they did have some of the necessary ingredients of development, such as state-run universities providing scholastic education and admitting students on merit.

Except the game begins in the 15th century.

Weber doesn't even really think that the Protestant work ethic was the crucial part of Western divergence: he starts off by saying that people all around the world and for all of history have had as much ambition and want for money as any contemporaneous European. It was only with several factors in Europe (the rise of trade, colonization, the disgust at religion as something which creates all encompassing meaning after the 30 Years War), COMBINED with the materialistic aspects of some forms of Protestantism that led to the thought processes of early capitalism.

Well yes, those Italian city states were very devote Protestants (or was it Reformed).

So then, how did medicine advance so much further in the West during the EU period, considering that the standard procedure up until the 19th century was to bleed people and force them into purges?

How did consumerism advance in Europe past the rest of the world, considering that consumerism as we know it today only started with the advent of advertising in the 19th or early 20th centuries?

The book seems to take Western advantages as they are now and put them on Westerners for all time. Which is sad: by mythologizing the strengths of the West you're actually removing the human element from Western history, and making the story not so much how the West rose to become world hegemon in the mid 19th century but rather a deterministic narrative where the advances of the West or the Rest don't matter.

And if you can't adequately argue the books points without telling us to read the whole thing (Yeah I'll get right on that, after the 4 other books I have to read this week) then you haven't understood it yourself.



The Holy League challenged the Ottomans in 1571 and didn't include: I was actually thinking of the later 16th century battles between the Portuguese and Ottomans in the Indian Ocean. derrr

What next, you'll be telling me women wearing the burqa is actually misandry because it assumes men are savage animals with no self control that they would go into a fury that they would rape a woman at the sight of exposed ankles?

 

[Merrick Chance']

Excuse me, but what?

I'll respond to the city states comment: I was paraphrasing Weber's argument, not making my own. I would argue that to SOME degree the city states were cases of emergent capitalism, but that the thinking of that period of time was still oriented entirely around religion. It was only really after the 30 Years War that everyone was so sick of religion that what you could call true modernity started to form.

 

[StephenT]

Yes mass vacinations took an extremely long time to become widespread except in backwards places like China where smallpox vaccinations were widespread in the 16th century (about a century after the game begins), the fatality rate from vaccinations was like a whole percent!

Smallpox inoculation and vaccination are two entirely different things. The first had been around for centuries before the EU3 period began, and had a few little complications such as the high death rate and the fact that someone who'd been inoculated could still spread the fatal version of smallpox to people they met.

Vaccination was invented by an Englishman in 1796 - and yes, he based the idea on inoculation, but came up with a better version that didn't kill people and didn't make them infectious afterwards.

 

[icedt729]

And then military science was only applied to sieges until Jomini and Clausewitz which is at the very very end of the game.

But regardless, if the book talks about the rise of factors which primarily occurred in the 19th century, then why are we talking about it in the context of a game that ends in 1789 (or at the very latest at 1820)?

I can't speak for the rest of the posters, but I brought it up several pages ago as an argument in favor of making ROTW countries stronger. EU3's assumption was that Europe started slightly behind but advanced at a steady, fast pace and Civilization points out that there were specific events and developments that lead to spurts of growth, and that for example we shouldn't expect Europe circa 1650 to have twice the production efficiency of China (which is the case in my current DW campaign).

 

[Sun_Wu]

Smallpox inoculation and vaccination are two entirely different things. The first had been around for centuries before the EU3 period began, and had a few little complications such as the high death rate and the fact that someone who'd been inoculated could still spread the fatal version of smallpox to people they met.

Vaccination was invented by an Englishman in 1796 - and yes, he based the idea on inoculation, but came up with a better version that didn't kill people and didn't make them infectious afterwards.

Well, the inoculation in China is extremely similar to the nasal flu vaccinations of today. The pont I was referring to was "Medicine? It was a luxury of the upper classes during the EU era, things like mass vaccination only happened in the 19th century, after the Divergence had gone on for centuries already." and my point was places other than Europe managed to do it on a large scale, of course it did require a highly effective bureaucracy. 0.5-2.0% is a perfectly acceptable rate compared to 20-30%.

I am very sorry for mixing up the terms.