tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post2403278605627404253..comments2024-03-16T01:00:19.876-05:00Comments on The Mad Monarchist: The End of Imperial ChinaMadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-49174242588623515292010-02-13T00:32:26.499-06:002010-02-13T00:32:26.499-06:00The Qing outlawed footbinding actually and at the ...The Qing outlawed footbinding actually and at the end of the day anyone could take the examinations and every country around the world bestowed titles to recognize service. I'm still not sure exactly what point you're trying to make here but I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with the original post so I think we will leave it here.MadMonarchisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-56922274855424289632010-02-13T00:05:05.778-06:002010-02-13T00:05:05.778-06:00yeah but it was "honorary" in all senses...yeah but it was "honorary" in all senses of the word. what i mean by that, is that the title carries no privelege, no benefits given to the holder during china's imperial era. And the difference between meritocracy and aristocracy is that anyone with enough money can get an education and take the imperial exam, and i think the landed airstocracy your talking about are the chinese landed gentry, and they were allowed to own land after they passed an exam, and received a degree, not an aristocratic title. otherwise they weren't allowed to own land.<br />This system led to a large amount of merchants becoming part of the chinese scolor gentry, since they can afford the education and confucious did not like merchants. He would not have envisioned the imperial system this way, because confucioius was born in a minor aristocratic rank in the zhou dynasty, when aristocractic titles were really hereditary and carried out full administrative duties. the examination system came a hundreds of years after he died.<br /><br />archeologists have so far uncovered artifacts and written records from the shang and zhou dynasties. thousands of oracle bones, some of them which detail the shang dynasty's lineange and succesion were found. they are pretty sure the date for zhou is correct, and that it was china's longest dynasty.<br /><br />The first emperor purposefully destroyed the aristocratic lineage of china's warring states and replaced it with a purely merit system because he followed the legalist philosophy, in which the only hereditary rank should be the ruler. <br />and later dynasties like ming and qing employed a new inflexible neo confucianist doctrine, with new cultural innovations like footbinding, which goes against the original confucian principle of filial piety, which includes not harming your own body. other dynasties dished out aristocratic titles just so the recipient could show it off for some service he did.rabid historianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607154390872085433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-60710124285125786262010-02-12T20:32:34.071-06:002010-02-12T20:32:34.071-06:00As I recall, rabid historian, the Chinese actually...As I recall, rabid historian, the Chinese actually did retain an aristocratic set of titles, but they trailed away over the generations. By way of example, say a man is made a Duke. His son can only ever be a Marquis, and his son an Earl/Count, and so on, so that within about seven generations, the title is extant.<br /><br />Of course, the Marquis heir of the Duke can be made a Duke himself, but he cannot succeed his father's title (so in a way, it is purely honorary, and to an extent, not a hereditary title).<br /><br />It has its merits, however, in that it encourages a family to continue to serve the Emperor in order to maintain a title and their rank. And if they're working for the Emperor, they can't exactly overthrow him then can they?Professor Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00659779116600213901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-27869270052772211542010-02-12T18:27:58.474-06:002010-02-12T18:27:58.474-06:00That is why I said "since *at least* 221 BC&q...That is why I said "since *at least* 221 BC". Of course there was alot of history before that, but it starts to get mixed with mythology when get so far back and then there is also the fact that the Qin destroyed alot of the evidence of the earlier regimes to cement the Qin as the "first". However, it was the start of a united empire over the Chinese heartland. And there is no reason for monarchists to oppose meritocracy -most aristocracy comes from meritocracy and in any event the two were not exclusive. China long had a merit-based system of civil service alongside a landed aristocracy that were all part of the picture.MadMonarchisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-12409775097281527892010-02-12T15:36:01.619-06:002010-02-12T15:36:01.619-06:00and the chinese zhou dynasty lasted about 800 year...and the chinese zhou dynasty lasted about 800 years, and before that, the shang dynasty lasted for about 600 years- longer than the later imperial dynasties. It was due to their king and aristocracy, with ranks of duke, marquis, count, baron etc, as opposed to the later imperial dynasties which lasted on average around 250 years, with their imperial meritocratic based system.rabid historianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607154390872085433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-5614779225531822522010-02-12T15:22:22.533-06:002010-02-12T15:22:22.533-06:00actually there was one instance where the "em...actually there was one instance where the "emperor" thing was not continuos, immedietly after a general xiang yu from a chu (one of china's previous states) overthrew the second emperor (in revenge for qin killing his family), he declared himself "hegemon king", or hegemon lord, in chinese:霸王 bawang. and he removed the emperor's meritocratic system and replaced it with an aristocratic feudal system, but was defeated by the first han emperor, Liu Bang.<br /><br />China had a king and airstocracy for 2,000 years BEFORE they had an emperor, their zhou dynasty was extremely aristocratic and feudal, the imperial system actually did away with aristocracy, and replaced it with a meritocratic system. I don't see how that was good thing from a monarchist/airstocrat point of view.rabid historianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607154390872085433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-43739982478141906992010-02-12T14:26:07.079-06:002010-02-12T14:26:07.079-06:00That's true. It would not be hard to beat the ...That's true. It would not be hard to beat the horrific Mao regime. Yes, there famines and hard times under the Qing, but these were natural -not intentional like the famines caused by the "Great Leap Forward" that killed millions by starvation. The Qing Empire was also on the road to becoming a more 'free' society with representative bodies to advise the Emperor, new education methods planned, infrastructure updates etc. But it would have been progress in the mold of Meiji Japan -embracing the technical and practical advances but within a traditional, native framework and keeping native, traditional institutions and culture in tact.<br /><br />There also would not have been demographic 'drowning out' of minorities that we have seen in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet.MadMonarchisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-8340819668270968022010-02-12T11:30:06.551-06:002010-02-12T11:30:06.551-06:00It just shows that revolutionaries always behave a...It just shows that revolutionaries always behave as badly (usually worse) than the monarchical regime it "liberated" the people from. China would be a freer, more prosperous, more democratic place than the current socialist police state!Will2010http://will2010.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-30376179518846408232010-02-12T11:26:27.723-06:002010-02-12T11:26:27.723-06:00Just proves that revolutionaries almost always beh...Just proves that revolutionaries almost always behave as badly (usually worse) as the monarchical regime they "liberated" the people from. One things for sure, had the Geat Qing remained on the throne, China would be a freer, healthier, more democratic place than the socialist police state it has become!Will2010http://will2010.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783969302315257415.post-46707356136226845812010-02-12T06:42:34.128-06:002010-02-12T06:42:34.128-06:00Is it just me, or is this just typical? Overthrow ...Is it just me, or is this just typical? Overthrow that which is imperfect, and replace it with something worse.<br /><br />And one wonders why those of the Anglo-conservative tradition so distrust those who seek power and authority.Professor Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00659779116600213901noreply@blogger.com