Ray,
I'd rather not hear about the Cherokees any more apart from the traits they
share with many other pre-industrial societies that have existed and still
exist around the world. They all -- in common -- have a great deal to tell
us about instinctual behaviours which show through in all human organization.
Apart from the same instinctual behaviours which we still carry forward,
the Cherokees, as Cherokees, have nothing to tell us about the problems
mankind faces as fossil fuel energy becomes more expensive and as
automation proceeds.
KSH
At 16:08 09/01/2011 -0500, you wrote:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_003A_01CBB017.65A77200"
Content-Language: en-us
I dont think I agree with either Keith or Mike on this. The complexity
of a billion people and the requirements for integration are so immense
that I would question whether those of us from huge areas with minimal
populations or Island nations with relatively small populations could even
begin to explain the issues involved. I was delighted to hear about
Keiths work on the Chinese Dictionary. Thats a context that makes
things more clear.
Keith, we have a Cherokee poet, and member of our community here, that
has translated four volumes of du fu with his own versions of the
poems. I find them beautiful. I would be interested in what you
thought of them. Hes gotten a good reputation here in the Chinese
community and is even making money on their purchases on Amazon. Its
called Murphys du fu. His name is James R. Murphy and he is also a
world expert on the math of string figures. Hes a shy recluse of
person and doesnt flash credentials as I do but hes a graduate in physics
of Harvard and has been an educator up until retirement. He developed
the string figures for students who were Math Phobic but could be
stimulated through hand/eye/memory work with string loops. His two
volumes of string figure books are also on Amazon. Hes a prolific poet
and has written many volumes of poetry. Most unpublished but hes making
money on the versions of the du fu and the string figures because they are
used as texts in schools for certain types of math phobias. Hes
currently working on versions of si jo Korean poetry and of course
Cherokee poetry.
Id be interested in anyones opinion especially Keith as the resident
Chinese scholar.
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D and N
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2011 2:27 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Why China won't win in this century
Add to the list below the study of the energy flows of the body and
acupuncture to treat dis-eases of the body (over 3500 years of use). This
style of medical intervention is still little understood by the western
world partly due to the arrogance of our scientific society and the need
for the present medical/pharmaceutical businesses to maintain their grip
on the lucrative resource at hand. Let's mention as well the vast
knowledge of the ancient Chinese of the medicinals of the natural world
and the Chinese achievements in astronomy.
The struggle to 'achieve' in anything (sports, technocracy,
business/economics, government, etc.) can lead to a blind arrogance toward
other aspects within a field or society or toward other cultures. It is
this unacceptance of 'differing ways and values' that can lead to
misunderstandings, conflict and disaster in the long run.
Darryl
On 1/8/2011 11:50 PM, Keith Hudson wrote:
Ed,
Yes . . . well I mentioned this in my piece. Over the centuries the
Chinese amassed a large number of inventions here and there in a vast
country which then drifted into Europe in the Middle Ages. The real
problem for China began at the time of the Ming dynasty (early 1400s) when
multi-masted ships (that is, international trade) was outlawed. From then
onwards they were no longer receptive to catalytic ideas from the outside
world. It's economy was large enough (and its internal freight routes were
adequate enough -- principally its grand canal linking the 'export
markets' of the north and south) for it to remain viable, but it never
made any great strides from then on. Its culture and economy was largely
locked and introverted.
The original problem (that the abstract scientific ideas of the West from
about 1700 onwards couldn't be immediately written down in ideographic
Chinese) doesn't apply any longer. (Now that they've absorbed the ideas
they can be written down in Chinese -- albeit in railway length words!)
The problem today (which, as I said, the government is seriously worried
about) is that their children and young people are not curious or creative
enough -- and they (not I) put it down to the many years of intensive rote
learning necessary to acquire reading and writing.
Keith
At 12:28 08/01/2011 -0500, you wrote:
Interesting Keith, but despite the problem of their written language, the
Chinese do seem to have been able to come up with inventions in the
past. I recalled reading something about them having invented gunpowder,
so I looked that up on Wikipedia and to my surprise found that they had
not only invented gunpowder, but a host of other things:<?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China>China has been the source of many
significant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention>inventions, including
the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions_of_ancient_China>Four
Great Inventions of ancient China:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papermaking>papermaking, the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass>compass,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder>gunpowder, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_typography_in_East_Asia>printing
(both <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodblock_printing>woodblock and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type>movable type). The list below
contains these and other inventions.
The <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_people>Chinese invented
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_China>technologies
involving <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics>mechanics,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulics>hydraulics, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics>mathematics applied to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horology>horology,<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy>metallurgy,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy>astronomy,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture>agriculture,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering>engineering,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory>music theory,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsmanship>craftsmanship,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_history>nautics, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfare>warfare. By the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_Period>Warring States Period
(403221 BC), they had advanced metallurgic technology, including the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace>blast furnace and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupola_furnace>cupola furnace, while the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finery_forge>finery forge and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puddling_%28metallurgy%29>puddling process
were known by the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Dynasty>Han
Dynasty(202 BC AD 220). A sophisticated economic system in <?xml:namespace
prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
/><?xml:namespace prefix = u1 />China gave birth to inventions such as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote>paper money during the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Dynasty>Song Dynasty (9601279). The
invention of gunpowder by the 10th century led to an array of inventions
such as the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_lance>fire lance, land
mine, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_mine>naval mine,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon>hand cannon, exploding
cannonballs, multistage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket>rocket, and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing#Fire_arrows_and_rockets>rocket
bombs with aerodynamic wings and explosive payloads. With the navigational
aid of the 11th-century compass and ability to steer at high sea with the
1st-century sternpost <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudder>rudder,
premodern Chinese sailors sailed as far as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Africa>East Africa and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt>Egypt.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions#cite_note-0>[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions#cite_note-1>[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions#cite_note-2>[3]
In water-powered clockworks, the premodern Chinese had used the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapement>escapement mechanism since the
8th century and the endless power-transmitting
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_drive>chain drive in the 11th century.
They also made large mechanical puppet theaters driven by
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterwheel>waterwheels and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke>carriage wheels and
wine-serving<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton>automatons driven by
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_steamer>paddle wheel boats.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions)
The quote mentions agriculture, but not the intensive agriculture of the
rice paddie. I recall reading somewhere that rice paddies were partly a
response to the need to feed vast armies.
Despite the problems raised by their written language, the Chinese must
have had some way of encapsulating their inventions because they were
quite widely used. And in the case of Europe, it wasn't so much language
that was essential to the spread of ideas. Rather it was the invention of
the printing press and the movement away from Latin to the vernacular that
swept ideas across the continent.
If their written language presents a problem currently, there is good
reason to believe that the Chinese will have no problem in adapting. A
few days ago, I saw a TV interveiw with Justin Yinfu Lin, Chief Economist
of the World Bank. The interview was in English, and Yinfu Lin's
responses were in English, but in an English so thick that I had a lot of
trouble understanding what he was saying. However, he knew exactly what
he was saying.
My point is that if there is a problem, I'm sure that the Chinese will
find a way around it.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, ,EDUCATION
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 5:44 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Why China won't win in this century
The reason why China will never win hands-down in its current economic war
with America is the same as why Japan didn't succeed in the 1980s when all
were expecting that its corporations and banks would eat America up
(Americans included). The reason is that both countries are good at
copying ideas and technologies; neither is good at inventing new ones.
It's their written language that's the main part of their problem. It's
non-phonetic. It means that in order to acquire a basic vocabulary -- of,
say, 2,000 or 3,000 words (the content of their average newspapers) --
children have to learn uniquely-shaped characters (whole words) which have
no, or very little, relationship with their utterance. A Chinese or
Japanese child can learn to speak his language quite as readily as
children do the world over, but learning how to read or write each
individual word takes many years. And there's only one way, unfortunately
for children, and that's by rote learning. And thousands of hours of rote
learning over many years under the strict discipline of slave-masters in
the schoolroom doesn't do anything for the creativity of young minds -- or
for older minds for that matter because the basic mental skills are
aptitudes are thoroughly laid down before puberty.
The Chinese and Japanese governments are well aware of the damage that
rote learning is doing to them -- and say so quite frequently. Although
both countries can churn out ten of thousands of science and engineering
graduates every year, there's scarcely an independent mind among them.
Independent 'garage inventors', as we have in the West, are as rare as
hen's teeth in China and Japan. For example, Japan has been industrialized
for over a century -- only a decade or two less than other Western
countries -- yet it has only won 15 Nobel prizes in the science subjects.
Compare this figure with those of America (261), the UK (91) and Germany
(88). China has only won 10! However, this comparison is unfair because
China's have only been won since it woke up in the 1970s. America's number
also needs to be modified because about a third of its prizes have been
won by foreign-born scientists who became American citizens after
migrating there.
It's all Emperor Qin Shi Huang's fault (yes, the same as is famed for his
terracotta army). Once Qin had conquered several countries and unified
China in 221BC, he standardized as many things as possible from weights
and measures and currency through to the written language. All the various
scholars throughout his empire, speaking scores of different languages
(some with and some without a written form) were forced -- on pain of
death -- to produce a composite, but common, written language. And this
could only be non-phonetic, of course. Even the mighty power of Emperor
Qin couldn't force millions of his subjects to learn a new common spoken
language but he could certainly force his relatively few scholars to
produce a new common written one. One popular penalty in those days was to
cut someone through his midriff, mount him on a platter of hot tar and
take him around the town, gesticulating and shouting before he expired.
And herein lies a paradox, because the industrial revolution in Europe
would never have happened without starting from a basic stock of scores of
innovations -- such as canal locks, differential gears, sowing grain in
rows and so forth -- that had drifted in from China along the Great Silk
Road over a period of centuries. However, this doesn't signify that the
Chinese had been more inventive than Europeans. But its common written
language had meant that when one innovation -- say a wheelbarrow (very
important indeed for both China and Europe) -- had been invented by a
genius in one tucked-away corner of China, then the local mandarin could
write and tell hundreds more all about this wonderful new device.
But what once had been an accelerator for both Chinese and European
civilizations actually became a retardant for China when the Western
Enlightenment and scientific revolution stirred into life in the 1600s and
1700s. The Chinese had no way of encapsulating these new ideas. A Chinese
mandarin visiting Europe in, say, the 1700s or 1800s, and learning about
the new exciting scientific ideas (if he'd learned Latin or another
European language of course) had no way of disseminating them widely in
China because there he had no method of writing them down in Chinese words
that would have been instantly recognizable by fellow Chinese scholars or
engineers. He could only convey the new ideas vaguely by speaking of them
face-to-face when he returned home.
Thus Japan (which had inherited thousands of Chinese words) and China were
left behind by the industrial revolution in England, Germany and America.
They didn't begin to catch up in earnest until the the 1870s (the Meiji
Revolution) and the 1970s (the Deng Xiaoping Revolution) respectively. And
this is still -- largely -- where they are today. Both the Chinese and
Japanese governments are trying to phoneticize their written languages but
only very slowly, such is the cultural conservatism of two thousands years
to contend with.
What might be significant in China (though not yet happening in Japan), is
that all their college and university entrants have to learn spoken and
written English these days. All their top government officials speak
English and most business and science faculties in their universities use
English widely in their seminars. Also, thousands of their brightest
young post-grad scientists go to America or England for research
experience and qualifications. Indeed, once they are here for a few years
they become quite as inventive as Western scientists (if not more so when
you look at the authorship of many papers in heavyweight subject, say
genetics or particle physics). Unfortunately for the Chinese and Japanese
governments many, if not most, of the most innovative scientific minds
elect to stay in their adoptive countries rather than to return.
But the problem is even more serious for China and Japan. Almost as
important as are the original ideas of innovative individuals is the
necessity of other individuals who will give a welcome to new ideas and
help to develop them. And it's this open-minded hinterland which is still
limited because of their deep, conservative, authoritative cultures.
Goodness knows, new ideas often have a hard time being accepted in the
West. Even here, the crazy ideas of yesteryear sometimes have to wait
until its die-hard opponents are dead and buried and a brand new
generation appears. Only then are the ideas seen to be not so crazy after all.
There we are then. Japan came close to hollowing out America and Western
Europe 30 years ago with its superbly made (Western-invented) products.
China is threatening to do the same in the coming years. But the
innovative momentum is still with the West and this sort of cultural
momentum takes a century or two to die down -- if it ever does -- or a
century to acquire -- if it ever does in China and Japan.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
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