On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 11:53 AM, Andrew Stewart wrote: > > > > The Chinese national were inventing fireworks and paper back when > Europeans were still in caves. > >
This is nonsense. Gunpowder was invented more or less in the 9th century CE, paper at some point between the first century CE and the third. The assertion that Europeans were cavemen at the height of the Roman Empire is nonsense. Not that there's anything wrong with living in caves, as do many Chinese to this day ( link) ( https://www.chinahighlights.com/luoyang/attraction/cave-dwelling.htm#:~:text=Cave%20dwellings%20are%20unique%20houses,Chinese%20culture%20in%20rural%20areas. ). Even the Celtic "barbarians" whom the Romans conquered understood the metallurgy of bronze, iron, and steel and had mastered agriculture. The reality is that the Han Chinese, like the Great Russians, were traditionally imperialist and racist during much of their history. Neither nation can exculpate its own sins by pointing virtuously to those of "the West." Sauce for the goose and all that. It the argument is to be made that every nation has its own world history and that there is no common historical thread leading, however tortuously, through all of that to modern, i.e. capitalist world system, times, then how can there be any Marxism? One tires of the ceaseless equivocation on this point, especially where non-US jingoism is substituted for the home-grown variety. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#3712): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/3712 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78333487/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
