-- James A. Donald.
China stagnated because no thought other than official thought occurred.
On 12 Nov 2004 at 15:40, ken wrote:
And when was this stagnation?
Started soon after the Qing dynasty
And what were the reasons China did not "stagnate" for the previous thousand years?
When the Song dynasty attempted to appoint important people, they did not necessarily become important people, and when it attempted to dismiss important people, they did not stay dismissed - The Song dynasty was unable or unwilling to give full effect to Confucianism. The local potentates conspicuously failed to behave in a properly confucian manner towards the emperor. The Song emperor could not reliably make local authorities obey him, which mean that his confucian mandarins could not reliably stop anyone other than themselves from thinking - much as today the communists are unable to stop anyone other than themselves from banking - in part because they are reluctant to apply the rather drastic measures that they have frequently threatened to apply. China prospered under Song Confucianism for pretty much the same reasons as it is today prospering under "communism". --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Yv20dIxJj7Vr+GPh5ImGfq9c3N7OLh5qda5/qc+9 49HxvL6pJJ1duyj3afDTLVoAjtWFWKz322go1DD9I