There’s a Tide in The Affairs of Men

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Surprisingly, this post is not about detergent. *  It is also not about marital fidelity of lack thereof.

It is about what I believe the Chinese would call “the will of heaven,” though I confess I’m out of my specialty and going on what I’ve heard from more knowledgeable people.

From what I understand the Chinese have sort of a belief in the tides of history or what is “intended” – sort of a cosmic fate pulling All Under Heaven in one direction or another.  When a regime ceases working, they discern it in current events.  This is sort of like reading the future in animal entrails only, in China’s case, the entrails are more likely to be human and far more bloody.  If the regime in power (whatever that is) is deemed to have lost the will of heaven, they set about replacing it.

To an extent this makes them more flexible, I think, and might have allowed their monstrous communist regime to turn into a monstrous fascist regime, which for all its horrors (and it is horrible) provides a better life for its citizens than the hot mess that Mao left them ever could and also manages to be less murderous (which in this case is sort of like being less evil than Satan – you can still be Stalin and be less evil than Satan — but never mind.)  None of the other communist regimes has managed it, and the reason China did it might have been because Communism was viewed as the will of heaven and now it isn’t.

All communist systems morph – usually into  a sort of Marx-right (as opposed to divine right) monarchy where a family inherits in succession and has all the privileges of aristocrats, but communism is paid lip service.  But China is the only one that has morphed into a – marginally.  I’m not defending it – more functional regime.

On the other hand, I’m so far out of my depth about China that if this were a matter of water, I’d be floating in the Atlantic holding on to a rubber ducky.

However, I’m fairly sure I’m right on the Will of Heaven and the way their concept of what is proper and just changes – not relating to some overarching philosophy, but to what they think is “intended” for that time and place.

Don’t laugh.  We’re much the same.

As we start engaging into war against the currently prevalent culture – speaking truth to pow’ah that’s right, what’s up? – it helps to know how it got there.

Part of it is that the Chinese are right, of course.  Or at least they’re right in the way their traditions tend to be right – there is a core of something there, but it’s been distorted by centuries of being treated as a shibboleth rather than a conclusion arrived at after observation.

When we look around an wonder how “progressives” who want to take us back to the 30s gained all ascendance in every position of influence, from news to government, we must remember what it was like when this climb started, and how much of it was viewed as “the will of heaven.”

Part of it is that the truth buried at the back it: the system of government, the system of picking the “elite” in any position of influence is subjugated to the spirit of the time – that is to the way people live and how technology shapes those lives.

One of the funnier beliefs of feminists is that when humans were nomadic, before evil agriculture and civilization, we were both matriarchal and sort of “fluffy anarchist” where everything was owned in common and there was no real “government” – the matriarchy being religious and “inspirational leader” in nature.

The reason this is hilarious is that from what we can tell not just from archeology but from living populations of hunter-gatherers, the nomadic tribes were the epitome of strong man government.  You had to be strong, because nomadic cultures raid more or less constantly.  Like street gangs, not only do they have autocratic leaders, but autocratic leaders with no limits on their power.  (The origin of the confusion by feminists, is that you can find women buried with all the attributes of a chieftain – hint one of them is a war mace, so much for your peaceful utopia – but you can find that under settled monarchies too.  Sometimes the king dies and his daughter inherits.  How long she reigns depends on her wits, of course.)

Agriculture brought about actual monarchy because the king and the land were a unit (though the land might expand and contract.)  The whole notion of being born somewhere meaning you belonged under the rule of so and so would have seemed odd to nomads (being born from someone meant you belonged to the tribe/family.  Different thing.)  But under monarchy as we came to know it, it was inevitable.

The industrial age devalued land and also made rule by one person incredibly inefficient.  No, wait, it was always inefficient.  It actually made it more efficient, by creating a bookkeeping bureaucracy that allowed government to track individuals and for the rule by one person to intrude into the everyday lives of everyone.

While kings were distant, inefficient, and news reporting sporadic, it was possible for the people to hold on to the idea this man ruled because he was meant to, because G-d had set him there.  But it was impossible for that idea to survive exposure to the king’s blunders, pettiness or ignorance.

And so the modern age brought about the end of the rule of kings.  Those kings who remained no longer ruled.

That age started with the belief in the educated individual, with the limitless possibilities of the individual – education was going to make us all like onto the gods.  Unfortunately between that age and ours, a new technology evolution came about, and therefore a new belief about just and proper government.

This was the age I call “science, yay” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  Science fueled so many practical improvements in human life that surely the ultimate society run by “scientists” was just around the corner.

The problem is that the average person had absolutely clue zero of what was science and what wasn’t.  So we got sold Marxism as “scientific government.”

But because the industry of the time was centralizing, and so was the media, people got the idea the government was way more efficient than it really was.  (How many people still think FDR got us out of the Depression?  Can we have a show of hands?)  People believed in rule by the “best” educated, the most efficient.  And technology encouraged that.  Everything from manufacturing to the dissemination of knowledge was, by virtue of technology, central.

While centralized government wasn’t any better at running everything than it’s ever been, it was possible to create the image of efficiency and constant progress.  (See FDR myth.)  It might not be doing very well, but people didn’t know that, and enough technological innovation drove the improvement of everyday life that government’s idiocy was less important.

Well, neither our communication nor, coming soon, our manufacture, is centralized.  The shrill tones you hear in the voices of “progressives” who are trying to take us back to the early twentieth century is that they know it as well as you do.

They can’t create an appearance of success, anymore.  And it’s not even here, alone, it’s all over the world.  News leak out.  Even in totalitarian China, cell phones show the difference between truth and Pravda.

All over the world – because this is a global thing, driven by the changing tech – “progressives” are trying for ever more centralized control in everything, including their attempts to legislate new inventions (green technology!) into existence.  And the more they try for control the more it falls apart.

In the era of decentralized everything and a fragmented market, it’s hard for media or entertainment to hold the bully pulpit and truly convince everyone that the men in charge are doing it “scientifically” and “know better.”

The cracks can’t be plastered over.

They’ve lost the will of heaven.

The  change might – will – be rough, and the waters will be mighty tempestuous, but in the end, we win, they lose.

Be not afraid.

*(As one of those side excursions you guys love – or at least I can’t avoid going into this early in the morning and uncaffeinated – we were a Tide family when I was growing up.  Detergents were the hot new tech in household management – most people still boiled their own soap – had door to door salesmen who did demonstrations.  Detergent companies put prizes in their boxes, the sort of thing we associate with cereal here.  Tell a Portuguese person of my generation “Collect them all” and we’ll say “detergent.”  Anyway, I don’t remember any other US company – I remember Umo [pronounced ‘omo] , which was Italian and Extra which might have been Portuguese, but Tide was the only American one, the one my mom glommed onto and defended it with the fervor of the newly converted.  Of course we didn’t know it was American.  We pronounced it Teed.  It says something about the first impressions of childhood lingering that it took me till I was in my third year of English and my mom sent me to get the “teed” to stare at the box and go “TIDE!  It’s English.”)

UPDATE: Now it can be said — Darkship Renegades a Prometheus finalist.  Will lightning strike twice? Competition being stiff, I’m going to be underhanded right here, and promise an even more interesting award ceremony dress, should I win ;)

148 thoughts on “There’s a Tide in The Affairs of Men”

      1. It’s a common truism that one can be ranked by the nature of one’s enemies. I can only shake my head and turn away as the progs and reds (but I repeat myself) spew their contempt and hatred for old Mags. May their nastiness rebound on them threefold.
        Do we need to take up a collection to buy you a small coffee pot with a timer? Or perhaps a stash of chocolate coated coffee beans to munch on first thing? I have a small pot that makes three mugs which is my normal morning dose, and my steadfast rule is to never make a purchase, send a heated reply, or make a critical decision until after the first mug is finished.

        Like

        1. It’s more the coffee is downstairs, and if I go downstairs first thing, I won’t post till ten because I won’t find my way backup again till I’ve had enough caffeine. (You only THINK I’m joking.)

          Like

          1. Why would we think you are joking? My coffeepot is sensibly located on my computer desk, next to the ashtray. That way i can get all three of my fixes immediately after stumbling out of the bathroom

            Like

      2. Just don’t try to make a meringue in a hurry with one of those. For that, nothing beats an electric mixer (pun intended).

        Like

        1. I have made meringue using a wire wisk. To do this gives you respect for those who made such before modern tools were available.

          Like

          1. I’ve done that, and made both whipped cream and mayonnaise (not both in the same day) that way. Talk about a workout for your arms!

            Like

            1. My dad used to do both meringue and mayonnaise for mom. he was her “power mixer” :) The power we had the time, a real mixer would have taken down the neighborhood.

              Like

            2. We used to make butter– cream in a gallon jar with an egg beater (this one was like paddles) connected to the top. It took hours– but a great workout (talk about arm workouts).

              Like

        2. I might have to try to make meringue with one, I’m apparently incapable of making it with a electric mixer anyways, it can’t come out worse doing it by hand!

          Like

      3. Our local WalMart stocks them– the standard two-beater style things, even. They also have push mowers. (That is, the non-gas ones.)

        Like

  2. A tide in the affairs of men – perhaps it will wash this mess out to sea? We can but hope.
    And I mourn the passing of a great lady, Margaret Thatcher. Her time has passed, but she changed her world

    Like

    1. Yes, and doesn’t our current prez look tawdry and juvenile compared with a true competent statesman like her.

      Like

    2. I remember when she became Prime Minister, and how everyone gushed about having the first woman PM. Now she’s a demon. If you are known by your enemies, I’d say she was a magnificent person.

      I’d also say that she’s the most formidable person I’ve ever crossed paths with. She had an aura of power that made everyone in the room come to attention when she walked in.

      Like

      1. Because it is impossible to select only one Thatcher quote:

        “They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.” -in a 1987 interview

        “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

        “It is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, there are some in the community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” -“Bruges Speech” in 1988

        “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

        “Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.”
        http://spectator.org/blog/2013/04/08/some-great-thatcher-quotes

        Like

        1. My favorite:
          “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” — Margaret Thatcher
          And the actual source from which the simplified quote was taken:
          Q: There are those nasty critics, of course, who suggest that you don’t really want to bring [the Labour Party] down at the moment. Life is a bit too difficult in the country, and that … leave them to sort the mess out and then come in with the attack later … say next year.
          A: I would much prefer to bring them down as soon as possible. I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.

          Like

    3. Even QEII liked Maggie. You could run down any person in Britain all you wanted to, but NEVER speak evil of the Queen or Maggie. She definitely will be missed. There are a couple of people coming up that may reach close to her stature, but I have to agree — the greatest British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill.

      Like

  3. One of the interesting things about Progressivism that even many of its current adherents don’t understand… sure, some of them were just commies. But a lot of them weren’t. They were systemic thinkers, some of them BRILLIANT systemic thinkers, using the best available tools of their day. But the average man and woman in the 1930s had a sixth-grade education. They were, literally, not as smart (not conflating education levels with intelligence, but the well-known historical rise in IQs over the twentieth century).

    Progressivism as originally applied (in the 1920s rather than the 30s) isn’t really an ideology. It’s a *strategy.* Get the politically-disinterested technocrats running as many things as they can, to keep inane machine politics out of it so that you know the elevator inspector actually knows how to inspect an elevator, rather than just being the mayor’s shiftless nephew.

    That is, quite obviously, not my cup of tea. But it’s completely defensible. The problem with the folks who want to turn back the clock is not that Progressivism is “wrong.” It’s no more wrong than feudalism: under the right circumstances, feudalism can make a comeback and be the perfect tool for the job. But right now, feudalism and progressivism are *outdated.* The tools have evolved, and bureacracies centralizing decision-making power is a quick way to wreck things rather than sustain them, because we’ve outgrown a system that can prosper under that sort of decision-making.

    Mercantilism once sounded like a good idea, too. Japan and now China have tried to ride high on that horse, but eventually, the mercantilists, physiocrats, etcetera, all discover that these ideas “kick superficial ass.” China’s survival won’t be predicated on beating the band as a world exporter (and China’s currency won’t be the global reserve, either: *no* heavy exporter can hold the reserve currency); it will be predicated on sustaining a domestic market, and satisfying all those individual demands that are currently suffocating under a blanket of literal and metaphorical smog brought on by bad governance and outdated intellectual tools.

    Tell a progressive that they’re not wrong, and they’ll smile at you. Tell them that you’ve simply outgrown them and don’t need them any more, and they won’t smile.

    Like

    1. For a period I employed as a tag line the phrase: The solution to your prior problem is now the basis of your current problem; the solution to your current problem is the genesis of your approaching problem.

      When the tides of men’s affairs moved at glacial pace there was no need for nimble agile systems. Given the current rate of change which characterizes those tides it has become common wisdom that by the time a government has analysed a need, drafted a proposal, put out & reviewed bids, negotiated contracts and proposed acquisition of technology, the technology needed has become obsolete.

      Like

      1. “The solution to your prior problem is now the basis of your current problem”

        –This needs to be quoted FAR AND WIDE. RES’ law, or something.

        Like

      2. We used to say, in the software test lab I worked in, that if a computer component or software package was for sale to the general public, it was obsolete. Things changed that quickly. Today, things are changing that quickly in a dozen industries. Government can’t even BEGIN to fathom how great those changes are, or what effects those changes will have on society in general (good reference, 3-d printing technology). We’re a modern spaceship population being governed by a model-T government. It can’t last.

        Like

        1. One factor to keep in mind is that much of what our political leaders learned in school is now obsolete. I suspect a high percentage of them, if able to describe it at all, would cough up the planetary orbit model of the atom.

          Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader is based, in part, on a fundamental truth. Consider, in any field in which you are actually knowledgeable, the degree to which that field’s basic knowledge has changed from the time your average 50-something politician was taught it in school.

          And yet, because these people have achieved some degree of success they deem themselves wise*.

          *The significance of wisdom vs intelligence is a discussion for a whole ‘nother day.

          Like

          1. One factor to keep in mind is that much of what our political leaders learned in school is now obsolete.

            Wow, something I’m MORE cynical about than you are– I think they were taught false stuff in the first place!

            Like

            1. I have no doubt that much of what they were taught was false; put a nickle in the Daughtorial Unit by asking her opinion of what the schools teach (still) as evolution and you get an hour rant (on her mild days it is a mere hour.)

              But my point was that much of what they thought was, in fact, factual, has proven less so than was known. Using the rule of thumb about knowledge doubling every seven years, consider how much more we (think we) know than we did forty-two years ago when so many of these people were in second grade.

              Keep in mind that humility is rarely among their strong suits.

              Like

              1. older kid five years ago “mom, when you were sequencing DNA in biology lab” Me “Child, that was done in well equipped professional labs, back then, and wasn’t fully understood yet.” Him “But it’s so simple.”

                BTW, will post as update but you wretches rarely re-read post — now it can be said: DST is a finalist for the Prometheus. Mind you it’s up against strong competition!

                Like

                  1. They’re considering awarding the Prometheus to Daylight Savings Time??????

                    Past due, but not really a Libertarian concept.

                    Like

                4. Woman! Don’t you know your own children?

                  Anyway, congratulations on the nomination and the hope that there will be futher need of congratulations, as well.

                  Like

        2. And, if hardware and software are obsolete once in the general market place what are these things by the time they have been run through the process of governmental approval for procurement and finally reach the purchase stage?

          Like

    2. This is where I *really* f— with peoples’ heads: I am perfectly willing to embrace solutions which would mean I would either not exist at all (in which case, I will never be in a position to be concerned about my existing or not-existing to start with), or will not exist as I do now (in which case at-best I no longer have any problems to deal with at all, and at-worst I have some problems which the people in charge might actually be competent to fix). >;)

      Like

      2. Depending on the situation and the putative cure, my response might be to hand you a loaded pistol.

        As in to the watermelons and their Malthusian “solutions” to non-problems: “OK, Buddy. You first.”

        M

        Like

  5. My study of the Chinese have been sparse, but I am sure that your “Will of Heaven” idea is right. I understood that they knew it was a “Will of Heaven” change of government when Mao was able to survive and take out the Emperor. (I am having trouble remembering how the Chinese professor phrased it– lol) Anyway, there is a fatalistic view imho about how governments die in the Chinese culture. But there is always someone who is willing to take up the reigns, which is why I think that government will be always with us.

    As for the hunter-gatherers, I have only seen one matriarchal society in Panama. I think it is a matriarchal society because the men in their efforts to hunt and gather (plus they were the only group who were allowed to sell on US bases– San Blas Indians) do not reach elder age (the place is run by the elders– oldest women). So because of this problem in the jungle, the wisdom was deposited in the women. Plus their history can be found in their crafts (mollas– I think they are called.) As for the other hunter-gatherer systems? I only know of one in SW Africa (next to South Africa) and I hear it is dying. It was led by the males– the women kept the fires burning, cared for the children, and processed the meat. Even the Amazon jungle hunter-gatherers are disappearing–

    Like

    1. The Mandate of Heaven is one reason the Chinese Communists are so keen to control information about disasters, natural and otherwise. One sign that the Ruler has lost the favor of Heaven is nature going out of balance: famine, floods, earthquakes, buildings collapse, pestilence, your basic Four Horsemen. In the Imperial days, this required sacrifices by the Emperor to propitiate Heaven and to find out what he had done wrong, or the replacement of the dynasty. The current Chinese leadership does not want people to get the idea that Heaven (which does not exist) no longer favors the Communist Party (but the Mandate of Heaven is nothing more than an idle superstition). It is also part of the government’s ongoing efforts, dating back to before the Quin Dynasty, to protect the people from false and corrupting information.

      I am not a Sinologist, nor do I play one on TV. I’ve just read a few books about the subject.

      Like

      1. Yea– I can see that– TXRed– The thinking patterns of the Asians are different. They think some of the things we think (about individualism) is an evolutionary dead-end. While I just can’t understand why being under the thumb of everyone (parents, authority figures, etc) is good. I met a few Chinese that were only recently in the West for schooling. The ones being groomed for political service were rigid. Those going to school for engineering were more likely to leave China (in fact the politicos were watching them– and the threat of dishonor to their families were real– dishonor meaning that they would lose their class and may be sent to the serf class). This was in the early 90s. Things have changed a lot in China since then… so my info is probably out-dated.

        My definition to under the thumb– is that their every move is being reported to or by someone to someone else. Very restrictive.

        Like

        1. When you contemplate the behaviour of contemporary Western adolescents (of all ages) the idea of having them under the thumb of somebody possessed of a little maturity becomes strangely compelling.

          Of course, devout Christians, Jews and Adherents of Karma also believe their every move is being weighed and evaluated.

          Like

          1. AH– well teaching morals should be done before adolescence. We are seeing feral children– who will might might might (if a miracle happens) become adults. And I don’t mean able to have children– I mean responsible for self.

            Like

        2. There is a lovely 1992 Chinese film titled Qui Ju da guan si, which translates as: Qui Ju goes to court. It was released in America under the title The Story of Qui Ju.

          I loved the film and was amazed that it could have been made in China at the time. It seemed quite obvious to me that the story illustrated that, even when some bureaucrats might be very kind and helpful, the system was dehumanizing. I showed the film to a friend who was quite familiar with Chinese culture. Afterwards, I told her what I thought. She smiled, and observed that to the Chinese the lesson was equally obvious: Don’t make waves.

          Like

        1. They really have to strain themselves over the First Emperor who was something of a SOB, and try to blame his successor for everything that went wrong. (Personally, I would have described him as the yin reaction to the chaos before, and we only settle down to proper dynasties with the second.)

          But — Mao modeled himself after the First Emperor and bragged of doing so: “The First Emperor – how great was he really? He buried only 460 Confucian scholars. We have buried 46,000 . . . You democrats scold us for being like the First Emperor. You are wrong. We are a hundred times worse than him.”

          And the First Emperor’s overt policy was to maintain an endless state of war to keep his people impoverished so they didn’t concern themselves with things like food or filial piety or music.

          Like

          1. I have nothing good to say about Mao– he was also a pedophile– It makes you wonder how weak the prior government was for such a man to have become their “First Emperor.”

            Like

            1. I know Mao was a clerk before he decided to take over the government. So he had an idea of how to do it. — I think if we become complacent (etc) we could see the same type of takeover here. *grumble– or maybe we are already seeing that takeover

              Like

            2. I tend to think the Qin Shi Huangdi may have been overly demonized in the traditional Chinese historical record, if that is who you are talking about. (I think he probably is who you are talking about.) I’ve heard that the laws of the early Han were really similar to those of the Qin, suggesting that some of the stories the Han told about the Qin were merely to make the Han look better in comparison.

              The Qin took power in a period of fragmentation, during which Confucianism was also founded, following the Zhou dynasty. Zhou was more or less a central state headed by a priest king, surrounded by child/sibling polities which paid tribute to it. There are bronze artifacts from the Zhou period. Prior to Zhou was the Shang, from which we have apparently found divinatory turtle plastrons and the like. Legend states that before the Shang was the Xia dynasty. At one time, before the archeological evidence, the Shang and Zhou were also considered legendary. Firmly in myth, I think, are the non-dynastic emperors which I think are supposed to have predated the Xia, assuming I’ve not got something confused. The Yellow Emperor, and the one who was supposed to have invented farming, and so forth.

              Like

                1. Oh, that.

                  Short answer is Soviet meddling.

                  Longer answer goes back to the Ming or the Qing, and I think I remember which is which.

                  Ming was a native, Han, dynasty. It succeeded the Mongol Yuan, Lit. ‘Original’ dynasty. Ming eventually got into the habit of danegeld, paying off the neighbors. This officially wasn’t tribute, but it maybe amounted to being tribute. One of the neighbors was the Manchu, who got together, organized, and then came in and took China over. Thus the Qing dynasty.

                  The Han really hated the Qing dynasty, and the Manchu who ruled it. For a while, the Machu were tough enough that the Chinese didn’t think they could do anything. Eventually the rebellions started to become more and more successful.

                  Into this came a rather extended dynastic succession mess.

                  Sometime into this, the Soviets pop up, and start their existence long custom of fishing in all the troubled waters.

                  This included giving money to political organizations inside of China.

                  Chiang Kaishek went anticommunist partly because of stuff he saw in the Soviet Union on trips related to Soviet courting of Chinese political organizations. His son went to the Soviet Union, married a Russian woman (IIRC), went Trotskyite, and then went to the Gulags when Trotsky was purged.

                  The Soviets were afraid of the Japanese, following the war. They very much want to avoid that fight. They figured they could avoid that by getting the Japs sucked deeply into China. So, they had a sleeper in the KMT, who was commanding FMT adjacent to IJA. They had him attack, the IJA counter-attacked, the following battles going to Nanking.

                  Stalin decided that he liked Mao, thought him a power hungry survivor who would take and hold power, or something. However, Mao had gotten himself in deep trouble with various Chinese political organizations. However, Chiang Kaishek had a fair amount of influence, and the Soviets had his son. In exchange for freeing his son, and giving him back, he rehabilitated Mao.

                  This was enough, combined with Mao’s talents, other Soviet meddling, and the general mess for Mao to come to power.

                  Like

                  1. “The Soviets were afraid of the Japanese” — even after kicking the s— out of them at Khalkin-Gol in ’39?

                    Like

                    1. The Soviets were smarter than they looked, they could take the Japanese, one on one, but they knew it would hurt, and it wouldn’t be one on one. Divide and conquer is a time honored strategy, because it works.

                      Like

                    2. This was before Nanking, which wiki says was ’37. The stuff about soviet activity mostly comes from parts of the Chung and Halliday book.

                      Like

                  2. Enjoy the answer– it was more succinct than the Chinese Prof, who taught the subject. His family was from Chaing’s camp so ended up leaving China–

                    Like

              2. Qin Shi Huangdi suffers in part because the Chinese equivilant of academics (philosophers and Confucian scholars) wrote history. At least untl the 20th Century, bumping off large numbers of academics tended to be frowned upon by other academics. I suspect the stories of his growing paranoia in his later years did have a large grain of truth in them, however.

                Like

                1. He seems to have used mercury for medicinal purposes. I do not expect good things to result from this.

                  Like

              3. I would be interested to know whether any work has been done on the origin and development of the concept of “mercy” — especially towards one foes. Certainly in the breadth of Human History it is an outlier more recognizable for its peculiarity than its commonality. Which makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint — elimination of the conquered Y-Chrome from the gene pool is common in multiple (most if not almost all, I would guess) species.

                Like

                1. I would suspect that mercy toward your vanquished enemy arose with the concept of foreign trade as the basis of an economy, which itself is based on manufacturing and creation of surpluses for export. If you conquer your enemy and grind them into intolerable bondage, it is hard for them to pony up for the latest in gimcracks and consumer goods at reasonable prices (plus shipping).

                  Like

                2. Dear me, in a line on China comes the mention of mercy. (The Daughter holds that the Merciful Goddess of the Chinese pantheon is usually not very nice.)

                  I suspect that what is meant by mercy would have to be considered.

                  The Romans probably thought that, as well as being practical, they were being quite merciful in offering to include the Hebrew G-d among their gods. I don’t think that the Hebrews were inclined to agree that this was a workable option.

                  Like

            3. Rather, I think the Qin Shi Huangdi was who Mary was talking about. I think you could be talking about him, or about Mao. If Mao, I’ve generally found what I’ve read of Chung and Halliday’s Mao:The Unknown Story convincing. I also found it quite depressing, and I stopped reading it because I found the cost in becoming steadily more and more enraged with the world a bit too high.

              Like

      2. chasrmartin | April 8, 2013 at 1:54 pm
        > Simple. Your side wins.

        “Reality Is Outcome-Based.” [Me]

        Like

  6. Pingback: Ideology vs Strategy | Happycrow's Eyeball Factory

  7. Speaking of China, they only have time zone, Beijing’s. They should have 3 or 4. I think that is telling.

    Like

    1. All of Russia runs on Moscow time, Chuck. They should have twelve time zones. You cannot function as a modern nation when it’s time to go to bed as the sun rises.

      Like

      1. There was a book I read a loooooong time ago, not remotely certain who wrote it, but I keep attributing it to Arthur C. Clarke, where one of the items was that Earth had changed some time in the past to having only two time zones, and the main character (who had grown up on Titan) was saying even that was hard to keep track of, and when he found out about 24 time zones in our time, he thought everyone was crazy.

        Of course, since there was no “natural” daytime on Titan, the reasoning wasn’t very applicable…

        Like

    2. Up until time zones were se,t noon was whenever the sun was at its zenith for the day where you were located. All other hours were figured from there. Britain was the first to institute a standard time, legally recognized in 1880. Standardized time zones were created in the U.S. and Canada in 1883. This was at the instigation of and for the convenience of the railroads (and their customers), so that time tables might be set.

      I do not see how what the clock reads should dictate when one rises or goes to sleep. For most of history people were not so ruled by clocks. That is a phenomena primarily of industrialization and shift work, and under a system of shift work people are living on schedules that ignore light and dark.

      Like

      1. And there are three different historical times at which people had vapors:
        between mean time and when the sun was actually at zenith, which can differ by as much as fifteen minutes
        between railroad time and the mean time set by the sun
        between daylight savings and standard.
        All of which had arguments that the other means of determining time was unnatural.

        Like

      2. Spousal Unit and I were talking at the recent “time change” to “Daylight Savings”, as though it could be bottled and preserved, that the beginning of the end was when Government arrogated the power to control Time Itself … which has led to Government’s belief that it can control the planetary climate, the minds of its subjects, everything … sigh …

        Like

      3. Standardized times are a necessity for people who communicate over long distances, for simplification of synchronization. Sure, I could tell someone I am going to call them at 1:00, then calculate the difference in longitude, and then the time differential, but 1), that’s not going to happen with the majority of people, and 2) most people don’t have any idea what their longitude is.

        Once you have standardized times, people will want to have numerical commonality when they are local, so if they travel across two time zones, they won’t have to remember to wake up two hours earlier on the clock to go to work than they did halfway across the country.

        Like

        1. “Once you have standardized times, people will want to have numerical commonality when they are local, so if they travel across two time zones, they won’t have to remember to wake up two hours earlier on the clock to go to work than they did halfway across the country.”

          Huh? Doesn’t anybody other than me go to work at different times on different days? If you always go to work at the same time every day why is it a big deal to wake up two hours different on the clock when you move halfway across the country? If you go to work at the same time every day that means you have to change your alarm clock ONCE, and it will be good until you move again. I don’t generally have a problem with time zones (although living close to one it is at times confusing when making plans with someone living on the other side of the line) really couldn’t care less whether we have one or three in the US, but daylight savings time is stupid. None of it really matters except to play mind games though, regardless of whether you call the time now 7:00 or 6:00 or 1:00 it is still the same time, we still have 24 hours in a day and the same amount of daylight per day, regardless of how you play with the hands on the clock.

          Like

          1. Daylight savings time was initially adopted by the Germans and Austrian’s during WW1 in an effort to conserve fuel when the embargo began to bite. This was quickly adopted by every other combatant because they didn’t want to take the chance that the enemy was gaining an advantage over them. It ended for most countries after the war and then was revived again during WW2 then revived again in the 60s. Of course the problem is no one in government has actually bothered to study if it was actually beneficial or not- its not. Which is a concrete example of something RES mentioned earlier about learned knowledge that is obsolete or wrong.

            Like

            1. There have been some indepencent studies on this and I believe they agree that it doesn’t do diddly. But I can’t recall the groups or the actual findings. My theory is it is continued for one or two reasons: One, the powers that be like to think they, like Joshua, can raise their arms and stop the sun in its travels, and Two, commonality of hardship and perceived sacrifice binds the culture to the rulers.

              Like

              1. I believe that studies have indicated no real savings in energy is accomplished with DST. They also indicate a decline in productivity and a rise in accidents for a period of time until people have adjusted when the clocks are turned forward in the Spring.

                At this point it continues because it would be bloody hell to change it; when our government decided to extend the ends of DST it was set to take effect in a couple of years. Why? Well international considerations. Our world is a great big entangled mess of business. Air traffic — the coordination of air space and the schedules had to be worked out. There were also issues about markets, banking and communications. It is one of those things that seems simple on the surface, but creates headaches all over the place.

                There is nothing like a government to say, “Hey this is a great idea. Let’s pass a law and make it so,” and then leave it to the rest of us to scramble.

                Like

                  2. Actually, it’s the other way around. Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time (except for the Navajo Nation which does observe DST).

                    Like

              2. Every couple of years, folks work out how it’s supposed to save power by folks not needing to use the AC and lights and such as much– and the saving never shows up, because people don’t conform to the theory.

                At a guess, I’d figure that folks turn on the a/c as early as they ever did– or have it programmed to start– and the places are just more comfortable.

                Well, that and how the changes are off peak demand, anyways.

                Like

                1. A large portion of the population with A/C in their homes also have electric heat, they tend to set their thermostat at 72 or 68 or whatever their preference is, when they move in, and NEVER CHANGE IT. There is a persistent rumor (I say rumor because there are to many factors that effect it) that keeping your house at one temperature all the time uses less power than letting it heat up or cool down during the day while you are gone, and then returning it to your preferred temp when you get home. A lot of people believe this, without taking into account the myriad of variables that affect it.

                  Like

                  1. Adjusting of temperature during the day presumes that people will not be in the home during a substantial part of the day. Now if you have the adults all at work (and that on the same shift more or less) and the youngsters in daycare or a combination of school and daycare this might be the case. Somehow I doubt that this is how the vast majority of us are living right now.

                    Like

                  3. Better than some people. I have read accusations to the general population that all of us set the air conditioner to cooler than we set the heat in the winter. . .

                    False bill, actually.

                    Like

                    1. If you’ve got an “energy efficent” system, you have to do that, just to get the same temp– 74 in the winter, 62 in the summer, just to get 65 and 70 respectively.

                      Like

  8. Can take a while of using it before the faults in some new and sounds good on paper -system start to become too obvious to ignore. And even then it may take passing of the older generations, those who grew up in love with the new system, before society as a whole is ready to truly move away from it. And people won’t usually start to flock towards some new system or idea unless there actually are real faults with the old – problem being that there are no systems which have zero faults, and the better something works as a whole the easier it will be to draw attention to those parts which don’t, and the more energy those people who want to fix things (or feel important…) will have to attack them.

    I don’t believe any kind of permanent move into something that would be good overall is possible. It will probably always be something of a pendulum – things work pretty well and the few faults start getting a lot of attention, possibly the attempts to fix those will get everything out of kilter and things start to get worse but not so fast nor so obviously that it would bring backlash and speedy return to the older, overall better system – especially if it seems that the few things which people aimed to fix actually did get better. Until things start to get bad enough that most people can’t ignore it anymore, and then the pendulum probably starts to swing back again. What parts work and what don’t do change, and things like developing technology affect everything but the dynamic as a whole doesn’t change.

    All you can hope for is that the periods of pretty good will dominate, and the swings towards bad can be kept moderate.

    Like

    1. But wouldn’t it be nice to change the center of the swing so we don’t have to cycle back and forth between mild statism and fascistic statism?
      It would be nice, for a change, to have the world’s discourse be about which end of the soft-boiled egg to open like in Johnathan Swift’s Lilliput, or have the dispute over the best economic model being mercantilism and laisez-faire.

      Like

      1. Yep. Would be, so it’s worthwhile to push towards that. But for that to happen, I think it’s one of those things which can’t be made to happen on purpose, rather something which can happen if there is enough push under the right circumstances (and who knows what those might be).

        But just in case it might happen it’s good to always keep pushing. Hey, that at least might help us keep further away from that fascistic statism end.

        And I’m probably a bit more pessimistic than some of you may be, having spend my whole life in Europe.

        Like

        1. The nature of the beast largely insures a leftward ratcheting of the pendulum. The swing back to the Right moderates rather than undoes the effects of the Leftward swing. Thus in America FDR created Social Security and the Right ratified it, Carter created the Depat of (mal)Education and the Right couldn’t undo it.

          This is the concern that Obamacare, once established, will be impossible to undo. Like Cortés burning his ships on the Yucatan beach, the health insurance industry will prove impossible to reconstitute. The Left is in many ways reactionary, viciously defending any and all gains, while conservatives are rarely willing to burn down the barn to rid it of rats (in part because we worry over whence the rats will flee.)

          It is a matter of temperament, you see, that sets the pawl for the ratchet of social “progress.”

          Like

    1. All too often we see demonstrated the unhappy fact that many of our political experts, people who have involved themselves in an issue for decades are not simply stupid and ignorant but too stupid and ignorant to recognize how stupid and ignorant they are.

      One problem with the Scientific Method reliance on peer review is that the peers represent a vested interest in the accepted wisdom. Sometimes this is valid and wise (see “cold fusion”), at other times it obstructs and delays advances (see Pasteur, Copernicus) and at other times we simply cannot measure what has been prevented from happening.

      Like

  10. Expanding on the Mandate of Heaven idea in Chinese culture (“will of heaven” is just a different translation of the same thing, neither is wrong), it is, as with everything in Chinese culture, more complicated than that.

    One of the key aspects of it is that a ruling government only has the mandate so long as it controls all of the territory that has ever been “China”. To lose territory, even a small part, is to lose the mandate.

    This is why Taiwan is such a madhouse, and why Mainlanders are so irrational on the subject. In Taiwan, if there is, say, a mining disaster in the mainland, people demand of the (Taiwanese) government an explanation for why this was allowed to happen. This makes no sense until you realize that the Republic of China needs to maintain the fiction that it has control over the mainland, even though everybody obviously knows that it doesn’t.

    In the same way, mainlanders treat Taiwan as just another province, though one that is irritatingly disobedient. Dare to suggest that it is, in fact, independent and separate, and you will be subjected to a red-faced, not terribly quiet lecture on how Taiwan is China, it has always been China, it will always remain China. If you get the lecturer to admit that, okay, it has been pretty separate for “a few decades”, he might start comparing it to the Confederate States of America, and say that the same thing will happen to Taiwan.

    This is not, note, from people associated with the Beijing government in any way. This is how a great many average Chinese people believe things are and should be.

    As another example, a pop star who is native Taiwanese (and yes, that’s distinct from Chinese), A Mei, has spent much of the past decade rebuilding her popularity in China, because she “dared” to sing a song to the President of Taiwan. The problem was that doing so brought attention to the fact that Taiwan is not part of China, has its own government, and is independent. That she was more or less supportive of the then-current President was unimportant, as I understood things. The immediate aftermath was that sales of her albums plummeted in the mainland, and she hasn’t quite reached the same superstar status she once had.

    That wasn’t a government reaction, that was purely cultural.

    Like

    1. YES– something I couldn’t explain because it sort of escapes me and many of the Chinese and Taiwanese that I have talked to have had such different ways of explaining their situation. The Taiwanese girl (this was in the 80s) was offended if anyone asked if she was Chinese.

      Like

      1. Oh, Taiwanese (in the US, at least) still get offended at being called Chinese. Given that when the Guo Min Dang government fled to Taiwan they arrived and started killing any non-Chinese (i.e., Taiwanese) that got in their way, and many that didn’t, it’s hard not to blame them.

        Like

      1. Hong Kong is a way to very easily and quickly set mainlanders off. They often claim that it proves Chinese are good at trade, and really, REALLY don’t react well when it is pointed out to them that it was just a rock with a tiny fishing village before the British took it over after the first Opium War. :)

        Like

        2. An interesting side note. Some of the best Chinese businessmen left China and settled in Panama and Germany– I met a few. One was a first generation Chinese in Panama and we rented our house from him– a very good go-getter business person.

          Like

          1. Thomas Sowell pointed out that no matter where they went, Chinese did well in business. This led to a lot of hostility against them in other countries,as happens with other “middleman” groups (Lebanese in the US, Indians in Africa).

            Like

            1. Many of these guys were of Mandarin descent (over 6 feet tall –) ;-)
              Yea– an interesting fact about how well they did when they were able to leave. It was a shock to me (shouldn’t have been –lol) that there were so many ethnic groups in China– with their own characteristics. Of course, the first time I went to South Africa, it took me a while to get used to being the strange person with white skin and blonde hair.

              I think travel shook me out of some bad ideas. (stereotypical ideas about other countries and people.)

              Like

              1. International travel confirmed my bad ideas and stereotypes. Of course, that’s because I first visited France. ;-)

                “Wogs begin at Calais” – a Labour MP ascribing the view to Winston Churchill as an insult.

                Like

              2. Cyn- there was a huge Chinese presence in Panama when I was there in 1967-68. Also Indian. They owned most of the better restaurants.

                SPQR below: I visited most of the countries in Europe. The only one I didn’t find friendly and welcoming was France. ALL the countries in SE Asia I visited were friendly, and most of the Latin American countries. As has been said, it’s an education in itself. 8^)

                Like

                2. Mike, back in High School I had a friend whose family went to Europe every summer (they were teachers in the Detroit School system in the 1960s) and who was fluent in most major European languages. His observation to me was that in France it was best to speak German. No American could ever be fluent enough in French to satisfy them (few French could) and they resented English speakers, but for German speakers he said they snapped to and provided excellent service.

                  Like

                  2. I’m dying laughing here. I should have tried that. Except my German is worse than my French, but maybe it would have worked, since all my German vocabulary is military terminology….

                    Like

                  1. I really enjoyed Germany. I spent most of my time in Kaiserslautern, but a few hours in Frankfurt and Heidelberg. We spent a lot of time climbing hills up to castles, going into churches, and eating at sidewalk cafes. I also had the opportunity to go to Weimar (saw Schiller’s home.)

                    Like

                    1. We spent a total of ten years (three tours) in Wiesbaden, back when the 497th RTG was there. Beautiful town, great people. We went just about everywhere. We even met the family that lived in Lahneck Castle — they’re second cousins or so of Queen Elizabeth. I think we ended up visiting more than 40 different castles during our tours there. That said, I’m glad I had the opportunity, but I wouldn’t go back. Too much has changed, including me.

                      Like

                    3. I went to university in the Palatinate. They did not like Americans, who they lumped in with the Yugoslav refugees who had been dumped on the town. I really like Upper Austria, and the strip from Köln-Mainz. This summer I’m working as an interpreter and back-up trouble-shooter for a tour group along the Rhine and then down into Bavaria, so I’m curious to see what Bavaria is like.

                      Like

                    4. My hubby was stationed in Bavaria (near Roseheim) in the late 60s I think. We have been there a few times. It is beautiful. I hear the skiing is good in winter.

                      Like

  11. “Competition being stiff, I’m going to … promise an even more interesting award ceremony dress…”

    Yeah, that’ll stiffen the competition alright.

    Like

      1. It was more a matter of who got there first — surely no one expected restraint?

        As the Scotsman murmured whilst straightening his kilt one hot day, talk about low-hanging fruit.

        Like

        1. I deeply apologize to the Hoytian Horde for the prior post.

          It should have read:
          As the Scotsman murmured whilst straightening his kilt one hot day, “talk about your low-hanging fruit.”

          I deeply regret the lapse in quality control.

          Like

            1. However, while interesting dresses might make things grow, I doubt what you’re spreading will…

              Like

  12. Off topic….Weekends being busy and all, subscribers should check their email for the password to the SUBSCRIBER’S PLACE (see button up there^) and go read a really interesting story. News in the future . . .

    Like

  14. ” … I’m going to be underhanded right here, and promise an even more interesting award ceremony dress, should I win.”

    I hate it when I know I can’t get away with any of the responses that come to mind …

    Like

  15. Pingback: Gaming Notes April 14, 2013 | Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog

Comments are closed.