Comment by q2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by q2 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

If you are seeing past life of eastern countries (India or china ...etc) only through economic point of view, you will never get proper understanding. Infact, outside colonial Europe and America, money/economics was/is not the only pursuit.

1. Almost all colonial powers in the west fought across the world primarily for territory, gold, resources, spices ...etc. This pursuit of selfish economic interests at the expense of rest of the world, environment is still we see in the world. Amount of loot/destruction from East to support Britain is just gigantic even during world wars.

2. Wealth, GDP might be there in the past Eastern world but that was by product/side effect of something else. No one really pushed for efficieny/productivity just like we see now in the west. It was individual interest to earn but not enforced one as if whole world is in a race and we will fall behind if we do not compete ...etc. You won't see such insecurity/paranoid in the past Eastern world. Selfish economic pursuit was never a primary/sole criterion for past India at state level. Yes, there were rules/laws for finances (e.g: Artha Sastra ...etc) but that is part of bigger picture just enough to maintain state but not main one. Kings of India before Mughals/British fought too among themselves but not for resources/money/territory. Dominating world/make a dent on the universe/earth ...etc was never part of eastern thinking even when East was financially strong. Concepts like Yoga/Kama Sutra ...etc emerged which are not at all connected to Finance/economy.

So do not look at just financial parts to understand whole. You will miss many subtle/nuanced/implicit points and your understanding may not be correct/complete.

Note: Please do not downvote if you disagree. There may be several implicit facts which you may not aware because of cultural difference.

> Kings of India before Mughals/British fought too among themselves but not for resources/money/territory.

...then what did they fought for?

(Note: I didn't downvote you and I think this may be an insightful comment, but please use a spellchecker... this is HN and you can get downvotes just for bad spelling even when English is obviously not your native tongue :))

>>> ...then what did they fought for?

In some cases "Dharma" and in some cases, just to show their power or get the titles such as "king of kings" ...etc.

Remember "time" is continuous spectrum and there may be dilution of the above in some cases but since history won't preserve every emotion/reason/circumstances behind every decision of every participant, we can just speculate in such diluted individual cases.

Also, just like modern day games which happen in a stadium, there used to be "war stadiums" where war is confined to that place only (e.g: Kurushetra). This is primarily to avoid loss of innocents/women/children unlike current practice of destructing whole opposite country including small children some times.

EDIT: Just added a new line.

Why downvote? What is wrong/incorrect in the above comment?

I'm not downvoting because I disagree. I'm downvoting because you're spouting a bunch of blatantly Orientalist "the four nations lived in harmony, but everything changed when the ~~Fire Nation~~ West attacked" bullcrap.

When you talk about the "rich Eastern world" of pre-industrial history, you are primarily talking about civilizations who considered Europe too poor and ignorant to colonize or exploit when, after all, they could be colonizing and exploiting each-other.

Honestly, I do not have points to down-vote you but I wish to down-vote since you abused the power of down-voting without adequate knowledge on cultural differences or intentional differences and blindly followed what some authors might have told/wrote by looking just at superficial level.

There is a quality called "contentment". Ask yourself a question? If Europe was poor/ignorant/weak and East can exploit them, then they could have been used as slaves, right? After all, that was easy. Isn't it? Why that did not happened? Because there was no interest/intention in the so called "world domination" or "we are better than you" ...etc attitude.

This is the mindset/weakness of some part of west where you get confidence of your power only if you colonize/destroy other country. But if you are self-aware of your powers, then you do not need to exhibit them unless they are needed.

Concept of Colonization/exploitation intentionally was not part of Eastern mindset/attitude. If you want to speculate, you can but that cannot be truth.

>There is a quality called "contentment". Ask yourself a question? If Europe was poor/ignorant/weak and East can exploit them, then they could have been used as slaves, right? After all, that was easy. Isn't it?

The Arab and Ottoman Empires invaded Europe from the East, repeatedly, which is actually what brought Classical literature back to Europe, triggering the Renaissance and leading to Europe going on an expansionist streak to fight back (and then for power and gold, of course).

Your lack of knowledge is shown by your generalizing over "the East", as if Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Arab, Persian, Turkish, Russian, and Byzantine empires all had some "essential Easternness" in common.

And then of course there's the issue that the Chinese Empire did have many expansionist periods, which were only really blocked from reaching Europe by such barriers as Mongolian armies preventing them reaching through Siberia and several different mountain ranges to their south and west, which were easier to trade through than to invade through. Oh, and of course we mustn't forget the Indian and Middle Eastern empires that would try to block a Chinese colonization of Europe on grounds that it was their turf.

How can you included Middle East as part of East?

I never included "Arab, Persian, Turkish, Russian, and Byzantine empires" in my comments. I specifically excluded Mughals who are of Turkish origin. If you can include Russian empire in your logic, you can include America and Europe also. Nothing will stop you if you want to twist the facts.

>>> Oh, and of course we mustn't forget the Indian and Middle Eastern empires that would try to block a Chinese colonization of Europe on grounds that it was their turf.

Please provide proofs. An Indian empire thinking Europe as their turf? Are you serious?

>How can you included Middle East as part of East?

Well, how can you draw a completely arbitrary, undefined boundary around some part of the world and declare that people Over There are just morally and spiritually better than everyone else, in the complete absence of historical evidence or even of specifically stating whom you're actually talking about?

Oh, right, by being a racist and an Orientalist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com