There is much to discuss here, but I’ll just focus on what’s missing: Rome. Unless you agree with Donna D2 from TikTok, Rome existed, it’s a civilizational ancestor of America, Russia, and Western Europe, and it’s an essential part of why Europe conquered the world.
Yes, and to this I would add Christianity. Rome → Christendom → Enlightenment/Industrial Rev
Rome had a system of competing consuls->generals->dictators that evolved into a system of constrained competition between kingdoms, with political competition tempered by loose religious/cultural unification under the RCC which was a partial continuation of late rome’s legacy.
Christianity was also unusual in other potentially key dimensions—it dramatically promoted outbreeding (by outlawing inbreeding far beyond the typical), which plausibly permanently altered the european trajectory. It invested significant resources in education and the preservation of (esp Greek/Roman) knowledge (monastic libraries).
Europe was already significantly ahead by the time of the enlightenment—a predictable explosive reaction against the church’s monopoly on knowledge/education.
Christianity was also unusual in other potentially key dimensions—it dramatically promoted outbreeding (by outlawing inbreeding far beyond the typical), which plausibly permanently altered the european trajectory.
are you proposing that Christian Europe was historically successful in significant part due to inbreeding less than non-Christian-European civilizations? Is there somewhere I can read more about that thesis? I’m not familiar with it.
1.) Fairly high confidence: The RCC/christendom was unique in that it banned cousin marriage between 4 and 7 degrees of consanguinity (depending on the time period), and had the record tracking infrastructure to implement such a ban.
2.) Also reasonably confident that 1.) had long term genetic/cultural consequences after a millennia. Eg: medieval europoean societies were more outbred than most middle eastern societies (where 1st degree cousin marriage was/is the norm).
3.) Less confident that those changes gave a significant edge, but it seems plausible.[1][2][3][4].
Akbari, Mahsa, Duman Bahrami-Rad, and Erik O. Kimbrough. “Kinship, fractionalization and corruption.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 166 (2019): 493-528.
I appreciate the clarification, at first #1 seemed dissonant to me (and #2 and #3 following from that) given the trope of highly inbred European nobility, but on further reflection that might be mostly a special case due to dispensations. I hadn’t thought of worldwide consanguination/marriage norms as a potential X factor for civilizational development, but it’s an interesting angle.
Yeah the European nobility couldn’t follow the stringent outbreeding constraints (and naturally could pay for exemptions) because the dating pool was too small, but the attempts to do so still intermingled the european bloodlines. It’s historically wierd/unusual too - if you consider that the more common alternative would be intra-clan marriage within national/cultural borders.
In most other times/places cultures/nations/tribes engaged in total warfare and then destroyed/enslaved/conquered each other, vs constrained warfare combined with intermarriage alliance mingling. Marriage between people who spoke completely different languages was common for the european nobility, vs uncommon throughout most of history. But the europeans were semi-unified under a shared roman catholic cultural heritage.
The Roman empire didn’t suddenly disappear, it evolved into christendom. See my other comment for some more specific details, but Rome was unique, and christendom more so.
Rome gave Europe, and also Russia and America, its religion, its politics, and much of its intellectual culture. It is the ancestor of those modern societies, just as much as ancient China is the ancestor of modern China. The only difference is that for Europe, like India and Islam, political unification has been the exception rather than the rule.
If I just go by the beginning and the ending of your essay, its tone is: China was always the center of the world, Europe is a bunch of hillbillies who conquered the world by accident. It emphasizes a handful of economic and geographic contingencies, rather than the continuities of European political and cultural history. It’s interesting looking for obscure and ironic turning points, but one shouldn’t forget the big picture.
There is much to discuss here, but I’ll just focus on what’s missing: Rome. Unless you agree with Donna D2 from TikTok, Rome existed, it’s a civilizational ancestor of America, Russia, and Western Europe, and it’s an essential part of why Europe conquered the world.
Yes, and to this I would add Christianity. Rome → Christendom → Enlightenment/Industrial Rev
Rome had a system of competing consuls->generals->dictators that evolved into a system of constrained competition between kingdoms, with political competition tempered by loose religious/cultural unification under the RCC which was a partial continuation of late rome’s legacy.
Christianity was also unusual in other potentially key dimensions—it dramatically promoted outbreeding (by outlawing inbreeding far beyond the typical), which plausibly permanently altered the european trajectory. It invested significant resources in education and the preservation of (esp Greek/Roman) knowledge (monastic libraries).
Europe was already significantly ahead by the time of the enlightenment—a predictable explosive reaction against the church’s monopoly on knowledge/education.
Just to clarify, with this sentence:
are you proposing that Christian Europe was historically successful in significant part due to inbreeding less than non-Christian-European civilizations? Is there somewhere I can read more about that thesis? I’m not familiar with it.
To clarify:
1.) Fairly high confidence: The RCC/christendom was unique in that it banned cousin marriage between 4 and 7 degrees of consanguinity (depending on the time period), and had the record tracking infrastructure to implement such a ban.
2.) Also reasonably confident that 1.) had long term genetic/cultural consequences after a millennia. Eg: medieval europoean societies were more outbred than most middle eastern societies (where 1st degree cousin marriage was/is the norm).
3.) Less confident that those changes gave a significant edge, but it seems plausible.[1][2][3][4].
(https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholic-church-ban-in-the-middle-ages-loosened-family-ties/)
Schulz, Jonathan F., et al. “The Church, intensive kinship, and global psychological variation.” Science 366.6466 (2019).
Schulz, Jonathan F. The Churches’ bans on consanguineous marriages, kin-networks and democracy. No. 2016-16. CeDEx Discussion Paper Series, 2016.
Akbari, Mahsa, Duman Bahrami-Rad, and Erik O. Kimbrough. “Kinship, fractionalization and corruption.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 166 (2019): 493-528.
I appreciate the clarification, at first #1 seemed dissonant to me (and #2 and #3 following from that) given the trope of highly inbred European nobility, but on further reflection that might be mostly a special case due to dispensations. I hadn’t thought of worldwide consanguination/marriage norms as a potential X factor for civilizational development, but it’s an interesting angle.
Yeah the European nobility couldn’t follow the stringent outbreeding constraints (and naturally could pay for exemptions) because the dating pool was too small, but the attempts to do so still intermingled the european bloodlines. It’s historically wierd/unusual too - if you consider that the more common alternative would be intra-clan marriage within national/cultural borders.
In most other times/places cultures/nations/tribes engaged in total warfare and then destroyed/enslaved/conquered each other, vs constrained warfare combined with intermarriage alliance mingling. Marriage between people who spoke completely different languages was common for the european nobility, vs uncommon throughout most of history. But the europeans were semi-unified under a shared roman catholic cultural heritage.
Why was the Western Roman Empire, which fell in 476, instrumental in helping Europe conquer the world in the late 1400s?
The Roman empire didn’t suddenly disappear, it evolved into christendom. See my other comment for some more specific details, but Rome was unique, and christendom more so.
Rome gave Europe, and also Russia and America, its religion, its politics, and much of its intellectual culture. It is the ancestor of those modern societies, just as much as ancient China is the ancestor of modern China. The only difference is that for Europe, like India and Islam, political unification has been the exception rather than the rule.
If I just go by the beginning and the ending of your essay, its tone is: China was always the center of the world, Europe is a bunch of hillbillies who conquered the world by accident. It emphasizes a handful of economic and geographic contingencies, rather than the continuities of European political and cultural history. It’s interesting looking for obscure and ironic turning points, but one shouldn’t forget the big picture.