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DaKeler t1_iqz8cj4 wrote

Reply to comment by blarryg in Bronze Age China - Shang dynasty [1600 ~ 1045 BC] by gimhae_pyeongya

Oh, this is what I actually wrote my master's thesis on! In short, mostly no.

There was no traumatic reduction of socioeconomic complexity during the bronze-iron transition in China (in fact, it was very much the opposite) in contrast to areas such as Greece and Anatolia circa 1200 BC. However, the introduction and proliferation of iron-working technology did non-critically contribute to a destructive geopolitical feedback loop, so I guess there's a small morsel of parallelism in terms of violence.

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DaKeler t1_iqz74wy wrote

Reply to comment by Atharaphelun in Bronze Age China - Shang dynasty [1600 ~ 1045 BC] by gimhae_pyeongya

Yes! Confucius descended from the second to last king of Shang, Di Yi (帝乙), whose youngest son succeeded and ruled (incompetently) until the Zhou famously, and rather dramatically, overthrew and killed him.

Di Yi's first and second sons successively were the ones granted land by the new Zhou government according to the "Two Crownings and Three Respects" system (二王三恪) to carry on the rites of Shang. The first son's line tapered off after a while, but second son's line was the one that gave rise to most of the remaining rulers of Song and, more importantly, was the one that ultimately produced Confucius.

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Dahvtator t1_iqz4cts wrote

Reply to comment by DoktorSpengler in Why No Roman Industrial Revolution? by Magister_Xehanort

I think plagues and wars continually came around keeping the population down. As well as loss of their best arable lands. By the time the eastern roman empire was the only part left much of western europe had become much more productive and their populations were able to grow bigger.

Also i think your last point is a big factor. While rome was wealthy throughout its times the increase of wealth to the powerful western states by their access to the americas was massive. Constantinople finally fell in 1453. Columbus did his thing in 1492. Sadly rome never knew that the americas existed.

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ddrcrono t1_iqz19s6 wrote

Reply to comment by wjbc in Bronze Age China - Shang dynasty [1600 ~ 1045 BC] by gimhae_pyeongya

>moral

In Pinker's case, he's talking about society and statistics in general, but I think it's generally the case that individuals grow up within and are affected by a society - the most immoral anyone can "get away" with being in one place and time is different than another.

That particular point aside, I actually got the impression that OP was talking about moral standards in general and using the sorts of things rulers did as examples to highlight the state of affairs.

My general train of thought here is that if society and/or rulers were held to higher standards over time that it would be analogous to the arguments that Pinker makes, or more generally, to the overall idea that morality develops over time. (You don't need to think specifically about Pinker for this, as it's a point that's been made elsewhere in different ways).

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Atharaphelun t1_iqz0in1 wrote

Reply to Bronze Age China - Shang dynasty [1600 ~ 1045 BC] by gimhae_pyeongya

>The house of Shang survived though. Some of them revolted after the fall of their dynasty, but others were granted land. The state of Song) was ruled by the Shang descendants as a vassal state of Zhou. There was more brother-to-brother succession of the throne in the state of Song, compared to other Zhou states.

Confucius himself was in fact a descendant of the ruling house of the State of Song himself, and by extension, the royal Zi clan of the Shang dynasty. All of Confucius' descendants in our time, therefore, have traceable lines of descent going all the way back to the royal clan of the Shang dynasty.

>They established a strict primogeniture (father-son succession) system that had not been the case during the Shang dynasty.

Just to clarify, the term primogeniture just means the oldest child inherits. The term you're looking for is agnatic primogeniture, in which the oldest son inherits, as opposed to cognatic primogeniture, in which the oldest child regardless of gender inherits, or enatic primogeniture, in which the oldest daughter inherits.

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gimhae_pyeongya OP t1_iqz09hd wrote

Reply to comment by blarryg in Bronze Age China - Shang dynasty [1600 ~ 1045 BC] by gimhae_pyeongya

Not that I know of. However, the iron age in China manifested in the chaos of "the Spring and Autumn period (about 770~470 BC)" and "the Warring States period (about 470~220 BC)" - Confucius and many other Chinese philosophers were born in this time

The Shang-Zhou bronze age was considered as the "good ol' time" by many Chinese philosophers in the Spring and Autumn / Warring States period, for example.

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