Are countries trapped by their history?

[Ecthelion]

Multiple examples have already been provided. In order for you to see things the way you do, it is necessary that you discount the vast majority of history, merely picking out those areas of it that support your analysis. Your opinion is a classic example of confirmation bias, wherein you confuse cause and effect, or correlation and causation, and then filter out all knowledge that contradicts it, or create terms to support it that are vague enough that no evidence can be used outright to disprove it, even going so far as to abandon logic itself. I want you to take this not as an insult or provocation but as an invitation to take a step back and consider if you are as open minded as you would like to be.

Multiple examples?
Like Botswana?
A a vague reference to the Renaissance which I've already pointed out is a reversion to historical norm?

OK. I guess that represents a large part of human history for you.

[removeduser_487563287433]

In fact, I cannot think of a single modern state that has truly and completely departed from its traditional norm without a major change in ethnicity or being ruled by long period of time by a domineering colonial power, or in the case of the Arabian oil giants, having a huge supply of free money underneath their feet.

Really? I can think of tonnes, just in Europe, just in the last hundred years. Portugal has gone from monarchy to Republicanism to fascism to democracy. Spain, exactly the same. Germany has swung from authoritative monarchy to democracy to fascism to partition and back to democracy. Austria-Hungary collapsed, new countries formed and collapsed, adopted fascism, communism, democracy, et al. God there's countless examples, of course ethnicity doesn't determine political systems.

[Knight of Heaven]

Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. it is a ridiculous notion. If not dangerous if you take into account the tenets of nazism, wich have a similar argumentation on this matter.

You can argue for a variety of factors sociological speaking, but also including economic, and Geo political circunstance, this two things together seem for me much more relevant. I would say even crucial.

[Ecthelion]

Really? I can think of tonnes, just in Europe, just in the last hundred years. Portugal has gone from monarchy to Republicanism to fascism to democracy. Spain, exactly the same. Germany has swung from authoritative monarchy to democracy to fascism to partition and back to democracy. Austria-Hungary collapsed, new countries formed and collapsed, adopted fascism, communism, democracy, et al. God there's countless examples, of course ethnicity doesn't determine political systems.

THAT'S WHAT I SAID.

Folks, if you're gonna disagree with the post, I humbly ask that you READ THE POST FIRST.

TL;DR
Political systems don't really change the success or failure of a country. Your example is perfect. The problems of modern Spain are not too far removed from those of Spain under the Ferdi and Izzy dynasty, poor centralization of power, poor fiscal management, political patronage, etc. etc. Sure they've gone through the whole spectrum of left to right regimes, but ultimately they end up where they started.

Germany is the counter example. Whether under the monarchical authority of a Kaiser or today's liberal democracy, Germany does well. It does well for reasons that are deeply rooted in the distant past as I've explained above. And it will continue to do well so long as Germans continue to be Germans living in Germany.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Multiple examples?
Like Botswana?
A a vague reference to the Renaissance which I've already pointed out is a reversion to historical norm?

OK. I guess that represents a large part of human history for you.

Like Spain? In the space of a century Spain was a Constitutional Monarchy at the turn of the 20th century facing a large amount of civil strife between competing political ideologies not simply confined to right or left wing spheres, with communists, anarchists, fascists, royalists, reactionaries all engaging in increasing conflict and loose association, eventually resulting in the abdication of the King and the establishment of the Spanish Republic. Within the first half of the century Spain faced a full blown Civil War that left the country under a fascist dictatorship for the next 30+ years. That again shifted back to the constitutional monarchy and representative democracy that exists today.

The Spanish did not change their ethnicity during this time period, yet changed their political system numerous times. This could have said to have happened elsewhere in Europe too: in Portugal, Italy, Germany, the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe.

[Ecthelion]

Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. it is a ridiculous notion. If not dangerous if you take into account the tenets of nazism, wich have a similar argumentation on this matter.

You can argue for a variety of factors sociological speaking, but also including economic, and Geo political circunstance, this two things together seem for me much more relevant. I would say even crucial.

Ethnicity is by definition linked to culture. It's a rough combination of shared genetics and shared CULTURE.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Ethnicity is by definition linked to culture. It's a rough combination of shared genetics and shared CULTURE.

This is a far shout from your claim politics is determined by ethnicity.

[dogukan]

I think I get what he is saying but he is approaching to it from a wrong perspective due to his take-things at face-value non-academic approach.
Foremost Ecthelion, don't you think social scientists thought of this issue...why didn't you do some research? This is a bit of a personal rant.

As for his argument, what he is trying to say I think is that no matter what kind of changes happen to a particular society(unfortunately he basis this on a metaphysical conception of ethnicity) they end up in the same position in the world(his second problem is that he sees this as a fact without much insight on various societies and their structures throughout history)

First of all, he view Europe and West in general as top in the world, which is how most of the world sees the concept of modernity true. Thats okay. Even if take this to be fact, we cannot say Europe was the dominating society throughout history. There were major differences among even European societies throughout time.
The west came to dominate the world arond 18th century, established it strictly in 19th century and we got to our modern world by 20th century. Especially the post-war order.

Mere cultural explanations had been debunked many times and in fact in just 50 years these people really did fell to funny positions due to East Asia....When Japan developed "oh shintoism", then Korea followed "oh confucianism as well" and then followed the rest of Asia "oh buddhism" and then the commies of east asia....and positions had been debunked and debunked making the argument literally meaningless in just a few decades.

One can think of culture as a sociological factor, but even then the way OP uses it is pretty inaccurate and wrong and meaningless. The probably most legit argument that is closer to what he says is New Institutional Economics. And thats that even if politics change, or lets say there are short terms changes in a society the institutions(formal and informal) that are ingrained in a society change slowly. So political reforms do not break the problem on day one, there has to be a context where the institutions are also subjected to change...this takes the society from a psychological to political context at hand. There are many problems with the position like many positions out there, but it gives a unique perspective.
Institutions can be shaped by geography, politics, the dominating state structure, natural resources, geopolitical position, climate, religion, culture...etc

But again, unlike what op says, there is always potential for a particular society to change.

As an example, we can deal with Latin America and N.America. One area which inherited the political context of aristocratic social order, Catholicism that did not interact much with reformation movement made L.America relatively backwards. Whereas the institutional context of society in N.America was closer to that of reformation Europe...the perceptions on economics, social order, rule of law, political structures, individual rights...etc. So N.America developed significantly faster compared to L.America until mid 20th-century.


This view however is highly close to neo-classical perception, it just tries to take neo-classical economics from its mathematics obsession to make it touch the social reality.
I am not really a supporter of it but I do consider its insight at times. The works of Şevket Pamuk and Timur Kuran, economic historians that worked over Middle East makes some very interesting points based on this school.
A crucial argument is that social change is based on incentives that depends on the local social context.

wiki-ing D.North on the issue

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Douglass North's 1991 paper summarizes much of his earlier work relating to economic and institutional change. In this paper, North defines institutions as “humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions.”^[5] Constraints, as North describes, are devised as formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights) and informal restraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, code of conduct), which usually contribute to the perpetuation of order and safety within a market or society. The degree to which they are effective is subject to varying circumstances, such as a government's limited coercive force, a lack of organized state, or the presence of strong religious precept.Section 2 describes the economic development of societies as occurring in stages:
He begins with local exchange within the village. In this setting, specialization “is rudimentary and self-sufficiency characterizes most individual households”, with small-scale village trade existing within dense social networks of informal constraints that facilitate local exchange, and a relatively low transaction cost. In this close-knit network “people have an intimate understanding of each other, and the threat of violence is a continuous force for preserving order...” ^[5]
With growth the market extends beyond the village into larger, interconnected regions. As the participants of a transaction become more socially distant the terms of exchange must be made more explicit. This increase in transaction costs necessitates institutions that reduce the risks of being cheated, either by raising "the benefits of cooperative solutions or the costs of defection." ^[5]
As long-distance trade becomes more feasible, generally through caravans or lengthy ship voyages, individuals and groups experience occupational and geographic specialization. Society also experiences a rise of formal trading centers (temporary gathering places, towns or cities). From the development of long-distance trade arise two transactional cost problems.
The first is agency@ the transfer of one's goods or services outside the control of local rule leaves the rules of exchange undefined, the risk of unfair trade high, and the contracts within society unenforced. For this reason, merchants often would send their kin or a sedentary merchant with the product to ensure its safe arrival and the fulfillment of agreed terms of exchange by the receiving party.
The second is contract. Historically this problem was met with either armed forces protecting ships or caravans, or use of tolls by local coercive groups. However, in modern societies, institutions acting cooperatively in the interest of free market trade provide protection for goods and enforcement of contracts. Negotiation and enforcement in alien parts of the world require the development of a standardized system of weights and measures.
As development continues, the rise of capital markets (protection of property rights), creates social capital and enables citizens to gain wealth. Technology plays an instrumental role in the continued development of manufacturing sectors, and acts to lower transaction costs in several ways. The most substantial benefits are generally the result of transportation improvements.
Eventually, society becomes overwhelmingly urban. This final stage of development specialization requires increasing percentages of the resources of the society to be active in the market so that the transaction sector becomes a large share of gross national product. Highly specialized forms of transaction organizations emerge at this stage. Globalized specialization and division of labor demand institutions to ensure property rights even when trading in neighboring countries enabling capital markets to develop "with credible commitment on the part of the players."^[5]
Three primitive types of exchange: Tribal Society "relies on a dense social network."Colson (1974, p. 59) Bazaars "high measurement costs; continuous effort at clientization; intensive bargaining at every margin."^[5] Long-distance caravan trade illustrates the informal constraints that made trade possible in a world where protection was essential and no organized state existed.^[6] All three methods above are found to be much less likely to evolve.
North's paper concludes with a few intriguing questions which his paper has aimed to address:

• What is it about informal constraints that give them such a pervasive influence upon the long-run character of economies?
• What is the relationship between formal and informal constraints?
• How does an economy develop the informal constraints that make individuals constrain their behavior so that they make political and judicial systems effective forces for third party enforcement?

[Ecthelion]

This is a far shout from your claim politics is determined by ethnicity.

READ THE THREAD.
Political systems are not determined by culture or ethnicity. Democracy and Fascism are skins everyone can wear. But whether or not it FITS is determined by culture.
Again, read the thread please.

I think I get what he is saying but he is approaching to it from a wrong perspective due to his take-things at face-value non-academic approach.
Foremost Ecthelion, don't you think social scientists thought of this issue...why didn't you do some research? This is a bit of a personal rant.

As for his argument, what he is trying to say I think is that no matter what kind of changes happen to a particular society(unfortunately he basis this on a metaphysical conception of ethnicity) they end up in the same position in the world(his second problem is that he sees this as a fact without much insight on various societies and their structures throughout history)

First of all, he view Europe and West in general as top in the world, which is how most of the world sees the concept of modernity true. Thats okay. Even if take this to be fact, we cannot say Europe was the dominating society throughout history. There were major differences among even European societies throughout time.
The west came to dominate the world arond 18th century, established it strictly in 19th century and we got to our modern world by 20th century. Especially the post-war order.

Mere cultural explanations had been debunked many times and in fact in just 50 years these people really did fell to funny positions due to East Asia....When Japan developed "oh shintoism", then Korea followed "oh confucianism as well" and then followed the rest of Asia "oh buddhism" and then the commies of east asia....and positions had been debunked and debunked making the argument literally meaningless in just a few decades.

One can think of culture as a sociological factor, but even then the way OP uses it is pretty inaccurate and wrong and meaningless. The probably most legit argument that is closer to what he says is New Institutional Economics. And thats that even if politics change, or lets say there are short terms changes in a society the institutions(formal and informal) that are ingrained in a society change slowly. So political reforms do not break the problem on day one, there has to be a context where the institutions are also subjected to change...this takes the society from a psychological to political context at hand. There are many problems with the position like many positions out there, but it gives a unique perspective.
Institutions can be shaped by geography, politics, the dominating state structure, natural resources, geopolitical position, climate, religion, culture...etc

But again, unlike what op says, there is always potential for a particular society to change.

As an example, we can deal with Latin America and N.America. One area which inherited the political context of aristocratic social order, Catholicism that did not interact much with reformation movement made L.America relatively backwards. Whereas the institutional context of society in N.America was closer to that of reformation Europe...the perceptions on economics, social order, rule of law, political structures, individual rights...etc. So N.America developed significantly faster compared to L.America until mid 20th-century.


This view however is highly close to neo-classical perception, it just tries to take neo-classical economics from its mathematics obsession to make it touch the social reality.
I am not really a supporter of it but I do consider its insight at times. The works of Şevket Pamuk and Timur Kuran, economic historians that worked over Middle East makes some very interesting points based on this school.
A crucial argument is that social change is based on incentives that depends on the local social context.

wiki-ing D.North on the issue

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Douglass North's 1991 paper summarizes much of his earlier work relating to economic and institutional change. In this paper, North defines institutions as “humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions.”^[5] Constraints, as North describes, are devised as formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights) and informal restraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, code of conduct), which usually contribute to the perpetuation of order and safety within a market or society. The degree to which they are effective is subject to varying circumstances, such as a government's limited coercive force, a lack of organized state, or the presence of strong religious precept.Section 2 describes the economic development of societies as occurring in stages:
He begins with local exchange within the village. In this setting, specialization “is rudimentary and self-sufficiency characterizes most individual households”, with small-scale village trade existing within dense social networks of informal constraints that facilitate local exchange, and a relatively low transaction cost. In this close-knit network “people have an intimate understanding of each other, and the threat of violence is a continuous force for preserving order...” ^[5]
With growth the market extends beyond the village into larger, interconnected regions. As the participants of a transaction become more socially distant the terms of exchange must be made more explicit. This increase in transaction costs necessitates institutions that reduce the risks of being cheated, either by raising "the benefits of cooperative solutions or the costs of defection." ^[5]
As long-distance trade becomes more feasible, generally through caravans or lengthy ship voyages, individuals and groups experience occupational and geographic specialization. Society also experiences a rise of formal trading centers (temporary gathering places, towns or cities). From the development of long-distance trade arise two transactional cost problems.
The first is agency@ the transfer of one's goods or services outside the control of local rule leaves the rules of exchange undefined, the risk of unfair trade high, and the contracts within society unenforced. For this reason, merchants often would send their kin or a sedentary merchant with the product to ensure its safe arrival and the fulfillment of agreed terms of exchange by the receiving party.
The second is contract. Historically this problem was met with either armed forces protecting ships or caravans, or use of tolls by local coercive groups. However, in modern societies, institutions acting cooperatively in the interest of free market trade provide protection for goods and enforcement of contracts. Negotiation and enforcement in alien parts of the world require the development of a standardized system of weights and measures.
As development continues, the rise of capital markets (protection of property rights), creates social capital and enables citizens to gain wealth. Technology plays an instrumental role in the continued development of manufacturing sectors, and acts to lower transaction costs in several ways. The most substantial benefits are generally the result of transportation improvements.
Eventually, society becomes overwhelmingly urban. This final stage of development specialization requires increasing percentages of the resources of the society to be active in the market so that the transaction sector becomes a large share of gross national product. Highly specialized forms of transaction organizations emerge at this stage. Globalized specialization and division of labor demand institutions to ensure property rights even when trading in neighboring countries enabling capital markets to develop "with credible commitment on the part of the players."^[5]
Three primitive types of exchange: Tribal Society "relies on a dense social network."Colson (1974, p. 59) Bazaars "high measurement costs; continuous effort at clientization; intensive bargaining at every margin."^[5] Long-distance caravan trade illustrates the informal constraints that made trade possible in a world where protection was essential and no organized state existed.^[6] All three methods above are found to be much less likely to evolve.
North's paper concludes with a few intriguing questions which his paper has aimed to address:

• What is it about informal constraints that give them such a pervasive influence upon the long-run character of economies?
• What is the relationship between formal and informal constraints?
• How does an economy develop the informal constraints that make individuals constrain their behavior so that they make political and judicial systems effective forces for third party enforcement?

Your example about the discrepancy in development between Latin and North America is correct. I know this, because I’ve already mentioned in this thread.

However, your assertion that it might have something to do with the Protestantism of the north and the Catholicism of the south completely misses the point.

A better name for Canada and the US is “Germanic America”. It’s no coincidence that the Germanic areas of Europe were also the areas (generally speaking) to adopt Protestantism. Even within Catholic countries like France, the Protestants were mainly in the north.

Latin America is indeed “Latin”. They derive from the old tradition of the Roman Empire as kept alive today by southern Italy and Spain, the core areas of Roman Empire where ethnicity was conserved, unlike in Gaul where the Germans took over, especially in the north.

So it’s no surprise that many of the same fundamental political problems Roman Empire are still alive today in the “Latin” part of the Americas and Europe. They still suffer from an extremely unstable strongman, force of personal character based pseudo-democracy largely organized and driven by rampant patronage. The same fiscal discipline problems remain, and even the Roman grain dole remains in today’s Latin American populism. Julius Caesar and Huge Chavez would have had much to talk about.

Fukuyama talked extensively about this inheritance of sociopolitical problems in his most recent book. But he only traced the tradition back to the days of the Hapsburgs. When in actuality, the tradition goes back MUCH farther.

In other words, 1,500 years after the Romulus abdicated in the West, Roman political and social culture still lives on in its descendants. They still have yet to escape their historical trap.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I read the thread and your posts are full of shite.

A better name for Canada and the US is “Germanic America”. It’s no coincidence that the Germanic areas of Europe were also the areas (generally speaking) to adopt Protestantism. Even within Catholic countries like France, the Protestants were mainly in the north.

The protestants in France were centred in the Southwest. Germany is split between a Catholic south and a protestant north, with Austria Catholic. You are totally failing to produce a correlation between ethnicity and sectarianism here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot_rebellions

Latin America is indeed “Latin”. They derive from the old tradition of the Roman Empire as kept alive today by southern Italy and Spain, the core areas of Roman Empire where ethnicity was conserved, unlike in Gaul where the Germans took over, especially in the north.

Again, this is ahistorical nonsense. Italy was subjected to numerous Germanic invasions, including the Lombards, from whom we get the name of the modern Italian region of Lombardy. Goths also conquered Italy and established their own Kingdom there. The Kingdom of Italy would be a key component of the Germanic ruled Holy Roman Empire.

Spain, similarly, fell to Vandal invasion, and then Moorish invasion, over a period of centuries.

Your final mistake is to suggest that Latin America is described as such because these states are somehow extensions of the Roman Empire. In reality, the Latin refers only to the fact that Romance languages dominate these countries, namely Spanish and Portuguese.

So it’s no surprise that many of the same fundamental political problems Roman Empire are still alive today in the “Latin” part of the Americas and Europe. They still suffer from an extremely unstable strongman, force of personal character based pseudo-democracy largely organized and driven by rampant patronage. The same fiscal discipline problems remain, and even the Roman grain dole remains in today’s Latin American populism. Julius Caesar and Huge Chavez would have had much to talk about.

Trying to force any of the myriad political systems that existed during the hundreds of years of history of the Roman Empire to modern day Latin America, which itself contains myriad political systems is beyond ridiculous. Where is Chile's strong democracy and free market in your silly little view? Where is communist Cuba? Again your attempts to argue politics and ethnicity are linked fall flat.

In other words, 1,500 years after the Romulus abdicated in the West, Roman political and social culture still lives on in its descendants. They still have yet to escape their historical trap.

One of the dumbest arguments I've ever seen.

[Ecthelion]

It's funny cause your attempts to argue against me keep proving my point.

You're absolutely correct. The Germanic Lombard did invade Italy and displace the local population.
And remind me again which area of Italy did the Lombards take over?
And which area of Italy is doing well now? Or rather, has been doing well for the past millennium and a half?

I should also remind you that southern Germany and Austria remained loyal to the Pope as a matter of political necessity. And like I already said "GENERALLY" speaking. The correlation between Protestantism and Germanic areas of Europe isn't perfect, but it's pretty strikingly close.

Traditionally Protestant areas of Europe:
Northern Germany
Scandinavia
England
Western Poland

Yeah... no Germanic influence in those regions, none at all...

Regardless, religious influences on development are secondary to ethnic and cultural ones. Bavaria and Austria (after divorcing non-Germanic Hungary) are doing well now and have always been top European performers regardless of their Catholicism.

And it's absolutely hilarious that you can admit that Latin America inherited the Latin language but somehow magically not Latin culture or DNA. Yes, I must have missed the great language lesson period of history where 100% non-Romans all learned Romance languages in full, but did not adopt any Latin culture and then killed off all the Romans so the Roman DNA would go extinct. An interesting period of history that was... Have you ever wondered why anthropologists use language as a means (usually the primary means) to trace ethnic lineage?

[removeduser_487563287433]

It's funny cause your attempts to argue against me keep proving my point.

I'm proving you wrong on straight forward matters of fact, how your point survives that is beyond me.

The Germanic Lombard did invade Italy and displace the local population.

I made no suggestion that they displaced the local population, and I don't believe the sources support this.

And remind me again which area of Italy did the Lombards take over?
And which area of Italy is doing well now? Or rather, has been doing well for the past millennium and a half?

The Lombards took over the North of Italy. However, if you would not cherry pick the facts for half a second then your point collapses, again, because the Germanic Ostrogoth Kingdom controlled the entire Italian peninsula at its height. Therefore your argument that Germanic ancestry equates to better economic productivity collapses, even if we ignore the incorrect assumption you have made that the local population was replaced. It was not, the ruling classes were.

I should also remind you that southern Germany and Austria remained loyal to the Pope as a matter of political necessity. And like I already said "GENERALLY" speaking. The correlation between Protestantism and Germanic areas of Europe isn't perfect, but it's pretty strikingly close.

It's not close at all, it is almost exactly divided down the middle. The German speaking areas of Europe were so divided between protestantism and Catholicism that it was a constant point of conflict, climaxing in the thirty years war, a war that may have wiped out as much as two thirds of the German population.

Saying Germany remained loyal to the Pope out of political necessity is another nonsense, as Germany did not exist at this point and the various German states of the time had various allegiances. Austria did not remain Catholic out of loyalty but of the nature of the Hapsburg's dynasties cross-continental domains.

And it's absolutely hilarious that you can admit that Latin America inherited the Latin language but somehow magically not Latin culture or DNA. Yes, I must have missed the great language lesson period of history where 100% non-Romans all learned Romance languages in full, but did not adopt any Latin culture and then killed off all the Romans so the Roman DNA would go extinct. An interesting period of history that was... Have you ever wondered why anthropologists use language as a means (usually the primary means) to trace ethnic lineage?

What the Hell are you talking about? Roman DNA? The Romans didn't wipe out populations wholesale, people assimilated, romanised. Your display of history, genetics, politics in your posts is beyond remedial.

Language and ethnicity is totally unlinked, and there are countless examples of ethnic groups assimilating to other languages.

[wilpuri]

In this modern age we like to believe that all nations are capable of progressing to Scandinavian levels of state perfection. Sure Denmark and Norway aren't perfect but they’re an awful lot closer to perfection than say Somalia or the US.

Sorry to say but its easier with a small and homogenous population. So only a very small percentage of humanity really has what it takes, circumstance-wise imo.

Besides being capable, there must be the will to live in a totalitarian society.

[Ecthelion]

Sorry to say but its easier with a small and homogenous population. So only a very small percentage of humanity really has what it takes, circumstance-wise imo.

Besides being capable, there must be the will to live in a totalitarian society.

And your point is?
It's also easier to build a strong state when your country sits on abundant natural resources and is relatively well defended from hostile neighbors and has easy points of access to the sea. Yet the country of Sierra Leone does exist.

Let's not forget there is a long, long list of failed or under-performing states with natural characteristics similar to Scandinavian countries. And large heterogeneous countries like the US that share a similar Scandinavian tradition also have done well for themselves traditionally.

Scandinavia does well because Scandinavians live there and practice Scandinavian sociopolitical traditions. It has very little to do with its natural, geographic disposition.

One could argue that the geography and climate of Scandinavia, from whence all modern German peoples hail, shaped Germanic culture in its early days. There is some truth to this. Cultures from climatically unforgiving environments which force people to live together, plan together, and explore together will naturally develop into egalitarian societies where lawfulness, order, and innovation are seen as paramount traits.

[dogukan]

Your problem buddy is that you think culture is a static phenomena that cannot change....your conception of ethnicity is a-historical, scientifically there is no ethnicity. What we all live is not the ethnicity we are born into, but the major ideological perspective that we inherit in the environment.

What we are dealing with here is outright psuedo-science, and an extreme form of confirmation bias. And is completely ahistorical...ahistorical in the sense that it takes what exists to be an established reality...whereas most of these abstractions we use are approximated concepts that did not exist in history the way we use it in our current ideological world perspective.
Your disregard to economic conditions is also ridiculous. Economic development takes place locally and spread from there...so with an extreme confirmation bias, I could explaim everything based on economic development that occurred in one region, and connect everything to it.


What makes Scandinavia what it is today, IS to an extend the Protestanism-induced culture...but at the same time, they've created to themselves a unique new cultural word-outlook based on their existing conditions. In the 30 years war however, so-called Germanics butchered each other...so it was not something that came from inside, its was a result of specific conflicts that at the end managed to dominate. How do you explain Germans living under catholicism form centuries before Protestanism came to be then? If Protestanism is not a specific result of specific historical moments and something ingrained in Germanic culture, where was it for centuries?

Or has it ever occurred to you that current Scandinavian "models" lets say has a lot to do with how the production had been handled there and how the society had organized for so long......how feudalism in France and Germany and Sweden took different forms which had a massive impact on the transition process and to building up of the new era...the modern Swedish state formed under very different circumstances than that of modern British state...not because of their ethnicity but because of their specific historical conditions at the time along with how which ideas managed to dominate the un-ending conflicts within a society....
how did Turkey become such a westernized democracy despite its faults? Why is it so different from rest of the Middle East? Or central Asia which is of same "ethnicity" with Turkey?

[Ecthelion]

Your problem buddy is that culture is a static phenomena that cannot change....your conception of ethnicity is a-historical, scientifically there is no ethnicity. What we all live is not the ethnicity we are born into, but the major ideological perspective that we inherit in the environment.

What we are dealing with here is outright psuedo-science, and an extreme form of confirmation bias. And is completely ahistorical...ahistorical in the sense that it takes what exists to be an established reality...whereas most of these abstractions we use are approximated concepts that did not exist in history the way we use it in our current ideological world perspective.
Your disregard to economic conditions is also ridiculous. Economic development takes place locally and spread from there...so with an extreme confirmation bias, I could explaim everything based on economic development that occurred in one region, and connect everything to it.


What makes Scandinavia what it is today, IS to an extend the Protestanism-induced culture...but at the same time, they've created to themselves a unique new cultural word-outlook based on their existing conditions. In the 30 years war however, so-called Germanics butchered each other...so it was not something that came from inside, its was a result of specific conflicts that at the end managed to dominate. How do you explain Germans living under catholicism form centuries before Protestanism came to be then? If Protestanism is not a specific result of specific historical moments and something ingrained in Germanic culture, where was it for centuries?

Or has it ever occurred to you that current Scandinavian "models" lets say has a lot to do with how the production had been handled there and how the society had organized for so long......how feudalism in France and Germany and Sweden took different forms which had a massive impact on the transition process and to building up of the new era...the modern Swedish state formed under very different circumstances than that of modern British state...not because of their ethnicity but because of their specific historical conditions at the time along with how which ideas managed to dominate the un-ending conflicts within a society....
how did Turkey become such a westernized democracy despite its faults? Why is it so different from rest of the Middle East? Or central Asia which is of same "ethnicity" with Turkey?

"scientifically there is no ethnicity"
It's funny cause you apply natural science concepts to a social science.
Is this sort of like how "there's no such thing as race", or my favorite "the genetic difference between two people is greater than that between two races" (cause according to the hippie anthropologists of today, one person can be two different races at the same time)?

And are we really going to pretend that the West developed the way it did mainly because of Protestantism? What about all the areas of Europe that developed just as well as the Protestant areas but were not Protestant? Southern Germany, Austria, Northern Italy?
Notice a pattern here? They're all Germanic, or heavily influenced by centuries of Germanic occupation and cultural diffusion. So the magic sauce is objectively not Protestantism, it's Germanic culture.

And let's not forget that large parts of Poland were Protestant at one point too. That makes Poland the only major Protestant non-Germanic region. And look what happened to Poland. Though one could argue the retaking of Poland in the Counter-Reformation had something to do with that...

You can't argue against the simple fact that cultural influences are the dominant factor in determining the long term success or failure of a given state. It's why all the states within the same culture group usually end up roughly at the same level of success and development. In Europe, it's the Latin, Slavic, and Germanic cultural spheres, and the states within are all roughly along the level of success and development.

And lastly, rather than attacking my argument with "das pseudo-science blah blah blah" type remarks, why not try to actually use logical counter arguments with accurately portrayed counter examples? I know name calling is the main weapon on the left, but let's try to be above that here.

[dogukan]

Buddy, you are not looking for the truth here, you are not here to discuss, you are selling a product here. I am too educated to buy it. If you are not here to discuss there is not point in me taking part in your confirmation-bias fest.

Few questions for you: When did the so-called thing we call Germani culture form? Did they come out of the ground as Germanic cultures people? What were they doing when Egypt and Mesopotamia had mutliple social revolution thousands of years ago with the only thing coming out of Europe being Stonehenge which is a kid in relation to the developments in what today constitutes middle east...and then tell how middle east became what it is today and forest-living Germanics built an industrial giant....

Answer this as well

What makes Scandinavia what it is today, IS to an extend the Protestanism-induced culture...but at the same time, they've created to themselves a unique new cultural word-outlook based on their existing conditions. In the 30 years war however, so-called Germanics butchered each other...so it was not something that came from inside, its was a result of specific conflicts that at the end managed to dominate. How do you explain Germans living under catholicism form centuries before Protestanism came to be then? If Protestanism is not a specific result of specific historical moments and something ingrained in Germanic culture, where was it for centuries?

Or has it ever occurred to you that current Scandinavian "models" lets say has a lot to do with how the production had been handled there and how the society had organized for so long......how feudalism in France and Germany and Sweden took different forms which had a massive impact on the transition process and to building up of the new era...the modern Swedish state formed under very different circumstances than that of modern British state...not because of their ethnicity but because of their specific historical conditions at the time along with how which ideas managed to dominate the un-ending conflicts within a society....
how did Turkey become such a westernized democracy despite its faults? Why is it so different from rest of the Middle East? Or central Asia which is of same "ethnicity" with Turkey?

and answer this as well.


You are the one presenting an opinion...if you are not going to answer question, why are you making a thread? Name-calling? You are the one who went with "hippie", "leftist"...etc

[Rinan]

In accordance with most other critics here I have to say that what's foremost wrong with your theory is that it cannot be falsified. A theory is simply not adequate nor useful when it's so broadly and vaguely circumscribed that it passes any test. You cannot explain exceptions away, or ignore them, or counter them with with another vague statement. What does a political system "fitting" a culture really mean, actually? And how do you objectively define succes? And what really is this "culture" you are talking about, as if a culture is a static thing, as if culture does not change. Culture constantly changes, and for example Swedes nowadays have little cultural similarities with their viking ancestors. Your notion of some static essence of a Volksgeist seems very, very 19th-century.

This would be a much more interesting discussion if we left ethnicity and culture out of it and asked instead how much a country is historically determined - i.e., to what extend do past events influence today's world? This is, of course, a hotly debated topic that touches upon historical theory, philosophy of free will, sociology, political science, etc. Here, of course, culture does play a role, since it is shaped by past historical events and in turn shapes new historical events, in the process evermore changing.

[In the Renaissance] Europe changed from being an impoverished collection of warring tribes during the dark ages to being a collection of impoverished warring micro states and disorganised monarchies and fiefdoms during the Medieval period, to being at the top of the world for centuries from the Renaissance onwards

I'm going off-topic here, but I want to shortly rebutt this because the topic is of personal interest to me. I think this vision of the Renaissance is antiquated and not supported by most modern historians, or in any case, mediaevalists. Politically, centralisation of states has been a very long process that has been started deep in the Middle Ages, gathering up speed in the Later Middle Ages. Scientifically, scholars these days speak of several renaissances in the plural, from the 8th to the 15th. In terms of culture we do indeed see a change, but only gradually, and not nearly quite as dramatic as a sudden "rebirth" out of nothing. Also, it did not immediatelly put Europe "at the top of the world". It only was starting to get close to the sophistication of Asia (Ottomans, China, and so on). It's only around the 18th century that Europe clearly starts coming out on top and when we speak of a "Great Divergence" - A divergence which anyway has only lasted until... Well, right about now.

To bring it back on topic; I think this too can show how the succes of a nation throughout history is much more complicated than what the OP seems to suggest and that culture is not something static. There is not something like a "dormant" culture, there are only people shaped by their past (culture), interacting with the present (politics, etc.) and thereby creating tomorrow. In the meanwhile, altering their culture as they go.

[Caelifer_1991]

In accordance with most other critics here I have to say that what's foremost wrong with your theory is that it cannot be falsified. A theory is simply not adequate nor useful when it's so broadly and vaguely circumscribed that it passes any test. You cannot explain exceptions away, or ignore them, or counter them with with another vague statement. What does a political system "fitting" a culture really mean, actually? And how do you objectively define succes? And what really is this "culture" you are talking about, as if a culture is a static thing, as if culture does not change. Culture constantly changes, and for example Swedes nowadays have little cultural similarities with their viking ancestors. Your notion of some static essence of a Volksgeist seems very, very 19th-century.

This would be a much more interesting discussion if we left ethnicity and culture out of it and asked instead how much a country is historically determined - i.e., to what extend do past events influence today's world? This is, of course, a hotly debated topic that touches upon historical theory, philosophy of free will, sociology, political science, etc. Here, of course, culture does play a role, since it is shaped by past historical events and in turn shapes new historical events, in the process evermore changing.



I'm going off-topic here, but I want to shortly rebutt this because the topic is of personal interest to me. I think this vision of the Renaissance is antiquated and not supported by most modern historians, or in any case, mediaevalists. Politically, centralisation of states has been a very long process that has been started deep in the Middle Ages, gathering up speed in the Later Middle Ages. Scientifically, scholars these days speak of several renaissances in the plural, from the 8th to the 15th. In terms of culture we do indeed see a change, but only gradually, and not nearly quite as dramatic as a sudden "rebirth" out of nothing. Also, it did not immediatelly put Europe "at the top of the world". It only was starting to get close to the sophistication of Asia (Ottomans, China, and so on). It's only around the 18th century that Europe clearly starts coming out on top and when we speak of a "Great Divergence" - A divergence which anyway has only lasted until... Well, right about now.

To bring it back on topic; I think this too can show how the success of a nation throughout history is much more complicated than what the OP seems to suggest and that culture is not something static. There is not something like a "dormant" culture, there are only people shaped by their past (culture), interacting with the present (politics, etc.) and thereby creating tomorrow. In the meanwhile, altering their culture as they go.

The Middle Ages was undoubtedly a necessary period of time, substantially increasing Europe's population density, establishing rural trade networks and infrastructure, founding major trading cities, and providing the centralised frameworks about which modern states are derived. This doesn't mean however that it wasn't a barbaric, backward, impoverished, violent, narrow minded and generally terrible place all around. Now, while the Renaissance certainly wasn't a sudden light being switched on in the darkness, it was utterly transformative, and, as a period, changed Europe so dramatically that by the end of the three century period in which it occurred, its status and wealth in the world had gone from being joint last in the Old World, to overtaking Asia. It went from being a place where people such as those in the Middle East would laugh at in bemusement to having overtaken all of its peers and clearing the way for its future successes and domination of the world thereafter, and while this was not instant, for this to have happened during only a period of about three centuries it must have been rather rapid. Indeed, this is not so surprising, given the influx of trade and general wealth that occurred due to the conquest of the America's, circumvention of the Silk Road through the Middle East, influx of East Roman migrants, and other assorted advantages that converged in a relatively brief period of time. While many people do have the tendency to oversimplify the Renaissance, I do not believe myself to be guilty of that, my position is simply that Medievalists have gone rather too far in downplaying the transformation that took place; to summarise, I consider that if you were to compare Europe at the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Dark Ages, then the level of progress could be said to be about the same as between the end of the Middle Ages and the end of the Renaissance, but the former took a millennium, while the latter lasted a relatively brief 300 years.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Not sure why a mod felt the need to delete my posts so I will just keep smashing into this until it dies.

\or my favorite "the genetic difference between two people is greater than that between two races" (cause according to the hippie anthropologists of today, one person can be two different races at the same time)?

Well, since race is indeed a social construct there is of course no reason why somebody cannot be more than one race at the same time. Mixed race people are extremely common.

Southern Germany, Austria, Northern Italy?
Notice a pattern here? They're all Germanic, or heavily influenced by centuries of Germanic occupation and cultural diffusion. So the magic sauce is objectively not Protestantism, it's Germanic culture.[/B]

Well, except of course that begs the question why the Germanic areas of Europe were backwaters up until the early modern period of history. If your racist view of human development is true, why did it take the vast majority of history for Germanic speaking cultures to do much of anything? Furthermore, how do you explain any development where these Germanic tribes were totally assimilated into the local populations, like all of the Goths, the Lombards, the Vandals, the Franks? The only example of Germanic languages superseding Romance ones is England and the border regions, such as Cologne, Switzerland or Austria.

That makes Poland the only major Protestant non-Germanic region. And look what happened to Poland. Though one could argue the retaking of Poland in the Counter-Reformation had something to do with that...

I like how you've abandoned your earlier example of France because it's no longer convenient.

You can't argue against the simple fact that cultural influences are the dominant factor in determining the long term success or failure of a given state. It's why all the states within the same culture group usually end up roughly at the same level of success and development. In Europe, it's the Latin, Slavic, and Germanic cultural spheres, and the states within are all roughly along the level of success and development.

Again, this is demonstrable nonsense. Moldova is a Romance (you use Latin) speaking state, and is the poorest country in Europe, with the lowest GDP per capita ($2.2k). Hardly equal to its Romance counterpart, France, with a GDP of $44k. The poorest Slavic state (Ukraine) has a GDP of $2.4k per capita and the richest (Slovenia) has ten times as much - $24.4k.

Your central assumption is demonstrably false. Culture is not determining the development nor prosperity of any sovereign state in Europe.

And lastly, rather than attacking my argument with "das pseudo-science blah blah blah" type remarks, why not try to actually use logical counter arguments with accurately portrayed counter examples? I know name calling is the main weapon on the left, but let's try to be above that here.

So you don't see any irony with complaining about name-calling (I don't think anybody has delivered any ad hominem against you) then implied anybody who disagrees with you is left wing?