Occasionally people mention the advances that were achieved a long time ago by the Arabs in mathematics and science, and by the ancient Chinese in many kinds of technology – irrigation, paper, gunpowder.
There is no need to deny these achievements, the point is to find out how come they contributed so little to the growth of human wellbeing and freedom around them. Clearly it is a matter of the social and political order and the respect that is given to innovation and individuality. Compare the empires of Islam and Old China with the prosperity and freedom for the mass of people that flowed from the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions during the early emergence of democratic capitalism.
Gerard Radnitzky described “the European Miracle” as a joint achievement of limited government and freedom of thought. He also pointed out that it was (a) pre-democratic and (b) terribly fragile.
This points a warning, we need to be careful about what kind of democracy we pursue because there are two very different kinds (in the same way that there are two very different kinds of liberalism). One aims for the limited state under the rule of law, the other aims for the rule of the majority.
On the fragile nature of the European Miracle, Radnitzky pointed out that it has been under threat during the 20th century and the danger has escalated with the European Union and the bipartisan support for Big Government in most of the Western world.
It’s a little disengenuous to label achievements in the early Caliphates as “Islamic” achievements as those empires were chiefly majority Christian dominions ruled by a small Islamic elite – in the Ummayyad Caliphate most of the apparatus of government was run by non-Muslims. In fact, Middle Eastern societies tended to become less successful and more stagnant as the general population Islamicized.
Quentin George
2 Oct 10 at 10:34 am
Related: The breeding out of the Enlightenment.
It’s ironic that the West’s contraceptive mentality, long hailed as a premier embodiment of its liberal modernity, may actually herald the advent of a new (this time, properly so-called) Dark Age.
C.L.
2 Oct 10 at 11:06 am
Thanks Quentin, perhahps I need to modify the post but you have reinforced the essential point about the lack of progress under Islam.
CL, I think fertility control is important, we need to address the situation in some other way than just having more people. The point is to have limited government, not majority rule.
Rafe
2 Oct 10 at 11:27 am
We’re not talking about having more people, Rafe. Europe’s birth rate has dropped below replacement level. As Kaufmann says, the liberal and libertarian-inclined are being slowly bred out. Not only is fertility control not important, it’s positively suicidal.
C.L.
2 Oct 10 at 11:39 am
C.L. -
Kaufmann’s hypothesis, that the religously conservative will go forth and out-breed the secular humanists – is interesting and a rich source of thought games !
Although Kaufmann himself admits that demographics being what they are – the eventual outcomes are unpredictable.
However, there is a certain perverse pleasure in imagining, for example, smirking Phillip Adams and Patrice Newell rolling up at their local polling booth with the singular young Newell-Adams in tow hoping to ensconce a Greens hegemony, and finding minibus loads of happy clappers from the local pentacostal mega-church alighting to consign the Adams faithful to the electoral wilderness
Heh heh. !
Back to reality….
Myrddin Seren
2 Oct 10 at 11:42 am
the European Miracle” as a joint achievement of limited government and freedom of thought
War and greed produced limited government. Limited government produced freedom of thought. There’s a geographic argument for the European miracle. A Chinese friend of mine advocated it.
China is connect up by two long rivers that run very roughly parallel to the equator. Europe is broken up geographically. The idea comes from the landscape.
Adrien
2 Oct 10 at 1:39 pm
Well, interestingly, though there were advances in in maths and science in the Middle East, it is in an area that some Catallaxians think is a waste of funding that cultures and intellectual tradition are primarily shaped: the humanities. And historically that area is somewhat of a barren wasteland in the ME.
While much is made of the Arabs preserving Greek philosophy, it never had much traction here even if it was preserved for the ages here – and thus the tiny handful of Muslim philosophers who made some sort of contribution (Averroes, Avicenna) had to flee the region and seek protection amongst the infidels. This is a point that has been made starkly by Ibrahim al Buleihi, much to the disapprobation of the majority of the conservative Muslim audience, who still like to think that all great ideas came from the Middle East and who now seek to claim those two scholars as exemplars of Islamic innovation (and proof of the superiority of East over West, etc).
A point that isn’t widely known (especially here, let alone in the West) is that the Greek texts that were translated into Arabic and thus preserved to be rediscovered by Europe – where done so by Syriac Christians, not Muslims. But why focus on the inconvenient detail when you can claim responsibility for it?
None of this is to say that there isn’t some appetite for intellectual reform in this part of the world. EG:
http://www.aafaq.org/news.aspx?id_news=8569
I think actually there’s a large minority that wants reform.
But clearly there has always been a lack of obvious interest in innovation from within society itself – probably due to a focus on the harsh realities of advancing the interests of your own clan and tribe in what is still a hard scrabble, impoverished existence for many. Who has time to think and agitate? (That’s different from the obvious appetite for technological innovation here – but that’s about adoption not innovation).
Of course, one has to acknowledge that without technological innovation allowing more time and security of existence, no one can pause to smell the flowers and think. So of course the two go hand in hand.
Militating against whatever grass roots interest may develop in terms of reform, you of course have the wave of conservatism inspire by Al Banna, Qutb and Wahhabism etc that makes bida’ (innovation) in interpretation of religious texts haram. And that is going to impact on intellectual reform negatively.
Anyway, a digression. Back to the European miracle.
Ev630
2 Oct 10 at 4:44 pm
A point that isn’t widely known (especially here, let alone in the West) is that the Greek texts that were translated into Arabic and thus preserved to be rediscovered by Europe – where done so by Syriac Christians, not Muslims
I didn’t know that. Interesting bunch the Syriac Christians.
I’m not sure ‘the Humanities’ is something any culture not in some way descendant from Greece was big on, strictly.
Adrien
2 Oct 10 at 4:54 pm
You may be right.
Ev630
3 Oct 10 at 3:22 pm
Ev
Well, if you’re around over the next few hours, we might be able to have a very worthwhile and fascinating discussion on our favorite topic – religion and science in the [ancient/medieval] middle east. If what you have written so far is an introduction to your ideas more generally, we might witness an historic First. You and I in furious agreement!!!
Peter Patton
3 Oct 10 at 3:56 pm
Sorry, was at work. The tyranny of distance, etc.
Would have been a strange feeling!
Ev630
4 Oct 10 at 1:05 am