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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   32121 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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This doesn't seem to be the case in China. Even today, there are people who can trace direct male lineage to Confucius who lived around 500 BC.

I saw one of these guys in Qufu when I was a student. He was writing and selling calligraphic scrolls on the side of the road. He had a sign with his portrait on it and some official-looking, diploma-like certificate stapled to his sign. "Wow, is he really an actual descendent of Confucius?" I asked my professor, who was born and raised not far away. "Probably, I don't know. There are a lot of them." she replied. She seemed completely unimpressed. And that was when I began to wonder if I was a bit naïve.

Westerners often credulously believe claims like this because (1) Chinese have a radically different view of "lying" that Westerners don't have natural defenses against unless they've lived in China or a similar third world country, (2) Chinese (individuals too, not just the government) find it in their interest to promote stories that prove China's equality or superiority to the West, (3) all the sources that would debunk nonsense claims like this are written in Chinese and this unable to diffuse into the Western consciousness.

"China" does not have 5,000 years of history any more than "France" has 3,000 years of history.
Chinese did not invent soccer, or sashimi, or beer, or the seismograph.
Chinese cannot trace descent from antiquity with a level of confidence that would be taken seriously in the West.
"Truth" in China is not the same as "Truth" in the West.

I'm not sure the guy you saw was real, but it's a real thing, and it's been traced for thousands of years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_Confucius_in_the_main_line_of_descent

The current head of the Kong family lives in Taiwan.

it's a real thing

Yeah, real in that people make the claim. As @hydroacetylene pointed out, tons of people also claim descent from Muhammad. This lineage also has a wiki page, does that prove that it's "real?"

Hell, my family claims descent from Jean Lafitte and tons of people I know claim descent from Washington, Lee, or both. Statistically, most of them are wrong, and nobody knows where Jean Lafitte went even if it isn't implausible that he retired to obscurity in southern Louisiana.

Claiming descent from illustrious figures is a cultural universal, I believe. No doubt people in England implausibly claim some incredibly diluted royal blood.

I am personally descended from William the Conqueror along with like half of England.

But the Romans essentially died out. Where is the line of Julius Caesar? Of the old patrician families? Gone, baby, gone.

But the Romans essentially died out. Where is the line of Julius Caesar? Of the old patrician families? Gone, baby, gone.

How could one confirm this? Do we have ancient dna to run the analysis ?

Before modern sanitation cities were dens of disease and filth. They generally continuously took in population from the countryside.

The central and northern Italian countryside have strong genetic links to iron age Romans. They're basically the same people. We don't have records of the old patrician lines to modern times but I doubt they are actually extinct.

The central and northern Italian countryside have strong genetic links to iron age Romans

What do you mean by Iron Age Romans?

That would imply a time period before 700 BC when Rome was a village. Rome didn't expand into northern Italy until 250 BC at the earliest.

But yes, people who occupied the countryside of Italy in the Iron Age did not suffer subreplacement fertility and obviously remain extremely relevant to the genetic mix of Italy today, even if there was significant admixture from Germans (northern Italy) and Arabs (southern Italy).

Iron Age Romans would refer to the early republic or the monarchy, I'm guessing.

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