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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1725 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 13, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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There's this "historical evidence on Sparta was largely written down by Sparta's political opponents" factoid that I recall of note.

I would disagree with this, personally. The historical evidence we have on Sparta was largely written by foreigners in opposing or post-Spartan states, yes, but very often by foreigners who sympathized with Sparta for domestic political or philosophic reasons - as sympathizers of the aristocratic elite, Spartan 'virtuous oligarchy' appealed to them as contrast to Athenian democracy. Xenophon, who wrote The Constitution of the Lacedemonians, even defected to Sparta rather than return to Athens. A more accurate parallel would be somewhere between Tacitus' Germania and the tendency of Enlightenment-influenced writers to idealize Chinese government (I recall Bertrand Russell still gushing over China's rational and virtuous political system in the 1920s...).

I recall Bertrand Russell still gushing over China's rational and virtuous political system in the 1920s...

Historical political organisation with the imperial examinations, which he compares favourably with other premodern political systems -- it isn't unreasonable to see some merit in the qualified Mandate of Heaven compared to the less-qualified divine right of kings, and even a flawed meritocracy compared to none at all. In comparison to earlier sinophiles, his support appears to be more muted.

[...] no doubt, as a modern system, the "Eight Legs" deserve all the hard things that he says about them. But in the fourteenth century, when one considers the practicable alternatives, one can see that there was probably much to be said for such a plan. At any rate, for good or evil, the examination system profoundly affected the civilization of China. Among its good effects were: A widely-diffused respect for learning; the possibility of doing without a hereditary aristocracy; the selection of administrators who must at least have been capable of industry; and the preservation of Chinese civilization in spite of barbarian conquest. But, like so much else in traditional China, it has had to be swept away to meet modern needs...

He also recognised the terrible corruption in Chinese politics in the 1920s, though he uses this kind of as a mirror to criticise European imperialism and some parts of modernisation. In any case, I don't think he was under the impression that the anarchy in the late-Qing and Republican eras was good for Chinese society.

I find that in his writings on China he tends to be more generous (arguably excessively so) towards Chinese society rather than its political systems, though; and in his private letters you can see some of his frustrations while living and teaching in China.

Very interesting! I have not actually read The Problem of China, I'm going off memories of Skeptical Essays, which was much more inclined to make throwaway rhetorical comparisons of enlightened China against the brutish West.

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