5000年中国文明被高估了吗？ [美国媒体]

Is 5000 years of Chinese civilization overrated?

5000年中国文明被高估了吗？





Hoang Nghiem (严黄)
Nov 4, 2016
Remember the law of accelerating returns.US only achieved all that in 150 years because of greater technology.
When China exceeds America in the future,China will defeat 150 years of American progress AND 5,000 years of her ownprogress in 20 years from now, because her capacity to discover and invent isgreater.

加速回报定律。因为拥有更好的技术，美国在150年时间里就取得了中国5000年的成就。
从现在开始，中国将在20 年内超越美国在150年时间里取得的进步以及过去5000年来中国自己所取得的成就，因为中国现在的发现和发明能力更强大。

Quora Question Details Bot
Aug 8
I am Chinese myself but I often wonder ifour pride from having one of the oldest civilizations is over-inflated. Thecontribution the United States made to mankind in a mere 150 years is more thanwhat China has achieved in 5000 years. Shouldn't we feel stop boasting aboutour civilization?

我自己是一名中国人，我总是在想我们是不是因为拥有世界最古老文明之一而太过骄傲了。美国在150年时间内所取得的成就相当于中国在5000年时间里取得的成就。难道我们不应该停止吹嘘自己的文明了吗？

Gwydion Madawc Williams, Read a lot abouthistory, and note some general patterns.
Answered Wed
There is only solid evidence for 3600 yearsof civilisation, beginning with the Shang dynasty. 4000 if you accept the XiaDynasty as real and fully Chinese, rather than one of several separate culturesthat merged.

中国文明有据可循的只有3600年，从商朝开始。如果你觉得夏朝是真实存在的、完全属于中国的，那么就是4000年。

But Westerners tend to underrate itsimportance. Joseph Needham - Wikipedia spent much of his life demonstrating howmuch there was.

但是西方人倾向于低估其重要性。李约瑟将大部分时间都花在证明中国文明的重要性上。

The Western take-off in the 16th centurywould not have been possible without paper, block printing, the magneticcompass and gunpowder, all of which came from China.

如果没有纸张，雕版印刷，指南针和火药（这些发明全都来自中国），那么西方在16世纪不可能起飞。

Han China was at least as strong as theGreek empires after Alexander and the Roman Empire, which is less known than itshould be. Some Westerners still speak of Alexander conquering ‘the world’ andRome ruling ‘the world’. Alexander’s wars petered out in north-west India andRome got no further than what’s now Iraq, mostly failing to hold it.

汉朝至少和亚历山大之后的希腊各帝国以及罗马帝国一样强大，而这一点鲜为人知。某些西方人会谈及亚历山大征服“世界”以及罗马“统治”世界。亚历山大最多只打到印度西北部，而罗马最多只到达如今的伊拉克。

The surprising thing is that China then gotno further. For reasons, see Traditional China Resisted Modernisation.

令人惊讶的是中国也没有走得更远，原因详见：传统中国反抗现代化。

Lawrence Suther
1h ago
Let's put China in a perspective carefullynot shown by China apologists.
Exactly 3,800 years ago China did not havea civilisation. Period. It didn't even have the wheel.
The wheel was invented by the people of theCaucasus who also populated the Middle East.
3,800 years ago Chinese had not reached theBronze Age yet. People of the Caucasus had. The Chinese got the wheel andbronze from the far less numerous Caucasians.
The oldest civilisation was found inAnatolia about 11,000 years ago at Glöpecki. China was mud then.
The gunpowder (saltpetre) was said to havebeen introduced by a German monk to China in year 1000 AD. It was not thengunpowder. Just firecrackers. Marco Polo claims a hand in introducing cannonsto the Khan against the Chinese. Unverified.
However, China can truly be credited withspaghetti, silk and china. Chinese always were a “group think” race and thatexplain their lack of progress. Pioneering in the sciences or exploration areindividual ventures.

让我们以中国辩护者没有展示过的角度来看看中国。
就在3800年前，中国并没有产生文明。甚至都没有轮子。
轮子是高加索人发明的，他们也居住在中东。
3800年前中国还不是青铜器时代。而高加索人已经进入青铜器时代。中国人从人口数量更少的高加索人那里获得了轮子和青铜。
世界最古老文明形成于11000年前的安纳托利亚，具体位于Glöpecki。当时的中国还是一片泥土。
据称火药（硝石）是一名德国僧侣在公元1000年介绍到中国的。当时还不是火药，只是爆竹。马可波罗将大炮介绍给可汗以对付中国人。未经证实。
然而，意大利面条，丝绸和瓷器确实是中国人发明的。中国人是“群体思考”种族，所以他们进步缓慢。因为科学开拓和探索是一种个体的冒险行为。

Avery Morrow, Research Student in ReligiousStudies
Answered Jun 13, 2015
Two points:
1) You haven't offered a standard by whichChinese civilization might be underrated or overrated. Did it achievesophisticated levels of art, sculpture, architecture, and literature? Did itcreate environmental stability and social harmony? Did it promote high levelsof education? Did it give the nation a sense of history and virtue? These areall different questions from the Western discoveries of science and capitalism,and are arguably just as valid ways of rating a civilization.
In short: traditional China might not be"overrated" so much as simply having no interest in profiteering fromdiscoveries and rewarding greed.
2) One important thing to take into accountis that "Chinese civilization" is an idea constructed by modern-day residentsof China. Over 5000 years, China has been inhabited and ruled by many differentethnic groups. These people all claimed continuity with each other because oftheir familiarity with the literature and art of past ages. A Qing dynastyscholar may have had no biological connection with Confucius, but he readConfucius deeply and interacted with others who did, so that made him Chinese.He did not care much what kind of mechanical technology had been used in theregion. What did he think constituted "Chinese civilization"? What domodern Chinese people think?
In short: The actual Chinese tradition maybe different from what you learn in nationalist textbooks.

两点：
1、中国文明被高估或低估的标准是什么，你没有提供。在艺术，雕塑，建筑和文学上取得了极高的成就了吗？实现环境稳定和社会和谐了吗？达到了较高层次的教育水平了吗？它让一个国家获得历史感和美德感了吗？这些问题都与西方的科学、资本主义发现不同，但也是评价一个文明的有效标准。
总之：传统中国也许没有被“高估”到没有兴趣（从探索发现中）谋取暴利和奖励贪婪。
2、值得注意的一点是，“中国文明”是现代中国人构建的概念。5000年来，中国被很多不同的种族定居和统治。这些种族相互延续，因为他们都熟悉过往的文学和艺术。一名清朝学者可能和孔子没有生物上的联系，但是他深刻研读孔子学说，并且与孔子有关系的人相互往来，所以他也变成了中国人。他并不关心该地区使用了何种机械技术。他认为是什么构成了“中国文明”？现代中国人又是怎么看的？
总之：真实的中国传统可能和你在民族主义教科书上学到的不一样。

Hao Xin, I read.
Answered Fri
If you think things like paper, thecompass, printing, gun powder, silk, tea, all the Chinese food, art,architecture, poetry and novels, and all the Chinese food (it’s worth mentioningtwice) are overrated, then sure, it’s your opinion. Civilization is not a raceto see who gets what ranking on some listicle.
I for one, am at least a little gratefulafter every visit to the porcelain throne. Where would we all be, if we stillhad to scrounge for some bits of leaf, stick, fabric, or clean water, afterevery trip to the bathroom? The “three little seashells”would be a welcome revolutionary technology, if it existed in reality.

如果你觉得纸张，指南针，印刷术，火药，丝绸，茶叶，所有中国食物，艺术，建筑，诗歌，小说，所有中国食物（值得再提一次）都被高估的话，那么这肯定是你的一己之见。文明不是一种比赛，看谁的排名比较高。
至少我每次坐在瓷制的马桶上时还是很感恩的。如果我们每次上完厕所后都要寻找叶子，木棍，布，或者干净的水来擦屁股的话，你觉得那样好吗？当然“三个小贝壳”将会是一个受欢迎的革命性技术，如果它真实存在的话。

Joseph Boyle
Answered Jun 14, 2015
Certainly just saying "5000 years ofhistory" will get responses like "What's the result?" or"Can you summarize?".
The greater West (everything west of India)does have 5000 years of history in a similar-sized area; what's different isthat the earliest written languages went out of use and were forgotten (note"civilization" references cities, while"文明"references writing) while religious divisions became so firm that much of theRoman Empire is not thought of as West.

说“5000年历史”肯定会得到“最后的结果是什么？”或者“你能总结一下吗？”等等类似的回应。
大西方地区（印度以西的所有地区）在类似大小的土地上拥有5000年历史；不同之处在于，最早期的书面语被废弃，被遗忘了（注意，“civilization”（英文中的文明）指的是城市，而“文明”指的是书写）而宗教分裂是如此的稳固，导致罗马帝国的很大一部分不被视作西方。