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The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

historians.org

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Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#11

Post by _iyig »

analyst74 wrote: post #10

> Until the Japanese invasion her conquerors have been barbarians who looked up to the higher civilization of China and eagerly adopted it. I always thought this is uniquely Chinese thing, but recently learnt that Athens had a similar history. Many of Athens architectures are actually built by its conquerors who admired its culture.

The echoes of Roman (and Greek) admiration are still visible in Europe, and even throughout the Americas:

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

Another example - the common language of ancient Rome, Latin, is still the official spoken language of the Catholic Church. Until the 1960s, priestly instruction and most Catholic masses were conducted in Latin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_Latin#Current_u...

Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#12

Post by a_bonobo »

ars wrote: post #4
docdeek wrote: post #2

I was taught as a child in Australia that the Indigenous Australians were the world’s oldest living/surviving civilization.

They are probably excluded for not having any sort of symbolic communication system (writing, hieroglyphics, knot patterns, stuff like that).

There were at least message sticks: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-australia-oce...

>For instance, one of the message sticks in the Dandiiri Maiwar Exhibition at the Queensland Museum and Science centre is as follows: Bishop White of Carpentaria described how he delivered a message stick on behalf of an Aboriginal boy in Darwin to a boy in Daly Waters. Bishop White asked the boy from Darwin to explain the message. The boy read the message symbols which requested headbands and boomerangs from Daly Waters. The Bishop delivered the message stick and asked the recipient to tell him what the message was. The boy interpreted the message stick exactly as the boy from Darwin had explained it.

Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#14

Post by bra4you »

"Until the Opium War of 1840–42 the European merchants and voyagers who reached the distant land of China had looked upon the Chinese with a good deal of awe as a people of superior culture."

Bullshit and Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture".

5000 years ago we are talking about bones inscribed with precursors of the Chinese writing system. Not bad, but compare this to the Pyramids at the same time?

Around the year 0 the Chinese culture was en par with the level of western culture and technology - speak Rome.

Only during the middle ages the west fell so far beyond and Chinese had indeed a superior level of technology, knowledge and administration. Things reversed again with the industrial revolution and the center of industrial GDP moved to the west again. Now since China and the rest of Asia has also industrialized and due to far more people in Asia, the center of world GDP has shifted back to the East.

If you can really talk about a "continuous civilization" for 5000, 3500 or even 2000 years is doubtful.

The experience from businessman with Chinese: 30 years ago they had an inferior complex because they were technological too far behind and a feeling of cultural superiority. Now the have the feeling of technological superiority combined with cultural superiority.

Chinese culture has a lot of strengths. But it also comes with a lot of weaknesses. I am skeptical about the "Chinese Century"

Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#15

Post by ravish-tech »

That’s based on what we found of once humans started writing. Civilisation have been going on long before that. Many cultures like Hindus preferred oral methods to written books so no single person/object has the power. Having said that. China did give the world lot of things and I respect them food it.

Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#18

Post by amriksohata »

bra4you wrote: post #14

"Until the Opium War of 1840–42 the European merchants and voyagers who reached the distant land of China had looked upon the Chinese with a good deal of awe as a people of superior culture." Bullshit and Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture". 5000 years ago we are talking about bones inscribed with precursors of the Chinese writing system. Not bad, but compare this to the Pyramids at the same time?…

Continuous civilisatiins can exist for that long if they aren't targetted by the greed of invaders, in this case there weren't large scale invasions big enough to topple it

Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#19

Post by frozenport »

bra4you wrote: post #14

"Until the Opium War of 1840–42 the European merchants and voyagers who reached the distant land of China had looked upon the Chinese with a good deal of awe as a people of superior culture." Bullshit and Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture". 5000 years ago we are talking about bones inscribed with precursors of the Chinese writing system. Not bad, but compare this to the Pyramids at the same time?…

China was actually vastly inferior to Rome in terms of metal production:

https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Roman_a...

Re: The Oldest Living Civilization (1944)

#20

Post by haecceity »

bra4you wrote: post #14

"Until the Opium War of 1840–42 the European merchants and voyagers who reached the distant land of China had looked upon the Chinese with a good deal of awe as a people of superior culture." Bullshit and Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture". 5000 years ago we are talking about bones inscribed with precursors of the Chinese writing system. Not bad, but compare this to the Pyramids at the same time?…

> Bullshit and Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture".

This is actually propaganda from the US War Department.

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