Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

daily.jstor.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 137 posts

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#51

Post by ecshafer »

wccrawford wrote: post #46
trident5000 wrote: post #10

As someone with a beard, I just cant imagine shaving every morning. Seems like a huge pain in the ass and waste of time. You do you if thats your thing though.

As someone who shaves... Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I view it. I tried growing a beard for a while, but I found that it was itchy, and anything I did to try to alleviate that was as much work as shaving, or even more. Recently, I switched electric razors again and it's a lot quicker and easier than the ones I'd been using (for like 5-7 years), and it's back to "meh whatever" category again instead of "Ugh,…

Beards become less itchy the more they grow. Shaving makes the hair sharp, and itchy. But if you let it grow out, trim the beard, and such, a beard becomes no more itchy than hair on your head. But there is a good 2 weeks of itchy.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#52

Post by nine_k »

hereforphone wrote: post #3

The article states that this was part of an effort to reorient the country's culture. That might seem strange to Americans / Western Europeans today, but this was not an isolated case and while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing (with the right approach and an amount of luck). A more modern example is Turkey, where Atatürk revised script, clothing, education, and many other aspects of th…

A very interesting example of a similar but seriously different process was the Meiji revolution in Japan. It restored the emperor and pushed westernization into high gear — Western science, technology, and culture was studied very intensively.

Along with that, the traditional Japanese culture was jealously preserved in other areas, so as to combine the best and most important Japanese traits and traditions with the most powerful and useful European knowledge.

This is very unlike the effort of Peter the Great, who tried hard to make Russia more genuinely Western and replace as much traditional structure everywhere as he could. The success was mixed, of course.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#53

Post by vagrantJin »

hereforphone wrote: post #15
vagrantJin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing That's called euro-centrism isn't it. And every westerner believes wholeheartedly that it is the best most constructive thing to do. So it is neither right nor wrong politically. But it does dull the world when every place you go to is Europe in microcosm. That is a true vision of dystopian hell itself.

Spend a couple years in Italy. Spend a couple years in Syria. Come back and tell me which you prefer.

Why, so I can visit the Lamborghini factory and pizza restaurant?

If you think my statement sounds like a shallow cliche then I would remind you that a group of people connected loosely by the idea of a state have cultural norms and traditions that make their little corner of the world unique...and Id say this surpasses the idea of materialism/unbounded consumption that undertones every conversation about "Europe Vs ...." measuring progress by how many cappucino cafes per square kilometer is a rather dull way to view the world at the very least.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#54

Post by nine_k »

vagrantJin wrote: post #12
hereforphone wrote: post #3

The article states that this was part of an effort to reorient the country's culture. That might seem strange to Americans / Western Europeans today, but this was not an isolated case and while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing (with the right approach and an amount of luck). A more modern example is Turkey, where Atatürk revised script, clothing, education, and many other aspects of th…

> while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing That's called euro-centrism isn't it. And every westerner believes wholeheartedly that it is the best most constructive thing to do. So it is neither right nor wrong politically. But it does dull the world when every place you go to is Europe in microcosm. That is a true vision of dystopian hell itself.

You can remove the "euro" part from it, and pick any other successful civilization which produced a rich culture. E.g. Chinese culture influenced its neighbors to a very significant extent, and certain traits of it were consciously emulated, say, in Japan and Korea at certain times.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#55

Post by nine_k »

boxerab wrote: post #9
lordleft wrote: post #8

This decision -- along with many others inaugurated by Peter -- contributed to the perception of a european/slavic bifurcation in the Russian soul. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and many others wrestled with the implications of this centuries later. I daresay it still shapes russian self-perception.

Not just perception - there was a very real conflict in the 19th century between traditional Russian values and western ideas such as nihilism and socialism. Dostoevsky was such an idealist in his youth, then turning his back on those movements after being imprisoned in hard labor camp. In his book Demons, he very much groks the dangers of these western ideas, which led to the disastrous 70 year reign of the Bolshevi…

Why, socialism was fine with most Russians, that is, the peasants. Check out the obschina thing [1] which was the traditional structure of non-noble country living; it's full of communal and rather socialist institutions.

The revolutionaries like the young Dostoevsky and a number of other Russian left intellectuals were quite westernized, and had the French revolution as an example, with its franternité, egalité et liberté. (Interestingly, not the American revolution which was hugely more successful but not leftist.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obshchina

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#56

Post by danielodievich »

Peter the Great built St. Petersburg and one of the most spectacular palaces in the world called Peterhof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterhof_Palace), a must to visit when you are there.

Peter himself didn't much care for grandeur and so had a very modest building for himself that is part of the tour of the palace, with lots of baths in it. There is a list of "Peter's Rules" hanging on the wall in that "small palace" that were enforced, very short, including:

- You can have one manservant only, no matter your position [the space was really small]

- You bunk where you are assigned to, no trading, and no complaining about it

- No boots on the bed

I love the reasonableness of these!

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#57

Post by wccrawford »

ecshafer wrote: post #51
wccrawford wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who shaves... Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I view it. I tried growing a beard for a while, but I found that it was itchy, and anything I did to try to alleviate that was as much work as shaving, or even more. Recently, I switched electric razors again and it's a lot quicker and easier than the ones I'd been using (for like 5-7 years), and it's back to "meh whatever" category again instead of "Ugh,…

Beards become less itchy the more they grow. Shaving makes the hair sharp, and itchy. But if you let it grow out, trim the beard, and such, a beard becomes no more itchy than hair on your head. But there is a good 2 weeks of itchy.

A while after that it got itchy again, and I ended up having to use special shampoo and "beard butter" and such to stop it from itching. It ended up not worth the time, effort and money.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#58

Post by danielodievich »

soperj wrote: post #17
boxerab wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just perception - there was a very real conflict in the 19th century between traditional Russian values and western ideas such as nihilism and socialism. Dostoevsky was such an idealist in his youth, then turning his back on those movements after being imprisoned in hard labor camp. In his book Demons, he very much groks the dangers of these western ideas, which led to the disastrous 70 year reign of the Bolshevi…

If you take an objective look at the USSR from 1917 to 1990, while there was a lot of bad things, they also completely industrialized the country, literacy rates went from 28% to 99.7% (triple it in the first 15 years, by trying to teach everyone to read their native language first instead of Russian first). They were the first country to put a man in space. I'm not sure that it was all disastrous.

I barely overlapped with both of my great-grandfathers but fortunately one of them left his memoirs behind.

in there it says that he ran away from home early and "during revolution was just a street hooligan breaking streetlamps for amusement". He did eventually complete engineering school and wound up designing and building ports and hydroelectric dams during all the heavy industrialization and the war. He said he was happy about that change that allowed him to become educated.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#59

Post by soperj »

shrubble wrote: post #36
soperj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take an objective look at the USSR from 1917 to 1990, while there was a lot of bad things, they also completely industrialized the country, literacy rates went from 28% to 99.7% (triple it in the first 15 years, by trying to teach everyone to read their native language first instead of Russian first). They were the first country to put a man in space. I'm not sure that it was all disastrous.

The 60 million people killed during the Bokshevik reign are unavailable for comment, however.

Seems completely objective.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#60

Post by nemo44x »

988747 wrote: post #22
soperj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take an objective look at the USSR from 1917 to 1990, while there was a lot of bad things, they also completely industrialized the country, literacy rates went from 28% to 99.7% (triple it in the first 15 years, by trying to teach everyone to read their native language first instead of Russian first). They were the first country to put a man in space. I'm not sure that it was all disastrous.

You must ask yourself a question here: did they accomplish all of that because of the socialism, or despite it?

A planned economy is great when you have a few well defined tasks to really worry about. But you can't really become dynamic and resilient like a market economy can. So certain goals, like getting everyone to read or building a spaceship work reasonably well but it simply can't compete with a market economy in the longer run and dies a death of a thousand capitalist cuts eventually.

The Chinese probably have it more right than the Soviets in that they manage a few big things and then let the market more or less self manage to a point so long as the CCP is getting their cut and gives their blessing.

Post reply on HN