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Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

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Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#91

Post by nullifidian »

sandworm101 wrote: post #38
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.

Countries are allowed to change. A country choosing to adopt the ways of another is only evil if it is forced upon them by outsiders. The leader of Turkey wanted to take his country in a particular direction. That is a valid local decision by a local leader. What is euro-centric is to dictate to those local leaders, to tell countries that they shouldn't change their culture as they see fit. Other countries are not mu…

>forced upon them by outsiders.

And it's almost always the case. Peter the Great was concerned with Russia's military backwardness, lack of a navy in particular, while being in conflict with the Swedish Empire. The Japanese were forced to "modernize" by the American military ships. Turkey modernized after the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, i.e. after the tremendous losses to the European powers. Smaller modern states today are also pressured to participate in globalization in various ways. Also colonialism.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#92

Post by CameronNemo »

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.

Is complete industrialization a positive?

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#93

Post by CameronNemo »

vimy wrote: post #89
dotcommand wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We just exterminated countless indigenuous peoples/nations and stole their land. Not to mention stealing resources/capital from china, india, middle east, africa, etc plunging much of the world into unimaginable poverty from which many still haven't recovered. Nothing as terrible as the gulags...

The West created the modern world and lifted billions out of poverty.

Easy to lift people out of poverty when you literally invent the concept.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#94

Post by simonh »

ramesh31 wrote: post #78
simonh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well. It was passed when it became evident many of the protesters fighting back against the coup were political opponents of Erdogan. Hopefully that's settled one particular question - no more coups, even if it's against your political opponents. The coming election is I think another legitimately critical tests. It's not great that Turkey faces multiple critical…

>The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well. Was that really accepted by the Turkish people as a legitimate coup attempt? From an outside perspective it appeared almost comically staged.

The coup failed on two counts. First it didn’t get enough support within the military to be viable. Second even Erdogan’s political opponents fought against it.

Given history there’s always been a fear of the possibility of a coup at some point. Hopefully that episode has resoundingly shown coups in Turkey are not an option anymore. So yes it failed spectacularly and I think that’s the important point.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#95

Post by [deleted] »

ramesh31 wrote: post #78
simonh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well. It was passed when it became evident many of the protesters fighting back against the coup were political opponents of Erdogan. Hopefully that's settled one particular question - no more coups, even if it's against your political opponents. The coming election is I think another legitimately critical tests. It's not great that Turkey faces multiple critical…

>The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well. Was that really accepted by the Turkish people as a legitimate coup attempt? From an outside perspective it appeared almost comically staged.

[deleted]

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#96

Post by graeme »

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.

You can’t look at those numbers without comparing to other societies. Raising literacy over that time period….is not especially rare?

Nor was industrialization. You’re giving them credit for something basically every european country did in that timeframe. And many other countries besides.

Not strictly saying you’re wrong. I haven’t done the comparative argument so it’s possible they did have a comparative advantage on either front. But you’d need to compare to other countries to have a meaningful claim.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#97

Post by mannerheim »

dotcommand wrote: post #82
sandworm101 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries are allowed to change. A country choosing to adopt the ways of another is only evil if it is forced upon them by outsiders. The leader of Turkey wanted to take his country in a particular direction. That is a valid local decision by a local leader. What is euro-centric is to dictate to those local leaders, to tell countries that they shouldn't change their culture as they see fit. Other countries are not mu…

> A country choosing to adopt the ways of another is only evil if it is forced upon them by outsiders. You are ignoring the fact that the ottoman empire had been invaded by european powers for hundreds of years and ultimately destroyed by european powers. And that european powers were threatening to destroy Turkey completely unless the turks "bent the knee". You are painting a rather biased picture of what the "leade…

> And that european powers were threatening to destroy Turkey completely unless the turks "bent the knee".

...

> Neither Ataturk nor Turkey was in a position to take their country wherever they wanted. They were essentially a vanquished nation and pretty much had no choice but to do as the europeans powers ( and later on america ) told them to.

This is not an accurate reading of history.

Turkey had, in fact, been destroyed at the end of the First World War. Not only had the Ottoman Empire been dismantled, the territory of modern Turkey had been partitioned and split amongst the victors, much like Hungary had lost land in addition to the Austro-Hungarian Empire being dismantled (for which Hungarian nationalists still harbour resentment to this day). Large parts of Western Anatolia were ceded to Greece as part of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, and Constantinople was put under Allied military administration at the end of the war.

This was the cause of the Turkish War of Independence, which began shortly after the end of the First World War. Winning this war was what made Atatürk's name, in a rather literal way - it is the very reason why he's considered the father of the nation. So rather than being the Western puppet you portray him as, Atatürk was quite aggressive in defending the sovereignty of the new nation in a way that very early on led to military conflict with Western powers, conflicts which he won. If he had been concerned about submitting to his 'European masters', events like the Greek genocide which carried on after the founding of the Republic of Turkey would never have occurred.

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#98

Post by AYBABTME »

rolleiflex wrote: post #47
simonh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well. It was passed when it became evident many of the protesters fighting back against the coup were political opponents of Erdogan. Hopefully that's settled one particular question - no more coups, even if it's against your political opponents. The coming election is I think another legitimately critical tests. It's not great that Turkey faces multiple critical…

Turkey’s adolescence is full of trials indeed. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to look back at this and call it life experience.

Interesting to call "adolescent" such an old civilization. I wonder how frequently a given plot of land and people goes through a full human-like life. How often are regions reinventing themselves, over history?

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#99

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Peter the Great’s Beard Tax

#100

Post by soperj »

graeme wrote: post #96
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 can’t look at those numbers without comparing to other societies. Raising literacy over that time period….is not especially rare? Nor was industrialization. You’re giving them credit for something basically every european country did in that timeframe. And many other countries besides. Not strictly saying you’re wrong. I haven’t done the comparative argument so it’s possible they did have a comparative advantage…

Most european countries were already industrialized by the 1920s. None of them had literacy rates that low, and not one of them made it to space.
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