One may ask whether the economic development of Western Europe in the 13th Century has no relation with the influx of precious metal resulted from the plundering of Constantinople, the wealthiest city in the world, by the Crusaders, the mercenaries of Venice, the city in Northern Italy, which was plundering the the ‘east’ even before the Crusades?
The meme of the ‘ugliness’ of icons translates the deep seated iconoclastic mentality of the Protestant ‘West’ and the deep seated hatred for the Mother of God and in fact for the Christ (it is not by chance that the icon selected by that commentator to illustrate the “monstrous fall of art” produced by Orthodoxy, is the Hodigitria, the first icon painted by the Apostle Luke). It is why the same commentator deny so strenuously any alliance between Tsargrad and Russia. The fact that icons of the Mother of God sent from the City protected by the Mother of God have been always venerated as protectors of Russia cannot enter the brainwashed heads of bezbozhnik sovoks.

you picts love to larp your being conquered by vikings like its something to brag about the dna shows youre still mostly celt talk about occupied minds and this pride of submission seems to have been passed on to other whites while celts slavs southern etc euros still wont submit to vikings musims or you pict shits

Roman Britain went onto become one of the wealthier parts of the Empire by Late Antiquity.

This is incorrect. By far the greatest wealth-generating region of the Roman Empire was Egypt. Not only did its grains feed Rome, this one province through its Indian and African trade generated up to third of ALL Roman state budget and military upkeep annually at its peak (foreign imports were taxed at quarter rate while domestic at 1/40). The other wealth-producing regions were almost all in the east, with the only exception being North Africa (esp. the province of Africa around Carthage), which was rich and dotted with large latifundia with absentee landowners in Italy.

Western provinces were almost all net negative revenue producers for the Romans and were only garrisoned for prestige reasons or security/military concerns. For a time, a few regions were valuable due to mining (Iberia, Illyria, even Dacia), but these were temporary. Britain in particular was a big loss maker for the Romans.

Has it ever occured to you that the best artistic accomplishments of Byzantine period have been destroyed, stolen, looted, appropriated?

The first Arab onslaught reached Constantinople.
Seljuks engulfed Asia Minor, Rum rule over it, and Ottomans finalized the downfall.

All those churches and once-majestic imperial cities and their culture, treasures – destroyed.

But more importantly, you have overlooked the sack of Constantinople by Crusaders, when churches, tombs were ransacked, even holy relics desecrated.
Statues and crosses were melted down for scrap metal, Venetians looted paintings and sculptures, books were burned and destroyed.

Northern Italy was safe and protected in the middle of Christendom, and part of the HRE. Byzantines meanwhile were faced with continuous foreign invasions, backstabbing Roman Catholics and a dwindling demographic and economic base.

The “ugly” religious style of icons and paintings in Orthodoxy was due to artists trying to replicate older, existing ones and not deviating from their style.

recognized that the Emperor, as the head of the Orthodox Christian community, possessed by divine right a ‘meta-political’ jurisdiction over Russia

“there is no evidence that the Russian princes, with the exception of Prince Galician, recognized the Byzantine Emperor as their suzerain”

Empire integrated its allies

Russian principalities (except Galicia) have never been allies of Byzantium.

What I said (and it was not from me) was that:
“The rulers of Russia, albeit independent in fact, recognized that the Emperor, as the head of the Orthodox Christian community, possessed by divine right a ‘meta-political’ jurisdiction over Russia”. They were members of the ‘family of kings’, the form by which the Empire integrated its allies.

Vernadsky offers more examples of dynastic relations between Russian Princes and the Imperial families than I did. It is obvious that the relations have been increasingly lax after the Fourth Crusade.
Ironically it was the Galician Prince who ‘recognized’ the emperor as his ‘suzerain’.

http://oldru.com/vernadsky/ver02/88.htm
the Emperor, apparently, began to consider Yaroslav (the wise) his vassal, and when in 1043 started a war between Russia and Empire, the Byzantine historian Psellos treated it as a “Russian revolt”. Although the Byzantine doctrine of the Emperor’s suzerainty over other Christian rulers was never accepted by Yaroslav’s successors in Kiev, the Prince of Galicia formally recognized himself as a vassal (hypospondos) of the Emperor in the middle of the twelfth century. However, speaking in General, Kievan Rus can not be considered a vassal state of Byzantium. … even in the Church sphere, the Russians twice attempted to free themselves (from Byzantine interference): under Metropolitan Hilarion in the eleventh century and Clement in the twelfth….In 1130. the princes of Polotsk with their wives and children were exiled Mstislav I “in Greece, because they broke the oath.” According to Vasiliev, ” this can be explained by the fact that the small princes who rebelled against their ruler were called to account not only by the Russian Prince, but also by the suzerain of Russia – the Byzantine Emperor. They were exiled as dangerous and undesirable not only for the Russian Prince, but also for the Emperor.” This interpretation seems unconvincing to me. First of all, as already discussed, there is no evidence that the Russian princes, with the exception of Prince Galician, recognized the Byzantine Emperor as their suzerain. Secondly, there is no evidence that the princes exiled to Byzantium appeared before the court of the Emperor; one way or another they were granted asylum. It was in the tradition of the Byzantine emperors to show hospitality to the exiled rulers of other countries“

For a less stalinist and more nuanced view:

A.A. Vasiliev, ” Was Old Russia a Vassal State of Byzantium?
in ‘Speculum’ Vol. 7, No. 3 (Jul., 1932), pp. 350-360

Dimitry Obolenski, “The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453”, 1971 (numerous reprints).

Not only that Vladimir Monomakh actually mentions the origin of his mother, he boasts about it. The text lacks four lines immediately after the ‘iz roda Monomakhov’, which most likely had the indication that the ‘genus of Monomakh’ was the family of the Emperor Constantin IX Monomachos,

It’s guessing. In known sources Vladimir never spoke about his grandfather-Emperor. Descendants Monomakh in numerous wars with other princes, never tried to justify their claims (on power) their origin from Emperor. Ie it’s origin had almost zero importance for Russia of that era.

What is sure is that the title of Grand Prince was bestowed on the Princes of Suzdal by the Emperor, either on Andrey Bogolyubsky or on Vsevolod the Big Nest, by the Emperor Manuel Comnen

Where is it mentioned in the Russian Chronicles? Here is a modern historian
https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=187208&p=17
” Vsevolod The big Nest became, the first from Russians of princes, whom consistently titled “Grand Prince.” But the epithet “great” in its relation meant supremacy not in all Russia, and within the Suzdal earth. The main thing in Russia continued to be considered the Prince of Kiev, who had the right to be called “Prince of all Russia” (although it was not an official title at the time ).”

About the Emperor – not a single word

Ivan III, the ‘”gatherer of the Russian lands”, justified his preeminence over ‘All Rus’ by his marriage with Sophia/Zoe Paleologue

It’s nonsense. Ivan justified his power by the fact that he was a descendant of Rurik, and the Grand Dukes of the Rurik family. Sophia Paleologue was completely irrelevant.

at a time when orthodox canonists were inclined to regard the Grand Princes of Moscowas the successors of the Byzantine emperors.

“Ivan did not seek a marriage with Sophia and was not its initiator. To a much greater extent, the initiative came from the Pope, at whose court Sofia Palaeologus was brought up. The marriage was concocted by two crafty Levantine — Greek Yuri Trajaneum and Italian Jan Baptiste de La Volpe. They both misled the Pope and the Grand Prince ….Of rights (on the Byzantine throne), Ivan thought. When, the following year after his marriage, the Senate of the Republic of Venice wrote to him that the power over the Eastern Empire, captured by the Turks, in the event of the termination of the male offspring of the paleologists belongs to him …”the Grand Duke was completely indifferent to this. And even greater indifference shown later, when… brother Sophia (Andrew Palaeologus) expressed his intention to sell on a similar foam their rights to the Byzantine throne. Ivan did not want to spend a penny on this case, so Andrew had to sell these rights to the Catholic — French king Charles VIII…. After. ..the disappearance of all of the offspring of Palaeologus, Ivan did not have the slightest temptation to remind his wife Sophia as the sole heir of Constantinople to the crown .

No more interest in (Byzantine heritage) is observed in his son Vasily III. Pope Leo x sought in every way to seduce Vasily with the prospect of accession to Constantinople. … The return Embassy of Basil III thanked the Pope, not abandoning in principle the Union with him, but completely deviated from specific negotiations about this Union. As for the question of the Constantinople heritage, the Muscovites did not utter a word about them. So did the Embassy of Dmitry Gerasimov, sent to Rome in 1524 in response to the new papal Embassy.

But perhaps the brightest defined his attitude to the idea of the Eastern Empire Ivan IV. When the papal legate Anthony Possevin began to paint it all the same picture of the expulsion of the Turks from Constantinople and reign on the throne of the Eastern Caesars, Ivan IV put a stop to these conversations, refusing “a greater state want”. “In the future we perception small want— he said,— and the local States of all universes do not want that will to sin aggression.” To decide the fate of the former Byzantine lands, he did not thought possible: “the Land of the Lord which he will give to whom he wills will be.”

http://alternatio.org/articles/item/3584-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81-%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%8F?tmpl=component&print=1

It is commendable that one corrects sweeping affirmations after checking the sources. It should be better, of course, to check the sources before making those affirmations.
Not only that Vladimir Monomakh actually mentions the origin of his mother, he boasts about it. The text lacks four lines immediately after the ‘iz roda Monomakhov’, which most likely had the indication that the ‘genus of Monomakh’ was the family of the Emperor Constantin IX Monomachos, who repelled the last ‘rebellion of the Rhos’, the naval attack of 1043. It is to be noted that the usual translations suppress the term ‘rod’, giving a false impression: “named at baptism Basil, and with the Russian name Vladimir, surnamed Monomakh by my beloved father and mother…. ”
The claim of the Vladimir/Moscow Grand Princes that Constantin presented the ‘Monomakh cap’, the symbol-crown of the Russian autocracy, to his grand son Vladimir was not a late invention. The fact that in 1045 the Hungarian King Andrew I married Anastasia of Kiev, the daughter of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise, whose brother Vsevolod I had been married to the daughter of Constantine IX since 1046 (there is some confusion as to the name of the daughter, Anastasia or Irene/Maria) and the Emperor presented the Hungarian king with a crown, strongly suggest more than a symbolic gesture.
What is sure is that the title of Grand Prince was bestowed on the Princes of Suzdal by the Emperor, either on Andrey Bogolyubsky or on Vsevolod the Big Nest, by the Emperor Manuel Comnen, the most likely during the expedition of Manuel against Hungary through Russia, in the presence of Byzantine armies in Russia. Vsevolod was himself the son of a Comnen Princess and spent his youth at the court of Manuel.
Later ‘Byzantine’ sources affirm that the ‘king of Rhos’ bore the title of ‘stolnik’ of his Sacred Majesty’. The stolnik was in Russia, Poland, Lithuania and in the Romanian Principalities, the dignitary responsible for serving the royal table, then an honorary court title and a district office. It was, along with the cupbearer, the closest to the person of the Emperor or King, testing the food to make sure that it was not poisoned.
Ivan III, the ‘”gatherer of the Russian lands”, justified his preeminence over ‘All Rus’ by his marriage with Sophia/Zoe Paleologue, the niece of the last Emperor of ‘Byzance’ Constantin XI, at a time when orthodox canonists were inclined to regard the Grand Princes of Moscow, where the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev moved in 1325 after the Mongol Invasions, as the successors of the Byzantine emperors. She was the grand mother of Ivan IV, the first ‘tsar’.
So, the Vladimir/Moscow Princes have been at all times ‘pro-Byzantines’. The ‘anti-byzantine’ attitudes were displayed by the lesser princes pretenders for the title, like the upstart Galician princes, who eventually sided with the Papacy and ended absorbed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

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Nothing to add, but great post and mostly great comments all around.

Maybe the one quibble about the post is not addressing large scale ag in pre-Roman Gaul and the Alpine valleys. Probably could have supported some great pre-Roman cities under different and more centralized political systems.

Vladimir Monomakh wrote autobiography. From the autobiography it is clear that the origin of the mother meant almost nothing to Vladimir (he does not mention this origin at all).

Clarification: Vladimir does not mention the origin of his mother from the Emperor. Here is how Vladimir calls himself: “I, named at baptism by the name of Basil by the my glorious grandfather Yaroslav, called the Russian name Vladimir, by beloved father and by mother from Monomakh genus”

(Я, смиренный, дедом своим Ярославом, благословенным, славным, нареченный в крещении Василием, русским именем Владимир, отцом возлюбленным и матерью своею из рода Мономахов)

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Vladimir Monomakh was the son of the Anastasia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine Monomachos. He was the father or Yury Dolgoruky and grand father of Andrey Bogoliubsky.

Vladimir Monomakh wrote autobiography. From the autobiography it is clear that the origin of the mother meant almost nothing to Vladimir (he does not mention this origin at all). For the inheritance rights among the Rurik family the relationship with the Emperor had zero value (Andrei Bogolyubsky was the son of a Kipchak Princess – it did not prevent him from being a Grand prince)

I never said that Russian Grand-Princes were ‘appointed’ (by Byzantine emperor), but ‘recognized’

Russian princes did not need any “recognition” from Byzantium. If (hypothetically) the Byzantine Emperor had not recognized any of the princes, it would have caused only ridicule.

The rulers of Russia, albeit independent in fact, recognized that the Emperor, as the head of the Orthodox Christian community, possessed by divine right a ‘meta-political’ jurisdiction over Russia.

Russian princes never recognized the power of Byzantium over Russia .

One of the nice and interesting things about Asia is the sheer number and density of small restaurants, stalls, hole in the wall eateries, and food carts. And the sheer variety of food available. Zoning laws seem very different than America.

It makes for a very colorful street life. Its also communal. It seems that life in Asia revolves around food, much more so than even in Western foodie cultures like Italy and France.

Life in Asia seems less about ideology and more about the simple, basic, physical pleasures of life. Food, sex, fashion, communal life, comfort, politeness. Its very human, even if it never reaches the grandiosities of Western civilization.

The West can learn something about what makes life pleasurable – it can be very basic, simple, and earthy.

While what you say is possible, I don’t think it accounts for the main reason why the output per worker in the service industry is low in Japan and South Korea. In my view, it has mostly to do with the local cultural practices where service has to be extremely high quality (compared to that in the West), local, and low cost. That is not a formula for “economic efficiency” or profitability.

Look at restaurants, for example. They are – where successful – highly profitable small businesses in the West. In contrast, restaurants are present in FAR GREATER numbers per person in, say, Seoul and Tokyo, compared to Western cities, and are much more likely to be mom-and-pop operations with low capital investments. They generate considerably lower profits for their proprietors in Japan and Korea, but serve certain communal roles and often provide high quality (for an extreme example, see the Netflix special “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” where a Michelin star restaurant is a small family affair in a subway station).

Even the language reflects this. In South Korea, for example, the English term “service” actually means gratis – something provided for free in addition to what is being purchased. It is perhaps a leftover from the days of price-control when businesses could not compete on price due to government regulations, so had to compete on superior customer care and even small gifts to consumers.

In contrast, we have a different consumer culture in the United States. People routinely select inferior products/services if the prices are tiny bit lower.

You are saying to buy watches in Japan is guarantee of better quality?

There are no guarantees in life, even in Japan.

And your father’s experience is a sample of one.

China had horses and horse cavalry since before the time of Christ.

Which were transmitted to them by the steppe nomads.

China had better wagons, better bows, more horses, better fed horses, numerical superiority, repeating crossbows that had been perfected a thousand years before, and so much more than the Mogolian Steppe nomads.

Better bows? I don’t think so. Mongol composite bow had no equal in its day. More horses? Also, no. Do you understand the meaning of the term “pastoralists”? Numerical superiority? Mass peasant conscripts aren’t very useful in mobile engagements on the plains where the horse-archer reigns supreme.

Before the gunpowder era, pastoralists always had significant advantages and made far better soldiery material – better health/nutrition, hardier, more inured to the extremes of heat and cold, and with greater hunting/raiding/warring skills derived from constant life on horseback.

Technological advantage = meaningless.
Civilization = meaningless.

I don’t know what silly thing you are imputing here, but until the gunpowder era, history was essentially that of conflict between pastoralists and agriculturalists, with the former usually beating the latter and becoming the elites of the latter through conquest.

You might want to educate yourself by reading a book or two instead of looking up bits and pieces of facts to support your assertions on the Internet.

Start here: http://elibrary.bsu.az/books_400/N_23.pdf

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1026412.The_Empire_of_the_Steppes

You attack a straw-man. I never said that Russian Grand-Princes were ‘appointed’, but ‘recognized’, which is a difference.
Vladimir certainly was not ‘appointed’ by the Emperor, neither was his ‘right of inheritance’ too clear (he was an illegitimate son of Sviatoslav) and he killed his brother, the rightful inheritor. That might be a cause of his conversion through which Russia relations with the Empire are profoundly changed as well as the rules of succession to the throne. A persistent legend claims that Vladimir was conferred the title of ‘Caesar’ after his marriage to the Empror’s sister, therefore becoming a member of the imperial family. He was hailed as a ‘New Constantine’ and with his grand-mother Olga ‘equals to the Apostles’. That for sure enhanced enormously his prestige. The title Caesar was originally designating a subordinate co-emperor or the heir apparent. The rulers of Russia, albeit independent in fact, recognized that the Emperor, as the head of the Orthodox Christian community, possessed by divine right a ‘meta-political’ jurisdiction over Russia.
Vladimir Monomakh was the son of the Anastasia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine Monomachos. He was the father or Yury Dolgoruky and grand father of Andrey Bogoliubsky.

What about Saint Vladimir? Vladimir Monomakh? Andrey Bogoliubski?

These princes were not “appointed” by the Byzantine Emperor, they received power by right of inheritance (Vladimir the Saint-thanks to the murder of his brother)

What about Saint Vladimir? Vladimir Monomakh? Andrey Bogoliubski?

Was not recognition by the ‘Greek’ Emperor necessary for the claim of primacy among the Russian princes?

No. Church hierarchs were appointed by Constantinople. Princes-never. Recognition of religious primacy coexisted (in medieval Russia) with antipathy to the population of the Byzantine Empire. Very similar to the situation in medieval Catholic Europe (where there was a similar ambivalent attitude to Byzantium – recognition of the high status of the Byzantine Emperor and at the same time contempt)

Were not all the primates of the ‘Russian’ Church appointed by Constantinople (therefore ‘Greeks’) from its inception up to 1448? 460 years of uncontested ‘Greek’ dominance. Was not recognition by the ‘Greek’ Emperor necessary for the claim of primacy among the Russian princes?
Does not today the ‘Ukrainian’ church justify its ‘autocephaly’ because it was the most faithful dependence of the ‘Mother Church’ in Constantinople against the ‘pretensions’ of the Moskal Church which severed its relations with the ‘Greeks’?

I believe another reason for the apparently low output per worker in the service industry in Japan would be its no tipping culture.Tips which make up a very large part of the salary of service workers in a lot of industries in the US and most western countries are not captured in official statistics therefore the US service industry worker appears to be far more productive than his Japanese counterpart than would be the case if we compare his effective take home pay after including tips.

What would be then “meaningful”? 4000 years of continuous ‘civilization’ which nowadays moves to become a world civilization, or few hundred years when the nomad barbarians from the West (from the Steppes or from remote islands) succeeded to plunder China and arrest its ‘meaningless’ technological advance, until they have been either assimilated or expelled?

Both Chinese crossbows and gunpowder weapons of the era of the steppe nomads were underpowered and, in any case, equipped foot soldiers who were operationally no match for the horse-archers that reigned supreme on the plains (which is the predominant terrain of North China).

China had horses and horse cavalry since before the time of Christ.

Terracotta chariot, 210 B.C.

China had better wagons, better bows, more horses, better fed horses, numerical superiority, repeating crossbows that had been perfected a thousand years before, and so much more than the Mogolian Steppe nomads.

Technological advantage = meaningless.
Civilization = meaningless.

It’s funny you are having the discussion about buying watches in Japan.

You are saying to buy watches in Japan is guarantee of better quality?

My father has bought an eco drive watch in the top floor of Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo and it was broken (somehow the face of watch has twisted around) in very soon after – maybe a year or two later the whole face has twisted around. The impression was that Japanese watches are the most unreliable of Japan’s products. Actually, I even remember how that Japanese watch was thrown in the garbage.

Of all things you can buy in Japan, I think the watch is the only unreliable one. Although the shop assistants in the watch shop are the most friendly.

How difficult is to ‘unlearn’ deep seated prejudices.
The ‘Byzantines’ (with or without negative connotations) is a concept invented in the 16th century by the ‘Latin West’ which claimed that only Latins and Latin speakers were THE Romans, to designate the Greek speaking parts of the Roman Empire and deny them the ‘pretensions’ to be Romans. Really ‘new-speak’. Before that the Latins called them Greeks, with all the negative connotations inherited from the Latin past and reinforced both by the Roman-Catholic and Reformed schisms.

Why would refusing to export medium-range watches be bad for Japanese consumers?

It’s not. It’s great for them. My point was that the profitability for Seiko of the JDM watches is probably much lower than their Malaysian-assembled exports. Nor does the mid-range watches bring any prestige that the high-end Grand Seikos do. Yet it still makes and markets – only domestically – those mid-range watches in Japan. I suspect it does so, because 1) the defect-rates in the Japanese factories are still probably lower than those in their Malaysian factories, 2) it likes to provide jobs for their own people, and 3) it wants to provide quality products at a reasonable price for their own people (it probably does not sell them overseas, because it makes little money from them).

It’s an irrational behavior through the prism of the American corporate perspective, which is all about profits, profits, profits and hitting the next quarter numbers, which translates to offshore, high volume production, high defect rate, and close to nonexistent customer service. But it is quite a rational behavior if the company is patriotic and wants to benefit its own citizens.

The Allure of JDM Seikos: http://www.gmtminusfive.com/the-allure-of-jdm-seiko/

China also had repeating crossbows and lots of gunpowder.

Both Chinese crossbows and gunpowder weapons of the era of the steppe nomads were underpowered and, in any case, equipped foot soldiers who were operationally no match for the horse-archers that reigned supreme on the plains (which is the predominant terrain of North China).

That didn’t stop them from getting enslaved by the Jurchens, Mongols, and Manchu for nearly 1000 years.

Which is precisely why the agrarians Mandarins wanted to discontinue the ocean voyages that took resources away from the existential threat that the pastoralists posed.

Are you sure that vizantiskii (with all its negative connotations) is not a quite recent neologism of western origin in Russian?

A Byzantine with negative connotations is a word of recent origin. But before that the Byzantines were called Greeks-with the same negative connotations.

Are you sure that vizantiskii (with all its negative connotations) is not a quite recent neologism of western origin in Russian?
Chronicles don’t talk of Byzantium. That Greeks are depicted as cunning is clearly an old stereotype.

China also had repeating crossbows and lots of gunpowder. That didn’t stop them from getting enslaved by the Jurchens, Mongols, and Manchu for nearly 1000 years.

I am not knowledgeable of the history. But I thought this negative connotation to Byzantine emerged much more through the 18th century, and then was continuing development in the 19th century.

No, negative attitude to the Byzantines appeared in the early middle ages, and has not changed since.

Here is an example in 1164 Archbishop Anthony, swore allegiance to the heirs of Chernigov Prince Svyatoslav: “That’s why I testify before you – God is my witness and the mother of God that I will not create any treachery..I will not destroy my soul and I will not be traitors like Judas.”
After that, Anthony immediately became a traitor (like Judas).
The author of the chronicle (Orthodox monk of the 12th century) is absolutely not surprised: “the reason for this “evil crime,” the chronicler explains simply: “ he (Anthony) harbored deception because he was born Greek“. For the old Russian reader, this was indeed enough — reverence for Greek scholarship …. coexisted with confidence in the universal treachery of the Greeks.”

In this case, the “Greeks” correctly translates as ” Byzantines”

The very words Byzantine and Byzantium in Russian are offensive words (like “nigger” in English)

This is obviously a wild exaggeration.

This is no exaggeration.
Here is the dictionary:

the word “Byzantine” in the Russian language has the following meaning:
1) Byzantine
2) cruel
3) hypocritical,
4) cunning

That is, in the Russian language “Byzantinians” (византиец) is a cruel, hypocritical, cunning (as well as treacherous and flattering) bastard. If the person was called “”Byzantinians”” it is an insult. Gibbon is not to blame – this attitude was established in the middle ages
When the Clericals are trying to whitewash Byzantium of course this is not cause anything but mockery.

The use of ‘byzantine’ for what has always been called Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων/Basileia tōn Rhōmaiōn/Romania, the Empire of the Romans, is deliberately misleading.
That there was a ‘byzantinophobia’ in Russia, especially among the ‘Westernizers’ (Chaadae, Soloviov), some ‘Slavophiles’ and heretical Old Believers, is undeniable.

I had to look up “NEET.” 70% of people have college degrees in South Korea.

What kills the quality of living there are 1) high density (read crowds), 2) pollution, often from China, and 3) high cost of housing (which is not an issue for foreign mil/gov/corporate expatriates with subsidized housing). And obviously education is hyper-competitive for the locals.

Balanced against those factors are cleanliness, great/high-tech services and entertainment, safety (forget violent crimes, you can leave laptops and iPhones at coffee shops and leave for an hour, and things left at taxis will be returned to you via police), convenience, and probably the best (and low cost) subway system in the world in Seoul. And the foodie culture is outstanding.

By the way, the Japanese export strategy often makes Westerners scratch their heads. For example, Seiko exports lots of low-priced watches made in Malaysia to the rest of the world. It also exports select super-luxurious ones (Grand Seiko) to a tiny segment of elites in the West. But it reserves high quality, moderate-cost Japanese-made watches (JDM or Japan domestic market) to the Japanese market alone. It’s like their corporate policy isn’t designed to squeeze out every dollar out of consumers so much as to provide employment and a high quality of life at reasonable costs to their own people. What a crazy country.

I was talking about Orthodoxy, because your comments about Jesus and his disciples are at variance with the true teaching and history of the Church transmitted by the Apostles (the tradition, paradosis, predanie) eyewitnesses of Christ’s majesty and kept faithfully by her. This is the meaning of Orthodoxy, true opinion (orthos-right, true, doxa-opinion).
Your preferred interpretations have been established later and are exactly that: fables, invented stories to suit different purposes..
Saint Peter does not argue whether prophecy comes from God or from men, but about their interpretation, that should not come from men, but from the appointed by the Christ interpreters of prophecy (which Saint Peter and the Apostles were as recipients of the Holy Spirit who “will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you”).

Melanf is describing just a conventional bias in the education.

I am not knowledgeable of the history. But I thought this negative connotation to Byzantine emerged much more through the 18th century, and then was continuing development in the 19th century.

So for example Chaadaev’s view on Byzantine, was perhaps seeming symptomatic of an educated attitude of that epoch. It would seem to be like that, just in the way Pushkin accepts the negative view without argument, but argues that our Christianity was always different to their one.

It’s interesting in the draft version of the letter Pushkin melanf quotes, had actually written that “religion is foreign to our [Russian] thoughts and habits, luckily.” But then he has self-censored himself.

https://rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/10letters/1831_37/03edit/1989_740.htm

Why are you writing about Orthodoxy. My comment you are responding to was about Jesus and his disciples, not the later church interpretation established centuries later.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. 19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (1 Peter 1:16-21).

Here he is not arguing against prophecy. He is saying the prophecy comes from god, not from men.

It is the expected Marxist ‘Bezbozhnik’ one taught in Soviet schools.

Marxism is a millennialism religion, cleverly adapted and redressed for the 19th century, educated minds.

I always wonder what psychological mechanisms make people to consider themselves ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ when contesting the traditional interpretation of the Scriptures by the Church. Yours is neither neutral nor objective and of course selective. It is the expected Marxist ‘Bezbozhnik’ one taught in Soviet schools. Had you been acquainted in any way with Orthodoxy, you would have understood that “no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation”, but as Saint Peter said:
“16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. 19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (1 Peter 1:16-21).
But we know that: “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

And that falsifies their take on history as well. E.g. Gibbon’s false history of the Roman Empire.

Here Pushkin talks about the Byzantine Empire:

“You say that the source from where we got Christianity was unclean, that Byzantium was despicable and despised, and so on. Ah, my friend, wasn’t Jesus Christ himself born a Jew, and wasn’t Jerusalem a byword? The gospel of this is less amazing? We took the gospel and traditions from the Greeks, but not their spirit of childish pettiness and senseless (religious) disputes. The manners of the Byzantine Empire was never the manners of Kiev.”
https://th3.livejournal.com/585414.html
This is a typical attitude towards the Byzantine Empire for centuries

The Chronicle couldn’t possibly have ‘Byzantines’ because the term did not exist then. It was ‘the Greeks’.

Of course in the Chronicles it is written “the Greeks” but the implication was not ethnicity, but “citizenship” of the Byzantine Empire. On this correctly translate ” Byzantines.”

it is at least strange that Russians could be accused of ‘Byzantine’ phobia

What’s strange about that? In Russia, a strong and stable’ Byzantinephobia exist from the 11th century at least. It is very easy to see in art – the Byzantines in Russian books and movies (if they appear at all), it always freaks and scoundrels. The very words Byzantine and Byzantium in Russian are offensive words (like “nigger” in English)

On the contrary, ancient Greece in Russian culture is always an ideal of beauty and harmony.

Yes, there are certain products that require economies of scale. Jet Engines, jet airliners, and semiconductor chips come to mind. However, even some of these activities can be improved by somewhat smaller, private entities. For example, Space X, which employs far fewer people than NASA and any of its contractors has successfully accomplished the development of reusable rockets, a feat that NASA and its contractors failed to accomplish in the past 40 years.

3-D printing and “printable” semiconductors ought to give the current industry structure a run for its money in the coming decades.

I suppose some prefer the YHWH-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of infidels like in the good old days of the Judges, sprinkled with the blood of children. Much more civilized.

Herodes was not a Jew. A

This is how Josephus was describing “slander” of the preceding, rival king who did not want Romans to have Herod in the throne.

By any way the Jewish religion was understood in the ancient world, Herod is Jewish (son of Jew and following a Jewish religion).

And that he mass murdered his political opponents, the Pharisees, only on rumors that they

Sure, but the story of infant Jesus and his holy family escaping from Herod to Egypt, is an apocryphal.

This doesn’t to me reduce the historical irony of American evangelical rock musicians singing about Jesus in Herod’s beach house amphitheatre, which he had built 2000 years ago to import Sophocles and Euripides.

It would be fun to imagine what counterpurposes our building will be used for in 2000 years in the future (but it is doubtful any of our modern buildings would not collapse long before then).

–

This is really use of the place where Herod was watching Greek plays.

Anyhow, the Church grows from the culture medium of the ‘Hellenists’ and not of the ‘millenarian sect’ (the ‘Fourth Philosophy’ as Josephus called it) of the Zealots.

It’s not talking about the position of the church which is a later and much more complicated history, but the nature of the early Christianity (and of the Judaism) in the time of writing the gospels and revelation.

Bible full of what can obviously appear, to the neutral or objective reader, – the classical features of millennialism. How this is interpreted is a different topic – and needless to say it has been interpreted in many possible directions, both by a maturing churches, as well as the insurrections against them.

The millennialism itself is quite universal in our psychology and even follows society during secularization – the “rational” doctrines of Marxism were probably the most pure and extreme form of millennialism.

Within Marxism, millennialism and prophecy is the source of a religious ecstasy, but it is also a more simple consolation.

Even in the late Soviet times, the passion for reading about always improving production figures for so many things, is linked to the consoling sense all this was linked to the Marxist eschatology, in which the eventual winner is guaranteed.

By the way, restaurant delivery service in South Korea is insane. Just about every type of restaurant – from fast food to gourmet – will deliver, usually free of delivery fee or tip, to just about everywhere. And bizarrely, cooked meals are much less expensive than in the West (but grocery prices are much higher comparatively). It’s totally out of wack for a Westerner.

That’s terribly inefficient economically (and it must wreak havoc with restaurant profitability), but again, it’s nice for the consumer. And since that is the prevailing culture, producers can’t simply decline to participate unless they want to lose customers and fail.

We do know they were very large, but not how large. Then there are other questions such as maneuverability, speed, seaworthiness, etc.

One big advantage the Chinese ships had in terms of seaworthiness was sealed bulkheads, which existed definitively by 12th century. It was not widespread in Europe until quite late, 18th-19th centuries.

its big business-focused approach has quite low productivity in the SME service sector, which remains very weak by first-world standards in terms of output per worker.

Both Japan and South Korea have relatively low output per worker in the service industry, but the quality of that service as experienced by consumers is outstanding, perhaps even astounding to Western consumers.

If your TV breaks in America, you either negotiate through a labyrinthine call center via phone and try to obtain some resolution (repair or replacement) and good luck with that or you pitch it and buy a new one. If a TV breaks in South Korea and you call LG, it sends you a repair technician the next day and fixes it for free under warranty or for a nominal sum if out of warranty. Japanese and South Koreans do not put up with poor, impersonal customer service. That may be “inefficient” and “low output per worker,” but it certainly makes life more pleasant for the ordinary people there. That goes for the government services as well – there are well-staffed government offices everywhere in South Korea, which might seem terribly wasteful to us Americans, but the level of service their bureaucrats provide is very high quality and rapid. “Bureaucrat” is not a slur in that country.

They obviously decided to optimize toward quality service rather than economic efficiency.

the Germanic pre-Christian element

What’s that? Sacrificing captives to the blood god and howling at the moon? No thanks, keep that “element” to yourself.

It depends on what sector of the economy you are dealing with silicon valley start-ups aren’t going to build jet engines,you need big conglomerates like GE or United Technologies(Pratt and Whitney) to do that.

Apple’s usp is the user interface and marketing most of the core tech is invented owned by others including the competition. Samsung otoh owns the production Tech and ip for the processor(exynos variant),ram,oled display,battery and camera sensor of its phones..all this required massive investments and long term commitments not possible in Apple and have built formidable long term competitive advantage for Samsung..apple is the next blackberry and a good example of the limitations of silicon valley and the stock valuation based approach to long term capital investment..

Yeah, and the facts are that medical notions about the dangers associated with opening the pores were a late Medieval-early Renaissance product.

Do you even know when the medieval period ends and the Renaissance begins? Louis XIV of France was a post-Renaissance monarch and he didn’t bathe.

Yeah, that’s why I said “product.”

MMMM, might want to look at a map…

They had different maps back then, bruh. Maps are a social construct.

I wouldn’t put too much faith in a map that places, say, Italy in the Gobi….

Beowulf’s pretty good…..

Yes, it is. But it was written about a thousand years after the Romans brought writing to Britain.

……But the Anglo-Saxons didn’t start arriving in Britain until the 5th century….

Affirmative Action picks.

You’re an idiot. Africans are perfectly able to communicate in English as well as anyone,

Not talking about mere communication, dear fellow. We’re talking about high-order literary achievement….

often as a second, third or even fourth language. Do I have a reduced capacity in English relative to you?

Dunno. What’s your GRE Verbal?

The two Nigerian authors I cited are among the most important writers of the 20th century.

For Blacks, sure.

Wole Soyinka’s works can stand against any other writer’s from any era. As a poet, he is mesmerizing, authentic and special. His language skills are unsurpassed. Look up In the Wee Hours and Dedication, just to name a few.

Whatever floats your boat…

The late Chinua Achebe was a world-renowned novelist and poet. His first novel Things Fall Apart is considered a masterpiece of literature. He is revered throughout the world. His works are translated into different languages and taught in parts of the world that have never heard of Affirmative Action.

Had to read it in Grad school. Pretty mediocre. Far inferior to Nabokov, Joyce, Faulkner, Proust, James, etc

Have you ever read anything about pagan Scandinavia? Pretty much everything that we know about pagan Norse mythology and customs derives from stuff like the Poetic Edda.

Dude, my initial reference was to primary sources. Get it? For many hundreds of years there were no primary sources among the Scandinavians because they couldn’t read or write. As a matter fact, they strenuously resisted literacy, associating it with Christendom and a betrayal of their own cosmology.

Dear fellow, the Poetic Edda is our chief primary source for Norse mythology….

Big companies in small or medium sized countries means those companies must seek business elsewhere. Subjecting their home countries to greater leverage from outside.

Dmitry,

Your nickname would suggest that you are Greek or Russian, therefore one can expect you to be more knowledgeable of Orthodoxy. The Church is ‘neither Jew nor Hellen (nobody spoke of Greeks yet)’. Anyhow, the Church grows from the culture medium of the ‘Hellenists’ and not of the ‘millenarian sect’ (the ‘Fourth Philosophy’ as Josephus called it) of the Zealots.
BTW, Herodes was not a Jew. And that he mass murdered his political opponents, the Pharisees, only on rumors that they ‘prophesied’ that God has decreed that his government would be taken from him and his descendants and killed everyone of his own house who had allied themselves to the talk of the Pharisees, is reported by Josephus Flavius.

Taiwan has always been richer than south Korea (still is) [Pseudoerasmus made some tweets on this back when he was still active there], and they grew at pretty much the same rate between the early 1950s and today. Here’s the GDP/capita (PPP) graph from my script (the PRK numbers are rough guesses by me; the Maddison/World Bank PRK series is garbage):

Taiwan’s system may not be especially prone to groundbreaking technological innovation, but it works well for it. South Korea, despite (or maybe because of)? its big business-focused approach has quite low productivity in the SME service sector, which remains very weak by first-world standards in terms of output per worker.

In fact, labor productivity in Korea’s service industry is only half as much as that of Korea’s manufacturing industry. This ends up dragging down the whole of Korea’s labor productivity per worker, because over 70 percent of Korean workers work in the service industry.

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2014/10/koreas-labor-productivity-and-how-to.html

I’ll go back to my commenting hiatus.

I hope you don’t. You’re one of the more interesting commenters here.

Very good analysis, except this one:

South Korea instead formed Pohang Iron & Steel Corporation (the application for a World Bank Loan was rejected, which led to Japan quietly financing and providing the technology for the project)

That “financing” wasn’t so quiet. General/President Park Chung-Hee, then the dictator of South Korea, normalized relations with Japan against enormous and cantankerous domestic opposition and secured compensation, which he then directed toward industrialization, rather than to individual victims of colonization.

Sometimes dictatorships have advantages.

It is doubtful that the ‘Germanic pre-Christian element’ would have amounted to anything without Christianity.

The Chronicle couldn’t possibly have ‘Byzantines’ because the term did not exist then. It was ‘the Greeks’.
The term ‘Byzantine Empire’ was introduced in the 16th century by the German-Protestant humanist Hieronymus Wolf with the special purpose to avoid the title of Roman in the official name of the ‘Eastern’ Empire. It was nothing new, the West claiming the exclusivity of the title Roman for itself since the usurpation of Charlemagne, proclaiming the ‘Greek’ illegitimate, heretic, full of deceit, schismatic, asiatic, which should be brought to heel. Byzantinophobia was/is the ideological basis of ‘Europe’.
Anyhow, it is at least strange that Russians could be accused of ‘Byzantine’ phobia, them who are the successors of ‘Byzance’ and the target of the western ‘byzantinophobia’.

The problem with big companies is that they tend to be bureaucracies. It seems to be a law of nature that bureaucracy is dysfunctional. The bigger the bureaucracy, the more dysfunctional it is. Smaller companies are more nimble and less bureaucratic and, thus, can innovation and work faster than larger organizations despite having less financial resources. We are all familiar with the story of Apple vs. IBM as example.

Wouldn’t sanctions on Aeroflot introduce restrictions on use of Russian airspace for the sanctioning countries’ airlines? Have fun paying out the ass for longer flights, or book a flight on competitors without the restrictions.

Yeah, and the facts are that medical notions about the dangers associated with opening the pores were a late Medieval-early Renaissance product.

Do you even know when the medieval period ends and the Renaissance begins? Louis XIV of France was a post-Renaissance monarch and he didn’t bathe.

King Louis XIV (1638-1715) was terrified of bathing; he’s said to have taken only three baths in his life. That fear was shared by the nobility in the 17th Century – it was thought that water spread disease (so the less you bathed, the less vulnerable you were).

https://perfumesociety.org/history/louis-xiv-the-sweetest-smelling-king-of-all/

Far from ending at around the early Renaissance, this disgusting unhygienic practice would endure well into the 19th century.

MMMM, might want to look at a map…

They had different maps back then, bruh. Maps are a social construct.

Beowulf’s pretty good…..

Yes, it is. But it was written about a thousand years after the Romans brought writing to Britain.

Affirmative Action picks.

You’re an idiot. Africans are perfectly able to communicate in English as well as anyone, often as a second, third or even fourth language. Do I have a reduced capacity in English relative to you?

The two Nigerian authors I cited are among the most important writers of the 20th century. Wole Soyinka’s works can stand against any other writer’s from any era. As a poet, he is mesmerizing, authentic and special. His language skills are unsurpassed. Look up In the Wee Hours and Dedication, just to name a few.

The late Chinua Achebe was a world-renowned novelist and poet. His first novel Things Fall Apart is considered a masterpiece of literature. He is revered throughout the world. His works are translated into different languages and taught in parts of the world that have never heard of Affirmative Action.

Have you ever read anything about pagan Scandinavia? Pretty much everything that we know about pagan Norse mythology and customs derives from stuff like the Poetic Edda.

Dude, my initial reference was to primary sources. Get it? For many hundreds of years there were no primary sources among the Scandinavians because they couldn’t read or write. As a matter fact, they strenuously resisted literacy, associating it with Christendom and a betrayal of their own cosmology.

They wuz kangz?

Americans today at least have financial consolation when foreigners eat McDonalds and drink Coca Cola – there was no patent law for Doric columns and chitons when foreigners imitated Greeks across ancient Mediterranean.

And it’s usually a most superficial part of any culture which is imitated passionately. E.g. Coca Cola, Nike and hamburgers, not William James.

–

But to return to an irony of the Jews’ imitation of the noble Greeks – which is really a cosmic irony, as subsequently the world would imitate a most radical and derivative sect created by the Jewish peasantry, and yet the Jews suffered the worst consequences of being imitated.

The winner in history can be the one who imitates, not the one who is imitated.

Elite Jews were imagining themselves as Greeks. A few kilometers away, there was created by a rabble of Jewish radicals, a millenarian sect of Judaism with Jesus as its inspiration.

Half the non-Jewish world would imitate this new (although partly derivative) Jewish millenarian sect, and as result believe themselves to be more authentic inheritors of Ancient Israelites, than actual half-Hellenized, Roman occupied descendants of the Israelites who were being imitated.

Here is King Herod, client of Romans, who imitates Greek civilization:
Here his amphitheater next to his beach houses, constructed short time before the birth of Jesus.

At this amphitheater, a bit more than 2000 years ago, Herod has performed the imported works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. At least, his actions indicate he believed the foreign culture was greater than his own. (He could not imagine, that the foreign cultures he admired, would eventually imitate the lower class components of his own culture).

Infancy of Jesus is allegedly placed in danger by the same Hellenizing king.

According to mythology, during Jesus’s infancy, Herod commands massacre of innocent children (Giotto via Wikipedia).

To escape the king, family of Jesus escape to Egypt (again Giotto via Wikipedia).

Well, mythology that Herod threatened Jesus or not, people who were alive then died 2000 years ago. But Herod’s amphitheatre is still in Israel, almost unchanged.

But no beautiful Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, in Herod’s theatre today. Within a few centuries, the Greeks themselves would be converted to millenarian sect created by Herod’s peasants, and the miracle of Greece would become a half forgotten memory.

Today, are American Christians singing about Jesus among the Greek columns, built by the king who had allegedly threatened infant Jesus 2000 years ago

Prince Henry the Navigator was only 23 years older than Zhenge He. Madeira and the Azores were discovered by the Portuguese while Zheng He still lived, and the Portuguese were navigating in the middle of the open ocean by the middle of the 15th century.

Zheng He’s voyages are impressive on account of their massive scale, showing what vast resources the Ming Empire could deploy. Europeans first put together fleets of that size at the Battle of Lepanto (as, to their credit, did the Ottomans), which of course is also an impressive political achievement as it involved complex coalition building.

It’s also worth noting that very large fleets were assembled in the Mediterranean in Classical Antiquity (of course now we’re talking purely about Meds). In fact by crew and ship numbers some were larger than Lepanto. The Hellenistic empires also built some of the largest wooden ships ever constructed.

An interesting question is the technical characteristics of the Ming treasure ships as compared to European ships of the Age of Discovery. Unfortunately the exact details of these ships is lost to history. We do know they were very large, but not how large. Then there are other questions such as maneuverability, speed, seaworthiness, etc.

Sure, we are talking about historical judgment calls, but if you look at Zheng He’s expedition, the sophistication of the navigation and topographical knowledge versus Europe, you really are talking about civilization versus savages. . . and, of course, gun powder.

Nor do I want to fight about Confucius versus the Cross, but I am not sure the Cross added as much to Europe as Confucianism did to China–the best thing the Cross ever did is preserve a portion of pagan Classical antiquity. Without the Germanic pre-Christian element, I’m not sure Western Europe would have amounted to anything.

China was way ahead of the “West” until about 1600

Based on what?

By 1100 Western Europe was building the highest most advanced buildings in the world. It was also the most mechanized part of the world, making heavy use of water, wind and animal powered machines.
By 1200 every new invention came from Europe.

Even when an invention like gunpowder hadn’t reached them yet, when they did get it, they quickly start making the most advanced cannons in the world. This, thanks to their superior metallurgy, based on centuries of bell-making.

In my opinion Western Europe had reached parity with China between 1100 and 1300.

it was Greek intellectuals fleeing the fall of the Byzantine empire that sparked the Renaissance in Italy.

This nonsense again. By 1450 Constantinople was only a very pale reflection of its former self with a small population. Its intellectuals had never sparked any renaissance anywhere before and their knowledge had already been extracted by the West in the centuries before.

What did spark the Renaissance was the invention of the printing press. It was an information revolution comparable to the invention of the Internet.

To quote ‘Momzen’ instead of Mommsen shows not only that his knowledge of German is limited, but his knowledge in general. Is knowledge after the ear.

The “limited knowledge in general” is yours, it would seem. Mommsen in Russian is Моммзен so that it is quite natural that a Russian would transcribe this in Latin characters as Mommzen or Momzen.

I’ll go back to my commenting hiatus.

Please don’t!

“Out of Africa” is a lie.

Humanity came from Europe. Probably somewhere from the south-eastern part; Anatolia, maybe.

Humans in Africa
a) are very recent arrivals, and
b) come from a pretty inbred stock.

So a lack of African achievement is obvious. Maybe in another 1000 years of eugenic family formation the Africans could catch up to those who started earlier.

P.S. Same deal with China and East Asia. Despite the hysterical Chinese blustering, when you actually compare the timelines you see that civilization in China appeared 3000-4000 years later compared to Europe. It took a long time for people to actually settle the globe. Parts of it still aren’t settled. (E.g., northern Russia.)

anti-Christian ‘wisdom’ of the malignant Gibbonian ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’

n medieval Russian Chronicles (which were written by Orthodox monks), the Byzantines were considered, by definition, treacherous, deceitful bastards.
“The Byzantines are liars to this day,” etc.

So Gibbon was preceded by a long history of Byzantine phobia

it is well known that Nietzsche was a ‘confirmed masturbator’.

Almost all healthy males will masturbate when they have no access to women.

In the case of Nietzsche it is well known that Wagner speculated to Nietzsche’s doctor about it, and since all doctors at the time were obsessed with the topic, the doctor diagnosed masturbation as the root cause of Nietzsche’s problems, based on the fact that he didn’t have a wife or mistress.

What we can be sure of, however, is that his syphilis was not caused by masturbation.

For the Greeks Logic was the ‘modus scientarum’, the principle, the method of any science or doctrine, a guide from the known to the unknown. ‘Modern’ science is ‘based’ on the same Logic.

Thanks. I did not know this painting.

Parody or silliness? I’m not sure…The decline in cleanliness that you describe was a late Medieval-Renaissance development…..

You’re certainly welcome to believe that if it makes you feel better. But the facts are what they are.

Yeah, and the facts are that medical notions about the dangers associated with opening the pores were a late Medieval-early Renaissance product.

The Ancient Romans did, of course, bathe regularly. But they weren’t European back then and they certainly wouldn’t identify with what they considered savage European barbarians.

MMMM, might want to look at a map…

Maybe there was a Newton or Archimedes in the Congo two thousand years ago…..But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it…..

Well, speaking of the Congo, I refer you to Marlow in Heart of Darkness, who allegorizes the Congo to pre-Roman Britain. It would have seemed inconceivable at that time that those mud-hut dwelling British tribesmen would one day create an empire that spanned the globe.

Shame that we won’t be around two thousand years from now….You know, to see how it all turns out….

Africa is undergoing the same process as Britain but at an exhilarated pace. For example, it took over 1000 years after the introduction of writing to the British Isles for great writers to emerge there.

Beowulf’s pretty good…..

Conversely, after just a few decades of exposure to English, Africa produced great English language writers like Chinua Achebe and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Wole Soyinka.

Affirmative Action picks.

And they tell us very little about Viking society, its myths and legends, how it was organized, etc

You do understand that Vikings didn’t always just go home after raiding, right? Many settled in conquered territories or territories bequeath to them as protection payments. Rollo or Ivar the Boneless are well-chronicled figures and through them and other Vikings the way of life of the Norsemen was well known.

Have you ever read anything about pagan Scandinavia? Pretty much everything that we know about pagan Norse mythology and customs derives from stuff like the Poetic Edda. The only other really significant sources are people like Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus.You could also toss in Ibn Fadlan….but one can’t be sure about the degree to which the Norsemen that he encountered were Slavicized….

Things only become murky and ahistorical when we rely on Viking sagas. The historicity of Ragnar Lothbrok, for example, is subject to dispute because he’s primarily a character from Norse oral traditions.

And those traditions tell us about Norse culture and mythology….

Christ will judge everyone, living and dead. Some will inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world, some will go into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. And they will not be judged for their architectural or ‘republican’ achievements or their boxing abilities.

To quote ‘Momzen’ instead of Mommsen shows not only that his knowledge of German is limited, but his knowledge in general. Is knowledge after the ear. He only repeats something he had heard, but not really understood.

One passes too, if at all (for PC reasons, no doubt) lightly over a major cause, if not THE major cause of African ‘retardation’. Namely the demographic depletion caused by the multi secular slave trade of Africans carried on by Islam, which was going on for 1000 years before the ‘Whites’ started to buy the Black slaves captured or kidnapped by the Arabs in almost genocidal raids, for transport to the Americas for productive work, and despite the racial prejudices, for integration in the Christian society, which was not the case in the Islamic society, far more racist than the Christian one and where slaves were treated with far greater contempt. Males were systematically castrated.
Rough estimates put the numbers of African slaves traded by the Arabs at 20 million, of which 17 million sold on the Muslim markets (for 1300 years). It was estimated that for the capture of 500,000 people, nearly two million were ‘collateral casualties’ and entire regions devastated. Without counting the corruption of the comprador African leaders who transformed their societies in head hunting economies.
And anyhow, Islam is not really conducive to intellectual achievements. Add to that the fact that it severed for centuries the contacts with the European civilization. Conversion of the Blacks to Islam certainly contributed to the lowering of their IQ.

Europeans inventing boxing, but blacks are best at it.

Slavs have been the best at it lately:

https://www.worldboxingnews.net/2018/07/12/full-list-of-current-world-boxing-champions-july-2018/

” the Jews had been (sometimes controversially to themselves) saturated with Greek culture, and were to some degree just recycling ideas of Greek philosophy in their religious speculations.”

This even lead to “anti-semitic” feelings among some Greeks that Jewish imitation and plagiarism of Greek literary works was not of good quality.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lazare-bernard/1894/antisemitism/ch02.htm
Not less than the Stoics did the Sophists detest the Jews. But the causes of their hatred were not religious, but, I should say, rather literary. From Ptolemy Philadelphus, until the middle of the third century, the Alexandrian Jews, with the intent of sustaining and strengthening their propaganda, gave themselves to forging all texts which were capable of lending support to their cause. The verses of Aeschylus, of Sophocles, of Euripides, the pretended oracles of Orpheus, preserved in Aristobulus and the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria were thus made to glorify the one God and the Sabbath. Historians were falsified or credited with the authorship of books they had never written. It is thus that a History of the Jews was published under the name of Hecataeus of Abdera. The most important of these inventions was the Sibylline oracles, a fabrication of the Alexandrian Jews, which prophesied the future advent of the reign of the one God.

Salome, painted by Denis Gordeev

Just because a people made or invented something doesn’t mean they will be best at it.

Europeans inventing boxing, but blacks are best at it. Japanese invented judo, but whites and blacks often beat Japanese. American whites invented basketball, but blacks dominate. Goy whites invented modern science, but Jews have often excelled at it over whites. Blacks invented early rock and roll, but whites and Jews(esp Dylan) turned it into rock and took it to new heights. Italians invented the rudiments of classical music and opera, but Beethoven and Wagner reached even higher.

So, it doesn’t matter if the Near East came up with stuff first. Obviously, it had advantages vis-a-vis the North. Nicer climate. Today, even people in cold climates have heating, but back in them days, people in cold places had to focus on survival 24/7. Also today, due to mass communication, all parts of the world can gain access to science and technology. But in those days, a people had to be in direct contact with other peoples to borrow ideas from them. Near East was between Europe, Asia, and Africa, and thus could draw ideas from all places. But that doesn’t mean they were naturally smarter.

Pls, tell me where is this painting from and by whom.

Yeah, whatever, I’m not going to argue about it, it’s not like it still matters given the current trajectory of the world. If you’re right, Christ will judge heathen like me anyway.
I’ll go back to my commenting hiatus.

Nordics were backward. The Nordic Bronze Age happened much later than in the rest of Eurasia, for example. Nordics were late to adopt the Bronze Age explorer cultural toolkit, and much of it came from Minoa and possibly Mycenae.

Having said that, Taleb’s argument is obviously retarded. Nordics were not backward like black Africans are.

Certainly it was not Christianity which had a ‘negative impact’, as the received anti-Christian ‘wisdom’ of the malignant Gibbonian ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ (which remains the Bible of all sophomoric ‘Brexiter’ Anglo-centric Protestant ‘historians’ of the ‘West’ vs the ‘Rest’) would have it, but plainly the relentless destructive external assaults against ‘Byzantium’ from all cardinal points by the sworn enemies of the Christian Roman Empire (misnamed ‘Byzantium’), coupled with the relentless intellectual subversion of it by the pseudo-Platonic Kabbalistic ‘philosophy’ which goes by the name of ‘neo-platonism’.

Roman Civilisation was a middle-aged one. By 400 AD, Ancient Greece was 800-900 years in the past. The Egyptian New Kingdom was over 1500 years in the past. Modern Western Civilisation is an old age one, and may shortly die of senility.
Roman Engineering and Architecture arose to meet the needs of a complex society in a way completely surpassing the primitive adobe houses of Ancient Athens. Likewise, Roman Law met similar needs in a universal fashion previously unknown.
Granted, the achievements of Ancient Greek Philosophy were remarkable. But they didn’t formulate the Empirical Theory of Logic, the basis of Modern Science. Greek Society was brittle and fractious. Even after Alexander, Greek states were breaking up. Greek Civilisation may have collapsed, but for Roman intervention.
Roman Civilisation not only preserved its own unique and remarkable civilisation, but also that of Ancient Greece as well. Without Roman Civilisation, knowledge of Ancient Greece might be very limited indeed.
PS I know that your knowledge of German is limited, but it’s Mommsen.

Modern Nigeria has a population of about 192 million. That is what? Something like Song China and the whole of Europe during the Renaissance combined. Something greater than the population of whites in America, when it went to the moon.

Now it is on a path to 750 million or more, multiples of that. And Okechukwu apparently doesn’t want to be on the exciting path of Nigerian singularity. He wants to observe the path from this side of the ocean. All that ceaseless growth, and he doesn’t want to take advantage of the opportunities it provides.

Calling Stonehenge “a pile of rocks” makes me think that you don’t understand their significance and don’t appreciate the fact that the bluestones were transported from 140 miles away. The design of Stonehenge shows a sophisticated understanding of Astronomy and transporting these heavy blocks 140 miles would’ve been a massive undertaking for even the Romans.

I’m not sure about it, it seems typical bad history produced by Protestants, after all Pandidakterion existed, and i never heard anything about Justinian closing it???

Main issues in ERE were that they had their mini dark age after Islamic invasion, and elites having small families, that could possibly led them into dysgenic circle.

What’s the point to this arguing? Africans may one day, maybe, perhaps achieve something in two centuries (under the Benevolent Guidance of their Chinese comrade-brothers), so therefore you should let in Okechukwuyusha’s parents and their ilk in right now so they can give birth to Okechukwuyusha and other twits full of ressentiment?

Parody or silliness? I’m not sure…The decline in cleanliness that you describe was a late Medieval-Renaissance development…..

You’re certainly welcome to believe that if it makes you feel better. But the facts are what they are.

The Ancient Romans did, of course, bathe regularly. But they weren’t European back then and they certainly wouldn’t identify with what they considered savage European barbarians.

Maybe there was a Newton or Archimedes in the Congo two thousand years ago…..But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it…..

Well, speaking of the Congo, I refer you to Marlow in Heart of Darkness, who allegorizes the Congo to pre-Roman Britain. It would have seemed inconceivable at that time that those mud-hut dwelling British tribesmen would one day create an empire that spanned the globe.

In any event, Karlin’s article is about Northern Europeans. I understand you’re trying to introduce Greco-Roman figures in order to appropriate their civilizational attainment on behalf of the barbarian hordes of Northern Europe. But that won’t do.

Ask yourself this? Why did it take so long for great scientists like Newton to emerge in Northern Europe? There had been many other great scientists, thinkers and writers going back thousands of years prior to the Enlightenment in Europe.

Africa is undergoing the same process as Britain but at an exhilarated pace. For example, it took over 1000 years after the introduction of writing to the British Isles for great writers to emerge there. Conversely, after just a few decades of exposure to English, Africa produced great English language writers like Chinua Achebe and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Wole Soyinka.

And they tell us very little about Viking society, its myths and legends, how it was organized, etc

You do understand that Vikings didn’t always just go home after raiding, right? Many settled in conquered territories or territories bequeath to them as protection payments. Rollo or Ivar the Boneless are well-chronicled figures and through them and other Vikings the way of life of the Norsemen was well known. Things only become murky and ahistorical when we rely on Viking sagas. The historicity of Ragnar Lothbrok, for example, is subject to dispute because he’s primarily a character from Norse oral traditions.

Much too much was made of the closure of the Athens neo-platonic school. The real motives were political, the School being a hub of brazenly anti-Christian thought and in cahoots with all heretic enemies of the Empire. The imperial decree was ordering that “no one should teach philosophy nor astrology and outlawed divination with dice”. It was directed at the ‘Samaritans’ [Jews] and pagans in general, if not in the first place. Drawing the Emperor’s horoscope was a crime of lese-majesty, and indication of political conspiracy. In fact it said that: ” Thus, since they have had such an ill effect, they should have no influence nor enjoy any dignity, nor, acting as teachers of any subjects, should they drag the minds of the simple to their errors and, in this way, turn the more ignorant among them against the pure and true orthodox faith; so we permit only those who are of the orthodox faith to teach and accept a public stipend”. No other schools where ‘philosophy’ was taught (Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople) have been touched. Justinian did not even stop pagan philosophers from writing and publishing, (f.e. the works of Damascius, the last head of the Athenian academy, and a large corpus by Simplicius, its leading light, survive to this day). The fact that the decree was issued in the middle of one of the endemic Roman-Persian wars and that seven philosophers of the Athenian school sought refuge at the Persian court, strongly suggests that it was also a suspicion of collusion with the enemy. Nevertheless, the peace treaty concluded by Chosroes with Justinian c. 533 stipulated that the philosophers (bitterly disappointed by the Persians and desperate to return home) should be allowed to return without risk and to practise their rites, after which they returned.
The study of ‘philosophy’ continued unabetted at the “University” of the Palace Hall of Magnaura (Greek: Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας) in Constantinople, founded by Emperor Theodosius II in 425 AD, with 31 chairs for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects, 15 to Latin and 16 to Greek. The university existed until the 15th century. It maintained an active philosophical tradition of ‘Platonism’ and ‘Aristotelianism’, being the longest unbroken Platonic school. It had a period of eclipse during the Iconoclast persecution, but it was reopened to its former glory once Iconoclasm was finally defeated. It started to decline with the Latin conquest of 1204 and its persecution of the Orthodox. It continued under the management of the Church until Mehmet II re-established it as a Madrasa.

That the closure of Athene’s school represents “the official end of pagan philosophy and the last light to be put out in Europe as the Dark Ages (brought in by Christianity) closed in” is a myth of the Enlightenment in its fight against the ‘infamous’, the Church..

Fake quote from a fake philosopher.