index ... industrial revolution ... exportable religions
by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright March 2016
The Asian History class I am taking at SLCC in the Spring 2016 semester has reinspired a question in my mind: Why did the Industrial Revolution take off so solidly in Western Europe first, and essentially get ignored, or even suppressed, in other regions such as East and South Asia?
From what I have been reading in this class, both East Asia and South Asia were supporting many prosperous Agricultural Age kingdoms and cultures during the 13-18th centuries, just as Europe was doing. Then a dramatic change in fortunes happened. For some reason late in the 18th, and even more during the 19th century, the Western European kingdoms and cultures started creating something new, something beyond conventional Agricultural Age prosperity, the Industrial Revolution. And, yes, this is properly called a revolution.
Western Europe got into this, but the East and South Asians did not. They got into this industrializing business only when the Western Europeans started bringing copious quantities of high technology trade goods, military equipment and information into their regions. These distant foreigners were bringing in so much stuff that they were becoming the balance of power in local trade activities and military disputes. Then the Asians started paying serious attention.
Why?
Why did ruling hierarchies in all the kingdoms, empires and other governing entities in these Asian cultures choose to wait out on participating in this revolution for so long?
When the Ming first came to power in China in mid-1300's they supported technology innovations. One example happening in 1405 being the construction of the world's largest trading fleet with some of the world's largest sailing ships. This fleet sailed to India among other places. But this attitude quickly and decisively changed, and by 1433 the Ming stopped sailing this this grand fleet they had built and it languished. It languished so badly that by the 1450's their coasts were being plagued by pirates from neighboring countries. In the histories written at the time Japan took most of the heat, but it was likely there were many other players, including other ambitious Chinese.
In earlier times Korea had gone through a similar evolution. In about 600AD the Silla kingdom based in southeast Korea became spectacularly wealthy and powerful -- so powerful it conquered its nearby neighbors and ushered in the Unified Silla era of Korean history. This rapid rise in wealth and power came from developing trade between China and Japan. But those traders are not given credit. The Korean history tellers have mostly ignored them. Instead in Korean histories there is no description of where this fantastic wealth came from. When the historians did talk about the traders they were described as quasi or full-time pirates.
Again, Korean history doesn't describe the source of this Silla prosperity miracle. I picked this up by putting two plus two together as I was reading other regional histories which talked about the Japan-China trade starting up in the 600AD time frame.
As described in my latest readings for this course, the various rulerships in central India were prosperous enough to build elaborate temples and even whole cities. But, even though they were sitting astride the dead center of the ocean version of the Silk Road, none of these rulerships chose to invest much, or for long, in seafaring trade. They left that to the crazy Arabs, Portuguese, and one giant Chinese fleet from Ming China.
So many opportunities passed upon. Why all this passing?
Roger's explanation for this is: These cultures were consistently choosing local peace and the comfort of status quo over worldliness and the social disruption that comes with it. This is a big history variant of NIMBY thinking. (Not In My Back Yard!)
The rulers looked over fields populated with contented farmers. These contented farmers were being advised by a contented priest class and protected by a contented warrior class. The rulers looked upon this and felt, "This is as good as it can get. ...Well, not quite. If I can win a war with a neighbor. Yes, that's even better!"
In this same vein of thinking, those merchants living in these rulers' lands who traveled far and wide were a suspicious class of artisans. True, they could bring back lots of money that could be taxed, but they could also bring back strange ideas and practices, and they weren't particularly loyal to the local ruler. They were loyal as long as there was money in being so, or so it seemed to the local rulers. And their subjects would often agree with the rulers.
Here are some examples of activities that local farmers and nobles viewed with suspicion:
o dealing with money in nontraditional ways -- The farmers and nobles were used to dealing with money relating to farming and taxing. The merchants dealt with it to accomplish many other activities. These other uses were strange and unnatural to the farmers and nobles, and watching it happen made them uncomfortable. The widely known Biblical example of expressing this uneasiness is Jesus attacking the money changers at the temple.
o loaning money, especially loaning money with interest -- This is why usury laws date way back.
o merchant guilds -- in response to being treated as "Them's" by the farmers and nobles, the merchants became their own "Us" group. They set up merchant guilds and kept to themselves. This was another step that impeded innovation in the direction of the Industrial Revolution.
The merchant class did not fit in well in most Agricultural Age communities. It was a love-hate relation. And when times got scary for the farmers or nobles, merchants were among those that got witch hunted.
The unfortunate result of this was that innovations beyond financing trading also suffered. Rulers would think, "This business of building factories feels strange, unnatural and uncomfortable. Nope! Not going to finance that!" This is why the Industrial Revolution was so hard to launch in so much of the world.
by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright March 2016
Hinduism and Judaism don't have a lot in common with each other, but one thing they do share is that both have created exportable variants on their religions, and those exportable variants have prospered mightily.
The exportable variant of Hinduism is Buddhism and the exportable variants of Judaism are Christianity and Islam.
What the exportable versions have in common is:
o comparative simplicity
o more relevance to "modern conditions" -- modern at the time of their inception
o developing enthusiastic evangelists
Both Judaism and Hinduism are ancient religions. This means they originated when the peoples who believed in them were living in small, isolated tribal groups with the earliest of Agricultural Age technologies. This smallness and isolation meant there were a lot of variants on the theme and a lot of different customs and rituals recognized in those many variants. The members of these original groups also tended to be clannish -- each was an "Us" group for them and they were in no hurry to admit strangers into the group.
What the exportable versions have in common is a lot of simplification and standardization, and a lot of updating to bring the rituals and assumptions into stronger relevance with modern times -- modern in this usage meaning modern at the time the exportable variant was created.
The exportable variants also developed enthusiastic followers, many of whom became enthusiastic evangelists who then devoted a lot of time and effort to spreading the word even further, and they became very successful at it.
Here are some examples of getting relevant to their time:
o In the case of Christianity the modern times issues of the Jews related to the recent Roman conquest of Judea. Founder Jesus being quoted as saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." is one example.
o In the case of Buddhism the modern times issues were those facing people living in central northern India in roughly 500BC. One hot issue was balancing between the sensual indulgence that prosperity allowed and the severe asceticism preached in various Hindu teachings of that time and place. Founder Buddha's innovation was advocating a Middle Way.
o In the case of Islam the modern times issues were those facing the Arabs of the central Arabian peninsula, one of which was idolatry -- worshipping various objects because they seemed lucky or holy in some way. Founder Mohammed came out as dead-set against that.
In all three cases what was being advocated by the religion founder resonated well with many locals, and, surprisingly, later came to resonate well with lots of people with little connection to those local issues. The followings grew mightily and spread to many surrounding regions.
Note that the standardizing of the belief system was not a quick process and didn't happen in the founder's time.
The council of Nicea, which standardized Christianity, took place in three hundred years after Jesus lived and died.
In the case of Buddha, today it isn't even known for sure when and where he lived. It isn't until the Third Buddhist Council happened in roughly 250BC, also about three hundred years after he lived and died, that any somewhat accurate dating of religious events begins.
In Mohammed's case his life span is more accurately known: 570 to 632AD. His words are collected in a collection of documents known as the Hadith. Like Jesus and Buddha the standardized version of this collection was assembled roughly three hundred years after he lived and died. (Hmm... another pattern here.)
So in all three cases it took many generations to assemble and decide on what the founder's right words were. That done, they were then spread widely by the religion's evangelists, and in all three cases the writings and religions proved very popular.
These are the common characteristics of these exportable religions.
Coming up with new religions is an ongoing activity for humanity. It is a common one that happens all the time and in many places. The important difference in all this religion starting activity is how popular the result becomes. Some recent examples of religion creating that have become modestly popular are the LDS/Mormon religion founded in the 1820's and now with about six million members, and the Scientology religion founded in the 1950's and with now with perhaps 100,000 members.
One example of being in tune with modern times in these two cases is incorporating science fiction themes.
These two are plenty evangelical.
One part of the pattern that will be interesting to watch for is, in the face of modern recording technologies, how much will the "right words" of the founder change over the three hundred years after his death? An example of this questioning of right words going on in Mormonism today is the discussion of what "not drinking hot drinks" really means?
There are many religions around the world. A handful have produced exportable versions that have spread and become popular well beyond the founding tribe and their homelands.
What these exportable variants have in common is that they are relatively simple and standardized, are in tune with their modern times, and they develop an enthusiastic evangelical wing which proves very effective at spreading the word.
When these come together a new worldwide religion springs on to the world history stage.
--The End--