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I think that those who took a little trouble to study the "near dead culture of China" would discover it has produced some of the highest peaks of human achievement that have yet appeared on this sorry old planet.

I highly recommend the impressive studies of Joseph Needham and his associates: Science and Civilisation in China.

Science and Civilisation in China

When I ponder the (distant) relationship between Americans and civilization, I am reminded of the saying:

It takes patience to appreciate civilization; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.

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Well, I'll give them a tip of the hat for reportedly inventing gun powder, but relatively speaking, Chinese culture in particular and Eastern Civilization in general dropped the ball when it came to laying the foundations for raising the peasantry up from its abysmal status.

When I ponder the relationship between Chinese and civilization, I would say:

It takes stultifying conformity to cling to a stagnant near-dead culture; creative spirits prefer liberty and uncertainty.:-)
Yours,
Issodhos

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If you look at the facts of history, you will find that Chinese peasants, in general, had a higher status and a better life than the slaves and serfs of the West, for more than two thousand years. Social mobility, in particular, was incomparably more advanced in China than in Rome or in the frozen, militaristic, feudal culture of Europe. The West only began to pull ahead in the 18th century; before that, it was the West that could be more aptly described as a "stagnant near-dead culture."

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Varied though it may well be, I prefer the centuries of dynamic and enlightened change to the centuries of the East's despotism and dry rot. But then, Mass Man, in the end might well win out whether East or West, mightn't he?;-)
Yours,
Issodhos

Historically speaking you seem to be correct.... over history the human species has moved from family groups, to bands, to tribes to states to mega states. What ever one' ideological persuasion, the odds favor larger groups defeating smaller groups.

Well, then, you should prefer China's millennia of dynamic and enlightened change to the West's long history of brutality, obscurantism, despotism and dry rot.

The West's technological and social advances are very recent (and, apparently, very temporary), dating from the beginning of the 18th century: a few, paltry decades compared to the great sweep of world history. Until about 1700 more books had been published in China than in the entire history of the rest of the world.

The technological advances of the Western ancient world were scanty in the extreme: the screw, the crankshaft, a handful of others. Soap, apparently, was the only invention of the Germanic barbarians; how ironic that they used it so seldom for more than a thousand years!

This backwardness of the West probably arose from the brutal slave and serf culture of our ancestors. When you use human beings as machines, what need for inventiveness in real machines? The disdain for manual labor on the part of the ancient and feudal ruling classes also set them apart from the more advanced culture of China.

Three Chinese inventions were absolutely essential to creating the Western world as we know it: the moldboard plow, the horsecollar and stirrups.

Have you ever noticed that you never see a horse drawing a wagon in a properly done movie about Rome? The primitive harnesses which the Greeks and Romans used choked a horse and made it ineffective as a draft animal. The heavy soils of northern Europe could not be opened up with the crude plows of the Mediterranean region. That is why Rome did not conquer Germany, not from a lack of military prowess.

Why were there no effective mounted cavalry in Europe until after the time of Charlemagne? The stirrup had not yet reached the West from China. The medieval knight with his lance would have been swept off his horse by the shock of impact before the introduction of the stirrup. It is not too much to say that feudal society as we know it would have been impossible without the stirrup. On such small matters do great historical epochs sometimes hang.

Some people might think that it is impossible that Westerners could have been so dumb as not to invent such simple and basic things. Well, they were that dumb. Until very recently, Western peoples were astoundingly uninventive.

Here is a site that demonstrates the progressive nature of traditional Chinese civilization:

Chinese Inventions and Discoveries

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Here is a reference for social mobility in traditional China:

Scholar-officials

Primogeniture was not practiced by the Chinese. The fortunes of the rich were generally quickly dispersed after a few generations. The social cycle was that a peasant family would produce an educated offspring who became a scholar-official by passing a competitive examination which was open to all. He would enable the family to become wealthy. Wealth was split up in each generation, and soon the family would be peasants again.

Moreover, the peasants were the second-highest class in traditional China, just below the scholar-officials. They ranked ahead of the artisans, and well ahead of the despised merchants and soldiers. How unlike the militaristic manias which afflicted and still afflict Western society!

I have always liked the old Chinese saying:

"You do not use good iron to make nails, nor do good men become soldiers"

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"Primogeniture" - Holy smokes! I had to look that word up. Nice word, Numan. Me being a first born, I mighta, shoulda known what it meant.

Yes,they managed to make a few gadgets for farming and for becoming more efficient at killing for the master, buy they did not seem to be able to improve much on what they stumbled across. Unfortunate. They may have made something more of their sad selves instead of receeding into the dustbin of history. But, give them credit, they do make some dandy fireworks.:-)
Yours,
Issodhos

Well, it's the age old game, isn't it, numan? Get into government, work the skinny, and collect the moolah. Serve Master and get rewarded. Probably best for a stalled, even regressing pack of huminoids, wot.:-)
Yours,
Issodhos