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30 Mayıs '21

 
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TARİHİN PRANGALARI

http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/osmanli--son-ouroboros/Blog/?BlogNo=631530

http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/yollar-ayrilirken/Blog/?BlogNo=631540

KENDİ TARİHİNİN TUTSAKLARI

Devletin asker ve vergi almasında merkezileşme sağlayan tımar  sistemi (ATÜT, KG) yüzünden merkez / yerel ayrımı da gelişememişti. Hal  böyleyken uzun yıllar güçlü bir merkezi iktidar garanti edilebilmiş, bu  sayede devlet ayakta kalabilmiştir; ne var ki bu durum, Batı'nın aksine  Osmanlı'da burjuvazinin ortaya çıkmasına, asker / sivil, merkez /  feodalite, kilise / imparator gerilimi çerçevesinde bir diyalektiğin  oluşumuna engel olmuş ve Batı'daki sanayi devrimine, Aydınlanma'ya ve  medeni haklar hareketine yol açan gelişmelerin geç (ve eksik-KG)  yaşanmasına sebep olmuştur. (Geç kalmanın son teknolojileri ve bilimsel bilgileri hazır bulma avantajı, tarihsel sürecin ürünü olan güç dağılımı ve dengesi ile zihinsel, ahlaki yapının değişme güçlüğü ve bu avantajları kullanmaya engel teşkil etmesi dezavantajıyla gölgelenmiş, ağır basansa güçler dengesinin ve zihinsel, ahlaki yapının frenleyici gücü olmuştur - KG)
Tolga Şirin

“Teknoloji, bilgi, devlet ya da özel organizasyon öğelerinden hangisine odaklandığınıza bağlı olarak, neden sonuç söyleminde döngüsellik olarak bilinen endojenlik konusunda haklı kaygılar ortaya çıkacaktır. Dolayısıyla bir araştırma için belirlenen başlangıç noktası sonuçta keyfidir. Analiz hangi nedensel ilişkiyle başlarsa başlasın, er ya da geç aksi yöndeki bir ilişki belirecek, geri besleme etkileri devreye girerek, doğrusal ve tek yönlü olarak başlamış olan bir modeli tavuk-yumurta (altyapı-üstyapı-altyapı, üstyapı-altyapı-üstyapı, KG) tarzında döngüsel yapılar içeren karmaşık bir sisteme dönüştürecektir.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 33

Üretimin vazgeçilmez koşulu, demek ki, üretim koşullarının yeniden üretimidir.
Üretim ilişkilerinin yeniden-üretimi nasıl sağlanır?

Yerlemin (alt-yapı, üst-yapı) diliyle söylersek: Çok büyük ölçüde, hukuki-siyasal ve ideolojik üst-yapı yoluyla sağlanır.
İdeoloji ve Devletin İdeolojik Aygıtları, Louis Althusser

Siyasi ve yasal kararların sonucunda resmi kurallar bir gecede değişse bile, gelenekler, adetler ve davranış biçimlerine derinlemesine kök salmış olan enformel kısıtlamalar, belli bir niyetle çıkarılan ve uygulanan politikalara karşı çok daha dayanıklıdırlar. Kültürel kısıtlamalar sadece geçmişi, bugüne ve geleceğe bağlamakla kalmaz, aynı zamanda tarihsel değişimin yolunu açıklamanın anahtarını verir.  
Kurumlar, Kurumsal Değişim ve Ekonomik Performans, Douglass C. North, S13

Sociologists and anthropologists consider the organization of society to be a reflection of its culture-an important component of which is cultural beliefs. Cultural beliefs are the ideas and thoughts common to several individuals that govern interaction-between these people and between them, their gods, and other groups-and differ from knowledge in that they are not empirically discovered or analytically proved. In general, cultural beliefs become identical and commonly known through the socialization process by which culture is unified, maintained and communicated.
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society, Avner Greif

Devletin ideolojik aygıtları dediğimizde, gözlemcinin karşısına, birbirinden ayrı ve özelleşmiş kurumlar biçiminde dolaysız olarak çıkan belirli sayıda gerçekliği belirtiyoruz… Bu gerekliliğin içerdiği tüm sakıncaları göz önünde tutarak aşağıdaki kurumları şimdilik DİA’lar olarak kabul edebiliriz (adlarını saymamızdaki sıranın özel bir anlamı yoktur):

Dinsel DİA (farklı kiliselerin oluşturduğu sistem)
Öğrenimsel DİA(farklı, gerek özel gerekse devlet okullarının oluşturduğu sistem)
Aile DİA’sı
Hukuki DİA
Siyasal DİA (farklı partileri de içeren sistem)
Haberleşme DİA’sı (basın, radyo-televizyon vb.)
Kültürel DİA (edebiyat, güzel sanatlar, spor vb.)
İdeoloji ve Devletin İdeolojik Aygıtları, Louis Althusser 

“Kurumlar aynı zamanda işbirliği ve ortaklık kurma alışkanlıklarını, zenginlik ve piyasa verimliliği yaratan teşvikleri biçimlendirir.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 13

Institutions are the rules of the game of a society or more formally are the humanly-devised constraints that structure human interaction. They are composed of formal rules (satute law, common law, regulations), informal constraints (conventions, norms of behavior, and self imposed codes of conduct), and the enforcement characteristics of both.

Organizations are the players: groups of individuals bound by a common purpose to achieve objectives. They include political bodies (political parties, the senate, a city council, a regulatory agency); economic bodies (firms, trade unions, family farms, cooperatives); social bodies (churches, clubs, athletic associations); and the educational bodies (schools, colleges, vocational training centers).

Competition forces organizations to continually invest in skills and knowledge to survive. The institutional framework dictates the kinds of skills and knowledge perceived to have maximum pay-off.

As noted earlier if the institutional matrix rewards piracy (or more generally distributive activities) more than productive activity then learning will take the form of learning better pirates.
The New Institutional Economics and Development, Douglass C. North

“It might be supposed”-wrote an eminent scholar-“that an ignorant man, some edible materials and a cookery book compose together the necessities of a self-moved activity called cooking. But nothing is further from the truth. The cookery book is not an independently generated beginning from which cooking can spring; it is nothing more than an abstract of somebody’s knowledge of how to cook: it is the stepchild, not the parent of the activity. The book, in its turn, may help to set a man on to dressing dinner, but if it were its sole guide he could never, in fact, begin: the book speaks only to those who know already the kind of thing to expect from it and consequently how to interpret it”. Commenting upon this tasty piece of wisdom, another scholar remarked that “at first sight the problem might appear to be merely one of introducing new methods of production and the instruments, tools or machines appropriate thereto. But what is really involved is vast change in social beliefs and practices…”. Technical knowledge is the “expression” of man’s response to the changing problems set by the environment and by his fellow men… For meeting any new situation, new thoughts, new aptitudes, new action will be required. But knowledge has to grow: capital has to be created afresh on the basis of continuous experiment, and new hopes and beliefs have to evolve. It is because all these new activities are not independent of the existing institutions into which they have to be fitted, and which have in turn to be adjusted to them, that the process of change is so complex and, if it is to proceed harmoniously, necessarily so slow.

In order to acquire Western techniques, the non-European people had or have to undergo a more profound and general process of “westernization”. Paradoxically enough, in order to fight against the West they have to absorb Western ways of thinking and doing. As M. Chiang wrote, “since we were knocked out by cannon balls, naturally we became interested in them, thinking that by learning to make them we could strike back. We could forget for the time being in whose name they had come, since for us common mortals to save our lives was more important than to save our souls. But history seems to move through very curious ways. From studying cannon balls we came to mechanical inventions, which in turn led us to political reforms; from political reforms we began to see political theories, which led us again to the philosophies of the West. On the other hand, through mechanical invention we saw science, from which we came to understand scientific method and the scientific mind. Step by step we were led farther away from the cannon ball-yet we came nearer and nearer to it”. In this process, the goal is the technique while philosophy and social and human relations are degraded to the role of means. The machine which would serve man, becomes his master.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Carlo Cipolla, Sayfa 147-148

In collectivist societies the social structure is “segregated” in the sense that each individual socially and economically interacts mainly with members of specific religious, ethnic, or familial group in which contract enforcement is achieved through “informal” economic and social institutions, and members of collectivist societies feel involved in the lives of other members of their group. At the same time, noncooperation characterizes the relations between members of different groups. In Individualist societies the social structure is “integrated” in the sense that economic transactions are conducted among people from different groups and individuals shift frequently from one group to another. Contract enforcement is achieved mainly through specialized organizations such as the court, and self-reliance is highly valued.

The historical analysis of this paper indicates the importance of a specific subset of cultural beliefs, namely rational cultural beliefs that capture individuals’ expectations with respect to actions that others will take in various contingencies. Since cultural beliefs are identical and commonly known, when each player plays his best response to these cultural beliefs, the set of permissible cultural beliefs is restricted to those that are self-enforcing. Past cultural beliefs provide focal points and coordinate expectations, thereby influencing equilibrium selection and society’s enforcement institutions.
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society, Avner Greif

A central analytical contribution to this harmonization of economics and sociology was provided by Robert Aumann (1987), who showed that the natural concept of equilibrium in game theory for rational actors who share common beliefs is not the Nash equlibrium but the correlated equlibrium.

A correlated equilibrium is the Nash equilibrium in the game formed by adding to the original game a new player, whom I call the choreographer (Aumann calls this simply a "correlating device"), who samples the probability distribution given by the players (common) beliefs and then instructs each player what action to take.

The actions recommended by the choreographer are all best responses to one another, conditional on their having been simultaneously ordered by the choreographer, so self-regarding players can do no better than to follow the choreographer's advice.

Sociology, and more generally sociobiology (see chapter 11), then come in not only by supplying the choreographer, in the form of a complex of social norms, but also by supplying cultural theory to explain why players might have a common set of beliefs, without which the correlated equilibrium would not exist.

Cognitive psychology explains the normative predisposition that induces players to take the advice of the choreographer (i.e., to follow the social norm) when in fact there might be other actions with equal, or even higher, payoff that the player might have an inclination to choose.

....

This understanding is a form of methodological individualism, a doctrine that holds that social behavior consists of the interaction of individuals, so nothing beyond the characteristics of individuals is needed, or even permitted, in modeling social behavior.

Epistemic game theory suggests that the conditions ensuring that individuals play a Nash equlibrium are not limited to their personal characteristics but rather include their common characteristics, in the form of common priors and common knowledge. We saw (theorem 7.2) that both individual characteristics and collective understandings, the latter being irreducible to individual characteristics, are needed to explain common knowledge.
The Bounds of Reason
Game Theory and the Unification of the Behavioral Sciences
Herbert Gintis

These enforcement institutions are composed of cultural beliefs and the rules of the game. In the long run, the (nontechnologically determined) rules of the game may be changed endogenously as individuals attempt to improve their lot by establishing organizations. These organizations alter the rules of the game by, for example introducing a new player (the organization itself), by changing the information available, or by changing payoffs associated with certain actions.

A necessary condition for an organizational change, however, is that those able to initiate it expect to gain from it. Their expectations depend on their cultural beliefs, and hence diverse cultural beliefs lead to a distinct trajectory of organizational development. Diverse paths of organizational development, in turn, further affect the historical process of equilibrium selection. Once a specific organization is introduced, it influences the rules of historically subsequent games and hence the resulting societal organization.

Finally, social and economic patterns of interactions also affect moral enforcement mechanisms, that is, enforcement based on the tendency of humans to derive utility from acting according to their values. Although this tendency seems to be universal, different patterns of social and economic interactions lead to the development of distinctive value systems as individuals attempt to find moral justification for their behavior through cognitive dissonance. (Davis 1949, p.52; Homans 1950). Different values in turn, entail the moral enforcement mechanism that reinforces distinct behavior.

Expectations about expectations are difficult to alter, and thus cultural beliefs can make Pareto-inferior institutions and outcomes self-enforcing.

Clearly, to make the threat of collective punishment credible, there is a need to coordinate expectations by defining what constitutes “improper” behavior. In a collectivist society, this coordination is likely to be based on informal mechanisms such as customs and oral tradition.

To support collective actions and to facilitate Exchange, an individualist society needs to develop formal legal and political enforcement organizations. Further, a formal legal code is likely to be required to facilitate exchange by coordinating expectations and enhancing the deterrence of formal organizations.

The preceding historical examples illustrate that collectivist and individualist cultural beliefs are likely to motivate the introduction of different organizations. Once an organization is introduced for specific reasons, it is likely, as discussed in section II, lead to other organizational innovations through learning an experimentation and as existing organizations direct responses to (historically) subsequent contractual problems. For example, the organizational “macroinvention” of the family firm led to organizational “microinventions” among the Italians. Family firms began to sell shares to non-family members.

Tradable shares required a suitable market, and “stock markets” were developed. Furthermore, the separation between ownership and control introduced by the family firm motivated the introduction of organizations able to surmount the related contractual problems, such as improvement in information transmission techniques, accounting procedures, and the incentive scheme provided to agents.
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society, Avner Greif

“Daha büyük ve daha kalıcı işletmelerin yayılmasıyla birlikte ticaret giderek gayrı şahsi yapıya büründü. Birbirini tanımayan kişiler arası ticaret arttı. Böylece tanıdıklardan elde edilemeyecek bilgiye dönük bir ihtiyaç ortaya çıktı; bu da ticari istihbarata yer veren süreli yayınların kurulmasını tetikledi.” (altyapı (tarım toplumu), üstyapıya (miras hukuku), üstyapı (miras hukuku) altyapıya (işletme büyüklüklerine), o da okuryazarlığa, bilgiye ihtiyacı tetikleyip bilimi teşvik ediyor, KG)
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 119

“Ortadoğu’nun hep küçük kalan ortaklıkları ise, Avrupa’da yenilikçi çözümlerin gerektirdiği muhasebe, eşgüdüm, istihbarat ve sorumluluk sorunlarıyla karşılaşmadı.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 121

“Bu uzun dönemde Batı Avrupa’nın ticari altyapısı tedrici, ama kümülatif olarak çok önemli değişimlerden geçti. Uzun bir gelişmeler dizisi kommenda’yı zengin çeşitlilikte ortaklık biçimlerine dönüştürdü”.
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 98

“Her halükarda, başlangıçtaki ufak bir ayrımın doğurduğu bir tepki zinciri, sonuç olarak çok büyük bir etki yaratabilir. Ortadoğu tarihi zamanla önem kazanan küçük farklılıklarının birçok örneğini sunar.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 51

“Yaygın kabile kavgalarıyla parçalanmış bir toplumda doğan İslam, Müslümanlar arasında politik bölünmeleri önlemeye yönelik bir hukuk sistemi geliştirdi. Bu sistem Roma korporasyonuna benzer sivil kuruluşların yolunu kapadı.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 179

“İslami miras sisteminin doğduğu yer olan Batı Arabistan’da, toplumun serveti esas olarak tüccarlarla göçebelerin elindeydi; bunların mal varlıkları da hayvan sürüleri ve değerli metaller gibi taşınabilir ve kolayca bölünebilir mallardan oluşmaktaydı. Dolayısıyla İslami miras kuralları varlık parçalanmasına pek aldırmayan bir toplumda biçimlendi. Buna karşılık, Batı’da gelişen miras uygulamalarının kaynağı olan Roma ve Germen hukuk sistemleri, kişilerin arazilerini bir aileyi geçindirmeye yeterli birimler halinde tutmaya çalıştığı tarım toplumlarında gelişti. (altyapıdan üstyapıya, KG)
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 111

“İslam hukuku çerçevesinde kurulmuş İslami ortaklıklar genelde kaynaklarını kısa ömürlü girişimler için bir araya getiren birkaç ortağı kapsarken, Batılılar onlarca, yüzlerce ve hatta binlerce hissedarlı, süresiz denecek kadar kalıcı işletmeler oluşturmaktaydı. Geleneksel Ortadoğu kredi piyasalarında kaynaklar tipik olarak küçük borçlar verebilen kişilerce sağlanmaktaydı. Batılılar ise kitlelerden toplanmış sermayeyi büyük ölçekli üretken girişimlere akıtabilen ticari bankalardan destek alma olanağına sahipti. Genelde kısa ömürlü olan yerli Ortadoğu şirketlerinin hisselerini alıp satacak borsalar yoktu. Uzun ömürlü girişimlerdeki yatırımcıların istediklerinde hisselerini nakde çevirebildikleri Batı’da ise, borsalar önem kazanmaktaydı.
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 29

“Tasfiye olasılığını yükselten iki etken vardır. Birincisi, ilk doğan kuralının norm olduğu yerlerde çoğu kez görülen durumun aksine, varislerin mevcut işleri sürdürmek üzere yetiştirilmiş olmaları söz konusu değildir. İkincisi, yeni bir varisin doğmasının ya da varislerin birinin ölmesinin ardından, varis topluluğu ve onlara ait hisseler İslami miras sistemi uyarınca önemli ölçüde değişebilir. Bunun getirdiği belirsizlik her varisin oturmuş bir işletmeye bağlılığını zayıflatmış olacaktır.
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 115

Demek ki Ortadoğu’da ortaklıkların zamansız dağılma olasılığı özellikle yüksekti.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 115

“Hukuksal geçerliliği metinlere dayandırma geleneği, fıkıh eğitimi almış kişilere daha sonra korumak isteyecekleri rantlar sağladı. Özerk kuruluşların oluşumuna izin vermek, İslam hukukuna dayalı kararlar yönündeki talebi kısarak, söz konusu rantları azaltabilirdi….Aradaki bir farklılık, Batı’da eğitimli mesleklerin arkasında birleşik bir
hukuku uygulatabilecek güçte merkezi bir devletin bulunmamasıydı. Politik iktidar imparatorlar, krallar ve kentler arasında bölünmüştü; zaten korporasyonların Ortaçağ’ın erken döneminden başlayarak gelişmesinin ana nedeni buydu. Ortadoğu’nun büyük bölümünde ise ulema özyönetim taleplerini bastırabilecek güçte merkezi devletlerle bütünleşmiş durumdaydı.”

(altyapı, gücün bölünmüşlüğü ya da merkeziliği üstyapıya, hukuka yansıyor, KG)
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 141

Further, an individualist society entails less social pressure to conform to social norms of behavior and hence fosters initiative and innovation. Indeed, Genoa was well known among the Italian city-states for its individualism and was a leader in commercial initiative and innovation (Greif 1993b).

This paper points to the factors that make trajectories of societal organization-and hence economic growth-path dependent. Given the technologically determined rules of the game, institutions-the nontechnological constraints on human interactions-are composed of two interrelated elements: cultural beliefs (how individuals expect others to act in various contingencies) and organizations (the endogenous human constructs that alter the rules of the game and, whenever applicable, have to be an equilibrium). Thus the capacity of societal organization to change is a function of its history, since institutions are combined of organizations and cultural beliefs, cultural beliefs are uncoordinated expectations, organizations reinforce the cultural beliefs that led to their adoption, and past organizations and cultural  beliefs influence historically subsequent games, organizations, and equilibria.
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society, Avner Greif

As early as the first decades of the fourteenth century Europeans began to use cannon in warfare.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 21

These weapons were scarcely murderous but were effective in battering down fortresses and city walls.

Bronze, on the other hand, is technically much easier to cast and all over Europe there were craftsmen well acquainted with the process because of the early and widespread demand for church bells.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 23

Although the raw materials were produced in only a few areas, the casting of bronze guns was carried on almost everywhere by artisans who had no difficulty in shifting from producing bells to producing guns and vice versa.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 25

However, by the end of the sixteenth century the distinction between siege artillery and field artillery was recognised and European gunners started devoting their ingenuity to the problem of further improving upon the mobility of guns without affecting their striking power.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 29.

Europeans were unable to produce effective, mobile field artillery until the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. Before that date, their land artillery could be moved only with great difficulty. Moreover, its rate of fire could be easily overcome by masses of people.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 138.

While Europe was boldly expanding overseas and was aggressively imposing her dominance over the coasts of Asia, Africa and the Americas, on the eastern border she was spiritlessly retreating under the pressure of the Turkish forces.

In 1683 the Turks were again menacing Vienna.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 140

Unencumbered by the outdated traditions of the Mediterranean type, limited in the availibility of manpower, incorrigibly addicted to privateering, the English came to rely exclusively on manoeuvring by the wind and the effectiveness of the broad side. They produced, as Botero said, “vessels very light and very well gunned” that “in a thousand ways bothered the huge ships of Spain”. The Dutch followed the same line.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 86-87

The eighteenth century marked the beginning of a new phase. As indicated in chapter I, European gun-founders succeded in producing effective field artillery just before the middle of the seventeenth century.

Turkish menace was brought under control in the course of the eigteenth century.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 143-144

Despite the fact that the “know-how” was broadcast by renegades, Jesuits and official missions of “technical assistance”, non-European countries never succeeded in filling the vast technological gap that separate them from Europe. On the contrary, in the course of time the gap grew conspicously larger.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Carlo Cipolla

“Amaçlanmamış sonuçları konu alan tarihsel analizlerdeki yaygın bir tema yol bağlılığı, yani gelecekteki sonuçların geçmişteki gelişim çizgilerine bağlılığıdır. Tıpatıp aynı koşullarla karşılaşan iki toplum, kendi tarihlerine bağlı olarak değişik tepki verebilir.”
Yollar Ayrılırken, sayfa 52

It has also to be said that with few exceptions, when an innovation is first introduced, its advantages over established traditions are not always very obvious. The first European field guns were certainly not conspicuous for their efficiency. The attitude of the Turks toward early field artillery, as the attitude of the Venetians toward the early galleons, can not be simply discarded as piece of human stupidity. At their first appearence, innovations are less valuable for their actual advantages than for their potential of future developments and this second quality is always very difficult to assess.

To admit the new role of field artillery in battles of movement and to adopt new strategies accordingly, the Mamluks had to sacrifice the role and prestige of their feudal cavalry, namely the social position and prestige of the dominating class. This in turn, presuppose the disruption of feudal structures and a profound social revolution for which the kingdom was totally unprepared. Before accepting Western techniques had to undergo “a wholesale change of the world-view, a Copernican revolution of a minor order”. Powerful socio-cultural factors were opposing the assimilation and diffusion of Western technology. In Europe the situation was vastly different. The European knights of the early Renaissance nourished ideas in regard to fire-arms which were not different from those of the Mamluk horsemen, but by 1500 European affairs were coming more and more under the control of new social groups that had a taste for organization rather than splendour, for efficiency rather than gallantry. And such groups could count on an increasingly numerous class of craftsmen with a taste for mechanics and metallurgy. The very factors that had originally favoured the development of the new technology continued to operate and fostered in further progress powerfully.: as has been indicated in the previous chapter. European shipbuilding and manufacture of ordnance moved rapidly ahead during the first direct contact of the Portuguese with the people of Asia.

The Turks make little use of artillery, and indeed seem not to care for it, nor value its use except for siege operations. In naval battles they rely heavily on the sail and on boarding, so that in an encounter they seek to ram the enemy as quickly as possible, hoping to exploit their advantage in numbers; the very few guns which they do use on their ships are loaded with Stone shot more often than with iron, for they believe that stone, in splintering, hits more surely and does more harm.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 162

But also in the case of the Ottomans, a traditional taste for the melee and for horsemanship, and the social predominance of the mounted warrior, acted as powerful obstacles to the adoption of field artillery. Essentially the Ottomans made good use of guns only in siege operations.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 93.

Ming Ch’ing China was “a Confucian and phisiocratic State” where skilled artisans were not very numerous and did not have much status. On the other hand, the demand was not much to induce them to apply themselves to the adoption and development of Western Technologies. The Imperial Court never developed that kind of enthusiasm for cannon that inspired the more technically minded and more warlike monarchs of the West. Fearing internal bandits no less than foreign invasion, the Imperial Court did its best to limit both the spread of the knowledge of gunnery and the proliferation of artisans versed in the art.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 117.

The attitude of their Imperial Court was also heavily influenced by the fact that Chinese rulers had always been apprehensive of foreign influence, for they realized that the idea of the “barbarians” being superior to Peking would be a political dynamite.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Sayfa 118

The superior performance of Western science in matters of astronomy with all the implication that this had for the Chinese calendar and the Imperial administration, was too much of a shock to the scholar officials to be accepted as a matter of course. The idea that the stylish poems and formal essays they learned were useless in the light of the engineering knowledge of the West, was more than they could bear.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Carlo Cipolla
Sayfa 119-120

The Chinese, like the Turks an the Indians, lagged hopelessly behind the times in understanding the true potentialities of naval artillery and in learning the new naval tactics that artillery was mercilessly imposing. When they eventually realized that times had changed, it was too late.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Carlo Cipolla
Sayfa126

Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese never took their country as the centre of the world. Traditionally they looked beyond their border for foreign customs and techniques to copy and assimilate. For centuries their model had been China.
Sayfa 126.
Guns, Sails, & Empires, Carlo Cipolla


 

 
Kayıt tarihi
: 29.04.21
 
 

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