Re: [問卦] 美國專欄:明朝是15~16世紀時最偉大的國家已回收

看板Gossiping作者cutiehoneyzu (McHilo)時間7年前 (2018/04/02 11:54)推噓7(8推 1噓 15→)

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※ 引述《shared (shared)》之銘言： : https://goo.gl/AZoKZm 美國專欄節錄 : 明朝的衰落可以告訴我們美國的衰落 : 古代中國明朝在十五和十六世紀的大部分時間裡是這個星球上最偉大的國家。 : 當然是最強大和最富有的。 : 然而明朝的停滯可能為現代的超級大國 - 美國帶來重要的教訓。我們也是一個巨大的，富 : 有的，強大的國家，在我們的大部分歷史上都佔據了競爭對手的領域。我們也有整整一個 : 世紀的統治地位 : 我們有可能成為一個停滯不前的超級大國。必須不惜一切代價避免“美國明朝化”。 : 有沒有美國也很愛討論明朝的八卦? 以下是原文總翻譯當然作者文章內容的是非就自行判斷我是覺得拿美國跟明朝比較有點牽強畢竟是完全不同的時代 What the collapse of the Ming Dynasty can tell us about American decline 從明朝崩潰的故事告訴我們美國如何衰弱 Ming China was by far the greatest nation on the planet for most of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was certainly the biggest and the richest. Ming technology was in advance of anything in Europe or the Middle East, with movable type, compartmentalized ship hulls, steering rudders, advanced farming techniques, and the ability to solve systems of linear equations. Ming military power conquered Mongolia, subdued Korea and Vietnam, fended off a major invasion from Japan, and quickly disposed of meddlesome raiders from Portugal and the Netherlands. Taxes were low, industry was strong, and the society was peaceful and stable. For almost 300 years, Ming China could — and did — rightfully consider itself the center of the world. 明朝在15及16世紀是全世界最偉大的國家,巨大且富足,明朝的科技贏過歐洲及中東,例如造船技術,航海導航技術,農業科技,甚至能解決數學線性系統.明朝征服蒙古,使韓國越南臣服,擊退日本的侵略,並且解決殖民者葡萄牙荷蘭的侵犯.明朝稅率很低,產業發達,社會安定,300年來明朝-自認為是世界的中心 But with the hindsight of history, the Ming doesn't look so awesome. While China was basking in seemingly timeless stability, Europe was seething with new ideas and technological progress. Even as the Chinese government banned oceanic shipping and heavily restricted foreign trade, European countries were discovering the New World and building trading empires. By the time the Ming fell in the 17th century, Europe was well on the way to dominating the world. 可是在後人的評價來看,明朝並不令人稱讚,當中國享受平和時期時,歐洲正處於新思維及科技進展時期,當中國禁止遠洋船隻貿易時,歐洲國家已經發現新大陸並建立殖民帝國,而明朝在17世紀衰退,歐洲則稱霸世界 The stagnation of the Ming may carry important lessons for a more modern superpower: The United States. We too are a huge, rich, powerful nation that for much of our history has dominated the field of competitors. We too have a whole century of dominance — the 20th — under our belt. And if there's one thing we don't want to do, it's turn into the Ming. 明朝的沒落成了現代國家最好的教材:例如美國,是一個巨大富裕強盛的國家並且主宰這個世界,我們在20世紀的確稱霸世界,但是現在如果我們不做一些事,很快就會變成明朝那樣 One big reason the Ming stagnated was probably isolationism; the Ming government periodically banned private shipping, burning privately owned ships and forcibly relocating coastal populations away from the sea. Though the policy was ostensibly to curb piracy (which it failed to do), the Ming shipping ban was part of a larger policy of hostility toward trade and foreign travel that grew over time and carried over into the later Qing dynasty. 明朝衰弱有一個因素,太孤立,明政府有一段期間禁止私人船隻貿易,燒毀船隻,強迫沿海居民往內地遷,雖然政府說是為了防範海盜(這也是明朝衰弱因素),明朝的禁航政策其實是仇視與外國人貿易,而且這種政策實施很久,甚至延續到清朝 The United States is hardly isolationist. But as a large country that is geographically isolated from most of the populated world, we need to be vigilant against turning inward. The anti-immigrant sentiment that has grown in recent years is a bad sign. Americans are notorious for not speaking any foreign language, and only 30 percent of Americans have passports. Plenty of foreigners come to study in America's famous universities, but an inevitable downside is that few Americans study in foreign countries. Simply put, we need to get out more. 美國是不可能像明朝那樣孤立的,美國的地理條件其實是遠離歐洲亞洲這些人口稠密區,但是我們不能讓自己封閉,近幾年反移民政策越來越多美國人支持,傳統美國人是不學外國語言,只有30%的美國人有外國護照,多數外國人來美國念大學,但是只有少數美國人願意去外國念書,我們需要更多國人出國看看 Part of the Ming's inward-looking worldview was the tendency of Chinese people to see China as the entire world. European maps of the time depicted Europe as the tiny peninsula of Eurasia that it really is; Chinese "world" maps, by contrast, were almost entirely China, with a few outlying areas at the periphery. That's a very unhealthy attitude to have, and sadly, many Americans seem to have it. Survey after survey finds that Americans are geographically illiterate. 明朝人的世界觀就是中國即是世界,歐洲人則是認為歐洲只是世界的一個Eurasia半島而已 ,中國人的世界地圖就是只有中國,非中國的地方都是蠻族,這是一種很不健康的觀念,很可悲的是許多美國人也有類似自大的觀念,甚至看不懂世界地圖 Another likely reason for the Ming's decline was disrespect of science. Continuing a trend that had begun in earlier dynasties, the Ming education system de-emphasized science and technical studies, and instead forced aspiring bureaucrats to learn "Confucianist" philosophy. When science was taught, it was taught as canonical wisdom, to be accepted instead of questioned and improved. This may be one reason why, by the mid-1500s, China was importing Jesuits from Europe to do astronomy for the imperial court. Technology that had surpassed the world during the earlier T'ang and Sung dynasties had begun to stagnate. 其他明朝衰弱的因素,有一點就是對科學的漠視,延續前朝,明朝教育系統不重視科學,反而要求政府官員都必須經過儒學教育,科學教育的好處就是能啟發創新,創造科技,這就是為什麼到1500年左右,中國需從歐洲進口傳教士為宮廷製作天文儀器,之前中國在唐宋兩朝領先的科學優勢已不存在(明末時,的確跟葡萄牙人買火器對抗滿州) America shows uncomfortable signs of treading this same path. Of course, there is the attempt by conservative groups to halt the teaching of evolution, climate science, and the Big Bang in public schools, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Americans are turning away en masse from science, technology, and mathematics fields. We tell ourselves "I'm just not a math person," conveniently avoiding the hard mental work that Europeans and Asians take for granted. Our world-beating universities and tech companies now import huge percentages of their Ph.D. students and engineers, much as Ming China once imported Jesuit mathematicians. The worst part is that after their degrees are finished, many of those Ph.D. students leave America, due to our restrictive immigration system. 美國其實有走向衰弱道路的跡象,很多美國傳統基督教團體,很反對學生學習演化論,氣候變遷,宇宙如何誕生,這些東西,這只是冰山一角,越來越多美國人不想學科學,工程,數學, 我們告訴自己”我討厭數學”然後把要煩心的工作丟給歐洲人亞洲人,我們很多一流的大學都需要進口外國碩博士,很像當時中國進口傳教士來算數學一樣,然後很多優秀的碩博士生在美國拿到學位後就要走,因為美國人反移民 In the meantime, Americans are spending less of our GDP on research and development than our counterparts in East Asia and North Europe. And we have allowed our patent system, originally designed to protect and encourage invention, to expand until it is probably stifling innovation overall. 然後美國政府在研發經費投入占GDP比例又很少,而東亞國家及北歐對於研發經費都是大量投入,我們的專利系統原先設計是為了保護及鼓勵創新,到現在這個制度反而成了創新的阻礙 Why did the Ming allow itself to become isolationist, stagnant, and backward-looking? Historians are divided, but the leading explanation is what historian Ian Morris calls the "paradox of development," and Mark Elvin calls the "high-level equilibrium trap." Simply put, when a country thinks it's in a golden age, it stops focusing on progress. 為什麼明朝後來會變成如此孤立,停滯甚至倒退?歷史學家看法分歧,有一種比較主流的說法由歷史學家Ian Morris提出的”發展矛盾”, Ian Morris說這是”高度發展的陷阱”, 簡單的講,當一個國家處於黃金時期太久,他就會不想求進步 America shows signs of falling into this trap. We tell ourselves robotically that we have "the best health-care system in the world," when in fact it underperforms most other rich countries. We gape and gawk when we first travel to Japan or Switzerland and find that all the trains run perfectly on time — not to mention the fact that there are trains in the first place. We ignore our sky-high infrastructure costs and grumble about potholed roads, never pausing to wonder why West Europe and East Asia don't have these problems. We tell ourselves that we're the "land of the free," ignoring the fact that in Japan you can drink a beer in the park without getting arrested. We say that anyone in America can get rich, ignoring the fact that economic mobility is lower here than in almost any other rich country. 美國其實有點走向這個陷阱,我們自認為”美國健保是世界最好的”卻忽略很多富裕國家做的比美國好,我們讚嘆日本跟瑞士的鐵路系統做的那麼好,卻忽略美國政府每年需要投入很多經費整修老舊的公共設施,馬路還修的很破爛,我們都不曾思考為什麼西歐跟東亞不會這樣,我們自認為是”自由國度”卻不知道日本人在公園喝啤酒不會被警察抓,我們自認為很富裕,卻不知道財富的流動率,跟富裕國家比起來美國算低 The fact is, America had an extraordinary run of success in the 20th century. We got used to thinking of our country as The Future, as No. 1, as the place where everything happens. But other countries have been racing to catch up with us, and in some ways they have already succeeded. We need to get out of our bubble and recognize the innovations other countries have achieved, and reform our institutions in order to keep up. Otherwise, we risk becoming a stagnant superpower. "Ming America" must be avoided at all costs. 美國的確在20世紀有很棒的成就,可悲的是我們認為舊思維能套用到未來,美國目前在很多領域上是第1,其他國家正在追趕上來,而且有所進展,我們要離開舒適圈,思考如何革新美國,改善制度,否則美國會變成沒落的強權,美國明朝化會無可避免 -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc), 來自: 61.224.165.100 ※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Gossiping/M.1522641247.A.149.html

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