Ch. 5: Society and Inequality in Eurasia / N. Africa

So, civil service evolved into a professional system in China.  I remember that France also operates on a heavy civil service type of system, and the same in-theory, in-practice theme also happened in France.  Only the wealthy (or those with connections) need apply.

Well, Wang Mang had a dandy plan, but as I read about his plan to level the landowning playing field, I thought, who in their right mind as a huge landowner would go along with this without a fight?  And of course, like lots of rules and regulations, his plan proved unenforceable.  Good idea, though.

The ‘scholar-gentry’ class still exists in high-society circles today.

The Chinese peasants persecuted by large landowners sounds very much like the slavery system of the past in our own United States.  People were either on the wealth end of the spectrum or at the impoverished end.  This is yet another example of exerting control over more vulnerable people.

It takes an uprising to spark some change, even if the changes are slow to come.

OK, this is interesting that peasants were “honored and celebrated.”  I did not get that drift in the last paragraph.  I do see, though, how merchants can be viewed in a negative light because, frankly, they do make money off of others.  The state tried to keep merchants under control, even forcing them to loan money, but despite efforts, the merchants still became wealthy.  I do believe that the Jewish people followed a similar state of affairs.

I have learned about the Indian caste system in other classes but do not recall the “untouchables.”  Are they not another class altogether under the Sudras, or part of the Sudras?

So instead of being discriminated against due to skin color, like we had in the U.S., these castes were broken down by job duties, and those unfortunate enough to be on the low end have no way out, unless they use their imagination.  Fascinating system to read about, but it makes me feel for the oppressed.

Never thought of this, but it makes total sense:  slavery compared with the domestication of animals.

Slavery was all around.  Slaves who owned slaves who owned slaves.  We are all slaves to something, usually love (Slave to Love by Bryan Ferry).  It all boils down to human trafficking to the nth degree.

With beatings, sexual abuse, and possibly being sold, what would a slave have to lose by murdering his/her master?  Certainly, it would be worth a shot.

Spartacus and Empress Wu are my two new heroes.  “Some of her actions seem deliberately designed to elevate the position of women.”  Of course they were!  She was a concubine, for God’s sake.

 Aristotle: “A woman is an unfertile male.”  He is the one who should have been poisoned.

If I had lived in Sparta, I would have been a Spartan athlete of the highest order.