Eurasian Social Hierarchies (6)

In Classical China, bureaucrats represented the cultural and social elite of the chinese civilization for almost 2,000 years. As the Han Dynasty established its authority in China, they required every province to send men to the capital where the would be examined and chosen for an official position depending on their performance. This system eventually evolved to become the worlds first professional civil service. In 124 B.C.E, emperor Wu Di established an academy where potential officials were trained as scholars and immersed in Chinese classical texts that dealt with history, literature, art, and mathematics, with emphasis on Confucian teachings. By the time the Han dynasty had ended it had enrolled almost 30,000 students, who had gone through a series of written examinations to select officials of various grades. This system favored those who came from wealth families that were wealthy enough to pay for an education system that provided the years of education that was required to at least pass the lower level exams. Those who made it into the bureaucracy entered a realm of high privilege and enormous prestige. Even the lower officials were distinguished by their polished speech, cultural sophistication and their political authority. At one point in time most of China was held by peasants. Nature, the state and landlords combined to make living nearly impossible. They were taxed by the state every year for one month’s labor on various public projects and during the Han dynasty pesants were forced to sell their land to landlords and worked as tenants or share croppers. In india the Caste system was belived to have happend to racially define the encounter between light skinned aryan and darker- hued native peoples. By the beginning of the classical era (500 B.C.E) there  was an idea that society was divide into four classes better known as Varna. Everyone was born into and remained within one of those classes for the rest of their life. 

Eurasian Cultural Traditons (5)

 In this chapter strayer focuses on Eurasian traditions. In china they had the teachings of Confucianism and Daoism. Confucianism is associated with class inequality, patriarchy, feudalism, and superstition. In india they had a series of religions that came together and gave a meaning to Hinduism, which a religious reformer, Siddhartha Gautama, later set in motion a different religion known as Buddhism. In the Middle East, a religious tradition appeared known as Zoroastrianism, which derived from the teachings of Persian prophet Zarathustra. In Israel, Judaism was articulated by a handful of Jewish prophets like Amos, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. In Greece, tradition was found in writings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others. The reason all these religions came about was because of the social changes that was occurring in these growing cities. The chinese tried to look for some type structure and adapted Legalism. Legalism consisted of laying out rules or laws and were strictly enforced with a system of rewards and punishments. Confucius was born to an aristocratic family in Northern China, he spent most of his adult life trying to seek a political position where he could put his ideas into action. After he died his students collected all of his teachings and made it into a short book called the Analects. Scholars later added and commented on his ideas, creating Confucianism.  According to Confucius, in order to achieve a tranquil society, there was to be a superior and inferior. But the superior must behave with sincerity, and genuine concern for others, the inferior party would respond with deference and obedience. Confucius also emphasized education, he believed that it could be improve moral betterment. Another tradition that the chinese adapted was that of Daoism. Daoism which was associated with Laozi who was a sixth century B.C.E archivist. Completely different from Confucius, they urged withdrawal from the world of nature and encouraged spontaneous, individualistic, and natural behavior. Daoism invited people to withdraw from the world of political and social activism. During the same time that philosophical hinduism was taking shape a separate religion emerged, buddhism. To the Buddha experiencing life as imperfect, impermanent, and unsatisfactory was the central and universal feature of human life. Most of those who followed the buddhist path expected to achieve enlightenment. Greek thinkers during the classical era didn’t generate any lasting religious traditions. For the Greeks seldom agreed with one another, but rather in its way of asking questions. Socates was an athenian philosopher who walked around the city engaging others in conversation about the good life. He challenged conventional ideas about the importance of wealth and power in living well, urging instead the pursuit of wisdom and virtue.