Posts Tagged ‘Scopes Trial’
“I failed in some subjects in exams, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.”*…
And that, Yasheng Huang argues, is not something likely to happen in China, for a reason that dates back to the 6th century…
On 7 and 8 June 2023, close to 13 million high-school students in China sat for the world’s most gruelling college entrance exam. ‘Imagine,’ wrote a Singapore journalist, ‘the SAT, ACT, and all of your AP tests rolled into two days. That’s Gao Kao, or “higher education exam”.’ In 2023, almost 2.6 million applied to sit China’s civil service exam to compete for only 37,100 slots.
Gao Kao and China’s civil service exam trace their origin to, and are modelled on, an ancient Chinese institution, Keju, the imperial civil service exam established by the Sui Dynasty (581-618). It can be translated as ‘subject recommendation.’ Toward the end of its reign, the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) abolished it in 1905 as part of its effort to reform and modernize the Chinese system. Until then, Keju had been the principal recruitment route for imperial bureaucracy. Keju reached its apex during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). All the prime ministers but one came through the Keju route and many of them were ranked at the very top in their exam cohort…
Much of the academic literature focuses on the meritocracy of Keju. The path-breaking book in this genre is Ping-ti Ho’s The Ladder of Success in Imperial China (1962). One of his observations is eye catching: more than half of those who obtained the Juren degree were first generation: ie, none of their ancestors had ever attained a Juren status. (Juren was, at the time, the first degree granted in the three-tiered hierarchy of Keju.) More recent literature demonstrates the political effects of Keju. In 1905, the Qing dynasty abolished Keju, dashing the aspirations of millions and sparking regional rebellions that eventually toppled China’s last imperial regime in 1911.
The political dimension of Keju goes far beyond its meritocracy and its connection to the 1911 republican revolution. For an institution that had such deep penetration, both cross-sectionally in society and across time in history, Keju was all encompassing, laying claims to the time, effort and cognitive investment of a significant swathe of the male Chinese population. It was a state institution designed to augment the state’s own power and capabilities. Directly, the state monopolised the very best human capital; indirectly, the state deprived society of access to talent and pre-empted organised religion, commerce and the intelligentsia. Keju anchored Chinese autocracy.
The impact of Keju is still felt today, not only in the form and practice of Gao Kao and the civil service exam but also because Keju incubated values and work ethics. Today, Chinese minds still bear its imprint. For one, Keju elevated the value of education and we see this effect today. A 2020 study shows that, for every doubling of successful Keju candidates per 10,000 of the population in the Ming-Qing period, there was a 6.9 per cent increase in years of schooling in 2010. The Keju exams loom as part of China’s human capital formation today, but they also cultivated and imposed the values of deference to authority and collectivism that the Chinese Communist Party has reaped richly for its rule and legitimacy…
An ultimate autocracy is one that reigns without society. Society shackles the state in many ways. One is ex ante: it checks and balances the actions of the state. The other is ex post. A strong society provides an outside option to those inside the state. Sometimes, this is derisively described as ‘a revolving door’, but it may also have the positive function of checking the power of the state. State functionaries can object to state actions by voting with their feet, as many US civil servants did during the Donald Trump administration, and thereby drain the state of the valuable human capital it needs to function and operate. A strong society raises the opportunity costs for the state to recruit human capital but such a receptor function of society has never existed at scale in imperial China nor today, thanks – in large part, I would argue – to Keju.
Keju was so precocious that it pre-empted and displaced an emergent society. Meritocracy empowered the Chinese state at a time when society was still at an embryonic stage. Massive resources and administrative manpower were poured into Keju such that it completely eclipsed all other channels of upward mobility that could have emerged. In that sense, the celebration by many of Keju’s meritocracy misses the bigger picture of Chinese history. It is a view of a tree rather than of a forest…
…Its impressive bureaucratic mobility demolished all other mobility channels and possibilities. Keju was an anti-mobility mobility channel. It packed all the upward mobility within one channel – that of the state. Society was crowded out, and over time, due to its deficient access to quality human capital, it atrophied. This is the root of the power of Chinese autocracy and, I would argue, it is a historical development that is unique to China and explains the awesome power of Chinese autocracy…
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There was, however, a massive operational advantage to the Neo-Confucianist curriculum: it standardised everything. Standardisation abhors nuance and the evaluations became more straightforward as the baseline comparison was more clearly delineated. There was objectivity, even if the objectivity was a manufactured artefact. The Chinese invented the modern state and meritocracy, but above all the Chinese invented specialised standardised testing – the memorisation, cognitive inclination and frame of references of an exceedingly narrow ideology.
Ming standardised Keju further: it enforced a highly scripted essay format, known as the ‘eight-legged essay’, or baguwen in Chinese (八股文), to which every Keju candidate had to adhere. A ‘leg’ here refers to each section of an essay, with a Keju essay requiring eight sections: 1) breaking open the topic; 2) receiving the topic; 3) beginning the discussion; 4) the initial leg; 5) the transition leg; 6) the middle leg; 7) the later leg; and 8) conclusion. The eight-legged essay fixed more than the aggregate structure of exposition. The specifications were granular and detailed. For example, the number of phrases was specified in each of the sections and the entire essay required expressions in paired sentences – a minimum of six paired sentences, up to a maximum of 12. The key contribution of the eight-legged essay is that it packed information into a pre-set presentational format.
Standardisation was designed to scale the Keju system and it succeeded brilliantly in that regard, but it had a devastating effect on expositional freedom and human creativity. All elements of subjectivity and judgment were taken out. In his book Traditional Government in Imperial China (1982), the historian Ch’ien Mu describes the ‘eight-legged essay’ as ‘the greatest destroyer of human talent.’…
In his book The WEIRDest People in the World (2020), Joseph Henrich posited that the West prospered because of its early lead in literacy. Yet the substantial Keju literacy produced none of the liberalising effects on Chinese ideas, economy or society. The literacy that Henrich had in mind was a particular kind of literacy – Protestant literacy – and the contrast with Keju literacy could not have been sharper. Keju literacy was drilled and practised in classical and highly stratified Chinese, the language of the imperial court rather than the language of the masses, in sharp contrast to Protestant literacy. Protestant literacy empowered personal agency by embracing and spreading vernaculars of the masses. Henrich’s liberalising ‘WEIRD’ effect – Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic – was a byproduct of Protestant literacy. It is no accident that Keju literacy produced an opposite effect…
Not everyone sees the Western/WEIRD definition of creativity and innovation as the only important one (c.f., here and here), nor that China is as lacking in what Westerners call creativity and innovation (c.f., here— possible soft paywall, and here). Still, Huang’s essay on Keju, China’s incredibly difficult civil service test, and how it strengthened the state at the cost of freedom and creativity, is eminently worthy of reading full: “The exam that broke society,” from @YashengHuang in @aeonmag.
And for the amazing (and amusing) story of how the Keju was instrumental in the introduction of Catholicism into China, see Jonathan Spence’s wonderful The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.
* Bill Gates
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As we study, we might recall that it was on this date in 4004 BCE that the Universe was created… as per calculations by Archbishop James Ussher in the mid-17th century.
When Clarence Darrow prepared his famous examination of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes trial [see here], he chose to focus primarily on a chronology of Biblical events prepared by a seventeenth-century Irish bishop, James Ussher. American fundamentalists in 1925 found—and generally accepted as accurate—Ussher’s careful calculation of dates, going all the way back to Creation, in the margins of their family Bibles. (In fact, until the 1970s, the Bibles placed in nearly every hotel room by the Gideon Society carried his chronology.) The King James Version of the Bible introduced into evidence by the prosecution in Dayton contained Ussher’s famous chronology, and Bryan more than once would be forced to resort to the bishop’s dates as he tried to respond to Darrow’s questions.
“Bishop James Ussher Sets the Date for Creation”
“Once, centuries ago, a map was a thing of beauty, a testament not to the way things were but to the heights scaled by men’s dreams”*…
George III’s extensive ‘K.Top’ [King’s Topographical] collection of around 40,000 maps and views reflects changing impressions of place and space across the 16th–19th centuries through manuscript and printed atlases; architectural drawings and garden plans; maps and records of military campaigns, fortifications, barracks, bridges and canals; records of town and country houses, civic and collegiate buildings; drawn and printed records of antiquities including stained glass, sculpture, tombs, mosaic pavements and brasses; and thousands of drawn and printed views.
The collection includes the work of familiar names from Hollar to Hawksmoor, alongside the works of a host of lesser-known artists and amateurs and much anonymous or unidentified material. The British Library has received support from a number of generous donors to make this material available digitally…
Maps: King George III Topographical and Maritime collections, digitized by the British Museum– on their web site, here; on Flickr, here.
* Bea González, Mapmaker’s Opera
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As we find our way, we might recall that it was on this date in 4004 BCE that the Universe was created… as per calculations by Archbishop James Ussher in the mid-17th century.
When Clarence Darrow prepared his famous examination of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes trial [see here], he chose to focus primarily on a chronology of Biblical events prepared by a seventeenth-century Irish bishop, James Ussher. American fundamentalists in 1925 found—and generally accepted as accurate—Ussher’s careful calculation of dates, going all the way back to Creation, in the margins of their family Bibles. (In fact, until the 1970s, the Bibles placed in nearly every hotel room by the Gideon Society carried his chronology.) The King James Version of the Bible introduced into evidence by the prosecution in Dayton contained Ussher’s famous chronology, and Bryan more than once would be forced to resort to the bishop’s dates as he tried to respond to Darrow’s questions.
– source
“I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness – to save oneself trouble”*…
Like all other animals, our species evolved by gradual processes of natural selection that equipped us to survive and reproduce within a certain environmental niche. Unlike other animals, however, our species managed to escape its inherited biological role and take control of its own destiny. It began to innovate, actively reshaping its way of life, its environment and, eventually, the planet itself. How did we do it? What set our species, Homo sapiens, apart from the rest?
Searching for just one event, a decisive change in culture or brain structure, would probably be a mistake. For more than 1.5 million years, archaic humans (earlier Homo species, such as Homo erectus) had been slowly diverging from the other great apes, developing a way of life marked by increased collaboration. They made simple stone tools, hunted together, might have cooked their food, and probably engaged in communal parenting.
Still, their lifestyle remained largely static over vast periods of time, with few, if any, signs of artistic activity or technical innovation. Things started to change only in the past 300,000 years, with the emergence of our own species and our cousins the Neanderthals, and even then the pace of change didn’t quicken much until 40-60,000 years ago.
What caused our species to break out of the pattern set by archaic humans? Again, there were probably many factors. But from my perspective as someone who studies the human mind, one development stands out as of special importance. There is a mental ability we possess today that must have emerged at some point in our history, and whose emergence would have vastly enhanced our ancestors’ creative powers.
The ability I mean is that of hypothetical thinking – the ability to detach one’s mind from the here and now, and consciously think about other possibilities. This is the key to sustained innovation and creativity, and to the development of art, science and technology. Archaic humans, in all probability, didn’t possess it. The static nature of their lifestyle suggests that they lived in the present, their attention locked on to the world, and their behaviour driven by habit and environmental stimuli. In the course of their daily activities, they might accidentally hit on a better way of doing something, and so gradually acquire new habits and skills, but they didn’t actively think up innovations for themselves…
The story at “Our greatest invention was the invention of invention itself.”
* Agatha Christie (who would surely have agreed that invention is also, sometimes, aimed at explaining ourselves to our selves… and sometimes simply at delivering delight)
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As we contemplate creativity, we might recall that it was on this date in 1925 that the trial of John T. Scopes in Scopes vs. The State of Tennessee (aka “the Scopes Monkey Trial”) began.
The State of Tennessee had responded to the urging of William Bell Riley, head of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association, by passing a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution– the Butler Act. In response, The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Act. George Rappleyea, who managed several local mines, convinced a group of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, a town of 1,756, that the controversy of such a trial would give Dayton some much needed publicity. With their agreement, he called in his friend, the 24-year-old Scopes, who taught High School biology in the local school– and who agreed to be the test case.
The rest is celebrity-filled history, and star-studded drama.
“No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark”*…
Migrants disembark from Royal Navy Ship HMS Enterprise in Catania, Italy, 23 October 2016
As the world’s ranks swell, population shifts have emerged as a major global challenge with potentially catastrophic implications. Endless debates over immigration rights have failed to produce the faintest hint of an acceptable solution. So perhaps an alternative approach would be to factor in an underlying basic law of chemistry. At the risk of gross oversimplification, what if we saw the flow of populations as the human equivalent of osmosis?
In high-school chemistry we learned that, in a container of water divided into two halves by a semipermeable membrane, uneven concentrations of salt resulted in movement of water from the more dilute side to the side of greater concentration. The greater the discrepancy in solute concentration, be it a salt molecule or a complex plasma protein, the greater the force to equalise the concentrations.
Now imagine the world as a giant vat subdivided into a number of smaller containers (nations) separated from each other by semipermeable membranes (borders). Instead of salt, provide each container with differing amounts of food, shelter and essential services. In this scenario, population flow from nation to nation will be a direct function of the degree of difference of goods, opportunities and hope.
This shift of populations isn’t just an ethical or metaphysical dilemma to be resolved at the level of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. It isn’t about the right to own land and enforce borders, or the relative worth of individuals versus groups. Instead, the pressures driving immigration should be seen as natural and unavoidable – like chemical reactions; from that perspective, a reduction in the gradients would be the only possible long-term solution…
Arguments for the rights of nations to control their borders are a huge step in the wrong direction. We need to take a hard look at the disruptive dynamics of inequality. If this simple fact of chemistry (that lesser flows to greater) can’t penetrate the predominantly impermeable minds of policymakers, welcome to a world of escalating chaos.
Robert A. Burton considers climate change, economic inequality, political imbalances and other “reasons to move,” as he suggests a more productive way to think about one of this era’s most pressing challenges, one that can be mitigated and made more humane, if not avoided: “Like the chemical process of osmosis, migration is unstoppable.”
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As we focus on reducing the gradients, we might recall that it was on this date in 1925 that the Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of evolution in Tennessee classrooms, became law… paving the way for the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.
Anti-Evolution League at the Scopes Trial, 1925
“Reality is broken”*…
Paperclips, a new game from designer Frank Lantz, starts simply. The top left of the screen gets a bit of text, probably in Times New Roman, and a couple of clickable buttons: Make a paperclip. You click, and a counter turns over. One.
The game ends—big, significant spoiler here—with the destruction of the universe.
In between, Lantz, the director of the New York University Games Center, manages to incept the player with a new appreciation for the narrative potential of addictive clicker games, exponential growth curves, and artificial intelligence run amok…
More at “The way the world ends: not with a bang but a paperclip“; play Lantz’s game here.
(Then, as you consider reports like this, remind yourself that “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”)
* Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
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As we play we hope not prophetically, we might recall that it was on this date in 4004 BCE that the Universe was created… as per calculations by Archbishop James Ussher in the mid-17th century.
When Clarence Darrow prepared his famous examination of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes trial [see here], he chose to focus primarily on a chronology of Biblical events prepared by a seventeenth-century Irish bishop, James Ussher. American fundamentalists in 1925 found—and generally accepted as accurate—Ussher’s careful calculation of dates, going all the way back to Creation, in the margins of their family Bibles. (In fact, until the 1970s, the Bibles placed in nearly every hotel room by the Gideon Society carried his chronology.) The King James Version of the Bible introduced into evidence by the prosecution in Dayton contained Ussher’s famous chronology, and Bryan more than once would be forced to resort to the bishop’s dates as he tried to respond to Darrow’s questions.
– source
Ussher
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