Re: Ti'nh ca'ch... (3)

[Tuan Pham <tuan.pham@unsw.edu.au>]

Phung Phuong Nam <ppn@iist.unu.edu> wrote

>cha`o ca'c ba'c,
>xin ho?i ca'c ba'c chi' khi' ngu+o+`i vie^.t ta nhu+ the^' na`o.
>trong li.ch su+? cho^'ng xa^m lu+o+.c va` du+.ng nu+o+'c,... chu'ng ta
>chi? co' nhu+~ng ngu+o+`i dde`n sa'ch ro^`i thi cu+? ra la`m quan, xong
>ro^`i tho^i, cha(?ng dde^? la.i cho con cha'u 1 chi'nh sa'ch, sa'ch
>lu+o+.c ,...
>trong khi ddo' trung quo^'c co' ha`n, kho^?ng, dda.o, la~o,...
>cha^u a^u co' ca'c ma'c, anghen, pho+ba'ch, ...
>the^' xin ho?i ca'c ba'c chi' khi' co' hay kho^ng ???
>

Hello

No need to do too much navel gazing on this question, IMO.
Great thinkers, like truffles, sprout spontaneously and
statistically when conditions are right. The right conditions
are: a large pool of idle, educated people, interacting
intellectually. A comfortable IDLENESS is essential - 
it's hard to produce great universal thoughts when one has to 
think about where the next meal comes from.

Ancient Greece had the right conditions because they had 
a slave system which freed up the citizens, and they valued
education, so they produced Plato, Socrates, Aristotle.
Revolutionary America had similar conditions, hence Jefferson,
Franklin. Renaissance-Enlightenment Europe had a hereditary 
aristocracy, an emerging middle class (getting rich from trade 
colonialism)and well educated churchmen supported by the Church,
and almost all great men came from one of these three groups.
India had its caste system which produced Buddha.

China in the Xua^n Thu period probably had a hereditory
aristocracy, as medieval Europe did, hence its great sages:
Kho^?ng, La~o, Ma(.c etc. After the Chinese adopted the 
meritocratic (exam) system, conditions became more egalitarian 
and thus less favourable, and it produced fewer great thinkers.

Vietnam has never had favourable conditions - almost as soon as it
became independent, it adopted the Chinese meritocratic system.
There was no slavery, no hereditory aristocracy (apart from
the royal family), no idle class. There were a few notable 
buddhist thinkers from the royal families of Ly' and Tra^`n, 
before the exam system was firmly locked in.

Now that VN is the 12th most populous country on Earth and 
increasing numbers of Viets are getting educated, I expect 
VN will produce world class thinkers very soon - as soon as 
a few of us become idle :)))

Cheers
Tuan Pham