Why do some Chinese scholars question the origins of Western civilization?

为什么一些中国学者质疑西方文明的起源？

以下是Quora网友的评价：

Western Decline

According to Chinese standards, the history of many countries can only be regarded as fairy tales.

If a country has a strong religious atmosphere, their history is likely to be a fairy tale.

按照中国的标准，许多国家的历史只能算是童话故事。

如果一个国家有浓厚的宗教氛围，那么它的历史很可能是童话。

Aya Shawn

This is mainly caused by the differences in archaeological standards between China and the West.

Among all the ancient civilizations in the world, the Chinese civilization may not be the oldest, but it is the most special one.

这主要是由于中西方考古标准的差异造成的。

在世界上所有的古代文明中，中华文明也许不是最古老的，但却是最特别的。

Chinese civilization has a very "narcissistic" temperament, and they like to record their own history very much. Just like a careful girl, she writes her experiences and thoughts in a diary every day.

Other civilizations in the world do not have this habit. They do not care much about yesterday's things every day. Even if some records are left, they are accidental and passive.

When the timeline stretches to 2000, 3000, 4000 years later. This difference in personality shows up.

中华文明有一种非常“自恋”的气质，他们非常喜欢记录自己的历史。就像一个细心的女孩一样，每天都把自己的经历和想法写在日记里。

世界上其他文明没有这种习惯。他们不太关心昨天的事情。即使留下了一些记录，也是偶然的、被动的。

等时间线延伸到2000、3000、4000年后，这种差异就很明显了。

The Chinese have clear records of the development of their civilization, from 5,000 years ago, to 4,000 years ago, to 1,000 years ago, to 500 years ago. What happened every year, including wars, disasters, diplomacy, etiquette, and even astronomical phenomena, were completely recorded by the Chinese in each era. They have tens of millions of words of historical records, accurate to every year, every day, every historical celebrity and important event.

There are so many of these historical books, and they reference and cross each other, making them difficult to forge and tamper with. This makes China’s historical records very credible and accurate.

从5000年前，到4000年前，再到1000年前，再到500年前，中国的文明发展有着清晰的记载。每年发生的事情，包括战争、灾难、外交、礼仪，甚至天文现象，都被每个时代的中国人完整地记录下来。他们拥有数千万字的历史记录，准确到每一年，每一天，每一个历史名人和重要事件。

这样的史书太多了，它们相互参照，相互交叉，很难伪造和篡改。所以中国的历史记载非常可信，非常准确。

Therefore, when Chinese scholars study the origin and development of Chinese civilization, they attach great importance to "documents". Archaeological excavations and cultural relic discoveries often only exst as "documentary evidence".

Chinese scholars have their own set of rules of the game: binary arguments.

Explanation: To determine that a historical event is real, two conditions are required. 1. There are historical documents recording this period of history (poems, scriptures, stories and novels are not included here). 2. Discover a certain historical artifact and prove it with historical documents.

When only one of the two conditions is met, that part of history is considered doubtful.

因此，中国学者在研究中国文明的起源和发展时，非常重视“文献资料”。考古发掘和文物发现往往只能作为“文献证据”。

中国学者有一套自己的规则：二元论证。

解释：要确定一个历史事件是否真实，需要两个条件：1. 有史料记载这段历史(诗、经、故事、小说不在此列)；2. 发现某件历史文物，并用历史文献加以证明。

如果这两个条件只满足其中之一，那部分历史会被认为是存疑的。

Ancient civilizations that have been studied more by European and American scholars include ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Mesopotamia civilization, ancient Rome, etc. These civilizations are not as continuous as the Chinese civilization. They basically ended or moved halfway. In addition, the people of these civilizations rarely like records as much as the Chinese.

Therefore, the documents they left behind are very sparse and unsystematic.

欧美学者研究较多的古代文明有古埃及、古希腊、美索不达米亚文明、古罗马等。这些文明不像中华文明那样具有延续性。此外，这些文明的人不像中国人那样喜欢记录。

因此，他们留下的文献非常稀少，缺乏系统性。

Most of the written information comes from stone monuments, myths and legends, and even things like the Bible. These things are fragmented, there is no strict timeline and index, there is a lack of mutual reference and mutual confirmation, and the reliability is very low.

This makes European and American scholars rely more on archaeological discoveries, that is, cultural relics, when studying ancient history.

大多数书面信息来自石碑、神话和传说，甚至《圣经》之类的东西。这些东西都是碎片化的，没有严格的时间线和指标，缺乏相互参照和相互确认，可靠性极低。

所以欧美学者在研究古代史时，只能更依靠考古发现，即文物。

For example, European archaeologists discovered a Palermo stele, which was clearly engraved with the names of many pharaohs of ancient Egypt and the time of their rule. So archaeologists celebrated, wow! We uncover history.

But something like the Palermo Stone, if discovered in China, would be far from celebrated. Chinese scholars will check their historical archives to see if the content written on this stone tablet is consistent with the historical records, and how different it is.

例如，欧洲考古学家发现了一块巴勒莫石碑，上面清楚地刻着许多古埃及法老的名字和他们统治的时间。所以考古学家庆祝，哇！我们揭秘了历史。

但像巴勒莫石这样的东西，如果在中国被发现，是不可能让人们弹冠相庆的。中国学者会检查历史档案，看看这块石碑上记载的内容是否与历史记录一致，两者之间有多大的区别。

I'm sorry if they find out that the content on this stone tablet is not in the historical record at all. It proves nothing and can only be stored as an artifact until new evidence is provided to support the discovery.

If a Chinese scholar tries to draw a historical conclusion based on this stone tablet, he will immediately be laughed at by other colleagues: Idiot, have you ever thought that maby this stone tablet was forged by the ancients for some purpose?

In fact, there are massive archaeological discoveries in China that do not exst in historical records. For example, the huge ancient city of Liangzhu and the Sanxngdui Civilization, where tens of thousands of bronzes were discovered, have been classified by the Chinese as "unknown prehistoric civilizations" due to the lack of clear enough historical records.

如果他们发现这块石碑上的内容没有相应的历史记载，那么很抱歉。它什么也证明不了，只能作为一件文物保存起来，直到找到新的证据来支持这一发现。

如果一个中国学者试图根据这块石碑得出历史结论，他会立刻被其他同事嘲笑：白痴，你有没有想过，这块石碑可能是古人为了某种目的而伪造的？

事实上，中国有大量的考古发现，这些发现在历史记录中是不存在的。例如，良渚古城和三星堆文明，发现了数以万计的青铜器，但由于缺乏足够明确的历史记录，只能被中国人归类为“未知的史前文明”。

At present, many urban ruins and cultural relics dating back 8,000 years have been discovered in China, but Chinese scholars have always believed that China’s civilization is only 5,000 years old. Some more rigorous Chinese scholars insist that Chinese history can only be counted from 2070 BC. , only 4000 years so far. The most demanding scholars believe that the calculation can only start from 841 BC, because since that year, there are accurate and reliable records for every year, which means that Chinese civilization is only 2800 years old.

目前，中国已经发现了许多8000年前的城市遗址和文物，但中国学者一直认为中国的文明史只有5000年。一些更为严谨的中国学者坚持认为，中国历史只能从公元前2070年算起。到目前为止，只有4000年。最为苛刻的学者认为，中国历史只能从公元前841年开始计算，因为从公元前841年开始，每一年都有准确可靠的记录，这意味着中华文明只有2800年的历史。

Therefore, although many cultural relics and ruins have been discovered in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome or the Mesopotamian civilization. But in the view of Chinese scholars, these discoveries can only prove that these civilizations did exst. But relying on these discoveries to prove and write accurate history is not enough. Due to the lack of binary argumentation, the research conclusions can easily be affected by forged artifacts, which does not meet their academic standards.

因此，虽然古埃及、古希腊、古罗马或美索不达米亚文明有许多文物和遗址，但在中国学者看来，这些发现只能证明这些文明确实存在。但是仅仅依靠这些发现来证明和编写准确的历史是远远不够的。由于缺乏二元论证，研究结论容易受到伪造文物的影响，不符合学术标准。

Ancient documents that play an important role in the history of Western civilization, such as the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", can only be regarded as "epics" rather than "history books" according to the standards of Chinese scholars. This is because these documents lack a rigorous timeline, most of them are only partial stories, and the writing time is too far away from the actual time of history.

《伊利亚特》、《奥德赛》等在西方文明史上发挥了重要作用的古代文献，按照中国学者的标准，只能被视为“史诗”，而非“史书”。因为这些文献缺乏严格的时间线，大部分只是故事片段，写作时间与历史的实际时间相差太远。

Therefore, according to the standards of Chinese scholars, the history of Western civilization is a mixture of myths and legends, religious scriptures and archaeological speculations, and cannot be called history at all.

Due to inconsistent standards, there will naturally be deviations in understanding between the two parties. Chinese scholars believe that their Western counterparts are counterfeiters, while Western scholars believe that their Chinese counterparts are paranoid.

For ordinary people, controversy is a good thing.

因此，按照中国学者的标准，西方文明史是神话传说、宗教经典和考古推测的混合体，根本不能称为历史。

由于标准不一致，双方的理解自然会出现偏差。中国学者认为他们的西方同行造假，而西方学者认为他们的中国同行偏执。

对于普通人来说，有争议是一件好事。

Sandra Derendy

Far better if Chinese scholars develop an objective and scientific understanding of Chinese civilization and culture. I have noticed on Quora that many Chinese just repeat traditional cliches about Chinese culture and history. When they do this, they tend to view all other ethnic groups as “inferior” people. Far better to view the world as a symphony orchestra, with each culture/country having inherent value and an important role to play.

如果中国学者能够客观、科学地理解中国文明和文化，那就更好了。我在Quora上看到很多中国人不断重复关于中国文化和历史的传统说法。他们喜欢把其他民族视为“劣等”民族。把世界看作一个交响乐团要好得多，每个文化/国家都有其固有的价值和重要的作用。

Ben Orange

Related

Does Western civilization really exsts?

I’d argue that it did exst, but it no longer does. In the 19th century, it was generally clear what was Western, and what was not. Nowadays, though, most people have a hard time defining what a makes a person, place, or concept Western. As such, I’d argue that the West no longer exsts. And has been replaced by what I call the “Neo-West”. Which is a sort of globalized civilization that is defined not by culture, but purely by vague political and economic principles.

西方文明真的存在吗？

我认为西方文明确实存在过，但现在已经不复存在了。在19世纪时，什么是西方文明，什么不是，基本上是很清楚的。但现在大多数人都很难说清一个人、一个地方或一个概念是不是西方的。因此，我认为西方已被我所谓的“新西方”所取代。这是一种全球化的文明，不是由文化来定义的，而是纯粹由模糊的政治和经济原则来定义的。

Ernest W. Adams

Related

What is meant by Western civilization?

西方文明是什么意思？

It is a history, way of life, body of knowledge, and political theory that begins with the ancient Greeks. They were the first Europeans to live in cities and to begin writing about philosophy, law, and politics. Their early works informed the development of European culture for nearly 2000 years. The Romans put their own spin on it and spread it far and wide. Even as recently as the early 1900s, a well-educated man with a university degree was expected to be able to read both ancient Greek and Latin.

西方文明是始于古希腊的历史、生活方式、知识体系和政治理论。他们是第一批住在城市里的欧洲人，并开始撰写关于哲学、法律和政治的文章。他们的早期作品影响了欧洲近2000年的文化发展。罗马人把他们自己的观点融入其中，并广为传播。20世纪初，一个拥有大学学位、受过良好教育的人，是应该能够阅读古希腊语和拉丁语的。

The other thing that went along with this was the supremacy of Christianity throughout Europe. Little by little, all the pagan tribes were Christianized, and for a long time recognized the authority of the Catholic Church in all religious matters. This was upset by the emergence of Protestantism, and the Church no longer has the power it once did. Only recently has freedom of religion been recognized as an important right.

随之而来的就是基督教在整个欧洲拥有至高无上的地位。渐渐地，所有的异教部落都被基督教化了，在很长一段时间内大家都承认天主教会在所有宗教事务上的权威。但这个局面被新教的出现打破了，教会不再拥有曾经无上的权力。直到最近，宗教自由才被承认是人们的重要权利。

Western civilization also includes economic development, from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism to limited Socialism and eventually social de ocracy (well-regulated capitalism). Along with this came advancements in science, technology, and the arts. In the last 500 years, Western civilization has seen an explosion of innovation in all areas. It tolerates pluralism and diversity well, because it values the rights of individuals over social conformity. The Enlightenment was hugely important, because it rejected the idea that kings were chosen by God, and replaced it with the idea that governments derive their rightful authority from the consent of the governed.

西方文明也包括经济发展，从封建主义到重商主义，再到zb主义，再到有限的社会主义，最后是社会民*主义(监管良好的zb主义)。随之而来的是科学、技术和艺术的进步。在过去的500年里，西方文明在各个领域都经历了创新的爆炸式增长。西方文明很好地包容多元化和多样性，因为相较于社会一致性，它更重视个人的权利。启蒙运动具有非常重要的意义，摒弃了国王是天选之子的观点，取而代之的是政府因得到被统治者的认可而获得合法权力。

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