Reply #54: As You Wish, Dear

[The Magistrate]

In human history, you will find little that is unique, at least if a broader view of matters is taken, and you will certainly find nothing unique if an attitude that inquiry into particulars is a thing you can aford to remain oblivious to.

One thing that does strike me as unique about China in the modern era, and is the source of much of my fascination with the place and its history, is that is the only sizeable and powerful jurisdiction in which the most ancient forms of human governance survived intact into the age of steam and wireless and internal combustion. Besides the invaluable window into the whole human past this offers, it suggests to me that something in its cultural forms operates to preserve continuity in an extraordinary degree, and that therefore, in attempting to understand what occurs there today, it is best to be familiar with the whole weight and pattern of past practice, as these would seem to offer the soundest basis for understanding. If you would prefer to discard the great patterns of inertia discernable there, in favor of some minor perturbation imported recently from Europe, you are of course free to do so, but would be well advised to resign yourself to a degree of surprise, and accept that there will be a pretty poor fit between your view of events and developments there, and what is actually occuring.