re: #290 wheat-dogghazi

My take on it is that Europe was so fragmented at the time.

Because all the fragments of Europe were in constant conflict for power it allowed for a lot of ferment in the intellectual world. If someone came up with an idea and no one with power liked it the originator could just travel a few miles and find someone with power who did. The ‘yeast’ of knowledge flowing in from the Islamic and Byzatine worlds helped a lot. Lots of ideas were tried, the successful ones thrived, along the political entities that adopted them and more ideas were dreamed up to counter the new ideas.

This phenomena developed a momentum that has been maintained to this day.

Conversely the other large cultures at the time, Islam and China, were rather monolithic. They were pretty much fixed in the ideas they had adopted and so no reason why they should try others. Those with power in these cultures were especially opposed to new ideas.

My roughly thought out opinion.