Question

Empires stifled the creativity and economic production of the people who lived on their fringes, since those people had to spend all their time resisting conquest instead of developing new ideas.

Answer 1

Explanation:

The word innovate has always generated, in human history, uncertainty, skepticism and even rejection by those who want to preserve the established order. After all, "innovating" consists of "altering something, introducing new features", so the innovator is a revolutionary who introduces changes that alter order and, therefore, introduces some initial disorder that, over time, will become a new order prevailing to be later altered and transformed again as a result of the introduction of a new innovation. Some examples help clarify this point.

The Ottoman Turkish Empire under Sultan Bayezid II closed to the possibility of experiencing the benefits of the introduction of the printing press. The Sultan, by means of an edict, prohibited printing in Arabic. Only in 1727 would the introduction of the first printing press be allowed in the lands of the empire, but under strict control, as evidenced by Ibrahim Müteferrika, whose production was controlled by religious scholars.

Müteferrika himself was aware that Europeans were advancing by leaps and bounds and the Ottoman Empire was left behind and that was due to the European political system that guaranteed rights and freedoms, and to rationalism and the scientific revolution. Instead, the progress (education and literacy) of the Turkish empire had been mortgaged due to religious fundamentalism and Islamic law. The secularization of society was a necessary step for the scientific revolution. However, we must also keep in mind that the printing press (and in our days twitter and internet) are innovations that totalitarian and dictatorial regimes such as North Korea and Cuba do not like, since they propagate ideas that can be considered as “ subversive ”and that threaten the integrity of the oppressive State along with its civil and military elite. It is easier and safer that knowledge is not dispersed but centralized in a single institution so that homogeneous and uncritical consciences can be formed. It is not surprising that totalitarian and authoritarian regimes immediately intervene in education as a way of earning the uncritical loyalty of the population.