What effect did having a bureaucracy of scholar-officials have on the song dynasty in medieval china?

What effect did having a bureaucracy of scholar-officials have on the song dynasty in medieval China? It created a stable and efficient government. The position occupied by the scholar elite in Chinese society has led to social and political change in China. The virtues of the scholars were appreciated in times of cultural upheaval, when their role was to defend moral values. The imperial bureaucracy was the main road to success (academic). This bureaucracy was useful to the extent that placed the public good above the private. The art of the scholar was encouraged by the demands of Chinese society.

In the early Northern Song, the government bureaucracy was staffed entirely by scholar-officials (civil examination system). The counties, divided into provinces, were governed through an imperial bureaucracy of ranked degree-holding officials. Because the governmental superstructure was thinly spread, it was heavily invested in the binding social force and in the use of harsh punishment.

as university of miami psychologists debra lieberman and adam smith pointed out in a recent article in the journal current directions in psychological science, humans have social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. with very few exceptions, marriages between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human culture. the primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. even the idea of sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. the psychologist jonathan haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy).

the biological cost of incest

this raises an interesting question: just what’s so bad about incest? sure, having sex with your dad or your sister seems gross — but why? some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos are learned social conventions. this explanation, however, doesn’t make sense to me as it does not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging from cockroaches to chimpanzees. second, the incest taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.

why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? the answer is simple. the problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect.