Let us put this question aside for the moment. The main theoretical problem
is not that what I have said so far is too sociological, but that it is not
sociological enough; it omits a key fact about the structure of intellectual
networks. The structure of the intellectual world allows only a limited number
of positions to receive much attention at any one time. There are only a small
number of slots to be filled, and once they are filled up, there are overwhelming
pressures against anyone else pressing through to the top ranks.
In addition to the necessary advantages of getting the most relevant cultural
capital, of being in the situations that heighten one’s emotional energy to a
creative pitch, of becoming aware of structural possibilities as they open up,
it is also necessary to be first. One must be in the lead, or else the structural
possibilities, as far as the individual is concerned, begin to close down. Op-
portunities and encouragement, both objective and subjective, flow cumula-
tively to those few persons who get a head start down the structural channels;
they dry up for others who may initially be not far behind. It is the sense of
these forces flowing in the intellectual world that moves some people to drop
out, to give up on intellectual dreams of eminence, or perhaps to stay in the
field but settle for a subsidiary career as commentator or expositor, perhaps
to retail others’ ideas to a provincial audience, perhaps to go into politics or
some other field where one’s competition is not head-to-head with other
intellectuals on their home turf.
Creativity is squeezed out of the structure, so to speak, through small open-
ings. But these openings always have the size to let several thinkers through
at a time; creative breaks seem to occur simultaneously in several directions.
We see this pattern strongly in the network charts (Figures 4.1 through 4.4
and 6.1 through 6.5 for China, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.4 through 3.8 for Greece).
In China, major figures typically match up with major rivals in their
generation: Mencius, Chuang Tzu, and Hui Shih; Kung-sun Lung overlapping
(and debating) with Tsou Yen, and he in turn with Hsün-Tzu; the Buddhist
stars Fa-tsang and Hui-Neng; the creative generations of neo-Confucianism,
first with Chang Tsai, Shao Yung, and Chou Tun-I; then Chu Hsi and Lu
Chiu-yüan. Secondary figures also appear in contemporaneous clusters. Some
philosophers are matched with others of slightly lower rank, but complete
isolates from significant competition are very few.
It is the same with the Greeks. The key figures come on the scene as rivals
within the same generation: Parmenides and Heraclitus; the stars of the So-
phistic movement, together with Socrates as well as Democritus; Aristotle and
Diogenes the Cynic; Epicurus and Zeno the Stoic founding their rival schools
at Athens within a few years of each other. When we include the secondary
figures with the stars, the pattern of simultaneously appearing creativity be-
comes overwhelming.^24
Networks across the Generations • 75