This divergence between the Chinese take on politics and the Western take on politics is interesting. For the Chinese, politics is ultimately about power, and power is a zero sum affair. Getting you and your entire clan beheaded in pursuit of political power is just the cost of
pursuing it. If you don't want to risk it all, don't try to pursue the throne. The West had an even more cut throat system during the Roman empire, with the percentages of emperors deposed by assassination or coup exceeding any Chinese dynastic era. Yet with the Empires demise
and it's replacement by Germanic barbarian kingdoms, Western political culture became less all-in and more restrained. Incidences like the murder of the two princes in the tower became uncommon when they barely would have warranted mentioning elsewhere. I'm still trying to grasp
what caused this transition. My gut feeling is it had to do with norms governing power sharing arrangements common to Germanic barbarian groups that ended up being scaled up above the tribal level, but I'm open to other suggestions.
