Two things, one of which was in my big list of things to watch for, below. From your recent changes to Fair for Its Day (bolding mine):
The instinct for that is to fundamental to eradicate without a brutal purge everywhere, and China makes a big deal of clannishness, and Confucianism. Moreover the examinations sometimes had a weakness for what might be termed "cultural studies" courses rather then things like law or statecraft...
The bolded "to" is another place where you need to use "too" instead. In these places, "too" means "to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible; excessively."
"Then" is only used to reference relative times. If you're not referring to anything related to time, you're using the wrong word. For a comparison like you've written above, you use "than". Think of the old line from the Cold War:
Better dead than Red -- Expresses a political preference, one rather than the other.
Better dead then Red -- Indicates the order in which you'd like to be both.