So What's the Deal with China?

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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Tesseracts » Sun May 11, 2014 4:42 am

LaoWai, my friend wants me to ask you what you think the future of China is. Will it fall apart or become the most powerful nation ever like some seem to think it will? Will communism continue or will it turn to capitalism?

Also, I have another question. What is your opinion on Chinese culture and the way the West interprets that culture in the media? I frequently hear stuff about how East Asia has collectivist societies, but the way that is often described seems to lack nuance. I'm curious about Chinese art, religion, mythology, and culture in general, so if you know if any good websites or books I should look at on that subject I'll probably check them out. I know that's vague but there's so much I don't know I don't even know where to start.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Sun May 11, 2014 7:47 am

aviel wrote:And they don't complain about censorship then? It took years to get WotLK through the ministry of culture, when characters die they're made into neat little graves, and the ministry of culture delayed the implementation of MoP for years. WoW has had to deal with a lot of bullshit from the ministry of culture, so I'm kind of surprised those people are kvetching more.

Thanks for the answer, but a more specific question on censorship. I don't know if you're a fan of House of Cards, but apparently that's one of the few American shows available in China totally uncensored, because it portrays the American government as corrupt. There was a Cracked article written by Robert Evans and some person who grew up in communist Romania, which had tough censorship policies. There, they would show almost no American TV, except Dallas, because it showed American businessmen to be corrupt. But it ultimately backfired, because what people actually saw was an America where even the poorer people seemed relatively well off, and which was generally freer.

So, do you think the lack of House of Cards censorship is backfiring in a similar way? Like, is are people getting the message that the American government is corrupt, or are they getting the message that in America, you can accuse the government of gross corruption and it's not just not punished, but celebrating (presuming it's well done)?

I'm not a gamer myself, and the guys who are really into it are what we call 宅男 (like "otaku" for Japanese). I'd guess, though, that serious gamers were playing WoW long before the government approved it. You can buy DVDs of movies here long before the movies are released in theaters, and software patches are available on some forums before they're officially released. Remember, hackers here have been working their way around "The Great Firewall" for a long time.

(To give you an idea, when I had some of those protected CDs but wanted to load songs onto my computer, I just went to an electronics market filled with skinny chain-smokers with bad haircuts and poor hygeine skills and explained what I wanted done. The guy took a look at my CDs, and said "我陪你去龙的那里," or "I'll take you to the dragon's place." I met with the guy surnamed Long, literally dragon, paid about four bucks, came back two hours later, and he'd installed a little password-protected jukebox app on my laptop.)

As for House of Cards, no one here really cares.
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That's how most people watch American TV shows here--go to one of four popular websites and browse the catalog. It's all free, streams after a 30-40 second commercial, and is uncensored. The first two seasons of House of Cards combined now have 3.9万 or 39,000 views. By comparison, Season 1 of Breaking Bad is also at 3.9万, but Season 5 is at 12万, or 120,000 views. South Park, Game of Thrones, and anything else you can imagine are all there (but if the views don't reach at least 10,000, there's no easily browsable page).

Obviously, people here could care less about some old dude breaking the fourth wall. What do people really want?
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Zombies, they want zombies.
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Season 5 of The Walking Dead has 25359.5万views. That's 253,595,000. The comics are also insanely popular here.

Censorship just isn't as pervasive here as people imagine. I'd guess the House of Cards story resulted more from a slow news day in the States than from any real phenomenon here.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Sun May 11, 2014 8:41 am

52xMax wrote:So what's the deal with the "special economic zones"? how do they work, and why doesn't China just fully embrace capitalism?

You have to look a bit at the history of the country to answer those questions. Not to go into to lengthy detail, but China's history is filled with huge shifts in the basic economic structure. Under the Qing, there was a massive movement into international trade and westernization, and that didn't work out so well for China (i.e., the Opium Wars, systemic instability, and the dynasty's collapse). The Qing fell, and you got the Guomingdang, who tried to rearrange the whole country but just didn't have the power. After the civil war, when the CCP took over, they shut the doors and shifted the whole country to basically farm-based collectivism. For a while, that actually worked pretty well. (Some of the older women in my building go out front for cold noodles and beer early in the morning, and they have nothing but good to say about the early shift to communal farms. They also still wax rhapsodic about what a handsome man Mao Ze Dong was.) Then there was a shift toward industrialization, a famine, and a cultural revolution, and the country ended up pretty far down in terms of GDP and power.

That's all grossly oversimplified, but suffice it to say that radical, systemic change is a really shaky propositon for the government here. The special economic zones (SEZs) were a way for the country to shift toward greater industrialization and commercialism while limiting the potential for disaster. Originally, four cities and one province (all southern and coastal) were designated SEZs. SEZs basically use tax incentives to draw foreign investment. Basically, anyone who wanted to come from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Britain, etc., build a factory, hire workers and start producing products for export would get massive tax breaks in addition to getting labor at the China price. Later, a sixth SEZ was opened further north.

The SEZs worked really well. I'm in Shenzhen, which is the first one, and the one that was basically built from scratch. People say it was just a "fishing village" in 1979, but it was a pretty big one, with a population of about 300,000. Now it's basically a metropolis. (Conservative population estimates are around 10 million.) More importantly, there's been a shift from low-tech manufacturing to high-tech industry. Nearby there are a series of roads named 工业 (industry) roads#1-10. The whole area used to be just factories. Now there are almost no remaining factories and a growing high-tech park. It's also developed a number of satellite cities that are relatively well-developed.

Over the last couple of decades, China has also opened a large number of coastal development areas, and opened a large number of cities, including the provincial capital cities. If you go to major cities, the infrastructure and economic activity looks pretty much like what you'd see in the States or Europe, and almost everywhere you go, you see what's basically capitalism. Even well out into the countryside, you'll see a lot of cottage industry--people selling hand-made trinkets and stuff during tourist seasons.

I'd say the whole country, if not fully embracing capitalism, is at least giving it one of those two-handed handshakes and a big grin. Cities like the one I live in are basically married to it.

Edit: Oh, yeah, I'll answer your food question, but that one needs a lot more pictures and all.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Ashtherion » Sun May 11, 2014 8:52 am

aviel wrote:
LaoWai wrote:Under contract, part of a government-hired professor's job here is to promote government policies, which includes promoting family planning and work-unit accountability.

Then that's the Orwellian bit. Here it's not only not a professor's job to promote the government's policies, he has some protections if he speaks out against the government itself (particularly if he's tenured).


I think you're being melodramatic. At the very least, I don't think it's a fair comparison to say that it's Orwellian, purely for the sake of accuracy; it seems to me a better analogy would just be the employer/employee dynamic you'd find in any field of employment. Insofar as I know, professors in America aren't government-hired, so they're free to speak whatever they want (relatively speaking), even if it's against the administration. In China though, the professors are employees of the government, so speaking out against the administration is essentially tantamount to subverting your company in front of customers...which would get you fired in pretty much every customer-relations job, regardless of country.

Imagine if you walked into an Apple Store looking for an iPad because you're a technologically incompetent buffoon who has way too much money (Also, I hate you)and one of the guys at the Genius Bar started trying to sell you an Android or Windows tablet. He's not holding onto his job for long.

aviel wrote:
"Harmony" is a popular joke here among the Internet crowd. The official 和谐 (harmony) is often represented by the sound-alike characters 河蟹 (river crab), so grassroots bloggers who find their posts censored may start hiding pictures of river crabs all over their blogs. Sound-alike characters are used a lot to mock or criticize censorship and propaganda.

I think I'd heard this before. Honestly I feel like the pun is lost in translation. In English, harmony doesn't sound much like river crab.


To give you an idea, the former is pronounced "Heh-xieh" at the end, while the latter drops the elongated "eh" sound at the end to go "Heh-xie". Google translate'll probably give you a workable understanding of it.

EDIT: I'll add to what LaoWai said and say that anyone who actually thinks China is communist has no idea of what the place is actually like. Communism gets paid lip service, nothing more. Exploitation, bribery and corruption is rampant and the divide between the haves and have-nots is obscene. And I don't mean "divide" as in the Gina Rhineheart/Donald Trump vs. everyone else kind of way either that you never really think about unless it's directly called to attention; it's virtually impossible to spend a single day in China and not see it. You'll see a gaggle of women sporting several Louis Vuitton handbags marching down the street alongside a weathered and wilting senior straining to haul a truckload's worth of junk strapped to a decrepit and rusted bike, barely struggling to get by. The difference isn't so much lingering in the air in idle hypotheticals as it is punching you in the eye at every step. You'll see families crammed into filthy, shoddily-built skyscraper-slums with cardboard for walls that look like they might collapse at a moments notice, then turn the corner and find 12 sparkling-new high-rises that are almost completely unoccupied.

Compare:
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One of many, many boulevards of excess, neon and consumption
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Both of these were taken in the same city, both in more or less urban areas.

It's actually kind of hard not to be revulsed when I do visit.

Tesseracts wrote:I frequently hear stuff about how East Asia has collectivist societies, but the way that is often described seems to lack nuance. I'm curious about Chinese art, religion, mythology, and culture in general, so if you know if any good websites or books I should look at on that subject I'll probably check them out. I know that's vague but there's so much I don't know I don't even know where to start.


It's really hard to describe Chinese culture. From an outsider's perspective it's easy to assume that we're fairly uniform (largely due to the dominance of Han-tribe characteristics proliferated in international media), but as an insider, the reality is significantly more complex. China is a big place made of many different individual tribes with their own individual histories and customs so the prevalent cultural characteristics vary significantly depending on which locale or province you're talking about. For instance, the rural areas of Sichuan have a significant Tibetan affectation, whereas Taiwan blends a bit of Japanese and Korean culture; in contrast Hong Kong is fairly Westernized. If you're serious about getting to know Chinese culture you have your work cut out for you; I'd recommend on fixating on one particular province at a time rather than trying to get an overarching feel of what everything is like.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Learned Nand » Sun May 11, 2014 9:10 am

Ashtherion wrote: Insofar as I know, professors in America aren't government-hired, so they're free to speak whatever they want (relatively speaking), even if it's against the administration.

There are some private universities, but most American professors are government employees. Universities are entirely government institutions, the professors are paid by the government, and they work on government property.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Sun May 11, 2014 12:41 pm

Ashtherion wrote: TRUTH

The divide between the haves and the have-nots can be huge and striking. It can also be deceptive at times. For example, the Louis Vitton bags may be counterfeits, or the old woman collecting bottles out of garbage cans for recycling may be sent out by her son or daughter who live in one of those fancy high-rises. The people who seem to barely be scraping by in an urban setting may be sending money back home so Mom and Dad can buy a fancy mansion back home. The basic divide in cities is definitely real, though. I'm in a basically immigrant city, so the dirt-poor you see here are mostly people who moved here to get rich quick and just failed, but in older cities, there's also a huge number of people who just got out-paced by growth. Had economic reform happened all at once, I'd assume the disparities would have been even larger.

Tesseracts wrote:LaoWai, my friend wants me to ask you what you think the future of China is. Will it fall apart or become the most powerful nation ever like some seem to think it will? Will communism continue or will it turn to capitalism?

Also, I have another question. What is your opinion on Chinese culture and the way the West interprets that culture in the media? I frequently hear stuff about how East Asia has collectivist societies, but the way that is often described seems to lack nuance. I'm curious about Chinese art, religion, mythology, and culture in general, so if you know if any good websites or books I should look at on that subject I'll probably check them out. I know that's vague but there's so much I don't know I don't even know where to start.


As Ashterion has done a good job of pointing out, it's already turned to capitalism. The official economic policy is "Socialism with Chinese characteristics," whatever that means. As for the future, I don't think it needs to be just the two options of falling apart or becoming the most powerful. I think the large aging population that's going to be retiring soon is going to put a huge dent in GDP growth (right around the same time it's "scheduled" to overtake the US's), and that the divide between internal provinces and coastal provinces is a problem that will need to be very carefully managed.

There's been a big push to open up cities in internal provinces already, but it's going to be hard to convince Chinese that the "Shenzhen Dream" and the "Beijing Dream" are passe, and it's all about Qongqing now. (It'd be like telling an aspiring actor, "Forget LA; forget New York; Wichita's the place to be if you want to be a star."

Regarding the culture, I'd say the biggest way the West misinterprets it (aside from viewing it as one monolithic structure, as Astherion pointed out) is basically by representing it as more or less noble but rather backwards--somehow an extension of either Confucian or Daoist (Taoist) principles. Even among the Han majority, the culture's a huge hodge-podge of influences, and in daily life Western influence can be huge. You do get, for example, people dressing in traditional clothing and going out for morning tea at the local Cantonese restaurant, but you also get the old ladies in their English T-shirts eating noodles and swilling beer at 6 am. It's very different than what I'd expected.

Most of my China-related reading now is in Chinese, actually. For a good history book, I'd say I like John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman's "China: a New History." An American author named Peter Hessler has two great mixes of personal narrative and history, "Rivertown: Two Years on the Yangtze" and "Oracle Bones: A Journey through Time in China," that are absolutely great for getting a sense of the changing country. (He's also got a third book out, but I haven't read it yet.)

Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh" is a good, pretty American-friendly introduction to Daoism, though I think his follow-up "The Te of Piglet" is pretty shoddy work. If you can find R.B. Blakney's translation of the Dao De Jing, it has a great foreword about the origins of what we think of as Daoism. China's other major religions would be Buddhism and Islam, but I don't have as much interest in those so can't recommend much.

I tend to enjoy calligraphy more than the other artwork here, but that may not appeal so much if Chinese writing looks like scribbles to you. (Actually, some of the scripts do pretty much look like scribbles.) The biggest name among painters from the 20th century was probably 齐白石. You might want to check some of his work out online. (I don't appreciate it much, myself, but taste is subjective.) If you're interested in both philosophy and comics, see if you can get some books by 蔡志忠, who does comics illustrating quotes from Confucius and Sunzi that were published by...Princeton, I think.

If I think of any others, I'll add them in here later.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Mon May 12, 2014 4:50 am

aviel wrote:
Ashtherion wrote: Insofar as I know, professors in America aren't government-hired, so they're free to speak whatever they want (relatively speaking), even if it's against the administration.

There are some private universities, but most American professors are government employees. Universities are entirely government institutions, the professors are paid by the government, and they work on government property.

aviel is right on this one. I worked in a university for six years before leaving the States, and my paycheck was issued by my state's treasurer.

As an "adjunct professor" I did in fact have some common-sense limitations to my freedom of speech; for example, pointing out that 80% of classes at the university were taught by adjuncts (who receive very small compensation and no benefits) could result in classes not getting cross-listed, which usually means they don't get filled. The misery of an adjunct's life is maybe fodder for another thread, though.

Here, I only think it's important to note that exercising and encouraging freedom of speech in the US is techically exercising and encouraging a government-sanctioned right, so it's still advancing and encouraging government policy. It's just advancing and encouraging government policy with which we agree more.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Learned Nand » Mon May 12, 2014 5:42 am

You can endorse and exercise the right to free speech all you want as a professor, but endorsing a right of your own will and being made to endorse policy are wildly different things.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Mon May 12, 2014 9:02 am

aviel wrote:You can endorse and exercise the right to free speech all you want as a professor, but endorsing a right of your own will and being made to endorse policy are wildly different things.

But it's a two-way street in the US. Professors don't get to deny anyone in their classes freedom of expression either. They're not allowed to penalize students for saying or writing things they disagree with.

As an instructor, I was required by contract an anti-homosexual marriage paper by a homophobe by the same standards as I evaluated a pro-homosexual marriage paper by a homosexual. As a government employee, I wasn't permitted to say, "This is hateful garbage and I'm not even going to finish reading it," the way any private citizen could. (There's actually some double-think there, giving up freedom to ensure freedom.) I had to read it carefully, make notes about rhetorical elements, grammar, sources, then explain to the student that "godhatesfags.com is not what might be considered an academic source; perhaps you could improve your grade by finding academic sources to support your claims."

That is actually being made to endorse policy, and it's required by contract. The thing that make that not-the-least Orwellian to me is that I got to choose to sign the contract.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Learned Nand » Mon May 12, 2014 9:16 am

LaoWai wrote:But it's a two-way street in the US. Professors don't get to deny anyone in their classes freedom of expression either. They're not allowed to penalize students for saying or writing things they disagree with.

As an instructor, I was required by contract an anti-homosexual marriage paper by a homophobe by the same standards as I evaluated a pro-homosexual marriage paper by a homosexual. As a government employee, I wasn't permitted to say, "This is hateful garbage and I'm not even going to finish reading it," the way any private citizen could. (There's actually some double-think there, giving up freedom to ensure freedom.) I had to read it carefully, make notes about rhetorical elements, grammar, sources, then explain to the student that "godhatesfags.com is not what might be considered an academic source; perhaps you could improve your grade by finding academic sources to support your claims."

I understand what you're saying here but this is not a good example. A paper decrying homosexual marriage will necessarily have bad arguments, and as a professor it is absolutely within the scope of your authority to give a paper a poor grade because it makes a bad argument.

That is actually being made to endorse policy, and it's required by contract. The thing that make that not-the-least Orwellian to me is that I got to choose to sign the contract.

How is it being made to endorse policy? It seems to be exactly the opposite, being made not to endorse policy through grading practices. Which is incredibly different from being forced to endorse policy through grading practices. The latter is an infringement of freedom of political expression, the former is a protection of it. The latter promotes critical thinking about government policy, the former forbids it. The latter is kind of Orwellian, the former is not.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Ashtherion » Mon May 12, 2014 12:23 pm

aviel wrote:I understand what you're saying here but this is not a good example. A paper decrying homosexual marriage will necessarily have bad arguments, and as a professor it is absolutely within the scope of your authority to give a paper a poor grade because it makes a bad argument.


I'm going off topic but:

That's an assumption you're making. While I can't say I've ever seen a good/convincing argument for banning homosexual marriage, that doesn't mean that ANY arguments in favour of banning gay marriage is necessarily bad, simply that there have been no convincing arguments from that particular perspective yet. The fact that something does not or has not existed is not conclusive evidence that it will never exist. To be internally consistent with our personal values of un-bigotry, we have to treat all arguments equally on their own merits, regardless of whether or not we personally agree with the perspective from which it originates; the poor quality (or more colloquially, stupidity) of an argument can only be ascertained after it has been made, not before its author has typed the first word. To do otherwise is to be bigoted against the bigoted, and while that's probably not quite as morally reprehensible as other types of bigotry, it does make cries for equality and impartial treatment ring rather hollow. Discrimination against discriminators (no matter how richly deserving) is still discrimination.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Mon May 12, 2014 6:15 pm

aviel wrote:
LaoWai wrote:But it's a two-way street in the US. Professors don't get to deny anyone in their classes freedom of expression either. They're not allowed to penalize students for saying or writing things they disagree with.

As an instructor, I was required by contract an anti-homosexual marriage paper by a homophobe by the same standards as I evaluated a pro-homosexual marriage paper by a homosexual. As a government employee, I wasn't permitted to say, "This is hateful garbage and I'm not even going to finish reading it," the way any private citizen could. (There's actually some double-think there, giving up freedom to ensure freedom.) I had to read it carefully, make notes about rhetorical elements, grammar, sources, then explain to the student that "godhatesfags.com is not what might be considered an academic source; perhaps you could improve your grade by finding academic sources to support your claims."

I understand what you're saying here but this is not a good example. A paper decrying homosexual marriage will necessarily have bad arguments, and as a professor it is absolutely within the scope of your authority to give a paper a poor grade because it makes a bad argument.

That is actually being made to endorse policy, and it's required by contract. The thing that make that not-the-least Orwellian to me is that I got to choose to sign the contract.

How is it being made to endorse policy? It seems to be exactly the opposite, being made not to endorse policy through grading practices. Which is incredibly different from being forced to endorse policy through grading practices. The latter is an infringement of freedom of political expression, the former is a protection of it. The latter promotes critical thinking about government policy, the former forbids it. The latter is kind of Orwellian, the former is not.

It's taken me a good while, but I can see now that we've been getting into apples and oranges here. I'm going to shoulder the blame for that one entirely. Let's shift the conversation altogether.

Let's start instead with cultural expectations for teachers. In China, the expectation for teachers is largely that a teacher should embody what he or she teaches, and it is expected that teachers also be moral role-models for students. "Do as I say, not as I do" is simply unacceptable to most Chinese. Historically, Confucianism has more or less dominated Chinese education.

Confucius dictated (in very much what we would consider the Piagetan model of instruction), and Confucianism is most easily summed up in one simple sentence: 君君臣臣父父子子 (roughly, "Let the ruler be the ruler, let the minister be the minister, let the father be the father, and let the son be the son"). In traditional Chinese thought, you, the individual are a cog in a machine, like it or not. The teacher is the teacher; the student is the sudent. In much the same way that all a good oarsman needs to know is how to row, and that the helmsman is a good helmsman, all the student needs to know is how to study, and that the teacher is a good teacher.

If you ask any morally upstanding foreign teacher in China what sentence they hate the most, the answer will probably be "I know." The Chinese, 我知道了, is actually closer to "I know that now." If the teacher says it, it must be right, or at least temporarily acknowledged as right. As long as the teacher is the perfect embodiment of ideals, the teacher is right.

If a foreign teacher openly smokes, drinks, curses and questions the government, the most hated response will be "No." Exchanges like "A: Bobo, let me see your book. B: No. A: Bobo, are you refusing to let me see your book? B: No. A: Bobo, are you human? B: No" are routine here. When the teacher is not a perfect embodiment of ideals, the teacher is impeachable, and anything the teacher says is necessarily wrong.

In the West, our most influential contemporary thinker has probably been Socrates. Socrates questioned everything, even that he was the wisest man. Man, he had the oracle of Delphi backing him, and he still gave up the power to say, "This is so"! This evolved, eventually (not fast enough for Socrates, unfortunately) into the Lockean idea that any schlub in the most backwater region of nowhere could question the government that provided him with economic and gastronomic stability. Eventually this was actually codified into law in at least one country as "freedom of speech."

Teachers in the West must also be a perfect embodiment of their long-standing cultural ideals, even if those ideals include fallibility. In the West there's an, again, long-standing tradition that argumentum ad hominem is dirty pool, so if a teacher smokes, drinks, and curses outside of class, it has nothing to do with what goes on in class. Yet, there are acceptable limits. If a teacher is caught outside of class using meth (i.e., breaking his country's laws), it could result in dismissal. If a teacher is caught diddling a minor (i.e., breaking his country's laws), it will definitely result in dismissal. Oddly enough, even though not-using-meth and not-diddling-minors aren't written into the definition of a teacher, there's a cultural understanding that these are included, a cultural understanding that the government enforces (almost as though government were meant to serve the people it represents).

If a Western teacher questions the government's decision to wage war in Iraq, no problem. That's actually the job of a teacher: 君君臣臣父父子子. If a teacher gets a paper that is filled with hate-speech and responds, "Take your redneck manifesto back up to the Appalachians and diddle your cousin with it, you twisted individual," then...ooops. The teacher has just violated a cultural norm. Again, 君君臣臣父父子子.

In both cases, there is a similar underlying process: underlying cultural expectations shape government policy, government policy shapes the contracts of government employees, and private citizens choose to become government employees or not. Outcomes may differ radically, but the foundation is similar, and the outcomes in both cases are shouldered by those who choose to do so. We (and I am definitely included in that "we") may have a strong preference for one outcome over the other, but classifying one outcome as right and the other as wrong is a sort of argumentum ad humanitatem in the end.

tldr: Culture's ain't all the same.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Learned Nand » Tue May 13, 2014 12:52 am

Ashtherion wrote:That's an assumption you're making.

Not really. As we can demonstrate that we should legalize homosexual marriage (for reasons of which I'm sure you're aware), it follows that any argument not presenting new evidence will be flawed. It's possible one of Lao Wai's student has done groundbreaking and irrefutable research in the field, but I think we can probably presume that wasn't the case.

To be internally consistent with our personal values of un-bigotry, we have to treat all arguments equally on their own merits, regardless of whether or not we personally agree with the perspective from which it originates

Absolutely, and I'm advocating nothing different. But I fail to see how this is an issue. It still allows you to give poor grades to people whose political opinions are grossly incorrect because, by the necessity of their being grossly incorrect, the argument in favor of it will be flawed. You don't have to presume it will be and grade on that basis. You read the paper, notice that the argument is flawed, and grade poorly on that basis.

LaoWai wrote:Teachers in the West must also be a perfect embodiment of their long-standing cultural ideals, even if those ideals include fallibility.

That is absolutely not true of professors. Maybe teachers, but not college professors, who have protections even if they act against cultural ideals. You're drawing a false equivalence between being allowed to act against cultural norms and being forbidden to act against cultural norms. You're drawing a false equivalence between being forced to endorse government policy and being made not to force endorsement of policy in grading (even if you can in class). The role of an American professor is not the same as the role of a Chinese professor. Each is expected to fulfill their role, but that does not imply an equivalence if the role is different.

The thing is, forcing a professor to endorse government policy is wrong. It is morally wrong. It suppresses critical thought about government policy and that's why you see it in governments like China, which don't operate democratically. Critical thought about government policy is essential to democracy and antithetical to oppressive forms of government.

On the other hand, it is not wrong to allow a professor not to endorse government policy. In fact, it's a moral requirement, because it promotes critical thought about government policy. Similarly, requiring professors not to enforce their ideas on government policy is a moral imperative for the same reason.

You're drawing a false equivalence. If American professors are expected to do their jobs within the bounds of more Western philosophy and Chinese professors are expected to do their jobs within the bounds or more Eastern philosophy, you don't get to say "see, they're the same". They're not. The Eastern philosophy is worse.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby LaoWai » Tue May 13, 2014 7:42 am

aviel wrote:The thing is, forcing a professor to endorse government policy is wrong. It is morally wrong. It suppresses critical thought about government policy and that's why you see it in governments like China, which don't operate democratically. Critical thought about government policy is essential to democracy and antithetical to oppressive forms of government.

On the other hand, it is not wrong to allow a professor not to endorse government policy. In fact, it's a moral requirement, because it promotes critical thought about government policy. Similarly, requiring professors not to enforce their ideas on government policy is a moral imperative for the same reason.

You're drawing a false equivalence. If American professors are expected to do their jobs within the bounds of more Western philosophy and Chinese professors are expected to do their jobs within the bounds or more Eastern philosophy, you don't get to say "see, they're the same". They're not. The Eastern philosophy is worse.

It's only a false equivalence if you refuse to think in terms of cultural relativism. If a professor is expected to embody his or her own culture (and required by contract to do so), it does not matter in which country he or she lives. The underlying requirement is the same; the outcomes differ radically because the cultures are different. Culture dictates morality. This is not to say that there can't be some moral absolutes; C.S. Lewis actually has a good commentary on this in "The Abolition of Man," in which he interestingly enough uses the "Tao" to describe objective values.

Judging another culture in terms of what is morally right and wrong, though, can be very tricky. For example, here, people would say that, since China has only defended its own borders, during which time the US has waged a number of invasive, territorial wars against other countries halfway around the globe, the US is clearly morally wrong. Here, people would say that by refusing to acknowledge the results of a democratic election in another country (as with victories by Hamas and Hugo Chavez), the US is clearly morally wrong. After all, they would say, the US is the only country fighting for "freedom" in the form of democratic elections, so how can it be morally right for them to refuse the choices made?

I don't think even democratic elections can be called a moral imperative for all cultures. In some cultures, for example, they get you Hamas. Among most well-educated people here, democratic elections are viewed as a tremendous danger. Among those who survived the Cultural Revolution, they're viewed as the greatest possible danger imaginable.

There are a growing group of 愤青 (angry youth) who are the most adamant about the need for democratic elections, so that their concerns can be met, their concerns being militant opposition to Tibetan and Taiwanese independence and basically the destruction of Japan. (They're also extremely nationalistic and hate anyone who dares criticize China in any way, especial hatred being reserved for CNN.) If you want to learn more about one man they'd love to see as president, I'll give you a link to 李阳: http://shanghaiist.com/2007/10/11/shanghai_daily_crazy_english_guru_a_bit_crazed.php

I'm not sure whether speaking Chinese or not speaking Chinese makes the video harder to view. You may at least be able to see the mockery of Japanese and American people. The images behind him are real. He fills entire stadiums for his "English lessons," and it's worth noting that (not being a government-hired teacer) he is exercising his freedom of speech. This is the type of guy that makes older people and well-educated people scared of democratic elections.

If you're interested in how he would handle 中美文化冲突 (cultural clashes between China and America), you can see him describe his role as international educator here: http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2014/03/crazy-english-founder-a-bit-crazy/. Remember, this guy still fills stadiums.
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Re: So What's the Deal with China?

Postby Learned Nand » Tue May 13, 2014 7:53 am

LaoWai wrote:It's only a false equivalence if you refuse to think in terms of cultural relativism.

I refuse to think in terms of cultural relativism for matters that aren't relative based on culture, and the right to freedom of expression is a universal right, not a Western right. Unless you're willing to defend China's practices in imprisoning and torturing political dissidents. If such practices are wrong, is it really because the punishment doesn't fit the crime, or because there isn't a crime in the first place?


Judging another culture in terms of what is morally right and wrong, though, can be very tricky. For example, here, people would say that, since China has only defended its own borders, during which time the US has waged a number of invasive, territorial wars against other countries halfway around the globe, the US is clearly morally wrong.

The US has not engaged in any territorial wars since about the 19th century, but I'm not going to defend all American wars. That's a red herring. The fact that the war in Iraq was wrong says nothing about whether freedom of speech is.

Here, people would say that by refusing to acknowledge the results of a democratic election in another country (as with victories by Hamas and Hugo Chavez), the US is clearly morally wrong.

I don't know enough about Hugo Chavez and his relationship with the US to say anything, but the current Hamas government in Gaza was not democratically elected. They seized power after murdering or expelling Fatah dissidents. And the reason more elections haven't been held in the West Bank is because Abbas has been unilaterally extending his term.

I don't think even democratic elections can be called a moral imperative for all cultures. In some cultures, for example, they get you Hamas.

All this means is that they're not the only moral imperative. There are also moral imperatives that a government cannot engage in terrorism, or suppress freedom of religion, or freedom of speech. There are moral imperatives that you should not engage in a war of aggression.

In Kuwait, Islamist parties won a large number of seats recently. They passed a law saying that all Kuwaiti laws must comply with Sharia. Should we conclude that Kuwait is not ready for democracy? No. The court struck the law down. You don't need to convince me that people vote badly. That doesn't mean that voting isn't a right. It means that the power of government is checked by a judicial branch. These problems were solved in the 18th century.
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