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The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#101

Post by ordu »

kunimu wrote: post #44
ordu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simple. In the future the Communism will be built, and all the people will be happy. It is absolutely certain. Every current event proves this statement, if you think otherwise, you should educate youself better by consuming mass media. But the past is not so certain, because the past is under control of the government, and the past undego changes sometimes. The past has its blank spots, there are some unmentio…

Communism is not a 'utopia' in the sense that everyone is happy all the time. It aims simply to do away with certain problems, just as public health services don't do away with every problem in your life. Your insinuation that I or any other Communist thinks this way is a strange one, though not unheard of. >you should educate youself better by consuming mass media. Is this not precisely the opposite of mass media? M…

> Is this not precisely the opposite of mass media?

Under all existing or existed communist government mass media brings The Truth, the government's interpretation of events. If you live here you should know this interpretation, or you risk to show political illiteracy and to be critisized for that. It can damage your career, or you will be forced to attend to courses of political literacy, or both. I believe it didn't work for blue collars, they had more freedom in this sense, but for white collar political illiteracy was a real threat. It was like now in USA with microagression of white males (as I see it from other side of ocean): if you catched on some sort aggression at female, you could be fired and get a "wolf ticket" (in short, it is markings in papers that does not allow to find white collar job), or attend to some sort of training, bring public apoligies, and so on.

> Nowadays, as I am sure you know, the contradiction and control is hidden not in the sentence...

Are you trying to persuade me that USSR was not as bad as it seems from USA? I know that. And USA is not as bad as it seemed from USSR. But I have no intentions to discuss it here. It is a contraversial topic, and it is like swamp: you step there and cannot get out of it. Moreover I see no point in discussing: there is no USSR now. Was it bad, or not so bad -- it does not matter now.

> I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm in favour of rewriting the past from.

Not you, but all communist states I know about.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#102

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

usaar333 wrote: post #24
hollerith wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also relevant is that fact that the article contains that statement, "I am the child of modest workers".

> Yet I had to do it every day. At the end-of-year exam, I scored second from the bottom of the class—the same place where I began in first grade. But this time it was much harder to accept, after the glory I had enjoyed just one year earlier and the huge amount of effort I had put into studying this year. Finally, I threw in the towel, and asked my parents to send me abroad. Anywhere else on this earth would surely…

Wonder if Hurtwood House knew the truth that he was second from the bottom or do they just take in anybody with money.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#103

Post by kunimu »

ordu wrote: post #101
kunimu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism is not a 'utopia' in the sense that everyone is happy all the time. It aims simply to do away with certain problems, just as public health services don't do away with every problem in your life. Your insinuation that I or any other Communist thinks this way is a strange one, though not unheard of. >you should educate youself better by consuming mass media. Is this not precisely the opposite of mass media? M…

> Is this not precisely the opposite of mass media? Under all existing or existed communist government mass media brings The Truth, the government's interpretation of events. If you live here you should know this interpretation, or you risk to show political illiteracy and to be critisized for that. It can damage your career, or you will be forced to attend to courses of political literacy, or both. I believe it didn…

I agree, however the Communist form is merely a re-telling of the capitalist form, it results from the same contradictions, the same process, and has the same result. Under the states of the past the control is unhidden and in fact presented unashamed by the powers that be. In the present day, the infiltration of the new rationality pervades not only media but all experience within modern society. When you hear Bach in the supermarket or watch the news or go to the voting booth, it is exactly the same domination, but in different forms.

This is why both the USA currently and the USSR formerly deserve the same criticism, and we need to move beyond this rationality of unfreedom, and the answer to this I belive lies firmly within the realm of revolutionary Communist movements, but only after realising exactly what inspired the controlling rationalities of the US and the USSR.

The US (as it continues) and USSR both institute(d) a policy in which the only freedom is that which you are told you are supposed to have, and that any freedom which transcends is called either "Socialist" or "capitalist". These are projected as 'bad' because they appear within their respective societies to reach 'the limits of reason itself'. To the American taken in by his 'freedom', Socialism is not only unreasonable, irrational or unjustifiable but it is impossible itself, because to him what is rational is production, the pervasiveness of technology and relentless consumption. Similar things can be said about the USSR and its descendant Marxist-Leninist states.

Within the USSR, there was no qualitative change, there was only quantitative change, and indeed due to their rationality, Socialism could only be seen as quantitative change, a sliding axis between capitalism and Socialism. This is because they were fixed by controlling rationality in which Communism has become quantitative, obscuring the fact that it is truly qualitative, Marx said as much all along: Communism is the rejection of all established notions, Communism abolishes all notions of morality, justice, freedom and indeed stands in opposition, contradiction to all previous societies.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#104

Post by wu-ikkyu »

bsaul wrote: post #91

I can't help but think that the conclusion being "whatever happens happens, and your actions have very little to do with what your life's going to be" is a very zen / taoism / asian philosophy cliché. Maybe the reason the west is successful lies in the belief that individuals matters. If that's the case, then i suppose the OP still has a long way to go.

Maybe there's a balance to be struck between the two ideologies: that seemingly insignificant individual actions can have profound effects, while also accepting the fact that there are infinite environmental variables that we have negligible control over which influence every single one of those actions.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#105

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

> In Communist China, I was taught that hard work would bring success. In the land of the American dream, I learned that success comes through good luck, the right slogans, and monitoring your own—and others’—emotions.

FTFY:

> In highschool, I was taught that hard work would bring success. In college, I learned that success comes through fooling people with good marketing.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#106

Post by sAvi0r »

hollerith wrote: post #6
rdtsc wrote: post #5

> My parents by then had reached the conclusion that I was not going anywhere promising in China and were ready to send me abroad for high school. Maybe the title should be "The Western Elite from a Chinese Elite Perspective". Surely sending kids to school to UK as plan B is not in the average Chinese family's abilities. Doesn't mean we should discount the article or its ideas but it's useful to keep the author's bac…

Also relevant is that fact that the article contains that statement, "I am the child of modest workers".

I think the upper class/elite in China are pretty isolated from the rest of the people, and really don't realize how bad a lot of their countrymen have it.

A good friend of mine is from Chengdu and for most of his life he thought he was just average - a guy whose parents sent him to the US for high school, pay ~30,000CAD/semester in tuition, bought him an X3 for his first car, etc.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#107

Post by timthelion »

Exo_Tartarus wrote: post #92
ebola1717 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, that sentiment is only true with a narrow set of upper middle class, white collar assumptions. What about hard working retail workers or factory workers? Or look how vast the race and gender disparities are...

Maybe they don't want to be anything other than retail or factory workers? Many people don't have ambition, or they have limited ambition.

maybe they don't want to be anything other than factory workers. That doesn't mean that they are fundamentally less valuable and less worthy of being paid their fair share.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#108

Post by icebraining »

jraines wrote: post #98
icebraining wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that tie with the statistics showing US citizens - and in particular more religious people - as good donors for charities and disaster victims? Seems contradictory.

It's complicated & kind of orthogonal. I am not trying to paint all religious people with the Pat Robertson-style example that I pointed out as egregious. This isn't an anti-religion post; it's just about the downside of thinking something was destined/planned/ordained just because it happened.

I wasn't accusing you of being anti-religion, just honestly curious :)

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#109

Post by bsaul »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #104
bsaul wrote: post #91

I can't help but think that the conclusion being "whatever happens happens, and your actions have very little to do with what your life's going to be" is a very zen / taoism / asian philosophy cliché. Maybe the reason the west is successful lies in the belief that individuals matters. If that's the case, then i suppose the OP still has a long way to go.

Maybe there's a balance to be struck between the two ideologies: that seemingly insignificant individual actions can have profound effects, while also accepting the fact that there are infinite environmental variables that we have negligible control over which influence every single one of those actions.

i don't think you need to "accept" the fact that there are infinite variables, or that you're not all-that-powerful. It's pretty much a given, and it's something you realise at 2 year old, when you really want to play with that ball, or lift that rock, or pretty much anything grown up do, but you can't. And as you're growing up, nature is always there to remind you that you're nothing.

IMHO, the role of education in the most general sense (encompassing the cultural background you're evolving in) is to help you think that you need to keep trying to make a difference, and not give up, because maybe one time in your life you'll accomplish something, and that'll be worth it.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#110

Post by TheGrassyKnoll »

zcase wrote: post #55

"Rather, the increase in inflation was due to things like tax increases, exchange rate fluctuations, oil price moves, etc." It seems to me that tax cutting could lead to increased consumption and therefore a reduction in GDP slack and upward pressure on prices (inflation). Why is it that tax increases would lead to inflation?

Either way, we can all sleep at night. Goldman Sachs made money...
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