51–60 of 219 posts
Especially the end, and specifically:
> The United States has repeatedly failed and continues to fall short of its ideals but has shown a greater sense of self correction than almost any other. In China you cannot talk about most of history, while in the United States there are constant reminders about failures and how to apply those lessons.
- he says nice things about his friends and coworkers
- people line up
- there is social media outrage in China when events (as he describes) happens
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>it merely replaces a government not actually formed by the will of the people I'm confused by this statement. What do you mean "not actually formed by the will of the people"?
I'd imagine he's referring to the little ways in which our government and laws seem to end up going against the interests of the average consumer. Lobbyists orchestrating Congress to act against the interests of their constituents, etc. Or issues like the chairman of the FCC undoing net neutrality, when nearly every citizen is in favor of keeping it, etc. Increasingly it seems to be "of the will of the corporations",…
To blame libertarians for FCC is like blaming John McCain for Vietnam war.
Regarding the line-cutting/cheating he talks about. I like to distinguish between "culture" and something vaguer, which is what type of equilibrium someone is trapped in. I started to think this way when I lived in Argentina. Argentina is very corrupt, but just across the river is Uruguay...the least corrupt country in Latin America by some metrics. Argentines and Uruguayos are culturally quite similar (the relations…
Wouldn’t you characterize that as a significant cultural difference. Accepting corruption can be viewed as cultural. I would view it this way.
Contrast this: "I will use strong language about the authoritarian communist government but I do not want that in anyway to reflect upon the Chinese people." With these sentences: "There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in China. People do not have innate value as people simply because they exist. This leads most directly to a lack of respect for the law/rules/norms. One thing I be…
What I think is a problem is to suggest the entire Chinese populous of being money-loving but without asking how that happened. Life is tough when you have over a billion people to feed, and no government support structures to lean on in times of need. It’s dog-eat-dog because it needs to be, not because the Chinese people like it.
Regarding the not-stopping-to-help someone hit by a car; There’s pretty well known story about a bystander who tried to help, getting into deep trouble for doing so. I don’t have the link, but some creative Googling should surface the story.
The most accurate idea I’ve seen in years.
I think the flagging of the comment exemplifies how fearful people are of admitting to being a party to prejudice.
I am imagining that is one reason that the Chinese government is so scared of Christianity, which in recent decades has won over a great many converts, since it teaches that all human beings are the sons and daughters of God, and so should be treated with dignity and compassion.
Of course Christian societies have regularly violated this rule. But it has had a great influence, and it combined with ideas from Western philosophy to produce liberal democracy. And in fact Marxism, which is the official ideology of the Chinese government, has rather similar philosophical roots in Christianity and Western philosophy.
Contrast this: "I will use strong language about the authoritarian communist government but I do not want that in anyway to reflect upon the Chinese people." With these sentences: "There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in China. People do not have innate value as people simply because they exist. This leads most directly to a lack of respect for the law/rules/norms. One thing I be…
Speaking as someone essentially atheist (or at least, secular humanist), this entire piece is IMHO the strongest [secular] argument that can be made for Christianity's positive effect on Western values.
What positive effect has it had? I'm not trying to be combative but in history (and this was at a Catholic school) I was taught that most of the good parts of modern European political philosophy came only after it became less entangled with religion and came through the greater focus on rationality.