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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

#81

Post by pessimizer »

ordu wrote: post #39
fahayekwasright wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really so sure? It’s not an easy thing to maintain awareness of the workings of one’s emotions, especially for someone raised in a repressive, collectivist culture that doesn’t value the internal life of the individual, and especially if that individual is on the spectrum, in which case the emotions are “buried” even deeper.

If his emotions are buried so deep, that there no way to see real world consequences of them, than maybe it is better to say, that there are no emotions? I think, that mottos in Western culture are just pathetic ones. Western culture knows nothing about how to raise steady emotions in people. I was born in USSR, and I saw how it should be done. But there is one consequence: with experience comes tolerance to external…

I've never heard a good case that emotions exist. I'm a believer that we have both a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system that are activated reflexively by the same types of stimulation that activate them in other animals; and as humans who deal with abstractions as physical metaphors, those abstractions stimulate our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems by activating the same ancient reflexes.

As humans are rationalizers, they construct reasons for these nervous activations after the fact. If you inculcate them with simple slogans that become habitual, they will interpret themselves in terms of those slogans. It's a failure of introspection, or rather a rerouting of any rational introspection through a lens of theory-theory[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-theory

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#82

Post by ebola1717 »

addicted wrote: post #54
Exo_Tartarus wrote: post #49

I'm not exactly sure what the point of the article is or what the author is trying to say. It's pretty much an abbreviated biography bookended by some attempts at philosophizing. It is interesting to hear how much easier the author found his British curriculum than his Chinese. I was also amused by how he mocked his Stanford MBA curriculum, and how the career office people were dismissive of his passion to make money…

"Smart hard working people succeed much more often than they don't." A smart hard working person today might be a hard working computer scientist. Their skills would be absolutely worthless even a few centuries ago. Their skills would be absolutely worthless even today depending on where they are born and to the parents they are born. I'm not convinced "smart and hard working" are not post hoc descriptors themselves.

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...

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#83

Post by icebraining »

jraines wrote: post #51
PoliteTwig wrote: post #50

I find it interesting that the author only considers America from the top down - from the perspectives of institutions (Stanford, Goldman Sachs, Costco) and slogans (American Dream, All people deserve to live healthy lives). Part of me wonders if that’s due to America's own marketing, or due to his upbringing in a more totalitarian government, but for most Americans these perspectives are just as foreign. At dinner t…

This is a good point, but there's an awful lot of post-hoc Just World fallacy wrapped up in those same statements of faith. The really spurious ones - like 9/11 or Katrina being divine punishment - get media coverage but there're more bland ones that are actually more harmful; like disease or disaster being all part of God's plan. It's all good for living a life where you have to cope with what you can't directly con…

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.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#84

Post by walshemj »

aluhut wrote: post #70
walshemj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to work nine to five like a nice corporate drone retire and die within 2 years as was common a generation ago?

As opposed to work 8-7, be reachable 24/7 retire and die within 2 years as is common this generation?

er no the mortality statistics don't bear that out though maybe the NHS has something to do with that

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#85

Post by ixtli »

mcguire wrote: post #22

Could someone explain the point of this article? All I'm getting are: * Everything is random. * A generic Chinese man, who did really well on one test is smarter than most people in Britain. * Americans, who are capitalists, don't seem to want to focus their lives on the supposed end goal of capitalism. * MBA programs are nuts, especially if you are on the spectrum. I'm probably wrong about most of those, but like th…

I came to the comments expecting to be upset by people not finding this essay deeply disturbing and I'm glad I was at least a bit wrong :)

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#86

Post by ixtli »

isoskeles wrote: post #35

> So I bought a heart rate monitor and checked my resting heart rate. Right around 78. And when the professor said to me in class “Puzhong, I can see that story brought up some emotions in you,” I rolled up my sleeve and checked my heart rate. It was about 77. And so I said, “nope, no emotion.” The experiment seemed to confirm my prior belief: my heart rate hardly moved, even when I was criticized, though it did jump…

Also worth noting that the author appears to have spent a long time learning the intricacies of how "business" and investment banking work, but seems to throw around the words "Capitalism" and "Communism" without any sort of acknowledgement that they don't really describe at all what goes on in the west or was going on in China when he was growing up.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#87

Post by ordu »

walshemj wrote: post #63
ordu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If his emotions are buried so deep, that there no way to see real world consequences of them, than maybe it is better to say, that there are no emotions? I think, that mottos in Western culture are just pathetic ones. Western culture knows nothing about how to raise steady emotions in people. I was born in USSR, and I saw how it should be done. But there is one consequence: with experience comes tolerance to external…

what does "steady emotions in people" mean? are you suggesting that brainwashing / political indoctrination is a good thing

Nope, I don't mean that brainwashing is ethically good. Its just much more effective in totalitarian state.

If "steady emotions" is not clear, it may be due to my bad English. I used "steady" in the sense "persistent" and "strong". You say "communism" and people respond with strong emotions, mainly positive. I didn't tried to judge it ethically. Let's leave this for another discussion.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#88

Post by SadWebDeveloper »

> UK’s university system is considered superior to China’s,..., about one in ten applicants gets into Oxbridge in the UK, ...,but in Hebei province in China, where I am from, only one in fifteen hundred applicants gets into Peking or Qinghua University

"western universities" aren't only for "the best and brightest" but also for those who can afford it, this narrowly reduces the number of applicants.

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#89

Post by aluhut »

walshemj wrote: post #84
aluhut wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to work 8-7, be reachable 24/7 retire and die within 2 years as is common this generation?

er no the mortality statistics don't bear that out though maybe the NHS has something to do with that

I would still like to work 9-5...

Re: The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective

#90

Post by ordu »

pessimizer wrote: post #81
ordu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If his emotions are buried so deep, that there no way to see real world consequences of them, than maybe it is better to say, that there are no emotions? I think, that mottos in Western culture are just pathetic ones. Western culture knows nothing about how to raise steady emotions in people. I was born in USSR, and I saw how it should be done. But there is one consequence: with experience comes tolerance to external…

I've never heard a good case that emotions exist. I'm a believer that we have both a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system that are activated reflexively by the same types of stimulation that activate them in other animals; and as humans who deal with abstractions as physical metaphors, those abstractions stimulate our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems by activating the same ancient reflexes. A…

Good point.
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