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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33252 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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The lack of empathy you observe in mainland Chinese culture is in large part due to the cultural devastation unleashed by communism over the past century, which has created a far more atomized, materialistic, acquisitive, and sociopathic society than existed previously or that can be seen in ethnic Chinese communities that did not undergo the twin calamities of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. This extends even to minority communities such as the Uyghurs, who used to practice a syncretic form of Islam that had integrated into Chinese society before it was torn up by its roots and replaced in recent years by more extremist forms of Wahhabism.

This is not to say that premodern agricultural societies on the edge of starvation or within living memory of such won't in general be numb to human and animal suffering outside of their immediate circle of care in a way that would horrify any First Worlder, but that applies equally to India and Africa as to China, and ignores the extent to which the displacement of traditional cultures by Western ideologies in certain cases caused immense human suffering (like a virus jumping from a well-adapted host to a naïve individual, so to speak).

As for art, while I can't say it was better than what the Greeks or Renaissance masters accomplished, I don't think Chinese sculpture is quite as bad as you made it out to be.

There's not much to say on the topic of footbinding except to agree that it was one of the most horrific cultural practices ever to exist, though my ancestors would insist I point out to you that certain Chinese communities of which they were a part did not participate.

Lastly, regarding masks, I have pretty much run out of alternative explanations for why the degree of imposition they represent is seen to be so different across different populations, so I'm willing to give that one to you. Whether that means me and mine are all alien bugmen with whom the West can never have mutual understanding, time will tell, but I certainly hope not, as ethnic cleansing is really quite a hassle.

Apparently they were quite good by medieval standards!

Some Chinese porcelain art is (…mostly?) quite beyond what other cultures have done with the same, historically. We can’t forget about funny things like the flying horse of Gansu, either. Bird-and-flower paintings, as well.

I've seen a number of traditional Chinese paintings and they are quite good. By whatever standards high art should be judged, I don't see them as lacking.

And I have toured a few Chinese palaces from centuries ago and they did not appear to lack sophistication or artistry. But I'm not an art historian.

The lack of empathy you observe in mainland Chinese culture is in large part due to the cultural devastation unleashed by communism over the past century, which has created a far more atomized, materialistic, acquisitive, and sociopathic society than existed previously or that can be seen in ethnic Chinese communities that did not undergo the twin calamities of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Do we have any reason to believe that this is true? People living with the shame of being part of an inescapably horrible society are not exactly going to be immune to fabricating the idea of a brighter past.

Consider this quote from, Ralph Townsend a US Consular official writing before the war and before the Communist takeover.

"Almost any veteran foreigner who has traveled up and down the rivers of China will be able to recount one or more cases where he has personally observed a man

drown without efforts to save him by other Chinese a few feet away on shore or in a boat. "

His experiences disgusted him so much that he published a book called "ways that are dark, the truth about China", and went around the U.S claiming that the Japanese were actually the good guys (getting arrested and charged with the Manafort offense - acting as an unregistered agent). That, or he was on their payroll from the start and made shit up, I guess we can never know for sure.

Having read it, I can say that the Wikipedia summary in no way understates the allegations he makes:

Through a large number of personal and second-hand anecdotes, Townsend argues that the Chinese may be the only people in the world who are completely unable to comprehend the basic human impulses of sympathy or gratitude toward other people. Because the Chinese feel no empathy toward others, they behave in an unbelievably sadistic and cruel fashion toward one another, and they view altruistic foreigners as targets to be mercilessly taken advantage of.

https://ia802900.us.archive.org/29/items/waysthataredarkthetruthaboutchinabyralph_202003/Ways%20that%20are%20dark%20the%20truth%20about%20China%2C%20by%20Ralph.pdf

“Are Chinese actually lizardmen” is certainly a take, given the sheer amount of moralising and, well, empathy you can read out of the ample historical annals of imperial China, even just from the court records.

Do we have any reason to believe that this is true? People living with the shame of being part of an inescapably horrible society are not exactly going to be immune to fabricating the idea of a brighter past.

This is to a significant degree true, and is quite well known by most who also know about the bystander problem in Chinese affairs. Makes me curious about what source you’re getting this information from, that they take away such context.

Consider this quote from, Ralph Townsend a US Consular official writing before the war and before the Communist takeover.

"Almost any veteran foreigner who has traveled up and down the rivers of China will be able to recount one or more cases where he has personally observed a mandrown without efforts to save him by other Chinese a few feet away on shore or in a boat. "

His experiences disgusted him so much that he published a book called "ways that are dark, the truth about China", and went around the U.S claiming that the Japanese were actually the good guys (getting arrested and charged with the Manafort offense - acting as an unregistered agent). That, or he was on their payroll from the start and made shit up, I guess we can never know for sure.

If we are to be trading polemics, allow me to quote Bertrand Russell who has a much more mainstream take:

A friend in Peking showed me a number of pictures, among which I specially remember various birds: a hawk swooping on a sparrow, an eagle clasping a big bough of a tree in his claws, water-fowl standing on one leg disconsolate in the snow. All these pictures showed that kind of sympathetic understanding which one feels also in their dealings with human beings—something which I can perhaps best describe as the antithesis of Nietzsche. This quality, unfortunately, is useless in warfare, and foreign nations are doing their best to stamp it out. But it is an infinitely valuable quality, of which our Western world has far too little. Together with their exquisite sense of beauty, it makes the Chinese nation quite extraordinarily lovable. The injury that we are doing to China is wanton and cruel, the destruction of something delicate and lovely for the sake of the gross pleasures of barbarous millionaires.

…

Of course China helped little, if at all, towards the winning of [WWI], but that was not what the Allies expected of her. The objects of the European Allies are disclosed in the French Note quoted above. We wished to confiscate German property in China, to expel Germans living in China, and to prevent, as far as possible, the revival of German trade in China after the war. The confiscation of German property was duly carried out—not only public property, but private property also, so that the Germans in China were suddenly reduced to beggary. Owing to the claims on shipping, the expulsion of the Germans had to wait till after the Armistice. They were sent home through the Tropics in overcrowded ships, sometimes with only 24 hours' notice; no degree of hardship was sufficient to secure exemption. The British authorities insisted on expelling delicate pregnant women, whom they officially knew to be very likely to die on the voyage. All this was done after the Armistice, for the sake of British trade. The kindly Chinese often took upon themselves to hide Germans, in hard cases, from the merciless persecution of the Allies; otherwise, the miseries inflicted would have been much greater.

…

There is one traditional Chinese belief which dies very hard, and that is the belief that correct ethical sentiments are more important then detailed scientific knowledge.

…

I must confess that I am unable to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his main concern is to teach people how to behave correctly on various occasions. When one compares him, however, with the traditional religious teachers of some other ages and races, one must admit that he has great merits, even if they are mainly negative. His system, as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it has not given rise to a powerful priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It certainly has succeeded in producing a whole nation possessed of exquisite manners and perfect courtesy. Nor is Chinese courtesy merely conventional; it is quite as reliable in situations for which no precedent has been provided. And it is not confined to one class; it exists even in the humblest coolie. It is humiliating to watch the brutal insolence of white men received by the Chinese with a quiet dignity which cannot demean itself to answer rudeness with rudeness.

It must also be noted that Townsend was very high on the Japanese, who are quite closely related to the Chinese genetically; and sometimes in ways that age extremely poorly, as apparently he commended the Japanese invasion of China for how “humane” its armed forces behaved.

Interestingly, here is what Russell has to say about the Japanese, at least vis a vis the Chinese, also from The Problem of China:

The Japanese are earnest, passionate, strong-willed, amazingly hard working, and capable of boundless sacrifice to an ideal. Most of them have the correlative defects: lack of humour, cruelty, intolerance, and incapacity for free thought. But these defects are by no means universal; one meets among them a certain number of men and women of quite extraordinary excellence. And there is in their civilization as a whole a degree of vigour and determination which commands the highest respect.

…

It is very remarkable, as distinguishing the Chinese from the Japanese, that the things they wish to learn from us are not those that bring wealth or military strength, but rather those that have either an ethical and social value, or a purely intellectual interest.

…

One of the most remarkable things about the Chinese is their power of securing the affection of foreigners. Almost all Europeans like China, both those who come only as tourists and those who live there for many years. In spite of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, I can recall hardly a single Englishman in the Far East who liked the Japanese as well as the Chinese. Those who have lived long among them tend to acquire their outlook and their standards.

Interesting how a century changes things.

Anyway.

Having read it, I can say that the Wikipedia summary in no way understates the allegations he makes:

Through a large number of personal and second-hand anecdotes, Townsend argues that the Chinese may be the only people in the world who are completely unable to comprehend the basic human impulses of sympathy or gratitude toward other people. Because the Chinese feel no empathy toward others, they behave in an unbelievably sadistic and cruel fashion toward one another, and they view altruistic foreigners as targets to be mercilessly taken advantage of.

Forget careful societal analysis, we can dismiss this out of hand through a cursory glance at Chinese literature and philosophy. Would Dreams of the Red Chamber be written by a lizardman without empathy, and would a race of sociopaths keep record of poetry in the Book of Odes for three thousand years? Would a race wholly incapable of any tenderness found philosophies like Confucianism, where the first two of the five virtues are benevolence and righteousness, and Mohism (a warring-states philosophical school that was a major school of thought at the time), which has universal love essentially as its central tenet?

————————

Let me end with quoting Russell again:

China has an ancient civilization which is now undergoing a very rapid process of change. The traditional civilization of China had developed in almost complete independence of Europe, and had merits and demerits quite different from those of the West. It would be futile to attempt to strike a balance; whether our present culture is better or worse, on the whole, than that which seventeenth-century missionaries found in the Celestial Empire is a question as to which no prudent person would venture to pronounce. But it is easy to point to certain respects in which we are better than old China, and to other respects in which we are worse. If intercourse between Western nations and China is to be fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as missionaries of a superior civilization, or, worse still, as men who have a right to exploit, oppress, and swindle the Chinese because they are an "inferior" race. I do not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are inferior to ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who have any intimate knowledge of China, would take the same view.

deleted

This is a fair and honest response. I'll make sure to address it when I get the time. Thank you.

the Chinese may be the only people in the world who are completely unable to comprehend the basic human impulses of sympathy or gratitude toward other people.

My two cents probably means nothing to you, but Townsend should have traveled more. There are things in a large plurality of non-western cultures that would have horrified him. Although I am willing to bet that China does it at greater scale simply on a pure numbers perspective.

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