One thing that I worried when Deng started the economic reform and turned away from Mao’s attempt to mold human nature was inequality and the corrosive effect of capitalism on Chinese values. The Chinese article from guancha.cn I quoted on the heading above generated a lot of publicity and vehement condemnation from public about the case of a young couple attacking a cleaning lady when she objected to their child defecating on the street in Northern China. The woman said from her hospital bed that she would be fined from her superior if the street is not clean and 2 public toilets are nearby, and the job of cleaning public area, being the bottom of economic ladder, is look down by public and invisible. The comments were generally supportive of her. Some want to throw the book and prosecute the couple severely, others compare this with Mao’s era when the ideal was classless society, and any work is valued. Still others wonder why there is no official response on the incident other than the incident is under investigation.
There were other articles on guancha.cn about continuing anticorruption cases and praises for a new TV show on studying President Xi’s speeches on Chinese values. Obvious there is a new ongoing drive to return some of the values of Mao’s era of equality, anti-corruption, and “Serve the People” back into vogue. It’s human nature that the anticorruption drive is faced with continuing resistance from the bureaucracy and some liberal sectors complaining of returning to the dark age of CR. I suspect that President Xi will have a tough road ahead not only facing Trumpian U.S., but internally a heavy grind. Living here is U.S. I find the Chinese propaganda is lacking some human touch comparing to Western, softer approach. The narrative can be much more effective if they can learn from documentaries such as the HBO’s “Jane Fonda, 5 Chapters” or Ken Burns’ “Civil War”. I suggest that if President Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan visit the cleaning woman and presented her with a copy of Mao’s essay on “Serving the People”, it will be more effective than 100 intellectuals testifying the efficacy of Xi’s thought.
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ltlee1 says
1. 随地大小便 has nothing to do with Chinese value. And more to do with urban value. China or elsewhere. Strictly speaking, this is a kind of self expression.
http://nypost.com/2017/09/19/jogger-wont-stop-pooping-on-familys-lawn/?
http://abc7news.com/2724996/
2. China’s larger population means it has more crazy people, however defined, than every other country.
1+2 => China is not suitable for Western liberalism.
N.M.Cheung says
If what you take out of my venting are your listed 2 items, I think you are barking up the wrong tree or your English need more remedial work. Let me explain plainly for you. I was talking about the meaning of serving the people and class stratification. Since Deng’s reform, the value has been money not service, anyone who understand Chinese value would understand, would understand why Xi’s anticorruption is widely popular, why pro forma agreement will not achieve the purpose. Why some of Mao’s policies need to be revived. It has absolutely nothing to do with public defecation even though it’s disgraceful.
@ltlee1
ltlee1 says
I read your post and I wrote my thought. I am not trying to bark up any tree. Anyway, please allow me to elaborate.
Item 1 above is a generalization. The common saying is “One person’s terrorist and another person’s freedom fighter.” Similarly, one person’s unurbane or uncivilized behavior is another person’s natural behavior. It is a matter of perspective.
Item 2 is related to China’s large population. Even if we assume that all Chinese see everything “normally”, its large population would entail a long tail in whatever one cares to look.
Now the part about liberalism and liberal democracy. Every country needs good governance. One way to achieve good governance is to let a smaller group virtuous people lead. And of course, good intention backed up by good deeds could and would spread among the people. The other way depends on the reliability of the average. Let the average people do whatever they want. While each of them is not good enough, they could compete and compensate each other and deliver good government as a group.
Of course the latter approach is at the heart of “Liberalism”. High minded people are great but they inevitably fall for various reasons. Average people as individuals are nowhere as good but they are reliable. As individual, each one is reliably bad in this or that way. But as a group, they are reliably good because each one’s bad would check and balance someone’s bad.
Result of practicing liberalism in the US. a liberal democracy: It is as successful as the US political system is broken. In short, the different viewpoints and the bads among the people could not check and balance in a good way. The country ends up deeply polarized and the government in gridlock. People’s needs are often unaddressed.
Concerning class stratification, it is part and parcel of liberalism.
“This is liberalism’s most fundamental wager: the replacement of one unequal and unjust system with another system enshrining inequality that would be achieved not by oppression and violence but with the population’s full acquiescence, premised on the ongoing delivery of increasing material prosperity along with the theoretical possibility of class mobility.” (Quoted from Why Liberalism Failed)