Will Communism in China die with a bang or a whimper?

[Richard_Parker]

@roger thornhill

RP, if you’re interested in learning more about the ethos of at least a portion of the world’s Chinese population, the following books provide serviceable introductions:

Lau, S.K. and Kuan, H.C. (1988) The Ethos of the Hong Kong Chinese, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

Kwok, N.W. (1996) 1997: Hong Kong’s Struggle for Selfhood, Hong Kong: Daga Press.

The second, written by a Protestant priest, is particularly perspicacious and unusually critical for a local author.

Of course there are people that believe in this idea of nationhood as sharing a common ethos. It’s an appealing idea for nationalists. But they are demonstrably wrong. Are there cultural ideas common to dominant cultures in a given country? Yes. But this is hardly a common psyche, or even an “ethos” as used in your previous posts.

Surely not even you believe that everyone in HK shares a common ethos. Indeed, since you think religion determines one’s moral character, you must reject that position.

[roger_thornhill]

@Richard Parker

Of course there are people that believe in this idea of nationhood as sharing a common ethos.

Not these authors. Me neither. Nationhood is a concept I don’t believe I had introduced, anyway.

It’s an appealing idea for nationalists. But they are demonstrably wrong.

Perhaps, and perhaps again. But hardly material.

Are there cultural ideas common to dominant cultures in a given country? Yes. But this is hardly a common psyche, or even an “ethos” as used in your previous posts.

On a continuum, I think it is not unreasonable to allot the Chinese a position on the monolithic, rather than pluralistic, end of the scale.

Surely not even you believe that everyone in HK shares a common ethos.

No, but the tendency towards having one is much stronger among Chinese people than among Europeans, and the aversion to having one much weaker.

Indeed, since you think religion determines one’s moral character, you must reject that position.

Actually, I reject the presupposition carried in the subordinate clause, and therefore have nothing to say about the assertion in the main clause. If any one thing “determines” one’s moral character (and “determine” is not a word I’m overly fond of), then it’s the individual’s will.

[Richard_Parker]

@roger thornhill

Not these authors. Me neither. Nationhood is a concept I don’t believe I had introduced, anyway.

Well, you may not have noticed, but the rest of us were talking about the Chinese nation. I assumed that’s what you were referencing when you talked about the Chinese psyche.

@roger thornhill

On a continuum, I think it is not unreasonable to allot the Chinese a position on the monolithic, rather than pluralistic, end of the scale.

Why?

Let’s be clear about what we mean by “Chinese.” Ethnically Chinese? What does that mean…Han? Do Tibetans count? What about the other 50-odd minority cultures in China? Suppose our definition is “citizens of the People’s Republic of China.” So, do the citizens of the PRC share common moral beliefs? I’m sure they do. Most believe that murder is wrong, etc. What we really want to know is do they share beliefs which are unique to their group, which identify them as Chinese. I cannot think of any. Even if we limit ourselves to just ethnically Han Chinese, you might get a little closer, but you’ll still be grasping at straws.

@roger thornhill

If any one thing “determines” one’s moral character (and “determine” is not a word I’m overly fond of), then it’s the individual’s will.

Great, but that disproves your first argument in this thread.

[roger_thornhill]

@Richard Parker

Great.

What I want to know, though, is do you agree?

[roger_thornhill]

@Richard Parker

but that disproves your first argument in this thread.

Really? It was really rather hedged, you know.

[Richard_Parker]

@roger thornhill

What I want to know, though, is do you agree?

Yes, very strongly. Which is why I reject this talk of national ethos determining (or even being the dominant influence upon) one’s morals or moral anchor.

[China_Guy]

@BrainGlutton

Why not? I mean, do the Chinese still have any faith at all in their government?

Well, Chinese have no faith in communism any more (well, some vestiges still abound but generally no). However, this is not the same as not having faith in the government, or the government has lost the mandate to rule.

The faustian bargain that exists in China at present is “let us get rich and you can continue to run the country.” After all, from a practical point of view, someone has to run the country so there is a framework for the masses getting a piece of the pie. Also keep in mind that this is the first time in Chinese history that the peasants are getting a piece of the pie. Sure it comes at a very high price (migrant, exploitive labor) but it’s still net-net very positive.

I base some of my optimism on the fact that I’ve been in China since 1985 and seen for myself how far this country has come in such a short time. I had a lot less faith in the China of the 1980’s holding together than I do now.

[roger_thornhill]

@Richard Parker

Yes, very strongly. Which is why I reject this talk of national ethos determining (or even being the dominant influence upon) one’s morals or moral anchor.

Then our differences on fundamentals are probably more a matter of style (my style) than substance.

[BrainGlutton]

@roger thornhill

No, but the tendency towards having one [a common ethos] is much stronger among Chinese people than among Europeans, and the aversion to having one much weaker.

You say Chinese culture differs significantly from Western culture in having much less of a “moral anchor,” yet you also say Chinese culture has a much stronger “common ethos.” What is the content of this Chinese common ethos, and why does it fail to provide a moral anchor?

[JRDelirious]

@China Guy

Well, Chinese have no faith in communism any more (well, some vestiges still abound but generally no). However, this is not the same as not having faith in the government, or the government has lost the mandate to rule.

The faustian bargain that exists in China at present is “let us get rich and you can continue to run the country.” After all, from a practical point of view, someone has to run the country so there is a framework for the masses getting a piece of the pie. Also keep in mind that this is the first time in Chinese history that the peasants are getting a piece of the pie. Sure it comes at a very high price (migrant, exploitive labor) but it’s still net-net very positive.

Right – in the absence of a democratic tradition an authoritarian government gains “legitimacy” if it keeps order and maintains the conditions necessary for the citizens to at least have an opportunity to get ahead in life; and, if things begin to stagnate, it can remain tolerated if at least it can enforce order and security against the threat of anarchy.

IMO the central organization and the nationwide apparat of the Communist Party seems to have become a reinterpretation of the classic Imperial system of a Court and Officials all over, only ostensibly based upon the Legalist school rather than the Confucian, and “Communism” replaces the “Harmony of the Heavens” as the mythical justification for the rulers to rule, quite apart from the practical application.

[roger_thornhill]

BG, what I meant by writing that the tendency towards having a common ethos is much stronger among Chinese people than among Europeans, and the aversion to having one much weaker, can be illustrated by an example.

I was working in Shanghai for three months in 2000, shortly after the Americans bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. I had got to know some of the students quite well, and asked three of them singly if they thought the Embassy had been deleiberately bombed or if it was a mistake/cock-up. They all said that the Americans had deliberately targeted the Embassy.

Intrigued and not a little disconcerted by this certainty about something (actions in war) that is intrinsically so uncertain, and understood to be so by most educated people, I took the opportunity at the end of the course, in a session that was more informal wrap-up than formal instruction, to ask the whole class (consisting of around 30 professionals taking a Diploma in Management Studies) to indicate if they thought the bombing was deliberate or a mistake. Without looking around at one another, or waiting until another should take the lead, all 30 put up their hands for deliberate.

These people used the Internet, had, or certainly appeared to have, no time for communism, and many of them had spent time abroad. They all had decent jobs in one of China’s richest, and most cosmopolitan, cities. And yet they bought into the nationalistically-driven line on this emotive issue, without even seeming to be aware of the emotiveness, and attendant irrationality, of that position. No alarm bells had gone off in their minds when faced with such certainty about the intrinsically uncertain. That to me was both significant and worrying. Certainly not how I would want my daughter (who, incidentally, speaks Chinese better than she does English) to develop.

Whether it was their inferiority complex speaking, as my wife, who is Chinese herself, suggested, I don’t know. But such uniformity, or what might be called “common ethos” (a phrase not used by me incidentally), certainly bears reflecting upon, expecially for those who seek understanding of the way people are, how they tend to think, and indeed how they will tend to think in the future.

[Richard_Parker]

@roger thornhill

BG, what I meant by writing that the tendency towards having a common ethos is much stronger among Chinese people than among Europeans, and the aversion to having one much weaker, can be illustrated by an example.

I was working in Shanghai for three months in 2000, shortly after the Americans bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. I had got to know some of the students quite well, and asked three of them singly if they thought the Embassy had been deleiberately bombed or if it was a mistake/cock-up. They all said that the Americans had deliberately targeted the Embassy.

Intrigued and not a little disconcerted by this certainty about something (actions in war) that is intrinsically so uncertain, and understood to be so by most educated people, I took the opportunity at the end of the course, in a session that was more informal wrap-up than formal instruction, to ask the whole class (consisting of around 30 professionals taking a Diploma in Management Studies) to indicate if they thought the bombing was deliberate or a mistake. Without looking around at one another, or waiting until another should take the lead, all 30 put up their hands for deliberate.

These people used the Internet, had, or certainly appeared to have, no time for communism, and many of them had spent time abroad. They all had decent jobs in one of China’s richest, and most cosmopolitan, cities. And yet they bought into the nationalistically-driven line on this emotive issue, without even seeming to be aware of the emotiveness, and attendant irrationality, of that position. No alarm bells had gone off in their minds when faced with such certainty about the intrinsically uncertain. That to me was both significant and worrying. Certainly not how I would want my daughter (who, incidentally, speaks Chinese better than she does English) to develop.

Whether it was their inferiority complex speaking, as my wife, who is Chinese herself, suggested, I don’t know. But such uniformity, or what might be called “common ethos” (a phrase not used by me incidentally), certainly bears reflecting upon, expecially for those who seek understanding of the way people are, how they tend to think, and indeed how they will tend to think in the future.

I don’t have much time to respond tonight, so I’ll be back. But I wanted to say quickly that I’ve studied this issue (contemporary Chinese nationalism and it’s interactions with the West) academically in some depth and I don’t think the unity of these particular political attitudes in China is any different that what you’d find in many other countries, including the US and Britain. It certainly has little correlation to education.

Consider just one example, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Only 2 US Senators, elite of the elite, rejected a resolution based on what historians now consider brazen propaganda. This was largely a result of the very kind of nationalism that is now popular in China.