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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32826 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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I don’t even know why i’m bothering to ask this, but have you ever been to China?

No. I have not.

Think the cultures fit well together and we could each learn a lot from each other.

Please, Name one aspect of Chinese culture that you would like to see implemented here given the option between it, and the similar version of it present in Western countries before the 1960s.

Please, Name one aspect of Chinese culture that you would like to see implemented here given the option between it, and the similar version of it present in Western countries before the 1960s.

One late European adoption of an old Chinese custom is that of the competitive written examination, first advocated for in Britain and trialed in India, and then spread elsewhere. It is something that has already been adopted, yes, but I find your qualifiers nonsensical, and this serves as good an example as any for a far-reaching social institution that whites felt obliged to adopt for themselves.

The reason for the qualifier was to address a prescriptive claim. @YouEssAyyy was suggesting there was something we could currently learn from the Chinese. But yes, the adoption of the competitive written examination was incrediby valuable.

and the similar version of it present in Western countries before the 1960s

Why do you feel the need to add this qualifier? Do you think the Western culture today is what it is because of some racially inauthentic processes?

So I'll ignore your qualifier and respond with a quote from Nick Land.

There is no part of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, or very many other East Asian cities where it is impossible to wander, safely, late at night. Women, whether young or old, on their own or with small children, can be comfortably oblivious to the details of space and time, at least insofar as the threat of assault is concerned. Whilst this might not be quite sufficient to define a civilized society, it comes extremely close. It is certainly necessary to any such definition. The contrary case is barbarism.

These lucky cities of the western Pacific Rim are typified by geographical locations and demographic profiles that conspicuously echo the embarrassingly well-behaved ‘model minorities’ of Occidental countries. They are (non-obnoxiously) dominated by populations that – due to biological heredity, deep cultural traditions, or some inextricable entanglement of the two – find polite, prudent, and pacific social interactions comparatively effortless, and worthy of continuous reinforcement. They are also, importantly, open, cosmopolitan societies, remarkably devoid of chauvinistic boorishness or paranoid ethno-nationalist sentiment. Their citizens are disinclined to emphasize their own virtues. On the contrary, they will typically be modest about their individual and collective attributes and achievements, abnormally sensitive to their failures and shortcomings, and constantly alert to opportunities for improvement. Complacency is almost as rare as delinquency. In these cities an entire — and massively consequential — dimension of social terror is simply absent.

In much of the Western world, in stark contrast, barbarism has been normalized. It is considered simply obvious that cities have ‘bad areas’ that are not merely impoverished, but lethally menacing to outsiders and residents alike. Visitors are warned to stay away, whilst locals do their best to transform their homes into fortresses, avoid venturing onto the streets after dark, and – especially if young and male — turn to criminal gangs for protection, which further degrades the security of everybody else. Predators control public space, parks are death traps, aggressive menace is celebrated as ‘attitude’, property acquisition is for mugs (or muggers), educational aspiration is ridiculed, and non-criminal business activity is despised as a violation of cultural norms. Every significant mechanism of socio-cultural pressure, from interpreted heritage and peer influences to political rhetoric and economic incentives, is aligned to the deepening of complacent depravity and the ruthless extirpation of every impulse to self-improvement. Quite clearly, these are places where civilization has fundamentally collapsed, and a society that includes them has to some substantial extent failed.

While I agree with the sentiment that surrendering any part of a city to criminality us barbarous, I can think of plenty of western cities where there is little or no danger.

I don't think that the current low crime levels of many East Asian cities can be put down to some kind of long-running national culture, much less to 'biological heredity'. Late imperial China was quite a violent place; for just one example, the problem of laoguazei murdering and robbing travellers was thought to be endemic. An assessment of actual figures is obviously impossible to arrive at, guides on travelling published in the 18th century, for instance, often included warnings such as this;

[Rule no. 6]: When traveling, you must choose the right companion,

which might be helpful at times. If encountering someone unknown,

even if riding on the same boat or sleeping at the same inn, it is possible

that he has a different agenda from yours. All sorts of valuables should

be kept secret and guarded attentively. At night, be wary of theft. In

daytime, be wary of robbery.

[Rule no. 7]: No matter whether traveling via water or land, always

wait until the eastern sky turns bright before setting sail or leaving the

inn. If the eastern sky is still dim without any sign of sunrise, even if

a rooster has crowed, it is still nighttime. If one hurries to unleash the

boat or set off down the road, one must be wary of the danger of being

robbed by evildoers. When the sun starts to set in the west, one should

park the boat or find an inn. As the idiom goes, rest early instead of

late, better to be delayed than to be wronged

Likewise, William T. Rowe's study of Hankow in the late Qing period found that, while again we can't assess things quantitively, the public perception was the criminals were everywhere and that they were effectively free to commit crime as they pleased, and there were certainly 'bad' parts of the city where the more respectable citizen would not wish to find himself. As one newspaper observed in the mid-19th century, 'bandit-types from all over China find it easy to engage in violent crimes... the bad freely intermingle with the good'.

I do think there is a difference in that the late Qing was a period of decreasing state power and resulting anarchy, while as far as I understand it “bad neighbourhoods” have been around in Western cities even in their high points. My understanding is that in earlier periods of stronger state power, Chinese roads and cities were relatively quite safe compared to the rest of the world (and were remarked as such by travelers and merchants).

Nevertheless, this is better explained by culture and institutions than by genetics.

Eh, sort of, but that first quote (and more generally the problem of murder and robbery of long-distance travellers) dates back to the early 18th century, so this was still some way off the real crisis of the late Qing. In fact, state officials exerted enormous effort to stamp the problem out; towns in the most affected regions were supposedly plastered with appeals for help in murder-theft cases. They weren't always very good at it, of course.

institutions

Yep, this is it really I think, institutions.

early 18th century

That would be the high Qing? Did you mean early 19th century?

Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if post-Qianlong the Qing was mostly completely inept at policing its cities. Tax was light enough that the bureaucracy was extremely stretched, corruption was rampant just to keep the machine going, and this was the time where rebellions just started sprouting like weeds throughout the empire.

I did mean early 18c. I only meant to say late imperial China in respect of that part, I didn't mean to imply that this was in the late Qing (well the problem did persist of course, but it didn't start then).

Fair enough. You’re right that it is something that was important enough to be written about, and Qing china in particular was fairly frugal with its state expenditures.

The wokou during the Ming were quite often actually Chinese or bankrolled by disgruntled Chinese merchants, as well.

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