Psychology Of Chinese Social Issues - Scholarly Study

While I think there are some good points in that article, which is composed of multiple op-ed pieces, there is plenty surrounding the issue that is not addressed and I think your take on the issue is at least skewed by three common misguided notions about China:
1) that China is some monolithic entity instead of the diverse society of over a billion very social people with many differences that it is,
2) that the CCP is some omnipotent entity with etched-in-stone policies always implemented to the letter instead of the dynamic political, civil, and administrative group of millions of members with plenty of differences and leeway in interpreting and implementing policies that it is, and
3) that Western notions of China must have validity if they are repeated often and loud enough rather than that they are just loud and often repeated and that has no bearing on whether they are valid.

It's too late in the day for me to dissect your long post but I will list some key points to consider:
- How the self-righteousness and presumption of omnipotence in monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Western culture compared to the harmony-within-the-greater-universe and presumption of vagaries in non-monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Chinese culture.
- How China's much more massive scale of human diversity for much longer continuous periods in history lending itself to similarly scaled naturally occurring expression and differences of opinion which require systemic taming, compared to Western much smaller scales of human diversity for a shorter periods in history with similarly scaled naturally occurring expression and differences of opinion which requires systemic encouragement.
- How China's much more massive scale of human poverty and relative ignorance in recent history lasting through the present day (though continually reduced) necessitates waiting until the day when a critical mass of Chinese society is wealthy and educated enough to have found its own voice and be able to judge information accurately for itself before being subjected to very loud and incessant Western voices, and a myriad loud and incessant independent Chinese voices which actually already exist.
- Only some people distrust established Chinese media outlets and that is only valid to a certain extent on certain topics, that is also true and valid for every other media outlet in the world, so that is insufficient reason to wholesale abandon or condemn these organizations.
- Privatized media face a different set of constraints and follow a different set of agendas, they are not necessarily any more objective or free than state funded or controlled media. Also most major countries including Western ones have both private and state funded or controlled media.
- The Occupy Central/Umbrella/Pro-Democracy protests are indeed mischaracterized by the Western media with much going unreported or obfuscated. It is a great example of there is one side of the story, there is another side of the story, and then there is a third story which is the truth. There is also the issue of whether the protesters themselves are mischaracterizing their goals.
- In terms of social media while being on a shared platform is a factor for ease of communication it is a very shallow factor and lends itself to shallow communication which may be worse than none.
- Hearing what others have to say does not mean you cannot have your own say, so China should hear others, express China's own viewpoints, and call out others when others are being ethnocentric.
- At the end of the day every voice out there has an agenda and only by listening to multiple voices, parsing what they are saying, investigating for yourself, and being sufficiently educated to independently deduce the truth can anyone get anywhere close to the truth.

The system's actually saying this post cannot be posted if it's over 10,000 characters so I have to cut down on quoting the earlier post...

airsuperiority said:

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I have to say, I am very very impressed with this article...

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PanAsian said:

It's too late in the day for me to dissect your long post but I will list some key points to consider:
- How the self-righteousness and presumption of omnipotence in monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Western culture compared to the harmony-within-the-greater-universe and presumption of vagaries in non-monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Chinese culture.

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Can you please elaborate your statement of contrast between the two respective world views.

PanAsian said:

It's too late in the day for me to dissect your long post but I will list some key points to consider:

- How the self-righteousness and presumption of omnipotence in monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Western culture compared to the harmony-within-the-greater-universe and presumption of vagaries in non-monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Chinese culture.

- How China's much more massive scale of human poverty and relative ignorance in recent history lasting through the present day (though continually reduced) necessitates waiting until the day when a critical mass of Chinese society is wealthy and educated enough to have found its own voice and be able to judge information accurately for itself before being subjected to very loud and incessant Western voices, and a myriad loud and incessant independent Chinese voices which actually already exist.

- Privatized media face a different set of constraints and follow a different set of agendas, they are not necessarily any more objective or free than state funded or controlled media. Also most major countries including Western ones have both private and state funded or controlled media.

- The Occupy Central/Umbrella/Pro-Democracy protests are indeed mischaracterized by the Western media with much going unreported or obfuscated. It is a great example of there is one side of the story, there is another side of the story, and then there is a third story which is the truth. There is also the issue of whether the protesters themselves are mischaracterizing their goal.

- Hearing what others have to say does not mean you cannot have your own say, so China should hear others, express China's own viewpoints, and call out others when others are being ethnocentric.

- At the end of the day every voice out there has an agenda and only by listening to multiple voices, parsing what they are saying, investigating for yourself, and being sufficiently educated to independently deduce the truth can anyone get anywhere close to the truth...

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PanAsian, your discussion of these things is trending towards religious and ideological discussions.

SD is not about those things...read the rules.

I must reiterate:

Any leaning towards, delving into, or continuance on a path towards those religious or ideological discussions will get this thread closed...and will get those involved int such conversations warned and then suspended if it goes that way.

'Nuff said.

Xi's onslaught is felt on the ground.

PanAsian said:

While I think there are some good points in that article, which is composed of multiple op-ed pieces, there is plenty surrounding the issue that is not addressed and I think your take on the issue is at least skewed by three common misguided notions about China:
1) that China is some monolithic entity instead of the diverse society of over a billion very social people with many differences that it is,
2) that the CCP is some omnipotent entity with etched-in-stone policies always implemented to the letter instead of the dynamic political, civil, and administrative group of millions of members with plenty of differences and leeway in interpreting and implementing policies that it is, and
3) that Western notions of China must have validity if they are repeated often and loud enough rather than that they are just loud and often repeated and that has no bearing on whether they are valid.

It's too late in the day for me to dissect your long post but I will list some key points to consider:
- How the self-righteousness and presumption of omnipotence in monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Western culture compared to the harmony-within-the-greater-universe and presumption of vagaries in non-monotheistic religions manifest themselves in Chinese culture.
- How China's much more massive scale of human diversity for much longer continuous periods in history lending itself to similarly scaled naturally occurring expression and differences of opinion which require systemic taming, compared to Western much smaller scales of human diversity for a shorter periods in history with similarly scaled naturally occurring expression and differences of opinion which requires systemic encouragement.
- How China's much more massive scale of human poverty and relative ignorance in recent history lasting through the present day (though continually reduced) necessitates waiting until the day when a critical mass of Chinese society is wealthy and educated enough to have found its own voice and be able to judge information accurately for itself before being subjected to very loud and incessant Western voices, and a myriad loud and incessant independent Chinese voices which actually already exist.
- Only some people distrust established Chinese media outlets and that is only valid to a certain extent on certain topics, that is also true and valid for every other media outlet in the world, so that is insufficient reason to wholesale abandon or condemn these organizations.
- Privatized media face a different set of constraints and follow a different set of agendas, they are not necessarily any more objective or free than state funded or controlled media. Also most major countries including Western ones have both private and state funded or controlled media.
- The Occupy Central/Umbrella/Pro-Democracy protests are indeed mischaracterized by the Western media with much going unreported or obfuscated. It is a great example of there is one side of the story, there is another side of the story, and then there is a third story which is the truth. There is also the issue of whether the protesters themselves are mischaracterizing their goals.
- In terms of social media while being on a shared platform is a factor for ease of communication it is a very shallow factor and lends itself to shallow communication which may be worse than none.
- Hearing what others have to say does not mean you cannot have your own say, so China should hear others, express China's own viewpoints, and call out others when others are being ethnocentric.
- At the end of the day every voice out there has an agenda and only by listening to multiple voices, parsing what they are saying, investigating for yourself, and being sufficiently educated to independently deduce the truth can anyone get anywhere close to the truth.

The system's actually saying this post cannot be posted if it's over 10,000 characters so I have to cut down on quoting the earlier post...

Click to expand...

Thanks for your opinion. I agree with some of your points, but also contend some of them.

For example, Western media technically played a minimal role in the movement. Most of it came off from Facebook of first-hand accounts, followed by updates from local media outlets. Apple Daily and Passion Times followed intimately on the movement more closely than some other outlets, I'll say, although theirs covered more of the protestors' perspectives in general.

Actually I am not trying to argue that privatized media is the holy grail, but rather it will help reduce the skepticism people have towards States media.

I also strongly disagree that social media platform that facilitates shallow movements. Instead I think of the opposite, although at first we must identify how we're defining social media. Are you referring only to Facebook, Youtube, Google+? Or more? (And even then, these platforms alone generate amazing discussions I can only be marveled about.) And if we are to include other things like Whatsapp, Forums, Facebook pages, etc etc, then those are even more. Facebook pages, blogs, allow the sharing of information while comments on Facebook can go all direction. (many sucked, but some are very in depth when you have activists, experts, professionals, scholars, intellectuals participating along with other average folks or people who doesn't have those specialty but rather approached with experiences or their standard values.) To me as a recently graduated social psyc student, I always think social media is amazing because I can hear all sorts of views, even those I ridicule and disagree..but at the end I can ponder the origins of those thoughts or what/why those commenters have those to say. On top of that, bloggers, writers, etc, can post their views on things and it's a great way to get educated on new things or areas you're not familiar with. and technically these days one can ask a question on a platform and have it answered. Of course all the qualities of information are questionable, but in a way it gets the user to think critically on whether the information presented is safe to accept. But again of course this goes on the assumption that the user is aware of what critical thinking is.

I agree with your last 2 statements, especially the character limit.

As for ethnocentricism, I always agree it runs both ways, if you consider that years ago I joined you guys in protesting Western hypocrisy. This is why I always know, and am aware of those things. However I won't get too in-depth about it now, and essentially I also feel we shan't stop our thinking there. The big thing to me, though, is that I feel that this forum has way too much emphasis/support on pro-Beijing voices and basically almost discrediting almost everything Beijing-critical by red herring on Western blunders.

Also again to me I'm not saying that all stuffs written by State media is untrustworthy. I do believe in some things written by CCTV and such are of quality, but then otherwise the ongoing attitude/prejudice towards them as questionable still exists.

And finally yes I do believe it's more important to try and listen first and hear what they have to say because both sides have been shouting past each other, and obviously it's not working at all. The knee-jerk reaction by the pro-Chinese side has been to criticize the West for their criticisms and this causes the failure to ever seriously consider the other side's advice. From the other side's perspective, they will just feel you're defending yourself and not heeding in advice. Funny/sadly enough, this came right out of our textbooks, and I've witnessed this happening in all sorts of arguments.


Despite my contention, I hear where you're coming from for the big picture, and I think that's something the West also needs to give patience on when attempting to build relationship and in understanding.

I'm too busy these days to write long posts, but just some food for though for those who buy into press freedom too much.

In the Information Age, the ability to shape the views of the masses is a source of enormous power, especially in Democrasies. That is why the Press Secretary is one of the US President's most powerful and influenantical advisors, and media moguls wield the power to make or end political careers. You know what they say about great power and corruption right?

It always struck me as an incredible conflict of interest that the press would demand and fight for press freedom so fiercely and absolutely while utterly rejecting any sort of independent oversight or even basic minimum standards.

That is simply unheard of and utterly unacceptable in any real profession, yet we the masses have been effectively brainwashed into accepting that as only just and right for the media. The very same people doing the brainwashing.

How else could one reconcile the polar opposite reaction of the average western citizen's instinctive reaction to a group of unelected people, accountable to no one, running governments (authoritarian governments) and another group of unelected people, accountable to no one, running the press (the so called 'free press')?

The western media hail the end of the age of the media barons as more and more media conglomerates more away from being run by moguls like Rupert Merdoc to being run by corporations. But they forget that corporations are run by people as well, that trend only allows the true wielders of power to move from the spotlight and further into the shadows where the average citizen couldn't even find out who they are.

There are real and sometimes horrifying consequences to the media acting irresponsibly. The most recent are the murders in France and deaths in riots elsewhere in the world triggered by the actions of Charlie Hebdo. But go back a few years, and the western intervention in the Libyia civil war was large triggered by war mongers in the western press.

The Arab Spring that followed was again cheered and fanned on enthusiastically by the western press, often to the consternation of western governments, and the detriment of western interests. (But note how muted the 'free' press was to the violent crack down on protestors in Bahrain by Saudi troops, I'm sure all that Suadi money sloshing around Washington and other western capitals had nothing to do with it).

But of course, the vast majority of the blame and consequences will never ever laid to the door of those responsible, because the media that made the mess will never lay the blame at their own door.

The media need to be controlled and made accountable if for no other reason than to enforce standards and root out corruption. The real difficulty, and the debat we should be engaged in is how to do that without risk of abuse of that power by governments and regulators to shut down their critics. It is an incredibly important and complext issue that needs open and free debate. The very thing the 'free' media is supposed to champion and safeguard for us.

Instead, we are bombarded with the same old absolutist BS about the hallowed sanctity of press freedom and anyone who dares to even suggest otherwise is a no good communists sympathiser!

How can we really put our trust in such a powerful tool in the hands of people who so obviously place their own interests above those of everyone else?

plawolf said:

I'm too busy these days to write long posts, but just some food for though for those who buy into press freedom too much.

In the Information Age, the ability to shape the views of the masses is a source of enormous power, especially in Democrasies. That is why the Press Secretary is one of the US President's most powerful and influenantical advisors, and media moguls wield the power to make or end political careers. You know what they say about great power and corruption right?

It always struck me as an incredible conflict of interest that the press would demand and fight for press freedom so fiercely and absolutely while utterly rejecting any sort of independent oversight or even basic minimum standards.

That is simply unheard of and utterly unacceptable in any real profession, yet we the masses have been effectively brainwashed into accepting that as only just and right for the media. The very same people doing the brainwashing.

How else could one reconcile the polar opposite reaction of the average western citizen's instinctive reaction to a group of unelected people, accountable to no one, running governments (authoritarian governments) and another group of unelected people, accountable to no one, running the press (the so called 'free press')?

The western media hail the end of the age of the media barons as more and more media conglomerates more away from being run by moguls like Rupert Merdoc to being run by corporations. But they forget that corporations are run by people as well, that trend only allows the true wielders of power to move from the spotlight and further into the shadows where the average citizen couldn't even find out who they are.

There are real and sometimes horrifying consequences to the media acting irresponsibly. The most recent are the murders in France and deaths in riots elsewhere in the world triggered by the actions of Charlie Hebdo. But go back a few years, and the western intervention in the Libyia civil war was large triggered by war mongers in the western press.

The Arab Spring that followed was again cheered and fanned on enthusiastically by the western press, often to the consternation of western governments, and the detriment of western interests. (But note how muted the 'free' press was to the violent crack down on protestors in Bahrain by Saudi troops, I'm sure all that Suadi money sloshing around Washington and other western capitals had nothing to do with it).

But of course, the vast majority of the blame and consequences will never ever laid to the door of those responsible, because the media that made the mess will never lay the blame at their own door.

The media need to be controlled and made accountable if for no other reason than to enforce standards and root out corruption. The real difficulty, and the debat we should be engaged in is how to do that without risk of abuse of that power by governments and regulators to shut down their critics. It is an incredibly important and complext issue that needs open and free debate. The very thing the 'free' media is supposed to champion and safeguard for us.

Instead, we are bombarded with the same old absolutist BS about the hallowed sanctity of press freedom and anyone who dares to even suggest otherwise is a no good communists sympathiser!

How can we really put our trust in such a powerful tool in the hands of people who so obviously place their own interests above those of everyone else?

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Couldn't agree with you more. An authoritarian government with a controlled press is a bad combination.

And a government that says they're for freedom of the press but reserves itself the right to deny it is the worst offender.

The moment we have a non-Chinese descent joining the discussion, the days of this thread is numbered, I'm afraid. If you are a non-Chinese, please stay on the sideline and just observe. The focus here is more on sociology and rather than the political system.

As to which political system is suitable for China, I suggest letting only the people of Chinese descent debate here. We are not interested in other people's proselytizing, which is merely trolling to us.