Why "the West" gets China wrong

pissybits said:

you accused me of being anal about the words "attack" and "insult" when i gave you a clarification of what i meant. if you want to prove how i was being "anal" (even though that is still a personal attack) why don't you dig up your own evidence rather than bringing in these irrelevant and desperate tactics? how boring! how meaningless!



nice one, you're going through my paper trail to dig up some dirt to post out of context in an off topic thread... and i'm the sensitive hypocrite with the personal attacks lol. i really gotta stop responding to this back and forth because it's getting rather futile and embarrasing for the both of us.

if anyone is interested in how this whole mess started, refer back to post #238 on page 16. the stuff on this page is just way too off point.

later jack

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I accused you of being anal? Yeah after you were hung up on the "attack" you said I committed on you personally to which I asked where and you have not quoted anything of such to this point. The guy that called for a "just and accountable judiciary" telling the accused he has to prove his own innocence? And you say you studied the law? LOL!!!!!

Yeah you have to stop responding but you can't because you can't admit your hypocrisy and how wrong you are about everything you accused. How many times have you said, "Good Day?" You don't like me digging up your quotes to show everyone your hypocrisy? They're your quotes. Own them. That's what's called showing proof which you can't seem to show of your charge accusing me of attacking you personally.

Now you want the members of the forum to back you? Well then why don't you show the quotes that you say I was attacking you personally? You're appealing to everyone else now but still you won't show the quotes of my supposed guilt of attacking you. Make it easy for everyone and show my quotes attacking you personally.

AssassinsMace said:

I accused you of being anal? Yeah after you were hung up on the "attack" you said I committed on you personally to which I asked where and you have not quoted anything of such to this point. The guy that called for a "just and accountable judiciary" telling the accused he has to prove his own innocence? And you say you studied the law? LOL!!!!!

Yeah you have to stop responding but you can't because you can't admit your hypocrisy and how wrong you are about everything you accused. How many times have you said, "Good Day?" You don't like me digging up your quotes to show everyone your hypocrisy? They're your quotes. Own them. That's what's called showing proof which you can't seem to show of your charge accusing me of attacking you personally.

Now you want the members of the forum to back you? Well then why don't you show the quotes that you say I was attacking you personally? You're appealing to everyone else now but still you won't show the quotes of my supposed guilt of attacking you. Make it easy for everyone and show my quotes attacking you personally.

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i can't believe i'm letting you drag me into this again but here we go.
i posted the reference to my original statement because that is the topic i wanted to debate, not this silly nonsense.

i originally said you only knew to attack my credibility, but you twisted it into me saying: you attacked me personally. the semantic difference between the two ideas are negligible, and only of value to you because you want to fixate on who's attacking whom. as i've repeated ad nauseum, but you keep ignoring, it doesn't matter who's attacking whom bacause that is the point of debate. what does matter is how and what you attack.

i've already clarified in post #254 what i meant by saying you only knew how to attack my credibility. asking me to "come up with where you attacked me" is vague and meaningless because we've been attacking each other all along. my assertion is and has always been that you've been attacking my credibility rather than my argument (starting with post #243) and i explain this in excruciating detail in post #254 if you'd only try and comprehend.

when you dig up statements out of context, they are not admissable in an argument because they do not have anything to do with the subject at hand. likewise such evidence is not admissable in most court cases because it is only a tactic to besmirch the character of the individual rather than showing any causal factors to the case at hand.

i keep saying good day because i find this argument with you has become futile. it has nothing to do with the original debate in which you adopted an indefensible position and thus proceeded to engage a caustic spitting war about "who attacked whom" to distract from the fact. grow up.

pissybits said:

i can't believe i'm letting you drag me into this again but here we go.
i posted the reference to my original statement because that is the topic i wanted to debate, not this silly nonsense.

i originally said you only knew to attack my credibility, but you twisted it into me saying: you attacked me personally. the semantic difference between the two ideas are negligible, and only of value to you because you want to fixate on who's attacking whom. as i've repeated ad nauseum, but you keep ignoring, it doesn't matter who's attacking whom bacause that is the point of debate. what does matter is how and what you attack.

i've already clarified in post #254 what i meant by saying you only knew how to attack my credibility. asking me to "come up with where you attacked me" is vague and meaningless because we've been attacking each other all along. my assertion is and has always been that you've been attacking my credibility rather than my argument (starting with post #243) and i explain this in excruciating detail in post #254 if you'd only try and comprehend.

when you dig up statements out of context, they are not admissable in an argument because they do not have anything to do with the subject at hand. likewise such evidence is not admissable in most court cases because it is only a tactic to besmirch the character of the individual rather than showing any causal factors to the case at hand.

i keep saying good day because i find this argument with you has become futile. it has nothing to do with the original debate in which you adopted an indefensible position and thus proceeded to engage a caustic spitting war about "who attacked whom" to distract from the fact. grow up.

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Still not showing where I attacked your personal credibility. Explaining the definition of being attacked is not the same as showing my quote where I supposedly attacked your credibility. The reason why you haven't is because it doesn't exist. I love how now you're arguing showing you your own quotes to show your contradictions and hypocrisy somehow makes my arguments weak. What bizarre world do you live in where your accusations without proof is more credible than showing you your own quotes to expose your contradictions and how you don't practice what you preach?

AssassinsMace said:

Still not showing where I attacked your personal credibility. Explaining the definition of being attacked is not the same as showing my quote where I supposedly attacked your credibility. The reason why you haven't is because it doesn't exist. I love how now you're arguing showing you your own quotes to show your contradictions and hypocrisy somehow makes my arguments weak. What bizarre world do you live in where your accusations without proof is more credible that showing you your own quotes to expose your contradictions and how you don't practice what you preach?

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if you read post #254 you will understand how you've been attacking my credibility rather than my argument as your primary method. in posts #243, #245, and #253, you portrayed me as supporting "american individualism," which is supposedly problematic because it is not compatible with me "forcing people to agree with my views." this is the premise to your conclusion that i am thereby a hypocrite.

claiming that i support an ideology and then subverting my credibility by saying why i violate that ideology, is by all accounts an attack on my credibility. i don't know what kind of twisted logic allows you to consistently deny this fact but them's the breaks.

in fact, not only is it an attack on my credibility but it is also straw manning me because you've failed to show that i support said ideology in the first place.

i don't know what bizzare world you live in where taking quotes from a different conversation completely out of context counts as relevant evidence. plus, taking a quote from a non-contextual source to show a percieved contradiction is the most damning and most recent example of your attacking my credibility... and you call me a hypocrite. laughable.

pissybits said:

if you read post #254 you will understand how you've been attacking my credibility rather than my argument as your primary method. in posts #243, #245, and #253, you portrayed me as supporting "american individualism," which is supposedly problematic because it is not compatible with me "forcing people to agree with my views." this is the premise to your conclusion that i am thereby a hypocrite.

by claiming that i support an ideology and then subverting my credibility by saying why i violate that ideology, is by all accounts an attack on my credibility. i don't know what kind of twisted logic allows you to consistently deny this fact but them's the breaks.

in fact, not only is it an attack on my credibility but it is also straw manning me because you've failed to show that i support said ideology in the first place.

i don't know what bizzare world you live in where taking quotes from a different conversation completely out of context counts as relevant evidence. plus, taking a quote from a non-contextual source to show a percieved contradiction is the most damning and most recent example of your attacking my credibility... and you call me a hypocrite. laughable.

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Now you've resorted to repeating bad arguments. I never accused you of supporting American individualism. I did say I supported American individualism because I believe Chinese can have an opinion I don't agree with and I'm not going tell them how to think. How can I have maligned you with an attack of supporting American individualism when I believe in it. I brought this up before. Maybe you're just not reading my posts and making up crap that you think I said. That does explain the bull you've been dishing. Post #243 doesn't have any attack on your credibility unless again you interpret an attack on you as anyone daring to challenge you. But then you've been hypocritically doing that yourself. Post #245 and #253... you already attacked me personally in post #244 by questioning my literacy and charging I'm what's wrong with China. So after post #244 you can't complain about being personally attacked no matter what. So you're the only one that first attacked anyone personally.

AssassinsMace said:

Now you've resorted to repeating bad arguments. I never accused you of supporting American individualism. I did say I supported American individualism because I believe Chinese can have an opinion I don't agree with and I'm not going tell them how to think. How can I have maligned you with an attack of supporting American individualism when I believe in it. I brought this up before. Maybe you're just not reading my posts and making up crap that you think I said. That does explain the bull you've been dishing. Post #243 doesn't have any attack on your credibility unless again you interpret an attack on you as anyone daring to challenge you. But then you've been hypocritically doing that yourself. Post #245 and #253... you already attacked me personally in post #244 by questioning my literacy and charging I'm what's wrong with China. So after post #244 you can't complain about being personally attacked no matter what. So you're the only one that first attacked anyone personally.

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it hardly matters whether you think i support american individualism or chinese conformity or american conformity or chinese individualism. these "isms" are devoid of meaning in the context of our argument.

what you call "challenging" me in post #243 is obviously an attack on my credibility rather than my argument. you acused me of a political position that i do not subscribe to (pro-american) and then you base your argument on why my supposed political affiliation doesn't fit my prescriptions, thereby making me a hypocrite. plain and simple, that is a straw man argument and thus an attack on credibility.

from post #245 onward, you've constructed the idea that i am "dictating" my views as if i am forcing everyone to abide by them. how can i force anyone to abide by my views through my words? i can only give reasons why i believe i am right and give a counterargument to those that think i am wrong, which is exactly what i have done.

in the above post you once again try to conflate the idea of "personal attack" with "attacking credibility." if you feel that i did attack you personally in post #244, i apologize for my indiscretion. however at the time i felt it was warranted because you were already subverting my credibility. furthermore, when i made these statements toward you in post #244 i felt they were justified because 梁启超's quote warned specifically against rampant and irrelevent blaming of all of china's misfortune on foreigners, like when you brought up reverse affirmative action for asian students in america in post #240. (it's unfair but what does that have to do with western pundits or even china?) it is not a real argument (rather a non-sequitur) against why chinese people shouldn't take personally the ramblings of china-bashing pundits, which has been my original position since page 16.

now when i said you should "gain some literacy about the development of modern china" in post #244, i did not mean to say that you are illiterate as you seem to think i said. i meant exactly what i said: if you are going to disparage one of china's greatest and most famous voices for reform during its worst times by saying that "he wasn't right" because "no one listened to him," and furthermore making an absurd comparison with hitler, then you really SHOULD gain some historical literacy into that period of china's history.

Okay you two, get a room.

to bring the discussion to something more relevant to the topic of this thread, i recently found out about a chinese woman named fu ping who wrote a book called "bend not break." this book is supposedly about her experiences growing up during the cultural revolution and has been hailed by many americans as a harrowing tale of overcoming tremendous odds and struggle. she even became an advisor to president obama and currently writes for the huffington post, as well as managing her own 3d printing company.

however many chinese noticed after reading her book that just about the entirety of her claims in this book was fabricated. she claimed to be persecuted under the communists and even raped, while in reality her family was part of the establishment and her own sister was a red guard.

thus began a massive internet campaign by overseas chinese to refute her claims, many of which were downright ridiculous. one such claim involved seeing someone being pulled apart by horses as punishment, something that hasn't been practiced in china since ancient times. the campaign to refute her started in the review section for her book on amazon.com, and eventually attracted the attention of outside media.

however, prominent media personalities like joe nocera of the new york times have continued to give her their full support, and fellow huffington post writer meimei fox has even implied that her detractors are chinese agents. however other media sources in the west have begun to smell the coffee on ms. fu's true colours.

basically this woman has exploited westerners' ignorance about china and made up lies about her own country to get ahead politically. and she has done very well for herself as a result. i don't know if yall have heard of this woman but she has been pretty big news in the chinese overseas community as of late.

m.scmp.com/news/china/article/1260947/chinese-college-threatens-libel-suit-against-us-author-ping-fu?page=all



m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2631139

pissybits said:

basically this woman has exploited westerners' ignorance about china and made up lies about her own country to get ahead politically. and she has done very well for herself as a result. i don't know if yall have heard of this woman but she has been pretty big news in the chinese overseas community as of late.

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I haven't heard of her, but she's not the only one.

That's why I don't believe this idea that they are "exploiting westerner's ignorance about China". Ignorance implies a lack of knowledge. If that were the case, authors who write positive or neutral works about modern Chinese history should get an equal share of attention.

That has obviously not been the case. Compare the attention that Mo Yan, Nobel Literature prize winner and one of modern China's most famous authors, gets in the West to the attention that the likes of Jun Chang gets. Look at the amount of media coverage Ai Weiwei gets. There is a clear pattern here, and it's not just ignorance.

solarz said:

Okay you two, get a room.

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A chat room?