Google v. China

[GRT]

well my very unsophisticated study of about 3000 years of Chinese history would tell me that the Han are afraid of minor tribes dominating them due to their 800 years under the Qing Dynasty

hopefully nobody comes out and smacks me in the face with that one sentence summary


edit:
actually let me back up a bit, there were multiple stages that led to how xenophobic China has been over the past few decades

the Han tribe got a beat down by the Manchu tribe(Qing), which led to a strong xenophobic culture that closed borders to the west during the Age of Discovery, which led to the Opium Wars in which the most of the western nations tried to cut up Chinese territories into their own colonies much like they did with the Americas (and they eventually failed cuz China had way more people than we had American Indians lol), which led to the formation of the Nationalist Party of China, that adopted some western culture and a government system some say was an infant form of democracy but really was more militant/socialistic, killed in its cradle by the invasion of Japan, which led to the rise of the CCP

haha, thanks for helping me refresh my memory, but ya they have no less context in being racist than Israel lol

[Demosthenes11]

China's attitudes towards southeast asians and ethnic minorities shares at least some common ground/themes with popular views about Mexicans in America, Muslims in England, Palestinians in Israel, etc.

But instead of tossing around insulting claims, how about you grace us with your insight.

comparing wanting to remove illegal immigrants from a country and/or wanting them to learn english is not even close to comparable to supporting government measures to commit cultural genocide against multiple groups of people.

I'm not saying you are an idiot, but honestly I don't think you understand the chinese well enough to make those claims

[GRT]

^exactly, compare our own xenophobia to what happened just last year in China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_20...C3%BCmqi_riots



can't say whether it is true or not, but the Chinese government absolutely despise overseas activists like the WUC because it strongly believe they are the ones who are somehow organizing violent unrests (like the one I linked above) over the internet... it almost mirrors our hatred/fear of the Taliban

I wouldn't be surprised that those Gmail hacking attempts were specifically targetting members of the WUC

[Beckwin]

Maybe you should say in what way they are similar, hopefully something more than superficial, because in the case of Israel (because it's a case that i know of) the issue is historically contextual.

America: Mexicans will ruin our country
England: Muslims/Eastern Europeans will ruin our country
Israel: Palestinians will ruin our country
Italy: Gypsies will ruin our country
China: Uyghurs/Tibetans/Southeast Asians will ruin our country

Some common themes behind that superficiality: perceived economic ineptitude/drain by outsiders, skin tone being indicative of a person's quality, government stoked fears about diseases and drugs, portrayal of the outside culture/people as inherently violent and dangerous.

this culminates in the ability of the powers that be to enforce discrimination, often for economic gain but sometimes just out of spiteful bigotry or political potential, once they have solidified these perceptions in a large enough segment of the public.

Historically, the fuel for stoking the fires often comes from territory disputes/occupations. This would be the case for Israelis, Koreans, and Chinese. The Qing occupation mentioned by GRT is one thing, but it ignores the struggle between Uyghur Turkestan and Mao's China, culminating in the absorption of Turkestan into China rather unwillingly (to this day), and the issue of Tibetan sovereignty. Even America's disdain for Mexicans could possibly be influenced by our history of conflict with Mexico and indigenous/mestizo people in the region (of course, America was the aggressor in these cases... similar to China in some ways).

Now a common xenophobic fear is becoming outnumbered. This is painfully obvious in America and England, and efforts in Israel might be linkable as well. This also occurs in homogeneous Korea, and efforts in China to install large Han populations in areas with large minority presence is telling to Chinese xenophobia sharing this trait, not to mention looming "crisis" of requiring non-Han women for marriage/procreation stoking fears of being outnumbered.

Losing culture/traditional values (having to do with portraying the other culture as inherently violent, inferior, etc) is another very common cause that can be played up. This happens in Korea, China, Japan, America, England, France, etc. Whiteness comes into play here as well; East and West both have a history of preferring whiteness- it shows higher class and economic status. Thus the argument is made that the country doesn't need inferior people, or shouldn't be required to treat them as well/equals.

yeah, that's a lot of rambling, but it touches on a lot of shared causes across what we generally categorize as collectivist and individualist societies. I'm sure a few holes can be picked in what I've said, but there's too much ground being covered to write it off entirely.

[GRT]

lol... they don't think Uyghurs/Tibetans will ruin their country, in fact the average Chinese rarely thinks about ethnic minority at all

the Chinese government says they want ethnic unity, but their acts say they want a clearly established ethnic hierarchy with unity of the land, which means if you wanna declare independence, you are fucked

[Kuya]

America: Mexicans will ruin our country
England: Muslims/Eastern Europeans will ruin our country
Israel: Palestinians will ruin our country
Italy: Gypsies will ruin our country
China: Uyghurs/Tibetans/Southeast Asians will ruin our country

Some common themes behind that superficiality: perceived economic ineptitude/drain by outsiders, skin tone being indicative of a person's quality, government stoked fears about diseases and drugs, portrayal of the outside culture/people as inherently violent and dangerous.

this culminates in the ability of the powers that be to enforce discrimination, often for economic gain but sometimes just out of spiteful bigotry or political potential, once they have solidified these perceptions in a large enough segment of the public.

Historically, the fuel for stoking the fires often comes from territory disputes/occupations. This would be the case for Israelis, Koreans, and Chinese. The Qing occupation mentioned by GRT is one thing, but it ignores the struggle between Uyghur Turkestan and Mao's China, culminating in the absorption of Turkestan into China rather unwillingly (to this day), and the issue of Tibetan sovereignty. Even America's disdain for Mexicans could possibly be influenced by our history of conflict with Mexico and indigenous/mestizo people in the region (of course, America was the aggressor in these cases... similar to China in some ways).

Now a common xenophobic fear is becoming outnumbered. This is painfully obvious in America and England, and efforts in Israel might be linkable as well. This also occurs in homogeneous Korea, and efforts in China to install large Han populations in areas with large minority presence is telling to Chinese xenophobia sharing this trait, not to mention looming "crisis" of requiring non-Han women for marriage/procreation stoking fears of being outnumbered.

Losing culture/traditional values (having to do with portraying the other culture as inherently violent, inferior, etc) is another very common cause that can be played up. This happens in Korea, China, Japan, America, England, France, etc. Whiteness comes into play here as well; East and West both have a history of preferring whiteness- it shows higher class and economic status. Thus the argument is made that the country doesn't need inferior people, or shouldn't be required to treat them as well/equals.

yeah, that's a lot of rambling, but it touches on a lot of shared causes across what we generally categorize as collectivist and individualist societies. I'm sure a few holes can be picked in what I've said, but there's too much ground being covered to write it off entirely.

Yes, what you just did is describe what this xenophobia usually entails, in other words, its narrative. You also loosely touched on the part that i think is more important, the historical context. That's where these examples are very very different. Yet at the same time the mention that this is an issue of collectivism vs.individualism is also reductionist.

For example, in order to properly analize the case of Israel, you'd have to go as far back as Austria and the rise of zionism, the development of anti-semitism during the 1700-1800s leading up to the nationalist-socialist party in Germany, the colonial status of the Middle East during the the moments leading up to and after the first World War, the political dealings between the zionist political movement, a few arab leaders, and England, the entry of jewish people into Palestina, and the breakout of violence culminating in the Nakba. This is, plus including the outgroup/ingroup mechanism or whatever else you want to use to analize information, is what you have to take into account to understand Israeli xenophobia (not to mention that israeli xenophobia is highly specific, and that it's less about the idea that the arabs are ruining the country, and more about the fact that A: the state is defined by ethnic lines B: historical context easily helps you understand that israelis feel that arabs are out to get them, often invoking the narrative of the holocaust). This eloboration of factors and an explanation, possibly chronological of how they relate is what is missing in this thread. Otherwise, this back of forth of collectivism vs individualism is meaningless.

[GRT]

The Qing occupation mentioned by GRT is one thing, but it ignores the struggle between Uyghur Turkestan and Mao's China, culminating in the absorption of Turkestan into China rather unwillingly (to this day), and the issue of Tibetan sovereignty. Even America's disdain for Mexicans could possibly be influenced by our history of conflict with Mexico and indigenous/mestizo people in the region (of course, America was the aggressor in these cases... similar to China in some ways).

Are we still discussing cultural values or justifying "things done in history"?

Tibetan sovereignty or not, violent demonstrations (or even non-violent ones, which I don't think China had seen any) disrupt the social harmony, and in China, that is unacceptable.

(sigh, welcome to 2 pages ago where I said collectivistic societies value order over right-and-wrong)

[Beckwin]

comparing wanting to remove illegal immigrants from a country and/or wanting them to learn english is not even close to comparable to supporting government measures to commit cultural genocide against multiple groups of people.

I'm not saying you are an idiot, but honestly I don't think you understand the chinese well enough to make those claims

I guess here is where I can bring up a few things:

-American legal treatment of minorities in the past century (remember, we were individualist then too)
-American internment of Japanese during WWII
-American extended detainment and torture policy in the War on Terror (which the Chinese also use as an excuse to oppress Uyghurs)

-Israeli treatment of Palestinians. If you need to read up on this, search for posts by Elvis in General Discussion.

-Other modern-era societies classified as highly collectivist not committing xenophobia-motivated injustices with the same barbarity as modern-era China. Notably, Japan and Korea; can probably include other smaller Asian countries as well. Even some northern European countries are considered collectivist. I'll expand on this later, but for one thing I'm glad Kuya is trying to introduce history into the mix. I'll add economic levels.

^exactly, compare our own xenophobia to what happened just last year in China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_20...C3%BCmqi_riots



can't say whether it is true or not, but the Chinese government absolutely despise overseas activists like the WUC because it strongly believe they are the ones who are somehow organizing violent unrests (like the one I linked above) over the internet... it almost mirrors our hatred/fear of the Taliban

I wouldn't be surprised that those Gmail hacking attempts were specifically targetting members of the WUC

This just in: America has never had race riots. And Israel doesn't popularly slaughter Palestinians.


My point here isn't to equivocate contemporary American and Chinese results of xenophobia in severity; it's to examine the motivations and views shared by collectivist and individualist societies. Trying to play up the primary factor as some inherent psychological difference is missing out on quite a lot.

[GRT]

Yes, what you just did is describe what this xenophobia usually entails, in other words, its narrative. You also loosely touched on the part that i think is more important, the historical context. That's where these examples are very very different. Yet at the same time the mention that this is an issue of collectivism vs.individualism is also reductionist.

Yes! Thank you! I wasn't the one who brought xenophobia/racism up dude!

Anyway, if anyone still remember why I brought up collectivism vs. individualism was in response to some guy going "I can't believe people in China puts up with this shit" or some else.

I suppose I should have said that besides studying up the difference between the two, the guy should also read up on the history of China. But then again, one probably can't even comprehend that history without first learning what collectivism means. So I stand by what I first said.

[GRT]

This just in: America has never had race riots. And Israel doesn't popularly slaughter Palestinians.


My point here isn't to equivocate contemporary American and Chinese results of xenophobia in severity; it's to examine the motivations and views shared by collectivist and individualist societies. Trying to play up the primary factor as some inherent psychological difference is missing out on quite a lot.

wait wait wait, who said collectivism or individualism were "inherent psychological"? there's a difference between cultural values and human nature, one is a structural belief reinforced by hundreds and thousands of years of social and economical progression, the other is largely natural born (and i personally disagree that we have any inborn human natures besides survival instinct)

the difference here, again, is not that we have demonstrations and they have riots, but the reason why the riots happen and the reason why the Chinese government respond the way they do, and the difference between our reasons and theirs is where collectivism vs. individualism comes in

[Beckwin]

Yes, what you just did is describe what this xenophobia usually entails, in other words, its narrative. You also loosely touched on the part that i think is more important, the historical context. That's where these examples are very very different. Yet at the same time the mention that this is an issue of collectivism vs.individualism is also reductionist.

For example, in order to properly analize the case of Israel, you'd have to go as far back as Austria and the rise of zionism, the development of anti-semitism during the 1700-1800s leading up to the nationalist-socialist party in Germany, the colonial status of the Middle East during the the moments leading up to and after the first World War, the political dealings between the zionist political movement, a few arab leaders, and England, the entry of jewish people into Palestina, and the breakout of violence culminating in the Nakba. This is, plus including the outgroup/ingroup mechanism or whatever else you want to use to analize information, is what you have to take into account to understand Israeli xenophobia (not to mention that israeli xenophobia is highly specific, and that it's less about the idea that the arabs are ruining the country, and more about the fact that A: the state is defined by ethnic lines B: historical context easily helps you understand that israelis feel that arabs are out to get them, often invoking the narrative of the holocaust). This eloboration of factors and an explanation, possibly chronological of how they relate is what is missing in this thread. Otherwise, this back of forth of collectivism vs individualism is meaningless.

I think we're roughly in agreement. For example, would you accept someone saying "Israeli xenophobia is largely attributable to their individualistic society"? Hell no you wouldn't.

Yes, what you just did is describe what this xenophobia usually entails, in other words, its narrative.

I disagree with this, a bit. Americans don't see brown skin, spanish language, Mexican culture, as dangerous because they are xenophobic- rather, they are xenophobic because of those irrational perceptions. And the point here, and maybe your psychology background could have something to add or say about this, is that these xenophobic-spawning negative perceptions are common across collectivist and individualist societies (in addition to historical factors, as well of course).

[GRT]

I think we're roughly in agreement. For example, would you accept someone saying "Israeli xenophobia is largely attributable to their individualistic society"? Hell no you wouldn't.

Nobody is saying that.

Now, would you accept someone saying "Israeli xenophobia taking thousands of years to take root is largely attributable to their individualistic society"?

Whether you agree or not, THAT is how collectivism/individualism affects xenophobia, which I've been arguing for all along, and you are just not getting it.

[Beckwin]

No, you have not been arguing that at all. You've been largely attributing Chinese views on human rights and xenophobia to collectivism, only very recently starting to break out and refer a little bit to history.

[Kuya]

I think we're roughly in agreement. For example, would you accept someone saying "Israeli xenophobia is largely attributable to their individualistic society"? Hell no you wouldn't.



I disagree with this, a bit. Americans don't see brown skin, spanish language, Mexican culture, as dangerous because they are xenophobic- rather, they are xenophobic because of those irrational perceptions. And the point here, and maybe your psychology background could have something to add or say about this, is that these xenophobic-spawning negative perceptions are common across collectivist and individualist societies (in addition to historical factors, as well of course).

I don't get what you mean with the second part. When i say narrative i mean constructed ideas based on real or imagenary grievances. As in, the idea that mexicans steal jobs from americans is a narrative dependent on real events (white middle class is losing jobs is not imagined). And i don't see how americans seeing brown skin, spanish language, etc is an irrational perception either. I find this part confusing.

[Beckwin]

also it's terribly misleading to say individualism is why israelis haven't been xenophobic for a continuous couple thousand years when they uh, you know, didn't have a country to base it in for a couple thousand years and that the modern israeli/zionist movement is only a hundred or so years old.

[GRT]

No, you have not been arguing that at all. You've been largely attributing Chinese views on human rights and xenophobia to collectivism, only very recently starting to break out and refer a little bit to history.

This was my first post after Demosthenes11 brought up racism:

ya the Chinese are pretty fuckin racist, but you can argue every other country without a good mix of people from different races/cultures tend to be pretty fuckin racist

and inb4 america is fuckin racist

(wow that means america was a collectivistic nation before the end of slavery, holy shit biggest scientific discovery of the century so far)

translation: the existance of racism/xenophobia has little to do in the collectivism vs. individualism discussion

[Beckwin]

And i don't see how americans seeing brown skin, spanish language, etc is an irrational perception either.

you missed the ", is dangerous" in the sentence about brown skin, spanish language, etc and irrational perceptions.

I guess I was confused about your use of narrative, what you're saying makes sense. What I want to say in response is that it's not just history; I think the capacity for irrational perceptions being able to be stoked based on certain true factors (jobs, population, whatever) plays a major role as well that's also, like historic factors, independent of a society being collectivist or individualist.


EDIT: urgh, fuck. I think I have a bit better handle on how I want to say this now:

Similar/comparable historic (political and economic... not sure if I should parenthesize as part of historic or list along side it) factors can lead to many common irrational perceptions that give rise to xenophobia in a fashion independent of collectivism/individualism in societies.

[Beckwin]

This was my first post after Demosthenes11 brought up racism:



translation: the existance of racism/xenophobia has little to do in the collectivism vs. individualism discussion

alright, I'll go back and reread; I may have been getting your and demo11's thoughts mixed-up.

EDIT:

ah, this here clarifies your position, but I still disagree:

it takes a larger context for large scale ingroup/outgroup dynamic (such as xenophobia) to occur, of course, and it is there that collectivism vs. individualism is distinguished in this aspect


oh and if you go back to my post above, you'd see i didn't say xenophobia occured due to collectivism, that'd be ridiculous, i said it takes hold more easily among those with more collectivistic values

A counter-example would be the ease that Germany got swept up into Nazism. On a smaller scale, how easily America got swept up in anti-Muslim/Middle Eastern hysteria post-9/11, which did result in violence resulting in a handful of deaths, not to mention popular consent for profiling, illegal detainment and extradition, and torture. And we're supposedly the most individualistic country on the planet.

[GRT]

also it's terribly misleading to say individualism is why israelis haven't been xenophobic for a continuous couple thousand years when they uh, you know, didn't have a country to base it in for a couple thousand years and that the modern israeli/zionist movement is only a hundred or so years old.

Like I said, you can agree or disagree, but collectivism or individualism has nothing to do with the cause of xenophobia in any society, the way you made it out to be.

[Beckwin]

I'm saying that xenophobia is independent of collectivism/individualism in a society.

Are you saying that collectivism/individualism doesn't have anything to do with the causes of xenophobia(/racism) but does affect the outcome?