Author: Chairman rabbit source: tuzhuxi (ID: Chairman rabbit)
Today, I want to talk about the heterogeneity of Western civilization / culture relative to Chinese culture from the political dimension.
First of all, it should also be pointed out that network writing is prose, which is not academic writing, and cannot be too detailed and in-depth. The purpose is to put forward some concepts, propositions and propositions, so as to throw bricks and attract jade for further exploration by people nearby.
The “West” here is a broad sense of the west, from the Near East, the Mediterranean, Greece and Rome, and Europe (including the European part of Russia). Although there is no particularly strict regional category, it can be different from the “East” civilization (China and India).
Most of the concepts of confrontation and division we see in politics originate from the “West”.
Western politics emphasizes differences and creates small groups. What “we” and “others” create is confrontation, conflict, contradiction and division between groups.
Chinese politics emphasizes consensus, creates harmony and unity, and ultimately maintains a large, relatively homogeneous political body.
Then, what specific ideas and concepts create differences in human society, dispel consensus, brew contradictions, create conflicts, and ultimately lead to confrontation, division, or even into military conflicts and killings?
It might as well be a column.
1. Religion – Abraham is a religion, believing in the same God (God), but believing in different prophets and doctrines. Many religions and sects are in conflict and negation with each other. You and I do not coexist with each other. The great contradictions between different religions and sects have not only brought about political, cultural and economic differences, but also triggered wars and killings in history. This includes the Jewish Christian Islamic traditional religion, as well as various subdivisions (such as Sunni vs Shia) and “new” religions (from Mormon to unionist). So far, religion is still an important factor affecting social and international harmony and stability. China / East Asia is totally different from this. It tends to mix all kinds of Religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and folk religions) and serve them together in harmony. Religious war is a strange concept to us.
2. Nobles and civilians – on the surface, both the West and China have the so-called “feudal system”. However, the “feudal system” of the West (and our close neighbor Japan) is more similar to the system of China’s pre Qin period: according to the blood feudalism and inheritance, there is a strict class distinction between nobles and civilians. Since the Han Dynasty, the Chinese society has been breaking this system in order to select talents: from the examination system, the examination of filial piety and honesty to the imperial examination in the Sui and Tang Dynasties: individuals can change their destiny through reading and achieve class crossing. In contrast, the West still maintains the old system. There is a strict class distinction between nobles and civilians, and the occupations and types of work of civilians have been handed down from generation to generation. It is difficult to escape and change, and society lacks mobility. Such a system naturally lags far behind the productivity and cultural changes, resulting in the emergence of a fierce enlightenment movement and even a revolution as a counter reaction to the existing system. This class antagonism also gave birth to the “class” in left-wing politics. The distinction between the nobility and the Commons has existed in the traditional western society, such as the house of the Lords and the house of the Commons in Britain
3. “Left” and “right”. The simple and crude dualistic opposition between “left” and “right” also came from the West – the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. In various legislative assemblies during the great revolution, “conservatives”, “moderates”, “royalists” or “monarchists” sat on the “right” of the assembly, while radical “liberals” and “Democrats” sat on the “left”, thus giving rise to the two terms “left” and “right”. “Left” and “right” are used today to describe completely opposing views on political, economic and various social issues. On economic issues, the “left” pays more attention to the bottom interests, suspects big capital and big enterprises, and advocates radical social reform, wealth redistribution, socialism, welfarism, communism and other systems; The “right” is more elites / enterprises / capital interests, believes in the market mechanism, and believes that as long as elites, enterprises and capital benefit, they can benefit the middle and low-level and even the whole society; On social and cultural issues, the “left” focuses on equal rights and radical changes, subverts the original social structure, and protects the interests of traditional vulnerable groups in society, culture and politics; The “right” advocates maintaining traditional values, paying attention to authority and safeguarding collective / community interests. It is obvious that in today’s society, there are many political, economic, cultural and social issues. The dualistic opposition of “left” and “right” is completely insufficient to describe and summarize one’s attitude towards different issues: any person may be “left” on this issue and “right” on that issue, but “left” and “right” are excellent tools for labeling, distinguishing, isolating people and forming confrontation.
4. Nation. Following the religious and cross-cultural empires, the nation has gradually become the cornerstone of Western secular politics in the past few hundred years. What is a nation? That is, the people who have a certain language, ethnicity, culture and history and occupy a certain land. The problem is that the concept of nation in the West has a great social constructiveness: the definition of nation has a strong subjectivity. For example, if “language” is the basic element of a nation, what is “language”? Under what circumstances is dialect and under what circumstances is language? In practice, this division is entirely subjective: as long as there are differences in pronunciation and idioms, it can be constructed as “language”. According to Western standards, the different Chinese dialects (including the different dialects in the Mandarin system) used by the Han ethnic groups in various parts of China can be constructed into countless different languages and become the basis for forming a nation. The Western tradition, based on the needs of the local population and communities, has constantly constructed new national concepts. As a result, the communities, territories and political bodies have been increasingly divided into smaller and smaller ones, and finally formed the layout of today’s Europe dominated by small countries (in sharp contrast to the unified China). Not only that, the rise of nationalism – especially the narrow nationalism that promotes one’s own nation and belittles other nations – has become the most important factor in causing inter state conflicts since the 19th century. So far, the west is still trying to create antagonism and division and disintegrate a unified China by building a political “sub nation” in the Chinese nation.
5. Race. People with different skin colors are classified as different “races”, and different “races” are given completely different political and legal status. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the western countries upgraded and iterated the traditional racism system into “scientific racism” — aiming to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of different races from a scientific perspective. And those who are considered to be inferior should of course be given inferior political status and treatment: superior races can plunder the land and property of inferior races, enslave their population, society and country, and even kill and physically destroy them (Nazi massacres of Jews and Gypsies in Europe, and Japanese invaders’ killing of Chinese people). After World War II, in the United States of America, known as the “leader of the free world”, racism was still an integral part of the social system and order. Through the unremitting efforts of the black people, there was no breakthrough until the 1960s. However, the problem of racism is far from being solved: racial discrimination, racial inequality and racial contradictions are the most acute social problems in the United States so far, causing the American society to fall into division, conflict and even implosion. In an environment where ethnic groups are divided and antagonistic, it is naturally difficult to promote left-wing economic policies that benefit the whole people. So was there a racial system in ancient China? Some of them come from outside the Han area: the “four class system” of the Mongols, which sorts the ethnic groups according to the four principles of Mongolian, Semu, Han and southern, and gives them corresponding political and legal status. This social system and structure are inconsistent with the Chinese culture, which is probably the reason why the Mongolian regime failed to rule the Han area.
6. Class. Individuals / groups are divided into classes according to their relationship with the means of production, which is also a Western product. Class and stratum are different. In left-wing politics, class is a concept with strong political nature, and classes must oppose, conflict, struggle, replace and disappear. In this system, it is necessary to divide not only large classes, but also more detailed classes. For example, professionals are classified as petty bourgeoisie. In the tradition of the Soviet Union, in addition to the landlords, the peasants should also be further divided into classes, including the rich peasants (kulak), the middle peasants (serednyak), and the poor peasants (bednyak). Different classes correspond to different political positions. This kind of left-wing political concept has deeply influenced China, but it has become history and is far from our lights. (social strata is different from class. Class is mainly a sociological concept: it defines a large concept of people according to indicators such as wealth, lifestyle, education and culture. The concept of class itself is non political.).
7. Capitalism vs socialism / Communism: in the Western perspective, if we can’t find the label of decomposing and separating society and people, we can’t understand the human society and historical process, so we are always looking for and constructing such a narrative. After World War II, capitalism vs socialism / Communism (and the corresponding representative democracy vs one party ruling regime) became the most important label for defining and understanding human society, dividing political camps, and constructing political opposition and conflict. It is dominated by two western civilizations – here, from the perspective of the East, we regard the Soviet Union as a part of the pan Western camp. After the cold war, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries became transition economies, and China and other countries promoted reform and opening up. Francis Fukuyama even put forward the theory of “the end of history”. This traditional political division has actually ended and can no longer be used to describe the world today. However, to this day, some countries led by the United States still use this distinction to understand and define the relationship with China and create contradictions and antagonism.
8. Civilization. Francis Fukuyama put forward “the end of history” after the cold war, believing that the political and economic systems in the world will be unified into market economy + western representative democracy. Today, this historical assertion is of course wrong. However, the West soon found a new label and classification for understanding and defining the world order after the cold war and helping to create separation and confrontation: civilization. This is the conflict of civilizations written by Samuel P. Huntington in 1996. With a stroke of a pen, the world is divided into the following major civilizations: the west, Orthodox, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Africa, Latin America, China and Japan. Behind these civilizations, there may be one or more nation states. He also predicted that the clash of civilizations was the main factor driving the world order in the post Cold War era. After the 9 / 11 terrorist attacks, Westerners once thought that the clash of civilizations was the conflict between the Christian world and the Islamic world in the west, and the clash of civilizations became prominent.
9. Identity & amp; culture. It seems that there are enough labels and classifications to divide human society, but after entering the 2010-2020’s, the west is still looking for and building new labels to further decompose and oppose human society. In western culture, without such a label, without such tension, conflict and opposition, it seems impossible to understand social order, political order, cultural order and historical logic. This new label is broader, that is, identity and culture. What is identity and culture? It can be any identification and label that any human group thinks is meaningful to its existence, and such identification and label are political. Identity and culture include traditional labels related to culture, such as race and nationality, but they have been further expanded, with larger categories and more flexible definitions. For example, from gender, dietary preference to attitude towards environmental protection can become identity. In addition, identity and culture can help build “new” political groups in any contemporary country with “new” language and “new” boundaries. For example, in the United States, in order to cater to political correctness and expand the audience, it is necessary to avoid talking about white groups, Christian evangelical sects, conservatism and racism, and to talk about “American culture” — the “American culture” has become a platform that can help resist, resist and resist globalization, multiculturalism, progressivism, secular culture (post-modernism) and even capitalism and interest groups. There is no doubt that identity and culture will promote the separation and opposition of people in more complex ways.
Other factors that inevitably lead to social conflict, opposition and division
There are several other factors at work.
One is individualism, which advocates the interests, orientation, choice and rights of individuals, and cuts and decomposes society to the minimum, turning it into a pure atomic society with individuals as its constituent units. Individuals are free to choose these labels, logos, and identities that divide people and become political driving forces – for example, I am a vegetarian, gay, colored, and progressive.
Second, under the packaging of freedom of speech, capital driven mobile Internet + big data / algorithm + social media. People are divided into numerous different subgroups, “bubbles” and information cocoon rooms to strengthen interaction with the same kind, reduce communication with different kinds, and constantly strengthen their cognition, attitude and prejudice. There is no doubt that such a society is decomposed, discrete, or even disintegrated, and it is difficult to build consensus.
The third is representative democracy / electoral politics, which allows individuals to vote. Everyone chooses a political party that can represent their own interests, preferences, values and attitudes to promote politics and policies consistent with their own interests.
Fourth, Party Politics under representative democracy and election politics. A political party is a tool used by a group of people to promote specific political and policy propositions. It is also a western concept. It is said that the earliest political party in modern history originated in Britain in the 18th century. Looking at the word party, like the English part, it was brought by the Normans. It can be traced back to the Latin Partita. The etymology of this word is a part, division, section, section. Therefore, from the initial connotation, the party represents the orientation and interests of some people rather than all people.
Over the past few hundred years, the function of Western political parties has been to explore and utilize the concepts of many divided groups in Western civilization, and then select a part of them to represent their power and promote politics. It can be seen that the western political parties are conceptually derived from factions and divisions, and also depend on factions and divisions in their actions and connotations
Crack.
Countless modern and contemporary media + election politics + party politics that help to build split and freely combined political identity and labels + atomized Society + use and accelerate split.
How can such a society build consensus? If there is consensus, it is also limited to local “bubbles”, cultural and interest groups, and small groups of information cocoons. For the whole society, it can only be divided.
Western society based on opposition and division
In western society, Europe has been dissolved into numerous small countries; The United States is the only populous country in Western civilization, but it has been broken down and divided by various political identities and labels. On the surface, it operates, but in fact, it is in a state of political failure and implosion.
Now it seems that it is not difficult to understand all this: Western civilization has been building political and cultural concepts that emphasize differences, create tension, promote conflicts, and lead to population division. In the west, without confrontation and conflict, and without the motive force of division, people seem unable to understand society, and society cannot find the order and logic for operation and progress. The force of these separatist political and cultural concepts is very strong – and it has become stronger in the contemporary society driven by capital and technology, which is far greater than the cohesion and centripetal force that society can form. Naturally, this has created the status quo of the western world.
China affected by Western separatism
I believe that many internal and external conflicts, contradictions, and confrontations in politics, ideology, values, and culture in recent / modern / Contemporary China can be traced back to the West.
It is not only class, race, nationality, civilization, culture and other conflicts, but also the general “line” and “doctrine” disputes – from the presentation and definition of problems to the solution of contradictions and even the way of struggle, all come from the west, which is completely different from the traditional Chinese thinking of the golden mean, harmony, tolerance, comprehensiveness and great harmony.
It is said that China is “divided for a long time and divided for a long time”. The core is that apart from division, there is always a force of “integration”, and this force is constantly strengthening. Therefore, in the past few hundred years, the Greater China has been united for the majority of the time, and it is difficult to separate the forces into a climate. Moreover, modern and contemporary politics is more conducive to harmony, making the power of harmony run through the political, economic, social and cultural values. Now, it is hard for us to imagine that China will enter the state of “separation”.
There is no such historical cycle and logic in the West. It is basically a division. The political body becomes smaller and smaller (Europe and European colonial countries). Even if a loose large political body (EU) is established, it can still withdraw and separate (Britain’s brexit). The United States, as an immigrant country, is very special in Western civilization. Various ethnic groups and identity groups are mixed. Without historical territory, it is difficult for society to set up territorial boundaries in turn to build a new country. If we are forced to play together, we can only continue to confront, conflict and implode.
Russia is a special country. Why can it exist as a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country? Because it is deeply influenced by Eastern / non Western cultures, the power of “integration” exceeds the power of “separation”, which enables it (like some other non western countries) to maintain the traditional and multicultural “empire” mode.
What kind of civilization and country will be more competitive in the future world?
Of course, it is a country that can gather strength.
This also requires us to identify more consciously – which political concepts in our political and cultural life originate from the west, have divisive elements, and will dissolve consensus and cohesion; What are the traditional political concepts that help build consensus, cohesion and centripetal force.
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