To recap, it seems like I’m the one here willing to engage in critical discussion about both the west and about China. Perhaps that’s because I have a personal stake in both societies and wish better for both. You are just hiding behind unfounded and poorly defined accusations of “eurocentrism” and name calling to shut down discussion, without even realizing that it’s the exact same cognitive bias you seem so critical of.
Obviously European enlightenment values are not above reproach. I have certainly never made such a claim. You, however seem to be actively asserting that the Chinese system is indeed above reproach, and you also seem to be under the impression that this is the less biased stance. I have not and will not remove your agency by declaring you brainwashed as you have done repeatedly.
Please explain how you plan to liberate workers by removing their basic political agency. “You are just brainwashed. Please try to keep up.”
This is how you began the engagement. This is not a critical discussion. This is you parroting Western propaganda and the rest of your comments are an attempt to back your way into a rationalization. The basis for your claim has shifted from complaining about separatists on a former British colony espousing secession being arrested to trials not being open to the general public. Neither of these intersect at all with “basic political agency”. If you knew anything at all about what actually goes on in China, you would understand that citizens of China have far and away more political agency than citizens of the US have, it just looks different than Euro-centric democracies.
By the way, I use “Euro-centric” as a way of catching the entire history of the dominant European powers, the colonial powers, and the settler-colonial states that proceed from them, because it’s the easiest and most accurate short-hand despite being imprecise. I could use “North Atlantic” but it doesn’t capture the fact that the settler states all base their legal systems on British Common Law. As another aside, British Common Law is what Hong Kong operated under during colonization, except only the British were considered full citizens whereas the Chinese inhabitants of Hong Kong were subjugated and marginalized by the law. In this way, Hong Kong is a great example to expose your Euro-centric bias, by saying that democratic forms of the European pedigree are somehow “more free” than democratic forms of the Chinese variety. This is clear bias because the democratic forms of the Chinese variety clearly address the largest form of European subjugation - structural racism - but somehow all the Euro-centric “Democracy Indexes” don’t seem to be structured to capture this difference.
In the US, there are some native languages that have less than 10 fluent speakers, all of whom are in their 80s and will die soon. In China, there are native languages that are used throughout a citizen’s entire educational process from grade school through university. China is not above reproach, it’s above reproach by the North Atlantic. Europeans (and settlers) have no standing to reproach China. They gave that up during the century of humiliation when they subjugated the country, made themselves immune to the legal system, stole their land, poisoned their land, enslaved their people, created opium addiction in 40% of the national population and then invaded the country when the country tried to outlaw drugs and forced them to legalize the drug trade.
If the North Atlantic had atoned for their atrocities, MAYBE they’d have a standing to critique China. But then they kept Hong Kong until 1997 and did everything they could to foment unrest and rebellion. They established an East Turkistan radicalization project to create religious extremists to commit acts of terror in China, just like they did in Afghanistan. They trained Tibetan separatists in terrorism and airlifted into the country to fight China. They supported Chiang Kai-Shek when he lost the civil war and they supported the establishment of a separatist outpost on Taiwan, they armed them, they protected them with naval blockades.
There is no position anymore from which the North Atlantic can levy criticisms of China. Any critique is immediately tainted by the attempts to completely undermine and subjugate China that have been occurring non-stop for over 2 centuries now. Non-stop. Unbroken. The North Atlantic in 200 years has never stopped trying to subjugate China, lie about China, propagandize about China, and dominate China. It has literally never stopped. So, no, I have no interest in having an uninformed conversation about theoretical comparative liberty comparing China and other societies with someone living in the North Atlantic that has zero issue regurgitating claims that are easily dismissed through basic research.
I have not and will not remove your agency by declaring you brainwashed as you have done repeatedly.
I have literally never called you brainwashed, because I know what the term means and where it came from. I was raised in America. I was indoctrinated in my country’s cultural belief system. I am now brain washed, that is to say, I have washed my brain from that indoctrination. This is the original meaning of the term, and it refers to the way that Mao managed to keep the war effort going - when the PLA captured KMT soldiers, it had a program of pairing those soldiers up with PLA soldiers and letting them have conversations. The KMT was run like a feudal military, and the soldiers were treated poorly by their commanding warlord. They have no power and or influence over their lives, their tactics, etc. The PLA, on the other hand, was much more egalitarian. The KMT troops had been indoctrinated to believe terrible things about the PLA. But then the KMT troops actually spoke with PLA soliders, and saw how the PLA operated, many of them joined up with the PLA. Some units in the PLA had a greater than 100% death rate (counted against the number initially deployed to the field) and still operated because they converted so many KMT troops to their side. That’s what brain washing is. It’s washing away false beliefs that were placed there through indoctrination.
I was not indoctrinated by China, I was indoctrinated by the US (a continuation and collaboration of European power projection). I believed the same things about China that you believe. I recognize your beliefs, because I used to have them. I don’t believe those things anymore, because I did engage in critical thinking, and I critiqued my indoctrination. And it’s a lot fucking harder than the alternative. It’s easier to not challenge this indoctrination, not the least of which because family, friends, and coworkers all believe the indoctrination, too, and my critique of that indoctrination is met with suspicion, derision, anger, and even risk of various forms of harm.
So ask yourself, why would an American, indoctrinated by America, previously believing the same shit you believed, why would I go through the discomfort, the difficulty, and the risks inherent with changing my beliefs when literally all of the media, all of the peer pressure, and all of the structure around me is replicating American ideology?
It’s because the facts don’t match the message, and critical thinking requires it.
Right, the entire point is that democracy is when you have real conversations about issues . Not when you call them brainwashed and ignore them.
Your truth seeking methodology is “US bad.” I am skeptical of that methodology. If you want to realistically engage with that, then I am fully there. But until then, “you are brainwashed and I am enlightened” just isn’t a super interesting conversation
You have no fucking idea what my “truth seeking methodology” is. I studied history. You should too.
That you have to believe I’m so moronic as to start from the assumption that “USA bad” shows how weak your position is. I already told you, I was born and raised here. I was indoctrinated like you were. My truth seeking led me to the realization that the US is doing worse than what it lies about other countries doing.
Also, if you have to keep redefining democracy to make your point, try examining that.
Also, get some reading comprehension. I never called you brainwashed not did I say I was enlightened. I said I used to believe what you believe because I was raised in the USA and educated the same way everyone else was. But I spent a lot of time and effort studying and fighting against my indoctrination and now I believe the opposite of what you believe.
You have not gone through that. You believe the same things you believed when you were in high school. And you think other people are being influenced by some strange and powerful external force but that the force is weak and terrible and obviously evil but some people are weaker than you and succumb to their influence?
Just seriously engage with history. Your indoctrination won’t survive the encounter.
