<h1>The contrast between Chinese civilization and Western civilization</h1>
He Fan's overall view
2016-11-24
| audio narrator: Yu Hao |
Big picture warm-up:
If your child goes abroad to study, then talk about a boyfriend or girlfriend. What would you think if this friend was French, black, Russian, Japanese, or Taiwanese?
If you are willing to practice the big picture with me, you may wish to spend half a minute thinking about these questions yourself, and then read this article.
Keywords: nationalism
Where did nationalism come about? It is not that there are nations and then there are states, but on the contrary, there are countries and then there are nations. In connection with this, Huntington spoke of the "clash of civilizations." But most conflicts do not occur between civilizations, but within civilizations.
Nationalist forces suddenly rose
Today we will talk about another thing that bothers you very much, why the power of nationalism has suddenly reared its head.
Many of the ideas that have been taken for granted are actually not far from historical origins. As we have said before, the idea of the equality of sovereign states originated in the modern Western world. The moral concept based on individualism also originated in the modern world. The same is true of nationalism today.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Western Europe was caught up in a situation of small countries and years of conquest. The result of the war was the birth of the state. In order to win the war, the state must be as efficient as possible, tap its potential, and mobilize people's enthusiasm.
The so-called nation-state does not have a nation first and then a state, on the contrary, there is a state first, and then there is a nation. Nationalism is an ideology deliberately reinforced between countries in order to strengthen control over their inhabitants.
The famous historian Benedict Anderson has said that nations are nothing more than "imaginary communities." The American political scientist Huntington also said in "The Clash of Civilizations": "Unless we hate the non-my race, we cannot love my race." ”
Unfortunately, the West gradually conquered the world, and it sowed the poisonous sprouts of nationalism everywhere. The Balkans are known as the "powder keg of Europe" and are home to an unusually complex of ethnicities and religions. But before Westerners arrived, the local ethnic identity was rather indifferent, and everyone could get along. When nationalism spread to the region, the fighting began to continue.
Clash of civilizations
Rwanda in Africa originally lived in many different tribes. By the 1930s, the Belgian rulers had to divide rwandans into two ethnic groups, one called the "Hutu" and the other called the "Tutsi". In 1994, a horrific genocide broke out in Rwanda. The Hutu exterminated the Tutsi, killing nearly 1 million people. Many of those who were slaughtered were Hutu, because it is difficult to tell who is Hutu and who is Tutsi.
I recommend you to watch a movie: "Hotel Rwanda". In this film, a group of terrified Tutsis break into a local hotel for refuge. A Western journalist asked the locals what the differences between the two peoples were. According to the movie, the criteria for differentiation are different nose heights and different degrees of elegance in walking!
The Soviet Union learned from Western nationalism, and China learned from Soviet nationalism, but in fact, China's ethnic policy is a confused account. I have a classmate who lives in Hunan and has always been Han Chinese, and when he was in middle school, the county suddenly changed to Tujia Autonomous County, so he became a Tujia family. We have learned in textbooks that there are mountain tribes in Taiwan. If you are traveling to Taiwan, you may wish to ask them, what is the mountain tribe?
China has not had the concept of a nation since ancient times. China is a concept of civilization, not a nation. The world order in ancient China was promoted from the inside out and layer by layer according to the degree of civilization and the degree of closeness. According to the distance from the kingdom of the Son of Heaven, the first is Dianfu, the outside of Dianfu is Houfu, the outside of Houfu is Suifu, the outside of Suifu is Suifu, the outside of Suifu is to be served, and the outside of Suifu is to be served, and the outside of The Clothing is absurd. This is the world in the ancient Chinese ideal.
We mentioned Huntington's Clash of Civilizations earlier. He predicted a sharp confrontation between Christian and Islamic civilizations. In fact, the vast majority of conflicts do not occur between civilizations, but within civilizations. In the long history of evolution, our ancestors rarely saw people of other races, and the most they saw were people from the other side of the mountain, who looked like them.
People's greatest enemy is probably familiar strangers, that is, another small group that splits up from the same big group. The shia's greatest enemy is the Sunnis. The Red Guards' greatest enemy was another Red Guard.
Black and white boundaries
The founders of the United States have long warned that "the united are one." The United States has always claimed to be a "melting pot", the result? This melting pot became a separator.
It is said that on the day after Trump's election, many Muslim girls in the United States were afraid to wear veils to school. The infamous Ku Klux Klan held a party to celebrate Trump's rise to power.
The situation in Europe is worse than in the United States. Europe's population is far more ageing than that of the United States, and it has recently suffered wave after wave of refugee flows. How to deal with the tension between a shrinking white population and a tidal wave of african, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian populations?
Nationalism is the first demon that Westerners have unleashed since they opened Pandora's box, and the West has not yet found a solution to this problem.
The Western world has experienced extremely brutal racial discrimination and overcorrection, and today's Westerners are very concerned about protecting the rights of ethnic minorities. This is politically liberal and culturally pluralistic, and unfortunately such an effort can be counterproductive.
Although this policy is not as aggressive as the nationalism of the past, its historical genes are the same as the nationalism of the past. It is said that ethnic minorities should be treated differently, give them more compensation and give them more freedom, but the result of this policy is to continuously strengthen ethnic differences.
The "black and white line" in American society is still clear, and black people are not only not satisfied, but also become more and more angry. Now, too, whites have become angry. The wounds of American society have been torn apart and have to endure more pain.
Perhaps, there is an ancient kingdom that can provide wisdom to the Western world. China has not had the concept of a nation since ancient times, and the Han population contains completely different races in the anthropological sense, including different religious beliefs, and containing a variety of languages, customs and cultures.
There is a saying that northerners are and southerners are Malays, but of course, there is still a lot of controversy about this claim. Dialects vary greatly across China, but the unified script allows people to communicate with each other.
In China's history, it was not without brutality, when nomadic peoples in the north often harassed the agricultural areas of the Central Plains, and during the "Wuhu Chaohua", the Han people in the north were almost wiped out, the Mongol iron hooves went south, and the Han people were also massacred. But compared with the Western world, Chinese civilization is the real "melting pot".
I once read a history of Judea. According to the book, the Jews drifted all over the world and were blinded by the locals, so they still stubbornly retained their customs and traditions in their foreign lands. Only one group of Jews, in Henan, China, was assimilated by the good and lazy peasants of the region.
He Fan
Big Picture Review:
1. The nation is an "imaginary community". There is a state before there is a nation, and nationalism is the product of the state in order to unite the people.
2. The West has experienced very brutal racism and now wants to whitewash, so it is very opposed to racial discrimination, but it is overcorrected and the effect is not good.
3. There is no concept of nationalism or nationalism in traditional Chinese civilization. China also has inter-ethnic massacres, but it is more like a "melting pot" than Western civilization.
The big picture goes by
This article is also a reflection on the Trump phenomenon. It is said that after Trump's election, ethnic minorities were subjected to a lot of harassment in the streets, schools and shops. Whether this is an impulsive behavior similar to the aftermath of a ball game, or whether it will trigger more escalation of violence, it is difficult to say. But look at the refugee problem in Europe, the Xinjiang problem in China, all of which remind us to pay more attention to the dangers of fanatical nationalism.
We will continue to introduce: Is there really a clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam, and what exactly are they arguing about? How will ethnic and religious conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere evolve?
Big picture view cultivation
Nationalism is not all about flooding. If you want to go beyond small social groups, such as families and tribes, and unite people on a larger scale to form a large social group, you must mobilize with the help of religion or nationalism.
Many countries are artificially created in this way, such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and so on. Imagine the national liberators of Indonesia, who were in a traditional society, full of families and tribes, strangers to each other and basically not interacting with each other.
They want to create a new nation-state, so what can be done to better mobilize everyone?
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User message
dawn
23 Likes
In traditional management philosophies, division within a team is the worst thing to do, and as described in this article, small groups can be traumatic to the organization. However, according to the product thinking in recent years, we can already actively use this division under certain conditions, that is, the so-called group system, capsule team, cell tissue, etc. Tencent makes mobile phone QQ and WeChat PK, which is a good example.
November 24, 2016
Author replies
These are all practices that deliberately break with interest groups
Hu brother
17 Likes
There is really no need for China to have an ethnic column in everyone's household registration, which will only emphasize the differences and should not have any preferential policies.
Yeah, I also feel like it should be canceled
cq
13 Likes
Add 2 points: 1, about the Rwandan genocide, in addition to the "Rwanda Hotel" recommended by Teacher He Fan, there are several movies to refer to: "Sometime in April", "Killing Zone", "Shaking Hands with the Devil" (documentary), and if you want to understand why there is such a tragic genocide in civilized society, you can watch another movie "Black Hawk Down", and then think about why the failure of a US military operation in 93 led to the Rwandan tragedy in 94. 2. Regarding the Gaoshan ethnic group, this is actually a collective name for the Austronesian language peoples in Taiwan, which includes 13 ethnic groups. Moreover, it was also the japanese colonialists' name for Taiwan's ethnic minorities at that time, which contained discriminatory meanings, and is no longer officially used, just like the Eskimos, which should be called Inuit.
November 25, 2016
Thanks for the addition
Dr. Kogane
7 Likes
If Teacher He puts a label on you to distinguish between other experts in the li, do you think that people who like you will resist Li Xiaolai? If so, what kind of label do you think is the most appropriate.
How could it be? According to my observations, Mr. Smiley has a great deal of intersection with my subscribers, and I am also a fan of him. Why resist laughing at the teacher? My label: a hedgehog-type scholar.
Georgie
4 Likes
Teacher He, when will you talk about writing?
After the holiday, how?
Mou Haiwang
26 Likes
The West has changed from the past racial discrimination to the current too protective of minorities, and this overcorrected "political correctness" does not work well, because this change belongs to the "first order change", and changing "A" into "non-A" will not solve the problem. What ethnic discrimination and ethnic protection have in common lies in the emphasis on ethnic issues, and the emphasis on ethnic issues is the cause of ethnic problems, and the solution is to carry out "second order change", that is, similar to Singapore's approach, trying to eliminate ethnic differences, weaken ethnic issues, and let everyone agree with a larger imaginary community.
Yang Gongming
12 Likes
The nationalist and biological epidemic prevention system is somewhat godlike. They are all provoked by external aggression, they are all spread throughout the system, and they can hurt the innocent. In addition, they are the effects rather than the causes. Then one cannot think of eliminating fanatical nationalism, but of how to coexist peacefully with nationalism. Eliminate the cause of their outbreak, not eliminate themselves.
Cai Xiaoli
10 Likes
Many people in China now believe that our ancestors' concept of "tianxia" is the solution to future mankind, and they used to find it incomprehensible: how can the idea of not saving themselves save the world? Reading Mr. He's article today, my feelings have changed, if you carefully analyze the conflicts within and between countries in the world after World War II, nationalism is indeed an important reason, nationalism is similar to the most influential world religion after Christianity. After 1,000 years of Christian domination, the Inquisition has finally closed, and I believe that human wisdom can tame the demon of nationalism.
Lushan smoke and rain_Zhejiang tide
8 Likes
(1) On the issue of children going abroad to find boyfriends and girlfriends, I think and mind the relative status and state of male and female life in this country or culture, for example, I am a daughter myself, in China I am willing to let her be in Zhejiang or shanghai, Beijing and other places, she is such a place and city, women's relative status is high, unwilling to let her go to the northeast Ah North China and other places where women's status is relatively weak, of course, the general economy is developed, women's status is independent, the status is high; but in the world, like South Korea and Japan are relatively opposite, Maybe they have learned the unchanged part of our culture, less learned the changed part, although the economy has developed, but the gender status is still very different. So the thinking about this question is to let the child go to a cultural environment that is relatively more likely to achieve happiness, but it is also possible to find a person from a conservative culture, but the relative probability is small. (2) Long knowledge, it turns out that there is such a cultural concept behind the five clothes that we commonly use in colloquial language.
rpllily
My children go abroad to study and talk about friends, and I will not interfere. As long as the three views are in tune, they are willing to do it themselves. When I think of the Xinjiang and Tibet issues, I always feel that it is because there are too many preferential policies for ethnic groups, but we are constantly reminding us that we are not the same ethnic group. If laws and policies are treated like other provinces, wouldn't it be better to give some regional preferences to remote areas rather than to discriminate because of different ethnic groups?
thirteen
6 Likes
Many years ago I saw a movie where a magician wants to destroy an evil god, but in the final battle, the magician did not use spells, did not use magic, just chose to forget. God, who exists because of man's worship, disappears because of man's oblivion. In fact, many concepts of modern society are not what we imagined, countries, nations, companies, and laws. If we all choose to forget, then how can these things exist? A long time ago, I read the article of Hecaitou, talking about women's rights, to the effect that only by not treating yourself as a vulnerable group, do not demand fairness everywhere, but it is easier to obtain fairness. Back to nationalism. The United States has a policy, that is, to continue to change the name of the vulnerable groups, more and more euphemistic, more and more subtle, because the name brings different psychological hints, will reduce the occurrence of discrimination to a certain extent. So my suggestion is to pay less attention to the idea of nationality, not to deliberately take care of it, and not to emphasize it as a sign of national unity. Citizens' rights and interests are shown to be equal, and ethnic preferential treatment is no longer engaged, and it is even more necessary to treat them equally in laws and regulations. It feels a bit like the opposite of love is not hate, but disregard.
Xiao Yong
I think the best way is to let everyone feel a better life, a word for beauty but there are two meanings, one is to feel the beauty, one is to feel good, for those who desire material pursuits, the focus is on good, and for those who desire spiritual pursuits, the focus is on beauty, about material pursuits, Sima Qian's "History" has a famous saying that the world is bustling for profit, and the world is all for profit. The pursuit of profit can quickly form a community, and the pleasure of the spirit of pursuing thought is expressed in the word we call beauty, beauty, is a thing, or a knowledge of your original thought link and a kind of pleasure produced, the easier this link, the easier it is to produce pleasure, the more extensive and deep the feeling of happiness of thought The stronger and more lasting, so consistent values, unified slogans can make people quickly link to form a community, The breadth of intellectual links and deep religious links make this community more durable and solid, and the reason why beauty is a word is to show that most of us need both material and spiritual happiness. Finally, Xiao Yong's question is that you say that our traditional Chinese civilization is more like a melting pot than Western civilization, so how do you think about the backwardness caused by the lack of competitive vitality brought about by the great integration. Do you think that it is the law of society that must be divided for a long time and must be divided for a long time?
What is backwardness, it is really difficult to say. In ancient China, the time of unification and division was about half of the time
You go first
The superstitious Thomas Friedman group of people who frantically ridiculed Huntington's fans, and now the other way around, is this called the impermanence of the world or is it permanent? hehe! 1. Western culture originated from the western end of the Eurasian continent with many city-states, which never had a unified Europe under the rule of strong authoritarianism - the Roman Empire is strictly more like China's Xia Shang Zhou, so the innate lack of unified cognition and experience, there are too many small city-states, just like the Chinese national Warring States period, the lords of each small city-state will never ask which one is more important, living, naturally there is dignity, so the culture reflects more struggle externally than integration, and internally it is how to ensure its own stability. It was a good idea to emphasize the primacy of blood purity, and the specter of racism was born. 2. Western culture can become the mainstream of today has its advanced side, there are also accidental reasons - the discovery of the American continent - the American natives are almost extinct - the sale of African slaves to the Americas - a large amount of silver and sugar and other return to Europe - trade collapsed Asia is mainly China, European culture spread all over the world, in the name of advanced and scientific, but behind it is - steel, guns and germs, you can refer to the two books "Steel, Guns and Germs", "Who wrote history in five hundred years". 3. Why is there a clash within civilizations? It seems irrational, but this is precisely the result of human rationality, or like the Mongolian iron horse plundering eurasia, with crazy plunder to maintain internal stability, but this is unsustainable, outward can not be done, only to find the enemy inward, the common enemy itself is to strengthen the cohesion of small groups of bonds, Chinese say that distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors, but others seem to have benefits occupied by close neighbors...
Please ask Teacher He, Chinese civilization has not had such a thing as nationalism for two thousand years, but why has it become its most loyal supporter after the founding of New China? Is it the collective survival response brought about by the crisis of the destruction of the country and the family after the late Qing Dynasty? Is there a causal relationship between the prevalence of nationalism and the overall strength of the state and the recognition of its values? Will one day Chinese restore the self-confidence and superiority of Chinese civilization in the agricultural era and stop being so obsessed with nationalism? Of course my question does not imply that nationalism is bad, I know that what is bad is fanatical nationalism. I want to know what the antidote to fanatical nationalism might be and explain it to my children, who have been imprisoned by nationalism for many years, but I will never be able to forgive myself if my children go on to participate in fanatical activities similar to the siege of KFC in the future.
Small buds
3 Likes
There is no nationalism in China, not necessarily! Isn't there an old saying in China that if you are not in my clan, your heart must be different?
This sentence is from the Zuo Zhuan, which is about the contradiction between Jin and Chu, which is not nationalism in the modern sense. When we talk about the defense of Yixia, it is more of a cultural concept, that is, you accept and do not accept my culture.
Think with your mind
All the views of Teacher He Fan this week made me think of a reflection on the word "traitor", before the mention of the word traitor, we will instinctively despise and even hate the gritted teeth, but carefully think about the "traitor" figures in history, in the historical situation at that time, they may think that what they do is beneficial to their own country and people, but who knows in the end they have become "traitors" who they are not willing to become, so the definition of traitor who comes down, how to understand, it is estimated that it is determined by group differences. After all, no one's motive is to be a traitor.
You can take Wang Jingwei as an example
Toyz
The sadness of civilization is not that it is scarred in the struggle between obscurity and barbarism, but that it is mistaken for civilization. Teacher He Fan, in my opinion, some intellectuals focus on the ideas of doctrine, the advantages and disadvantages of the system, the shortcomings of the needle, and vigilance against behavior, while other intellectuals focus on human nature and are vigilant against the people.
I am not anything, nor do I dare to call it an intellectual, that is, a reader who has wandered the rivers and lakes
immortal
After listening to today's overall situation, the first thing that comes to mind is North Korea and South Korea, the same clan and the same ethnic group, but now they are intolerable, why is this? In the second reflection of China, the feudal era basically emphasized not ethnicity but emphasized integration, and the temples around the Chengde Summer Resort are examples. The third thinks of Canada, which has more nationalities than China, but because of the emphasis on national identity, it solves the national problem very well. Combined with the big picture content of the previous days, overemphasizing one group, this group will inevitably exclude another group, and the solution is either to let them know that there is a stronger group, so that they must unite to deal with it, or weaken their identity.
North Korea and Taiwan may be the last two places to stick to the Cold War mentality
Apricot rain
I remember that the Jew who had been exiled to Henan seemed to be called a picker
Human travel
The river eventually enters the sea, and mankind is on the road to the ultimate goal of happiness, religion, nation, populism.... And the display of various ideologies will be one of its presentation methods, the process may have ups and downs, history or progress and retreat. At present, human beings can only use the "imaginary community" to connect people of different regions, cultures, and customs to achieve temporary unity and consistency, but from the perspective of the entire history of human development, they will eventually reach what the ancient Chinese called "the unity of the world".
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