All the authors observations ring true, and they all stem from one simple fact: China was a very poor country just forty years ago, and even today is only a middle income country.
The uncomfortable truth is a lot of the things westerners take for granted are, in fact, luxuries. Arts and creativity is a luxury. Freedom to pursue passion is a luxury. Compassion is a luxury. Self-esteem is a luxury. If you barely have enough food to feed your family, as a significant number of Chinese people were in the 60s and 70s, you cannot afford any of these.
China has grown richer at a remarkable rate, but the mentality shift can take generations.
I think this also leads to the most important observation of our time: progress is now much more difficult to measure and the control over the narrative is fierce.
This entire century of media has been an endless splitting of hairs and casting of doubts.
> The uncomfortable truth is a lot of the things westerners take for granted are, in fact, luxuries.
This is supposed to be uncomfortable? Why? Most inter-national discussions here are about how their country is better because they have bigger houses, more toys, and how they can remain oblivious to how the rest of the world works because of how good their “soft” or “hard” power is at managing the rest of the world.
That sort of international comparison talk is usually more motivated by arguing that "my rich country is better than your rich country" than "my rich country is better than poor underdeveloped countries". Oftentimes it is a proxy argument for the best degree of government involvement in the economy and other policy questions.
> No. These are virtues, not luxuries. You don't need a high income to be compassionate or have self-esteem.
It's not about you, it's about others around you. If they do not have a "high income" (or, in other words, materially comfortable life), you cannot expect them to be comfortable enough to be compassionate or have self-esteem. And then, if they don't, but you do, it's an easy recipe for your compassion to be exploited and your self-esteem to be perceived as danger. It's a self-leveling system.
It's not an individual matter, but a social one. Always has been.
And it's not specific to China - I see it in Poland, a relatively "we've been damn poor forty years ago" country as well.
This flies in the face of my own experience travelling all over the world, where the poorest people would offer me extreme generosity and not accept anything in return.
Maybe it's bias because I'm an "exotic" white guy in many areas and not just a random down on their luck average guy from their own region.
I've also been offered generosity by rich people, as well, but, I will generalize, that mainly came after I demonstrated some proof that I didn't actually need their generosity
Maybe it's country dependent. I have seen what you describe in countries where christianity is the dominant religion and most people in those countries something like 70 to 80 percent identify with it. And religion in those places is most prevalent among the poor, so much so there is a direct relationship between poverty and religion, the more religious, the poorer.
Everyone who downvoted you are the type to step into another pile of dog shit the moment they finish scraping their shoes. Regressing into spirituality doesn't fix this. High trust paired with opportunity does.
not one person has called you out for consistently sounding like AI so I'll be that guy and cop the downvotes, in case a human is involved in the loop I will also respectfully provide an actual response - did you have a way or some evidence to back the possible insights contained in your strangely metaphored comment?
Hah, that's pretty funny. I expect to be downvoted on HN half the time, but since you asked I'll do you a favor and confirm I'm not AI. You might want to take a break.
Right back at you, I'm not sure what the deal is lately with some comments insisting on quotes or citations or "proof" of anything. To me, they seem like gambits by paid trolls. I'm just making observations from experience.
Something to ask yourself is where the honest truth is supposed to come from if it's always borrowed from somewhere else. People are free to make up their own minds.
Have you ever been to truly starving places? Not taking about poor countries, literally starving places, like, Syria in WWI. Where if you don't steal from your neighbor, your kids will die of hunger. That's the kind of environment where compassion is a luxury. A lot of China was like that _even if for a short time_ in the last century. That leaves deep scars.
Not a lot of the world is like that today, you'd have to go pretty far out of anything considered tourist-friendly to see conditions similar to Mao-induced famine.
There are definitely SOME aspects of generosity tied to abundance and some not. Some might offer you the cup of cleanest rainwater found in their plot of rubble and others might chase you away using the stolen phaser gun tucked under their clothing. Or maybe it's more influenced by inequality within the society rather than absolute material abundance.
> This flies in the face of my own experience travelling all over the world, where the poorest people would offer me extreme generosity and not accept anything in return.
orrrr maybe poor people you've encountered are poor exactly because they are generous in competitive environment - and non-generous became rich and successful
I'm only speaking from my own experience here. When I've seen stressed out people who are expected to believe in "virtues", they just become more dishonest to hide their bad behavior.
The bell curve of human behavior stays the same no matter what time or place.
One's compassion reservoir capacity is proportional to one's capacity to fulfill its own needs first. You fill your cup first before you pour into others.
It's amazing to me how ignorant this comment is. Someone is teaching you something about a culture you don't understand and you're chastising them (or condescending to an entire nation).
> No. These are virtues, not luxuries.
According to your particular ethics. Has it ever occurred to you that the ethics you have isn't universal but is simply an artifact of your culture?
Compassion and self-esteem are not artifacts of culture or ethics. They're intrinsic to humanity. The manner of expression of these virtues can vary among different cultures. The audience of these virtues can vary among different beliefs and ethical frameworks. But the virtues exist in every society.
I have to daily remind myself that people on here probably haven't had a single liberal arts class (like philosophy or anthropology) because they're stemlords.
> But the virtues exist in every society.
And also not too bright. brother you're literally commenting on your own response to a post about how such a virtue is potentially absent in some society
I'm actually quite disturbed to read that so many people believe compassion has anything to do with material satisfaction. Compassion isn't some bourgeois luxury, it's fundamental to any sort of well-being, be it individual or societal.
If it really came down to the famine, I'd ask why isn't this mentality seen in Bangladesh, who also lost around 5% of it's population to famine in the 20th century? They're some of the kindest, most welcoming people I've been around in the face of a poverty that China no longer knows.
So I'm having a hard time believing that TFA isn't completely off on this one, as I'd expect a society that had 2000 years of contact with Buddhism to have absorbed at least a little of the Buddha's teachings on karuna. Especially one whose main school was that of Mahayana and it's ideal of the Bodhisattva.
This is exactly true. I've seen people share what they have in poor rural South America and India. It seems common.
Japan, post war was desperately poor, but everyone shared what they had. A friend who grew up in rural China in the 60s-70s described very compassionate behavior. Communism is often born of necessity and not political will. Those who cheat and steal are ostracized, if not hunted.
It is during rapid transitions, and it seems during both growth and decline when hoarding and theft become rampant. In steady state, those that remain, work together.
If they grew up in Rural China and weren't telling you stuff about their experiences of "The Great Leap Forward" or "The Cultural Revolution", particularly the extreme amounts of selfishness one had to utilize to simply survive, they, like many people who have had to exist in destitute conditions, They're probably not telling you the whole story, and never will because they do not want to deal with the social judgements from people over actions they took to survive.
There's a good chance that for the survivors from that era, their parents almost certainly did some extremely evil things to survive.
You appear to have no real knowledge of Chinese history, perhaps as bad as that (not) taught in China. Around 1960 when the famine and related purges occurred the population was ~650M so even with the high end of 30-45M dead of starvation over 3 years, it's a few percent. It's horrifying to be sure, but it was concentrated (for political reasons they were exporting grain) in the west and central China where food was grown, while the major population centers were largely spared (still almost 1% died). So no, not every person alive in 1960 was involved in some sort of genocide, or even aware of it. The political elite of course suffered relatively little (until 60-80% of them were in turn purged less than 10 years later), but they were also (as usual) a tiny minority <3% of the population. This purge was called the Cultural Revolution also driven by Mao. Then came Deng, and now Xi. With some periods of relative political complexity in between.
Please study some history and stop assuming literally everyone is evil. That leads to the very expectations, political apathy, and actions that allow this kind of situation. It's unhelpful.
"Why isn't this mentality seen in Bangladesh"
Go ask anyone from, say, Myanmar (especially Arakan state) what they think of Bangladeshi people. You might find that opinion of "They're some of the kindest, most welcoming people I've been around in the face of a poverty that China no longer knows" to not be so widely held.
Maybe you should ask Bangladeshi's what they think of the Rohingya people. It turns out that Myanmar is not the only country oppressing them and refusing to give them citizenship!
The tendency to want to group an entire race/people with opinions based on hundreds of experiences with them, let alone dozens or a few, is the same tendency in us that spawns racism and prejudice. Your experiences have no influence on the reality of "the goodness of a people".
I'm married to a Bangladeshi, so yes I'm very aware of the treatment of the Rohingya at a state and societal level. I have close Bangladeshi friends that have done humanitarian aide work with their communities in Cox's Bazaar. It's a horrible crises.
My comment was responding to the author's argument that compassion only arises when material needs are accounted for, that compassion is some middle class thing. They were arguing that Chinese culture doesn't emphasize it because of their history of war, famine, and poverty. I think that's a horrible misunderstanding of both compassion and Chinese culture, and was merely countering it with an example of a people that have also experienced a famine that had a similar mortality rate who display perfectly normal human levels of compassion and kindness despite that history. I then went on to conclude that the original writer is likely completely off on how they view Chinese culture, that compassion is fundamental to being human and has nothing to do with bourgeois material comfort.
We tend to want to think in binaries -- people are compassionate or not. People are welcoming or not. That's not how reality works though, it's more nuanced. I was in no way arguing that an entire community of people aren't capable of mistreatment of others. Of course they are. But can a people that have experienced a massive amount of trauma and poverty and loss capable of displaying compassion? Of course they are. Because compassion is a fundamental aspect of being human.
Also, poor people produce art and are creative. Art and creativity are oftentimes reault of not being able to afford comfortable middle class boring life, having issues you deal with, needing to distract yourself from hopelessness.
Even historically, quite a few art or music styles came out of poor or disturbed communities before they got commercialized. It is as if upper middle class HN programmers tended to think that creativity or art is only when you do something expensive or take an expensive art class.
The communists in China actively tried to replace old virtue (it was barely alive in China pre-revolution anyway) with new virtue. New virtue was hollow, shallow, empty and fake.
Say that all you want, make it a mantra if you like. But have you ever skipped a meal out of sheer poverty? Or might you be projecting ethics (ie aka Americanism)? Maybe we should actually cut them some slack.
I have. I know a lot of generous, compassionate poor people. I met loads of them in Honduras and Brazil and Belize. Compassion and generosity need not be a factor of economics.
Severely competitive and hopeless environments will do a hell of a job on human compassion.
Read about the dehumanizing effects of concentration camps on individuals hiding food from their family or praying their father dies so they can get his food
Its arguable that our ability to build luxurious enough societies has allowed out compassion to flourish far beyond what is witnessed elsewhere in the state of nature
Having less competitive/ruthless (sub) societies i.e. environments where one co-operates is what allowed us to get luxury not the other way around.
> Severely competitive and hopeless environments will do a hell of a job on human compassion.
True.
> Its arguable that our ability to build luxurious enough societies has allowed out compassion to flourish far beyond what is witnessed elsewhere in the state of nature.
Concentration camps and famines are not the 'state of nature'. A closer analogue would be tribal societies in the Amazon basin, Eastern Africa and the like. Constant hunger and scarcity are not the norm for well adapted human cultures, nor have the been for most of recorded history.
By state of nature I means the non human vilification life space.
Of course a concentration camp isn’t the state of nature
I’m saying human compassion far exceeds anything witnessed in the animal/plant kingdom. Some animals show affection for their offspring, but it usually doesn’t extend beyond that. There is no dog or lizard or tree version of mother Teressa
Concentration camps were created, engineered and run by rich people. Whatever lack of perfect compasion and fight for scraps you see inside, comparably rich people making conscious choice to create them, support them, work in them, profit from them have less of it.
I dont know what you mean there. It was just historical fact about who build them and run them.
They did not emerged as force of nature out of ground. They were intentionally and conciously build. And guards were well fed.
And in here, when you use inmates lack of compassion as example of powerty causimg lack of it, you absolutely should compare to compassion of builders and guards.
Which is why I think the whole premise of GP is kind of suspect. China has housed a highly-developed society - not just a civilization, but a contiguous, if evolving, social order - for longer than most of the rest of the world. Even what they consider backwoods and rural is basically urban by most historical standards.
These aren't the problems of a society rising out of a state of nature; as TFA states, "The narrative is that China experienced a “century of humiliation”". I think certain aspects of Chinese culture as we know it, writ-large, make more sense coming from people who weren't just recently struggling as a society, but who are well aware of how that condition compares to their historical one.
My counter argument though is how the elite class have a certain scarcity mentality and still holds on to these observations made in the articles.
In college, I dated a few Asian (Mainland) who all had similar mindset. Dating wasn’t about finding the right match but more about “upgrade your social face being accepted by foreigners”. It was shockingly weird at the beginning until the pattern was obvious. They were all wealthy (paying international tuition) I would think so the scarcity mindset you speak of seems like should have waned off at a local proximity (family or social circle).
That is the "mentality shift can take generations" part.
Those ladies may be part of the elite now. But remember their parents or grandparents went through the Great Chinese Famine where an estimated 15-60 million people died.
I grew up in the third world. Agree with this comment.
Also my personal belief is that courtesy is a luxury born of abundance. I have observed how minor ‘scarcities’ in the advanced economies can surface behaviour that some would attribute to less developed places e.g. an unexpected slew of cancelled transit
Here in Germany, people are generally good at queuing in supermarkets. This does break down for a minute when a new checkout counter opens; people will rush past others to get into the new line without regards for others. There's this short feeling of breakdown in social norm, fear of getting left in the dust, so politeness and consideration take a backseat and the elbows come out.
In developing countries, including China, my experience has been that this is the standard, and people will act accordingly even if there is abundance. Cancelled transit is a good example as well, it interacts with a primal fear of ours of being left behind or drawing the short stick, even if rationally, it is pretty inconsequential.
I can imagine this can be hyper specific to the store itself, not as a generalization across an entire country.
To give more anecdata — Union Station in Toronto has trains that leave in all directions. The ones going East and West tend to form queues on the platform at rush hour. The train heading north-west to another city tends to form mobs that rush the door upon opening.
Lots of reasons why, but geography and SES may not factor as much. Could be something as simple as supply/demand of free seats.
Hm, this reminds me how the marshmallow experiment [1], initially thought to show differences in character, turned out to surface differences in wealth.
I would add that just having a 60-70 hour work week for many jobs means a different lifestyle, even if you're comfortable financially.
Friend of a friend got hukou in Wuhan recently and picked up a crappy job as a convenience store clerk. 10 hrs/day, 3 days off a month. But! She can comfortably live off it in a major city with a studio apt and even save a bit. Doesn't even need roommates.
I would focus more on current realities when seeking explanations, because the mentality can shift a lot in a single generation.
I'm from Finland. My grandparents were of a generation that knew poverty and hunger and fought in wars. They raised their families when the country was still poor, and food security was always at the back of their minds. My parents grew up in a country that was rapidly getting wealthier. Their generation took food for granted, but owning things was important to them, as it was something they could not have in their youth. For my generation, the country has always been wealthy, and we have always been able to take basic necessities for granted. Our focus has been in choosing what we want to do with our lives, as the world is open and there are many options to choose from.
The corollary to this of course is what happens to countries experiencing the reverse, a rapid decrease of passion and "luxury" for large swathes of the population.
This one is interesting. I'm from Poland, and I'd argue that during very shitty communist times people had a whole lot more compassion than now, when the country is in a much better shape.
I found reading the first chapter of Ai Weiwei's 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows quite depressing. It describes a woman who gave away or let her child die in order to take care of some more well off people's children, which I remember to be Ai's father or grandpa. Then goes on to describe what his dad went through during the Cultural Revolution. Needless to say, I stopped reading the book.
Much of Europe was dirt poor before the war. There were actual food riots in Amsterdam. The Netherlands didn't get sewers until the 1950s. Showers became mandatory only in the 1970s.
We take our decadence and degeneracy for granted but it is all new. There are people alive now who remember Christianity.
I'd say it's more about the education. Your education prioritize loyalty to the nation/party more than loyalty to humanity and oneselfs.
Pretty strong disagree. Compassion -- and humanity towards other humans -- isn't based on what you have. The degree to which you are able to act on your compassion and do something, yes, that's certainly limited by what you have. But not the compassion itself.
I've met many very poor people in very poor countries who had more compassion and humanity than rich people in rich countries.
> and they all stem from one simple fact: China was a very poor country just forty years ago, and even today is only a middle income country.
Recent poverty is a factor, but I disagree that it's where these characteristics stem from. I've lived and worked in countries as poor or poorer than China, and I also lived 6 years in China (and not in an expat bubble) and the characteristics described in the article* are not directly related to an escape from poverty. (*which I largely agree with, though maybe less so the Dark World frame; instead I think instead Chinese have historically a different moral framework than Westerners. For example, being "clever" enough to do something that Westerners would consider wrong (stealing, cheating, etc.) and get away with it, is a sign of strength.)
In my view, Chinese behavior is pre-eminently impacted by filial piety, social appearances, and the fact that when you live in a country with 1.5 B people if you don't push and shove, and even step on a few hands and heads, you're not getting anywhere. And you _must_ get somewhere because of your parental expectations and the need to fulfill your responsibilities to care for your parents when they get old.
Added to that is the more recent development that the CCP has achieved a level of information and social control that other authoritarian countries could only dream of. It's very effective to a degree that Americans would find shocking. (The author's first point about the ubiquity of social media in China goes along with this, and has become a highly effective means of "guiding" public thought.)
Westerner isn’t an income class. For instance, I grew up in appalachia and also didn’t have food, clean water, heat, electricity, health care, clothing, or plumbing. But, I did have free speech rights, access to libraries, and friendships with other poor creative kids like me.
> If you barely have enough food to feed your family, as a significant number of Chinese people were in the 60s and 70s, you cannot afford any of these.
This has also been true where I am from (formerly East Germany), yet we still had arts, creativity, freedom to pursue passion, compassion and self-esteem. We might have had only barely enough food to feed a family, but that didn't mean that we acted like animals.
In Greece the postwar generation was born in poverty after WWII and a civil war. But they created wealth, enough to live in relative luxury: multiple homes, ample available income and free time, holidays around the world. If you are willing to live, you will in the same generation. The current generation pays the cost of that expansion and that is a classic economic lesson.
HeavenFox · · focus · HN ↗
All the authors observations ring true, and they all stem from one simple fact: China was a very poor country just forty years ago, and even today is only a middle income country.
The uncomfortable truth is a lot of the things westerners take for granted are, in fact, luxuries. Arts and creativity is a luxury. Freedom to pursue passion is a luxury. Compassion is a luxury. Self-esteem is a luxury. If you barely have enough food to feed your family, as a significant number of Chinese people were in the 60s and 70s, you cannot afford any of these.
China has grown richer at a remarkable rate, but the mentality shift can take generations.
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
This entire century of media has been an endless splitting of hairs and casting of doubts.
keybored · · focus · HN ↗
This is supposed to be uncomfortable? Why? Most inter-national discussions here are about how their country is better because they have bigger houses, more toys, and how they can remain oblivious to how the rest of the world works because of how good their “soft” or “hard” power is at managing the rest of the world.
0xDEAFBEAD · · focus · HN ↗
10000truths · · focus · HN ↗
Sure.
> Compassion is a luxury. Self-esteem is a luxury.
No. These are virtues, not luxuries. You don't need a high income to be compassionate or have self-esteem.
phoe-krk · · focus · HN ↗
It's not about you, it's about others around you. If they do not have a "high income" (or, in other words, materially comfortable life), you cannot expect them to be comfortable enough to be compassionate or have self-esteem. And then, if they don't, but you do, it's an easy recipe for your compassion to be exploited and your self-esteem to be perceived as danger. It's a self-leveling system.
It's not an individual matter, but a social one. Always has been.
And it's not specific to China - I see it in Poland, a relatively "we've been damn poor forty years ago" country as well.
IncreasePosts · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe it's bias because I'm an "exotic" white guy in many areas and not just a random down on their luck average guy from their own region.
I've also been offered generosity by rich people, as well, but, I will generalize, that mainly came after I demonstrated some proof that I didn't actually need their generosity
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sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
Everyone who downvoted you are the type to step into another pile of dog shit the moment they finish scraping their shoes. Regressing into spirituality doesn't fix this. High trust paired with opportunity does.
thin_carapace · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
Right back at you, I'm not sure what the deal is lately with some comments insisting on quotes or citations or "proof" of anything. To me, they seem like gambits by paid trolls. I'm just making observations from experience.
Something to ask yourself is where the honest truth is supposed to come from if it's always borrowed from somewhere else. People are free to make up their own minds.
neural_thing · · focus · HN ↗
Not a lot of the world is like that today, you'd have to go pretty far out of anything considered tourist-friendly to see conditions similar to Mao-induced famine.
nixon_why69 · · focus · HN ↗
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NooneAtAll3 · · focus · HN ↗
orrrr maybe poor people you've encountered are poor exactly because they are generous in competitive environment - and non-generous became rich and successful
Der_Einzige · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
I'm only speaking from my own experience here. When I've seen stressed out people who are expected to believe in "virtues", they just become more dishonest to hide their bad behavior.
The bell curve of human behavior stays the same no matter what time or place.
Qiu_Zhanxuan · · focus · HN ↗
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
quadragenarian · · focus · HN ↗
swat535 · · focus · HN ↗
If you are starving, you don’t even have that option. You need to prioritize your survival.
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mathisfun123 · · focus · HN ↗
> No. These are virtues, not luxuries.
According to your particular ethics. Has it ever occurred to you that the ethics you have isn't universal but is simply an artifact of your culture?
cindyllm · · focus · HN ↗
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10000truths · · focus · HN ↗
swat535 · · focus · HN ↗
If you can hardly find food or medicine, there is very little room left in your brain for virtues.
This is why religion was developed to help people cope. Society collapses quickly when there is scarcity.
We saw a small glimpse of that in COVID with people hoarding basic toiletries in US and leaving others in need hanging.
mathisfun123 · · focus · HN ↗
I have to daily remind myself that people on here probably haven't had a single liberal arts class (like philosophy or anthropology) because they're stemlords.
> But the virtues exist in every society.
And also not too bright. brother you're literally commenting on your own response to a post about how such a virtue is potentially absent in some society
throwforfeds · · focus · HN ↗
If it really came down to the famine, I'd ask why isn't this mentality seen in Bangladesh, who also lost around 5% of it's population to famine in the 20th century? They're some of the kindest, most welcoming people I've been around in the face of a poverty that China no longer knows.
So I'm having a hard time believing that TFA isn't completely off on this one, as I'd expect a society that had 2000 years of contact with Buddhism to have absorbed at least a little of the Buddha's teachings on karuna. Especially one whose main school was that of Mahayana and it's ideal of the Bodhisattva.
kurthr · · focus · HN ↗
Japan, post war was desperately poor, but everyone shared what they had. A friend who grew up in rural China in the 60s-70s described very compassionate behavior. Communism is often born of necessity and not political will. Those who cheat and steal are ostracized, if not hunted.
It is during rapid transitions, and it seems during both growth and decline when hoarding and theft become rampant. In steady state, those that remain, work together.
Der_Einzige · · focus · HN ↗
There's a good chance that for the survivors from that era, their parents almost certainly did some extremely evil things to survive.
kurthr · · focus · HN ↗
Please study some history and stop assuming literally everyone is evil. That leads to the very expectations, political apathy, and actions that allow this kind of situation. It's unhelpful.
Der_Einzige · · focus · HN ↗
Go ask anyone from, say, Myanmar (especially Arakan state) what they think of Bangladeshi people. You might find that opinion of "They're some of the kindest, most welcoming people I've been around in the face of a poverty that China no longer knows" to not be so widely held.
Maybe you should ask Bangladeshi's what they think of the Rohingya people. It turns out that Myanmar is not the only country oppressing them and refusing to give them citizenship!
The tendency to want to group an entire race/people with opinions based on hundreds of experiences with them, let alone dozens or a few, is the same tendency in us that spawns racism and prejudice. Your experiences have no influence on the reality of "the goodness of a people".
throwforfeds · · focus · HN ↗
My comment was responding to the author's argument that compassion only arises when material needs are accounted for, that compassion is some middle class thing. They were arguing that Chinese culture doesn't emphasize it because of their history of war, famine, and poverty. I think that's a horrible misunderstanding of both compassion and Chinese culture, and was merely countering it with an example of a people that have also experienced a famine that had a similar mortality rate who display perfectly normal human levels of compassion and kindness despite that history. I then went on to conclude that the original writer is likely completely off on how they view Chinese culture, that compassion is fundamental to being human and has nothing to do with bourgeois material comfort.
We tend to want to think in binaries -- people are compassionate or not. People are welcoming or not. That's not how reality works though, it's more nuanced. I was in no way arguing that an entire community of people aren't capable of mistreatment of others. Of course they are. But can a people that have experienced a massive amount of trauma and poverty and loss capable of displaying compassion? Of course they are. Because compassion is a fundamental aspect of being human.
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watwut · · focus · HN ↗
Even historically, quite a few art or music styles came out of poor or disturbed communities before they got commercialized. It is as if upper middle class HN programmers tended to think that creativity or art is only when you do something expensive or take an expensive art class.
mythrwy · · focus · HN ↗
veritascap · · focus · HN ↗
lenerdenator · · focus · HN ↗
Societies thrive when humans cut each other a little slack. They die when people are constantly looking for ways to take advantage of others.
cpursley · · focus · HN ↗
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talon8635 · · focus · HN ↗
Read about the dehumanizing effects of concentration camps on individuals hiding food from their family or praying their father dies so they can get his food
Its arguable that our ability to build luxurious enough societies has allowed out compassion to flourish far beyond what is witnessed elsewhere in the state of nature
lenerdenator · · focus · HN ↗
Concentration camps are an example of humans taking advantage of one another. Arguably, it's the ultimate example.
talon8635 · · focus · HN ↗
boelboel · · focus · HN ↗
talon8635 · · focus · HN ↗
boelboel · · focus · HN ↗
dbspin · · focus · HN ↗
True.
> Its arguable that our ability to build luxurious enough societies has allowed out compassion to flourish far beyond what is witnessed elsewhere in the state of nature.
Concentration camps and famines are not the 'state of nature'. A closer analogue would be tribal societies in the Amazon basin, Eastern Africa and the like. Constant hunger and scarcity are not the norm for well adapted human cultures, nor have the been for most of recorded history.
talon8635 · · focus · HN ↗
Of course a concentration camp isn’t the state of nature
I’m saying human compassion far exceeds anything witnessed in the animal/plant kingdom. Some animals show affection for their offspring, but it usually doesn’t extend beyond that. There is no dog or lizard or tree version of mother Teressa
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
talon8635 · · focus · HN ↗
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
They did not emerged as force of nature out of ground. They were intentionally and conciously build. And guards were well fed.
And in here, when you use inmates lack of compassion as example of powerty causimg lack of it, you absolutely should compare to compassion of builders and guards.
fuzzythrowaway · · focus · HN ↗
These aren't the problems of a society rising out of a state of nature; as TFA states, "The narrative is that China experienced a “century of humiliation”". I think certain aspects of Chinese culture as we know it, writ-large, make more sense coming from people who weren't just recently struggling as a society, but who are well aware of how that condition compares to their historical one.
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vondur · · focus · HN ↗
ninalanyon · · focus · HN ↗
It still is.
bettercallsalad · · focus · HN ↗
My counter argument though is how the elite class have a certain scarcity mentality and still holds on to these observations made in the articles.
In college, I dated a few Asian (Mainland) who all had similar mindset. Dating wasn’t about finding the right match but more about “upgrade your social face being accepted by foreigners”. It was shockingly weird at the beginning until the pattern was obvious. They were all wealthy (paying international tuition) I would think so the scarcity mindset you speak of seems like should have waned off at a local proximity (family or social circle).
HeavenFox · · focus · HN ↗
Those ladies may be part of the elite now. But remember their parents or grandparents went through the Great Chinese Famine where an estimated 15-60 million people died.
AzzieElbab · · focus · HN ↗
accidc · · focus · HN ↗
Also my personal belief is that courtesy is a luxury born of abundance. I have observed how minor ‘scarcities’ in the advanced economies can surface behaviour that some would attribute to less developed places e.g. an unexpected slew of cancelled transit
fooker · · focus · HN ↗
Growing up, I was used to cars honking all the time.
Not a thing in US suburbia.
One fine day, there was a gridlock because of people exiting a stadium after a fireworks event, lo and behold, honks all over the place from all cars.
burntbridge · · focus · HN ↗
arw0n · · focus · HN ↗
In developing countries, including China, my experience has been that this is the standard, and people will act accordingly even if there is abundance. Cancelled transit is a good example as well, it interacts with a primal fear of ours of being left behind or drawing the short stick, even if rationally, it is pretty inconsequential.
julianlam · · focus · HN ↗
To give more anecdata — Union Station in Toronto has trains that leave in all directions. The ones going East and West tend to form queues on the platform at rush hour. The train heading north-west to another city tends to form mobs that rush the door upon opening.
Lots of reasons why, but geography and SES may not factor as much. Could be something as simple as supply/demand of free seats.
sdeframond · · focus · HN ↗
[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
nixon_why69 · · focus · HN ↗
Friend of a friend got hukou in Wuhan recently and picked up a crappy job as a convenience store clerk. 10 hrs/day, 3 days off a month. But! She can comfortably live off it in a major city with a studio apt and even save a bit. Doesn't even need roommates.
jltsiren · · focus · HN ↗
I'm from Finland. My grandparents were of a generation that knew poverty and hunger and fought in wars. They raised their families when the country was still poor, and food security was always at the back of their minds. My parents grew up in a country that was rapidly getting wealthier. Their generation took food for granted, but owning things was important to them, as it was something they could not have in their youth. For my generation, the country has always been wealthy, and we have always been able to take basic necessities for granted. Our focus has been in choosing what we want to do with our lives, as the world is open and there are many options to choose from.
ares623 · · focus · HN ↗
t0mpr1c3 · · focus · HN ↗
cyclopeanutopia · · focus · HN ↗
This one is interesting. I'm from Poland, and I'd argue that during very shitty communist times people had a whole lot more compassion than now, when the country is in a much better shape.
petre · · focus · HN ↗
seydor · · focus · HN ↗
TitaRusell · · focus · HN ↗
We take our decadence and degeneracy for granted but it is all new. There are people alive now who remember Christianity.
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
And accusations of "degeneracy" and "decadence" were there all the time anyway. We have centuries of those complains.
3371 · · focus · HN ↗
insane_dreamer · · focus · HN ↗
Pretty strong disagree. Compassion -- and humanity towards other humans -- isn't based on what you have. The degree to which you are able to act on your compassion and do something, yes, that's certainly limited by what you have. But not the compassion itself.
I've met many very poor people in very poor countries who had more compassion and humanity than rich people in rich countries.
insane_dreamer · · focus · HN ↗
Recent poverty is a factor, but I disagree that it's where these characteristics stem from. I've lived and worked in countries as poor or poorer than China, and I also lived 6 years in China (and not in an expat bubble) and the characteristics described in the article* are not directly related to an escape from poverty. (*which I largely agree with, though maybe less so the Dark World frame; instead I think instead Chinese have historically a different moral framework than Westerners. For example, being "clever" enough to do something that Westerners would consider wrong (stealing, cheating, etc.) and get away with it, is a sign of strength.)
In my view, Chinese behavior is pre-eminently impacted by filial piety, social appearances, and the fact that when you live in a country with 1.5 B people if you don't push and shove, and even step on a few hands and heads, you're not getting anywhere. And you _must_ get somewhere because of your parental expectations and the need to fulfill your responsibilities to care for your parents when they get old.
Added to that is the more recent development that the CCP has achieved a level of information and social control that other authoritarian countries could only dream of. It's very effective to a degree that Americans would find shocking. (The author's first point about the ubiquity of social media in China goes along with this, and has become a highly effective means of "guiding" public thought.)
afpx · · focus · HN ↗
OroPla · · focus · HN ↗
This has also been true where I am from (formerly East Germany), yet we still had arts, creativity, freedom to pursue passion, compassion and self-esteem. We might have had only barely enough food to feed a family, but that didn't mean that we acted like animals.
tsoukase · · focus · HN ↗