Hacker News Reader

Comment by soulofmischief | Hacker News Reader

> "But to handle them with force seems a bit low. Why not take the high road?"

How removed from society can you be to view disappearing, humilating and torturing citizens as "a bit low"?

Have we forgotten the purpose of a government?

That person speaks from within the party. If he speaks less carefully, they will simply eject and ignore him, and then the party wouldn't even have someone in their circle calling these actions "a bit low."

> Qiu Shike, a socialist writer and Xi supporter who is influential within some elite Communist Party circles, said carefully

Oh interesting way to put it. Needing to avoid ejection from social circles must be a common motivator for most people. Now I am wondering how to tell if someone is masking a stronger feeling or not

Being banished from social circles is certainly one reason, but in this case I think it's fear of life or liberty by an authoritarian regime that has complete discretion to do so if you come across as speaking out against them.

If you saw the recent HBO series on Cheronybl, you can see the pains with which one person is trying to relay the seriousness of the situation without making himself a target, opposition figure, enemy of the state, etc. I also remember hearing that Sadam Hussein underestimated how easily Iraq could be toppled in case of invasion because his military generals were too scared to speak truth.

Keep in mind that "a bit low" is a translation. The tone may not be exactly the same as the original.

I have two ideas on this regard:

The first is that Asian culture (including Japan, Korea) is profoundly dogmatic and hierarchical. They have a completely different moral-alignment with being obedient.

The second is that over time, you can really achive the social transformation spouted by authoritarian governments. Russia was communist for 90 years. North korea approaching 70 years. After several generations what you have is the only thing that people know.

As a westerner, I find it truly amazing that these systems survive at all.

With enough aggressive “pruning” (read: murders by a tyrannical and totalitarian government) in a population, natural selection inevitably takes its course.

Anyone in North Korea who would speak up has long since escaped, been disappeared, or killed.

The scary generalization of this idea is that all governments engage in this activity to some degree.

The liberty nutjobs really have a point about being intolerant to the minuscule interventions: by this model, its a way of domesticating people.

OTOH I don't believe this idea is right, because humanity has had slavery and oppression since time immemorial, and freedom as we know it is relatively new. It is a natural desire of human beings to fight against glaring injustices, and for the oppressed to fight back.

They all do engage in some form of it... show me a modern Western country that doesn't have long sentences including death for sedition, subversion, or treason against "the State?" I think the only question is who gets to decide what are violations... because those charges are vague and arbitrary. Tax evasion or corruption charges have the same problem... I smile every time I read an article about someone arrested for tax evasion in Russia or corruption in China.

I think the second idea is the correct one, there are many counterpoints to the first one: you can see the same thing in any culture with the right ingredients, such as Germany in Nazi era (the movie "Downfall" captures the psychological difficulty very well), American prisoners during riots that all lie on the floor because there are consequences for not doing so, or "bending the knee" in Game of Thrones. Any situation where you risk harm to yourself or people that you care about by failing to be obedient, you will do so unless you are willing to suffer whatever the known consequences will be for failing to do so.

> As a westerner, I find it truly amazing that these systems survive at all.

It shouldn't be amazing, as a Westener, considering slavery was legally allowed and enforced in the West for longer than any alternate authoritarian regime in modern times. Just consider slavery in American from 1776-1865... I can't think of any authoritarian regime that lasted that long... North Korean regime (1948-present), Soviet regime (1917-1989), Chinese regime (1949-present), were/are close but still haven't yet achieved the length of authoritarianism exercised over some arbitrary portion of its populace.

> you will do so unless you are willing to suffer whatever the known consequences will be for failing to do so.

It's very different to not protest or to comply out of fear than to be morally aligned to the subservience. To this day South Korea still uses physical violence to discipline kids. I've seen some very authoritative and strong personality types turn into sheep by the mere act of talking to an older person, which is the key hierarchy. There is the famous phrase in Japanese: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered". Or chinese people, as in this topic, have a completely different relationship to Tiananmen Square or the Muslim than what the west would have with Abu Ghraib.

Asia just does not have the Liberty moral alignment the west has, be it for historical, cultural or biological reasons. Maybe rebelliousity is distinctly western, since the middle east also shows some of those patterns.

> It shouldn't be amazing, as a Westener, considering slavery was legally allowed and enforced in the West for longer than any alternate authoritarian regime in modern times. Just consider slavery in American from 1776-1865... I can't think of any authoritarian regime that lasted that long... North Korean regime (1948-present), Soviet regime (1917-1989), Chinese regime (1949-present), were/are close but still haven't yet achieved the length of authoritarianism exercised over some arbitrary portion of its populace.

There are plenty of examples of slave-driven societies that were sent into extinction because of this practice (Sparta, Rome, The US South). Its true it took a while in the US, but it was constantly violated and affected a small part of an imported population. Had the general populace been able to be thrown into slavery, I can't imagine it lasting much.

I can imagine chatel/small slavery lasting a long time because its a millenarian practice. But total control of the state? Near absolute economic slavery of the entire population? I cant imagine anything working out at all, and nobody collaborating to make it work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com