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Comment by knzhou | Hacker News Reader

I have always wondered what people mean by "Chinese ideals". As a Chinese person myself, all 4 of your options are things that I oppose. I find myself consistently on the side of individuality, privacy, free speech, and self defense, when arguing against Americans that disagree. In fact I'm doing that right now in another thread in the process of defending yet another undefendable scoundrel, Facebook.

Do you actually have something concrete in mind here, or have you instead considered that this is merely an example of calling the enemy tribe every bad name you can think of?

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>Do you actually have something concrete in mind here

Ideals codified in law. For example, the 1rst and 2nd Amendments.

When generalizing with national boundaries, I of course do not mean to imply that literally everyone born within those imaginary lines thinks the same.

Are there more specific categories I could use for these ideological classifications?

The Chinese constitution codifies similar things, it’s just less effective without rule of law.

I think it’s probably better to think of those enlightenment ideals as not something particularly western in nature as they were opposed violently for centuries by the entrenched power structures of the west.

Pretty much every major social change has been violently opposed by pre-existing power structures, so I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction.

Is there another region outside of Europe that independently came up with a similar set of ideals as to what emerged from the Enlightenment[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

I’m not saying it didn’t originate in Europe. I am saying that most Europeans opposed it for centuries and it’s barely holding on in a lot of Europe even today. There’s nothing about the western mind or western culture that makes it more suited for institutions based around those principles. It was a long struggle to achieve them and it will be a long struggle to keep them. People of the west were no more well suited to them then the Chinese were especially well suited to invent or use gunpowder and paper money.

Ah, I suspect we're in violent agreement with each other.

The Enlightenment certainly originated in the West (Western Europe), and while there are certain cultural aspects that are more compatible with Enlightenment ideals -- primus inter pares and such -- there is no reason why those ideals couldn't find a new home in some other region (Asia, Africa, etc.)

Ideas are bound, not by borders, but by brains.

And they're still opposed by large amounts of Westerners.

Actually, China has many of the same ideals codified into law that the West has.

https://www.usconstitution.net/china.html#Article2

>Article 35. Freedom of speech, press, assembly Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

The reasons why people in both societies enjoy those rights differently is much more complicated than just whether they are codified.

In the US I can speak openly about Kent State and the government will not step in to silence me. Tiananmen Square on the other hand...

GP can do something very simple as a test. I’ll go to Washington and he’ll go to Beijing. We will both hold up a sign criticizing each leader. I wonder what will happen...

I’ll go to London, Berlin, and Paris and do the same thing. Maybe I’ll need a permit in the US/Europe and do it for a week.

When I actually visit, I will look into this.

It's easy to tell all kinds of crazy stories about would happen in China, but do you have direct evidence? I don't, but I know for a fact that expat communities usually bitterly hate the government, and blast those opinions publicly all over the internet.

> but do you have direct evidence?

All information about the Tiananmen Square massacre is blocked in China by the great firewall. What more evidence do you need?

My extended family over there knows perfectly well what happened, they just don’t like to talk about it. And my parents know exactly what happened because they were there, and nobody’s coming after them. So without further evidence it seems to be equivalent to certain very contentious political topics in the US, which people are aware of, but you certainly cannot bring up.

Can your extended family research any of it? (search online, read about it in books, etc) Can they speak about it without being persecuted? Can anyone who isn't your extended family find information about it other than through informal channels?

> to certain very contentious political topics in the US, which people are aware of, but you certainly cannot bring up.

Like what? Please elaborate specifically?

I'm so confused on what your stance is here. You realize there is a big difference between being persecuted by others for saying something or "knowing something" and being persecuted by the government for saying something or "knowing something"?

Not intending to speak for others, but I believe that the original poster intended "ideals as practiced by the CCP" (e.g., Cultural Revolution, Red Guards, etc), and it sounds to me like you are espousing the Chinese culture of the 1911 revolution, which does indeed support the rights of individuality, privacy, free speech, and self defense.

If such deeply-held values can flip within 40 years, then what does it mean to say one set is "Eastern" and one is "Western"?

> If such deeply-held values can flip within 40 years...

I'm afraid you've lost me...?

> ...what does it mean to say one set is "Eastern" and one is "Western"?

I suspect that's more of a historical convention than anything else. Probably would have used the term "Enlightenment" rather than "Western", myself.

This is and has been more of an intellectual and ideological battle more than anything. The Founders had very little in common with ancient Greeks and Romans in terms of ‘tribe’ and ‘national boundary’. I am an immigrant as well and have these very same discussions that you have - awkwardly explaining to Americans the benefit of their constitution to themselves.

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