6 ms·

This amount of cultural relativism is silly and frankly just plain ignorant. China doesn't restrict free speech for cultural reasons. The CCP restricts free spe

This amount of cultural relativism is silly and frankly just plain ignorant. China doesn't restrict free speech for cultural reasons. The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status.

schoen 9y ago
While I agree with attempts to prevent governments from controlling speech, have spent a fair amount of time working on that, and was disturbed by Apple's role here, I don't think the dichotomy you present works as cleanly as you suggest. State power and culture shape and reinforce each other in an extremely complex way.
- olalonde 9y ago
  That's true. I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. Ignorance plays a role but it's mainly that they value economic growth (and therefore, political stability) over anything else. Free speech would be nice but when you go from near starvation to owning a house and a car, you learn what economic growth does and start to value it.
  - balls187 9y ago
    > I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. What happens if you make your displeasure with the CCP known publically?
    - olalonde 9y ago
      Assuming it was a rhetorical question: I am basing my observation on many private conversations I had over the years (e.g. with my wife). I think most foreigners in China would agree with this as well. In case your question wasn't rhetorical: nothing would happen. That is, unless you were a very public figure or made it your life's mission. Fun fact: China has a very low incarceration rate, about 15% that of the USA. It's not like people are getting thrown in jail right and left for opening their mouth. I know, it's a hard pill to swallow.
      - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
        China has a lower incarceration rate, but they also have a higher rate of execution. Even for things like drug trafficking (which most of the US prison population consists of). These stricter punishments surely make people more afraid of breaking the law...and I'm sure many chinese are justifiably afraid of speaking out due to fear of the consequences. So the fact that there is a smaller prisoner population isn't that great when considering there are harsher penalties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China I know, it's a hard pill to swallow.
        dahauns 9y ago
        >These stricter punishments surely make people more afraid of breaking the law Actually, far from surely.
        olalonde 9y ago
        I agree that incarceration rates alone don't paint the whole picture. The "hard pill to swallow" was that Chinese people don't value free speech as much as we do, even if you account for the deterrents. That's a hard pill to swallow, at least to a person like me who values free speech.
      - hueving 9y ago
        >Fun fact: China has a very low incarceration rate, about 15% that of the USA. It's not like people are getting thrown in jail right and left for opening their mouth. That's not a good comparison. You would need to compare stats for number of people thrown in jail for speaking out against the government. The US has the idiotic war on drugs and terrible recidivism driven by bad incentives to thank for its high incarceration rate.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      You can find many reports of the government locking people away, on a significant scale, without trial or, IIRC, even notice. For example, this happens to people who go to Beijing to petition the national government. China recently has gone so far as to kidnap critics in other countries and bring them to China. Nationals from other countries also sometimes are locked up. A simple search of the NY Times, for example, will find many, many stories.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP Did you really encounter enough people to collect more than a tiny amount of anecdotal experience? If the CCP is so popular, there's no reason they can't hold an election.
  - pimmen 9y ago
    The thing is though that the economic growth came after, and as a result of, the market deregulations and special economic zones instituted by the Deng administration. The founding principles of the CCP has been proven not to work in China, they led to millions of people starving to death and a huge brain drain to the US, Europe, Hong Kong and Taiwan the effects of which are still felt today. So, I wonder if it's not all ignorance. I just don't see how anyone with access to uncensored history books can give credit to the CCP for the economic growth. Surely they could tell that Taiwan, also a Chinese country, has a far better track record when it comes to economic growth and the well being of their population (not to say that the Kuomintang has a squeaky clean record)?
    - TrickyRick 9y ago
      They could also tell that there are a number of countries with fresh democracies that have fared a lot worse (See the entirety of eastern Europe for instance). The view that "Meh, it could be worse" is the one that's been most prevalent among those who I've talked to about the issue. As mentioned higher up in the thread, it's easy to look the other way when it comes to a couple of human rights crimes when your family has gone from starvation to owning cars and apartments in skyscrapers in less than a generation.
      - pimmen 9y ago
        Not to steer this completely off topic, but despite a lot of setbacks in Poland, Hungary and Russia the economic situation post USSR in Eastern Europe has been tremendous (Poland was the only country in the EU not to suffer negative growth in the Great Recession), the political rights to the citizens (such as being able to vote for more than one party), the freedom of the press increases (even in Poland, despite the recent setback with government intervention in public service media) is far beyond what China has mustered since the Deng deregulations started in the early 80s. If you're Polish or even Russian you are far more likely to have a nice car, food on the table, a nice house, the ability to blog about whatever interests you, read what you want and even run for office than if you're a citizen of the PRC. So, again, it sounds like it's mostly ignorance, or expectations that democracies never experience setbacks.
  - sremani 9y ago
    People in general will tolerate restrictive systems as long as they are economically compensated or economic system is humming. The most authoritarian regimes, use fear but the most used tactic is to "payoff" the "village elders". If a dictator yielded the kind of break-neck growth that China experienced in any Western country, there is a good chance people will put up with it. The problem is when the growth dies, and the gravy train stops. How will CCP handle a low growth system? By becoming more authoritarian, that is what is happening in China with corruption purges.
pharrington 9y ago
The argument isn't that the lack of political freedom in China is tolerable because that's just how Chinese culture is, but rather that corporations must not be the ones deciding which laws are applicable where.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >corporations must not be the ones deciding which laws are applicable where. This is literally restating this: >the lack of political freedom in China is tolerable because that's just how Chinese culture is Who decides when and where it is okay to disobey laws that restrict freedom/privacy? If not the modern day multi-nation states of corporations, who? Serfs?
  - Twisell 9y ago
    I call us people. You calling me serf tell much about your own mindset...
    - icelancer 9y ago
      You are missing the analogy in the previous sentence to that word, which does not demean people in the least. It should tell you what I think of the Chinese government.
  - pharrington 9y ago
    In this case, literally the Chinese people.
geowwy 9y ago
>>> The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status. They don't have any fear about that. The CCP is widely supported and deeply entrenched in Chinese society. This is just about preventing civil unrest/promoting a "harmonious society".
- chii 9y ago
  The Chinese govt are firm believers of 'give'em an inch and they'll take a mile'
smallnamespace 9y ago
While you may be right about the CCP's motives, China has its own long history of political thought, including the correct role of the State and public dissent. Guess what? For the vast majority of Chinese history, rulers viewed public dissent as tantamount to open rebellion and reacted accordingly. Political systems are in part products of their culture. Free speech is not part of the cultural or political history of China, as it is in the West.
- option 9y ago
  This is called culturalism. Saying X is not for race Y is racism. Saying that X is not for culture Y is culturalism. There is really not that much difference here. Because I am Chinese/Saudi/Russian etc. in no way implies that I, or my culture, does not value such a basic right as free speech
  - Sacho 9y ago
    I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Is it culturalism to say that Western cultures value free speech? If you just wanted to say that parent was wrong that Chinese don't value free speech, why the diatribe about culturalism and racism? You also haven't really put forward any argument that the Chinese value free speech - you can make a base argument that it's valued in some Western countries because they've codified it in their laws - most notably the FA in the US(it's questionable how much this "basic right" is respected in reality). Calling it a "basic right" is culturalism by your own definition, as you apply your own cultural values(whatever they may be) over the whole of humanity. What makes you think humanity as a whole values this "basic right"? Millions of people live in countries where free speech is not as important as religion, for example, and blasphemy laws exist.
    - hartator 9y ago
      You seem to omit that's possible that we have universal pricinciples that's superior to whatever culture. You can attain these principles via philosophy. Any individuals can rediscover the values of free speech, freedom of government arbitrary, freedoms of thoughts and actions by just reflexion itself.
hasenj 9y ago
Actually this much is quite reasonable. Unreasonable cultural relativism would be something like, pretending that child sacrifice is ok. There's no reason to believe that absolute privacy and absolute freedom are universal objective moral values.
coldtea 9y ago
>The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status. And that's China's own problem (or lack thereof) as a sovereign nation, not something for Apple or the US to decide. Not every country wants (or even works better) with a US style system, and interventionism has led to disastrous results in the not that far past.
- PakG1 9y ago
  Yup. https://gwydionwilliams.com/99-problems-magazine/why-chinas-blue-republic-achived-nothing/ https://gwydionwilliams.com/99-problems-magazine/why-chinas-...
- int_19h 9y ago
  Apple is still a US company at the end of the day. If it makes profits from supporting censorship in China, that makes it a US problem. One way to not have that problem is to let China has its own Apple - how's that for non-interventionism and non-colonialism?
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Apple is still a US company at the end of the day. If it makes profits from supporting censorship in China, that makes it a US problem. In what possible way does it make it a US problem? Besides, western companies make tons of money by selling arms, doing deals, and supporting all kinds of regimes, including the most abhorrent ones, from Pinochet's Chile to S.A.
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      Western people object to a lot of that, too. Here, we're objecting to Apple's behaviour.
    - int_19h 9y ago
      Because the actor deriving benefits from those profits is in our jurisdiction. (I also wonder if they pay US taxes off any of these profits?)
  - 9y ago
dalbasal 9y ago
This is difficult water to navigate. Free speech, privacy and access to a free press are part of the legal and constitutional/meta-legal framework for many democratic systems of government. In principle and in practice. There are laws in the US guaranteeing these freedoms, and hundreds of years of common law supporting and interpreting them. Subverting those freedoms in the US, is subverting the US' system of government, and ilegal. There are (as they demonstrated) legal channels to defending their users' rights within the US' legal framework because they exist in the US' legal system. There are philosphical elements to this, universal & inalienable rights and freedoms. But, these are philosophical. In the US, Apple acted at the legal level, with a legal argument not a philosophical one. China is not a democracy. These rights are not a part of their system of government and there is no legal way to defend rights that are not recognized in that country. This is not some postmodernist or nihilist relativism. It's just recognizing that different laws and rights exist in different countries. I'm not sure what you expect from Apple. They could pull out of China altogether, on the grounds that China's laws are too immoral. They could try to promote their idea of what a government should be and what rights citizens should have. This amounts to calling for a revolution. I don't think this is a reasonable expectation of a company. I don't think it will lead to a good place either. Apple are a computer company, not a revolutionary movement (1984 ad notwithstanding). The revolutionaries need to be (or not to be) Chinese citizens, not foreign companies.

schoen 9y ago

While I agree with attempts to prevent governments from controlling speech, have spent a fair amount of time working on that, and was disturbed by Apple's role here, I don't think the dichotomy you present works as cleanly as you suggest. State power and culture shape and reinforce each other in an extremely complex way.

olalonde 9y ago
That's true. I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. Ignorance plays a role but it's mainly that they value economic growth (and therefore, political stability) over anything else. Free speech would be nice but when you go from near starvation to owning a house and a car, you learn what economic growth does and start to value it.
- balls187 9y ago
  > I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. What happens if you make your displeasure with the CCP known publically?
  - olalonde 9y ago
    Assuming it was a rhetorical question: I am basing my observation on many private conversations I had over the years (e.g. with my wife). I think most foreigners in China would agree with this as well. In case your question wasn't rhetorical: nothing would happen. That is, unless you were a very public figure or made it your life's mission. Fun fact: China has a very low incarceration rate, about 15% that of the USA. It's not like people are getting thrown in jail right and left for opening their mouth. I know, it's a hard pill to swallow.
    - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
      China has a lower incarceration rate, but they also have a higher rate of execution. Even for things like drug trafficking (which most of the US prison population consists of). These stricter punishments surely make people more afraid of breaking the law...and I'm sure many chinese are justifiably afraid of speaking out due to fear of the consequences. So the fact that there is a smaller prisoner population isn't that great when considering there are harsher penalties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China I know, it's a hard pill to swallow.
      - dahauns 9y ago
        >These stricter punishments surely make people more afraid of breaking the law Actually, far from surely.
      - olalonde 9y ago
        I agree that incarceration rates alone don't paint the whole picture. The "hard pill to swallow" was that Chinese people don't value free speech as much as we do, even if you account for the deterrents. That's a hard pill to swallow, at least to a person like me who values free speech.
    - hueving 9y ago
      >Fun fact: China has a very low incarceration rate, about 15% that of the USA. It's not like people are getting thrown in jail right and left for opening their mouth. That's not a good comparison. You would need to compare stats for number of people thrown in jail for speaking out against the government. The US has the idiotic war on drugs and terrible recidivism driven by bad incentives to thank for its high incarceration rate.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    You can find many reports of the government locking people away, on a significant scale, without trial or, IIRC, even notice. For example, this happens to people who go to Beijing to petition the national government. China recently has gone so far as to kidnap critics in other countries and bring them to China. Nationals from other countries also sometimes are locked up. A simple search of the NY Times, for example, will find many, many stories.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP Did you really encounter enough people to collect more than a tiny amount of anecdotal experience? If the CCP is so popular, there's no reason they can't hold an election.
- pimmen 9y ago
  The thing is though that the economic growth came after, and as a result of, the market deregulations and special economic zones instituted by the Deng administration. The founding principles of the CCP has been proven not to work in China, they led to millions of people starving to death and a huge brain drain to the US, Europe, Hong Kong and Taiwan the effects of which are still felt today. So, I wonder if it's not all ignorance. I just don't see how anyone with access to uncensored history books can give credit to the CCP for the economic growth. Surely they could tell that Taiwan, also a Chinese country, has a far better track record when it comes to economic growth and the well being of their population (not to say that the Kuomintang has a squeaky clean record)?
  - TrickyRick 9y ago
    They could also tell that there are a number of countries with fresh democracies that have fared a lot worse (See the entirety of eastern Europe for instance). The view that "Meh, it could be worse" is the one that's been most prevalent among those who I've talked to about the issue. As mentioned higher up in the thread, it's easy to look the other way when it comes to a couple of human rights crimes when your family has gone from starvation to owning cars and apartments in skyscrapers in less than a generation.
    - pimmen 9y ago
      Not to steer this completely off topic, but despite a lot of setbacks in Poland, Hungary and Russia the economic situation post USSR in Eastern Europe has been tremendous (Poland was the only country in the EU not to suffer negative growth in the Great Recession), the political rights to the citizens (such as being able to vote for more than one party), the freedom of the press increases (even in Poland, despite the recent setback with government intervention in public service media) is far beyond what China has mustered since the Deng deregulations started in the early 80s. If you're Polish or even Russian you are far more likely to have a nice car, food on the table, a nice house, the ability to blog about whatever interests you, read what you want and even run for office than if you're a citizen of the PRC. So, again, it sounds like it's mostly ignorance, or expectations that democracies never experience setbacks.
- sremani 9y ago
  People in general will tolerate restrictive systems as long as they are economically compensated or economic system is humming. The most authoritarian regimes, use fear but the most used tactic is to "payoff" the "village elders". If a dictator yielded the kind of break-neck growth that China experienced in any Western country, there is a good chance people will put up with it. The problem is when the growth dies, and the gravy train stops. How will CCP handle a low growth system? By becoming more authoritarian, that is what is happening in China with corruption purges.

pharrington 9y ago

The argument isn't that the lack of political freedom in China is tolerable because that's just how Chinese culture is, but rather that corporations must not be the ones deciding which laws are applicable where.

icelancer 9y ago
>corporations must not be the ones deciding which laws are applicable where. This is literally restating this: >the lack of political freedom in China is tolerable because that's just how Chinese culture is Who decides when and where it is okay to disobey laws that restrict freedom/privacy? If not the modern day multi-nation states of corporations, who? Serfs?
- Twisell 9y ago
  I call us people. You calling me serf tell much about your own mindset...
  - icelancer 9y ago
    You are missing the analogy in the previous sentence to that word, which does not demean people in the least. It should tell you what I think of the Chinese government.
- pharrington 9y ago
  In this case, literally the Chinese people.

geowwy 9y ago

>>> The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status. They don't have any fear about that. The CCP is widely supported and deeply entrenched in Chinese society. This is just about preventing civil unrest/promoting a "harmonious society".

chii 9y ago
The Chinese govt are firm believers of 'give'em an inch and they'll take a mile'

smallnamespace 9y ago

While you may be right about the CCP's motives, China has its own long history of political thought, including the correct role of the State and public dissent. Guess what? For the vast majority of Chinese history, rulers viewed public dissent as tantamount to open rebellion and reacted accordingly. Political systems are in part products of their culture. Free speech is not part of the cultural or political history of China, as it is in the West.

option 9y ago
This is called culturalism. Saying X is not for race Y is racism. Saying that X is not for culture Y is culturalism. There is really not that much difference here. Because I am Chinese/Saudi/Russian etc. in no way implies that I, or my culture, does not value such a basic right as free speech
- Sacho 9y ago
  I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Is it culturalism to say that Western cultures value free speech? If you just wanted to say that parent was wrong that Chinese don't value free speech, why the diatribe about culturalism and racism? You also haven't really put forward any argument that the Chinese value free speech - you can make a base argument that it's valued in some Western countries because they've codified it in their laws - most notably the FA in the US(it's questionable how much this "basic right" is respected in reality). Calling it a "basic right" is culturalism by your own definition, as you apply your own cultural values(whatever they may be) over the whole of humanity. What makes you think humanity as a whole values this "basic right"? Millions of people live in countries where free speech is not as important as religion, for example, and blasphemy laws exist.
  - hartator 9y ago
    You seem to omit that's possible that we have universal pricinciples that's superior to whatever culture. You can attain these principles via philosophy. Any individuals can rediscover the values of free speech, freedom of government arbitrary, freedoms of thoughts and actions by just reflexion itself.

hasenj 9y ago

Actually this much is quite reasonable. Unreasonable cultural relativism would be something like, pretending that child sacrifice is ok. There's no reason to believe that absolute privacy and absolute freedom are universal objective moral values.

coldtea 9y ago

>The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status. And that's China's own problem (or lack thereof) as a sovereign nation, not something for Apple or the US to decide. Not every country wants (or even works better) with a US style system, and interventionism has led to disastrous results in the not that far past.

PakG1 9y ago
Yup. https://gwydionwilliams.com/99-problems-magazine/why-chinas-blue-republic-achived-nothing/ https://gwydionwilliams.com/99-problems-magazine/why-chinas-...
int_19h 9y ago
Apple is still a US company at the end of the day. If it makes profits from supporting censorship in China, that makes it a US problem. One way to not have that problem is to let China has its own Apple - how's that for non-interventionism and non-colonialism?
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Apple is still a US company at the end of the day. If it makes profits from supporting censorship in China, that makes it a US problem. In what possible way does it make it a US problem? Besides, western companies make tons of money by selling arms, doing deals, and supporting all kinds of regimes, including the most abhorrent ones, from Pinochet's Chile to S.A.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    Western people object to a lot of that, too. Here, we're objecting to Apple's behaviour.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    Because the actor deriving benefits from those profits is in our jurisdiction. (I also wonder if they pay US taxes off any of these profits?)
- 9y ago

dalbasal 9y ago

This is difficult water to navigate. Free speech, privacy and access to a free press are part of the legal and constitutional/meta-legal framework for many democratic systems of government. In principle and in practice. There are laws in the US guaranteeing these freedoms, and hundreds of years of common law supporting and interpreting them. Subverting those freedoms in the US, is subverting the US' system of government, and ilegal. There are (as they demonstrated) legal channels to defending their users' rights within the US' legal framework because they exist in the US' legal system. There are philosphical elements to this, universal & inalienable rights and freedoms. But, these are philosophical. In the US, Apple acted at the legal level, with a legal argument not a philosophical one. China is not a democracy. These rights are not a part of their system of government and there is no legal way to defend rights that are not recognized in that country. This is not some postmodernist or nihilist relativism. It's just recognizing that different laws and rights exist in different countries. I'm not sure what you expect from Apple. They could pull out of China altogether, on the grounds that China's laws are too immoral. They could try to promote their idea of what a government should be and what rights citizens should have. This amounts to calling for a revolution. I don't think this is a reasonable expectation of a company. I don't think it will lead to a good place either. Apple are a computer company, not a revolutionary movement (1984 ad notwithstanding). The revolutionaries need to be (or not to be) Chinese citizens, not foreign companies.