5 ms·
It is racist! Making generalised judgements about an entire group of people based on their ethnicity background is classic racism.
by falsedan 8y ago
It is racist! Making generalised judgements about an entire group of people based on their ethnicity background is classic racism.
- pault 8y agoChina's population consists of more than one race. I'm all for political correctness but we need to distinguish between racial stereotyping and criticisms of a nation state.
- twic 8y agoMoreover, between racial stereotyping and criticisms of certain policies of the current government of a nation state. To choose the maximally flamebaity example, i might not like the current Israeli administration's policy towards Palestinians, but that doesn't make me an antisemite, or even anti-Israeli.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- leftyted 8y agoIf you're saying "Chinese people are predisposed to cheat and lie" -- that's racist. If you're saying "The academic culture in China is such that cheating and lying is widespread" -- that's not racist. I'm pretty sure the post you responded to is making the latter claim.
- y2kenny 8y agoThe problem is, when you use the term "Chinese" do you include people from Taiwan and Hong Kong? And are you attributing the bad behaviours to the historical Chinese culture that has thousands of years of history or the comparatively recent (last century) rule by the communist regime? The problem with the parent statement is that it has the typical lack of precision and accuracy of a racist statement.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoBlaming "culture" is a huge cop-out and often just a facade for racism. If you say "the financial incentives offered by the Chinese government for research publications encourage rampant fraud" you are getting much closer to the real issue.
- BurningFrog 8y agoFinancial incentives is one strong factor in shaping a culture.
- i_am_nomad 8y agoWrong. Cultural effects are very real, and they are exist independently of material incentives.
- javajosh 8y agoIndeed. If this weren't true, then there would be no basis to shape the culture, since culture wouldn't have a shape. Two groups can be compared on important values like "honesty" independent of group size. The comparison will look like overlapping normal distributions, usually with substantial overlap. Chinese students were famous for cheating at my school, especially in the pre-med biology track. I witnessed it myself. I also witnessed brilliant, hard-working non-cheating Chinese students in math and physics. Yeah, there's something cultural going on but it's a lot more complicated than "the Chinese are cheaters".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- leftyted 8y ago"The academic culture in China is such that cheating and lying is widespread" This statement doesn't "blame the culture". In this sentence, culture means "a set of behaviors". The sentence doesn't speculate about why that (speculated) culture exists, and it certainly isn't saying "Chinese culture promotes cheating". Actually, all it's really saying is, "Cheating and lying is widespread in academia in China". That statement is totally compatible with what you wrote. When having these discussions, it helps to interpret other people's perspectives charitably. Communication is hard. We don't need to make it harder by assuming that everyone who says something that could be interpreted as racism is actually a racist. Plus, I've found that if I interpret other perspectives charitably, I almost always end up closer to understanding what the other person actually meant.