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Analyzing widely differing cultures and peoples under the unitary framework of “totalitarianism” isn’t terribly compelling either. The Chinese government has sh

Analyzing widely differing cultures and peoples under the unitary framework of “totalitarianism” isn’t terribly compelling either. The Chinese government has shown remarkable staying power, and it’s important to analyze the ways/reasons it might continue to hold power, since that seems to be a quite likely outcome. The intuition that western liberal democracy is some sort of inevitable wave is very possibly just an artifact of the US winning WWII.

ufmace 7y ago
It seems like an ironic blind spot to me. Western liberals claim to be all about tolerance and diversity and multiculturalism, yet seem to have difficulty conceiving of the idea that maybe some other cultures genuinely don't want to turn into Western Liberal Democracies.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  Google "The Paradox of Tolerance," if you're allowed to. Some truths really are self-evident.
  - ufmace 7y ago
    I have read it. If you have a point you want to make, you're welcome to make it.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      If you didn't get the point when Karl Popper explained it, I doubt I'll be any more effective at conveying it here.
      - lovemenot 7y ago
        Including myself, there's probably many other people reading this who have not read it and would like one or two of its salient points.
        CamperBob2 7y ago
        The basic idea is that tolerating totalitarianism is self-defeating, even when done to prop up one's fondest notions of cultural relativism.
        tomrod 7y ago
        This is a good read for the notion. I found it a good starting point when I dug into this a little while ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
      - ufmace 7y ago
        I'm generally happy to write walls of text to debate ideas, but I'm not very inclined to do it for people who just drop links. I will however drop a link of my own: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... TL; DR: Everyone hates their outgroup, and everybody has one, including you and me. Isn't it rather convenient to convince yourself that everyone in your outgroup is intolerant totalitarians, so that you can continue to hate them and justify any kind of tactics against them while also patting yourself on the back at how tolerant you are? (The 'you' there doesn't mean anyone in particular, just a general statement). Tolerance means not hating your enemies, your outgroup, and is genuinely hard and pretty rare. Everybody likes their friends and allies, and there's nothing particularly special or virtuous about it.
        Dylan16807 7y ago
        > Isn't it rather convenient to convince yourself that everyone in your outgroup is intolerant totalitarians That's a pretty extreme strawman. I disagree with lots of outgroups, and I only call a couple of them totalitarians. If someone hates all of the outgroup, they are almost certainly hypocritical and lying to themselves about being tolerant. If someone hates none of the outgroup, we can agree they're virtuous and special, sure. If someone hates 15% of the outgroup for specific reasons, that's probably okay. It doesn't automatically imply that they are secretly intolerant. Most people that claim to prioritize tolerance are here, and most of them are telling the truth.
        ufmace 7y ago
        I think we have a disagreement on the definition of the term "outgroup". The article I linked goes into more detail, but I'd say that an outgroup is defined by being the group that you hate, not necessarily just those who are different from you in some way. It doesn't make sense to talk about what percentage of them you hate when it's defined as being the people that you hate. There's no test to determine exactly what it is, but you can sometimes tell by people's behavior. Tolerance, then, is determined by behaving respectfully and with consideration to those you hate. And perhaps that statement was an oversimplification, but as I understand it, that's essentially the point of the Paradox of Tolerance. If you had to sum that up in a sentence or two, how else would you do it?
- viraptor 7y ago
  Tolerance and diversity normally stops at "it's cool we're doing things differently, as long as nobody gets hurt". Why would you be tolerant of people being abused?
  - hyperdunc 7y ago
    That's a good question to ask police and local government officials in places like Rotherham.
    - viraptor 7y ago
      I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Would you like to expand on the situation?
    - pertymcpert 7y ago
      Blowing that dog whistle hard aren’t you.
- scarmig 7y ago
  What does it even mean for a culture to want something? Only individuals can want something. Societies can't want something; the Earth can't want something; a company or government can't want something. It's clear that there are individuals in China who do want tolerance. And it's even clearer that there are government officials who are scared of what individuals might start wanting if exposed to ideas of tolerance and democracy.
  - ufmace 7y ago
    Saying that the culture wants something is kind of a shorthand. It's more like a function of exactly what every individual in the population wants, how badly they want it, and how they go about ranking various things they want that sort of contradict each other. I'm going to just skip tolerance here, because it's a complex idea not entirely related. Let's use Democracy. There are definitely some people in China who want Democracy. There are everywhere. It's not remarkable that some people want it, but the numbers are the important part. If 2% of the people want it, then it's never going to happen. If 40% of the people want it, then it might move that way soon. Thing is, while 2% is a tiny minority, it's still objectively a lot of people. 2% can get you a bunch of activist groups and busy-looking protests and that sort of thing. It's much easier than you might think to look at a 2% movement that you personally agree with and believe that it's a mainstream view, the future of the country, etc, when it actually isn't. Now that's just an example. Personally, I have no idea what the approval rating of Democratic ideas is in China. Tricky thing about totalitarian countries that practice censorship, it's hard to get an idea of what people really think. I'd like to think that it's a mainstream, growing idea. Clearly the Government is indeed afraid of it enough to go out of their way to censor it. But I worry that we may be fooling ourselves, and it has no real traction. I would also point out that we don't have entirely clean hands either when it comes to tolerating 2%-size political movements advocating for radical changes to the structure of our government and society. Plenty of examples to pick from, no matter what your political persuasion is. I'm not saying we're as bad as them or anything - they're much, much further down that rabbit hole. I'm just saying that it's much easier than you think to ignore and excuse such abuses when they're against something that you don't like.
- tomrod 7y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. The starting philosophical base of Western Liberal Democracy is that individuals matter, and they have natural rights. That's a compelling narrative.
d0100 7y ago
> The Chinese government has shown remarkable staying power They are huge, filled with uneducated hungry people. Isn't too remarkable when the government's tactic boils down to "kill dissenters & feed the rest".

ufmace 7y ago

It seems like an ironic blind spot to me. Western liberals claim to be all about tolerance and diversity and multiculturalism, yet seem to have difficulty conceiving of the idea that maybe some other cultures genuinely don't want to turn into Western Liberal Democracies.

CamperBob2 7y ago
Google "The Paradox of Tolerance," if you're allowed to. Some truths really are self-evident.
- ufmace 7y ago
  I have read it. If you have a point you want to make, you're welcome to make it.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    If you didn't get the point when Karl Popper explained it, I doubt I'll be any more effective at conveying it here.
    - lovemenot 7y ago
      Including myself, there's probably many other people reading this who have not read it and would like one or two of its salient points.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
        The basic idea is that tolerating totalitarianism is self-defeating, even when done to prop up one's fondest notions of cultural relativism.
      - tomrod 7y ago
        This is a good read for the notion. I found it a good starting point when I dug into this a little while ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
    - ufmace 7y ago
      I'm generally happy to write walls of text to debate ideas, but I'm not very inclined to do it for people who just drop links. I will however drop a link of my own: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... TL; DR: Everyone hates their outgroup, and everybody has one, including you and me. Isn't it rather convenient to convince yourself that everyone in your outgroup is intolerant totalitarians, so that you can continue to hate them and justify any kind of tactics against them while also patting yourself on the back at how tolerant you are? (The 'you' there doesn't mean anyone in particular, just a general statement). Tolerance means not hating your enemies, your outgroup, and is genuinely hard and pretty rare. Everybody likes their friends and allies, and there's nothing particularly special or virtuous about it.
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        > Isn't it rather convenient to convince yourself that everyone in your outgroup is intolerant totalitarians That's a pretty extreme strawman. I disagree with lots of outgroups, and I only call a couple of them totalitarians. If someone hates all of the outgroup, they are almost certainly hypocritical and lying to themselves about being tolerant. If someone hates none of the outgroup, we can agree they're virtuous and special, sure. If someone hates 15% of the outgroup for specific reasons, that's probably okay. It doesn't automatically imply that they are secretly intolerant. Most people that claim to prioritize tolerance are here, and most of them are telling the truth.
        ufmace 7y ago
        I think we have a disagreement on the definition of the term "outgroup". The article I linked goes into more detail, but I'd say that an outgroup is defined by being the group that you hate, not necessarily just those who are different from you in some way. It doesn't make sense to talk about what percentage of them you hate when it's defined as being the people that you hate. There's no test to determine exactly what it is, but you can sometimes tell by people's behavior. Tolerance, then, is determined by behaving respectfully and with consideration to those you hate. And perhaps that statement was an oversimplification, but as I understand it, that's essentially the point of the Paradox of Tolerance. If you had to sum that up in a sentence or two, how else would you do it?
viraptor 7y ago
Tolerance and diversity normally stops at "it's cool we're doing things differently, as long as nobody gets hurt". Why would you be tolerant of people being abused?
- hyperdunc 7y ago
  That's a good question to ask police and local government officials in places like Rotherham.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Would you like to expand on the situation?
  - pertymcpert 7y ago
    Blowing that dog whistle hard aren’t you.
scarmig 7y ago
What does it even mean for a culture to want something? Only individuals can want something. Societies can't want something; the Earth can't want something; a company or government can't want something. It's clear that there are individuals in China who do want tolerance. And it's even clearer that there are government officials who are scared of what individuals might start wanting if exposed to ideas of tolerance and democracy.
- ufmace 7y ago
  Saying that the culture wants something is kind of a shorthand. It's more like a function of exactly what every individual in the population wants, how badly they want it, and how they go about ranking various things they want that sort of contradict each other. I'm going to just skip tolerance here, because it's a complex idea not entirely related. Let's use Democracy. There are definitely some people in China who want Democracy. There are everywhere. It's not remarkable that some people want it, but the numbers are the important part. If 2% of the people want it, then it's never going to happen. If 40% of the people want it, then it might move that way soon. Thing is, while 2% is a tiny minority, it's still objectively a lot of people. 2% can get you a bunch of activist groups and busy-looking protests and that sort of thing. It's much easier than you might think to look at a 2% movement that you personally agree with and believe that it's a mainstream view, the future of the country, etc, when it actually isn't. Now that's just an example. Personally, I have no idea what the approval rating of Democratic ideas is in China. Tricky thing about totalitarian countries that practice censorship, it's hard to get an idea of what people really think. I'd like to think that it's a mainstream, growing idea. Clearly the Government is indeed afraid of it enough to go out of their way to censor it. But I worry that we may be fooling ourselves, and it has no real traction. I would also point out that we don't have entirely clean hands either when it comes to tolerating 2%-size political movements advocating for radical changes to the structure of our government and society. Plenty of examples to pick from, no matter what your political persuasion is. I'm not saying we're as bad as them or anything - they're much, much further down that rabbit hole. I'm just saying that it's much easier than you think to ignore and excuse such abuses when they're against something that you don't like.
tomrod 7y ago
Maybe, maybe not. The starting philosophical base of Western Liberal Democracy is that individuals matter, and they have natural rights. That's a compelling narrative.

d0100 7y ago

> The Chinese government has shown remarkable staying power They are huge, filled with uneducated hungry people. Isn't too remarkable when the government's tactic boils down to "kill dissenters & feed the rest".