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Absolute nonsense to equate the idea of American Exceptionalism with Chinese nationalism. We don't get "admonished" or sent to work camps for being insufficient

Absolute nonsense to equate the idea of American Exceptionalism with Chinese nationalism. We don't get "admonished" or sent to work camps for being insufficiently or even anti-nationalistic. Our schools regularly even have curricula where American exceptionalism is questioned, unlike the Chinese model where the government is beyond questioning lest you risk a lowered social credit score and a trip to the gulag. I swear people don't understand how good we have it in the West and how differently people think in China when they are subject to fervent brainwashing from birth. It is extremely difficult to even think to question the government when you have been explicitly and implicitly conditioned from birth to tow the line. Ask a Chinese national coworker about Coronavirus right now and how things are going there and watch them not even flinch when they tell you that everything's fine and under control - just know that if you do so you are putting them on the spot. They are so used to having their digital and in person communications monitored that they wouldn't risk even telling you the truth in person.

minikites 7y ago
>We don't get "admonished" or sent to work camps for being insufficiently or even anti-nationalistic. Colin Kaepernick was blackballed from the NFL for kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance. Look at what happened to the Dixie Chicks: > On March 10, 2003, during a London concert, nine days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Maines told the audience: "We don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States (George W. Bush) is from Texas," which garnered a positive reaction from the British audience but led to a contrasting negative reaction, and ensuing boycotts, in the United States, where talk shows denounced the band, their albums were discarded in public protest and corporate broadcasting networks blacklisted them for the remainder of the Bush years.
- uwuhn 7y ago
  Was anyone in either of your two examples imprisoned because of what they said or did?
  - beerandt 7y ago
    Also, I don't think most people cared about their political beliefs. And that's why it blew up, in both cases. They cared because they were customers, who were paying for entertainment, but receiving a lecture/statement on politics. When you're an entertainer, you risk your livelihood by upsetting your fans. That's not government censorship; it's a bad business decision.
  - minikites 7y ago
    Does the punishment need to meet a certain severity level to be "bad"? The parent comment I replied to made it sound like criticizing the government is free from any consequences in the West, which is patently false.
    - uwuhn 7y ago
      It's not about the severity of the punishment so much as who administers it.
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  This is "don't piss off half the customers", not top-down censorship.
  - runarberg 7y ago
    Though true, it needs clarification why this difference is important. I’m not entirely convinced that it is. Edit, to paraphrase: Why is it any different that control comes top down from a government or from a board of directors of a company?
    - aianus 7y ago
      You can buy things from a different company or work for a different company or lobby your government to go after the company and stop their behavior. It's much much harder to move countries, if they even let you.
      - runarberg 7y ago
        Though I agree that there is a difference in scope, I’m not entirely sure what you say applies to the NFL. I guess Kaepernick would have to move to Australia if he wants to keep playing professional football. This supposed option of choice only applies if there is non-monopoly and there is an equal power dynamic between consumers/workers and heads of company. Neither is true of the NFL.
  - minikites 7y ago
    So being governed by corporations is superior to a government of the people?
- readarticle 7y ago
  It is a genuine human accomplishment that in the west, we hold being left unemployed by a sports league or uncovered by broadcasting networks comparable to state level abuses of human rights. It’s not often I feel “pride” for where I was randomly born, but your comment brought a bit of it out through this shift in perspective, thank you.
  - minikites 7y ago
    Okay, how about these examples? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
    - allovernow 7y ago
      Do you feel like you are risking your livelihood, reputation, or personal safety for publically posting comments critical of the U.S. government and/or U.S. culture? Because I guarantee the average Chinese citizen does. That's the critical difference. Corruption exists in the U.S. but thankfully authoritarianism does not (yet).
      - yorwba 7y ago
        > I guarantee the average Chinese citizen does. How do you make this guarantee? The average Chinese citizen I know expects critical comments to be deleted, but getting a visit by the police is rare. I know one person to whom that happened, in the early 2010s. He didn't suffer any major repercussions beyond being told to stop posting like he did.
        minikites 7y ago
        Decades of red-baiting propaganda warps people's ideas of what these countries are actually like.
- mrosett 7y ago
  Kaepernick landed as the face of Nike with a massive endorsement deal for his trouble, which I guess is sort of like being sent to a a work camp.
yorwba 7y ago
> Ask a Chinese national coworker about Coronavirus right now and how things are going there and watch them not even flinch when they tell you that everything's fine and under control In my WeChat feed, I've seen a lot of panic about not being able to buy face masks or Shuanghuanglian and other kinds of traditional medicine, as well as outrage about the city of Dali intercepting shipments of face masks destined for other regions. "Everything's fine and under control" looks more like a minority opinion. Of course that could be biased by me attracting a certain kind of people, but ironically the harshest critics of the government in this case have been people I think of as "strong China" patriots/nationalists. Turns out they react especially negatively to government failures.
- dwohnitmok 7y ago
  I'm also seeing some more critical views of the government show up on my WeChat feed. I think neutral views of the government/exhortations to stay positive among my contacts on my feed still wins out slightly, but there's definitely some pretty harsh criticism and in some cases, disillusionment. The Chinese government is probably keenly aware of the growing discontent and is unlikely to overplay their hand and crack down hard on communications, at least at the moment. For example, they could've decided to block all mentions of Li Wenliang from the Chinese internet (as has happened with many other things in the past), but they haven't, at least not obviously. If they did, I suspect discontent would explode.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    I appreciate your perspective. As an insider, do you think we can trust recently published literature from Chinese sources regarding the virus? This article[1] for example is somewhat reassuring but I don't know if the numbers are trustworthy. On the other hand I imagine academia is at least somewhat insulated from the reaches of the government and academics are probably more likely to be willing to take risks to communicate truth. 1.https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v...
    - 7y ago

minikites 7y ago

>We don't get "admonished" or sent to work camps for being insufficiently or even anti-nationalistic. Colin Kaepernick was blackballed from the NFL for kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance. Look at what happened to the Dixie Chicks: > On March 10, 2003, during a London concert, nine days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Maines told the audience: "We don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States (George W. Bush) is from Texas," which garnered a positive reaction from the British audience but led to a contrasting negative reaction, and ensuing boycotts, in the United States, where talk shows denounced the band, their albums were discarded in public protest and corporate broadcasting networks blacklisted them for the remainder of the Bush years.

uwuhn 7y ago
Was anyone in either of your two examples imprisoned because of what they said or did?
- beerandt 7y ago
  Also, I don't think most people cared about their political beliefs. And that's why it blew up, in both cases. They cared because they were customers, who were paying for entertainment, but receiving a lecture/statement on politics. When you're an entertainer, you risk your livelihood by upsetting your fans. That's not government censorship; it's a bad business decision.
- minikites 7y ago
  Does the punishment need to meet a certain severity level to be "bad"? The parent comment I replied to made it sound like criticizing the government is free from any consequences in the West, which is patently false.
  - uwuhn 7y ago
    It's not about the severity of the punishment so much as who administers it.
erik_seaberg 7y ago
This is "don't piss off half the customers", not top-down censorship.
- runarberg 7y ago
  Though true, it needs clarification why this difference is important. I’m not entirely convinced that it is. Edit, to paraphrase: Why is it any different that control comes top down from a government or from a board of directors of a company?
  - aianus 7y ago
    You can buy things from a different company or work for a different company or lobby your government to go after the company and stop their behavior. It's much much harder to move countries, if they even let you.
    - runarberg 7y ago
      Though I agree that there is a difference in scope, I’m not entirely sure what you say applies to the NFL. I guess Kaepernick would have to move to Australia if he wants to keep playing professional football. This supposed option of choice only applies if there is non-monopoly and there is an equal power dynamic between consumers/workers and heads of company. Neither is true of the NFL.
- minikites 7y ago
  So being governed by corporations is superior to a government of the people?
readarticle 7y ago
It is a genuine human accomplishment that in the west, we hold being left unemployed by a sports league or uncovered by broadcasting networks comparable to state level abuses of human rights. It’s not often I feel “pride” for where I was randomly born, but your comment brought a bit of it out through this shift in perspective, thank you.
- minikites 7y ago
  Okay, how about these examples? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Do you feel like you are risking your livelihood, reputation, or personal safety for publically posting comments critical of the U.S. government and/or U.S. culture? Because I guarantee the average Chinese citizen does. That's the critical difference. Corruption exists in the U.S. but thankfully authoritarianism does not (yet).
    - yorwba 7y ago
      > I guarantee the average Chinese citizen does. How do you make this guarantee? The average Chinese citizen I know expects critical comments to be deleted, but getting a visit by the police is rare. I know one person to whom that happened, in the early 2010s. He didn't suffer any major repercussions beyond being told to stop posting like he did.
      - minikites 7y ago
        Decades of red-baiting propaganda warps people's ideas of what these countries are actually like.
mrosett 7y ago
Kaepernick landed as the face of Nike with a massive endorsement deal for his trouble, which I guess is sort of like being sent to a a work camp.

yorwba 7y ago

> Ask a Chinese national coworker about Coronavirus right now and how things are going there and watch them not even flinch when they tell you that everything's fine and under control In my WeChat feed, I've seen a lot of panic about not being able to buy face masks or Shuanghuanglian and other kinds of traditional medicine, as well as outrage about the city of Dali intercepting shipments of face masks destined for other regions. "Everything's fine and under control" looks more like a minority opinion. Of course that could be biased by me attracting a certain kind of people, but ironically the harshest critics of the government in this case have been people I think of as "strong China" patriots/nationalists. Turns out they react especially negatively to government failures.

dwohnitmok 7y ago
I'm also seeing some more critical views of the government show up on my WeChat feed. I think neutral views of the government/exhortations to stay positive among my contacts on my feed still wins out slightly, but there's definitely some pretty harsh criticism and in some cases, disillusionment. The Chinese government is probably keenly aware of the growing discontent and is unlikely to overplay their hand and crack down hard on communications, at least at the moment. For example, they could've decided to block all mentions of Li Wenliang from the Chinese internet (as has happened with many other things in the past), but they haven't, at least not obviously. If they did, I suspect discontent would explode.
- allovernow 7y ago
  I appreciate your perspective. As an insider, do you think we can trust recently published literature from Chinese sources regarding the virus? This article[1] for example is somewhat reassuring but I don't know if the numbers are trustworthy. On the other hand I imagine academia is at least somewhat insulated from the reaches of the government and academics are probably more likely to be willing to take risks to communicate truth. 1.https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v...
  - 7y ago