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The most important article I ever read was a piece by James Palmer titled "For American pundits, China isn’t a country. It’s a fantasyland." https://www.washin

The most important article I ever read was a piece by James Palmer titled "For American pundits, China isn’t a country. It’s a fantasyland." https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-american-pundits-china-isnt-a-country-its-a-fantasyland/2015/05/29/24ba60e0-0431-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_term=.15e8748766f8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-american-pundits... > The people telling these tales aren’t interested in complexities or, really, in China. They’re making domestic arguments and expressing parochial fears. Their China isn’t a real place but a rhetorical trope, less a genuine rival than a fairy-tale bogeyman. > [But] when we treat China as a fantasyland of instruction for ourselves, we end up ignoring the Chinese. Like Voltaire’s mandarins or the happy peasants of Maoist propaganda, they cease to be real people and become perfect puppets deployed for rhetorical ends. I read it having just arrived in China after many years away and it helped contextualized just how vastly different the China was that appeared in even sophisticated English language publications and the raw truth on the ground. It gave me a powerful lens to critically analyze media from, about how people are reduced to symbols to feed a story that the audience wants to believe rather than the data driven complexity of real ground truth.

nicbou 6y ago
The same is true for the rest of the world too. Americans seem to know two things about Germany: the war and the wall, and they don't know that much about either. It really shows when reddit discusses Germany, because they see everything through that pinhole. Reporters are hardly better. Hell, I live in Germany, and I can't pretend to know much about rural life there, despite leaving the city more often than the average Berliner. I was stunned by the NPD's slogans, because they never reached Berlin. I could also say the same about America. I only know reddit's America, and perhaps a few things from living just north of the border. The Internet gave me false confidence in my understanding of America. Bottom line is you shouldn't use a few headlines convince you that you understand how things run in another country. You also can't judge their actions based on your culture and your legal system.

nicbou 6y ago

The same is true for the rest of the world too. Americans seem to know two things about Germany: the war and the wall, and they don't know that much about either. It really shows when reddit discusses Germany, because they see everything through that pinhole. Reporters are hardly better. Hell, I live in Germany, and I can't pretend to know much about rural life there, despite leaving the city more often than the average Berliner. I was stunned by the NPD's slogans, because they never reached Berlin. I could also say the same about America. I only know reddit's America, and perhaps a few things from living just north of the border. The Internet gave me false confidence in my understanding of America. Bottom line is you shouldn't use a few headlines convince you that you understand how things run in another country. You also can't judge their actions based on your culture and your legal system.