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> In China, people have no innate rights. It is a cornerstone principle that all people everywhere have innate rights. The entirety of the Enlightenment is bas

> In China, people have no innate rights. It is a cornerstone principle that all people everywhere have innate rights. The entirety of the Enlightenment is based on this idea. And while China may be actively involved in oppressing these rights domestically, it tacitly endorses them on the international stage. Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better.

azinman2 5y ago
The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism, which has very different belief structure that emphasizes harmony with the masses over the individual.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  I'm not grokking your argument. Are you calling the forced enslavement and "re-education" of Uyghurs and so many others "harmony"? https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Taoism is thousands of years old, vastly pre-dating the CCP and its actions.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      I am very well aware that Taoism is thousands of years old. I have an undergraduate honors thesis on the confluence of Taoist traditional thought and Buddhist influences expressed in the Lieh Tzu. I have spent considerable energy trying to convince Western military fans of Sun Tzu to teach it in its proper context, such as by requiring reading Lao Tzu first. You can stop being condescending at any point. Your argument appears to be that modern Chinese actions should not be judged against the rubrics of Western philosophy. I disagree because I do not believe in moral relativism. However, if their actions are to be judged only against the rubrics found in, e.g., Taoism, then judge them against those rubrics. Do you have anything approaching a good faith argument that the actions of China with regard to Uyghurs, Tibet, greater Guangdong (including HK), or any of the countless ethnic or political minorities in China comport with an ideal of harmony?
      - azinman2 5y ago
        I’m not being condescending at all. I’m not even sure what came off as condescending, but I apologize if it did. I’m not sure what you’re trying to debate here. I’m replying to the idea of a universal set of human rights, and that somehow the enlightenment is relevant to this globally, and that “moral relativism is lazy.” So I bring up that the enlightenment is specific to a set of cultures versus being globally accepted, and even within those cultures, there have been many philosophical movements since. Thus there isn’t some universal way that humans think about each other, or actions onto each other, and most importantly, China has been influenced by a different set of ideals that are thousands of years old. You then bring up abhorrant behavior of current CCP, when in fact I’m talking about something more timeless - ideals. Atrocities have been committed worldwide under just about every philosophical guidance, including those who have been influenced by Enlightenment. Philosophy and religion can always be twisted to suit the needs of whoever is in power, and the majority/base from which they pull their power.
- AllegedAlec 5y ago
  > The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism That doesn't mean one isn't morally right and one isn't morally wrong. If you want a hint for which one is which: one asserts that every living person has basic human rights. The other has frequent videos of people ignoring people who are dying, are currently destroying an indigenous population in concentration camps, and when a novel virus broke out, first shut up scientists trying to get the news out, then underplayed it, and then as it started spreading saw citizens weld shut doors of people suspected of having that virus.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    I'm not sure who/what you're replying to here. I wasn't making a moral judgement at all. I'm just correcting the GP suggesting that the Enlightenment is somehow a universal ideal (the way I read it), when that's far from the case. In fact there have been many ideologies even in Europe since then dealing with criticism of each former philosophical movement. Meanwhile it's undeniable that Taoism is a major cultural cornerstone of China and very much affects how the state and its population are related. Thus "Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better." is actually quite an ignorant statement that applies a specific moral lens to the entire world without acknowledging the lack of universality in ideals across humanity.
    - AllegedAlec 5y ago
      > Thus "Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better." is actually quite an ignorant statement that applies a specific moral lens to the entire world without acknowledging the lack of universality in ideals across humanity. The existence of other frameworks of morality doesn't mean that there isn't one True Morality. It just means that some people act against it.
      - azinman2 5y ago
        And that One True Morality is from the Enlightenment? Humans have existed a lot longer than the Enlightenment and battled with ideals of morality throughout the ages. To suggest that there's somehow a single philosophy that's correct is quite pompous.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Chinese leaders are likely more familiar with Western thought than the other way around.
  - telxos 5y ago
    I am an American that loves to read the Global Times sometimes because it often has brilliant pieces. Media like we use to have before the internet. Chinese leaders might even understand America better than we understand ourselves. I had just read an op ed the other day how America has no strategic thinkers in positions of power at this point. Someone like Kissinger. I don't even know how to argue with that because we don't. We don't even have the political will to want someone like that. We want a circus. China can see this, we are basically blind to it.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Not sure why you are getting downvoted, because it is most likely true. Focus in Western civilization shifted to trivia. We are spending all our effort deciding whether or not to take vaccines rather than deal with this problem efficiently and talk about really important problems like, you know, future of our civilization.
- Haga 5y ago
  But that harmony is not fitting to human nature, poisons innovation, thus weakens the harmony wisher, allowing for non-harmonious entitys to take over. It's a self defeating concept that serves as proof of work only the nostalgia for a medieval past.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
One of my political science professors in college claimed that they used to struggle to translate constitutional documents to Chinese, as they didn't even have an agreed upon word for "human rights" until the 1970s or so. I think this is what the parent was trying to communicate. All humans may have certain inalienable rights, but not all humans fully understand the concept, let alone demand (or even desire) that their rights be respected. It's kind of mindblowing to contemplate, but enlightenment thought has yet to deeply penetrate the mainland Chinese populace.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  > One of my political science professors in college claimed that they used to struggle to translate constitutional documents to Chinese, as they didn't even have an agreed upon word for "human rights" until the 1970s or so. Simplified Chinese: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E4%BA%BA%E6%9D%83&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=34&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E4%BA%BA%E6%9D%83%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E4%BA%BA%E6%9... English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=human+rights&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chuman%20rights%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=human+rights&y... That claim appears to not be true. And since many Western concepts (like all the specialist communist terminology) made their way to Chinese through Japanese words using Chinese characters, if it _were_ true it would seem like it'd imply something about Japan too. Japanese uses a word with the same characters but I couldn't run down a good citation of the first dates all of these appeared besides the ngrams.
mcguire 5y ago
Well...unless you are one of the people that don't have innate rights at the moment. See, for example, the Dred Scott decision. Your choices are (a) moral relativism, or (b) all humans are despicable. Choose wisely.
- salawat 5y ago
  B. Next question. Half the point of civilization is accepting the fact we're all terrible people ready to stab each other in the back to get ahead and deciding not to do so so we can actually take a shot at building something great. And honestly, that's a trick question, because one is a subset of the other. Despicable people being a superset of moral relativists.
claudiawerner 5y ago
>Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better. That's quite a strong statement about a theory taken seriously by a number of moral philosophers.

azinman2 5y ago

The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism, which has very different belief structure that emphasizes harmony with the masses over the individual.

torstenvl 5y ago
I'm not grokking your argument. Are you calling the forced enslavement and "re-education" of Uyghurs and so many others "harmony"? https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs
- azinman2 5y ago
  Taoism is thousands of years old, vastly pre-dating the CCP and its actions.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    I am very well aware that Taoism is thousands of years old. I have an undergraduate honors thesis on the confluence of Taoist traditional thought and Buddhist influences expressed in the Lieh Tzu. I have spent considerable energy trying to convince Western military fans of Sun Tzu to teach it in its proper context, such as by requiring reading Lao Tzu first. You can stop being condescending at any point. Your argument appears to be that modern Chinese actions should not be judged against the rubrics of Western philosophy. I disagree because I do not believe in moral relativism. However, if their actions are to be judged only against the rubrics found in, e.g., Taoism, then judge them against those rubrics. Do you have anything approaching a good faith argument that the actions of China with regard to Uyghurs, Tibet, greater Guangdong (including HK), or any of the countless ethnic or political minorities in China comport with an ideal of harmony?
    - azinman2 5y ago
      I’m not being condescending at all. I’m not even sure what came off as condescending, but I apologize if it did. I’m not sure what you’re trying to debate here. I’m replying to the idea of a universal set of human rights, and that somehow the enlightenment is relevant to this globally, and that “moral relativism is lazy.” So I bring up that the enlightenment is specific to a set of cultures versus being globally accepted, and even within those cultures, there have been many philosophical movements since. Thus there isn’t some universal way that humans think about each other, or actions onto each other, and most importantly, China has been influenced by a different set of ideals that are thousands of years old. You then bring up abhorrant behavior of current CCP, when in fact I’m talking about something more timeless - ideals. Atrocities have been committed worldwide under just about every philosophical guidance, including those who have been influenced by Enlightenment. Philosophy and religion can always be twisted to suit the needs of whoever is in power, and the majority/base from which they pull their power.
AllegedAlec 5y ago
> The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism That doesn't mean one isn't morally right and one isn't morally wrong. If you want a hint for which one is which: one asserts that every living person has basic human rights. The other has frequent videos of people ignoring people who are dying, are currently destroying an indigenous population in concentration camps, and when a novel virus broke out, first shut up scientists trying to get the news out, then underplayed it, and then as it started spreading saw citizens weld shut doors of people suspected of having that virus.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I'm not sure who/what you're replying to here. I wasn't making a moral judgement at all. I'm just correcting the GP suggesting that the Enlightenment is somehow a universal ideal (the way I read it), when that's far from the case. In fact there have been many ideologies even in Europe since then dealing with criticism of each former philosophical movement. Meanwhile it's undeniable that Taoism is a major cultural cornerstone of China and very much affects how the state and its population are related. Thus "Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better." is actually quite an ignorant statement that applies a specific moral lens to the entire world without acknowledging the lack of universality in ideals across humanity.
  - AllegedAlec 5y ago
    > Thus "Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better." is actually quite an ignorant statement that applies a specific moral lens to the entire world without acknowledging the lack of universality in ideals across humanity. The existence of other frameworks of morality doesn't mean that there isn't one True Morality. It just means that some people act against it.
    - azinman2 5y ago
      And that One True Morality is from the Enlightenment? Humans have existed a lot longer than the Enlightenment and battled with ideals of morality throughout the ages. To suggest that there's somehow a single philosophy that's correct is quite pompous.
emodendroket 5y ago
Chinese leaders are likely more familiar with Western thought than the other way around.
- telxos 5y ago
  I am an American that loves to read the Global Times sometimes because it often has brilliant pieces. Media like we use to have before the internet. Chinese leaders might even understand America better than we understand ourselves. I had just read an op ed the other day how America has no strategic thinkers in positions of power at this point. Someone like Kissinger. I don't even know how to argue with that because we don't. We don't even have the political will to want someone like that. We want a circus. China can see this, we are basically blind to it.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Not sure why you are getting downvoted, because it is most likely true. Focus in Western civilization shifted to trivia. We are spending all our effort deciding whether or not to take vaccines rather than deal with this problem efficiently and talk about really important problems like, you know, future of our civilization.
Haga 5y ago
But that harmony is not fitting to human nature, poisons innovation, thus weakens the harmony wisher, allowing for non-harmonious entitys to take over. It's a self defeating concept that serves as proof of work only the nostalgia for a medieval past.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago

One of my political science professors in college claimed that they used to struggle to translate constitutional documents to Chinese, as they didn't even have an agreed upon word for "human rights" until the 1970s or so. I think this is what the parent was trying to communicate. All humans may have certain inalienable rights, but not all humans fully understand the concept, let alone demand (or even desire) that their rights be respected. It's kind of mindblowing to contemplate, but enlightenment thought has yet to deeply penetrate the mainland Chinese populace.

emodendroket 5y ago
> One of my political science professors in college claimed that they used to struggle to translate constitutional documents to Chinese, as they didn't even have an agreed upon word for "human rights" until the 1970s or so. Simplified Chinese: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E4%BA%BA%E6%9D%83&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=34&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%E4%BA%BA%E6%9D%83%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%E4%BA%BA%E6%9... English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=human+rights&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chuman%20rights%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=human+rights&y... That claim appears to not be true. And since many Western concepts (like all the specialist communist terminology) made their way to Chinese through Japanese words using Chinese characters, if it _were_ true it would seem like it'd imply something about Japan too. Japanese uses a word with the same characters but I couldn't run down a good citation of the first dates all of these appeared besides the ngrams.

mcguire 5y ago

Well...unless you are one of the people that don't have innate rights at the moment. See, for example, the Dred Scott decision. Your choices are (a) moral relativism, or (b) all humans are despicable. Choose wisely.

salawat 5y ago
B. Next question. Half the point of civilization is accepting the fact we're all terrible people ready to stab each other in the back to get ahead and deciding not to do so so we can actually take a shot at building something great. And honestly, that's a trick question, because one is a subset of the other. Despicable people being a superset of moral relativists.

claudiawerner 5y ago

>Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better. That's quite a strong statement about a theory taken seriously by a number of moral philosophers.