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I was thinking of revolution of a less pleasant sort, for which the urban immigration is a necessary prerequisite. There's a Tank Man streak in the Chinese psyc

by thunk 17y ago

I was thinking of revolution of a less pleasant sort, for which the urban immigration is a necessary prerequisite. There's a Tank Man streak in the Chinese psyche, which, when multiplied by a few hundred million of the recently enfranchised, well ... As for lifting fingers (Man the Mice! Man the Keys!), our intense scrutiny may be all that's required to catalyze the reaction.

litewulf 17y ago
This Tank Man streak in the Chinese psyche you speak of doesn't seem to have come up much since well... Tank Man. Most of the "strife" in China nowadays is ethnic I think. (Disclaimer time: I'm Taiwanese, not Chinese. My view of China is a bit skewed.)
- thunk 17y ago
  Maybe, maybe not -- we'd be the last to know. I suspect a lot of people just quietly disappear, like Zhiyong. But their carefully crafted public image of beaming, docile support for the government seems hollow from a nation that housed between 5 and 7 revolutions in the 20th century, depending on how you count.
- tel 17y ago
  I spent a lot of time talking with people in the Haidian District in Beijing. This area is contains the two most prominent (and many, many lesser) universities in China so it's interesting to see the general opinion of people around there. The unfortunate part is that it's a whole lot of apathy. I'm sure it's not easy, even for a foreigner, to find the heart of some people willing to speak or move against the Chinese government, but so many who I ran in to were casually trying to remain in their own world disjoint from the government. They feel a little rebellious just to support the stores that sell ironic Mao Zeodong merchandise and love to mildly mention that the government is really not that great here. That's about the depth of what I actively observed. I'll disclaim that I didnt' spend much time talking to those in what would have been the most charged fields (politics or philosophy, perhaps), but the general apathy was sort of disheartening. It's not all negative though. The educated Chinese are largely embracing the internet and desire to involve themselves more. For many, they give you a surprised look when you ask them about bypassing the firewall: you mean you don't have access to a proxy? Really? I thought everyone did. If this is the face of the new Tank Man, it's definitely going to be a different ride, but the transformative power of an enormous information pipeline plugged into the future leaders of your country still seems pretty portent. And ethnic strife would need to be the topic of a whole essay. China has cultural problems there, too.
idlewords 17y ago
It's pretty clear what you were thinking of, and pretty disgusting. Wishing more bloodshed on a country that has seen so much of it in the past century is the worst kind of armchair punditry. As far as references to a 'Chinese psyche' go, that's skating awfully close to 'the Oriental mind'. You really want to generalize over a billion people?
- thunk 17y ago
  Wow. Words are so slippery, especially for a bad writer like me. Let me be clear: I have no desire whatsoever to see a bloody revolution in China. I am by no means advocating a revolution. The "lifting a finger" bit was a joke about our laziness, not a call to action, although I see now how poorly it was worded. It would be hard for your interpretation to be more at odds with how I actually feel. I'm for peace and quiet and hacking Lisp. That said, I was calling it as I see it, and I can very easily see what I called. As for the Tank Man bit, would it change your mind if I told you I was half Chinese (I'm not, but still)? It's like saying "there's a revolutionary streak in the American mindset" -- totally innocuous. Damn, talk about miscommunication ...
roundsquare 17y ago
I wouldn't think outside scrutiny would be sufficient. Since a revolution is going to happen from the inside out, its the people of China that would need to know whats going on and decide to act. This is difficult because of how controlled information is in China. Separately, the size of the country may make a revolution difficult though because of the amount of coordination (explicit or not). The government can probably stop any small revolution but its (more) doubtful they could stop a large one. I guess this means that the more pleasant sort of revolution is more likely to be successful (if a revolution is going to happen at all).

by thunk 17y ago

litewulf 17y ago

This Tank Man streak in the Chinese psyche you speak of doesn't seem to have come up much since well... Tank Man. Most of the "strife" in China nowadays is ethnic I think. (Disclaimer time: I'm Taiwanese, not Chinese. My view of China is a bit skewed.)

thunk 17y ago
Maybe, maybe not -- we'd be the last to know. I suspect a lot of people just quietly disappear, like Zhiyong. But their carefully crafted public image of beaming, docile support for the government seems hollow from a nation that housed between 5 and 7 revolutions in the 20th century, depending on how you count.
tel 17y ago
I spent a lot of time talking with people in the Haidian District in Beijing. This area is contains the two most prominent (and many, many lesser) universities in China so it's interesting to see the general opinion of people around there. The unfortunate part is that it's a whole lot of apathy. I'm sure it's not easy, even for a foreigner, to find the heart of some people willing to speak or move against the Chinese government, but so many who I ran in to were casually trying to remain in their own world disjoint from the government. They feel a little rebellious just to support the stores that sell ironic Mao Zeodong merchandise and love to mildly mention that the government is really not that great here. That's about the depth of what I actively observed. I'll disclaim that I didnt' spend much time talking to those in what would have been the most charged fields (politics or philosophy, perhaps), but the general apathy was sort of disheartening. It's not all negative though. The educated Chinese are largely embracing the internet and desire to involve themselves more. For many, they give you a surprised look when you ask them about bypassing the firewall: you mean you don't have access to a proxy? Really? I thought everyone did. If this is the face of the new Tank Man, it's definitely going to be a different ride, but the transformative power of an enormous information pipeline plugged into the future leaders of your country still seems pretty portent. And ethnic strife would need to be the topic of a whole essay. China has cultural problems there, too.

idlewords 17y ago

It's pretty clear what you were thinking of, and pretty disgusting. Wishing more bloodshed on a country that has seen so much of it in the past century is the worst kind of armchair punditry. As far as references to a 'Chinese psyche' go, that's skating awfully close to 'the Oriental mind'. You really want to generalize over a billion people?

thunk 17y ago
Wow. Words are so slippery, especially for a bad writer like me. Let me be clear: I have no desire whatsoever to see a bloody revolution in China. I am by no means advocating a revolution. The "lifting a finger" bit was a joke about our laziness, not a call to action, although I see now how poorly it was worded. It would be hard for your interpretation to be more at odds with how I actually feel. I'm for peace and quiet and hacking Lisp. That said, I was calling it as I see it, and I can very easily see what I called. As for the Tank Man bit, would it change your mind if I told you I was half Chinese (I'm not, but still)? It's like saying "there's a revolutionary streak in the American mindset" -- totally innocuous. Damn, talk about miscommunication ...

roundsquare 17y ago

I wouldn't think outside scrutiny would be sufficient. Since a revolution is going to happen from the inside out, its the people of China that would need to know whats going on and decide to act. This is difficult because of how controlled information is in China. Separately, the size of the country may make a revolution difficult though because of the amount of coordination (explicit or not). The government can probably stop any small revolution but its (more) doubtful they could stop a large one. I guess this means that the more pleasant sort of revolution is more likely to be successful (if a revolution is going to happen at all).