China: Moving Toward Civilization

Recently I have been reading books and articles highly critical of China. It makes me think two things: the first is that maybe writers should be required to take some standardized intelligence test, and their score posted upon the cover of their book or on the heading of their article, so that the reader can see straight away whether or not to give the material any serious credence. After all, if the author is stupid, then what can we really expect from his book? Secondly, who is promoting the book and its publication? We may have situations where a really intelligent author simply designs a book to meet certain ideological specifications, agreeing with his own arguments only in the sense that he knows they deliver the propaganda he was paid to provide.

“In the Jaws of the Dragon” by Eamonn Fingleton is a book where we can both note a deficiency of intelligence and an ideological bias. In one case he apologizes for ancient Confucianism by calling it ‘benign’ but says that Modern China has subverted Confucianism because now they are ‘authoritarian’. Duh. The author here is either ideological or stupid, and probably both. Why should authoritarianism be excluded from the possibility of being benign? The author is assuming that those who propose Authoritarian Systems simply intend to be mean for the purpose of simply being mean. We should allow almost anybody the charity of supposing that they have good intentions. Even Adam Smith, in proposing the most extreme selfish motivations of Capitalism, justified them in arguing that the ends would work out better for everybody. So the argument against Capitalism and Adam Smith should go not against his intentions, that Goodness may come, paradoxically enough, from Selfishness, but that there is a Better Way to achieve a Better End.

Western Capitalists, when Russia had been the Big Enemy, used to brag that Capitalism proved itself by its success, and that Socialism was a failure simply in its failure to compete. Well, we won’t go into the facts that the West had cut off Russia from access to raw materials that made success possible. After all, part of the argument for Capitalism was that, in business, any means of competition is ‘fair’, as in ‘alls fair in love and war’. Western Capitalists had never been shy about comparing business strategies to War… indeed, it makes them feel manly to toss out such comparisons. But now that Socialism is showing all of the Competitive Strengths, growing at an average of 10% a year while Western Capitalism is struggling not to contract, now we are finding the Capitalists complain of unfairness, and suddenly discovering that there is more to life than Profit Margins. I almost laughed when I found this arch conservative, this Republican, speak of fair wages and working conditions. This is from a Capitalist Ideology that from its very beginnings had proposed Subsistence Wages, and in its practices has always been hostile to the Collective Bargaining of Unions or the Political Determination of Wages through Legislation. Well, to be fair, I guess one could construe his argument to mean, that if the West has to deal with such awful annoyances as Organized Labor and Labor Politics, then so should the Chinese.

However, to be fair to the Chinese, this whole idea of Competition was not their idea. Remember, the Chinese may have been paying attention while the West was gloating over their Victory over Communism and Capitalism’s obvious ascendancy over Socialism. It is just barely conceivable that the Chinese may have supposed that they would be the West’s next target.

No, I am not supposing that the Chinese had at any point decided to do anything unscrupulous. Indeed, all they really needed to do was to stay true to some certain points of Civilized common sense. And this brings us to the basic differences between East and West, between what is Civilized and what is essentially Barbarian. Civilization creates institutions which promote organization, unity, sharing, community. Civilized Institutions aim at minimizing internal conflicts, and even external conflicts. Therefore, as it should be intuitively clear, Civilization can support much higher population densities. Yes, there is the problem that not everybody in a crowded Civilization can be ecstatically happy all the time. Living with people and getting along with people requires certain compromises, and Civilized People learn to deal with a certain level of frustration with civilized poise and their good graces – a product of being raised in a Civilized Culture and having a proper Education.

Barbarism, though, when examined only in part, can be much more fun. You see, Barbarism depends upon a very light density of population – wide open spaces, cheap land, and a plentitude of resources. So, of course, given these conditions the Barbarians can speak of their idyllic life style – their Freedoms. But the Barbarians never go into much detail about how they manage to assure these thin levels of Population. The Americans enjoy their success NOT through any advantage in ideology, democracy or capitalism, but only because they landed on a practically empty continent. And Western Europe – we know how they keep population down. War, War, War. Adam Smith didn’t mention it, but perhaps he thought he did not need to. You see, in the absence of Civilized Institutions and Civilized Cultural Expectations, War will happen almost automatically, as soon as that certain line is crossed in Population Density that separates a Society’s level of Barbarism from the Level of Civilization that might have saved it. So, yes, Barbarism IS happier, but the catch is, that Barbarians keep their happiness by lashing out and killing all who would infringe upon their Happiness. So it is that the survivors of Barbarism are happy, and nobody factors the victims into the equation. While Civilization may sometimes include a certain degree of frustration, while people must compromise to live side by side with other people, at least it does not depend upon the fundamental Horror of having to base its proffered happiness on a tacit policy of Kill Kill Kill.

Oh, and about Tibet. Honestly, it is as though nobody is thinking. The United States has seen the benefits of Unification. Even Europe is demonstrating that it finally is beginning to understand the benefits of Unification. But all these same people are willing to riot in the streets for the rights of Tibetan People to exercise their hate campaign against Ethnic Chinese. What is their point? Do we seriously want a World in which every little Ethnic Minority is at constant war with all of its neighbors? Or do we eventually want to arrive at a One World Community, where we each see that we have more in common than what is different between us. And we will not get there by rioting against broader political jurisdictions. After all, the Chinese have brought a fairer rule to Tibet, and have even reduced the tax burden for the typical Tibetan, when it is considered how much the lazy monks and Lamas extracted from the Tibetan People they held as effective chattel. Looking at the current rioting in Tibet we can suppose it is propelled only by those who are funded by Western Agitators who suppose their advantage would be in once again imposing their own taxes for their own personal benefit. The West speaks of Freedom, but here it is simply the freedom of predators to stalk and kill their prey. And this brings to mind the Dalai Lama, probably a stupid man who has his books written for him by Western Ideologues – a warm and fuzzy Buddhism, not in keeping at all with the rough and tumble Tantric Buddhism which scholarship tells us abides in Tibet – a mix of sex and sorcery spells all to be expected from a bunch of boys housed together at the public’s expense. Yes, we all might have hoped more from any variety of Buddhism, but as we see the Actions and Behavior of Buddhism, in Tibet, in Nepal, and now from city to city throughout the World, Buddhism is just another name for Chaos, Hate and Violence. Buddhism really needs a Modern Awakening, and has to decide whether it is a force for Barbarism or for Civilization.