Raoul's China Saloon (V5.0) Beta
The Bar Room => The BS-Wrestling Pit => Topic started by: Calach Pfeffer on January 09, 2010, 06:52:56 PM
-
"[Globalization is] a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding." [1]
"Economic development tends to push societies in a common direction, but rather than converging, they seem to move on parallel trajectories shaped by their cultural heritage." [2]
"Countries and ogranizations do not gravitate toward a supposedly universal model of economic success and organizational form as they attempt to cope with globalization. Rather, the mutual awareness that globalization entails invites them to be different, namely, to use their economic, political and social advantages as leverage in the global marketplace." [3]
I always figured this was true, that whether Chinese were or weren't becoming westrnised, there was always going to be something that wasn't westernised, and it would be stronger than the altered part.
?!?
Discuss.
[1] Waters, M. (1995). Globalization. New York: Routledge
[2] Inglehart, R. and Baker, W.E. (2000). "Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values." American Sociological Review, 65, 19-51.
[3] Guillen, M.F. (2001). The Limits of Convergence: Globalization and Organizational Change in Argentina, South Korea and Spain. Princeton: Princeton university Press.
-
llllllllll That gave me a headache ...... I think I will go and lie down for a while
-
China still suffers the delusion that they can "globalize" entirely on their own terms...that they can integrate with the world but still keep the corruption, nepotism, shoddy practices, etc. that they make so much money from. I sure hope they're wrong about this. If they're not, well, the world has pretty much gone to hell anyway, and it just doesn't matter anymore.
-
And what makes the rest of the world so sure that there is no corruption in their home countries? I challenge anyone to paint a real portrait of moral, ethic and honest government in the globalized western world (North America and Europe). Globalization is more about real power not being available to governments, rather having the power vested in boards that have no allegiance to anything other than the currency of choice.
-
And what makes the rest of the world so sure that there is no corruption in their home countries? I challenge anyone to paint a real portrait of moral, ethic and honest government in the globalized western world (North America and Europe).
There was a book some years back "But Not in Canada!". Some smug Canucks say a lot of silly things about the US, claiming they have lot of problems that we (I'm Canadian) don't. The book debunked that. Each chapter dealt with a different problem, showing that we had it too. Chapter one was about racism and gave some pretty awful examples of bad treatment of the first Chinese immigrants, about 1870.
The chapter on corruption looked at all our Prime Ministers from Confederation (1867) to the publication date (1976). There was only one who did not lose a cabinet member in some sort of corruption scandal -- bribery, nepotism, insider trading, ... That was the guy who was only PM for four days.
-
China still suffers the delusion that they can "globalize" entirely on their own terms...that they can integrate with the world but still keep the corruption, nepotism, shoddy practices, etc. that they make so much money from. I sure hope they're wrong about this. If they're not, well, the world has pretty much gone to hell anyway, and it just doesn't matter anymore.
One of the odd ball things I'm trying to get my head around in my new text books (where those quotes come from) is the claim that research appears to show, on the whole, around the world, while values may change, culture usually doesn't. Can't work that out without a way more clear definition of culture than is ever usually offered. But still, it seems to fit in with a perception I often had while in China that whatever lipservice was paid to new ways of thinking, there would still always be a whole bunch of mostly unstated beliefs that wouldn't change.
Actually, at least from the stated, lipservicy point of view, China is pretty clear that they won't globalize*. They will, they say, industrialize, but will accept the good and reject the bad. Fairly explicitly culturally protectionist there. Normally I would have said, and felt bad about saying, that that's China being isolationist and zenophobic. But maybe it isn't. Maybe it's an extreme version of what every culture is doing. Or not. I dunno.
So I wonder about the corruption, nepotism, shoddy practices... the nationalism, the "Woe-are-Us, We-was-invaded" preaching, the collectivism... it may, perhaps, never truly go away. Never.
This may not be a bad thing.
* Nor even globalise, not unless Kevin Rudd keeps up the Mandarin.
-
i think china is more ready to adapt than most of the western countries
chinese culture is in an embryonic stage at the moment. i know they go on about 5000 year old civilisation, but in my experience younger people (under 35 say) are just as fervent in drawing a line between 'old china' with all the superstitions and so on as they are banging on about the greatest empire ever etcetc
if you look at how they lap up korean and japanese pop culture etc
from my history book the corruption was not a serious problem until the reforms of the 70s/80s/90s although i don't know if that's true or not cos i haven't studied it just read some overview type stuff
i've not even been here a year yet, so this is very much from my tip of the iceberg perspective (and i only get to talk about it with middle class chinese who speak english and foreigners who have been here a while....) but i don't see much chinese culture tbh
another thought (sorry i'm going off on tangents here) is that european cultures have also been incredibly diluted. traditional english culture like pubs and football are like theme pubs of how they were 15 years ago.
back to economics lol. i think it's pretty obvious that there is no universal economic model of success (not within a capitalist framework anyway....) so of course countries will have to adapt the dominant ideology to their own needs because culture doesn't move that quickly, i reckon it takes 2 or 3 generations for ideas to change, china has changed so rapidly, a lot of the students i meet who are my age and higher up the social ladder than me grew up in villages with one tv and one car for the whole village
sorry, that's all over the place....
-
Yes, I've witnessed a 'dilution' of so much traditional
Australian 'culture' over the years. The globalized-jargon, for example,
is pervasive, largely due to the influence of US movies, Tv, songs,
etc. But whoa, no, I'm not pushing this back away as if its some kind of bad thing.
About seven years ago here, the former Federal government called
for public, and media, debate/discussion to try to identify the unique
'features' of being an Australian. Such as 'what are our own traditions and values that make us different from other nationalities'. (what makes us, 'us')The then-government was at that time drafting a new oath of allegiance for intending-citizens, hence the
call for submissions.
As far as I know, despite a million or so opinions being expressed, nobody could
actually come-up with a coherent definition. In that case, well we are a vacuum, and
the globalization merely rushes-in to fill it, as in a natural process.
Sorry, but I don't think I've discussed the OP in quite the way, the economic
aspects, that was sought.
Calach, I'm not sure if Kev Rudd ('Lu Ke-wen')is employing his Mandarin-skills as much, in recent months.
His 'special relationship', with China, has been somewhat toned-down in the last 12 months, after a couple of incidents, as well as some pressure from the trade-unions for him to adhere to a more-protectionist stance.
-
there was always going to be something that wasn't westernised, and it would be stronger than the altered part.
I think Calach has got it right. I might be wrong, but to me the 3 quotes help explain the "X ...... with Chinese characteristics," approach of the government. It allows them to say,'we are doing x, while continuing to implement a policy that has only a tenuous relationship to our concept of X.
The CP holds that it is, of course, committed to realising 'democracy' in China - in fact, it is already here as we in China are told that we are living in a 'socialist democracy.' While we may not think that the present system comes within a bulls roar of democracy as we know it, it is pretty hard to argue with the qualification 'with Chinese characteristics.'
The Chinese seem to be pretty good at re-defining our language and concepts as a preliminary to any debate. We might be using the same word, or referring to the same concept, but it pays to check their interpretation of the word or concept before you start beating your head against the wall. Even then I fear you will still end up in a head banging session.
This came home to me when I read a CP review that held "there are many forms of democracy, including totalitarian democracy."
At the very least, the 3 quotes help explain why dining out in a 'Western restaurant with Chinese characteristics is often such an underwhelming experience. They may also explain why they are unlikely to get it right - they do not want to change.
-
They say of culture that there are three levels: the manifest, the expressed, and the basic.
Manifest culture is the stuff you can see and hear: language, clothing, dances, institutions and whatnot. The expressed consists of what the members of the culture will say when asked to describe their culture. At the basic level however are the fundamental assumptions of the culture that no one recognises as necessary to explain: basic, foundational beliefs that the users regard as true and universal, and they have no idea why anyone would question them.
One assumes the manifest culture admits a lot of variation while the expressed culture doesn't. Expressed culture serves as a curb on too many changes in manifest culture, and--depending A LOT on what exists in the basic culture--expressed culture slowly changes or sticks itself in the mud. If basic culture lets people be outward looking and includes an idea of incorporating external influences, then--I guess--"culture" can give the appearance of having changed, when really it's just being flexible. Otherwise, not.
It's just an intuition, really. That Chinese are going to go maintain something of themselves. Right now I'd say from the government down they have a policy of retaining, or attempting to retain, initiative in their own hands. That is, push come to shove, they insist they have a bunch of rights over stuff. Push not come to shove, they resort to soft power methods, none of which are meant really to be cooperative. Ultimately it's expressed in authoritarian measures, and I'm not sure that will ever change. They may lighten up in their expression of stuff, but the idea of retaining power in their own hands will continue to be a motif, inside and outside of the country.
I imagine this is hardly unique to the Chinese. However, can anyone imagine a time when "consensual power sharing" is the norm? That would be a strange day.
Oh and, LOL at "totalitarian democracy". The CP are such merry pranksters.
-
from my history book the corruption was not a serious problem until the reforms of the 70s/80s/90s although i don't know if that's true or not cos i haven't studied it just read some overview type stuff
From the books I've read, it has been a problem for centuries, and fairly often a reason for peasant revolts, sometimes a change of dynasty.
In particular, the Ming dynasty started with such a revolt and one book I had claimed corruption in the Nationalist government was the main reason Mao got peasant support and won the civil war.
-
From something I read--I think it was something on a strategic assessment website--corruption is supposed to have changed character over the last fifty years. Where it used to be the province of older men looking to their retirement and fiddling things within their control it has these days become a younger man's game with more people--sometimes whole local governments--colluding. This is said to indicate a fundamental lack of faith in a stable future. Pragmatically speaking, it also suggests a possible future moment where the bureaucracy as an entity becomes wholly incompatible with actual basic governance of fundamental provision for the people.
-
I always assumed that bureaucracy as an entity was inherently corrupt in all societies.
-
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table (http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table)
China ranks 79 from 180. Kiwis are the least corrupt!!
I like this table. It doesn't specify that there are any countries with NO corruption - but it looks at levels.
Globalisation is happening in China, and despite much overt angst by the populace and gov't over losing their own culture, no-one is really doing anything about keeping what CP is calling the expressed and the basic, but they do make an effort to keep the manifest out front - mostly for tourist purposes and to pretend that the minorities are being treated equally.
When we talk about the basic, I am assuming we are talking about the mores and folkways that shape written and unwritten laws. Laws are changing in response to external pressures (trade in particular). Even corruption laws are being given a few more teeth.
Mores move with the times, and these times are strongly influenced by TV, the internet etc. Look at the greater acceptance of couples living together, homosexuality and the many other social changes happening.
Folkways will also change as more students who leave villages and move into cities and business people stop observing QingMing Jie and other festivals as anything but a holiday. A whole bunch of other practices will gradually disappear. Things like making sure the kitchen god is happy etc will go very quickly. Ask your students now about how many of them have kitchen god ceremonies each year. Fewer parents will move in with their adult children as they move more frequently around the country with promotions, changes in business etc. So the emphasis on family will become more 'western' - more retirement villages, nursing homes etc will spring up. The expression will still be the same, but the basic will change. ("We love our parents and owe them so much, this is why we are paying for the best nursing home. We are too busy working to look after them.")
The biggest worry for gov't will be inflation and the demand for a rise in living standard from millions of factory workers. As their pay rises the possibility of Chinese and foreign companies moving off-shore is strong. The demand for cheap manufacturing (which has, in part, been one of the drivers for fake/shoddy manufacturing) will keep wages down for some time. However, to stop creating fake/shoddy items, you need to hire more skilled workers, have better machinery, better management, better raw materials - all costing money. When wages do start to move, the loss of employment is a problem that the current welfare system is not capable of managing.
-
Globalisation is happening in China, and despite much overt angst by the populace and gov't over losing their own culture, no-one is really doing anything about keeping what CP is calling the expressed and the basic, but they do make an effort to keep the manifest out front - mostly for tourist purposes and to pretend that the minorities are being treated equally.
When we talk about the basic, I am assuming we are talking about the mores and folkways that shape written and unwritten laws. Laws are changing in response to external pressures (trade in particular). Even corruption laws are being given a few more teeth.
Mores move with the times, and these times are strongly influenced by TV, the internet etc. Look at the greater acceptance of couples living together, homosexuality and the many other social changes happening.
Folkways will also change as more students who leave villages and move into cities and business people stop observing QingMing Jie and other festivals as anything but a holiday. A whole bunch of other practices will gradually disappear. Things like making sure the kitchen god is happy etc will go very quickly. Ask your students now about how many of them have kitchen god ceremonies each year. Fewer parents will move in with their adult children as they move more frequently around the country with promotions, changes in business etc. So the emphasis on family will become more 'western' - more retirement villages, nursing homes etc will spring up. The expression will still be the same, but the basic will change. ("We love our parents and owe them so much, this is why we are paying for the best nursing home. We are too busy working to look after them.")
^^^I'm pretty sure that stuff counts as manifest and/or expressed. Kitchen god stuff is manifest. Speaking about parents the way they do is also manifest culture, unless they say something like "All Chinese love their parents," in which case it's expressed. Generally speaking none of it is basic culture inasmuch as the definition of basic culture says, more or less, basic culture isn't visible on its own. Basic culture is so fundamental to the person's cultural identity that they don't even know they're supposed to tell you about it. And if they had to tell you about it, they might not be able to put it into words.
If there is such a thing as basic culture, it will be present when the people are negotiating their new identities and will insist on becoming part of that identity. And if the new identity cannot include that original basic culture, the people in question are likely to resist it as so totally alien that it cannot be accepted. The whole "with Chinese characteristic" is, in the end, no joke.
I wonder what is fundamental to a Chinese identity.
The biggest worry for gov't will be inflation and the demand for a rise in living standard from millions of factory workers. As their pay rises the possibility of Chinese and foreign companies moving off-shore is strong. The demand for cheap manufacturing (which has, in part, been one of the drivers for fake/shoddy manufacturing) will keep wages down for some time. However, to stop creating fake/shoddy items, you need to hire more skilled workers, have better machinery, better management, better raw materials - all costing money. When wages do start to move, the loss of employment is a problem that the current welfare system is not capable of managing.
Yeah. What is China generating to take over as the main "employer" when cheap labour is no longer what China offers? Pop Globalisation tells us India began a move into services and hi tech. China shall... export people?
-
China ranks 79 from 180. Kiwis are the least corrupt!!
In all my years in China no one has tried to corrupt me (in the financial sense of the word afafafafaf.) and now I know why - they know I cannot be corrupted because I am from New Zealand. bibibibibi
Come on - test me out. Take me to dinner at an expensive restaurant and give me a traditional 'red envelope' with x,xxx,xxx RMB in it and see if I take it.
-
Generally speaking none of it is basic culture inasmuch as the definition of basic culture says, more or less, basic culture isn't visible on its own. Basic culture is so fundamental to the person's cultural identity that they don't even know they're supposed to tell you about it. And if they had to tell you about it, they might not be able to put it into words.
I wonder what is fundamental to a Chinese identity.
When I teach culture we talk about the 4 foundations - religion, language, education and social structure - and how these shape and carry culture. When we analyse these 4 aspects in China I think it is easy to see a clear transition to becoming a 'different' culture. Religion - decried, slowly allowed, is seeing greater growth in both 'real' atheists as well as in Christianity. Maoism as a religion has odd resurgences here and there but more as a way of legitimising claims to power. Confucianism as a way of relating and ordering society is being touted as something wonderful by the government as a way of maintaining order, but ask Chinese teachers and they will tell you students are no longer respectful but becoming arrogant. Check the number of civil disorder incidents and it is growing (saw a small one yesterday). Even the traditional family relationships are changing because of the one-child policy. Buddhist influences are waning.
When students talk to me about their 'spiritual' life, I ask them what they mean and it usually boils down to emotions and dreams for the future - not a relationship with any higher power or any inner growth.
Language - dialects are being phased out which would have originally created patterns of thinking, seeing and understanding of the world around them. These dialects are being replaced by putonghua and English. Putonghua in its broad usage hasn't been around for too long to have a major influence on perception and thinking patterns. With English being taught to most students at an earlier and earlier age, English ways of thinking and perceiving will be adopted along with those created by putonghua and the remnants of local dialects. Ask teachers who are interested in classical Chinese literature if the modern Chinese translations are able to convey the ideas and concepts in them and you will hear a resounding 'no', so even for the educated, the language no longer has the same ability to shape thinking as it did previously. Similar to the changes that occurred when French or Latin were replaced as the languages of power in the west.
Education inculcates behavioural patterns and manifest/expressed culture. Confucianism once ruled in education processes, but is today having less influence. The one child family has increased competitiveness, and despite the much touted, and supposedly taught, 'collectivist' society there are clearly increased individualist tendencies. Check out how collectivist your local fruit and vege sellers are, how collectivist families are when it comes to getting making sure Xiao Zhou gets the best chances. Would a truly collectivist society have the widest and fastest growing Gini co-efficient in the world?
Social strata - levels and mobility. Yes, there are definitely classes in China, always have been. But is it possible to change classes? Hell yes - a government job or increasing education gives a fair bit of mobility. We have a rapid jump from peasant farmer to highly paid business person. Probably more than 1/3 of my students are the sons and daughters of farmers, poor as churchmice. These kids will be out there working in business, many in multi-nationals, studying, travelling, living overseas in a couple of years. So few will return to their local area, let alone their village. They will embrace a globalised world with glee and alacrity. Next week I will be sitting in a tiny room surrounded by T'tan nomad children aged 12-17, teaching them English. They will go home, fill their stoves with yak dung, eat their dried yak meat, bow reverently to the hidden pic of the DL and dream of going to Beijing or Australia. And for some of them, it will become a reality.
As outsiders, what do you see as fundamentally Chinese? Something that has no manifestation anywhere else in the world?
-
I agree, the culture is taking a beating and has been being slapped around for at least fifty years. The cultural revolution, at least in its expressed form, was a country wide assault on manifest culture, and broadly speaking it succeeded. And from 1949 onwards, the Revolution itself has been a systematic and enduring assault on traditional expressed culture. And these days, what I guess we'd have to call globalisation--the arrival of foreign imagery and products, changing work environments, new access to money--allows for all kinds of new behaviours to emerge.
Even so, I've always had the naive idea that culture endured. It would have been bastardised, driven into differing forms of expression, driven sometimes deep underground, but still.... It's just too hard to think of people as blank slates. They may be for the first five minutes after they exit the womb, but from then on they're automatically building a foundation for their personality, and it's not much within their control, they get it from what's around them. And really, who builds their identity on such ephemeral things as, say, Japanese fashion or what's on TV? Identities like that come and go. Identities that you can easily identify and talk about as if they could be chosen, those identities are not foundational. Foundational identities are the ones you can't choose because they are the basis on which you make your choices. Usually you can't even identify them because they're that deep in the heart of everything you do that you don't see them as anything other than the natural order of things.
Presumably foundational identity is identity you can't let go of because it sits in an non-analytical position for you. Deep, for you. Maybe obvious and questionable for others, but for you its found in a basic structural role for everything else.
Such things exist, I believe. They are passed on without people being immediately aware of passing them on. They can be significantly assaulted and they can change over time. But they remain. And really, it's just the same idea as saying that there's almost always a difference between what people do and what people say they are doing.
As for what it means to be Chinese... probably if spelled out it will sound really simple and kind of dumb. Probably any alien culture spelled out at the deep level will sound simple and dumb. It only attains its depth and seriousness by virtue of being held by a people to be valuable.
So, fundamental Chinese identity might be something as simple as: we are oriented on *this* group and we sacrifice for it, and we are related to our families and our family's family by duties of obedience, and we, as a people, are old.
-
I like the Table, too.
It helps answer the "Hey, our countries have corruption, too!" argument.
OF COURSE our countries have corruption...it's a difference of extent.
In our countries, corruption is seen most among government officials (usually the smaller the government they work for, the more corrupt they are...), some businessmen, sometimes the police.
In China, it's down to the household level.
I keep telling the story of the conversation with my housekeeper...the one where she advised me to give my 3-year-old's teacher a Spring Festival "gift" of at least 800 RMB, or the teacher wouldn't give my child enough to eat or watch out for her safety.
Would you ever have to bribe a teacher back home, so that they would fill the belly of a 3-year-old child in their care?
Of course you wouldn't. Nor would you have to slip the doctor a few hundred under the table to make sure he keeps an eye on your sick loved one. Or...well, it just goes on and on.
We just aren't talking about the same "corruption".
Corruption this deep is far older than Communism; don't blame the government. As a matter of fact, Communism managed to slow corruption way down, at least for a few years.
My biggest surprise in the table is to see that China was only ranked 79th. I'd hate to see what life in Uzbekistan must be like... aoaoaoaoao
Or maybe the Chinese paid off the surveyors. ahahahahah
-
This word "corruption"...
An idea I came across once suggested that speaking of corruption in Asian countries, but in China in particular, is misleading. For one thing, "corruption" contains a negative value judgment, and at least in English is supposed to refer to something outside the norm. Well, since non-universalisable decision-making and relationship engineering are the norm in China, and probably have always been the norm, we probably need another word. "Corruption" can be saved for talking of those times where personal exercise of institutional power benefits directly and only your own interests. In that sense, I'm led to believe corruption has been on the rise in China.
-
korea seemed to me much more like china percieves itself as a quickly modernising country that has managed to keep it's links to the traditional collectivist family and boss confucian model of society
koreans actually believe it and actually live that system. chinese pay lip service to it and seem to like the idea but it seems like the country is just too big and has to modernise too much to actually apply these ideas in reality. chinese people i've met seem much more willing to adapt any ideas into their way of thinking.
-
What is China generating to take over as the main "employer" when cheap labour is no longer what China offers? Pop Globalisation tells us India began a move into services and hi tech. China shall... export people?
China is already 'exporting' people and has done so for a long time; its people are to be found in every country in the world.
Conspiracy theorists might hold that one day the Leader might call on every Chinese person in the world to rise up and overthrow their government - a Global Revolution! That moment would provide an interesting take on what is meant by culture and the degree to which it affects the daily functioning of people.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a Conspiracy Theorist and the idea advanced is not my own. I think I have must have heard it in a bar back home sometime. I do not believe that a Global Revolution will happen - unless, of course, the govt really does try to destroy the pirated DVD industry.
In the meantime I have just been reminded that it was Hermann Goering who said he felt like reaching for a gun every time he heard the word 'culture.'
-
What is China generating to take over as the main "employer" when cheap labour is no longer what China offers? Pop Globalisation tells us India began a move into services and hi tech. China shall... export people?
China is already 'exporting' people and has done so for a long time; its people are to be found in every country in the world.
Conspiracy theorists might hold that one day the Leader might call on every Chinese person in the world to rise up and overthrow their government - a Global Revolution!
Well, there was this story about a Chinese man who moved to the UK and married a Brit and had 10 children with her:
"Chinese encouraged to emigrate to defeat foreigners":
http://www.chinasmack.com/stories/chinese-encouraged-emigrate-defeat-foreigners/ (http://www.chinasmack.com/stories/chinese-encouraged-emigrate-defeat-foreigners/)
But alas, it turned out to be an Onionesque hoax story.
On the other hand, I recently read they are remaking the 1984 classic Red Dawn but this time with China replacing Russia as the enemy.
Conspiracy Theorists are getting traction.
-
I agree, the culture is taking a beating and has been being slapped around for at least fifty years.
Presumably foundational identity is identity you can't let go of because it sits in an non-analytical position for you. Deep, for you. Maybe obvious and questionable for others, but for you its found in a basic structural role for everything else.
So, fundamental Chinese identity might be something as simple as: we are oriented on *this* group and we sacrifice for it, and we are related to our families and our family's family by duties of obedience, and we, as a people, are old.
Culture by its very nature changes, and changes relatively rapidly. New social mores change the manifestations and expressions very quickly - take the civil rights movements for women and many disadvantaged groups as examples. But these overt changes bring with them deeper changes. No culture remains static, because then it becomes a museum piece, not reality - and this is why those going 'home' see so much difference. The culture has changed. Children of migrants are brought up to be more traditional than their cousins who stayed back in the old country. So it is not just the last 50 years culture here has taken a beating. It began taking beating when people from one group met people from over the hill or river.
If the foundational Chinese identity is obvious and questionable to others, what are we seeing for the Chinese?
-
I agree, the culture is taking a beating and has been being slapped around for at least fifty years.
Presumably foundational identity is identity you can't let go of because it sits in an non-analytical position for you. Deep, for you. Maybe obvious and questionable for others, but for you its found in a basic structural role for everything else.
So, fundamental Chinese identity might be something as simple as: we are oriented on *this* group and we sacrifice for it, and we are related to our families and our family's family by duties of obedience, and we, as a people, are old.
Culture by its very nature changes, and changes relatively rapidly. New social mores change the manifestations and expressions very quickly - take the civil rights movements for women and many disadvantaged groups as examples. But these overt changes bring with them deeper changes. No culture remains static, because then it becomes a museum piece, not reality - and this is why those going 'home' see so much difference. The culture has changed. Children of migrants are brought up to be more traditional than their cousins who stayed back in the old country. So it is not just the last 50 years culture here has taken a beating. It began taking beating when people from one group met people from over the hill or river.
Uttered like a true low-context culture emigree. It's a basic fact--"fact"?--in low-context cultures that change is rapid, to the point that the culture is readily identifiable as different from generation to generation. Or at least, that's what the members of that culture accept as basic. They regard it as universally true too, that change is the norm.
Now, it cannot be denied that China is and has been for some time experiencing rapid change. It is undeniable that Chinese are adapting. How are they adapting? what are they adapting? the kind of environmental change we see in China, if seen in a low context culture, would more or less decisively mean the culture was shot and would change, but this doesn't automatically tell us anything about what would happen in a high-context culture.
I'd say, the education that needs to go with becoming a significant member of a high-context culture has been substantially uprooted and tossed aside in China. But the approach remains. How could it not?
If the foundational Chinese identity is obnvious and questionable to others, what are we seeing for the Chinese?
Hope? That while their country is well on the way to being environmentally screwed and politically dangerous, they still have something to be going on with?
Like their computers, all Chinese are implanted with a culture chip. They will one day be called back to the old faith. They will rise up and destroy the oppressors, unifying the world in catastrophic harmony.
-
I was in a hurry before and didn't finish my question.
fundamental Chinese identity might be something as simple as: we are oriented on *this* group and we sacrifice for it, and we are related to our families and our family's family by duties of obedience, and we, as a people, are old.
From what I am inferring from your post culture then is a choice. We choose to ally ourselves with a particular form of culture. An example could be a mate of mine, born, educated, grew up in the UK, but he quite clearly states that he is Indian - because his parents are. However, he speaks very little Indian (Hindi or any other form), has visited perhaps half-a-dozen times - for me he is choosing a culture.
The options you offered for the Chinese are similar to all cultures aren't they? I'm Australian because I was born there, so am oriented to that group, I sacrifice as much for Australia as I see most Chinese sacrificing for their country (I probably sacrifice more, by paying taxes!!).
I am related to my family and family's family by duties of obedience (well, only when my Mum was alive - but check out the little emperors and the '80/90s generation in China - not too much obedience happening there!). I would say that I am related by the bonds of caring and love, rather than a Confucian concept of duty that is rapidly dying out.
And we, as a people are 'old'. For that one I figure we all came down from the trees at the same time, and the splits and re-alignments of China (Warring States, break aways etc) are no different to those in Europe.
How much of 'high-context' do you see in the culture? In language and guanxi customs, I would see a reasonable amount, but where else do you see it? I would also see that these are changing in practice.
Where things remain unchanged it is because technology remains unchanged. Therefore in essence, whilever there is a basic agrarian system in place, then the rapid changes of officials, court intrigues etc make little difference, unless the rulers (Kings or Emperors) try to extort too much. The majority of dynasties did not last for very long, so China has been in a state of change, in official terms, pretty frequently since the Qin Dynasty in 221BC. The Mao Dynasty has perhaps lasted a little longer than some already (Shun, Sui etc), complete with the court intrigues and attempted overthrows etc.
With the advent of greater technology, the reliance on an agricultural/artisan base decreases, and change becomes more pronounced further down the ladder if you like.
Where you have the rapid change in technology you don't have the time for the depth of relationships to develop to maintain a high context culture. High context is based on shared understanding of the fundamental things, and with a complete change in lifestyle (peasant to IT specialist or factory worker eg) and change in location (Inner Mongolian village to Shenzhen) then you lose the high context background and need to relate more overtly. Each move for an individual decreases the high context process in total for a society.
-
She doesn't address these issues in depth, given the constraints she is lecturing under the TED format (18 minutes or less), but Amy Tan addresses a lot of these issues in her talk at TED 2008 on "Creativity". They let her have 24 minutes as she flew through what she wanted to say. And what she wanted to say has a lot of the elements brought up in this thread. She even threw in "quantum mechanics" and "string theory" to garner (successfully) the attention of the non-literary types in the typical TED audience.
A lot to ponder in her presentation on culture and how it affected her writing and creativity and on issues being discussed here in this thread, and what she found when she went to the Chinese "outback" to research her last book. (an article about which was published in National Geographic last year as I recall).
A good watch and on topic for what you all are discussing even if you have to slow the video down and take notes; she's trying to get through her prepared presentation on a time schedule.
http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_tan_on_creativity.html (http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_tan_on_creativity.html)
And I never even really liked her books.
P.S. The beginning doesn't explain the large Gucci(?) bag she has onstage with her. They probably had to cut the intro because she went overtime. I took the Gucci bag to be a "typical Chinese woman" displaying her name brand prowess. Maybe not for herself, but for the folks back home. I was wrong at the end, but the denouement was just as annoying.
P.S. Note to ETR - she's on your reading list so take a look.
-
I was in a hurry before and didn't finish my question.
fundamental Chinese identity might be something as simple as: we are oriented on *this* group and we sacrifice for it, and we are related to our families and our family's family by duties of obedience, and we, as a people, are old.
From what I am inferring from your post culture then is a choice.
Say what? That inference is not an example of the principle of charity in counterargument.
We choose to ally ourselves with a particular form of culture. An example could be a mate of mine, born, educated, grew up in the UK, but he quite clearly states that he is Indian - because his parents are. However, he speaks very little Indian, has visited perhaps half-a-dozen times - for me he is choosing a culture.
The disadvantage of ever bringing basic culture into the light is it looks simple and empty. It loses its power. The principle power of basic culture, one assumes, lies in it being unstated fundamental principle. As a culture member you don't even have to express it, it just is the way things are. It does presumably have some relationship to expressed culture, and presumably the unencultured observer can discover basic culture only by listening to expressed culture. (And that is presumably why my naive shot at presenting some basic culture sounded a lot like rudimentary expressed culture as we've all heard it.)
The only way for there to be no such thing as basic culture of this sort is if human beings gain an identity independent of their culture identity, probably both logically and temporally prior to that cultural identity.
In which case, cultural issues are a pile of horseshit really because why deal with the cultural person when you could be dealing with the real person hiding behind that cultural eyewash, yeah?
The options you offered for the Chinese are similar to all cultures aren't they? I'm Australian because I was born there, so am oriented to that group, I sacrifice as much for Australia as I see most Chinese sacrificing for their country (I probably sacrifice more, by paying taxes!!).
I am related to my family and family's family by duties of obedience (well, only when my Mum was alive - but check out the little emperors and the '80/90s generation in China - not too much obedience happening there!). I would say that I am related by the bonds of caring and love, rather than a Confucian concept of duty that is rapidly dying out.
And we, as a people are 'old'. For that one I figure we all came down from the trees at the same time, and the splits and re-alignments of China (Warring States, break aways etc) are no different to those in Europe.
*sigh*
All gods are the same god because all believers believe in one god.
How much of 'high-context' do you see in the culture?
Who cares? How much high-context do you not see in the people?
Actually, how much high-context could one see if one wasn't an initiate? The inscrutable Chinese gives one sentence, and as far as we know he spoke one sentence. Would he actually tell you you hadn't understood? Would a high-context person spend time explaining the complex meaning he had invoked? Sure he would. He be all over that because he's had an education.
The manner remains! That's all. The manner. There are some bastardised holdouts of old properly expressed high-context culture, like sayings and utterances. But for God's sake, has no one ever not known that Hello Kitty means far more than we recognise? The boys and the wee gels court and live and study and do friggen everything according to the rules of a high-context people. Everything! That it's all so seemingly shallow and changeable really doesn't mean it's shallow and changeable... AT ALL!
The forms, the habits, the simplistic stylisations... the goddamn cartoons they draw on their books, the way they hold birthdays, the drinking habits, the holding hands, the dormitory life... everything. It's in everything.
The expressed culture has altered some. The manifest culture includes substantial pastiche and novelty. And the structural aspects that hold it all together... the manner in which it is performed...?
Where things remain unchanged it is because technology remains unchanged. Therefore in essence, whilever there is a basic agrarian system in place, then the rapid changes of officials, court intrigues etc make little difference, unless the rulers (Kings or Emperors) try to extort too much. The majority of dynasties did not last for very long, so China has been in a state of change, in official terms, pretty frequently since the Qin Dynasty in 221BC. The Mao Dynasty has perhaps lasted a little longer than some already (Shun, Sui etc), complete with the court intrigues and attempted overthrows etc.
With the advent of greater technology, the reliance on an agricultural/artisan base decreases, and change becomes more pronounced further down the ladder if you like.
Where you have the rapid change in technology you don't have the time for the depth of relationships to develop to maintain a high context culture. High context is based on shared understanding of the fundamental things, and with a complete change in lifestyle (peasant to IT specialist or factory worker eg) and change in location (Inner Mongolian village to Shenzhen) then you lose the high context background and need to relate more overtly. Each move for an individual decreases the high context process in total for a society.
You mean like Japan, right?
-
When I teach culture we talk about the 4 foundations - religion, language, education and social structure - and how these shape and carry culture.
Canada prides itself on being multicultural, but the cynics say all that survives of immigrant culture is the four D's -- dress, dialect, dance and diet.
-
Not sure about Japan, because I haven't lived there, only observed it for a couple of weeks with no language, and read about it much the same as I read about the 'inscrutable Chinese' - who aren't so inscrutable when you know them. Therefore any comment I make about that culture and its changes are going to be from a totally ignorant point of view. Having said that - yes I believe Japanese culture has changed fairly dramatically in the last 50 years or so as well. Social mobility, role of women, openness by the young to different influences etc. For another collectivist society with a focus on family - the Japanese were the ones who invented and first used robots to nurse the elderly.
As Aldous Huxley said "To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries". ahahahahah
Aren't we looking for the ESSENTIAL thing that makes the Chinese culture different?? If so, if there is such a thing as real fundamental difference, then it has to be a different god, and while we put forward things that are in essence, part of all humanity, we have not found that different god.
One of the mythconceptions that my students often bring up is that western families don't care about each other, and that we basically throw our children out into the streets at 18, never to financially, emotionally or physically support them again. This aspect of western culture is somehow believed to be as true as anything we postulate here about Chinese culture, and it severely miffs me!
They see that as an essential difference between Chinese and western culture. They see that their family structure is much tighter, more caring etc than ours - despite many of my students only seeing their parents once a year, at Spring Festival time, from the time some of them were born. These overt expressions of culture are not reflective of what I perceive you to be calling the basic, and certainly not what is reality.
We need to be careful that we do not see the expressed or the manifest as reality, as overt indicators of the foundational.
I hope when we really find the absolute essence of a culture - we realise we are Chinese, and they are us.
-
The more I discuss this with Chinese mates, the more I see that it is possible globalisation will increase the expression and the manifest,in order to create difference, but expose that the basic is really basic to all humanity.
We will have more Zhang Yimou, more Tim Burton.
And less real reason to treat each other as 'the other'.
-
Essentially, all languages are the same. I mean, it's all about the communication, isn't it, and language is communication, so really, we all have the same "language". It's just that we don't realise it. If only we could realise it. *sigh*
-
Two coinal sideage: The World Values Survey and Universal People.
"Universal People" comes from Donald Brown. He did a bunch of behaviour research and came up with a 375 entry long list of behavioural traits common to all human beings.
[Brown's list] contends that significant elements of human behavior are the same throughout societies, suggesting that similar biological and cognitive processes operate across cultures. For example, universal behaviors include conflict, cooking, decision making, marriage, and play. Universal concepts, attitudes, and values include ambivalence, beliefs about death, ethnocentrism, metaphor, and the concept of person.... [E]very society creates a division of labor, plans for the future, overestimates objectivity of thought, and develops rituals.
To which I say, whatever, man. Instantiation of universals differ, though they be attached to the universal by abstraction. A handshake or a hug are both "common greeting", but that doesn't mean you can get away with them in societies that rub noses to say hello.
The World Values Survey says there is an observable change in values correlated with industrialisation. Pre-industrial societies are more given to traditional orientations to authority (God, obedience, faith, deference to authority, social conformity) and to survival thinking (we are unhappy, in poor health, can't trust each other much except in out in-group, science will save us, as will authority), whereas Industrial societies go for the secular-rational approach (think for yourself) and the self-expression (be yourself, be happy) values. And, there are generational changes evident in all of them, the young tending to settle further along the orientation toward the secular-rational and the self-expression than the old.
And I have no idea how they discovered it but they also note as a major finding that even as values shift, there is evidence of persistence of distinctive cultural traditions.
The models represent trends, and commonalities, and flattening statistics. Research suggests that the models do NOT predict too much about individuals. Which is to say, models are models. Something is indicated, but what?
And I say, if you reprogrammed a Chinese, you could make a Dutchman out of him. But you'd have to reprogram him first. I believe that to this day there is something that persists in Chinese people and it is heavily obscured both by historical forces and by such authoritative statements as come from the well-known and deeply questionable sources. If one were to come up with a current Chinese identity it would include a great many weak, unstable *stated* elements pasted over some enduring, perhaps shunned backbone. It's just a thing I've always thought upon meeting them and talking about what they do.
It perhaps only seems mysterious because I'm not Chinese and I can't really be sure why they value what they value.
Nonetheless... *that*, for the meaning of the globalisation to come.
-
Don't know if this adds anything useful to your thinking, but here is waht a Chinese mate of mine wrote sort of on this topics.
"“What should they know of England, who only England know?” wrote Kipling.
Being a Chinese does not qualify one as a fair judge of what is a Chinese value or what is a real Chinese. It might be a universal truth for every nation and its people. It seems quite interesting that a respectable distance will normally give you a much clearer picture about something you are looking at that is sort of enormous. It is such an easy job for people to find evidence to prove their hypothesis, and feel the result would be quite satisfactory. It is not much different from drawing a conclusion similar to the story of the 6 blind men and the elephant. There so many wise guys (I do believe that they, in most cases do not intend to be one, but they just can’t help it) making these judgments. It is true that there must be something essential that make an Australian different from a Chinese, but this difference is not that much more than that between the light red and red, not as much as that between red and green. The danger is when two cultures, two peoples are put together, the wise guys simply cannot help but perceive these differences and not the similarities."
-
So, "Don't leave me hanging, bro"?
The value judgment that all acts of differentiation are corrupt needs justification. One presumes the positive value of emphasizing similarities is something like "Hey, cool, look at the ways we can be together, we've got this and this and this in common and, man, that means we can be together and share and work together and, dude, we can even lurve each other!"
This positive value is insufficient to show that differentiation is unavailable or difficult to find or not important or always subject to lack of evidence or most often exists to a lesser degree than supposed. It is sufficient to show that, prima facie, differentiation is counterproductive.
What of the cases where the other persons do things that "we" don't do, and when called upon for the sake of cooperation, togetherness and lurve, to not do those things, a chunk of their identity disappears? Will that ever happen in this charming world of high, non-judgmental similarity we live in?
-
What of the cases where the other persons do things that "we" don't do, and when called upon for the sake of cooperation, togetherness and lurve, to not do those things, a chunk of their identity disappears?
It certainly does on an individual personality level - asking a person to change basic personality traits for the sake of 'lurve', togetherness, cooperation etc is destructive to that person, destructive to the relationship, and in the end counterproductive.
BUT... most of the things we would ask another to do in losing what we see as cultural traits are what you are labelling the manifest or expressed and change over time anyway. They are taught, not innate. Culture is taught and can therefore be 'unlearned'.
To make that hypothesis work you would need to be able to define what is the absolute cultural base, and as can be seen in this discussion - no-one has been able to define what makes an Australian, what makes a Chinese (not even the Chinese!) Chinese, so in essence there is nothing that we couldn't ask to change that would create this identity loss.
-
What of the cases where the other persons do things that "we" don't do, and when called upon for the sake of cooperation, togetherness and lurve, to not do those things, a chunk of their identity disappears?
It certainly does on an individual personality level - asking a person to change basic personality traits for the sake of 'lurve', togetherness, cooperation etc is destructive to that person, destructive to the relationship, and in the end counterproductive.
BUT... most of the things we would ask another to do in losing what we see as cultural traits are what you are labelling the manifest or expressed and change over time anyway. They are taught, not innate. Culture is taught and can therefore be 'unlearned'.
Like language can be unlearned? The suggestion that there exists a basic level of culture is I think mostly the suggestion that the enculturation process starts at the same time as the human animal individuation process. And is about as reversible as human individuation.
To make that hypothesis work you would need to be able to define what is the absolute cultural base, and as can be seen in this discussion - no-one has been able to define what makes an Australian, what makes a Chinese (not even the Chinese!) Chinese, so in essence there is nothing that we couldn't ask to change that would create this identity loss.
If the local people cannot voice their concern, there is no concern? Spokespeople for the local people can be called in, perhaps not local themselves but expert at describing things. If they cannot voice the concern either, then truly there is no concern to be concerned about?
-
You can easily forget language! Just stop using your Chinese for a few months and see how fast you forget it! Children brought up to about 10 in one language, move and don't use again don't remember 20 years later.
Enculturation - how many Muslims do you know who drink? Me - I know quite a few. How many Jews who eat pork - several. Even the deepest held tenets can be discarded. I'm an Aussie but I don't like cricket!! It starts early, but is learned and can therefore be discarded as other learning takes its place.
If the local people cannot identify what the concern is - then yes, it is not strong enough, clear enough to be a concern, to be real. If you have a pain, even a vague one, you can go to the Dr and say - I have this vague pain, I don't know what it is, but it makes me feel sick, it comes and goes, it makes me feel xyz. Then we have a means of identifying by an expert.
This sort of feels as if we are putting what you are calling the 'basic' level of culture on an almost 'religious' basis - it's there but we can't prove it. It's faith.
-
You can easily forget language! Just stop using your Chinese for a few months and see how fast you forget it! Children brought up to about 10 in one language, move and don't use again don't remember 20 years later.
Enculturation - how many Muslims do you know who drink? Me - I know quite a few. How many Jews who eat pork - several. Even the deepest held tenets can be discarded. I'm an Aussie but I don't like cricket!! It starts early, but is learned and can therefore be discarded as other learning takes its place.
If the local people cannot identify what the concern is - then yes, it is not strong enough, clear enough to be a concern, to be real. If you have a pain, even a vague one, you can go to the Dr and say - I have this vague pain, I don't know what it is, but it makes me feel sick, it comes and goes, it makes me feel xyz. Then we have a means of identifying by an expert.
This sort of feels as if we are putting what you are calling the 'basic' level of culture on an almost 'religious' basis[...]
We are. And rightly so. There is no precedent for saying large parts of a person's identity are unconscious?
Consider the idea of the subconscious. The larger part of the person that is consciously accessible only in very short bursts if at all and sets the framework for the operation of the conscious person anyway. The conscious person can wander far and wide within the confines of that framework, and yet there will still be blind spots taken as given articles, not open to question, to the point that the conscious person doesn't know they are there unless severely tested. And yet, they are likely recognisable to alien visitors by their impact on what can happen.
Culture cannot appear in this form? Perhaps not actually a part of the subconscious, but submerged nonetheless because that cultural framework began its penetration of the human animal's identity before that animal was sufficiently aware or even capable of critical assessment.
What adult is genuinely able to access and excise the deeper foundations of their personality learned in childhood? How many literally have the conscious aptitude to do that? Or a reason to? For what reason would members of a culture choose the difficult business of unlearning a foundation they have knowingly or not used for the better part of their life? And why would they not resist the arrival of an incompatible culture?
And most severely importantly, why would anyone expect them to NOT pay lip service to idea of working together in global harmony? They after all do know how to exist in a functioning society, surely all things are possible... and look, while we're at it, we'll show deference to our elders, enjoy money, respect face, and generally be human beings. That's how society works, eh? Say what? You foreigners hate your children? Oh, that's a problem. Don't worry, I'm sure you really do love your families. That's what people do, right? What, you don't? Sure you do, don't be silly. How could you not?!
-
Of course we have a precedent for a INDIVIDUAL unconsciousness. I believe that our personalities are innate - genetic perhaps, but definitely there prior to birth. Culture is not. Culture is taught. So this comparison does not work.
We can 'unlearn' many things as we grow older. Probably many of us were given some level of religious inculcation when we were young, but many of us, as we grew older, 'unlearned' that, and rejected it in favour of more rational, more individual or just different views. We may have learned that sex was 'naughty' (a protective measure!!) but very quickly 'unlearned' that! uuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuu Anything taught can be 'unlearned', replaced with better information or forgotten.
Who was asking people not to pay lip-service to working with humanity? But what you were asking for me was to consciously 'delete' a specific part of my innate personality in order to fit in with a particular group. This then is asking me not to be me, consciously. Unsustainable and destructive for a long term commitment, if I have value as a human being, as an INDIVIDUAL. But, given that no-one in this conversation has been able to define anything that is 'basic' CULTURE and request that essential part to be 'deleted' then all we can ask for is the manifest or the expressed to be 'deleted' in order to forward global harmony. They can give up spitting, I'll give up playing football, driving a Kingswood and meat pies!! ahahahahah ahahahahah
-
Of course we have a precedent for a INDIVIDUAL unconsciousness. I believe that our personalities are innate - genetic perhaps, but definitely there prior to birth. Culture is not. Culture is taught. So this comparison does not work.
Who was asking people not to pay lip-service to working with humanity? But what you were asking for me was to consciously 'delete' a specific part of my innate personality in order to fit in with a particular group.
A thing I came across in reading on this said that within culture groups there is frequently more individual diversity than ideas of "we all are the same cultural group" suggest. That is, within collectivist cultures, you still find individualists, and vice versa and so on with all the usual culture adjectives.
And coincidentally, the big culture models with their dimensions--those dimensions fairly neatly match up to combinations of Jungian functions--sort of suggesting that cultures have archetypal persons, like the archetypal Chinese male according to Chinese culture is [insert one of the sixteen Meyer-Briggs type descriptions here].
So if there is an archetypal cultural person, and there are fifteen other kinds of persons, then within a single culture, you get people closer and further away from the archetype.
And yet... all people still grow into their ways of functioning, and they do it within a given society. How do they not imbue their version of living with elements drawn from the cultural model presented by everyone and everything around them.
Or to put it another way, are Chinese libertarians the same as European Libertarians because they're both Libertarian in bent, or are they different because while Libertarian in bent, they manifest it using the different forms their own sense of identity supplies.
Or to put it all in a totally different way: if there is not some primal part of people that sucks up their cultures dictates early, then all these people running around today bowing or handshaking or voting or agreeing to war, they're kind of ridiculous if they value any of that. Shouldn't they be seeking a universal truth independent of cultural identities? By what parochial right can they lay claim to knowing a decent way to live and valuing it if they haven't looked deeper into the actual absence of culture we all suffer?
And if one seriously asks that last question, isn't one robbing a lot of people of the means by which they value any expression of anything?
*sigh* this is tiresome. The principle value being asserted by the fact of this discussion is the right to question and to seek new meaning. How western is that.
-
The principle value being asserted by the fact of this discussion is the right to question and to seek new meaning. How western is that.
And Confucian! ahahahahah ahahahahah
-
Since when?
Besides which, who cares? Is it a value taught at the parent's knee? Before duty to parents and respect for authority or after?
But anyway, people say what is and isn't valuable. And if there is nothing fixed inside the person, there is nothing truly valuable. Unless perhaps one respects people per se, in which case, their temporary ascriptions of value are respectable.
But why should even that be valuable? How about for the misanthrope who doesn't like people, does he have to respect the temporary ascriptions of value other people call on him to respect?
Game over, I suspect. Culture has had its depth and impact denied, there is no need to investigate further. There shall no doubt be some technical difficulties while persons of the world are informed of their loss of identity that isn't a loss because it never was deep enough to matter. But it'll all end in a gigantic group hug, and that'll be consolation enough. Love really does mean nothing left to lose.
-
We haven't been able to define anything but manifest and expressed culture, by your definitions. So that section of culture you have labelled as 'basic' to a specific culture has been called into question. By not only western discussion, but Chinese.
Your definitions of the expressed and manifest remain - to be exclaimed over, publicly espoused, mourned and hurriedly discarded in the drive for modernity and sophistication.
Perhaps the rest is actually a quality of 'humanity' rather than of specific cultures - and isn't that what we would be aiming at embracing??
A more interesting question could be 'why do we NEED to find the alien in others?"
Have we got this damn assignment written yet??? ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
-
We haven't been able to define anything but manifest and expressed culture, by your definitions. So that section of culture you have labelled as 'basic' to a specific culture has been called into question.
"We", kemosabe?
Manifest culture is the stuff you can see and hear: language, clothing, dances, institutions and whatnot. The expressed consists of what the members of the culture will say when asked to describe their culture. At the basic level however are the fundamental assumptions of the culture that no one recognises as necessary to explain: basic, foundational beliefs that the users regard as true and universal, and they have no idea why anyone would question them.
That looks like a definition. It does not look like a list of the contents of basic culture, but it does look like a definition. All that's needed is to decide if cultural content can or cannot sit at that level of a person's consciousness. If it can, culture will have a persistent influence over a person's sense of value. If it can't, culture is window dressing.
Incidentally, the depth at which the culture sits in the consciousness does not equate to a depth in the cultural value itself. That which is deeply held need not be particularly deep as an isolated statement. And probably won't be. It will be a powerful modifier of the person's choices, and it doesn't even have to be substantial as a truth. All it needs is to be deeply buried.
For an actual statement of basic culture, it would probably look something like expressed culture. For expressed culture is the person trying to express what is basic. And it will look stupid. It will look shallow and easily tossed aside. And often the culture members will themselves toss it aside. Only to return later to something very like it. Because it's buried deep.
Is there such a thing or is there not?
Limits, extents, scope, breadth... depth. Understanding that leads to a significantly truer evaluation of what to respect and what to not. Or we could all just sit around and keep on trying to find the blurry line between what stupid part of the culture must be respected and what stupid part can be ignored. Are they respectable because they're stuck with it, or because they say they like it?
Who cares and why? Well, cultures compete for ascription of value. How deep does that competition run?
And, in what sense is it real?
By not only western discussion, but Chinese.
That idea is such a load of faux connection-making, it should be insulting to Confucianism. Not only does it deny the method and direction of Confucian thinking, it equates it with Western choices in such matters. Or did you mean to empty Western evaluations of their substance too?
Your definitions of the expressed and manifest remain - to be exclaimed over, publicly espoused, mourned and hurriedly discarded in the drive for modernity and sophistication.
And they will come back to them. The form will differ, but a continuity will be there to be seen.
A more interesting question could be 'why do we NEED to find the alien in others?"
You can't spell "uniquely valuable" without a, l, i, e, and n.
-
You can't spell "uniquely valuable" without a, l, i, e, and n.
Too cheesy for you CP!!! aaaaaaaaaa
Historically the 'alien' has been highlighted to enable us to kill with impunity. We created the "g**ks" "sp*cs" etc etc and they became 'other', so it was OK. We continue to do it with the ethnic groupings in the Middle East.
We have become too sophisticated to OVERTLY believe that skin colour, eye shape etc create 'aliens', so we search desperately for a 'deeper' 'basic' 'foundational' difference to differentiate ourselves from others; to, in the end, justify atrocities we commit.
If this 'foundational' difference can't be seen from the outside, can't be defined from the inside, maybe, just maybe - it doesn't exist. Maybe culture is really the manifest and expressed - and that changes, and with globalisation will change more quickly.
When the outerspace 'aliens' come, we will talk about the sanctity of 'human' culture, leaving behind the 'supposed' foundational differences between Chinese and Australians, Muslims and Christians.
-
One is not obliged to kill the other. Inclined, yes. But not obliged.
With respect to globalisation, one claim I saw attributed to whatisname, the last British governor of Hong Kong, was that specifically Chinese values were a crock when it came to doing business. He said (something like) their insistence that Chinese values be respected was nothing less than a way for "them" to gain competitive advantage.
Now, I think there is probably some merit to this claim. The Chinese after all are not automatically so short sighted as to not see that making visitors bend to unfamiliar and destabilising rules that promote a lack of transparency is useful.
However, "they" are still not working from a western base. In speaking of Chinese values they are not solely hoping to create a useful smokescreen from behind which to win. If they are, it's a surprisingly long lasting ploy, and who are they really underneath all that window dressing.
If Chinese are just playing a long game, it's reasonable to call them on it and expect them to get real. If they're not, then something of what they're doing now is real already. In which case... I dunno, they're owed the right to be real?
-
We are not obliged to kill - but when we do, our psyche needs to be able to live with itself. Therefore we create 'the other' - alien, different, not us. Strange in some unnameable way.
Of course Chinese values are to be respected - when they are definable and real, just like ours. So are individual values. Undefinable values can't be respected. I respect those who chose to live their life espousing some form of religion - I would campaign vigorously on their behalf to be allowed to freedom to believe something that I don't believe in - any form. I would campaign equally vigorously for those to be able to criticise those beliefs. I DO campaign vigorously for human rights, freedom of speech - all concepts. But definable concepts.
But when we are talking an undefinable, nameless 'otherness', then we are walking the path of dangerous discrimination.
Watching Avatar and District 9 with this discussion in the background is magic. bfbfbfbfbf
-
We are not obliged to kill - but when we do, our psyche needs to be able to live with itself. Therefore we create 'the other' - alien, different, not us. Strange in some unnameable way.
Of course Chinese values are to be respected - when they are definable and real, just like ours. So are individual values. Undefinable values can't be respected. I respect those who chose to live their life espousing some form of religion - I would campaign vigorously on their behalf to be allowed to freedom to believe something that I don't believe in - any form. I would campaign equally vigorously for those to be able to criticise those beliefs. I DO campaign vigorously for human rights, freedom of speech - all concepts. But definable concepts.
And if their value system does not include routinely reenergising that value system by going over it again with a fine tooth comb and saying what it is?
Sure, it's better, much better, if everything is above board. All things run better too if all participants know and can express their stake in whatever's going on. Negotiations would be that much better if everyone knew what they wanted and made mention of it at the right time.
Insisting that they do or be ignored, that's a tad legalistic, innit? "You didn't say so before, so you can't have it now, that's the rulez buddy!"
Actually, it's a fairly hardcore individualistic system you got going there: one stands up for one's rights or one has none.
But when we are talking an undefinable, nameless 'otherness', then we are walking the path of dangerous discrimination.
Are not.
Happiness is a warm diversity.
(With mysterious parts still available to be discovered because no one knew to talk about them before.)
-
one stands up for one's rights or one has none.
Yes - you know that from history, from the civil rights movements, from the Oz union movement, the ILO and a thousand more examples.
Every day you need to ensure that your rights are protected or you will lose them, through legal machinations, through 'lurve', through 'benefit of others', 'commnon good', 'homeland protection', 'economic recession' etc etc. Any time one human being has any level of power over any other living thing, then rights are in danger unless there is vigorous defence of them.
We've also moved away from the cultural and onto the individual - individual unconsciousness, mystery, diversity works, because we relate or not relate on an individual level. Hero worship of the eccentric, bullying of the weird. But when you are ascribing an unknownable 'alienness' to a group you are ensuring barriers are kept in place, that 'our group' retains the capacity for 'dehumanising' that 'alien' group. We retain the power of saying - they are not like us, they have this 'culture' that can never be changed, they will never fit in with us - and therefore it doesn't matter if we annihilate them, we don't have to think of them as being 'us'.
Historical and current examples abound.
-
one stands up for one's rights or one has none.
Yes - you know that from history, from the civil rights movements, from the Oz union movement, the ILO and a thousand more examples.
Every day you need to ensure that your rights are protected or you will lose them, through legal machinations, through 'lurve', through 'benefit of others', 'commnon good', 'homeland protection', 'economic recession' etc etc. Any time one human being has any level of power over any other living thing, then rights are in danger unless there is vigorous defence of them.
The pragmatics here seem to be misplaced. In the presence of imperial force, the onus is on the soon-to-be-colonised party to fight back, and if they don't, they had it coming?
That might work as a motivating speech before a battle when the full and only focus of the day were the battle itself. But generally speaking, equating the merit of a position with the active passion with which it is held is going to lead many people down many a twisting path. History is rife with examples of that too.
For another thing, it lets one say such odd things as "this concepts has historically be used for oppression, therefore it must be resisted." Why? Does it not describe something real, or what?