A joke about a bicycle revWhat a simple joke reveals about Chinese moral culture, Christian redemption, and the deeper logic behind two different civilizationseals more than people think
Very corrupted Western Christianity of genocide imperialism, pillage colonialism,slavery, exploitation, etc for numerous centuries masquerading as the good religion for non believers and devotees absolutely has no credibility whatsoever vis-a-vis their centuries of evil and vile deeds!
I loved this, so much. Any time I get a chance to learn about other cultures, country's, anything, actually. I'm a very curious person and though I had read other bits of this very topic, off and on, over the years; I was entirely captivated by your writing and perspective. Thank you. If this was a book, I'd read it!
> That is one reason Western politics so often turns into moral theater. Everyone has to be righteous. Everyone has to be evil. Everyone has to be saved or condemned. The language may sound political, but a lot of the underlying instinct is theological.
My grandfather taught us that this binary (although he didn't use the term binary, you understand) came from the origins of the Abrahamic cults. The desert.
An oasis is heaven, the desert is hell.
This is why they are so black and white, us and them, good and evil.
Very sharply observed. Thanks for the elaboration! Certainly, both attitudes have their justifications, as both are products of the human mind and of the society which that very mind manifests around itself. It comes to mind that the western attitude - steal from others and than ask forgiveness aka adorning your deed with a halo - is also the credo of capitalism in its raw and unhinged western version. Certainly not by coincidence.
The joke inadvertently reveals something else. The Chinese system of thought was, as you mentioned, an organic synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism, local beliefs, and Confucianism, which occurred over centuries if not millennia of civilization. The religion of the Europeans, on the other hand, was never theirs. This is never said but the Europeans themselves were colonized by a foreign religion (Christianity) by an empire. Once upon a time, they did have their own organically grown religious systems, the so-called pagan faiths, but they had to abandon them. So the origin of their practice of religion is not natural. Not only this, but the religion itself was artificially produced by the Roman Empire. So deep down, at its core, there is a fundamentally unnatural and uncivilized relation everyday Christians have toward religion.
This was a thought-provoking, brilliant piece, Neil. Write more of your cultural commentary between the Chinese and Western minds, please.
East Asian societies like China and Japan are collective shame cultures, while Western societies are individualistic guilt cultures. In East Asia, wrongdoing is violating the rules and ethics of your family, community, and nation, while in the West you have violated your personal moral code and relationship with God. Maoist criticism and self-criticism was different from the Soviet model through involving the masses and using it to implement the mass line. The Communist Party's mass line was to listen to the masses, systemize their ideas through Marxism-Leninism, and return them to the masses. Criticism-self-criticism was also to correct individual behavior. Mao took personal responsibility for failures in the Great Leap Forward, and advised other comrades, "If you have to shit, shit, if you have to fart, fart. You'll feel better for it afterwards."
Mr Zhu, you are an anthropologist of religion. You may enjoy the work of the French historian-sociologist Emmanuel Todd (if you don’t know it already). Your essay is fascinating and strikes me as highly original. Thank you.
Very corrupted Western Christianity of genocide imperialism, pillage colonialism,slavery, exploitation, etc for numerous centuries masquerading as the good religion for non believers and devotees absolutely has no credibility whatsoever vis-a-vis their centuries of evil and vile deeds!
I loved this, so much. Any time I get a chance to learn about other cultures, country's, anything, actually. I'm a very curious person and though I had read other bits of this very topic, off and on, over the years; I was entirely captivated by your writing and perspective. Thank you. If this was a book, I'd read it!
«Journey to the West» is a great novel, if you every have time, read it. it is fun to read too.
Thank you, kindly.
> That is one reason Western politics so often turns into moral theater. Everyone has to be righteous. Everyone has to be evil. Everyone has to be saved or condemned. The language may sound political, but a lot of the underlying instinct is theological.
My grandfather taught us that this binary (although he didn't use the term binary, you understand) came from the origins of the Abrahamic cults. The desert.
An oasis is heaven, the desert is hell.
This is why they are so black and white, us and them, good and evil.
Interesting. Thank you.
Very sharply observed. Thanks for the elaboration! Certainly, both attitudes have their justifications, as both are products of the human mind and of the society which that very mind manifests around itself. It comes to mind that the western attitude - steal from others and than ask forgiveness aka adorning your deed with a halo - is also the credo of capitalism in its raw and unhinged western version. Certainly not by coincidence.
Thanks for the perspective.
The joke inadvertently reveals something else. The Chinese system of thought was, as you mentioned, an organic synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism, local beliefs, and Confucianism, which occurred over centuries if not millennia of civilization. The religion of the Europeans, on the other hand, was never theirs. This is never said but the Europeans themselves were colonized by a foreign religion (Christianity) by an empire. Once upon a time, they did have their own organically grown religious systems, the so-called pagan faiths, but they had to abandon them. So the origin of their practice of religion is not natural. Not only this, but the religion itself was artificially produced by the Roman Empire. So deep down, at its core, there is a fundamentally unnatural and uncivilized relation everyday Christians have toward religion.
This was a thought-provoking, brilliant piece, Neil. Write more of your cultural commentary between the Chinese and Western minds, please.
East Asian societies like China and Japan are collective shame cultures, while Western societies are individualistic guilt cultures. In East Asia, wrongdoing is violating the rules and ethics of your family, community, and nation, while in the West you have violated your personal moral code and relationship with God. Maoist criticism and self-criticism was different from the Soviet model through involving the masses and using it to implement the mass line. The Communist Party's mass line was to listen to the masses, systemize their ideas through Marxism-Leninism, and return them to the masses. Criticism-self-criticism was also to correct individual behavior. Mao took personal responsibility for failures in the Great Leap Forward, and advised other comrades, "If you have to shit, shit, if you have to fart, fart. You'll feel better for it afterwards."
USA is the wealthiest country in the world.
Mr Zhu, you are an anthropologist of religion. You may enjoy the work of the French historian-sociologist Emmanuel Todd (if you don’t know it already). Your essay is fascinating and strikes me as highly original. Thank you.