Passion of the Chine
I’ve been meaning to write some posts about Chinese culture for a long time, since before I even arrived in China, but I’m always hesitant to do it. Whenever you talk about culture you have to paint with such a broad brush and make all kinds of generalizations and qualifications, and there are always dozens of exceptions and counter-examples.
But I have been here for over 3 months, so I want to try. Remember, I’m just going off what I’ve experienced and extending it with a little reason. If I’m totally off-base and you think everything I’m saying is nonsense, please let me know.
Okay, enough qualifying. Here’s what I’m going to say about Chinese people: They lacky the passion.
Among almost all the Chinese people I have met and talked with, I find a total absence of passion.
In order to understand what I mean when I talk about passion, we’re going to have to use the West (specifically America) as a comparison. Which means I’m going to have to paint another culture with a broad brush.
Genuine Passion
When I think about passion in the West I usually break it down into two categories. The first is genuine passion.
Genuine passion is a deep love and enthusiasm and drive for something. It’s easy to associate this with artists. People who truly and deeply care about painting, or music, or cinema, or literature. But it could be about anything.
I consider Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan some of the most passionate authors I’ve read. It’s science and reason and truth that they are passionate about, and you can feel their enthusiasm in almost everything they write.
I think you can have that same enthusiasm and joy toward anything and everything, from stamp collecting to webdesign to philosophy to psychology to baking to chemistry to life itself. And I think most passionate people are passionate about everything they do, not just their main interests.
It’s sometimes hard to quantify, but you just know. You can tell by the way the person talks and by their body language. You can sense their excitement or awe or enthusiasm.
I’m sure you’ve probably experienced both sides of this. You’ve been able to tell when someone you’re talking to really cares about the subject, when it excites them and energizes them. And you know what it’s like to talk about something you really love. (At least I hope you know what it’s like.)
This type of passion — genuine passion — I also associate with a few other traits.
One of them is a level of disregard for what other people think. Passionate people pursue the things they love, despite what anyone else (friends, family, society) thinks about them. It’s part of that drive that a passionate person has. They are individuals, not conformists. Social norms aren’t going to stop them.
Another set of traits I find in most passionate people is honesty, openness, and curiosity. They don’t hide or hedge or minimize the things they believe and value. They are open about how they feel and what they think. And at the same time they are often curious and willing — in fact happy — to listen to other people’s thoughts and opinions. Passionate people are excited by others who want to engage them on the things they care about.
(I would say this is true even for passionate religious people. In my experience, people who are really passionate about religion are often the ones willing to listen to my (very opposing) ideas. It is your average my-parents-were-religious-so-now-I-am religious people that get defensive or evasive about their beliefs.)
(Oh, and I would also like to clarify that I don’t count zealotry and fanaticism as being passionate. I see that more as an unhealthy obsession. So, just like I wouldn’t call a heroin addict “a person who is passionate about heroin,” I don’t consider a fanatic “just a really passionate person.”)
Bandwagon Passion
I see genuine passion here and there in the West, but overall it’s pretty rare. What I see a lot more of is a watered-down version of passion, something I’ll call bandwagon passion.
This pseudo-passion copies the enthusiasm of real passion, but little else. It leaves out the true dedication, and joy, and individualism, and curiosity found in genuine passion. And it’s easy. It’s so easy.
This is embodied in almost every popular issue or movement in America. From environmentalism to health-care reform to supporting the troops to helping the poor to protecting small business owners to blah blah blah. Just pick an easy issue and jump on board.
Listen to celebrities talk about environmentalism as they fly around in their Gulfstreams. Or the conservative politicians talk about family values as they cheat on their wives. Or the college kid who thinks it’s so important to stop war as he supports a president sending 10,000 more young men to die in the desert. Yes, psuedo-passion almost always comes with a healthy helping of hypocrisy.
I do realize that some of the people who care about these issues are genuinely passionate and not hypocritical. But they are the rare ones. Most are just followers who are defensive when challenged and always ready to jump on the next up-and-coming topic.
Raise a flag for some trendy social issue and watch these slithering bandwagon passionistas gather round.
Wasn’t This Supposed To Be About China?
Yes. There was a reason for those tangents. And here it is: I see none of that in China.
The genuine passion, already a rare thing, is unsurprisingly absent. But so is the bandwagon passion.
Most young Chinese people I talk to — not all, but most — are totally devoid of either form of passion. I met an American girl in a bar and one of the first things she talked about was how she is “really into human rights.” Whether it’s genuine or bandwagon passion, this doesn’t happen when you talk to Chinese people.
I ask Chinese people what they care about and what they are really interested in and I usually get the most mundane answers: hanging out with friends, going shopping, going to the movies with friends. I mentioned this to my Chinese assistant and she said “Chinese girls do care about things. They care about shopping and shopping and make-up.” She was being funny, but there was some truth to it.
And it isn’t just the content of the interests. It’s also the way they talk about them. That spark of enthusiasm and excitement I talked about before, I don’t see that. They sound bored with their own interests. They sound bored that you even asked them a question about their interests.
Again, there are exceptions.
I was talking with a 26-year-old Chinese girl the other day who was extremely passionate about everything she brought up, even her job. I was so surprised that I actually said something to her.
“You know, I really think it’s cool how passionate you are. Most people I talk to here aren’t really excited about anything. You’re pretty enthusiastic about everything.”
She looked at me and smiled, “I love life. Being pretty will fade when I get old, but I hope I always keep my passion.”
Ballin’.
As cool as that was, it was only shocking because it’s so counter to my normal experiences with Chinese people.
Show Me The Passion
Obviously, I don’t want Chinese people to fix this problem by following Americans and jumping on every trendy bandwagon. But at least that Western pseudo-passion reveals an underlying desire to be enthusiastic and excited about something. A desire I’m having real trouble finding in China.
I have some ideas about why there is this lack of passion. Most of them have to do with parenting and the treatment of children. It’s also part of the culture in general. It’s a topic that needs a lot more thought and investigation.
I can say this: The biggest exception to everything I’ve been describing is children. Children are absolutely not like this. My students are passionate and enthusiastic and excited every day, about all kinds of things. I can’t even count the number of times a day one of my 5-year-olds runs up to me and breathlessly explains something they are excited about. And when I respond with enthusiasm, they get even more passionate.
So don’t think I’m describing some genetic problem or anything like that. This is a result of nurture, not nature. The kids in China start out just as passionate as all children. It’s ground out of them by the usual suspects: parents, teachers, and politicians.
How in particular is something I’m not sure about. And why it is different than in the West. Why isn’t there at least bandwagon passion here?
In the comments let me know what you think of this. Am I right or wrong? What do you think the causes are? And tell me your thoughts on why I’ve found China to be a passionless desert.
From Childhood To Statism: Conflict Resolution
Anarchists are often accused of being utopian. Critics suggest that we are naive to believe human beings can peacefully coexist. “There will always be conflicts and you will always need an authority figure to resolve these conflicts,” they say.
I was always perplexed by these responses. They were part straw-man — suggesting that anarchists naively believed in a conflict free world — and part invalid deduction — asserting that if there was conflict then it was necessary for an authority figure to resolve it.
The first part wasn’t hard to understand. Straw-man arguments are a dime a dozen. But the second part seemed so illogical; how could anyone reach such a conclusion?
Why would so many people automatically associate the resolution of conflict with the necessity of authority?
Now I know at least part of the answer.
Everyday in school I see my students being taught two lessons that lead directly to the acceptance of statism:
Lesson 1: Conflict Is Bad
This is the first and less obvious lesson that is being reinforced constantly.
Conflict is a bad thing. It’s bad when it happens. It should be avoided at all costs. Conflict is the worst possible outcome of any interaction.
That’s what kids learn.
Teachers and assistants hover over children during every activity. And at the first sign of a disagreement they swoop down to “break it up.” The result of their interference is often that somebody gets in trouble.
These situations occur dozens of times every day. Two kids will argue over who gets to play with a toy or who gets to be first in line for their snack. They get into conflicts over taking each others’ crayons or books or whatever. They fight over who holds the jump rope they’re using to tie up their teacher and tickle him (I always get them back).
Almost every time something like this happens a teacher or assistant is waiting to step in and stop the disagreement — and sometimes to punish the student “responsible.”
This sends one message: conflict is bad.
Conflict Is Natural
Conflict isn’t bad. And it isn’t good either. I wouldn’t use any moral labels when defining conflict. Conflict is neutral.
Conflict is the natural result of interacting with other human beings. Every person has their own values, desires, and needs and everyone has different ways of satisfying those needs. In any relationship or community or society it is absolutely NORMAL that these different and competing interests result in conflict. It’s not a bad thing. How could it be?
What I would apply terms like “good” and “bad” to are the ways of handling conflict. For instance, violence is a pretty bad way of handling conflict (I’m looking at you, statists). Peaceful negotiation, on the other hand, is generally a pretty good way of handling conflict.
When a conflict is handled poorly the consequences can be devastating, as surely all of us have experienced. But a when a conflict is handled well, it can be a great thing and actually improve the relationship.
It is the bad ways of handling conflicts that causes teachers and assistants to interfere. They want to prevent the children from hitting or fighting or name calling. It’s well-intentioned. But by constantly interfering they don’t teach children real conflict resolution skills, they just teach them that conflict is a bad thing.
It also teaches them the second lesson, that when there is a conflict, the best thing to do is appeal to authority.
Lesson 2: Authority Resolves Conflicts
This is the second lesson. It’s more overt but it is also more dangerous.
The consequence of training kids that conflict is bad and that an authority will always be there to intervene imprints this programming onto them: when there is a conflict, an authority figure will resolve it.
On my first day of class — no exaggeration, my very first day — a student I had never spoken to before came up to me and said, “Arthur took my pen, will you give him a frowny face?”
I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, but it went something like this:
“No sorry, Eric, I don’t think I’m going to give him a frowny face.”
“He took my pencil!”
“He didn’t take my pencil, though, why should I give him a frowny face?”
Cue the blank stare I’ve seen hundreds of times by now. “But…but…you’re the teacher!”
“Want me to go talk to Arthur with you?”
“No, I want you to go beat him up and get my pencil back.”
The point of that dialogue is to show you just how much children are trained that authority is the ultimate conflict resolver. Whenever there is a disagreement, if you handle it on your own, an authority will intervene anyway and you’ll get in trouble. But if you appeal immediately to authority you might just get your way.
Authority is there to resolve your conflicts, whether or not you want it.
Conclusion
The connections to statism should be blatantly obvious.
Instead of teaching children infinitely valuable conflict resolution skills so that they can learn to handle disagreements peacefully and efficiently, they are taught to fear and avoid conflict. And in the case conflict does arise, they are trained to run immediately to the nearest authority figure and plead their case, otherwise there will be punishment.
This is what most children are exposed to for 12 years of school — and probably longer in their homes.
Is it any surprise that they become adults and can’t imagine a world where conflict is resolved without authority?
From Childhood To Statism: Introduction
This series is the result of an idea I’ve been toying with for the past several weeks. The idea is to identify some of the ideals, values, and lessons that children learn and to explain how these lessons from childhood lead to statism in adulthood.
I want to show some of the ways that schools, teachers, and parents train children to become statists.
In this introductory post I want to set up and explain what this series will cover.
For starters, this is not a complete analysis of the origins of statism in childhood. I will use the examples that I have seen first-hand. It will be based on my experiences.
Secondly, it is not about the origin of statism as an intellectual theory. I don’t want to examine where the idea of statism came from, but rather where the psychological acceptance of that idea comes from.
In order to explain the difference, we should start with some definitions.
Statism
Statism is the ideology that proposes and supports the use of states — or governments — to organize human society.
A state, if we go by the standard political science definition provided by Max Weber, is an entity which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. This is actually a pretty good definition, considering it’s widely accepted by academics.
Let’s break down a little bit more, just so we can be really clear on what we’re talking about when we say “statism.”
The word entity is of course meant very loosely in the definition. There is not a physical thing that exists called The State. There is a group of people. They may be fixed or they may be a rotating group of people but they are just people. They are the bureaucrats, politicians, policemen (and so on and so on) that fill offices and buildings and barracks. This aggregation of people is what we call the state.
And this group of people “claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.” What does that mean? It means they claim that in a given area, only the people making up the state are allowed to use violence and it is moral for them to do so but immoral for anyone else to do so.
This is starting to sound a little bit like “I’m allowed to hit you, but you’re not allowed to hit me.” And it should, because at its basic and truest form that’s the idea of statism. One group of people is allowed to use violence against the rest.
As Leo Tolstoy famously put it: “Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
Acceptance of Statism
Despite the endless justifications for statism (“voting this” and “social contract that”) the core premise is completely…retarded and insane.
The idea that you can solve complex social problems like education or health care or poverty by allowing one small group of people threaten and coerce everybody else is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. And one reasonable people would never accept. But almost everyone does…maybe even you.
I’m not here to convince you that statism is evil and supporting it is immoral — maybe I’ll do that in another post. So before you start writing me emails saying, “But Anderson, if one group of people didn’t have a monopoly on violence who would build the roads?” I want to remind you that my purpose in this series is to identify why people accept such a clearly retarded and wrong idea.
Because, although the idea may be wrong, it’s only dangerous when people buy into it.
If I had the idea that every human being should drink bleach, well, without widespread acceptance it’s just a stupid idea. But imagine if everyone starting believing in it and supporting it? That’s where the real danger lies.
The same analogy can be made with slavery. The idea that one person should be able to own another is an evil idea — and an idea not unrelated to statism — but it was only truly vile because people accepted it.
That is why I’m not interested in the origin of the theories that promote and support statism, but rather the origin of the acceptance of statism.
It is the acceptance of statism that has allowed it to become a plague on this planet. In the 20th century alone states have murdered over 260 million people — I’m talking about unarmed, innocent people, not soldiers in war. Faced with this pile of bodies, most people still never question whether or not statism is a good idea.
And as I said in the first section, I believe it is because we are trained to accept it as children.
So, over the next few posts I want to talk about some of the “lessons” I see that lead directly to this unquestioning acceptance.
Check back soon…
