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There are too many of these people on lemmy
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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I didn’t say China was a victim of the imperial west because a person would at the very least have to include Japan in the west for that to make any sense. A person could make that statement but I didn’t.
I didn’t say that Israel was an extension of the imperial west because that would condense the interactions between Zionist formations before its creation and Israel as a state afterwards and the Anglosphere and Europe into an unhelpful mess.
I didn’t use language like “I see” because opinion or perspective don’t enter into the conversation. Anyone can look at those statements and recognize that they’re true and relatively uncolored by “political” thought. That Israel is a settler state might bug some liberals, but I was careful to try and use neutral language.
I did that because I think it should be clear to anyone that a comparison between Sinophobia and antisemitism is absurd. A person doesn’t need to be a Marxist to recognize that. A doctrinaire liberal would recognize it. Nazis literally made whole branches of race science to accommodate the fact that they recognized it.
The nations and people are wildly different and responding to someone pointing that out when you try to draw parallels between discrimination and hate leveled at them by saying that person is handwaving is deeply unserious.
That's fair enough. The reason why I didn't include that is that most people I know include modern day Japan in "the west" since that's where they have the closest ties and it was more modern than I thought you were talking about given the talk of the long history of the region vs Israel.
That's fine. The history of that area of the world more than most others is a complicated mess. It's reasonably neutral language and I agree with the accuracy of history being referenced.
So here is part of where you are losing me.
First, how exactly does this connect to the previous statements about their histories? What about their histories being different precludes us from comparing and contrasting them. Is it only in the context of historical racism that we can't compare them? Could I compare their GDPs? Can I compare their government structures? I am not seeing the connection you are trying to draw between the differences in their history and our inability to compare the racism their peoples have / are facing.
As stated before, I also don't see the connection you are trying to to draw between the people who make up the majority of a particular institution and the institution itself. I have no reason to think institutions have feelings or personhood. I don't care about the instructions themselves other than the good they do for their people and the people around them. Other than making up some or most of the workers in that institution, what is the connection between the instruction itself and the people?
Second, why is it absurd to compare two similar things? We can easily compare the racism faced by Chinese people with racism faced by Jewish people with racism faced by black people. And how does this tie into the correlation I believe you are drawing between the people and the government? Is it that you believe one group is overall on the receiving end of the mistreatment and the other is overall on the giving side of mistreatment?
I don't agree that anyone or even most people would find it absurd to compare two things with so much overlap. Both China and Israel are countries. Both have predominate people groups that have faced historical racism and mistreatment. Sinophobia and antisemitism are both objectively bad things that cause harm based on inherited characteristics. I don't see why this is so preposterous to you. And I don't see how the history of their mistreatment changes anything?
If I can ask directly, does being the victim of racism or any other mistreatment give you any more leeway in causing harm to others? If not then I don't understand why bringing up their history matters. And if so, why should I let people who have been victims victimize others? Again, isn't this just bigotry of low expectations?
The reason I said hand waving is because you have answered very few questions directly. To your credit, you have done so in this reply.
What it sounds like you are saying (you can correct me if you'd like) is that it's unfair to compare the actions of these two governments because their histories are so different. That it's fair to criticize Israel and doing so isn't antisemitic, but not fair to criticize China and doing so is sinophobic. And the reason for that (again as far as I can tell) is their different histories of oppression. My problem here is I don't agree that criticism of a government = criticism of a people group and I don't agree that people groups who have historically faced oppression should be less open to being criticized for bad actions.
When people say “apples and oranges” it’s not because two things are irreconcilably different, it’s because accepting and recognizing their differences and describing them on their own terms is much more important than using one to talk about the other.
Both apples and oranges are round, both grow on trees, both are fruits. I could probably think for a while and list off a bunch of similarities. They’re also fundamentally different to the point that a person can’t effectively use an understanding on one to transmit an understanding of the other.
I can’t tell you about the flavor, texture or smell of an orange using your understanding of the flavor, texture or smell of an apple as a baseline. I could try but ultimately the better way would be for you to bite into an orange. My comparison wouldn’t be useful.
You can and did compare antisemitism and Sinophobia. I responded that the comparison isn’t useful because of the vast differences. We went back and forth about this and here we are.
I said that it wouldn’t be useful to compare the two because it wouldn’t transmit understanding. With each parallel a person tries to draw, myriad differences and fractal relationships arise and must be dealt with.
We send a simple particle into the cloud chamber and an array of arcs, lines and spirals must now be accounted for.
I do not think it’s unfair to compare the two, I think it’s not useful. The context of that usefulness is our discussion and the measure of that usefulness is the comparisons ability to transmit understanding. As evidence I’d present our discussion in which it does not transmit understanding.
I chose not to just say the same thing someone else said but: there are plenty of criticisms of the Israeli and Chinese governments with varying degrees of antisemitism and Sinophobia as their underpinnings.
“Chinese people can’t talk about tiannamen” isn’t one whose underpinnings have zero degrees of Sinophobia. I explained how a while back.
That's a great analogy and it certainly helps clear up your view!
By "underpinnings", are you saying racism is the underlying cause for the criticism / the public statement of that criticism or just one of the underlying causes. Is it a "but-for" in that a person wouldn't make those criticisms but-for their underlying racism? Would it be possible for a person without those underlying racist attitudes or feelings to have the same criticisms of the actions of that government?
So, here is what I believe you are saying: People have underlying racism towards Chinese people that motivates them to make criticisms of the Chinese government (that they couldn't or wouldn't make but-for that underlying racism?).
Depending on a lot of specifics I could agree. If a but-for is what you are arguing, I don't think I could agree with that, at least in the specific context of the original claim regarding TS. You have pointed to some racist attitudes towards Chinese people that correlate or overlap with the TS claim (not knowing their history, not standing up against an unfair government, etc) but, in my opinion, those are tangentially related. The lack of historical knowledge would be a direct result of the actions of the government in repressing that knowledge. The claim is not that the information is freely available without consequences or attempts to hide / manipulate it and the people are putting their fingers in their ears and saying "la la la". Not standing up to an unjust government could be argued from the perspective of today but was exactly what the people in TS were trying to do. It wouldn't make sense for someone who really believed Chinese people were too docile to stand up to a government to claim they stood up to the government and now the government is hiding the information about it. The expected outcome from that belief doesn't match the nature of this claim.
If it's not a but-for, then it could just as easily be valid criticism of the Chinese government that, by happenstance alone, overlaps with racist claims. You may find this unlikely, but if it's possible for a person without that animus to have the same criticisms then you would need to believe you understand that specific person's motivates to make the claim. It would no longer be a blanket-true statement that these claims are coming from racist attitudes.
That said, it's theoretically possible for there to be a claim that is but-for the underlying racism. I would have to give an analogy that might muddy the waters again, but I'm sure you could imagine one given any people group and racist claims. The issue here is that I don't believe you have sufficiently shown that it would not be possible for a person absent racist animus to claim that the Chinese government attempts to hide and discourage open and free discussions, information, and memorials surrounding the events of TS. Their mere proximity to those racist attitudes isn't sufficient.
Underpinning is both a noun and a verb. When a structure is internally sound, but is in danger of falling over maybe because the ground underneath it is washed away or unstable, a person might install supports called underpinnings in a process called… underpinning.
I did not say that racism is the underlying cause of people making statements about China. In the sentence directly after the one you quoted I specified how what I said related explicitly to our topic of conversation.
I want to push back some on your language regarding racism. Racism exists in forms that do not show animosity and instead simply reify existing racist ideas, structures, history and values. A person doesn’t need animus to exhibit racism. A long time ago in this very thread I stated that fact.
This was your original comment (parts that are struck-out are not relevant):
Your argument was that the statement, "you couldn’t even talk about tiannamen square" was sinophobic. And the reason provided was that it's:
patently untrue
basically an anti-china buzzword now.
Saying 'that statement isn't one that has zero sinophobic underpinnings' is quite a bit different. I am not arguing that there are 0 racist "underpinnings". But, if the standard for racism is "has at least one racist underpinnings" then I think you may have an easier time writing the list of statements that are not racist. If that is the standard, then saying something is racist risks losing all meaning since almost everything would be.
I have been saying that it is not sinophobic because it is:
not demonstrated to be untrue, much less patently. You haven't provided any evidence for it being untrue and it's certainly not clearly, or without a doubt, untrue.
at best anti-ccp not anti-chinese. It is a popular criticism of China pointed to by both those who have clearly racist motivations and intents and those who do not.
a bad framework to determine if something is sinophobic/racist or not. The truthfulness of a statement doesn't impact its racism. There are true things that have racist underpinnings and false things that do not. Even if something is a popular buzzword used predominantly by people who have the worst motives, it would not be inherently racist.
You're correct that animus is not required for something to be racist. However, it's hard to imagine that you intended to mean "the claim is sinophobic because it's patently untrue and has a non-zero number of racist underpinnings but without animus."
What’s your endgame here?
I want to believe things that are true and have good reasoning and evidence to support them. Ideally, I'd like others to do the same. If what you are saying is true and there's good reasoning and evidence for it, I'd like to believe it too. If not, ideally, I'd like to see you not believe it. Additionally, I want to say things that help what I fight for, a better world for all, and avoid those that don't.
I can't make you do anything. You don't have to respond, convince me, or change your mind. You've never had to. Why do you keep responding (not flippant, a genuine question)?
As I said previously, I believe statements like yours harm the cause I believe we share. If there's a way to get you to see that and stop doing that then, I believe, the world would be the tiniest bit better in that there's a better chance to get the improved world I, and I believe you, fight for. If it could be shown to me that statements like yours are true (by evidence and gold reasoning) and beneficial to the cause then I'd start saying them.
I don't believe it's either true or helpful to the cause to provide cover for authoritarian governments by pointing to valid criticism and declaring it racist, regardless of the mere presence of racist underpinnings. I would find it untrue and unhelpful in all cases, but especially those where the government wears the name tag commonly associated with the better world I want. Doing so ties that dream of a better world to the failures of the past that, although were likely well-intentioned, didn't result in that better world and in some cases made the lives of their citizens worse. My economic stances come downstream of my desire to see human rights respected by all and human flourishing to expand.
Would you believe that Chinese people can talk about tiannamen if you saw their words?
That's going to depend on a lot of specifics, but if it could be sufficiently demonstrated, yes.
Are they going to be able to speak reliably about government policy? Are they going to show evidence of actual memorial services? What level of knowledge of the events could they demonstrate? Are they going to be able to show that the government is not attempting to censor information or discourage open discussions or memorial events? A handful of anecdotes that people have vague notions of something big happening at that place and time would be anything but remarkable.
Are they going to disprove the reports of arrests for "seditious social media posts about an upcoming sensitive date?" Or that they removed books about TS from libraries in HK in 2023 after they reasserted control over HK? Is it going to link to government data about those who were killed, injured, forcibly disappeared, or imprisoned? Is it going to show that police haven't been stationed outside the homes of or disappeared people who were connected with the events of TS or its memorial services? Is it going to show that the government is not blocking search terms or Wikipedia pages about the events?
If all it will be is statements from the general Chinese public that they "know about what happened at TS" that would be unremarkable. I have no doubt that the government's attempt to hide information hasn't been fully successful and that people believe they know all that happened. That would not show that they do or that the information is freely available, or that the government is not doing the things outlined in the evidence I've provided so far.
You could have just said no.
You could have just provided sufficient evidence or provided what you have and see what my response would have been. Attempting to paint me into a corner by agreeing to accept evidence I haven't seen yet and don't know the nature of, other than you saying it's the words of Chinese people, is ridiculous. Would you agree to accept my evidence before seeing it only knowing it's coming from an international nonprofit?
Is that all it took to convince you? Would that kind of evidence be sufficient for any of related claims for other countries? I highly doubt you'd accept it if the tables were turned.
You understand that I don't have to think someone is lying to be wrong about something, right? How is your evidence going to show that these people aren't simply mistaken or misinformed?
Why don't you just provide what you have and see what objections come up?
So you’re unwilling to accept Chinese people talking about tiannamen unless they conform to the ideas you already have, which line up broadly with the western narrative.
Do you think a degree of chauvinism might be informing that?
I never said they'd have to line up with ideas I already have. The evidence you provide would need to adequately demonstrate what you are trying to prove and address the points brought up in the evidence I've already provided. I don't care about "the western narrative", I care about you proving what you claimed was obvious.
I haven't rejected anything yet because you haven't provided anything yet. You want me to agree to accept evidence I haven't seen and that doesn't address the actual claim made. My claim wasn't that "all Chinese people believe the government is trying to hide information about TS" or "all Chinese people have 0 knowledge about TS" , it was "the government is trying to hide information about TS." Showing me what a handful of Chinese people think is not going to address the claim at all. Do you have government documents that show something different? Do you have a reliable way to show that the claims in the evidence I provided are false?
If not, we are left with you choosing to accept the testimony of a few over the documented actions of a government.
I doubt you really want to have a conversation about our inherent biases given the stances you've taken in this conversation and the disparity between the evidence provided by the two of us. Which one of us has expressed a willingness to change their mind if presented sufficient evidence? Which one has backed up even a single claim made?
I have no doubt that chauvinism is an underpinning for some of my beliefs, in the same way that I doubt you would claim to have 0 racist, sexist, or chauvinistic underpinnings yourself. We are products of the cultures that surround us, especially during our formative years. True impartiality is impossible.
Once again though, you'd need to demonstrate that the belief is wrong not just that it has a non-zero number of racist influences.
I made a post about whether Chinese people can talk about tiannamen. You said youre interested in whether the government hides information. We’re having two different conversations.
If you want to have that conversation my only recommendation is to make an ml alt and go ask on hexbear or grad. There’s a lot of well read and well traveled people who can better assist you.
Like I said in what might have been my first reply to you, I don’t care about the questions you’re asking or understand their connection or relevance.
My dude, it's been the same conversation this whole time. "People can't talk about TS" because the government hides information about it and bans memorial services. You've been pedantic about this for a while now but this is another level.
I like that the end of this road is just an attempt to shuffle me off to someone else who you hope could defend your position since you apparently can't. You can stop responding if you like, I have no idea why you keep responding but not providing any evidence for your claims. I'll keep asking you for evidence as long as it takes for you to either provide it, admit that you don't have a good reason to believe it, or walk away as you've always been free to do.
I know you don't care, that's been obvious this whole time even though you keep responding, but I don't for a moment believe you're too dumb to understand the connection or relevance. You've only been answering the questions you want to answer because that's easy but have pretty much always refused to answer the hard questions. You've been avoiding the questions that would highlight exactly how preposterous your claim was using identical logic to talk about other countries. You've refused to supply evidence unless I agree to accept it first. You've shifted the goalposts from is sinophobic and an anti China buzzword to has more than 0 racist underpinnings, a standard you know damn well you don't apply to other countries.
I just don't understand why you have such a strong need to protect an authoritarian government from criticism. China isn't smol bean and they don't need you to white-knight for them. They are a big-boy country who can handle criticisms of their actions. I don't care if their people faced oppression, the government doesn't get a pass for oppressing their citizens. Even if you think the criticism isn't true, I hope you can see how wrong and determental it is to call it sinophobic. It's a transparent attempt to co-opt liberal idpol to cover for the actions of a government you've decided you like. And you'll have to forgive me for not believing your "trust me bro someone else can totally prove this to you."
It’s not the end of this road, it’s the beginning too.
I began by saying that I don’t have any interest in engaging with your questions. If you want someone to talk with you about them then talk to someone else.
I am again going to ignore most of what you wrote and pick what I want to respond to:
Do you think your unwillingness to accept Chinese people talking in their own words about tiannamen and your denial that it’s sinophobic to say they can’t are related?
How could I accept something I haven't seen? Why would I accept something unrelated to the claim at hand?
Chinese people talking about tiannamen is literally a direct refutation of the claim that they can’t do so.
It is as related to that claim as any thing could possibly be.
We already covered this multiple times. The claim is they can't because of government actions that you refuse to prove don't happen. Are you now backing off the other part altogether and saying the only thing you'll defend is that some Chinese people have said things about TS?
I never said that. You did. I don’t care about disproving the claims you make. I especially don’t care to attempt to disprove a negative statement since it’s pretty fraught.
That idea, that government action prevents Chinese people from speaking about tiannamen rests on Chinese people not speaking about tiannamen. That second part, the one your claim rests on, is what I dispute and what I made a post about before even your first reply.
I asked you if you’d accept Chinese people speaking about tiannamen as evidence of my claim and you said (and I’m paraphrasing here, because enumerating all the ways you said the Chinese people would have to be in line with the western story in order for you to accept that evidence amounts to the same outcome) no.
It seems like all you care about is government restriction of speech. When is it acceptable for a government to restrict speech?
So then, no evidence that they don't attempt to hide the information or ban people from holding memorial services? You could provide evidence that the government allows memorial services, or you could prove that the specific claims made in the evidence I gave you are incorrect. For example, you could show that access to the relevant wiki pages and Google searches are not blocked in China. None of this is proving a negative or an impossibly high bar to meet.
So I, as I said before multiple times, don’t care what you think or about the questions you’re asking.
You seem to care a lot though, so I’ll pose my last question again: when is it acceptable for a government to restrict speech?
So, no evidence then?
I guess here we are.
You want me to disprove something you said in response to something I said that you admitted you wouldn’t accept evidence of.
It seems like you really want to talk about government repression of speech though, so why not tell me when it’s acceptable for government to restrict speech?
"I don't understand your questions and don't care to respond to them."
Yeah, I don’t understand how all that stuff you brought up relates at all to the false claim that Chinese people can’t talk about tiannamen.
For it to be related a person would have to be some kind of freedom of speech absolutist, which is why I asked if you thought governments should ever limit speech.
Come on, I’m finally engaging with all the stuff you asked a million years ago, you should be happy!
I think you should talk to my friend, maybe he could explain my position to you since I can't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So are you a speech absolutist? You said authoritarian a bunch of times too, how are you defining that?
I don't really understand your questions and am going to pretend they aren't relevant so...
You don’t need to pretend.
Weather the Chinese government exerts any control over speech about tiannamen is immaterial to the false, sinophobic claim that Chinese people can’t talk about it.
No, you hang up first. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
If you want to go, go.
No, it's cuter if you hang up first babe.
Responding to me like a significant other after a whole conversation filled with every kind of manipulation and misdirection imaginable probably isn’t the flex you think it is.
Trying to act like you're suddenly good faith when you've been acting the way you have is probably not the flex you think it is either.
You said you wouldn’t accept Chinese people speaking in their own words about tiannamen as proof that Chinese people can talk about tiannamen and subsequently claimed that you were no more (at the very least) chauvinist for this than anyone else.
I can think of no clearer example of bad faith action than your own behavior, especially weighed against my own feather of refusing to get bogged down in big walls of text which manipulate and change my own words to support yours.
If you want to talk about government repression of speech then do so. I asked some questions, you can respond to them.
Why would I bother answering any of your questions after you spent days ignoring mine? Why should I bother building an argument when you never presented a coherent one yourself?
You made a claim you refused to support and ignored analogies for, you shifted the goalpost to something entirely different, and now you claim to want a good faith discussion. You never did. You wanted to make your ridiculous claim about government criticism being somehow racist because you have to find some way to support an authoritarian government you like because the sole party with power is using communist in their name. You don't have a consistent world view and just want to find a way to excuse the unexcusable actions of a tyrannical government you wouldn't hesitate to call out of the were in the west.
You don't have any high grounds in this conversation.
I never shifted the goalposts. They have always been “saying Chinese people can’t talk about tiannamen is sinophobic and false”. After I explained in detail how that claim is sinophobic you asked for proof that it’s false and I asked to confirm that Chinese people speaking in their own words about tiannamen would constitute proof in your eyes and you said not unless it also refutes your claim that the Chinese government is authoritarian and controls speech.
I never said government criticism was racist. I said claiming Chinese people can’t talk about tiannamen is sinophobic.
You introduced the requirement that we incorporate a stance on the Chinese governments authoritarian and/or tyrannical nature into this discussion and it was you who mischaracterized my position as saying that any criticism of government is racist, which I directly refuted earlier in our discussion.
Since you’re talking about it, how is the Chinese government authoritarian?