Re:Young Chinese are sick of working long hours
by smallnamespace on Thursday May 10, 2018 @12:43PM
(#17040518)
Are there non-Western peoples who want Western things? Sure, the West has been rich and powerful and dominated the world for the last 300 years. It would be incredible for other peoples to not try to emulate the West.
But I think you're underestimating the extent to which universalism is a Western metacognitive bias that other cultures don't necessarily share [1].
The idea that there is one universal set of rules that everyone in the world can and should agree on, based on logic and rational consideration, is not really shared by all other cultures.
The Chinese response that 'it may work for the West, but it's not for us', is not a specious cop-out (the Western response being typically what do you mean there are two sets of rules!?) but probably represents the honest opinion of a large fraction of the population.
That's even before we get to the end result of democratic elections in many countries, where dictators are who the people choose.
But I think you're underestimating the extent to which universalism is a Western metacognitive bias that other cultures don't necessarily share [1].
The idea that there is one universal set of rules that everyone in the world can and should agree on, based on logic and rational consideration, is not really shared by all other cultures.
The Chinese response that 'it may work for the West, but it's not for us', is not a specious cop-out (the Western response being typically what do you mean there are two sets of rules!?) but probably represents the honest opinion of a large fraction of the population.
That's even before we get to the end result of democratic elections in many countries, where dictators are who the people choose.
[1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c742/1acd7e63519d22458b5a65...