

Jackie Chan: China Has A Problem With Its “Suzhi” - si2
http://www.paulmidler.com/jackie-chan-china-has-a-problem-with-its-suzhi/

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branden
The people are uneducated. In order to protect them from themselves, a strong
government must control them. Since a strong government controls the people,
there is no need to educate them. The people are uneducated...

~~~
blader
There's no direct english translation, but the term "su zhi" has class,
cultural, economic and even ethical implications beyond that of just education
level.

It (very) roughly means something like "basic cultural quality level."

To focus on the "education" inflection of that word could result in
misunderstood arguments like the Chinese government wants to keep its
population uneducated. If anything, their basic educational policies over the
past few decades have been the complete opposite of that.

~~~
tjmc
Would it roughly translate to redneck (US), chav (UK) or bogan (Aus)?

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blader
No, it's not a derogatory term. Having high "su zhi" is a good thing.

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jibiki
In my experience, Chinese people tend to be more critical in general (and
correspondingly less affected by criticism.) Maybe that's a massive
overgeneralization, but if you transplant this taxi driver to the United
States, he would have the same complaints about Americans.

~~~
gommm
I'm not sure if it's being more critical or just being more honest (or less
tactful) when talking to or about people.

I think people everywhere in the world are also critical of others but don't
show it because it's not politically correct or tactful or whatever reason...

A bit OT, but I find it rather interesting how much the definition of being
tactful when talking about people changes according to countries... In Japan
for example, it's considered a bit tactless to point out your mistake in
Japanese whereas in France or in China, they are much more likely to correct
you whenever you make a mistake without considering that as being impolite.

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jerryji
Managing a country is just like parenting --

A child should not be given absolute freedom before he/she is grown up enough
to act responsibly.

However, using the above as an excuse to control the child forever will
certainly result in catastrophic failure (for both the child and the parents).

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ptm
A lot of middle class Indians would agree with the sentiment that democracy
causes chaos.

In the brief period of time India was undemocratic (the Emergency), anecdotal
evidence suggests that the middle class was happy with the way things were.
The poor, meanwhile, were miserable, and they responded by voting out the
incumbent govt by a record margin.

So it won't be very surprising if middle class China actually supports the
lack of freedom.

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megaduck
You've hit the nail on the head.

This is the first time that China's really HAD much of a middle class. Most of
this newly minted middle class has moved from being poor peasants to decently
paid professionals, and they're quite happy with the current state of affairs.

The Chinese public definitely acknowledges problems with the system. However,
for the past thirty years people have been getting richer, living longer, and
quality of life has been hugely improved. It sure beats the period before,
when they were dealing with war, famine, and the cultural revolution. So, when
the government that's brought (relative) prosperity says that democracy is
bad, people are inclined to just agree and go along with whatever the
government says.

Bottom line: The middle class in China won't support democratic reforms so
long as life is improving without them.

~~~
adinobro
Someone else pointed this out before in a different thread but why should they
want to change if life is improving without them? If you look at the US as an
example of democracy then at the moment it doesn't make a lot of sense. That
being said things are always changing and who knows what will happen in the
next 20 years.

If things stop improving for most people in China then there will probably be
social unrest and they may move to another form of government or the reverse
could happen and the US might decide that it wants a nother form of goverment
if things don't eventually improve.

------
timothychung
An uneducated good man is greater than an educated bad man.

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thras
Is he right? There are places in the world where democracy doesn't work very
well. I'd say that this is the sort of question that deserves actual thought
instead of the regular "Democracy Uber Alles!" platitudes that we get so
often.

(Yes, I know what Churchill said about democracy. However, Churchill would
have said the same thing about absolute Monarchy if it were still around. He
was that sort of guy.)

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mnemonicsloth
This is a hot research topic right now in the social sciences. The general
theme is that democratic institutions (transparency, professionalism,
corruption-resistance) are probably more important at first than actual
democracy.

[http://www.amazon.com/Wars-Guns-Votes-Democracy-
Dangerous/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Wars-Guns-Votes-Democracy-
Dangerous/dp/0061479632)

The "Asian Tiger" economies -- South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan
-- all started ramping up their growth under extremely authoritarian
governments which then liberalized once they had reached a certain level of
prosperity.

~~~
biohacker42
I don't know how much research this requires, as someone who had a front seat
for the conversion of Eastern Europe to democracy it all seems obvious to me.

OBVIOUSLY you need law and order to get democracy. Democracy is the pinnacle
of a working society not the root cause of it.

Now,people will often mistake the results of lawlessness and corruption as the
reason peoples X just ain't made for democracy and freedom.

I hope I don't have to explain how stupid that is. It is just as stupid at the
theory that democracy would flourish in Afghanistan and Iraq with little to no
effort, like magic!

~~~
bokonist
Is democracy a means or an end? To me, it is a means - a way to achieve better
government by making government more accountable.

But you are basically saying, in order to have democracy, you already need to
have good government. Well, if you already have good government, then what's
the point of adding democracy? Why not just stick with whatever government is
working so well?

~~~
biohacker42
I think democracy is a means to _preserve_ good government/stability. A means
to guarantee sanity.

With a perfectly functioning authoritarian government there's always the
danger of it going to hell. A good king replaced by bad king, or what ever.
With no checks and balances there's no guarantee things won't go crazy.

And obviously authoritarian governments are almost never good, because they
are by definition not accountable.

But a functioning democracy, which functioning institutions and laws above
individuals, that's a difficult system to achieve. In a very troubled part of
the world, democracy is not something that just naturally wins over armed
strong men.

------
varjag
Poor people are dumb, let's keep them slaves.

~~~
varjag
Sarcasm is not the virtue at HN, as I see.

