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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Honesty is foolish, successfully lying/cheating is a sign of intelligence?
Like many I've been surprised by the dissonance between the China I imagined growing up - based on reading I Ching/Lao Tzu/Mencius/other books which teach ethics, how to bridge Heaven and Earth, etc. - and the crooked dirty place it has turned out to be (not that they're aren't hundreds of millions of exceptions to this latter one as most of us know).
So anyone have a clue how this whole "successful cheating/one-upping someone is a sign of intelligence, while honesty is foolish" part of Ch. "culture" got started?
Either during, or shortly after the 'cultural revolution'.
No, lying/cheating is the reason why China is a barely livable place and not a high-standards society looked up by other countries, this is also the reason why Chinese are seen as cheap people by the rest of the world. The lies of corrupt local officials are also responsible for the heavy pollution that plague China, idiots who think that they are smart for transforming their city into a shithole while putting millions in their pockets. Now with Western countries that are closing their investors programs and becoming increasingly strict with Chinese immigration how will their millions help them if they are trapped in a China that has become a heavily polluted wasteland?
China has been a large country with a large population for a long time and having a sole emperor on the top then it is not inconceivable that self serving officials would just tell the emperor what he wants to hear, because it's not like the has any idea what what's going on in the far corner of the empire. I have no evidence for this, but it seems like this could lay the foundation for mass dishonesty throughout.
When Mao became a little emperor then this was definitely the case, more so during the Great Leap Forward than the cultural revolution, from an official point of view at least.
Face I guess is also part of it, telling your boss/superior/emperor whatever they want to hear so no face is lost. During "international business culture" class my teacher was very clear that saving face is not the same as dishonesty, but I don't know, it sure seems to me it leads to dishonesty.
All in all, while I love to blame the CCP for everything that is wrong with China, it seems to me that in this case it is more than just the cultural revolution and the personality cult of Mao and Mao-yeye.
Scandinavian:
the "Blame everything on the population size" defense is pointless. Divide and conquer.
Burak43:
I'm not painting China as a victim of her size, but I am suggesting that it might be a contributing factor together with centralized power, face, large power distance and others.
Mao's genius in controlling people was and is a double edged sword. A society where the people can't trust each other is a society that can never unite against the government. But that also stunts China's growth. Domestic economy is restricted by a corrupt government and court system..
The Face culture is definitely a huge part of it. Chinese generally value appearances over substance and results. So it's perfectly acceptable to lie and cheat if makes you and your circle of connections look better superficially. I think living in a country with so many people that has been so poor for so long has something to do with it too. In order to rise to the top in these conditions it's kind of necessary to pull a few strings and do some shady stuff to get anywhere.
The ability to get one over on someone else gives them a sense of accomplishment, one they can't usually find in their dull meaningless lives.
Who are the biggest liers on the planet? By reputation , lawyers. Who has the most lawyers per capita? The US. Who runs the US? Lawyers.?????
dongbeiren:
Kind of rash to make such sweeping generalizations about a profession that is so diverse don't you think? And while a lot of lawyers do shady things, at least they're (usually) LEGAL! They might bend the law and interpret it in creative ways to benefit themselves but at least American lawyers operate under a system of rule of law. Not quite so much here in the jungle where money and connections trump all........
Stiggs:
Franck3, what do US lawyers have to do with a question about Chinese culture?
http://gbtimes.com/life/historical-background-corruption-china
If you want to know how it all started, you might find this article interesting.
And so the chicken-or-egg debate continues. Did the shameless opportunism prevalent in China emerge as a social strategy during Cultural Revolution, or was the Cultural Revolution simply what happened when shameless opportunism met the right political circumstances? I tend to believe that there is a mix of both.
xunliang:
If you read 他妈的 by Lu Xun, you'll find this culture of selfishness existed well before the Cultural Revolution.
DrMonkey:
@xunliang Excellent reference, and you can top that with various chronicle wrote by visitors in China from 1850 to 1949. Description of administration & business under the KMT in early 30's feels uncannily modern.
RachelDiD:
It sounds like a good read; I'll be sure to check it out! I assumed they acted like this before the Cultural Revolution after reading a book on the Boxer Revolution. I remember leafing through the chapter on the social tensions in Chinese society that precipitated the BR (especially its persecution of Christians), and thinking 'so, they were all spending their waking lives thinking of ways to screw each other over then, too!'
No wonder these people have 5000 years of unchanged history--you can't fix stupid!
Lawyers are the reason why owners must maintain their property to prevent people from getting hurt. Lawyers are why employers can't stiff me on my salary, force me to work overtime, make me shave my head, make me crawl around on the ground, steal my IP, etc...
Lawyers are the reason why my landlord can't cheat me. Lawyers are why banks can't cheat me as much as they would like to.
You can lying/cheating. But you can not lying/cheating for life.