Who's afraid of China?
The question alone betrays the failing of our world system. In an age when so much attention and resources are being paid to democracy building, development, and third-world outreach, shouldn't the idea that another country as historically underdeveloped as China would be rising into their own be a cause for celebration? After all, their "development" is a textbook example of what all the experts are praising: they are consuming more and more, giving rise to new employment and a population that is quickly entering the world of consumerism as their lifestyles improve. Herein lies the problem. The form of development that has been encouraged for so long...capitalism and consumerism, has finally reached the tipping point. The rest of the world is figuring it out and we will all be soon forced to acknowledge that consumerism is not how the world should be run. After all, as matter is neither created nor destroyed, there is an obvious limit that will one day be reached as we continue to flaunt that which we create and hide the destruction left in its wake. If our philosophy to support the growing need for employment the world round is to increase consumption to counteract the "gains" made by more efficient means of production, there will be a limit at which there is nothing left to consume and billions of people will be forced to realize that all those zeros in their bank accounts were never worth anything outside of the fraudulent credit system that was created to support consumption beyond our means. Consumption is not the answer. There are too many people vying for too few jobs already. Allowing them to make more money and thereby consume more will only aggravate the problem.
This is the underlying paradox of almost all development programs. They rely on the assumption that by creating consumers of the world's impoverished masses, these people will in turn live better lives. The truth is the vast majority of people don't actually want the rest of the world to be better off. Most people would want the rest of the world's population to live more comfortably, up to the point at which they begin to compete for our limited resources, when their development will be fought to protect our interests. In the end, our development programs, and the attitudes that created these flawed programs, which we still cling to are inherently flawed themselves. Integrating the rest of the world to participate in our consumer society will not solve anyone’s problems, it will only aggravate the problems that have plagued our system since it was created, but have lain dormant due to the relatively small number of consumers whose wealth and comfort was buoyed up by those supplying the inputs who were not allowed to participate in the system they supported. These flaws are becoming more and more obvious thanks in large part to the voices of those who participated in the international developments and financial systems that have left angered by all of its flaws. Voices like Joseph Stiglitz and David C. Korten are making known the changes we must all want to occur in order to save the world from our own greed and consumption, and save those who are being enlisted into the capitalist ranks as we speak.
To get back to my first point, who's afraid of china, I answer that there would be nothing to fear if we were living in a people-centered society where the better lives of all would be something to be celebrated. The secret is, that more consumption and the greater comfort it affords do not equal a better life. Shocking, right? If I were a western policy maker I would fear China for two reasons: Patience and knowledge of self.
Patience: an example. A friend of my parents owns a beautiful antique jade disc that measures about a half meter in diameter. It is said that this disc was carved hundreds and hundreds of years ago using a string to saw the jade, grains of sand for added friction and water for lubrication. They imagine it took years of patient, rhythmic sawing. You can be sure that this individual was not sawing jade with a string just to create a disc. He understood the value of patience and the wisdom that can come from centering yourself on a slow, simple task. Which brings me to my next point: Knowledge of self.
The eastern religious tradition is one that in its purest form has not changed in thousands of years. Unlike the western judeo-islamic-christian traditions that are constantly evolving and changing with the times to try and maintain their influence over society, the eastern traditions remain unchanged. It is because they do not focus on the transformation of their societies to fit their moral mold, rather they focus on the individual and cultivating the inner-self to conform to the spirit of the universe: the common essence that is present in all things. There seems to be an underlying understanding that all that which surrounds us is ephemeral and passing and to understand life, self, and god all one has to do is to look inside to the purest essence of our self, that which transcends even the human to achieve the universal. And because of its simplicity, this tradition and those who practice it have never had to change, despite all that has occurred around them.
So yes, I fear China. Not because they will rise to dominate us in a nuclear firefight that will destroy the planet, but because if we were to destroy the world and any people were to survive, many of the Chinese, not the government types but rather the ascetics, would be able to continue on as they always had, searching inside themselves for the truth, while the rest of us will be totally devastated and lost as to how to carry on.
This is the underlying paradox of almost all development programs. They rely on the assumption that by creating consumers of the world's impoverished masses, these people will in turn live better lives. The truth is the vast majority of people don't actually want the rest of the world to be better off. Most people would want the rest of the world's population to live more comfortably, up to the point at which they begin to compete for our limited resources, when their development will be fought to protect our interests. In the end, our development programs, and the attitudes that created these flawed programs, which we still cling to are inherently flawed themselves. Integrating the rest of the world to participate in our consumer society will not solve anyone’s problems, it will only aggravate the problems that have plagued our system since it was created, but have lain dormant due to the relatively small number of consumers whose wealth and comfort was buoyed up by those supplying the inputs who were not allowed to participate in the system they supported. These flaws are becoming more and more obvious thanks in large part to the voices of those who participated in the international developments and financial systems that have left angered by all of its flaws. Voices like Joseph Stiglitz and David C. Korten are making known the changes we must all want to occur in order to save the world from our own greed and consumption, and save those who are being enlisted into the capitalist ranks as we speak.
To get back to my first point, who's afraid of china, I answer that there would be nothing to fear if we were living in a people-centered society where the better lives of all would be something to be celebrated. The secret is, that more consumption and the greater comfort it affords do not equal a better life. Shocking, right? If I were a western policy maker I would fear China for two reasons: Patience and knowledge of self.
Patience: an example. A friend of my parents owns a beautiful antique jade disc that measures about a half meter in diameter. It is said that this disc was carved hundreds and hundreds of years ago using a string to saw the jade, grains of sand for added friction and water for lubrication. They imagine it took years of patient, rhythmic sawing. You can be sure that this individual was not sawing jade with a string just to create a disc. He understood the value of patience and the wisdom that can come from centering yourself on a slow, simple task. Which brings me to my next point: Knowledge of self.
The eastern religious tradition is one that in its purest form has not changed in thousands of years. Unlike the western judeo-islamic-christian traditions that are constantly evolving and changing with the times to try and maintain their influence over society, the eastern traditions remain unchanged. It is because they do not focus on the transformation of their societies to fit their moral mold, rather they focus on the individual and cultivating the inner-self to conform to the spirit of the universe: the common essence that is present in all things. There seems to be an underlying understanding that all that which surrounds us is ephemeral and passing and to understand life, self, and god all one has to do is to look inside to the purest essence of our self, that which transcends even the human to achieve the universal. And because of its simplicity, this tradition and those who practice it have never had to change, despite all that has occurred around them.
So yes, I fear China. Not because they will rise to dominate us in a nuclear firefight that will destroy the planet, but because if we were to destroy the world and any people were to survive, many of the Chinese, not the government types but rather the ascetics, would be able to continue on as they always had, searching inside themselves for the truth, while the rest of us will be totally devastated and lost as to how to carry on.
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posted by Jay Boren at 12:07 PM
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