Chinese Tech Companies’ Dirty Secret [video]
Am I the only person who sees the perhaps inherent conflict between the liberal impulse for multiculturalism and its vision of racial and gender equality, in the sense that <i>a liberal, Western perspective on gender and race is not a culturally neutral perspective</i>?<p>As a Chinese-American, I feel whipsawed when on the one hand, well-meaning generally liberal people make lofty paeans about how we should respect other cultures, but then turn right around and judge those same cultures and find them unworthy for not adhering to liberal Western cultural norms.<p>In this case, the position is even more tenuous, because a substantial portion of Western society does <i>not</i> fully agree with liberal norms for gender equality. This is basically exporting the West&#x27;s own culture wars, fought since the 60s, to other societies.<p>There are of course tensions between the genders and sexes in China, like in any other society, but it&#x27;s interesting to read the entire op-ed and not find an attempt to actually ask Chinese people what they think about the issue (the author notwithstanding), just a string of accusations with the unspoken presumption that &#x27;if it feels wrong to us right-minded people, then it must be wrong&#x27;.<p>To be completely blunt, paternalism is very deeply embedded in Chinese society, and its roots go back a couple thousand years to Confucianism. I don&#x27;t see anyone seriously acknowledging or discussing that fact, nor the major changes that have happened since the 50s (often under an explicitly Communist ideology, where the only allowable conflict is between the classes).<p>TL;DR - We respect all cultures and viewpoints, except all those which we judge wrong and sexist.