fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5029 ]

[ SECRET POST #5029 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5029 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #719.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I get where you're coming from, but I don't totally agree.

On the one hand, I totally agree that people should generally be for justice and freedom across the board, not in one particular society. If anything, people should be more expressive and committed when it comes to the communities that they come from and the places where they live. And there's definitely some people in the West for whom a focus on problems in China is hypocritical, or even a device to get people to shut up about injustices closer to home.

At the same time, framing this as an either-or where actually China is good and people who criticize China are arrogant Westerners, I don't think that's a good take. Partly, it's bad because it leads to the e

I hit post too goddamn early

My point was that taking this attitude is bad because it makes the conversation an either or where one country is good and the other is bad and that's not really ever the truth, and it'd also bad because it's effectively a defense of China in the face of the fact that available evidence suggests that the Chinese government is doing some extremely authoritarian things. And people who are opposed to authoritarianism have a right to stand up and say that's not good.

My post isn't pro or against China or even the HK events. It's about OP thinking that they know the situation in other countries better than the people living there based on who knows what sources. It's also about holding Chinese actors to different standards than US/EU actors.

.....but the countries and what goes on there *are* different.

I mean - they have literal gulags in China.

We do in America too, unfortunately

I can't think of a celebrity that is afraid, in the US, of having themselves or their family put into a gulag for saying something the govt. doesn't like.

Sure, yes, but the US does have prison camps for social undesirables on a mass scale and it's really inhumane and evil and we really shouldn't be acting like the sun shines out our collective asses right now

Nobody's doing that, though?

How am I acting like that? I'm pointing out that the comments above about China/actors/etc. aren't exactly hinging on the reality of what's going on in China.

Whatever 'hoorah 'Murica!' you think is in my statements is in your own brain.

For people like AYRT, anything that isn't "America is a trash country with no good qualities and I'm the worst for being an American citizen, please flog me, I deserve it" is "Hoorah Murica."

Seems to be.

I know they say those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but that doesn't apply to human rights abuses. You are absolutely free to criticize human rights abuses wherever they happen. Pointing out a problem in another country isn't tantamount to covering up problems in your own country. It's only an issue if you are trying to use another country's problems to draw attention away from your own problems, which is not what the secret or anyone in this thread is doing.

I'm going to be pedantic here. Not literally gulags.

All countries are different..?

ayrt

Gu·lag
noun
A system of labor camps maintained in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1955 in which many people died.
A camp in the Gulag system, or any political labor camp.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-camps-china/

Thanks for the link. Didn't know that it's synonymous with any camp.
ayrt

My post isn't pro or against China or even the HK events. It's about OP thinking that they know the situation in other countries better than the people living there based on who knows what sources.

One, I don't agree with this whole idea of "they think they know the situation in other countries better than the people living there" in general. And two, it strikes me as implicitly a defense of China.

The reason that I don't agree with the idea in general is because we're all human beings and we have a responsibility to form our own moral judgments and observations on situations based on the best evidence available to us. Sometimes, it's true, there's not really sufficient evidence to form a judgment. But I don't think that's the case in this situation - the evidence that China's government is deeply authoritarian seems pretty compelling. And the whole idea of "the people who live there don't have a problem with it" has some pretty obvious holes in it in the context of an authoritarian country specifically. And it seems pretty clear that a lot of people who live in Hong Kong aren't happy about the whole thing, at the very least. So to just say that people in the West who are opposed to authoritarianism can't have an opinion on China seems simply wrong to me. People in the West don't get to dictate terms to China or to Chinese people, but they get to have an opinion on it.

The reason that I think it's implicitly a defense of China is that it seems like it's only really a relevant point if OP is wrong about the situation in China. If OP is correct about the situation in China, then yelling at them for being arrogant and presuming to know about China seems strange. It doesn't seem relevant to the conversation. On the other hand, if OP is incorrect about China, then it's a very relevant point. But if that's the case, if you're saying that OP's criticisms about the situation in China are wrong, that's a defense of China. So that's the kind of thought process.

It's also about holding Chinese actors to different standards than US/EU actors.

I agree with this part, it's a good point (although there are definitely actors you can point at who do criticize the US or EU)

I haven't yelled at OP? Overall I think you missed my point.

I googled 'West' to see which countries that includes. Depends on who you ask, it turns out. Is this thread going to become some weird East VS West and Them VS Us debate? I have no horse in this race.

We agree on the last point, that't not bad.

ayrt

Of course a person living in a country with no censorship know better the situation of people living in countries with censorship than they do. It's the natural consequence of having unrestricted access to information.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #5029 ]

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