Robin Daverman
哪个更有可能在下个世纪发生？中国成为一个民主国家，还是中国目前的政治制度扩散到更多国家？
哪种情况更有可能在下个世纪发生？中国成为一个民主国家还是中国目前的政治制度传播到更多国家？
中国的政治制度永远不会传播到其他国家。它是一种伪装成国家的文明。除非你分享这种文明，否则你永远不可能采用中国的国家管理制度。看看韩国和日本--与中国并肩生活了2000多年，他们从来没有，从来没有，采用中国的国家管理系统。
我只想提出中国文明中与其他文明非常不同的两个具体的关键文化点，并向你展示它们对其政治文化的影响。
首先，中国文明不相信功绩是可以继承的。功绩可以通过客观的测试来发现，并通过培训来提高，但不能继承。这就是为什么中国在2000年前实施了中国的科举考试，开始这个双盲考试过程的皇帝高兴地声称，"从现在开始，我有一张网可以抓住所有的人才"。
如果你对两千多年来人们的学术表现进行追踪，你就会发现，在很大程度上，功名确实是不可继承的。实际上，如果你看一看，比如说，有客观标准的体育项目，如100米短跑，你确实会看到，前金牌得主的孩子不会自动成为下一个伟大人物。伟大的足球明星或游泳运动员的孩子长大后也不会自动赢得金牌。运动能力，以其坚实的生物基础，应该是最容易继承的，然而，你在竞技体育中并没有看到它。而这正是中国人在过去两千年里从他们数百万学者的无可比拟的数据中看到的。
那么，其中的含义是什么呢？首先，贵族制是没有意义的。贵族的孩子并不比你和我更高贵。这就是为什么中国没有贵族制度，而是有从帝国国家考试中脱颖而出的学者-官员，然后在工作中培训。像《星球大战》这样的电影都是关于代代相传的特殊权力，而中国的电影完全没有这样的内容，因为中国人更喜欢看《汤姆和杰瑞》，而不是这种奇怪的继承性善良的概念。布什夫妇和克林顿夫妇都是资源被垄断的公然症状，而不是分散开来，使不公正的社会中的其他人的广阔海洋，对中国人来说。那么问题来了，你看看欧洲，看看日本，看看印度，那里的世袭政治家、贵族和行业大亨是常态，然后你要问，这些 "贵族 "有多愿意放弃他们的社会和经济特权？
其次，继承的资本是不自然的。你赢得了你的亿万财富，这很好。你可以尽情地享受它。但是，为什么你的孙子可以整天躺在一大堆面团上，在愚蠢的东西上花费可笑的钱？为什么那些愿意更努力工作的穷人就不能有机会接受教育，成为对社会有用的人？虎妈妈可以把她的幼崽训练成好的猎人，但她不能留下一堆死肉给她的孙子们吃。那是违反自然的。因此，中国人基本上有一个系统，你越富有，你就必须承担更多的社会责任--修路架桥，资助当地学校，这基本上是你的责任，把你的财富传播出去，在中国有几千年的历史。一个古老的中国成语说 "穷不过三代，富不过五代"。每个成功的官员都把他们的财富分散给整个家族，因为他知道他的直接后代可能不会有竞争力，他宁愿对其他更有前途的年轻人施以恩惠，他们更有可能成功，然后在他死后，他们会把恩惠还给他的孩子。这种习俗延续至今。伟大的部落家族在中国并不长久，因为有一个有点客观的成功门路。那么--你认为罗斯柴尔德家族和洛克菲勒家族会有什么感受？比谋杀更糟糕吗？大笑。
在我们看了功名制度之后，现在我们也来看看中国的不可知论或无神论，这也是过去2500年来的主流文化。嗯，你可能会说，这只是意味着他们不相信上帝。不，完全不是。这是一个完全独立于这种 "上帝 "概念的文明发展，因此中国的无神论者与德国的无神论者完全不同。
一个德国无神论者是一个不赞成全能的上帝的神秘主义的人，但仍然毫不怀疑地接受 "法律 "和 "人权 "的概念。以 "法律 "的概念为例，它是从十诫中流传下来的，所以它本能地要求得到尊重。这就是为什么 "合法性 "在西方文化中如此重要。中国人不是这样看待 "法律 "的。他们甚至不明白为什么人们对 "合法性 "如此痴迷。在中国，法律一直是由你的同胞制定的，它们可能有意义，也可能没有意义，而且它们的效果需要在现实生活中进行检验，以确保它们按照预期的方式运作。因此，你不能只是让一群立法者辩论和编写法律，然后每个人都遵守它。如果你这样做，有可能每个人都会忽视它。法律通常以一些地方性的、行政性的法规开始其生命，政府有责任在一段时间内向人们传授它。只有在它经过公众的检验后，如果公众说好的，我明白了它的意图，我同意它，那么它就会成为法律，每个人都明白，法律是为了在当前情况下达到社会目的，它们是要随着社会的变化而变化的。这才是最自然的。
与 "人权 "同理。没有上帝，没有神灵，所以人没有 "神圣的权利"。这个概念并不存在。一个人与他的同胞达成协议，互相帮助，你期望从你的同胞那里得到什么，当轮到你时，你必须愿意给予。就是这样，这就是全部。这就像如果你爸爸建了桥，你就不能说："我有权利走过桥而不是游过河。这是我的人权。"它并不是这样的。你走过桥是因为你的祖先建造了它。如果你只是使用它，而不通过努力工作来维护它，迟早你会没有桥可走。过去人类的努力使一些人目前可以享受到它的成果。道德的事情是对下一代进行同样类型的服务。那些祖先没有努力过的人不会自动享受到它。他们必须自己做这些工作。
中国文明与其他文明的不同之处还有千千万万。对死亡、勇气、生命的不确定性、道德、爱和共同利益的基本理解，都是不同的。所以现在你看到了，中国的政治制度不可能传播到其他国家。中国人认为是真实的，像自然本身一样自然的东西，在其他国家是完全不可接受的。而西方人认为真实和高尚的东西，中国人认为是某种精神错乱。当中国在10个世纪前是亚洲最强大的国家时，韩国试图复制中国的管理制度，但随后创造了这种种姓制度，第一等人是贵族及其主要妻子的子女，第二等人是贵族及其妾室的子女，等等，只有第一等人得到教育并参加国家考试。其结果是，韩国的贵族阶层变得无比稳定和根深蒂固，其中一半可以追溯到500年前。它就是那么稳定。所以你看，一个旨在使每个人都平等的制度，只要越过边界，就变成了一个巩固社会种姓的制度。而你对此却无能为力。与日本类似，那里的贵族，无论出于何种意图和目的，都比天皇强，其现代化身拥有企业和银行，而不是土地和头衔。
中国文化是唯一幸存这么久的古代文化是有原因的，这是因为它的基础是中国漫长而庞大的书面历史记录，这是一个无可比拟的数据集，它是神权的真正对立面。这对中国来说是独一无二的。它与其他文化相当不相关。所以它是自成一体的。它并不 "强大"，因为它对生命、死亡和不确定性没有提供任何安慰，但那些自我选择进入它的人是那些对人类拥有理性勇气的人，他们永远不会被其他文化所动摇。
Which is more likely to happen in the next century: China becoming a democracy or China's current political system spreading to more countries?
Which is more likely to happen in the next century: China becoming a democracy or China's current political system spreading to more countries?
China’s political system will never spread to other countries. It’s a civilization disguised as a country. Unless you share that civilization, you can never adopt China’s country-management system. Just look at Korea and Japan - living side-by-side with China for over 2000 years, and they have never, ever, adopted China’s country management system.
I’ll just raise two specific key cultural points in the Chinese civilization that are VERY DISTINCT from other civilizations, and show you their implications on their political culture.
First of all, the Chinese civilization does not believe that merits can be inherited. Merits can be discovered through objective testing, and enhanced through training, but not inherited. That’s why China implemented the Chinese Imperial examination 2000 years ago, and the emperor who started this double-blind examination process happily claimed, “from now on, I have a net to catch all the talented people.”
If you have been tracking the academic performance of people over 2,000 years, you will see for yourself that merit, to a large extent, is indeed not inheritable. Actually, if you take a look at, say, sports with objective criteria, like the 100-meter dash, you will indeed see that the children of former gold medalists don’t automatically get to be the next greats. The children of great soccer stars or swimmers don’t automatically win gold medals when they grow up. Sporting abilities, with its solid biological foundation, should be the easiest to inherit, and yet, you don’t see it much in competitive sports. And that’s exactly what the Chinese have been seeing from their incomparable data set of millions of scholars for the last 2,000 years.
So what is the implication? First of all, aristocracy makes no sense. The children of the noblemen aren’t anymore noble than you and me. That’s why China had no aristocracy, but have scholar-officials who excelled from the Imperial National Exams, and then trained on the job. Movies like the Star Wars are all about special power passed down from generation to generation, and the Chinese movies are totally devoid of such content, because the Chinese are more entertained by Tom and Jerry than by this strange concept of inherited goodness. The Bushes and the Clintons are all blatant symptoms of how resources are monopolized, instead of spreading out to enable the vast ocean of other people in an unjust society, to the Chinese. So then the question is, you take a look at Europe, at Japan, at India, where the hereditary politicians, aristocrats, and industry tycoons are the norm, and then you have to ask, how willing are the “aristocrats” to give up their social and economic privileges?
Secondly, inherited capital is unnatural. You earned your billions and that’s great. Enjoy it as much as you like. But why should your grandson be able to lie on a huge pile of dough all day and spend ridiculous amount of money on stupid stuff? Why shouldn’t the poor, who are willing to work much harder, get a chance to be educated, enabled, to be productive to society? A tiger mom can train her cubs well to be good hunters, but she can’t leave a mountain of dead meat for her grand-cubs to consume. That’s against nature. So the Chinese basically have a system where the richer you get, the more social responsibility you have to take on - build road and bridges, fund local schools, and that’s basically your duty, to spread your wealth around, in China for thousands of years. An ancient Chinese idiom says “the poor will not remain poor for 3 generations, and the rich will not continue to be rich for 5 generations”. Every successful official spread their wealth to the whole clan, because he knew his direct offspring would probably not be competitive, and he’d rather do favors to other, more promising youngsters, who are more likely to succeed, and they would then return the favor to his children when he’s dead. This custom continues today. Great tribal families don’t last in China because there is a somewhat objective gateway to success. So - how do you think the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers will feel about it? Worse than murder? LOL.
After we take a look at the merit system, now let’s also take a look at China’s agnosticism or atheism, which has also been the dominant culture for the last 2500 years. Well, you may say, it just means that they don’t believe in God. No. Not at all. It’s a civilization developed entirely independent of such a “God” concept, thus a Chinese atheist is entirely different from, say, a German atheist.
A German atheist is someone who does not ascribe to the mysticism of an almighty God, but still unquestioningly entertains the concept of “law” and “human rights”. Take, for example, the concept of “law”, which is passed down from the Ten Commandments and so it demands respect instinctively. That’s why “legitimacy” is so important in the Western culture. That’s not how the Chinese sees “laws”. They don’t even get why people are so obsessed about “legitimacy”. Laws in China have always been made by your fellow humans, and they may or may not make sense, and their effect needs to be tested in real life to make sure that they work as intended. So you don’t just have a bunch of legislators debate and write laws and then everyone follows it. If you do that, chances are everybody will ignore it. Laws usually start their lives as some local, administrative regulations, the government has the responsibility to teach people about it for a period of time. Only after it is tested with the public, and if the public says OK, I get the intent, and I agree with it, then it becomes law, and everybody understand that the law is meant to serve a social purpose under the current circumstances, and they are meant to change with the society. That’s what’s natural.
Ditto with “human rights”. There is no God, no deity, so one does not have “divine rights”. That concept doesn’t exist. One has agreement with his fellow human beings to help each other, and what you expect from your fellow human beings, you must be willing to give when it’s your turn. That’s it, and that’s all there is. It’s like if your dad built the bridge, you can’t then just say, “I have the right to walk over the bridge instead of swimming across the river. That’s my human right.” It doesn’t work that way. You walk across the bridge because your forefathers built it. If you just use it, without maintaining it through hard work, sooner or later you’ll have no bridge to walk over. Past human endeavor allows some people to enjoy the fruit of it currently. The moral thing to do is to perform the same type of service to the next generation. Those whose forefathers didn’t work on it don’t automatically get to enjoy it. They have to do the work themselves.
There are millions of other things where the Chinese civilization is distinct from others. The fundamental understanding regarding death, courage, the uncertainty of life, morality, love, and the common good, are all different. So now you see, there is no way the Chinese political system will spread to other countries. What the Chinese hold to be true and as natural as the nature itself, is totally unacceptable in other countries. And what the West hold to be true and noble, the Chinese view it as some kind of mental disorder. When China was the most powerful country in Asia ten centuries ago, Korea tried to copy China’s governing system, but then created this caste system where the first class people were the children of the noblemen and their primary wives, the second class people were the children of the noblemen and their concubines, etc., and only the first class people got education and competed in the national exams. The result was that the Korean aristocracy became incredibly stable and entrenched, half of them going back 500 years. It’s that stable. So you see, a system that was meant to equalize everyone, just by crossing the border, became a system to solidify the social castes. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Similar to Japan, where the aristocracy, by all intent and purpose, is stronger than the emperor, its modern incarnation owns businesses and banks instead of land and titles.
There is a reason why the Chinese culture is the only ancient culture that has survived this long, It’s because it’s foundation is China’s long and vast written historic record, an incomparable data set, which serves as the true antithesis of theocracy. It’s unique to China. It’s fairly irrelevant to other cultures. So it’s self-contained. It’s not “strong” because it offers no comfort for life, death, and uncertainty, but those who self-select into it are those who possess rational courage to humanity, and will never be swayed by other cultures.
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