Gee, I’m so sorry.
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Let’s have a little decorum please.
This is good. The problem I see is that the US is going in the opposite direction.
And by the way, how can you talk about China and ignore the rest of the world? I was taught that a good way to understand things is through comparisons. One country that I understand pretty well is the US. I can’t help but look at China through that lens.
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Yeah but if you want an understanding of what they are thinking, you have to see the US through the lens of China.
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As China’s political star rises and rises on the world stage, many western thinkers are looking to the Chinese people to demand a more pluralistic, participatory state with respect for human rights and democratic fundamentals.
It’s been obvious for a long time that this isn’t going to happen, for the reasons that Kuo has summarised so eloquently and because of China’s economic and geopolitical power. Unfortunately, the questions will be: A) how and to what degree will the West have to accommodate this authoritarian, illiberal crony-capitalist nation-state; and B) how will Western nation-states prevent themselves from falling into the same models?
Currently, the answer to B is “not very well”, not only because of the return of right-wing populism but also because we’re starting to experiment with surveillance-based “smart cities” that are increasingly not beholden to the popular will.
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Some are. Many, like me, aren’t.
I submit to nothing, and have a long history of telling authority to go fuck itself. It hasn’t made life easy, but at least my conscience is clear.
I would argue that on the whole perhaps that argument is true but it isn’t true universally.
There’s an easy answer to : Why don’t more Chinese people oppose the Chinese government?
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The first half I’ll grant you. The second half requires careful cultivation of your values for ‘far’, ‘superior’, and possibly ‘is’.
Except the “experiment” didn’t really show what Milgram claimed. Other researchers such as Gina Perry have investigated Milgram’s data and showed that based on numbers, most people refused to give the “dangerous” levels of shocks. But that didn’t make as nice a story as the “people can be manipulated to do evil things by authority” story. Much like the later Stanford Prison Experiment, the nice story just isn’t supported by facts.
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Cool. Ordered that book you inked to. Thanks! 
That’s not quite what your article said. It said later iterations of the experiment had different rates of refusal, not that most people didn’t in all the experiments combined.
“Over 700 people took part in the experiments. When the news of the experiment was first reported, and the shocking statistic that 65 percent of people went to maximum voltage on the shock machine was reported, very few people, I think, realized then and even realize today that that statistic applied to 26 of 40 people. Of those other 700-odd people, obedience rates varied enormously. In fact, there were variations of the experiment where no one obeyed.”
That’s still a lot of people who have dangerous shocks.
The main problem with Milgram is that it didn’t handle the participants in an ethical way. Some figured it out, but others didn’t. It still probably points to something not nice about people but in a way that can’t be ethically replicated.
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It doesn’t matter if it is superior or “the best” system. Feudal China wasn’t “the best” system either, but they were the most powerful nation on earth in more than one instance. The US arguably isn’t “the best” system, yet here we are.
For China it is partly a numbers game. They are putting out more of everything and both their GDP and education level is rising. Right now they are great at cloning and tweaking things in the tech world, but they are poised to become the innovators in the near future.
@Dioptase1, @12xuser, thank you for sharing! 99% of what I hear about China cannot be trusted or verified, given the economic and political incentives for spreading pro- and anti-Chinese propaganda. I always like hearing from people with recent experience of China, Iran or Russia.
@jhbadger, if you read Milgram’s work, and that of the people who replicated it, I don’t think you’ll find that Gina Perry in any sense “debunked” Milgram or refuted any of his conclusions. In the article you linked, she certainly doesn’t. For example she mentions that later researchers varied the conditions of the experiment and got different results - that’s how science works, getting different results from different conditions is not a flaw, it is how you learn which conditions are meaningful and in what ways. To frame that as a criticism of Milgram’s work is specious and casts doubt on the critic.
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I was particularly struck by the argument that Americans always love to root for the underdog. I am an American and I have always rooted for the underdog, but I have always felt like I am a minority in that regard.
I wasn’t born at the time of the “Miracle on Ice,” which I think might have been the high-water mark in regards to Americans rooting for the underdog. For example, last year’s US Open (Tennis), this young girl beat Serena Williams in the women’s final and the crowd was booing her! Serena Williams has won more than twenty grand slam titles! They do it relentlessly with tennis, and I have to assume that based on the way that the TV programming is set up by US broadcasters and the (sometimes obnoxious) commentary from the analysts, that the demand from the viewing base is not to see the underdog win, but instead to see these competitors who have won endlessly to win some more. There is a palpable sense of disappointment in the air when a top seed gets taken out.
In a similar vein, there was the performance by the US side at the World Cup earlier this summer. I am all for supporting the national team but I draw the line at making a display of embarrassing the other side by scoring double digits and continuing the celebrations after each goal. But actually I was even more offended by the breadth of the populace that rose to the defense of this classless display. And the narrative that was started, that people who were critical of the performance were being sexist Is the same nonsense as the claim that people who are critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians are being anti-semitic.
This isn’t an isolated thing though; it happens all the time, in all the professional sports leagues and it’s as if it has become celebrated to cheer for the team that can pummel the shit out of its opponent 77-0 in college football, because it’s so enjoyable to watch a division 1 team run up the score on a division 3 tech school.
These teams need another point the same way Bezos needs another billion, and it feels to me like it has become the standard in the US to glorify and support these guys as opposed to the underdog. I am holding out hope that it goes back to the way it was though.
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She’s not just talking about other people replicating the experiment – Milgram himself did many repeats (with variations like having participants be all female or have the experimenter be physically present or give instructions by telephone) but focused on just one version that just so happened to give the answer he wanted, and which contained an absurdly tiny number of participants.
Yes, varying conditions can change results in experiments, but the claims Milgram made to the public weren’t implied to be only true for a particular variation – he claimed that the observed obedience to authority was a general phenomenon that explained how the Nazi leaders got the German public to commit atrocities.
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I don’t think Milgram’s actual conclusions (at least not those I have read - I could be wrong!) have ever been refuted. I’ve read a fair bit of his work, though not all of it.
Among them, as you note, that obedience to the trappings of authority as found in particular cultures (Americans of his period seemed to obey white lab coats, spectacles and clipboards more than they obeyed uniforms or priestly vestments) is a very significant part of the complex web of economic and social factors that enabled WWII German and Polish atrocities. This is not something anyone has comprehensively disproved, despite some claims to have done so.
Remember Milgram didn’t prove that authority exists in a vacuum, and is a thing in and of itself, that he was measuring. In a way his results show the fungibility of authority; it can be reassigned with little effort, so that today’s liberal hothead can easily be tomorrow’s authoritarian footsoldier if they are presented the right triggers. His results also do not support the idea that obedience to authority was a fundamental feature of a subset of the population - instead, it’s far more likely that all but a (surprisingly large, in Milgram’s opinion, and mine) fraction can be manipulated by presenting the right conditions. The person who is not obedient to a badge today might be obedient tomorrow, and vice versa. The point I take from it is that a very small set of authority symbols have a very large effect; and that these symbols are not static but change with culture and time.
We’re way off topic! It’s always a pleasure discussing this sort of thing with you, my friend, but we should probably can this one until the next time a Milgram thread comes up (as they do). I suspect that between us we’ve managed to lay out two dissimilar viewpoints pretty well, anyway.
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In most of the areas that I give credit to China for making improvements, the US isn’t going in the opposite direction. China has become wealthier and less equal. The US is doing the same, but not nearly as rapid or, in the case of equality, extreme. In one area, infrastructure, China appears to be zooming ahead and the USA regresses. I might agree on that. US infrastructure is, at best, stagnant. But Chinese infrastructure is a timebomb. I’m continually shocked by how poorly done it is, how poorly it is maintained, and how quickly it is decaying.
As for how can I talk about China and ignore the rest of the world … maybe because of the title of the article? 
I too understand the USA better and can’t help but look at China through that lens. The side effect has been a much deeper appreciation of the USA. Stepping back and comparing China of today against China of 50 years ago, I’m am amazed and impressed. But comparing China to the dozens of other countries I’ve been too, it’s still got room for improvement economically and socially.
I’ll leave you with one anecdote that pops into my mind frequently. Ever been driving on the highway or in some urban area and been bothered by the litter and/or grunge? I was surprised one day by my Chinese colleague while in Chicago by his comment about how much cleaner it is, traffic is better, people are nicer, and everyone following the rules. Chicago!
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I have a suspicion that they’re both literally the same question, “why don’t more A oppose B”, as long as A is a subset of B then there are bound to be some commonalities.
This was true in the Milgram experiment too. I think it was something like 3 of 40 you refused to hurt others?
While I very much agree with everything you state, I’m having a perspective of a European, and that of a German-speaking no less. If I compare my notes on your paragraph about healthcare, etc., I have an irresistible urge to point out that from where I stand, the US has more similarities with China than with most parts of Europe.
Sorry. It’s really irresistible. I’m not even trolling, I know that’s far from the truth. I just can’t keep my mouth shut.
I just whish the US would do better. And that the European countries can resist pressure to become more like the US, and more like China, at the fucking same time.
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“Manifest destiny” baby!
I still laugh when I hear that phrase. Anyone wanna tell me what it means?
