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modern city life & 'civilization'

fixitwithahammer (165 posts) • 0

Most of those cases where the good samaritans were sued are a myth.

There was an article about that issue and it did some digging and all the cases that went to court, were dismissed. Except one case.

I agree that the Chinese judicial and social systems are messed up but not every judge is crazy or stupid.

I blame it on a certain amount of social laziness. Why bother helping if I can just ignore someone dying in the streets.

I would also argue that the socialist maoist idea is what ruined the society already messed up by greed and violence.

Interesting thing is, China has all the resources and philosophies, religions, thinkers to become the most amazing place but it refuses to make any progress for the above reasons.

Peter99 (1246 posts) • +1

Topic says 'modern city life & civilization', well, modern civilization or not, go down to Hanoi or, say Taipei, and see how people react when someones had an accident. They rush from all corners to assist.

Theres an opinion that a certain 'moral structure' was demolished same time when most of the country was demolished and ripped apart - everyone rushing to cut pieces of the cake - and people would have become disoriented, and morally oblivious. Nevertheless, theres also a phenomenon going on faking being hit by a car.

If Alien has read Yunnan history he should know that - to take a similar example - historically, anyone sick in a caravan was just left behind. Thats old civilization. The sick person was denied access inside city walls as well. Thats why most caravans had packs of wolves howling behind them.

Alien (3819 posts) • 0

@Hammer & Peter: I think China has made plenty of progress, though in some ways, maybe not. And there is also the issue of the reintroduction of capitalism and marking out self-centered 'me first' attitudes as a virtue (and I'm not saying that the 1950-80 period eliminated me-first attitudes). I don't think it's social laziness, I think it's social irresponsibility and a lack of social conscience.

Not that these things don't exist elsewhere. People being 'left behind' has been pretty widespread around the planet for a very long time, especially since the species started concentrating wealth & power, and this got a great

boost by the Industrial Revolution. I'm not one to talk about 'human nature', but for those who want to say it's simply a matter of me-first competition, I'd have to say that human cooperation should also be included in 'human nature' - if it were not, the species never would have survived. And if it is not, it will not.
Anyway, never being willing to take a risk to help others is shitty behaviour, 'natural' or not.

fixitwithahammer (165 posts) • 0

Of course every place people are left behind but China is the world champion of doing so.

I once read a quote reading something like socialism is the cruelest form of capitalism.
There is some truth in that.

China being

torn apart by greed for millennia and

having a cruel form of social mannerisms, thus

always bring in trouble and I think that is also why so much greatness came out of it.

But there hasn't been greatness for a long time.

@Alien, more income and more greed just brought more wealth, if you consider that progress? Ethically I think China is stepping back with giant steps.

OceanOcean (1193 posts) • +2

This may be hackneyed, even wrong, but it was explained to me that in China; the family/friends bond is particularly high, and patriotism to the country is also high. However, connections to "strangers", even those in peril, is low. So people walk by.

Peter99 (1246 posts) • +2

@ A

Simply making it a capitalism issue, wont work out. Then why isnt it worse (with regard to public reactions in traffic accidents) in Tokyo, Taipei or Seoul.

michael2015 (784 posts) • +1

On the issue of "left behind", China raised over 600 million people out of poverty over the last 60 years, an astonishing feat by any means - especially since most of this occurred more recently AND is recognized by the UN as an astonishing feat. That speaks well of a civilization. As for greed and selfishness - that's more challenging to moderate and eradicate.

Stratocaster (161 posts) • +3

I'm all for giving credit where due. Modern China has lifted many of its people out of poverty. But any discussion about the last 60 years would have to include the economic downturns and millions of casualties from the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution". Let's not whitewash those epic failures.

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