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East meets West in love of lucre
By Wang Yong |
January 12, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FORGET the East or the West. Now, after hundreds of years of ideological conflicts, it's all about the money and it's in the market that we all place our trust.
You may still call America and Europe (Japan for that matter) the West and most of Asia the East, but wherever you go, East or West, you choke on the same polluted air and are swamped with the same materialism. In cars, villas and sugar daddies we all place our trust.
China has overtaken the United States of America as the world's No. 1 producer and consumer of automobiles. This fact alone renders moot any more comparison between traditional Eastern and Western values. The West has eaten the East in many ways, most perniciously in spreading a car culture.
Nearly 200 years ago, the West waged opium wars and many other wars against a China that mostly consumed tea in harmony with nature. Nowadays, the West has found itself a welcome guest in a China that has been brainwashed to believe in the Reaganomics of conspicuous consumption.
And it's not just about cars and villas. In 30 years of embracing a market economy, China has changed from a haven of honest love to a heaven of flirtation, fun and infidelity. Chinese media outlets compete with each other in sponsoring brazen women who shout slogans like "I would rather weep woefully in a BMW car than laughing merrily on a bike."
In today's lead opinion article, professor Tan Chung may be correct in distinguishing between Chinese-style Wangcracy and Western-style Democracy.
Bigger question
But a bigger question is: why has the East followed the West in abandoning its Eastern core values for near-religious faith in money and the market? Already in China, we've heard a developer saying that he builds houses only for the rich. Already in America, we've seen Wall Street financial wizards pocketing millions of dollars at the expense of poorer fellow countrymen.
Is there anything beyond "cracy" that explains away the parallel dive of the East and the West into the depths of materialism that has a million possible names, from cars to villas to GDP, and all those damned statistics?
Human greed alone cannot explain it. It's a universal belief in man's power over nature - largely originated in the Industrial Revolution of the West from the 18th to the 19th century - that makes the sky the limit of human greed.
The East has a lot to learn from the West, for example, the humanistic values in Renaissance. Unfortunately, the East has learned the worst part of the West.
Endless floods and other catastrophes have proven that man can have power from nature, not over it. In stupidity, the East has forgotten the better part of the West and the best part of itself - holding nature in awe.
You may still call America and Europe (Japan for that matter) the West and most of Asia the East, but wherever you go, East or West, you choke on the same polluted air and are swamped with the same materialism. In cars, villas and sugar daddies we all place our trust.
China has overtaken the United States of America as the world's No. 1 producer and consumer of automobiles. This fact alone renders moot any more comparison between traditional Eastern and Western values. The West has eaten the East in many ways, most perniciously in spreading a car culture.
Nearly 200 years ago, the West waged opium wars and many other wars against a China that mostly consumed tea in harmony with nature. Nowadays, the West has found itself a welcome guest in a China that has been brainwashed to believe in the Reaganomics of conspicuous consumption.
And it's not just about cars and villas. In 30 years of embracing a market economy, China has changed from a haven of honest love to a heaven of flirtation, fun and infidelity. Chinese media outlets compete with each other in sponsoring brazen women who shout slogans like "I would rather weep woefully in a BMW car than laughing merrily on a bike."
In today's lead opinion article, professor Tan Chung may be correct in distinguishing between Chinese-style Wangcracy and Western-style Democracy.
Bigger question
But a bigger question is: why has the East followed the West in abandoning its Eastern core values for near-religious faith in money and the market? Already in China, we've heard a developer saying that he builds houses only for the rich. Already in America, we've seen Wall Street financial wizards pocketing millions of dollars at the expense of poorer fellow countrymen.
Is there anything beyond "cracy" that explains away the parallel dive of the East and the West into the depths of materialism that has a million possible names, from cars to villas to GDP, and all those damned statistics?
Human greed alone cannot explain it. It's a universal belief in man's power over nature - largely originated in the Industrial Revolution of the West from the 18th to the 19th century - that makes the sky the limit of human greed.
The East has a lot to learn from the West, for example, the humanistic values in Renaissance. Unfortunately, the East has learned the worst part of the West.
Endless floods and other catastrophes have proven that man can have power from nature, not over it. In stupidity, the East has forgotten the better part of the West and the best part of itself - holding nature in awe.
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