Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
If you can read Chinese:
https://www.zhihu.com/question/51331837
For those interested, a rough translation of the post with the highest upvote:
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In my view, the "white left" consist of two kinds that needs to be distinguished.
The first kind of "white left" are represented by political and business elites that are part of the ruling class. These people are are not only not naive but have a high degree of clarity on the problems we are faced with and debate about. For them, slogans and movements are all means for attaining interests that are near and dear to them. An easy example is Mark Zuckerberg, who despite being a representative figure of the "white left" endured the company-wide pressure at Facebook and did not delete Trump's account; He further endured board pressure and kept Peter Thiel's board seat. Now that Trump is the president he is going about is business as usual, everything is apparently completely normal. Even more illustrative: as Mark loudly opined that the US should not build a wall and cannot isolate ourselves from the world, yet he was faster than just about anyone to build a wall for his own home. Among the rarefied circle of the mega rich in his neighborhood, very few actually built a wall, to the point that even his neighbors complained. This is an example of saying one thing with your mouth, but being honest with your actions.
Another example is Hillary Clinton, whom you can place a hundred negative labels on, but no one would call her naive. The characteristic of this type of "white left" is that whatever others want to hear is what they'll say. They probably don't even believe what they are saying themselves; all that matters is the slogan resonates. For them, the difference between left and right has little meaning, it's only a selection based on where the pursuit of interests lead them. We do not call them naive, instead we dislike them for their pretentiousness and hypocrisy.
The second type of "white left" are the ones deserving of our sympathy. They have too much contact with the first type of "white left", absorbed too much of what they heard or saw of the opinions expressed by the former, and allowed themselves to be ensnared in a mental trap. These types mostly consist of students or recent graduates, and also including many professors. To be quite frank, they lack social experience and have rather shallow understanding of real world problems, spending their days dreaming about "world peace, equality for everyone" and other such empty slogans. That the highly educated people are particularly susceptible to behave this way is inseparable from the ideology of the current US education system. The culture of the US can be described as "self-loathing and self-neutering," (quoted from Pierce Brown, this guy is even a supporter of the Democratic party), with feelings of guilt towards minorities as a direct and undeniable result of US history. They are prone to being apologetic and willing to atone for the past, which at least is better than the behavior of the Japanese. But in the view of Asians like us, white people can apologize all you want, but this has little to do with us since we weren't the ones selling black slaves. Through the progress of the past several decades, white people discovered that this type of stance can effectively mitigate some of the points of tension with minorities while also propping themselves as being morally superior: "I lower my posture, discuss equality with you, shouldn't you be thankful of us considerate white people?" Thus, this type of "white left" happily engage in self brain-washing, eventually losing even their intelligence.
The characteristic of this second type of "white left" is to spend their days shouting slogans, but lack even basic understanding of real world problems. For example on the topic of refugees, they are like delicate flowers that has only seen the interiors of a sheltered green house, never experienced in person the problems that come with refugees, and therefore unable to understand the strong relationship between middle eastern refugees and terrorists. Their mind is filled only with empty lip service to equality and caring. Let them experience the problems first hand and they'll lose all perspective, as you can see that one Orlando shooting turned Florida red.
Within this group of "white left", the sub group that is the most peculiar are the feminists that support refugees. Middle Eastern Muslims as a group is culturally oppressive to women. Within this culture a man can have four wives, beat their wives and daughter at will, force women to cover themselves, and even honor killing - this is the very definition of systematic bias, which is far more evil than the behaviors of any one private person. Yet some how feminists are blind to this, isn't this an indication for bipolar disorder? Trump gets torn to pieces for cursing or talking about pussy grabbing, but these feminists suddenly become blind to real actions that harm women.
In my observation, some of the "white left" activists are not pretending to not know - they don't actually know. They can obsess over all of Trump's errors and follies but cannot see what is really happening from across the world. Show them the news and they turn into ostriches on reflex: "These are isolated incidents, the refugees we bring in are all good refugees".
This is what you call Naive.
Here is a very funny video:
https://twitter.com/michaelkeyes/status/795646500806258690
This young man is anti-Trump, pleading rhythmically and emotionally to the camera "Trump's whole family are immigrants, his wife is an immigrant, his parents are immigrants, does he want to chase his whole family out of the US?" I recommend that everyone go have a listen, such a lofty display of proud indignation.
The host just said one thing "When they came over they were legal".
The young man immediately lost his mental footing: "Ok... You're saying... just because....." and then changed the subject.
As you can see, many "white left" repeat the mantra that Trump is against immigrants, but can't even distinguish the difference between legal and illegal immigration. This is what you call Naive.
Another example is what a different poster wrote previously: they talk about conservation and environmental protection, but in reality they leave their lights and air conditioning on 24 hours a day, with windows open and oblivious that there is anything wrong. The most interesting example is the one experience I had with a environmental protection group - essentially they would come to your house and change your light bulbs to energy saving ones, and add water saving chokes on your faucets, all for free. I thought this was a good idea, it's rare for the US to become aware like this. But what's the result? A black uncle [editor note: yes Chinese people can be racist, but race is being used descriptively here] came to my house for about half a hour, all the while his car was idling in front of the house. I just about lost my mind.
Therefore, the slogans that hang on the mouths of many "white left" are in reality only for superficial appearances. I don't really care whether they succeed or fail, but don't they feel a sense of shame when they use their empty slogans to morally kidnap other people? Perhaps it's true that many people believe themselves to be faultless, spending their whole lives without seeing the outside world, comforted with a deep sense of self-trust that the US is the beacon of liberty and democracy. It's the world that's wrong, not them. This is what you call Naive.
Another example on the difference between the two types of "white left" is their treatment of the war in the middle east. The first type of "white left" was very clear and went in pursuit of their interests in oil and maintaining the US sphere of influence. But the second type believed that they went there to save the people in the middle east and to deliver them from their plight. They can't help but get involved, because they are the only ones that can save the middle east. When you encounter this type of people and discuss with them the historical mess between the US and the middle east, their eyes glaze over. They would rather believe that the only reason ISIS is attacking the US is because Trump promoting anti-Muslim sentiment. This is what you call Naive.
During this past US election, what upset me the most is that Hillary's team constructed a narrative that Trump's supporters are uneducated, and so many people bought into this. The purpose of higher education is to foster independent thought, the ability to accept new facts, and tolerance to different ideas. Calling people who you disagree with derogatory names, calling them uneducated, uncultured, being smug about your degree, yet oblivious to the basic needs of people and society, how can these people call themselves elites? This is has done serious damage to the reputations of the famous colleges and universities of the US, and I am deeply saddened by this.
I'll end by quoting Joseph Lau: [Editor Note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lau]
Being physical small or weak, or ignorant are not obstacles to surviving, arrogance is.
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