I love the opening of this comment, very poignant. I’m not convinced however that the conclusion follows from the setup. “The West” is more than just America. And America is very easy to condemn from a distance. Actually everything is easy to condemn from a distance.
There’s more to disagree with in the second half, but I’ll stick to my biggest gripe: America’s founding is steeped in moral principles, from its very founding document. In fact it is a two and a half century experiment on building a society around transparency, with the question of what is Right and what is Just at its core, and how does a society follow from that. And compared to where the world was when it was conceived, the experiment has certainly yielded vastly more results than your comment gives it credit for, by only looking at San Francisco today. It is evidence that the dichotomy between morality and building a society is a false one.
Meanwhile, tian an men square was in 1989, and the tension of “moral debt” is ever present, evidenced by its persistent censoring. When will it be paid off? And will the Chinese then say, “ok, we get it, that’s the price we had to pay”? Because if the ball suddenly drops and they rebel after all, as soon as censorship is lifted, you didn’t buy anything for that debt. So what then—keep taking out more moral debt? Forever?
China’s moral debt feels much like America’s national debt :)
Anyway like I said I loved the opening half of your comment though.
>America’s founding is steeped in moral principles, from its very founding document.
The same founding documents that insisted that all men were created equal, and that America was for, of, and by those men
but not THOSE men?
The same document that spent a significant quantity of it's rather short length handing out provisions to literal slaveowners?
Those same founders thought it would be better to split off the whole list of inalienable rights to a separate document that possibly could have failed to be adopted?
Nothing is more American than ignoring the history of what actually happened in favor of some totally rose tinted propaganda.
> 1989, and the tension of “moral debt” is ever present, evidenced by its persistent censoring.
IMO mistake to frame censorship as a debt, when it's domestic investment in stability, just like policing or infra, or epidemiologic pathogen control. You don't stop investing in essential nation building. Simply part of domestic infosphere management against unwanted influence, which essentially all countries have recognized PRC is prescient. As for 6/4 specifically, future gens will look back and realize 3-4 digit deaths less than rounding error in terms of Chinese history, having 1000s yrs of events/context sharpens evaluation. Like how Mao 70% good, 30% bad evaluation will turn to 90% good, 10% bad, because what's a few 10s of millions starved to death when his engineering projects and industrialization efforts actually ended 1000s of years of reoccurring famine / Malthusian traps. It will be recognize as "price of future", i.e. retrospectives tend to evaluate empires less on carnage (which is assumed) but on the frameworks they leave behind.
>“The West” is more than just America.
The west is generally built on the same template as America, extractive exploitation of not only itself but others, aka, built off surplus blood and treasure from colonialism, except society indoctrinated to believe such is natural order and just. Generations pass, surplus snowballs to buy more rights and freedom and enable more introspection, where colonialism can be acknowledged as stain, but on the margins. West rarely acknowledge that often the fine line between able to experiment vs subsist is funded by foreign extractive surplus. Skewing global balance sheet of energy and resources enable building and experimenting and bribing peripheries, liberalism = luxury experiments derivative product of colonial surplus. We see how fast it erodes when physical resources contracts.
Regardless, when looting from another, the geopolitical balance sheet no longer remains domestic, like America, it starts geopolitical debts that likely can't be default without eventual consequence. Mistreated countries have long memories, and being mistreated, humiliated if you will (and we're not talking bout only PRC), those memories do not tend to soften with time, and can really only repaid in catharsis. AKA there maybe a day when global south develops/catches up and coerce the west pay their debts. It could be 100s of years from now or current events could hint interregnum where power shifts and debts are soon collected.
There’s more to disagree with in the second half, but I’ll stick to my biggest gripe: America’s founding is steeped in moral principles, from its very founding document. In fact it is a two and a half century experiment on building a society around transparency, with the question of what is Right and what is Just at its core, and how does a society follow from that. And compared to where the world was when it was conceived, the experiment has certainly yielded vastly more results than your comment gives it credit for, by only looking at San Francisco today. It is evidence that the dichotomy between morality and building a society is a false one.
Meanwhile, tian an men square was in 1989, and the tension of “moral debt” is ever present, evidenced by its persistent censoring. When will it be paid off? And will the Chinese then say, “ok, we get it, that’s the price we had to pay”? Because if the ball suddenly drops and they rebel after all, as soon as censorship is lifted, you didn’t buy anything for that debt. So what then—keep taking out more moral debt? Forever?
China’s moral debt feels much like America’s national debt :)
Anyway like I said I loved the opening half of your comment though.