Interesting Tidbit: The Great Firewall
Feb. 4th, 2008 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andverygingerGreat Firewall of China Faces Online Rebels.
From the article:
Very interesting, considering my own experiences with blocking LiveJournal and others. You know what I think? I think people in China should be taught to read English, and handed a copy of The Rights of Man. They'll discover that they're not free. As Lee pointed out in his blog, in many ways, you are left alone to make your own choices: drink at any age, smoke, drive like bats out of hell. But there are two different rule books at work here -- one for the ex-pats, and one for the Chinese. For the Chinese, the restrictions don't seem to be physical ones as much as mental ones: Denying people the opportunity to develop the thought processes necessary to understand politics -- logic and reason -- as well as denying the opportunity to discuss topics, both political and mundane.
What happens to a society robbed of their ability to think for themselves -- robbed of logic, reason, politics?(1) In some ways, I understand that this is largely a fundamental difference between East and West: Logic, reason, and political interaction are the underpinnings of Western civilization, espoused by Plato and Aristotle; man cannot live without these, doesn't seem to form an individual identity without them. Confucianism and Taoism emphasize maintaining civility and social order; the individual is not lost, but quiet and almost subservient to the ruling parties. Hell, in most cases, the Chinese are more concerned about living their daily lives than who sits in the Chairman's office. I'm betting that the Chinese Communist Party loves it.
But cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong -- they're not exactly insulated against the invading West. The more Western ideologies begin to filter in to the consciousness, the more people begin to question authority, begin to think in terms we in the West are familiar with. In recent history you can see examples in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia -- countries within the Soviet Bloc who had greater ties with the West, more outspoken and more resistant to Communist rule. Looking to Russia, however, you see a country that was led from an almost feudal imperial system to a communist system with a tyrannical premier. In reality, not much changed. For generations, Russians were insulated and guarded against outside influence. But "perestroika" changed all that. People began to see economic and political change; they innately understood the political underpinnings behind it, culminating in the push for a republican form of government.
For a little while it seemed it might just work. But with ten years gone, what we're seeing now is far from the republic that was first expected. Slowly and surely, Putin has made shifts to censor opposition, political discourse, and even governmentalize "necessary and essential" production lines. Where is the outrage? Where is the political activism? As with during Communist rule, it has faded to the background. Why? Paine theorized that governments evolve as people become ready for them. In his eyes, republican government was its highest form. Drawing on this, my theory is that Russian political growth was stunted due to the failure of the Communist system. The isolation and strict controls over education and discourse squashed the political impulses to question government, save in a percentage of the population. They were provided for, from food, no matter how meager, to healthcare; they didn't have to think. It was all just there. People, as in China, are more concerned about living day-to-day; their realities haven't changed enough so that they feel they, themselves, can affect governmental change. If you follow Paine's logic, then, they simply weren't ready for a republic.
Is that what we're destined for? More and more, the political rhetoric includes government programs to provide for day-to-day needs -- minimum wage, welfare; tax refunds to people who don't even pay taxes. Some running for office would add universal healthcare to that list as well. But is this what government was created to do? To grant rights -- a right to income, a right to medical care -- rather than protect the Natural Rights we, as human beings, are born with? I think too many of us would be content to sit on our asses and let the government pay us, feed us, clothe us, medicate us -- things that we have the ability to do for ourselves. But we're lazy, or getting that way. We don't want to think about things, reason them out for ourselves. We hold up places like Europe, China as shining examples of "how society should work™": School is paid for, medical needs are met. In China -- and increasingly in Europe -- governments censor what is published, to lessen offense to identity groups or decrease political criticisms.
Is this what we want? Taxes for internet usage, and a renewal of the Fairness Doctrine? A Great Firewall of our own? A remedial form of government, after ascending to the heights? This is what awaits if we don't wake up and smell the Starbucks.(2)
______
(1) By politics, I mean the classical definition, encompassing more than simply government, but used to describe human interaction as a whole. From the American Heritage dictionary on dictionary.com: The often internally conflicting interrelationships among people in a society.
(2) Or I've been reading too many Honor Harrington books. Republic of Haven, anyone?
Wow. Okay. That went in a completely different direction than I planned...
From the article:
Li Xieheng, a blogger who wrote a program he named Gladder, meaning Great Ladder, [helps] users of the Firefox browser overcome Great Firewall restrictions. “It’s just like many people not feeling that China isn’t free. They’re not aware of it and feel things are natural here, but that’s just the power of media control,”[he said].
Very interesting, considering my own experiences with blocking LiveJournal and others. You know what I think? I think people in China should be taught to read English, and handed a copy of The Rights of Man. They'll discover that they're not free. As Lee pointed out in his blog, in many ways, you are left alone to make your own choices: drink at any age, smoke, drive like bats out of hell. But there are two different rule books at work here -- one for the ex-pats, and one for the Chinese. For the Chinese, the restrictions don't seem to be physical ones as much as mental ones: Denying people the opportunity to develop the thought processes necessary to understand politics -- logic and reason -- as well as denying the opportunity to discuss topics, both political and mundane.
What happens to a society robbed of their ability to think for themselves -- robbed of logic, reason, politics?(1) In some ways, I understand that this is largely a fundamental difference between East and West: Logic, reason, and political interaction are the underpinnings of Western civilization, espoused by Plato and Aristotle; man cannot live without these, doesn't seem to form an individual identity without them. Confucianism and Taoism emphasize maintaining civility and social order; the individual is not lost, but quiet and almost subservient to the ruling parties. Hell, in most cases, the Chinese are more concerned about living their daily lives than who sits in the Chairman's office. I'm betting that the Chinese Communist Party loves it.
But cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong -- they're not exactly insulated against the invading West. The more Western ideologies begin to filter in to the consciousness, the more people begin to question authority, begin to think in terms we in the West are familiar with. In recent history you can see examples in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia -- countries within the Soviet Bloc who had greater ties with the West, more outspoken and more resistant to Communist rule. Looking to Russia, however, you see a country that was led from an almost feudal imperial system to a communist system with a tyrannical premier. In reality, not much changed. For generations, Russians were insulated and guarded against outside influence. But "perestroika" changed all that. People began to see economic and political change; they innately understood the political underpinnings behind it, culminating in the push for a republican form of government.
For a little while it seemed it might just work. But with ten years gone, what we're seeing now is far from the republic that was first expected. Slowly and surely, Putin has made shifts to censor opposition, political discourse, and even governmentalize "necessary and essential" production lines. Where is the outrage? Where is the political activism? As with during Communist rule, it has faded to the background. Why? Paine theorized that governments evolve as people become ready for them. In his eyes, republican government was its highest form. Drawing on this, my theory is that Russian political growth was stunted due to the failure of the Communist system. The isolation and strict controls over education and discourse squashed the political impulses to question government, save in a percentage of the population. They were provided for, from food, no matter how meager, to healthcare; they didn't have to think. It was all just there. People, as in China, are more concerned about living day-to-day; their realities haven't changed enough so that they feel they, themselves, can affect governmental change. If you follow Paine's logic, then, they simply weren't ready for a republic.
Is that what we're destined for? More and more, the political rhetoric includes government programs to provide for day-to-day needs -- minimum wage, welfare; tax refunds to people who don't even pay taxes. Some running for office would add universal healthcare to that list as well. But is this what government was created to do? To grant rights -- a right to income, a right to medical care -- rather than protect the Natural Rights we, as human beings, are born with? I think too many of us would be content to sit on our asses and let the government pay us, feed us, clothe us, medicate us -- things that we have the ability to do for ourselves. But we're lazy, or getting that way. We don't want to think about things, reason them out for ourselves. We hold up places like Europe, China as shining examples of "how society should work™": School is paid for, medical needs are met. In China -- and increasingly in Europe -- governments censor what is published, to lessen offense to identity groups or decrease political criticisms.
Is this what we want? Taxes for internet usage, and a renewal of the Fairness Doctrine? A Great Firewall of our own? A remedial form of government, after ascending to the heights? This is what awaits if we don't wake up and smell the Starbucks.(2)
______
(1) By politics, I mean the classical definition, encompassing more than simply government, but used to describe human interaction as a whole. From the American Heritage dictionary on dictionary.com: The often internally conflicting interrelationships among people in a society.
(2) Or I've been reading too many Honor Harrington books. Republic of Haven, anyone?
Wow. Okay. That went in a completely different direction than I planned...