State-backed terrorism

[DoomYoshi]

This is most likely due to rice growing demanding a cohesive community wheras Western farmers can just grow whatever on their own land and not worry about their neighbors.

lolwat

Efficient rice growing demands that fields be kept flooded. This requires co-operation among the community to ensure that all fields get adequate water (i.e. my water drains to your field and not to a random hole).

Subsistence farming was the norm through Western culture for all the important years (i.e 1700 to the Gilded age).

That's all very well, except that only a minority of Chinese farmers grow rice.

And even in the case of rice farmers, I don't get why co-operation with other rice farmers would translate into a culture of subservience to authority.

I don't get it either, but it seems to be the case. Is there a better explanation for how this culture developed? Or, are you denying that aspect of the culture exists?

[mrswdk]

There is certainly a culture of submitting to one's family (parents, ancestors etc.), which is a Confucian thing.

People have traditionally also shown an outward deference towards the higher echelons of government, but given the way 99% of people here treat the law as an irrelevance you can make a good case for people not really respecting any of the state apparatus at all (save for the Standing Committee, who are held in genuinely high esteem). A lot of the 'you're so awesome I bow before you' is just a nicety of blowing smoke up other people's asses rather than a genuine display of worship.

In Imperial China, the mandate of heaven actually allowed for the overthrow of the emperor (because if you overthrew him then obviously heaven had chosen you as the new ruler), which in contrast to the Western notion of divine rule (which calls for unquestioning acceptance of the king) actually strikes me as less subservient.

[BigBallinStalin]

This is most likely due to rice growing demanding a cohesive community wheras Western farmers can just grow whatever on their own land and not worry about their neighbors.

lolwat

Efficient rice growing demands that fields be kept flooded. This requires co-operation among the community to ensure that all fields get adequate water (i.e. my water drains to your field and not to a random hole).

Subsistence farming was the norm through Western culture for all the important years (i.e 1700 to the Gilded age).

That's all very well, except that only a minority of Chinese farmers grow rice.

And even in the case of rice farmers, I don't get why co-operation with other rice farmers would translate into a culture of subservience to authority.

Holding all else constant, and assuming the rice farming thing is correct, then we should expect Chinese rice farmers to be more capable of overcoming collective action problems, so there'd be less tragedies of the commons, more productivity, more wealth, and less dependence on 'external' forms of governance. Solving a 'coordination game' among one's peers entails acquiring a form of governance by one's peers. This is essentially self-government, which requires much independent action. Thus, a higher likelihood of subservience doesn't follow.

Besides, 天高皇帝远 FTW.

[mrswdk]

Besides, 天高皇帝远 FTW.

FREEEEEDOM!!!!!