 |
| Source |
One of my favorite parts of the Chinese city is the propaganda which adorns all manner of spaces: big red banners with slogans written in yellow characters (“People have a responsibility to each other”), PSAs about the Chinese Dream on the mass transit TV system (“The Chinese Dream, my dream”), couplets posted above urinals reminding us what constitutes civilized bathroom behavior (“Come in a rush, leave with a flush”), cartoons painted on the side of a staircase warning about the dangers of quack doctors and cults…
One poster which recently caught my eye listed the “socialist core values,” a
set of twelve abstract nouns which has been disseminated campaign-style since
2012. Chinese students are required to memorize them, the Hunan provincial government has organized song-and-dance routines about them,
and President Xi has urged authorities to “make them all-pervasive, like the
air.” They are: prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity, and friendship.
That all
sounds fine. President Xi, or whoever came up with this list, is perhaps
rightly concerned about China’s moral landscape, wherein youngsters dream of being brainwashed at American universities, giggle at Chuck Lorre's stupid jokes, and watch livestreams of girls lasciviously eating bananas. Nevertheless, one senses that President Xi hasn’t read his Joseph Nye when he says things like, “Core socialist values are the soul
of cultural soft power. Basically, the soft power of a nation depends on the
vitality, cohesive force, and charisma of its core values.” National leaders
can’t create soft power by fiat.
Anyway,
as I read this poster, I got to thinking: what would be the contents of a
list of American core values? The word liberty immediately sprang to mind. China’s
leaders are rightfully envious of the unflappability of the American belief in
liberty. From the reddest-necked to the most bled-hearted, you’d be
hard-pressed to find an American who does not adhere to the creed of liberty. I
can just imagine the head of SAPPRFT lamenting, “Their culture workers don’t even need
guidance to produce pieces which reaffirm their official national value!
They just do it automatically! How is their Propaganda Department so good at
this!” What’s
more, Americans have the temerity to assert that liberty is the solution to
what ails any and every human society.
The Chinese Communist Party may have the gall to claim that their legitimacy derives from the choice of the people and the choice of history, but we don’t hear much anymore
about the laws of dialectical materialism necessitating the eventual advent of
global communism.
OK, so
liberty, I thought to myself, but what else? At present, it seems there is
little else Americans of all political tribes might agree on. I don’t need to
spell that out for Americans readers. But what if we looked to the creed at the
core of our childhood indoctrination, the Pledge of Allegiance? “One nation,
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” So that’s: God, unity,
liberty, justice. 23% of Americans don't affiliate with any religion. Unity? I guess we’re all still calling ourselves Americans and
more-or-less participating in or submitting to a system of government under the
same constitution. But anything more might be pushing it. As for justice, to
liberals it means securing an ever-expanding legal and social recognition that
all lives matter, while for conservatives it means locking up Hillary. Oh, but
let’s not forget about the pursuit of happiness! The American Dream. Work hard, get what
you want. I think almost all Americans agree on equality of opportunity; however, most liberals would argue that American meritocracy is a myth, while most conservatives would regard that as heresy, so it's questionable whether this counts as a shared value, either.
Maybe there is a downside to having a freewheeling marketplace of ideas in an age in
which the internet has enabled everyone to find their own people and ignore the
rest. Does that mean the government should choose an official set of core
values for us and disseminate it through a vast information-control apparatus?
No. America’s soft power derives from the fact that the government doesn’t
think it can create soft power, though it does wield it, through the State
Department, the various National Endowments, etc.—or at least it did before Trump. Also, I suspect that the atmosphere of the propaganda-laden state is
rather unpleasant for those who live in it, because nobody likes being coerced
into hypocrisy.
But
Americans perhaps ought to consider who we are. People who believe in liberty,
justice, fair play, common decency, neighborliness, baseball, the flag,
supporting our troops, and mom’s apple pie? The descendants of mass murderers
and slave owners who have unsuccessfully sought to assuage our collective guilt by plowing through an ever-more-exotic list of misappropriated spiritual practices until at
long last we have come to ayahuasca? "White, Christian America"? Or the
walking dead, who, having broken bad long ago, are just kind of waiting for
society to collapse so we can live in Fallout?
So sure, Americans, chuckle at the idea that a government thinks it can teach its people values. Chuckle at the inclusion of "democracy" in China's list. But consider whether your own society really stands for something, and if so, what.
