This spring, I started writing about our elite problem: In 2020, the costs of globalization became very obvious & yet we reacted by avoiding criticism of the very elites that lead the propaganda of globalization & reap most of its rewards. We have refused so far even in comedy to equate cosmopolitan with super-spreader. I argued that this is quite a show of faith on our part—so I find it very strange that we do not take more pride in our obedience to our elites. Perhaps that is partly because our elites are rather hysterical & ever more eager to use the police power of the state, primarily wielded by corporations & social media tech corporations, against dissenters. But the fact itself that ordinary Americans now have to be understood as dissenters attracts attention to the overall obedience to institutions that are nakedly despotic. Everyone who wants to talk politics now knows there is much to be silent about, in fear, which was ordinarily said or done just a few years back. This silence was growing before the pandemic, but that was the first occasion for a far-reaching despotism, concealed only by the sentimental claim that the imperative of health demanded censorship. For enforcement, however, we had to rely on the weakness of any opposition to liberalism, or the inability to associate for political purposes. There are various ways to justify or excuse the apolitical cowardice of the times, but perhaps the most important one is that silence which is permeated by guilt—silence, not indignation, would be the proper answer to a moralistic despotism, according to this argument, because we have failed to achieve Progress: Freedom as we used to understand it was only a pretense that allowed injustice to thrive--the plague especially, but many other things besides, gives evidence that we deserve our suffering. The Progressive elites are not the problem—the reluctant, not to say reactionary, people—that's the problem.
Globalization means that all ways of life will eventually coincide, so it is of special concern to us to see in what ways America & China are growing alike. Censorship & the imposition in America of a class system based on conformism to elite opinion are obvious resemblances, to the people on the receiving end of the police power of the state. Those who inflict this despotism aren't nearly as open, nor perhaps as clear-eyed as those who incur it. But before all this, the great hope was that China was becoming like America, capitalist & accordingly wealthy. It's hard to say to what extent that hope was fulfilled or dashed, partly because globalization has done next to nothing to solve the problem of language, a barrier between the nations of the world, as serious now as ever; accordingly, we know very little about what happens in China, most of it from either the Chinese state or liberal elites, or the international institutions where the two meet. What we do know is that the expectations of trans-political friendship that animated post-Cold War American politics have been dashed. China is isolating itself from America. Because of China, there is no more internet—we have national intranets instead in more & more parts of the world. America & China most resemble then in the case of technological corporations & the enormous wealth they create, including a new class of oligarchs. This is the other reason it's hard to say whether globalization is proving a success or failure—China is imitating America very successfully in technology & perhaps surpassing it, too. Even as enemies, the two are strangely alike. Perhaps globalization is still advancing, but toward a state its votaries would neither recognize nor like.
China in 2020 emerged as the only power that controlled the epidemic, apparently by its traditional combination of ruthlessness & administration. The tyranny proved more than equal to the crisis, only to then be compared with America & the European Union, later India, each in turn a catastrophe. By use of new technologies, China protected not only its economy, but its reputation—the regime is as strong as before, if not stronger, with Chinese people as well as internationally. It may at first seem remarkable that it is so little hated when it has suffered least by an evil it inflicted on the rest of the world—but that is easily explained by the following consideration: China is globalization's greatest achievement & all love that which they have made. Inasmuch as our elites are for globalization, they cannot tolerate a political opposition to China, even if China becomes stronger than the corporations & international organizations that have long tried to steer China to liberalism. Further, the people who suffered most because of the epidemic were either enemies of liberal elites or at any rate useless to them, so there has been little criticism among elites of the policies that inflicted all this loss of property. As for the loss of life that must follow much neglect, it apparently isn't even worth talking about, since it is easily reduced to more calls for socialized medicine. A similar line of argument applies to failures in education. In everything except success in government, liberal elites thrived in 2020, & then they also won the American elections; further, China got the government problem right in turn, so on the whole, globalization continues apace among elites.
The political consequences of the epidemic don’t just favor China & the elites that long for a new public victory or a new form of propaganda for globalization, they also mean America is likelier to imitate China than the other way around. Despotism advanced in a thousand ways in 2020, usually in the name of equality, which reminds us that China is the global leader in equality, in the sense that everyone is subject to despotism & it is universally understood that wealth or security depend on the same authority for all. The imposition of nearly universal arrest on populations in Europe & America has met with certain difficulties—many protested, though few disobeyed; there was no comparable trouble in China. Perhaps the Chinese authorities would say that their cruelty, concealed piously by liberal elites, was a necessity of gov’t & accordingly restricted, whereas the cruelties practiced by liberal elites were not necessary & they were shockingly prolonged, repeated, & are in some cases still in force today. Consensus, if not legitimacy, accordingly seems much stronger in China than elsewhere. That absence of scandal in China is further evidence of equality: Even billionaires or celebrities in China are chained in the same way as everyone else, so there is no public dissent. To the contrary, mobs themselves are instruments of the tyranny. This is the opposite of what liberalism fought for in recent centuries, but that might be what Progress requires now. Despotism, not freedom, is undoubtedly the politics of liberal elites.
Nor is this a matter of ideology, or mere words. For the first time in modern politics, tyranny looks as capable of technological advance & economic success as democracy—or perhaps more so. Democratic or liberal regimes have until now always been wealthier than pre-modern & therefore undemocratic, illiberal regimes. Europe & then America also dominated the world because their populations grew first & fast in modern times, increasingly free of hunger & disease. Commerce & technology have hitherto favored liberalism, which is the teaching that justified & to some extent oriented such enterprises. They also favored democracy, which was always implied in liberalism’s individualism, as well as in liberalism’s political opposition to aristocratic & priestly authorities. This is not true anymore. In its moment of Cold War victory, liberalism was already busy helping China become wealthy & more dangerous than anything liberalism has yet faced—its population is much greater than Europe & America’s combined, nor does its traditional weakness in administering a vast empire seem acute, given the power of modern technology & the fact that America has removed any enemies China might have had.
It seems the epidemic has been stopped by a new technology in America &, more slowly, in Europe, the mRNA vaccine. Here, Americans still have an advantage—comparatively, Chinese vaccines seem ineffective & primitive. But they might imitate & perhaps improve quickly in that domain, too: After all, Wuhan housed labs where American money & gov’t interest were involved in very dangerous research conducted by Chinese institutions. Vaccine technology comes from the same source as biological warfare. The pandemic was both. We do not have as yet evidence that we have or are developing technologies the Chinese will be unable to steal, imitate, or develop, perhaps with improvements, for themselves. Our elites certainly have no confidence in facing up to China. Inability & unwillingness both played their part in the deluded & cowardly treatment of the epidemic, which led not to a split between China & the other powers, but political splits within democracies, once elites decided to accuse their populations of ignorance & racism. There is always someone to blame in politics & it is always instructive to see who can offend greatly without incurring blame. In all these ways, therefore, China now shows both what liberal elites long for & their political failure.
The first part of the series is available here, the next, dealing with the opposition between politics & technology, will be available soon, but only to paying subscribers.
From Joseph Cheng, Hong Kong activist:
"Mr. Cheng believes Christians' affinity for activism is natural. 'You are ready to suffer in this life, and you seek a much more meaningful afterlife,' he says. That contrasts with an attitude sometimes found in Hong Kong: ' "Keep your head low, just concentrate on making money, don't bother with other things. Avoid politics, that'll only get you in trouble." The Christians, by their natural values, have a tendency to downgrade worldy goods at least a bit.'"
It seems to me that attitude is certainly the problem with the rest of China too... and in some ways, the rest of the world
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-christian-heart-of-hong-kong-activism-11625783689