Are Your Politics Unintentionally Racist?
If you only speak one language, chances are, they are
The languages we speak are huge defining factors in how we see the world, so it should not be a surprise that not understanding a certain language can prevent us from understanding the cultures and worldviews of people in different parts of the world.
Using Chinese as an example, the language naturally emphasizes certain concepts — those which reflect certain aspects of the culture which have gained special importance over centuries of cultural evolution.
Words related to food and eating, for example, appear in various contexts outside of those literally related to food. When you feel shocked, you eat shock (吃惊); when you lose money, you eat a loss (吃亏) . For anyone who has been to China, you know that food is a huge part of their culture, and something Chinese people are very proud of. Each province, let alone city or town, has its own culinary specialties, and all holidays and celebrations revolve around food.
Similarly, the theme of family appears in many contexts in the Chinese language, emphasize the Confucian value of filial piety, which is deep-rooted in China culture. The word for home and family are synonymous：家, because in Chinese culture, home is where family is. The character for “good”,好, is composed of two components (or “radicals”): woman, and child, representing the belief that the most pure form of “goodness” is the love between a mother and her child.
Although it might not be quite right to say that these cultural priorities are “biases”, if nothing else, they can tell us that the language(s) we speak has a huge influence on the way we think.
When those of us who were brought up with a certain language, then, see a person or group of people who speak a different language acting in a certain way, we might question it, or judge them for doing things in a way differently from the way we would do it.
For this reason, I believe it’s extremely important to be aware of the fact that our ability to comprehend the world is directly proportional to our ability to understand the languages of the people in it; or in other words, the sheer number of languages in the world which we don’t — and likely, will never — know, should make us aware of how much we don’t know about our world, and then leave space in our minds for learning new things.
Many Americans these days, I feel, have a tendency to look at the world through a very rigid lens, as if people doing things differently is objectively wrong, rather than merely different. This tendency becomes problematic when we then try to impose our way of doing things on those other people. We are seeing this in the political dialogue between countries these days, especially with China.
If the Chinese language is extremely different from ours, and as a result causes people to think in a different way than we do — from the absolute most fundamental concepts which we use to try to comprehend the world around us— then it’s no surprise why their political systems would be different from ours too. Calling a certain political system “bad”, therefore, is equivalent to saying that a certain language is objectively inferior to ours. Now, surely, there are people that may think in such a way, and these people would be labeled racists, or bigots; but most of the people who assume inferiority of China’s political system are not ill-intended. Rather, we’ve mentally disconnected the concepts of culture and language, with the concepts of politics and governance. Therefore, we have made it possible to believe that the Chinese government is bad without believing that we are saying anything discriminatory about the people or culture which composes said government.
Many of those same people will argue that: “I have no problem with the Chinese people, but their government is evil,” neglecting the fact that there is effectively no difference between the two. Even if we were to somehow refute the significance of the fact that the vast majority of Chinese people support their government and that the country’s main political party consists of tens of millions of everyday citizens and not only those in government… would it not be fair to say that the Chinese government is composed of Chinese people, and therefore at least represents Chinese culture and language to the extent that those Chinese people who compose the government speak that language and practice that culture?
By now, I think we should be starting to make the conclusion that the government and culture of a country are inextricably linked, and that the reason we have come to believe the contrary is that we do not speak the language which enables understanding of that culture. This incorrect belief then causes us to proclaim said government to be inferior, and in doing so, we are also implying the same about the culture. But the main point here — the factor which is creating the biggest mental block to tolerance and understanding — is the fact that we fail to recognize that our perception of the world is not complete, and instead of leaving space for new concepts to inform our worldview, we have chosen to impose our worldview on others as if their were objectively correct, rather than just different.
All human society is composed of individuals. Ideas in themselves are not good or bad. The way in which we should be assessing whether a government of a society is good or bad should not be how closely it resembles our own, but how well it is working for the people of that society. In the case of China, if we look past our biased news and media, and say… talk to a person from or who has lived in China, we may start to see that their government is, in fact, fulfilling that criteria.
How refreshing would it be to know that a country of more than a billion people is doing well and doesn’t need “saving”? Once we relieve ourselves from these uncalled-for obligations and focus on ourselves, we might just find the time, and inspiration, to learn a new language. 🙂
