Einstein on china

[LAOLONG]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/einsteins-travel-diaries-reveal-shocking-xenophobia

[Marblehead]

But consider that he likely was brainwashed by European governments' propaganda trying to justify their raping and pillaging China at the time.  I doubt Einstein ever visited China or interacted with educated people from China.

 

[wandelaar]

https://qz.com/1305236/chinese-internet-users-are-surprisingly-sympathetic-to-einsteins-racist-remarks/

 

Einstein was there.

[silent thunder]

a human, from a place, with a culture... expresses some xenophobic tendencies about other humans from other places with vastly different cultures?

 

staggering!  shocking! 

[thelerner]

Sadly, such racism was a norm, generally on all sides, in the early 1900's.  The diary is from the 1920's.  Young Einstein was a man of his time, a genius, ambitious.  As a human being, Einstein grew as he aged.  I don't think he'd write the same thing in his 40's or 50's.  His later writings on humanity and pacifism were excellent and showed this evolution. 

 

ie

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
 

Albert Einstein

 

 

[dawei]

Try to contrast the immanent scientist view with another immanent philosopher's view... Bertrand Russell... his time in china is quite revealing:

 

http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Bertrand Russell/The Problem of China.pdf

 

And then consider the scientist:

 

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom

 

Einstein was and should be revered for his work... but I understand his views on other cultures... he didn't get it, like some others did.

[Nungali]

Mhe .... some people are xenophobes .  I recently found out I am a xenophile .... that knowledge put a lot of my personal  'life's mysteries'   *  into perspective ! 

 

 

*  "Why are you  like that ? "

 

 

'Xotic' people, cultures, places, things out of the 'usual' ....  love em !    and dont actually feel threatened by them at all .

[wandelaar]

Is it OK to not like ones own culture? And if so, why shouldn't the same thing be allowed concerning the culture of others? It looks like anti-racism in its politically correct form is now becoming a form of racism itself. Liking ones own culture is considered suspect, and disliking the culture of others is considered racist and xenophobic. We as individual human beings according to PC-doctrine are no longer allowed to form our own preferences concerning cultures, but our ethnic group determines what we are allowed to like or dislike.  

 

I find more common sense in some of the posts on the Chinese internet:

 

Quote

Many in China are saying the physicist’s remarks match their own impressions of what China must have been like in the early 20th century—when the country was in a transition period. It had just experienced a revolution to overthrow the last emperor of the Qing dynasty.

 

“I don’t think these are racist comments or humiliating descriptions,” wrote Siguan Xuantang on Weibo. “It’s more like a description of facts. Just look at the economic status, education, and hygiene conditions, which most of the common people wouldn’t care that much about because they didn’t have the conditions… He described them as obtuse and blunt but he also said people were industrious.”

 

Some noted Einstein’s descriptions are a lot like those of the famous Chinese writer Lu Xun, whose short stories depicted people’s suffering as they experienced the radical social changes of that time. “They are observant descriptions, just like Lu Xun, it was a criticism,” wrote Mingde Zhiying.

 

Another asked, “Do we treat people’s criticism differently just because Lu Xun was Chinese while Einstein was a foreigner?”

 

Not that I like everything that Einstein wrote, but some of the quotes from his diaries are just descriptions of what he saw. And as such they might very well be correct for the China that he visited.

[de_paradise]

 

 

 

dat

Edited June 19, 2018 by de_paradise

[dawei]

On 6/15/2018 at 1:05 AM, wandelaar said:

Is it OK to not like ones own culture? And if so, why shouldn't the same thing be allowed concerning the culture of others? It looks like anti-racism in its politically correct form is now becoming a form of racism itself. Liking ones own culture is considered suspect, and disliking the culture of others is considered racist and xenophobic. We as individual human beings according to PC-doctrine are no longer allowed to form our own preferences concerning cultures, but our ethnic group determines what we are allowed to like or dislike.  

 

I find more common sense in some of the posts on the Chinese internet:

 

 

Not that I like everything that Einstein wrote, but some of the quotes from his diaries are just descriptions of what he saw. And as such they might very well be correct for the China that he visited.

 

Agreed.  Chinese are generally very racist... to be blunt.  But one can come to a point of understanding it from a cultural and historical perspective... and some will never accept such information.