Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
“The White Left”: Chinese Internet Gets It
I came across this article the other day by Chinese scholar Zhang ChenChen about the 白左: “Bai Zuo” or “White Left.” She begins:
If you look at any thread about Trump, Islam or immigration on a Chinese social media platform these days, it’s impossible to avoid encountering the term baizuo (白左), or literally, the ‘white left’. It first emerged about two years ago, and yet has quickly become one of the most popular derogatory descriptions for Chinese netizens to discredit their opponents in online debates.
And what is the Bai Zuo?
Although the emphasis varies, baizuo is used generally to describe those who “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”.
Says it all, eh? I think it’s pretty funny that it’s not the western left, but the white left. America’s Bai Zuo doesn’t yet realize that its Pets of Color don’t subscribe to their religion of EqualismAndDiversity™. The international Bai Zuo tell themselves that the New Davos Man Xi Jinping is the savior of globalism, when in reality China is by far the most protectionist major economy in the world and the population rejects and resents the Western progressive project. (They have their own sort of similar project, but that’s another discussion.)
Another nugget that will have you nodding knowingly:
The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu (圣母) – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
The Chinese likewise reject western feminism and are ok with the patriarchy. This is, of course, highly problematic. The White Left wistfully talks about the rise of China and emerging markets. They never seem to tie that “rise” to the fact that these rising societies have masses of males with momentum in their sails. Constrained female sexuality equals civilizational expansionist energy from men. A society feeling its oats isn’t going to hear this women’s lib talk from the White Soy Latte Left. Europe seems gone in this respect. America is debatable. (See: Trumpening, The.)
China has North Koreans in the northeast, Africans and Vietnamese in the south, but mass illegal immigration is a fairly minor issue for most Chinese. They have jihadis in the west, but that problem is contained there. So why such antipathy towards the Bai Zuo when the vast majority of Chinese don’t deal with the consequences of having the Bai Zuo in power?
Only a fraction of the arguments can be considered interests-based, and they are made by established and newly arrived overseas Chinese in Europe and North America. Many students and job-seekers in Europe, for example, argue that it is simply unfair that they “have to work so hard to stay, whereas these refugees can simply come and claim asylum”. More or less established Chinese immigrants in the United States often make the case that affirmative action policies put Chinese-Americans in a disadvantageous position, and “Chinese should not pay the price for the wrongs white Americans have done”.
Makes sense to me. Chinese students have to get up close and personal with the screeching Marxists on campus and then face the tyranny of HR when they get a job.
Zhang, who has a career in western academia, seems to have somewhat bought into the Bai Zuo worldview herself, so you have to read between the lines in her article. One big mistake she makes is this:
Ultimately, the more the ‘white left’ – whatever it means – represent the fatal weakness of democracy, the more institutional and normative security the Chinese regime enjoys. The grassroots campaign against the ‘white left’ thus echoes the officially-sanctioned campaign against ‘universal values’, providing a negative evidence for the superiority of the Chinese self.
If universal values are the rule of law, character content-over-color-style race relations, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, things that any individual in any time in any place should have; then this part of the critique of the White Left is backwards. They are the ones destroying our society based on those universal values. If these values are associated with the white left in the Chinese discourse, then add this slander of goodness to the never ending list of harm leftist progressivism has done.
The Chinese have a sometimes intense and unhealthy love/hate relationship with white people (seen it too much in my few years living in China to deny it). I think that may explain why it’s the white left that is so scorned in parts of the Chinese internet, but it’s not everything. Professor Zhang notes:
In an academic-style essay that was retweeted more than 7000 times on Weibo, a user named ‘fantasy lover Mr. Liu’ ‘reviewed’ European philosophy from Voltaire and Marx to Adorno and Foucault, concluding that the ‘white left’ as a ‘spiritual epidemic’ is on its way to self-destruction. He then stated that Trump’s win was only “a small victory over this spiritual epidemic of humankind”, but “western civilization is still far from its self-redemption”.
It’s not simply racial, but I can see how understanding the pathological altruism and ethnomasochism found across the West — logical outgrowths of leftist progressivism — would lead non-whites in non-white countries to conclude that it is. So when you hear that Chinese authorities are trying to stop the spread of Western values and ideas, or are cracking down on NGOs — overwhelmingly staffed and run by Bai Zuos – just consider that they might have a point. It’s not necessarily those things themselves they are against, but the corrupted Bai Zuo version of them.
Published in Politics
“White Left” sounds a lot like a term John Derbyshire uses in his podcasts: “goodwhites”.
His wife is Chinese…
Cui bono? From Open Democracy (so fwiw):
Iow, the White Left is seen as a bunch a tree hugging hippy splittists who support democracy in China and independence for Tibet and individual freedoms in Xingjiang. I can see why the CPC would be against all this, but I don’t quite understand why the Western Right would be. What am I missing?
More likely a take off on gutmensch.
I think it’s beyond that. They see the genderless bathrooms, the racial quotas in hiring, the aggressive feminism etc as part of the package as well.
Perhaps, Chris. Though I’m cynical enough to think that if Feminism suddenly discovered One China the tone of online opinion about Baizuo would undergo a radical change.
May explain why it is so hard to get into the Ivy League if you are Asian.
I don’t quite understand, can you elaborate?
The positions baizuo take on things that essentially boil down to the individual vs the collective are essentially antithetical to the PRC’s Govt’s wrt how it deals with Chinese individuals and China’s minorities. So it’s understandable why they allow (on their very restricted internet) criticism of baizuo, and possibly even fund it.
If baizuo took positions that elevated the collective over the individual, I think the PRC’s response to them, and consequently what happened on the Chinese internet, would be different. Because then their positions would intellectually support the thinking behind the way the CMP keeps its grip on power by dealing in a certain way with Chinese individuals and China’s minorities.
Ah, I see what you mean. I suppose that’s possible!
Chinese people in China see a lot of our genderless bathrooms? They see our aggressive feminism?
Or do they actually not see much of it, but know that mocking other guys’ effeminacy (whether it really exists or not) makes for a good taunt? Have you wondered whether deep insight into the West’s problems might not be what they have, but mostly taunting that happens to match your insights into the West’s problems?
Civilizational confidence is good. People (not just men) going about their business rather than getting sidetracked by gender politics is good. But the sentence in between, “Constrained female sexuality = civilizational expansionist energy from men,” doesn’t square with the fact that plenty of backward societies have constrained female sexuality and never seemed to rise any further while doing so. I consider chastity good, but if that equality were true, all people would have to do to thrive would be to “put women in their place”, and I doubt it’s that simple, either at a personal or societal level.
Now it is true that men will typically do a lot to gain access to women’s, er, hotboxes if they have to. Is that all you’re getting at? If so, that requires more than just constraints on female sexuality, but a certain power for women to reject sexual advances, a power women don’t always have in societies where their sexuality is too constrained.
Not surprising at all. Nice article.
I see shrieking lefties on campus getting considered normal rather than hyper emo wrist slashing tire slashing worshipers of numerous oddities immensely foreign to me. It’s boggled my mind for decades and getting worse, so much worse in fact we got a massive refutation in our president.
It should be important important to point out that the Chinese don’t believe that all countries are equal and should be treated as equal by China. Small countries need to band together and treat with China as a group. Being a great country means that China has no need to treat each sovereign nation as its equal. Which means a new world with America more in the back ground and China more assertive will not be a nice place for “minor powers”.
@zafar. I seek clarification. Do you mean that if the right opposed what the Chinese calls “White Left” that we would then also be in opposition to the Chinese that believe in democracy and independence for conquered nations inside of China? Or do you mean that it is not possible for Western Conservatives to support Chinese democracy activists and at the same time oppose the corrosive impact of radical feminism, to take one example, on our own culture?
I would add here that Russia does something similar basically saying that if you liberalize Russian government and have free elections and real civil rights and protections for citizens then you must have unisex toilets, gay marriage and transgender movements. They do this as tactic to oppose all democracy movements in Russia. It seems to me that the Chinese are doing something very similar here.
Brian, if you support democracy and individual rights in China then you support at least some of the things that the White Left does. It is precisely to discredit that support – in fact to make these issues seem the obsessions of marginal effete elites – that this baizuo label is being used the way it is. China does not have a problem with too many (if any) mixed gender toilets, it has a problem with the suppression of individual rights and the treatment of (ethnic and religious and political) minorities. We should keep our eyes on the ball.
Yes I’ve wondered that and did so in the post. It’s a little of both, taunting and insight. You might be surprised at how much interest and understanding there is of American society and politics in China.
I think you mean “repressed” which is not quite the same as “constrained.” I’m talking about community enforced boundaries, not societal suppression. Think Victorian England VS. Sharia.
Speaking of which, Mr. Derbyshire relates that his wife compared contemporary leftist behavior to the Cultural Revolution, which she experienced at first hand.
I think this is in error. Remember, through most of the Obama administration, many prominent leftists praised China and the party’s ability to “get things done” without messy pluralism (they fantasized that Obama would have similar power and all would be well.) In fact, there is very little from the White Left about Tibet, democracy in China, etc. So evidence suggests that it is not simply a matter of opposing China. The attitude is at its heart cultural.
Thomas Friedman comes to mind.
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com
More than in South Korea?
No, I think I meant something else, a word I almost said, but didn’t: virtue. Virtue is more than constraint, it is also power.
I don’t know how much men are aware of this, but women who are only meek and mild have difficulty preserving their chastity unless their lives are also very sheltered. Tocqueville observed this, and observed, when he visited America, that American women’s chastity was superior to French women’s because American women were wilier and more spirited. American women felt a little freer to defy men, a freedom to defy which actually resulted in more virtue.* Identifying virtue with constraint would quash this defiance, resulting in less virtue.
Obviously, defiance taken to excess clearly does not result in improved virtue. But constraint by itself does not tell you whether you’re only constraining excess.
__________________________
* Christianity, despite its emphasis on humility and obedience, has always left open the possibility of defiance – not defiance of God, but that obedience to God may require defiance of social norms, including for women. After all, Christians believe their Savior had a completely virtuous birth, despite its defiance of social norms (the implausible claim that unwed pregnancy would be God’s will, and that any pregnant woman should ever be believed if she protested she were still a virgin).
Right got it about China. I was wondering exactly what you meant and I think you clarified that as well. We are in agreement!
Incredible and insightful! Well written in deed. I hope you don’t mind me incorporating this insight into my teaching and speaking on virtue in a Christian context. Brilliant!
I don’t mind a bit! Though credit should go to Tocqueville, Book 3 of Democracy in America, chapters VIII through XII.
Contemporary leftist behavior is indeed a version of the Cultural Revolution, albeit not yet officially sanctioned from Washington. People don’t realize how much worse this would be if Hiliary had been elected POTUS.
Some of the credit but you also deserve some of the credit too! There is enough to go around. It is not like this idea is new to me it is just that I said it with clarity and exceptions that weakened the point. This was written in a way that made things clearer for me and I think it will make an impact on people.
I 百度-ed the term 白左 and the first three things I clicked on talked about how the American left talks about equality and gets obsessed with immigrant rights but fails to be true Marxists, so I’m gonna go with yeah, probably some CCP-sponsored comments thrown in among any possible “grassroots” critique of the Western left.
“Pathological altruism”. “Ethnomasochism”. Perfect!! Great post, thanks!
@drlorentz and @doctorrobert re comments 17 and 24.- For a while now, the student and faculty intolerance at Harvard, Berkeley, Brandeis, Rutgers etc., and especially the violence at Middlebury College and Berkeley, has reminded me of the violence that Mao’s Red Guard inflicted on people, including academics, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. We have zealous ideologue faculty abusing their positions by using them to fill impressionable 18 year-old’s heads with agitprop, and encouraging them to see any disagreement as evil and heretical, or an Orwellian thought crime. A self-described ‘progressive’ professor at Evergreen College was on Tucker Carlson and told Tucker that he’s a dedicated progressive who is alarmed at what the Left is becoming. Ironically, these leftist fascist students are the Frankenstein monster created by ‘progressive’ professors.
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/student-mob-calls-for-firing-shrieks-at-professor-for-objecting-to-no-whites-day-of-absence/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7s8IAOuumQ&feature=youtu.be
The links above was provided in this post: http://ricochet.com/433047/this-is-an-interesting-case-of-media-bias/comment-page-2/#comments
Here is the professor talking to Tucker Carlson- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j9nFced_eo
This is a very interesting post and discussion. One thing we know is that the Chinese government tries to influence their people in sophisticated ways.
It is interesting that the white left’s worldview maybe threatening to the CCP, when it often appears that Davos Man wants to steer the West more toward the Chinese model.
I had seen the original video but not the interview. During the bratty-student-behavior video this professor was way too polite to these animals. This only emboldens them.
The consolation here is that they are now eating their own. One can hope that this will get the left to recognize the danger of allowing the radical fringe to run wild. The darker side is that the leftist leadership might co-opt these useful idiots and employ them as instruments of power, much as Mao did with the Red Guards.