Posted on 05/29/2017 8:53:29 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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.
So what does ‘white left’ mean in the Chinese context, and what’s behind the rise of its (negative) popularity? It might not be an easy task to define the term, for as a social media buzzword and very often an instrument for ad hominem attack, it could mean different things for different people. A thread on “why well-educated elites in the west are seen as naïve “white left” in China” on Zhihu, a question-and-answer website said to have a high percentage of active users who are professionals and intellectuals, might serve as a starting point
The question has received more than 400 answers from Zhihu users, which include some of the most representative perceptions of the 'white left'.
(Excerpt) Read more at opendemocracy.net ...
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”. <\b>
Even (nominally) Communist Chinese have more political and social sense than American and European Leftists, in other words.
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.
In short, while countries like China may have sunk their economies with failed state-run management in the past, the American and Western European Left is unique in preaching outright cultural and demographic suicide.
” white left” in Chinese carries many connotations - globalist, condescending, fake, hypocritical - and specifically, anti-China
Similarly, the point of the welfare state in Maoist countries is to keep people alive long enough to continue working the fields and factories. The point of the western Left's welfare state is to pay people so that they never have to work anywhere.
Curious, maybe China will be somewhere we can go when the situation here has become intolerable. Terrible choice, leave or do what we must to stay here.
It sounds like “white left” refers to the people who call for higher restrictions and higher taxes on the lives of everyone else, while enjoying their freedom and guarding their billions. The people who decry building walls, while building walls around themselves. The people who decry fossil fuels, while flying around in private jets.
It is almost the same as what I call “Lilly whites.”
It is natural to despise people who betray their own. Even conquerors who win great victories by the actions of traitors still despise traitors. Those who betray their own would betray anyone and are to be despised.
that read like poetry, good job
BTTT
Great tagline.
Well, I learned something new today.
That goes back to what I said was the main difference between Communist movements in developing countries and the contemporary Western Left.
Third World communist movements are mixed with nationalism and are (mostly failed) attempts to make those countries industrial, military, and geopolitical powers through state planning.
American and European Leftism is an ideology of national suicide - an active attempt to disempower Western nations through multiculturalism, open borders, a weak military, and a welfare state for the work-shy. It's an ideology of national or cultural treason, in other words. These differences don't seem to stop Western Leftists from supporting Third World socialists, or Third World Socialists from holding Western leftists in (deserved) contempt.
You know you’re a caricature when foreigners mock others based on YOUR stereotype.
baizou... useful word.
Sobering. Excellent analysis. But what is China today? Communist, but a capitalist economy run by communist generals for the nationalists of China itself? It’s workers are near slaves, but for who or what’s long term interest?
I'd say that from any reasonable definition, China is "Communist" in name only. Its public sector accounts for a lower fraction of its GDP than that of many European countries, and it has less of a welfare state than either the EU or the US. China is basically an authoritarian state with crony/state capitalism for the larger forms and a market system for smaller ones.
Regardless of what you call the Chinese system today, it seems that they are ascending while we are in decline, and our decline is mostly being driven by the people that they're calling "baizou."
From the article:
Apart from some anti-hegemonic sentiments, the connotations of ‘white left’ in the Chinese context clearly resemble terms such as ‘regressive liberals’ or ‘libtards’ in the United States. In a way the demonization of the ‘white left’ in Chinese social media may also reflect the resurgence of right-wing populism globally.
Keeping in mind the leftist orientation of the source website, what he calls "resurgence of right-wing populism generally" simply means the existence of common sense in many other cultures. Many Chinese (and people in other countries) simply can't comprehend why Americans and Europeans are so willing to commit national suicide through politically correct liberalism.
Funny. The most vocal, most effective opposition to the globalist antiwest, anti-capitalist socialist “white guilt left” are Poland, China (as here ), Romania, Hungary. .. Former communists. The US liberals European liberals are most anti freedom of all.
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