[600 words]
People keep giving me grief about the fact I keep insisting on using the word “God” where they’d prefer to hear “the Universe” or something.
There’s an endless litany of reasons for that, which I’ll get into later.
For now, I’ll say it’s specifically because you are all ragingly anti-Semitic and you need to be getting over that soon.
I rarely, if ever, make a big deal about that, though, because it’s not the most pressing problem.
Racism against black people and brown people is a more urgent issue, all things considered, by my humble estimation.
But I really have absolutely nothing fresh to contribute to that particular question, on which there is so much stellar work already out there.
I do, however, have a little something prepared for another hot-button issue: racism against yellow people.
Here’s the thing.
People are all hot and bothered about the fact that China is taking over the world.
This displays grand ignorance.
Insofar as “ruling the world” makes the slightest bit of sense, China has always ruled the world.
Look — it’s often said that the Jews and the Chinese are the longest-running political units in human history. And the Chinese did it while (for the most part) maintaining a single, cohesive State for over 3000 years. Every other Empire has been a flash in the pan — they have risen, fallen, and been replaced by one political power after the next.
So China has always “ruled the world”. They just took a back seat for a little while there. And that’s the crucial bit we have to understand.
Why did they take a back seat?
Fundementally: because Europe came over and subjugated them with physical violence and economic domination, as a result of technological superiority and a socio-political-economic system geared solely at the maximization of profit for its own sake, rather than to serve human interests, or even any of our lusts and desires save greed.
We did not come over and engage them in a lively intellectual debate about liberal political ideas (you know, like the Buddhists did a millennium earlier — to this date probably the greatest inter-cultural intellectual exchange in history).
And so which lesson did they learn? That of (slightly quaint) 17th Century European liberalism — human rights and political representation and whatnot?
No. They learned that technological superiority and economic domination can make the State more powerful.
………..great. Good job guys. Congratulations on giving that particular bright idea to……….wait for it………
THE FUCKING CHINESE STATE.
DO YOU GUYS KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHINESE STATE?
CLEARLY YOU KNOW LESS THAN NOTHING ABOUT IT!!!!!!
Cus if you had the slightest…. and I mean the SLIGHTEST idea about what the fuck that thing is and what it’s been doing for OVER 3000 FUCKING YEARS……….. you would’ve set about trying to saw your legs off before going in and acting like that.
And now we have the gall to complain that they’re taking over the world.
Which, you simply must admit, (…once you stop freaking out about how batshit insane the idea of trying to subjugate China was)… is actually pretty funny.
So if you want to pontificate to Chinese people, lemme tell you what you do.
You read the classics of Chinese thought — from Confucius to Li Bai to Mao Zedong — and then you suggest that maybe they could learn a little more from their own tradition and a little less from ours.
Maybe then they’ll take you a tiny bit seriously, and you might have a teensy weensy bit of a positive effect with your words — rather than just increasing CO2 emissions with all the hot air you’re blowing out.
…Selāh.
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David Leon 