Noah Smith — On "Asian Values"

This might be a bit simplistic in that it assumes that a nation is composed of rather homogenous individuals that generally agree about how value should be prioritized personally, culturally and institutionally. In fact, this is the dialectical dynamic of the era based on the liberal trend since the Enlightenment and the political revolutions that were based on Enlightenment thinking. 

The challenge is to actually achieve E pluribus unum, and the currency cultural divisiveness manifesting in political divisiveness in the US is an example of it. The two chief forces are individualism manifesting as personal liberty, characteristic of libertarians of the right and left, and the desire for law and order and traditional values, characteristic of authoritarians. 

Add to this matrix, conservatives that emphasis inequality resulting from individual uniqueness and liberals that emphasize equality of persons as the basis of the rule of law and human rights and civil liberties. This is illustrated by the Political Compass matrix of the  at politicalcompass.org for example.

America is hardly unique in this, and it can be found in similar and also contrasting expression in other countries as well. It is even more pronounced in more traditional countries that the US, of which the Asian countries are good examples.

"Freedom and democracy" sound great as slogans, but they are extremely complex in themselves and in relation to other values. For instance, the Enlightenment values of liberty, egality, and fraternity (solidarity, community) are a difficult trifecta to harmonize culturally and institutionally and no nation has been highly successful at doing this in a way that pleases all constituencies. 

The neoconservative notion of exporting freedom and democracy along with a neoliberal political theory based on economic liberalism that has been characteristic of US policy has not been very successful in achieving the harmonization of this trifecta either in the US or abroad, and the cost of the experiment in terms of blood and treasure has been enormous.

There are many factors in play right now. The liberalization of society has been continuing apace since the Enlightenment and is going global. Innovation in technology and communications is resulting in a more unified world but on the way diversity is also clashing. Technology is also generating externalities that are now consequential enough to present an existential threat to humanity.

Humanity is now becoming self-aware as a species, on one hand, but on the other, huge resistance to greater unity is arising in order to preserve accustomed diversity. This is going on within groups and nations and regions, and among nations and regions. There are a number of divorce proceedings either in the works or being advocated, including secessionism and nullification in the US, as well as rejection of the president by a significant cohorts, for example, the rejection of Bush as a war criminal by the left and the rejection of Obama as a socialist dictator by the right.

Can we speak of East and West? Only in a very general way that easily falls into the pit of stereotypes. Both Easterners and Westerners are susceptible to this, too, just as Northerners and Southerners in the US.

Nor is Asia uniform. Take China and India, for instance, each with out the same size population, land mass, and natural resources, although very different climate, each coming into their own in the contemporary world at about the same time, India in 1946, and China in 1949. However, China is a one-party authoritarian state and India is multiparty liberal state. Which has had the better of it socially, politically, and economically, and based on what criteria? Both have made great progress but significant challenges remain. The US is recommending that China liberalize socially and that India liberalize economically. Is this appropriate for them or is this advice largely self-serving?

I don't think that there are easy answers to these issues, and I also don't think that the US is a position to be giving advice to other nations about how to manage their internal affairs if only because the US has shown itself to be unable to separate its own interests from what it preaches.

The world is in a phase transition between social, political and economic eras, in which the social challenge is increasing awareness of universality, the political challenge the consequences of this for rights as diversity groups with different values and priorities come into closer contact, and the economic challenge of birthing a new economic age, the digital era, which promises to be as revolutionary as agriculture and industry were. Just as these eras produced difference social, political and economic institutions, so will this new era we are entering as a species that is becoming increasing aware of itself.

Noahpinion
On "Asian Values"
Noah Smith | Assistant Professor of Finance, Stony Brook University