by Brett Stevens on May 14, 2017

Asia contains societies that are the most individualistic on earth. People do not look up, or forward, but focus on their needs and concerns in the present. This is paired with an admirable recognition that larger events will influence them regardless of what the individual desires and an impassive acceptance of this fact, although lack of will to intervene.

The Western tendency for the individual to intervene was helpful while individuals worked toward a purpose and associated principles, but became toxic when with The Enlightenment™ the focus shifted from civilizational purpose to individual purpose, with the individual being considered “the measure of all things.”

Being more practical, and having come later to the surge that took over the West in 1789, Asia has snapped out of the sleepwalking state of believing in equality. Owing to its individualism, however, Asia seems headed toward the compromise position of Libertarianism — economic individualism, in lieu of actual social order — as a first step.

For example, Japan remains committed to being Japanese instead of following the media panic and replacing its citizens with foreigners, but has not yet articulated this as anything but an economic decision:

According to the figures, Japan received a total of 8,193 applications from refugees during 2016, meaning that it rejected 99 per cent of claims. In 2015, it accepted only 27 refugees. Officials have defended the low number, saying applicants are mainly from Asian countries wanting access to Japan only for economic reasons.

In other words, they reject poor people arriving to take advantage of a wealthier system, but have not outright articulated a need to keep Japan Japanese on an ethnic level. This both allows them to survive the influx and to avoid triggering the war machine of Western liberal democracy, which views dissent as enmity because competing ideologies will un-do its assumption of universal truthfulness.

This follows the lead of Singapore, which has created a hybrid system of Libertarianism with Bismarckian social benefits, enforced by a government interested in building trade. This works for wealthy societies in the short term, but still has not fully broken from the mental disease of egalitarianism.

China has shown a popular wave of similar sentiment which approves of Trump-style economic nationalism and anti-immigration policies, but stops short of affirming nationalism:

The question has received more than 400 answers from Zhihu users, which include some of the most representative perceptions of the ‘white left’. Although the emphasis varies, baizuo is used generally to describe those who â€œonly care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environmentâ€ and â€œhave no sense of real problems in the real worldâ€; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to â€œsatisfy their own feeling of moral superiorityâ€; they are â€œobsessed with political correctnessâ€ to the extent that they â€œtolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalismâ€; they believe in the welfare state that â€œbenefits only the idle and the free ridersâ€; they are the â€œignorant and arrogant westernersâ€ who â€œpity the rest of the world and think they are savioursâ€.

Like the anti-Leftist cultural backlash in the West, the Chinese criticism focuses mainly on savaging the illusions of the Left, and not in finding a competing philosophy. However, it shows a world waking up to the disaster that the West is sleepwalking into with its pursuit of pyrrhic victory through liberal democracy, equality and political individualism.

Tags: anti-leftism, china, immigration, japan, white left

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