I am annoyed when Americans routinely state, as argument in favor of the thesis that America is the best, or at least the least bad of all countries, that everybody wants to go there.
According to this argument, shit is the best thing in the world because all the flies want to get there.
It’s not important how many people want to get somewhere, it’s the motive behind their migration. If they figured out there’s free welfare which they can obtain without having to work, it’s hardly evidence of your country’s greatness. If jihadists want to get to your country, in order to make an Islamic caliphate and kill you, it doesn’t mean they think your state is great, it means they think it’s weakly enough defended to make it a tempting target.
The fact that parasites and enemies want to invade you doesn’t mean you’re great. It means you’re seen as roadkill, as something to be devoured by lesser beings in absence of a proper defense that would be presented by a living organism.
The idea that everybody always wanted to go to America is American narcissistic delusion. I live in Croatia, a country with probably the second greatest diaspora in the world, after Israel. I think that more Croats live outside Croatia, in Canada, USA, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Germany and other countries, than inside Croatia. That’s because of all sorts of wars, persecution and poverty, during the rule of several different regimes in the 20th century. To them, it wasn’t clear where they wanted to go. America was merely one of the possible destinations. There was absolutely nothing special about it. Before the second world war, Argentina was as preferable, and after the second world war, Germany was more preferable – simply because it was easy to get work and be paid well. So no, America was historically not the singular beacon of freedom and a destination of choice. It was just another country, one that was far away that you can hope it’s significantly different from what you had at home. For most people, what was important is that there’s work that’s paid well enough, and that there’s no outright persecution, such as they usually faced at home. To Croats, America was a free country, Argentina was a free country, Canada was a free country, Germany was a free country, Australia was a free country, New Zealand was a free country. Wherever you could work and not be killed was a free country, which tells you something about the conditions at home, where the Serbs were mistreating the Croats so badly, they had really low requirements for emigration. As long as you didn’t get killed, beaten up and robbed, and you can find a job that paid well enough to make a living, it was a free country. Nobody cared about the American constitution, it’s completely irrelevant. Nobody cared about Australian constitution, either. As long as the Serbs can’t beat you up, imprison you on false charges and kill you, it’s a great constitution.
Let’s see who’s actually trying to go to America now:
- Latino immigrants looking for free money or low-paying jobs.
- Jihadists who want to convert it to Islam.
- …
The times after the second world war, when the greatest minds from Europe flocked to America because it wasn’t destroyed by war and they could continue to do their work in normal conditions, those times are over. Also, the times from the 19th century, when people like Nikola Tesla went to America to escape the Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy which hindered all progress, they too are over, because as things are, American bureaucracy now is a copy of that innovation-stifling mess people used to run away from. Also, if people want freedom, America with its fascism, restrictions on travel, spying and surveillance, completely controlled media spewing propaganda is the last country on Earth they would go to. In fact, people seeking freedom and fighting for truth are right now hiding from America in Ecuadorian embassy (Assange) and in Russia (Snowden). America is the country that persecutes freedom fighters and restricts freedoms. America is a country where Nazi armed guards implement controls at the airports, so that they could have complete control of the population, and spiritual heirs of the Sturmabteilung thugs wearing black masks and neo-fascist symbols intimidate free speech advocates at the universities, using violence with the tacit support of the police.
In the 1980s, I actually used to dream about going to America to work at Microsoft or somewhere else in the IT industry, because that was my thing, and America was where it happened. But now, nothing happens in America except fascism and spying and madness. America is a country that exports ideas such as “the Earth is flat”, “we didn’t go to the Moon”, the spiritually empty ideology of human rights, feminism, gender bullshit and hatred of Russia. America is a fascist shithole. Nobody competent and in his right mind wants to go there anymore. I certainly don’t; one would have to drag me there screaming and in chains. Once it’s liberated from fascism and if it’s a free country, maybe. But as things stand, if you want freedom and opportunity, you run away from America, not to America.
It’s been several decades since the last time the USA was a desirable immigrant destination, at least from countries that aren’t total shitholes. It reminds me a lot of pyramid schemes, actually – the ones who got there first had the first pick of untapped resources. Now that this is gone, everyone else coming in can expect to work for someone else’s percentage of profit.
I think Asians still regard it as a desirable destination, Chinese and Indians, although Canada might be preferred.
Those who still come there are more of a resource drain than an asset, for example Pakistanis go to America to study physics, then return to Pakistan to join their domestic nuclear program. Same for Indians, Iranians and the Chinese. They go to America to exploit benefits and take what they learned home where they work on competing with America, in all fields.
I’d say that’s not necessarily so, because they are generally smart and hardworking, so their economic prospects are better if they stay. They will find it relatively easy to outperform the native Millenials.
Culturally, the Chinese also prefer to live in the West, as there are less limitations than in China. This is what I’ve heard anecdotally, at least. It would make some sense, because their cultures are fairly strict and limiting, so much that the growing Western totalitarianism wouldn’t register, not at first glance.
But yes, the whale corpse has stunk for decades, and the exceptions matter very little in the overall trend.
There are arguments in favor of both sides; for instance, the Silicon valley and the American universities are full of Indian/Iranian/Pakistani/Chinese/Japanese/whatever experts who are quite successful (Satya Nadella, anyone?) and on the other hand the developing countries are full of American-educated locals who brought their expertise back home and are running technological incubators and companies.
The only thing that is clear is that the natives (those born in America) are not really competitive in the tech fields and sciences and this is becoming increasingly obvious.
What I find interesting is that there’s more interest in the European classical music in Asia than in America and Europe, there is more knowledge of science and technology outside of America than inside it, and apparently as the rest of the world learns aspects of European civilization, it is being rejected and abandoned in its homelands. From what I can see, the contents of the connected vessels are mixing, and the result doesn’t look predictable – it is unlikely that China will become the new America, and that America will become the new Middle East. More likely, the entire thing will explode in some violent outburst of social disorder.
Well, most people in (almost) any country prefer their own culture. Which is why they have the culture that they have. If the conclusion is that the Chinese prefer the Western culture, I would say that what that indicates is merely that the sample is not representative of the Chinese population. The Chinese on the “Western” side of the Internet are usually those from Kong Kong and Taiwan, or mainlanders who are into democracy, human rights and CNN. If you look at the American presidential elections, Asian Americans overwhelmingly voted for Hillary. But on the Chinese Internet, according to the article I’ve seen, Trump had about 90% of the support.
My view of China and the Chinese comes from two sources: documentaries (including YouTube), and reports of people who went to (mainland) China and talked to the Chinese. I almost completely ignore what the Chinese write (in English) online, the same way I would ignore the opinion of Russian-Americans if I wanted to know whether the Russians like Putin or not.
So how do things look based on the sources I use? Regarding their own culture, foreigners who go to China and talk to the Chinese say that “the Chinese love their culture”. Regarding moving to America, the Chinese say: ‘When I was young me and my friends dreamed of going to America as soon as we earn enough money, but that is not the case anymore.’ Regarding freedoms and totalitarianism, I recommend watching a documentary “Why Do They Fear Us?” (YouTube titles differ). Half of the students interviewed were chosen because they dislike the government (for diversity). Obvious bias aside (there’s always quite a bit of bias in documentaries on China) there were some things that were noticeable in that documentary:
– Anti-government girl being disappointed how most of the students in China are either pro-government or apolitical.
– Youth (for the most part) is of the opinion that democracy is not for China.
– People not understanding the Arab Spring because “their government is not killing them, why are they rebelling?”.
– Pro-government students claiming how they feel “absolutely free” in China.
– Anti-government students claiming how they don’t feel free, but being unable to properly articulate why that is so, and their complaint is always along the lines of “there’s no democracy so we’re not free”.
– People (including foreigners) claiming how if you’re not into politics you don’t notice the censorship (I personally don’t think that’s completely accurate but hey, the fact that they said it still says a lot).
– Students said they can discuss sensitive political topics with their professors, online (in their social circles / Weibo, that kind of thing), and in private. It’s just that they can’t express certain dissenting political views in public.
Either way, people emigrate for existential reasons, and rarely cultural.
And what is American culture nowadays anyway? Moral relativism? Gender pronouns? Dogs replacing kids and friends? Ripped jeans?
There are few things that are interesting regarding ripped jeans. They fit a victim culture because they clearly show one’s been violated (there are ripped shirts for sale as well). Along with Converse shoes they represent siding with the poor. And also, it turns out they originate from punk era. Punk has many similarities with the (anti)cultural tendencies in the US these days (socialism, gender blending..), and is a good example of what you get when you combine “less limitations” with a society that has no fundamental direction: rebellion against the established order with presented alternative being worse. Which is unavoidable because to make things better you need criteria and “criteria” means (optimal) limitations.
While freedom (which is morally neutral) is the be all end all in the US, the Chinese approach is about morality, and directing the society towards the ideal. That’s what Hu Jintao was trying to achieve with the list of “Eight Honors and Eight Shames”. About Wen Jiabao, the premier at the time, it is written that: “After he claimed he had read Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations nearly 100 times the work became a top seller in China, reaching No. 5 on the bestseller list. Meditations is a treatise on the Stoic philosophy, extolling the importance of virtue.” Deng Xiaoping’s phrase “seek truth from facts” was a nail in the coffin of socialism, and his ‘cat’s color theory’ (“It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice”) is a meritocratic approach that stands in direct opposition to affirmative action in the US. And finally, current patriarch Xi Jingping and his vision of the China Dream: “Prosperity and strength, democracy, literacy and brilliance are values and requirements on the level of this nation. Freedom, equality, justice, and ruling by law are values and requirements on the level of this society; Patriotism, respect for working, honesty, and kindness are values and requirements on the level of individuals.”