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Last week, on August 11, New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks published his essay “Harmony and the Dream” (NYT login required) and inadvertently created a perfect case study of how a journalist parachuting into China can get eviscerated by the blogosphere in less than 7 days.

Of course, its easy to criticize and hard to come up with simple, written expressions of complex, underlying reality that help people have a more informed opinion. I don’t claim to have an answer. But then again, I’m not a NYT columnist like Brooks who has significant influence over American popular opinion. Many Americans already see China in a mirror dimly, and other Americans do not see through the one-way mirror at all. Instead of helping people see, Brooks is filling the field of vision with a misleading image of “collectivism” that just isn’t true…potentially for ideologically-motivated aims.

I’ve abstracted Brooks argument and highlighted his online evisceration by: James Fallows, Imagethief, PekingDuck commenters, Language Log, John Pomfret, Kevin Donovan at Blurring Borders, and Dan Harris (but not really an evisceration) at China Law Blog.

For those who didn’t see his article already, Brooks thesis (abstracted generously because of the NYT login wall) is as follows:

The world can be divided in many ways — rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian — but one of the most striking is the divide between the societies with an individualist mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality.

This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world. …

You can create a global continuum with the most individualistic societies — like the United States or Britain — on one end, and the most collectivist societies — like China or Japan — on the other. …

But what happens if collectivist societies snap out of their economic stagnation? What happens if collectivist societies, especially those in Asia, rise economically and come to rival the West? A new sort of global conversation develops.

The opening ceremony in Beijing was a statement in that conversation. It was part of China’s assertion that development doesn’t come only through Western, liberal means, but also through Eastern and collective ones.

The ceremony drew from China’s long history, but surely the most striking features were the images of thousands of Chinese moving as one — drumming as one, dancing as one, sprinting on precise formations without ever stumbling or colliding. We’ve seen displays of mass conformity before, but this was collectivism of the present — a high-tech vision of the harmonious society performed in the context of China’s miraculous growth.

James Fallows’ Response

James Fallows, who has a much more complete and nuanced view of China, responded in a beautiful fashion (h/t ThomasCrampton, Peking Duck, Imagethief, Transpacifica):

This is the kind of thing you can say only if you have not the slightest inkling of how completely different a billion-plus people can be from one another. Beijingers from Shanghainese, Guangdong entrepreneurs from farmers in Sichuan, Tibetans from Taiwanese, people who remember the Cultural Revolution from those who don’t, people who remember the famines of the Great Leap Forward from people who’ve always had enough. The guy across the street from his brother. His daughter from his wife. People hanging on in big state enterprises from those starting small firms. People who stayed in the villages from those who came to the city for jobs. Christians from Buddhists. Hu Jintao from Jiang Zemin, Olympic weightlifters from Olympic tennis players, Yao Ming from Liu Xiang, Wen Jiabao from Edison Chen — and while we’re at it, Filipinos from Koreans, Japanese from Chinese, Malaysian Chinese from Malaysian Malays. Lee Kuan Yew from Kim Jong Il. People from Jakarta from people in Seoul. Hey, they’re all “Asians”. …

But the very most obvious thing about today’s China is how internally varied and contradictory it is, how many opposite things various of its people want, how likely-to-be-false any generalization is. Anyone who can look at today’s China and not see the powerful individual personalities and traits and dramas is someone more interested in fitting a theory to the current place he is passing through than in learning about that place.

Say it again, brother!

Boy, does this ring true. From my experience, Chinese people themselves love to talk about regional differences, North from South, Beijingers from Shanghainese, Beijing college students from the provinces vs. Beijing college students from Beijing, Dongbei people who call Beijingers “Southerners”, Guangzhou people who call Fujian people “Northerners,” unique characteristics of Sichuan people, Wenzhou people, Henan people, etc. etc.

Even more important I believe is talk about temporal differences: people who were sent down to the countryside in the Cultural Revolution vs those who didn’t, people who went to college after 1978 vs. those who didn’t, families before the one child policy vs. those started afterwards, people born in the 1970s vs. 1960s, people born in the 1980s vs. 1970s, 1980s people born after 1985 vs those born before, the 1990s generation vs the 1980s generation…on and on.

So where’s the “collectivism” here? Maybe the incredible diversity, individualism, regionalism, and at times chauvinism is what causes the rhetoric of harmonious society to be pushed down by the CCP on this bubbling stew of society.

Imagethief’s Response

Brooks use of the Opening Ceremony’s precision Fou drummers and Movable Type dancers in defense of his thesis is extremely sloppy, according to Imagethief. He writes:

In semi-defense of Brooks, I don’t think an inclination to collectivism at a social level excludes personal individuality or even sub-cultural differences.

Still, I think Fallows is right to take Brooks to task on this one*. I think using the Olympic opening ceremony to draw large conclusions about Chinese society is a dangerous game. Better to use it to draw large conclusions about the government’s obsession with micromanagement of propaganda.

After all, if the performers were part of a People’s Liberation Army performing troupe that performed with military precision, then they behaved as all militaries are designed to do! And maybe it was just a big performance, not something that justifies Brooks drawing broad, sweeping conclusions. Imagethief:

After all, isn’t it possible that you put 10,000 people on a stadium field simply because it looks cool and any smaller group of performers (or single, lip-synching, apple-cheeked nine-year-olds) is dwarfed?

I think back on many high school and college marching band performances I’ve witnessed in the individualistic old US of A. In fact, considering the military antecedents of marching bands, and Fallows’ remark about PLA performers, the cross-cultural phenomenon of large-scale military choreography and precision seems to be the archetype here.

I also think NBC did American viewers a disservice not highlighting which of the performers were part of the military (assuming they knew), and using that as part of the explanation of why they were so good.

Peking Duck and its discontented commenters:

Peking Duck’s post also yielded an interesting comment thread with 15 comments. Here’s one insightful comment from Old Tales Retold:

What frustrates me isn’t just the old cultural stereotypes about “collectivist” versus “individualist” societies, but any lack of real thought on what collective values China supposedly has beyond obedience to the government.

Surely, northeastern workers’ revival on Maoist class rhetoric (arguably “collectivist”) is a source of tension between the State and the People. Does this fit Brooks’ model of a smoothly functioning machine? And surely some of China’s “individualist” traits make things pretty easy for the government and business?

No question societies are bound together by common values. What are those values? How are they being expressed? Is there an implicit bargain between the people and the government? That political monopoly will be accepted in return for growing personal liberties and economic opportunity? Lets talk about that instead of “collectivism.”

Pomfret’s China response

John Pomfret also takes Brooks to tasks on three assertions of his argument. I won’t even dig into his 204 comments!

1. Brooks: Precision Opening Ceremony exercises prove “collectivism”. Pomfret: Wrong, David.

I wonder if Brooks has ever seen American marching bands, or line dancing, or visited a high school where the coolest kids are always part of a group - say, the football or basketball teams. I would argue that in many way Americans bow more to the group than the Chinese, which explains why the Chinese party-state has been so intent on forcing conformity.

Good point. I have talked to many technology entrepreneurs who feel that their Chinese employees are a product of an exam-driven education system that creates a highly competitive, non-collaborative dynamic in the workplace. As a result, they need to teach people educated in the Chinese system how to work better in teams, more so than foreign educated people. Is this evidence of collectivism or individualism? Or collectivism with Chinese characteristics?

2. Brooks: Chinese people focus on the collective good first. Pomfret: Wrong, David.

Even more, I wonder if Brooks has ever driven in China (look out for grandma!), or sharpened his elbows in the scrum that forms each time you try to get off an airplane, or tried to get Chinese co-workers to band together. Let’s just say in the decade that I’ve lived in China (over the course of 30 years), I haven’t seen or heard much collectivist impulse except when it was rammed down the throats of ordinary Chinese.

3. Brooks: China’s rise is due to this collectivism which as it becomes successful, issues a major challenge to the West. Pomfret: Wrong again.

And as to Brooks’ point about China’s rise being attributed somehow to collectivist impulses. Wait a second. The most dynamic sector of China’s economy is the private one. It’s a nation of entrepreneurs. It’s a culture of entrepreneurs. Look at Hong Kong, or Sydney, or Main Street Flushing and now Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu. That’s Chinese and it’s “individualist” up the wazoo.

Maybe this is indeed collectivism with Chinese characteristics…the time-honored tradition of pointing to a deer and calling it a horse (Zhǐ Lù Wéi Mǎ or 指鹿为马).

Blurring Borders response

An excellent post by Kevin Donovan at Blurring Borders concludes that in fact the success of China has been the unleashing of pent-up individualism through economic and social liberalization…the direct opposite of what Brooks is concluding:

In Ted Koppel’s recent miniseries entitled “The People’s Republic of Capitalism,” he interviewed a Western-educated Chinese youth who thought government censorship and repression was acceptable because it was bringing China out of poverty and improving millions of lives. Brooks sees this sentiment, which I believe is widespread, as a collectivist capitalism.

I disagree. I think it is driven by self-interest; it is individualistic. Those suppressed are not supporting the suppression. They don’t think collective harmony for growth is good, like Brooks supposes. The Koppel interview shows citizens who are being personally benefited by markets - the selfishly driven interaction of individuals. The rise of China - an economic phenomenon of GDP growth - comes with increased individualism. My intuition is that while it may masquerade as collectivism (”all of China is benefiting from this system, so suppression of dissent is okay”), it is really individuals seeing themselves benefit and liking it.

Language Log

The above bloggers address the substantive issue of “collectivism” vs. “individualism”. Brooks argument is then completely eviscerated on technical grounds by Language Log who take Brooks to task for his misuse of academic studies in a lengthy post. An example:

Question to Language Log: Is it correct that if you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing, while if you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim?

Answer: In principle, yes. But first of all, it wasn’t a representative sample of Americans, it was undergraduates in a psychology course at the University of Michigan; and second, it wasn’t Chinese, it was undergraduates in a psychology course at Kyoto University in Japan; and third, it wasn’t a fish tank, it was 10 20-second animated vignettes of underwater scenes; and fourth, the Americans didn’t mention the “focal fish” more often than the Japanese, they mentioned them less often.

So what happened here? Read the Language Log post which seriously calls into question Brooks credibility, at least on this topic.

UPDATE: China Law Blog Response

Dan Harris at China Law Blog also waded into this debate with a less heavy, sports-oriented, but no less gutsy inquiry:

But I feel compelled to discuss one thing I have noticed in watching the Olympics and that is that China’s basketball team does not have a single point guard worth a damn and I have to wonder why.

Is it further evidence of the shortcomings of a planned economy? Does China pull out the great athletes for other sports, leaving only tall people for basketball?

Is it further evidence of a lack of innovation or take-chargedness (I know I am making up this word, but it works) in China? Great point guards have to be willing to innovate and take the heat. Is the coaching so tough that no player is willing to step up?

Seriously, why?

Dan extends this Basketball As China Metaphor by highlighting Will Lewis at Experience Not Logic blog who answered his questions as follows:

I was discussing this with some friends last night. They were telling me that at age 10 kids start to get pulled for sports like basketball. The problem is that an athletic kid with point guard style body type is typically pulled for soccer despite whatever skill and flair they show on the basketball court. …

The planned athletic program seems to have done wonders at producing exceptional individual athletes as seen in shooting, weightlifting, and gymnastics (team gymnastics is not a team sport because it is merely the sum of individual performances). But, like in business, team sports depend less on individual prowess, and more on creativity and chemistry which is all but impossible to select for.

Dan then highlights the fact that in individualistic America, heroes also talk about duty and are modest about their achievements.

And from the song, “Into the Fire,” about the firefighters who went into the Twin Towers after 9/11, we learn about how “duty” plays a role in heroics in the U.S. as well: “It was dark, too dark to see You held me in the light you gave You lay your hand on me Then walked into the darkness of your smoky grave Up the stairs, into the fire Up the stairs, into the fire I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire”

Like every country, China has kids who go back into schools to save classmates and teachers [Fan Pao Pao] who run away.

Seems like an opportunity to celebrate the common character of heroism in the face of adversity. The questions that China Law Blog asks are far more interesting, and get into questions of the education system, what skills and traits are valued, what failures there are in the parts of the economy that are still centrally controlled (like sports), how does this affect employers and companies, how do foreigners best understand the educational background and worldview of their China-educated employees? These are all great questions. So how do we get influential writers like Brooks to even ask the right questions?

Dissenting views: CommunicateAsia

Here’s an dissenting view from Michael Netzley of CommunicateAsia who claims that Fallows was shifting the terms of the debate: “Fallows simply allows the pendulum to swing the other way, focuses on the individual differences while overlooking cultural patterns, and writes a high-handed criticism.” I disagree with Netzley and think Fallows was just flabbergasted by the conclusion that is so obviously untrue to even a casual observer of China.

So did Brooks come to China just to reinforce his pre-conceived notions?

I’ll end with a comment (#13) from Lindel, a commenter on the Peking Duck post:

His article is blatantly saying there are two kinds of people in the world “Us” and “Them”. “Us” being individualistic freedom loving loyal american white anglo-saxon conservative republicans vs “them” the collective loving disloyal foreign liberal democrats. Vote for McCain in November!

He went to China for the express purpose of writing partisan political commentary to support a viewpoint he already has. It is doubtful that he made any attempt to learn about or appreciate Chinese or Asian history or culture. He was not attempting to expand his own cultural awareness or learn anything that might challenge his own viewpoint.

The sole purpose of his article and writing from china is to give a false sense that he is writing from authority of having visited china, but in reality he probably had alread decided on what he would say and went to china merely as a formality or possibly as a paid vacation.

In the US we refer to this as “preaching to the choir” in other words he is just repeating an opinion he already had to share with people who already agree with his opinion. It is not meant to challenge or educate people about a new idea or share a cultural insight.

Others more familiar with asian culture and history see more complexities to the issue he raised and more nuances, but those do not fit within his narrow partisan agenda for influencing the american voters in the upcoming election.

So perhaps, on a short trip to China, all you really can expect is a light seasoning of Chinese society (within walking distance of your 5 star hotel, of course) to flavor the ideologically motivated framing that you came with–a framing that achieves the right political objectives and conveniently delivers the story your readers want to hear. Fly home, and declare victory. Not saying Brooks did this, just a cautionary tale of what might happen inadvertently to a columnist under pressure.

Some parting advice!

James Fallows offers some excellent advice, which I wholeheartedly agree with:

Take a little time and look around, David. The parts that don’t fit what you theorized before arriving are actually the most stimulating.

And that’s what I love about China!

UPDATE 08/20/08:

Roland Soong at ESWN highlights some Chinese netizens’ reactions to the essay (which was translated). I agree with Roland (and our commenter James G) that Chinese reactions is even more interesting than the English-language blogosphere reaction that we covered. See the translations at EastSouthWestNorth. I especially like these comments from Xitek.com (zh):

• Collectivism may be high in China, but it is actually weakest in the collectivist sports such as men’s soccer. Sigh …
• My understanding that the system and the individuals should complement each other. Actually, Chinese individuals are not very high in collective spirit, and therefore the system needs to promote the collectivist spirit. Actually, American individuals are strong in collective spirit, and therefore the system needs to promote the individualistic spirit. I cannot imagine how chaotic the world would be if the the China over-emphasizes individualism. It will become like many places in Africa. Similarly, if America were to carry out the collectivist spirit, the country would not have much dynamism. I feel that collectivism is not too strong in China. Rather it is far from enough. We can see this from the results of the group sports and from our daily lives.
• Without the meeting of American individualism and Japanese collectivism, there would not be digital cameras, plasma television sets, laser discs and so on in the world. China is not collectivist, because it has neither western-style rule of law nor Japanese culture of shame. It is just a collection of loose sand linked by interests. The foreigners are wrong in their views about us. For more than a century, none of their predictions about China have been realized. China is an alien species that foreigners can never understand.
• The Chinese people do not follow collectivism. The minimum requirements for collectivism is discipline and a spontaneous consideration of the group interests. The Chinese people are lacking on both. (Japan is truly collectivist relatively speaking.) The Chinese have the characteristic of “following the crowd.” When they go overseas, they want to join the “mainstream society.” Frankly, they adore power more than rationality. To be kinder, they are super-pragmatic.
• Even the fart from the New York Times smell fragrant.

UPDATE 8/21:

Yihong Ding at Thinking Space shares his post about cultural differences between China and the US in social networking, and how it affects LinkedIn’s opportunity in China. According to Ding:

Philosophically, Chinese style social networking is based on the Doctrine of the Mean (Chinese: 中庸; pinyin: Zhōngyōng). Chinese people believe in that if one tree is higher above all the others, wind will destroy it first (Chinese: 木秀于林，风必摧之; pinyin: mù xiù yú lín，fēng bì cuī zhī). Hence the principle of surviving but also living well is to follow Doctrine of the Mean—be neither too outstanding nor too insignificant. This philosophy is the basis of Chinese social networking. Such a subtle difference actually indicates some fundamental difference between Chinese social networking and western social networking.

This may have some truth, but it certainly seems there are plenty of Chinese born in the 70s, 80s, and 90s who seem to not care about sticking out, at least for a good cause.  Ding essentially supports Brooks point in this context:  that American business people are more individualistic, and Chinese business people are more collectivistic, at least in the use of social networking for business purposes.