I mean, I read it. I don’t know anything about the author, but the article is interesting enough. Especially the part talking about how China see the US. It’s all spot-on: basically rudderless, paralyzed with empty addictions to endless commodification, how we’re basically on a disastrous path because we have no spiritual needs met and we fill that hole with mindless indulgences.

The country has become severed from its traditions and is so individualistic it can’t make up its mind what it as a nation believes. Without an overarching culture maintaining its values, the government’s regulatory powers are weak, easily corrupted by lobbying or paralyzed by partisan bickering. As such, the nation’s progress is directed mostly by blind market forces… Thus, by turning everything into a product, Western capitalism devours every aspect of American culture, including the traditions that bind it together as a nation, leading to atomization and polarization. The commodification also devours meaning and purpose, and to plug the expanding spiritual hole that this leaves, Americans turn to momentary pleasures—drugs, fast food, and amusements—driving the nation further into decadence and decay.

Now, while all that is true, this person (china’s apparent “societal teacher” or something like that) has the wrong answer:

Wang wrote that the only way a nation can avoid the US’s problems is by instilling “core values”—a national consensus of beliefs and principles rooted in the traditions of the past and directed toward a clear goal in the future….To prevent China’s own technological advancement leading it down the same perilous path, Wang proposed an extreme solution: neo-authoritarianism.

That’s the most cynical possible takeaway from this very real problem. The answer, if you ask me, is not limiting people’s ability to indulge, but by offering spiritual fulfillment. That means taking those blind market forces and putting a short leash on them. Instead of letting the market lead us all astray, chain the markets and work for the betterment of society, not for profit.

In short, curtail capitalism.

The article was interesting. I’d suggest you guys read it.