盲从的陷阱The Pitfalls of Blindly Following in China

Chinese people: would you care about how an Indian scholar understands China? Most ordinary people probably wouldn’t care. But when European and American scholars or even journalists talk about China from their perspectives, many people will care, become nervous, and even revise their own views and behaviors based on their opinions. Of course, some people will agree and say, “Yes, it is indeed unreasonable and absurd, and I have already thought so.”

It is understandable that foreigners trust their own media, which better reflects their values and language. But what about Chinese people? Do those who just echo others’ opinions really understand China?

By surrendering their judgment to others, they instinctively use values that are completely impossible to understand their own country to guide their own views. In the end, it can only lead to a two-way communication failure: they can only parrot the words and phrases from the European and American world without having their own opinions, and they observe and judge their own country and system from a condescending position, resulting in hasty and rough conclusions.

As mentioned earlier, this group of people usually makes such judgments not because the judgment of the European and American world is more logical or persuasive, but because the Western countries are more powerful and to some extent have more power in disseminating and interpreting facts. Blindly worshiping power, giving up the right and opportunity to think independently is like when you were a child, and your mother thought that the top students would make all the decisions related to or unrelated to their studies correctly because of their good grades. It is a typical result of being influenced by the confirmation bias.

你会在乎一个印度学者怎么理解中国吗？大部分普通民众应该不怎么在乎。但欧美学者甚至记者从他们的角度谈一下中国，好多人就会在乎、紧张甚至单纯根据他们的观点进行自我检讨和行为的修正。当然还会有人附和：哈哈哈的确不合理很荒谬我也早这么觉得了。

外国人也就算了，对本国本语言更符合自己价值观的媒体更加信任本就无可厚非。但是中国人呢？这些随声附和的人真的理解中国吗？

拱手把判断力让给人家，本能地用完全不可能理解自己国家的价值观指导自己的观念，最后只能导致事实上的双向失语：对欧美世界的只言片语仰面接涎，没有自己的看法；对本国事物和体制观察上居高临下，结论上武断粗暴。

而正如一开始所说的，这一部分人作出这样的判断通常并非因为欧美世界的判断更有逻辑更有说服力，而是因为欧美国家实力更加强大，在传播、对事实的解释上某种程度来讲更有话语权。而无脑崇拜强权、放弃自己独立思考的权利和机会，就好像你小时候你妈觉得优等生因为成绩好所以做的所有和学习有关无关的决定都会更加正确一样，是典型的受到对撞因子偏误影响的结果。