|
|
Authority, which literarily means power to give orders and make other obey or a person or group having the power to give orders or take action, is the very thing those ambitious and enterprising people try to obtain. Taking a look at people’s general idea of authority, one may find both American and China people share something in common. For instance, both show some respect to people or institution which make command. Not a single person in the world may live out of the control of certain authority—country has authority, that’s the government; company has authority, that’s the boss; family has authority, that’s the parents and there’s an authority even among children, that’s the strongest boy who win all the fights. However, owing to different historical and cultural background, people in America and China have quite different attitude towards authority in spite of shoes slight commonplace.
First of all, American people believe that equality—one of the fundamental American spirits which had been stated in the Declaration of Independence—should be found in the relationship of every people, even between the authority one and the ordinary one. They see people in authority as ordinary persons who are just like anyone else and each has merits as well as defects. So American people are likely to supervise their leaders lest they do something wrong and if they do do something wrong, the Americans would overthrow them. That can explain why Nixon and Clinton, the absolute power of the United States, were removed from their office when they had done something that could not be pardoned by the American people. As regards to institution, American people can also tend to keep an eye on it since it is run by common people and those people sometime would make mistakes. Most of the important government departments, especially the financial ones, have a supervising system. In general, American people do not afraid to violate and break down authority and that’s the reason why they have made significant progress in scientific innovations and high technologies.
On the contrary, deeply influenced by Confucianism and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, people in China are more likely to idealize people in authority, especially the leader of their country. The best example to illustrate this should be Chairman Mao Zedong. People, especially the ones lived in the 50s—70s, worship him as if he is the God without any flaws and defects rather than a normal human being. And they would get irritated when they hear any insult of him. When mentioned about the institution, Chinese people think that it is an honor to be approved and supported by it and if they are abandoned by it, they will fell that it’s the doom of their life. For the Chinese people, the authorial institution is something that never goes wrong. So they trust and depend on the institutions. Whenever they have problems with other people, they go to it and it has the final say. Since one of Confucius’ virtues is to respect authority and the elderly, Chinese people think that it is the responsibility of those in authority, such as parents, teachers and political leaders to protect the morality of those under their care and to be models of virtue themselves, and meanwhile, they show their obedience and honor for them.
In a word, resembles and differences co-exist in American and Chinese people’s attitude towards authority. And as globalization goes on, both people discover shortcomings of their attitude and advantages of the other’s and both are trying to improve themselves by accepting the good side of the other’s culture. |
|
发表于 2006-9-12 15:27:02
