In a nutshell, Princeton University found that those who dislike the Communist Party of China are predominantly fearful, disagreeable, and introverted, lacking close emotional attachments to others.
Those who like the CPC, conversely, score high on confidence, sociability, conscientiousness, and work ethic. These are what the study calls “traits associated with personal and professional success.”
Importantly, the first group only make up roughly 5% of the Chinese population according to the study, which completely inverts the stereotype. It turns out that charismatic, cosmopolitan, open-minded intellectuals are the ones overwhelmingly supporters of the Party. The critics of CPC are precisely the people who are least equipped to build coalitions, mobilize others, or persuade anyone of anything.
Makes complete sense and very much matches observations of the anti-social personality types that are attracted to reactionary ideas and easily enamored with the West’s lies, particularly the belief that they are being personally held down by mechanisms that promote economic and social justice, and believe they would naturally rise to the top if unfettered capitalist exploitation were allowed.
In a way they may be right: in a system like that of the US which rewards psychopathic ruthlessness and greed, a very, very small percentage of these people might get lucky enough to rise to the top, just as the most unscrupulous and criminal elements rose to the top as oligarchs in post-Soviet states. But the vast majority of them, though they may imagine themselves as the next Musk, would remain losers.
well put
Not sure how meaningful this is cause you could claim similar about western capitalist society; being gregarious and able to work well with others takes you much further for much less effort than being a loner.
The main difference at a glance would be the conscientiousness variable. I would expect those who succeed the most in capitalist society to be among the least conscientious.
More insightful I think is the why. What are the causes of someone being fearful in CPC China as compared to causes of someone being fearful in the capitalist US, for example.
Yeah I’d like to see an analogous study done in various capitalist communities as well. “score high on confidence, sociability, conscientiousness, and work ethic” honestly is general enough to describe anyone “successful” (and certainly wealthy people start shoveling money into their “philanthropy” projects both to write off taxes and for PR purposes, and the propaganda that they’re generous or conscientious about fixing problems in the world certainly works on lots of people)
Yeah that’s a good point. Appearances can be deceiving. Tbh, part of the reason I’m skeptical of it is I live in the US and I would sync up well with fearful (well, anxious) and introverted (and if you ranked me based on how much I like the empire, you could argue disagreeable too). If you judged based on how good I am at building and maintaining social connections, I’d fit the last one pretty well too. Yet I somehow ended up as commie beliefs and I suspect if I lived in China, I’d have a much more favorable view of it than I would the US and would have an easier time with connections than I do in the US. I don’t think it would magically fix all of my problems, but I think I’d have a much easier time with life.
So it makes me wonder what is the reason the people there end up that way and what their actual mindset looks like. What causes them to be the fringe, ya know. Where I live, the fringe in terms of lefty realm seems to be like… you are too principled for your own good and it holds you back. Then there is the rightist end of fringe too, which is something like, you live on hatred of scapegoats and turn that into a whole identity.
You’re gonna hit me for saying the obvious, but socialism is based on sociability. In other words, some anti-socialists are, simply put, anti-social.
Same with anti-communist. Hate the commons? --> Private property. Or even: hate the commoners? --> aristocratic ass.
However, there would be a very interesting question here. Why are neurodivergents attracted to socialism? I’ve read it’s the feeling of not being able to withstand injustice.
I have autism (medical diagnosis) and yes, the social-craft is… difficult to say the least.
But, like you said, it’s the sheer injustice in the world that i cannot tolerate. I have met elderly, pregnant women, and students who by no will of their own but by capital, have had to thown themselves in to the human destroying machine™
Another feature it drives me nuts is the illogical contradictions on how as a society do things.
I could go on but i think’ll leave it there.
I don’t do social stuff because it’s hard, not because I don’t want it. On the contrary, having less social makes one realize how important it is.
Neurodivergent communist here (though no medical diagnosis because I hate doctors). I think that it comes from capitalism not only allowing but enabling outdated cultural beliefs to exist if they do not obstruct capitalism’s drive for profit (sometimes, playing into those old cultural norms allows for the bourgeoisie to direct proletarian anger towards a group that they can hate rather than understand the contradictions inherent to capitalism and solving them).
Capitalism creates a system where the bourgeoisie end up valuing their workers based on how much profit they can extract from their labor-power, and since neurodivergent people have a harder time in some areas compared to a neurotypical worker, they are viewed as less useful, so they are likely treated more poorly under capitalism than capitalism treats neurotypical workers. Oppressing a group is a surefire way to get that group to harbor resentment towards the oppressors and be more inclined to ways (socialism) to eliminate oppression.
Isn’t this kind of a chicken/egg problem? Is someone anti social because they are dissident against the CPC or are they dissident against the CPC because they are anti-social?
