Today we look at American moralism and how it translates — or doesn’t — into Chinese culture.

Another of the interview questions I asked in my research was:

If a person is rich, what should he/she do with his/her money?

如果一个人很有钱,他应该怎么用他的钱?

As with the fallen tree question, the Chinese respondents hold to a very practical line: invest the money, because money makes money (钱生钱). The Americans, however, agonize over the question. They seem to feel intuitively that the “right” thing to do would be to give away a lot of the money. At the same time, they are troubled by the gap between ideal and real:

A      And you should give to people who don't have much because they can't…they're not as fortunate as you.  They don't have those capabilities.  They’re not in the same situation as you.  So I think people should give back to society.

B      I agree.

A      Do something, make a foundation, you know, I mean, you know like a charity.

B      Just put it where it's needed.

A      Yeah.  A lot of people do say, yeah I earned the money, so I should keep it, but really what are you gonna do with all that money?  You're just gonna spend it on yourself. That's so selfish.  But then again if I were in that position I don't know what I'd do.

B      Yeah.

A      It'd be…it's easy to say…

B      Yeah, see, everybody says, this person should give it to charity, they should donate it, but that's not what people do.

More than anything, what the Americans find troubling is hypocrisy: Saying one thing, doing something else. Not practicing what we preach. This is a function of the “universalist” aspect of American culture: Americans are inclined to judge a broad range of situations according to a fixed, static, set of criteria. In contrast, Chinese culture is “particularist”: specific situations, in all their complexity, tend to be privileged over abstract, universal principles.

The Chinese distaste for this kind of abstraction shows up in two responses. First:

C      How should he use his money,” “should”, this word, maybe I’m a little bit…uncomfortable.…“Should” has a bit of a feeling of morals, or preaching.

D      We should let everyone choose for themselves…how they should use…not “should.” Let everyone choose how to use his money.  We can only say if I were rich what would I do with it?

C      Right.

C         "应该怎么样用他的钱," "应该" 这两个字我可能有一点…不舒服。"应该" 还有一点道德, 说教的感觉。

D     我们应该让每个人自己选择…应该去怎么用…不是“应该”…让每个人自己选择去用他的钱。  我们只能说如果我有钱的话我会怎么办。

C     对。

Another pair of interviewees goes as far as to suggest that a different question should have been asked:

E      This, I think…this question is different for each person.  Your saving or spending money depends on your own worldview, on the direction of your ideas about value.

F      I think this question should ask, “If you were rich, how should you spend your money?”

E      Yes.  In reality you’re just expressing your own view, right, about how you should use this sum of money.

F      It should be asked this way.

E     这个我觉得…这个问题就是因人而异的。  你这个钱的省花, 取决于你这个人的一种世界观啊, 价值意识的指向。

F     我觉得这个问题应该问, "如果你很有钱, 你应该怎么样用你的钱?"

E     对。  实际上你就是表达你自己的看法嘛, 应该怎么样去使用这笔钱。

F     这样问。

To put a harsh-sounding spin on it, we could say: What Americans do is pass judgment. We do so because we’re conditioned to judge based on how closely actual behaviors match up to a universal moral code. And lest I pass judgment on passing judgment, I’ll state again, as I’ve stated before, that in my own (very American) opinion, this has been, in the right contexts, one of the greatest gifts American culture specifically, and Western culture generally, has brought to the world.

You can see, though, what a mismatch a stubbornly universalist approach can be in the nitty-gritty, messy, detail-oriented context of Chinese culture. From one possible Chinese standpoint, Americans are hopelessly naïve: how could you hope to take one set of principles and apply them everywhere? Only someone who hasn’t lived in the world could think that way.

This is just one more way in which Westerners can get ourselves into trouble in our China dealings. It takes a special, hard-earned kind of self-awareness and leadership to function well, consistently well, in ways that are so contrary to our deepest, culturally conditioned norms.