Comments by "Patrick T" (@patrickt49) on "China’s Poor Cry Out: Even Air Costs Money Now!" video.
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@africaisking7817 "To what extent the Chinese at large are what they are because of their inner racial spirit, and to what extent they are so because of long-continued hardships of environment, we cannot accurately measure. The two forces merge indistinguishably, and we can observe only the force of the combination.
In the matter of environment, many centuries have passed in China since the average individual there had any significant control over his lot in life. When he emerges to existence, it is not to look upon choices, but to face forward along lines of narrow necessity, along a slim furrow of possible survival kept open by his family ancestors through the thicket of competing humanity. Into this he steps and toils until he dies.
There is no escape, no means of reaching a status of relative comfort and security, whatever the effort. Experience teaches him that moderately intensive effort means perhaps enough to keep alive, less means starvation, and more futility. The principle applying to physical endeavors applies likewise to moral endeavors. Moderate goodness keeps him out of jail, a less amount risks penalties, and a greater amount sacrifices needlessly much that the might otherwise enjoy. The Chinese thus becomes the most coolly calculating materialist the world has ever known. He lives skeptically immune to moral enthusiasms, having long ago arrived at an opportune materialism whither some of our own gospel ministers tell us we are now rapidly drifting." -"Ways that are dark: The Truth About China" by Ralph Townsend
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