Baizhuo

From Rasmapedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

bo·zo /ˈbōzō/: a stupid, rude, or insignificant person, especially a man. "they're really a bunch of bozos" --- Lexico.com


If you look at any thread about Trump, Islam or immigration on a Chinese social media platform these days, it’s impossible to avoid encountering the term baizuo (白左), or literally, the ‘white left’. It first emerged about two years ago, and yet has quickly become one of the most popular derogatory descriptions for Chinese netizens to discredit their opponents in online debates.

The question has received more than 400 answers from Zhihu users... Baizuo is used generally to describe those who “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”. ...

The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu (圣母) – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’...

In an academic-style essay that was retweeted more than 7000 times on Weibo, a user named ‘fantasy lover Mr. Liu’ ‘reviewed’ European philosophy from Voltaire and Marx to Adorno and Foucault, concluding that the ‘white left’ as a 'spiritual epidemic' is on its way to self-destruction. He then stated that Trump’s win was only “a small victory over this spiritual epidemic of humankind”, but “western civilization is still far from its self-redemption”.

"The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult"


WIKIPEDIA: Baizuo (/ˈbaɪˌdzwɔː/, /baɪˈzwoʊ/; Chinese: 白左; pinyin: báizuǒ, Mandarin pronunciation: [pǎi.tswò], literally White Left)[1][2] is a Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western leftist ideologies primarily espoused by white leftists.[3] The term baizuo is related to the term shèngmǔ (圣母, 聖母, literally "Blessed Mother") or shèngmǔbiǎo (圣母婊, 聖母婊, literally "Blessed Mother of Bitch"), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy.

The term baizuo was apparently coined in a 2010 article published on Renren Network by user Li Shuo, entitled The Fake Morality of the Western White Left and the Chinese Patriotic Scientists (西方白左和中国爱国科学家的伪道德), initially used as a general critique of certain socialist values in the American left.[3] No further use of the term is known until 2013, where on Chinese forum Zhihu through 2013–2015, the term evolved to criticize some people among the left who seemingly advocate for positive slogans like peace and equality to boast their sense of moral superiority, but are ignorant of real-world consequences, and utilize destructive behavior like political sacrifice and identity politics.

Substantial use in Chinese Internet culture began in early 2016, at first at MIT BBS, a bulletin board system used by many Chinese in the U.S., during the 2016 United States presidential election.