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The Cultural Revolution in China had a very real kernel of truth to it. The preservation of the sacred and the traditional is an impediment to pragmatism and efficiency and power.

By destroying almost all of it though there is no longer any sense of the sacred left. Just status chasing and consumerism. The only sense of the 'sacred' left is a strong belief that you should have children which IMO is just a leftover cultural script from birthing soldiers.

Combined you get status & consumerism around Children. E.g. expensive houses, schooling, piano lessons, etc... Not the stupid debt-driven consumerism either, there's lot of savvy investment and saving.

It can feel terrifying. A bunch of smarter, more driven, more hardworking people being better at everything than you. The only advantage you have is a sense of the 'sacred' or rightness that they don't care about.

This is the same feeling that many cultures felt when they were overwhelmed and destroyed by a 'superior' culture. A sense that the other had sold themselves to the devil, gaining knowledge and power at the cost of sacredness.

The urban/rural split has a similar dynamic. The urban life with its casual sex, bullshit jobs, etc.. feels depraved compared to the honesty and directness of urban life.

The biggest difference for China is that sense of terror is coupled with a massive population, ratcheting it up to Borg like fear.

Instead of 10 peasants vs 1 terminator odds it's like 1 peasant vs 10 terminators. Like an alien invasion the knee-jerk reaction is 'burn it with fire'. (Knee jerk reactions always forget the consequences of hostility.) (Funny that 'alien' can legally also refer to immigrants)

In many machiavellian tomes of advice you never want to outshine the master. You can have better character, better luck, better looks, etc.. but the cardinal sin is to showcase that you have greater intelligence.

Even though the Chinese in the U.S. (across the world?) tend to have higher economic status, lower crime rate, etc... it doens't matter what they do, they are always somewhat in their own 'world' and viewed as an outsider. Often literally within Chinatowns.

This isn't exclusion though, culturally looking inward is the norm. If all your friends are on facebook but your chinese colleagues only uses WeChat it's a bit hard to merge those worlds.

An interesting fact to remind you of this is that within the dating scene most Chinese only date people they know growing up or friends of friends. Meeting 'strangers' through apps or bars feels very weird.

The destruction of the sacred has a very detrimental effect on both men and women in China due to massive pressure. Sacredness is sacred because it is THE source of "everything is fine". When you destroy the sacred all you have is constant thirst. Things HAVE TO get better.

You know you'll often put off doing something unless a burst of energy propels you? E.g. dieting, exercise, starting a project. We often procrastinate until some outside force compels us. That energy is truly is rooted in external circumstance.

Why don't most people work as hard as the Chinese? Many factors... lack of the mitigating energy of the sacred, huge population, few directions of 'goodness' as everyone tries to squeeze into the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Desire to lift family out of poverty. Rat race

Where is that pressure supposed to go? There are no challenges anymore for that kind of energy. In times past, the only type of projects that could make use of all that energy and prevent contention for resources were War based.

If every place no matter how small could contribute to a War effort, then there was no need to squeeze into the "top" to drink from the sweet nectar of meaning.

Countries and cultures can have mimetic desire. China doesn't know what it actually wants but the power of its people has been unlocked, for better or for worse. Will there be a war? Or can there be another large project as a united front against an enemy like climate change?