I do not always agree with Bill Maher, but I am beginning to see him as something of a vital cultural critic.
In a recent editorial/rant, Maher declared that Americans are “a silly people,” using the famous line from Lawrence of Arabia. In contrast, he argued that the Chinese are serious—“as serious as a prison fight.” To be clear, given the anti-China and anti-Asian sentiment running rampant in the U.S. today, Maher is not bashing China or Asian Americans. Rather, he is using China as a yardstick to argue that the U.S. is falling short.
In some ways, Maher has created a version of a straw man argument. Although Maher concedes that China has reneged on its promise of an autonomous Hong Kong and is clearly suppressing the Uyghur minority, he fails to see other limitations of modern China. For example, he notes that China has built 500 cities in the last 40 years, but he ignores the quality of those cities—they are not exact 500 Parises, or 500 Clevelands, for that matter. Furthermore, he ignores the derivative nature of many Chinese endeavors. Apple’s iPhones, for example, are manufactured in China but designed in the U.S., while much of China’s new military hardware appears to be copies of foreign designs. And who developed the world’s best coronavirus vaccines? For all its flaws, the United States is still a hub of innovation.
That said, Maher’s critique of the broader American society is spot on. We are not taking care of business, as discussed in this excellent article on infrastructure from The Washington Post.
Rather than addressing the important issues of this age, Americans are—according to Maher—either consumed with political correctness or intellectually enfeebled by conspiracy theories, depending on which side of the political spectrum they inhabit.
Here is a link to the Maher video. It’s Maher, so expect bad words and political incorrectness.