Comment by pezezin
14 days ago
You are thinking in Western terms. In East Asian Confucian societies, "harmony" means following the rules to keep the social hierarchy in place. Staying quiet and not disrupting the status quo is more important than your sense of personal freedom.
From our Western point of view, it is very much not voluntary and joyful.
> You are thinking in Western terms.
Because that is what the English word means. The correct term to use would have been 'order'.
Actually a Greek word. Look, I didn't create the word. I live in Japan, the native word used here is 和 ("wa") that usually gets translated as "harmony": https://jisho.org/search/%E5%92%8C
If you don't agree with it, you can complaint to centuries of translators and dictionary makers.
It's possible the Japanese/Korean/Chinese terms are also misused, to make the oppression more palatable. So the misuse is faithfully translated. That doesn't mean we should go along with it. Things should be named correctly.
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