From Cultural Asymmetry to Subjectivity: Civilizational Coordinates in the Age of AI
in Ai / Culture / Civilization
On cultural asymmetry, post-colonial psychology, and the reconstruction of subjectivity in the age of AI.
Chinese version below.
When we discuss technological singularity and human subjectivity, we often overlook a hidden foundational structure: the language, logic, and aesthetics that underpin today’s digital civilization have been shaped overwhelmingly by the West – more specifically, by the Anglo-American system.
We write code through English syntax. We debate the future of humanity within narrative frameworks defined by Hollywood and Silicon Valley. We imagine progress, intelligence, modernity, and even the future itself through a set of cultural coordinates that were largely constructed elsewhere.
Yet when we shift our gaze back to reality, the fractures of geopolitics and the lingering sense of cultural asymmetry in certain peripheral regions remind us of something uncomfortable:
The struggle over “who we are” has never truly ended.
These two phenomena are not separate. They are two sides of the same coin.
At the macro level, there is the global cultural pantheon: the symbolic elevation of the West as the default image of modernity.
At the micro level, there is mimicry: the attempt by peripheral societies or identities to derive superiority by moving closer to that imagined center.
The real question is: when will we reach a historical inflection point where cultures can finally meet each other on equal footing?
The Scars of Asymmetry
To understand the contempt or alienation sometimes directed toward Chinese identity in certain peripheral regions, we need to place it back within its historical coordinates.
This psychology is neither innate nor eternal. It is better understood as a classic post-colonial psychological condition.
In the late twentieth century, some peripheral regions gained a significant modernization advantage by absorbing Western industrial relocation, capital, institutions, and cultural influence earlier than others. Over time, this gap became internalized as a form of identity dividend:
Because I am more Westernized, I am therefore more sophisticated.
But over the past two decades, that asymmetry has been rapidly narrowed – and in some areas, even reversed – economically, technologically, and structurally.
As the material foundation of that superiority weakened, the psychological structure built upon it began to tremble.
When a group struggles to reconcile itself with the loss of relative advantage, it often moves toward one of two extremes: anxiety or aggressive separation.
Contempt toward one’s cultural kin is, in this sense, not a sign of real confidence. It is often a form of desperation: an attempt to hold onto a slipping rope of “sophistication” that was defined by an external center.
Will this mentality last forever? I do not think so.
Because the asymmetry that sustained it is collapsing.
As generations change, those who never experienced the old “golden age” of relative superiority will confront a different reality directly: a more multipolar East Asia, a more complex global order, and a more distributed map of economic and technological power.
Their psychology will gradually shift from blind contempt to pragmatic differentiation.
Prejudice is born from asymmetry. As asymmetry dissolves, so too will the emotional structure built upon it.
The Inflection Point of Cultural Hegemony
At a broader level, when will the dominance of Western culture and the English language undergo a true qualitative shift?
History suggests that cultural parity – or even cultural reversal – often lags far behind shifts in economic and military power.
The Roman Empire fell, but Latin remained the language of European elites for more than a thousand years.
To break this historical lag, several critical variables must converge.
The first is a generational shift in foundational technology.
The rules of the past two centuries were largely an extension of industrial civilization. If the next paradigm – whether controlled nuclear fusion, artificial general intelligence, or another foundational technological system – is no longer monopolized by the West, then the academic, financial, and symbolic capital embedded in language will begin to be reorganized.
The second variable is the relocation of knowledge production.
When the world’s top intellectual resources, research systems, and evaluative institutions are no longer concentrated primarily within Anglo-American universities and laboratories, the illusion of English as the only ticket into the global elite will begin to fracture.
The third variable, perhaps the most important and the one already unfolding before us, is the deconstructive force emerging from within digital civilization itself:
Artificial Intelligence.
AI as Deconstructor
In discussions about AI and self-identity, we often focus on how machines are approaching human consciousness, creativity, or even something resembling spirituality.
But in this context, AI plays a different role.
It is not merely another productivity tool. It is a deeper cultural deconstructor.
It is beginning to dismantle the long-standing Tower of Babel that has shaped global knowledge, communication, and status.
For generations, the dominance of English has rested on two pillars: communication cost and informational altitude.
Those who mastered English stood closer to knowledge, capital, technology, and global elite networks.
But in the age of real-time, high-fidelity multilingual large models, language barriers are becoming increasingly translucent.
When code can be generated through natural language, and when frontier knowledge can be translated, interpreted, and circulated across languages with unprecedented precision, the walls of discourse built upon linguistic monopoly begin to face a technological form of dimensional reduction.
AI is pushing the world into an age of desacralization.
Western culture is no longer the singular coordinate for “modernity” or “sophistication.” It is being repositioned as one quadrant within a broader, multipolar field of civilizations.
And once the Western myth loses its exclusivity, the peripheral psychology that seeks superiority through spiritual Westernization also begins to lose its reference point.
The Age of Parity
We do not need to replace Western cultural dominance with another monocultural hegemony.
The true transformation is not the replacement of one center by another. It is the transition toward a genuinely multipolar and equal civilizational order.
For Chinese identity, breaking free from a dominated discourse – and from the anxiety of being looked down upon – is not about proving anything to an external audience.
The real task is to build an endogenous language, aesthetic, and subjectivity on the new continent of digital civilization.
When that day arrives, the mist inside the mirror hall will finally dissipate.
We will be able to look at the world on equal footing.
And we will finally be able to look at ourselves the same way.
从文化势差到主体性重建：AI 时代的文明坐标
English version above.
当我们讨论技术奇点与人类主体性时，往往会忽略一个隐藏在底层的框架：支撑当代数字文明的语言、逻辑与审美，几乎完全由西方，尤其是英美体系所塑造。
我们用英语语法书写代码，在好莱坞和硅谷定义的叙事框架中讨论人类的未来。我们想象进步、智能、现代性，甚至想象未来本身时，所使用的坐标系，在很大程度上都是由他者建构出来的。
然而，当视线回到现实，地缘政治的撕裂，以及某些边缘区域所表现出的文化势差感，或对自身文化母体的疏离感，又不断提醒我们一件不太舒服的事情：
关于“我们是谁”的认同之战，从未真正停止。
这两个现象并不是彼此分离的。
它们其实是同一枚硬币的两面。
在宏观层面，是全球文化神坛：西方被象征性地抬升为现代性的默认形象。
在微观层面，则是拟态：边缘社会或边缘身份试图通过靠近那个想象中的中心，来获得自身的优越感。
真正的问题是：我们究竟要到什么时候，才能抵达一个不同文化真正彼此平视的历史拐点？
势差的伤痕
要理解某些边缘区域对华人身份的轻蔑或疏离，必须把它重新放回历史坐标之中。
这种心理既不是天生的，也不会永恒存在。它更像是一种典型的后殖民心理症候。
在二十世纪后期，一些边缘区域因为较早承接西方产业转移、资本、制度与文化影响，率先建立起一种巨大的现代化势差。
在随后数十年里，这种差距被逐渐内化为一种身份红利：
因为我更西化，所以我更高级。
但过去二十年，随着这种势差在经济、技术与结构层面被迅速抹平，甚至在某些领域被反超，原本支撑优越感的物质基础开始松动。
当物质基础松动，建立在其上的心理结构也会随之震颤。
从心理层面看，当一个群体无法接受自身相对优势的消失时，往往会走向两个极端：一种是强烈的焦虑，另一种是更激进的切割。
对同族的轻蔑，本质上并不是真正自信的表现。它更像是一种挣扎：试图抓住一根正在滑落的绳索，而那根绳索，正是由外部中心定义出来的“高级感”。
这种心态会一直延续下去吗？我并不认为会。
因为支撑它的势差基础正在坍塌。
随着代际更替，那些没有亲历旧时代“黄金期”的新一代，将直接面对一个不同的现实：一个更加多极化的东亚，一个更加复杂的全球秩序，以及一张更加分散的经济与技术权力地图。
他们的心理结构，也会逐渐从盲目鄙视，转向务实区隔。
偏见诞生于势差，也终将随着势差的消解而逐渐退场。
文化霸权的拐点
那么，从更宏观的层面看，西方文化与英语语言的主导地位，何时才会发生真正的质变？
历史经验告诉我们，文化平视，甚至文化反转，通常都会滞后于经济与军事力量的崛起。
罗马帝国早已灭亡，但拉丁语作为欧洲精英语言，仍然持续影响了上千年。
要打破这种历史滞后，需要几个关键变量同时出现。
第一个变量，是底层技术范式的代际转换。
过去两百年的世界规则，本质上仍是工业文明的延伸。如果下一个时代的核心范式，无论是可控核聚变、通用人工智能，还是另一个基础性技术体系，不再由西方单方面垄断，那么语言所承载的学术资本、金融资本与象征资本，就会开始发生系统性重组。
第二个变量，是知识生产重心的转移。
当全球最顶尖的智力资源、科研体系与评价机制，不再主要集中于英美高校与实验室时，英语作为“唯一精英入场券”的幻觉，也会随之破裂。
第三个变量，也许是最关键、并且正在发生的变量，是数字文明内部正在成长出一种新的解构力量：
人工智能。
AI 作为解构者
在关于 AI 与自我认同的讨论中，我们常常关注机器如何逼近人类意识、创造力，甚至某种近似“灵性”的边界。
但在这里，AI 扮演的角色并不是另一个效率工具。
它是一个更深层的文化解构者。
它正在解构那座长期存在的文化巴别塔。
长期以来，英语的统治力，很大程度上建立在两个基础之上：一是沟通成本，二是信息高地。
谁掌握英语，谁就更接近知识、资本、技术与全球精英网络。
但在实时、高保真、多语言的大模型面前，语言壁垒正在变成一层越来越透明的薄纱。
当代码可以通过自然语言生成，当前沿知识可以被即时、准确地跨语言翻译、解释与传播，建立在语言垄断之上的话语高墙，正在遭遇一种来自技术层面的降维打击。
AI 正在把世界推向一个去神圣化的时代。
西方文化不再是那个唯一代表“现代性”与“高级感”的终极坐标，而是被重新放回全球多元文明中的一个象限。
当西方神话不再具有唯一性，那些试图通过精神西化来获取优越感的边缘心理，也会逐渐失去参照物。
平视的时代
我们并不需要用另一种单一文化霸权，去取代旧有的西方霸权。
真正的质变，不是从一种中心走向另一种中心，而是人类社会进入一种真正多极、平视的文明状态。
对于华人身份而言，摆脱“被支配的语境”与“被轻视的焦虑”，核心并不在于向谁证明什么。
真正重要的是，在数字文明这片新大陆上，建立属于我们自己的、内生的语言、审美与主体性。
当那一天到来，镜厅中的迷雾终将散去。
我们将能够平视世界。
也终于能够平视自己。
