I should probably take time to write a new essay discussing at least some of the events of recent days, such as the Nobel committee's interesting selection of Barack Obama as recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. (In brief, I think it was a bit premature, and there were other candidates at least as worthy, but on the other hand it's true that he has had a major impact on the global climate just by changing many people's perception of America. What remains to be seen is whether he can really live up to such high expectations.) However, I'm feeling a bit lazy, so instead I'm just providing a few links to some old articles on a topic I find fascinating, namely people's ability (or inability) to think logically, and the resaons people believe what they believe. Many years back I started an essay of my own along similar lines, but I never finished it. One day I'll get back to it, but in the meantime here are the articles:
Health Care Debate Based on Lack of Logic
By Jeanna Bryner Senior Writer
LiveScience.com
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090826-healthcare-debate.html
People Unsure of Beliefs Are More Close-Minded
By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer
01 July 2009 11:38 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090701-close-minded-people.html
Monsters, Ghosts and Gods: Why We Believe
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
18 August 2008 11:00 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/culture/080818-monsters-ghosts-gods.html
Monday, October 12, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A Dialogue
Since it's been a few weeks since I posted anything and I don't have anything new written, here's an odd little dialogue that I wrote a couple of years back. It was unfinished so I added a few more lines. I was tempted to leave it open-ended or to extended it even further, but in the end I decided to give it a real closing, for better or for worse.
"If you really want to do it, then, fine, we'll do it."
"Look, if you aren't really willing...."
"I just said I was."
"You don't sound very willing."
"What do you mean? I said, okay, let's do it."
"But the way you put it...."
"'Okay' means 'okay.'"
"You said that if I really want to, then you'd go along. That sounds kind of reluctant to me."
"You said you really wanted to."
"I do, but I want you to want to, too."
"'To to too?' You lost me."
"I just mean that if you're only doing it because I want to, then it's not like you really want to."
"It was your idea."
"But the point is you don't seem very enthusiastic about it."
"What do you want me to do, jump up and down?"
"Of course not. It's just that...."
"Anyway, just because you really want to do it doesn't mean you have the right to expect me to want to do it as much as you do."
"It'd be nice if you wanted it at least a little."
"I said I'd do it."
"But that doesn't mean you want to do it; it sounds like you're only doing it to make me happy."
"Trust me, if I really didn't want to do it, I wouldn't."
"Not not wanting to do it isn't the same as wanting to do it."
"'Not not wanting?'"
"You know what I mean."
"Not really."
"Don't be obtuse."
"I'm not being obtuse, I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, you said you were willing...."
"Right, so what more do you want?"
"But you don't really want to."
"Like you just said yourself, I said I was willing."
"But willing doesn't mean you want to."
"What else could it mean?"
"It only means that you don't absolutely refuse. It's reluctant acquiescence."
"Did I say I was reluctant?"
"You sounded reluctant."
"In what way?"
"You just did."
"So you think you know what I'm thinking just from the way I say things?"
"Sure, I can tell."
"Well, if you can read my mind, then why bother ask me what I think in the first place?"
"I didn't say I could read your mind, I said I could guess."
"You said you could tell. That doesn't mean you guess, that means you know."
"Now you're nitpicking. Fine, I can't read your mind. So tell me, do you really want to do it or not?"
"I told you a hundred times, if you really want to do it, then fine by me."
"Arrgh, here we go again. Look, I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do it."
"You aren't forcing me. I wouldn't let you force me."
"But you wouldn't even do it if I didn't want to do it."
"Of course not. Why should we do it if you don't want to?"
"That's my point too. Maybe we shouldn't do it if you don't want to."
"I never said I didn't want to."
"But you never said you wanted to, either."
"Look, maybe I don't want to do it as badly as you do. Is that what you want me to say?"
"Then maybe we shouldn't do it at all."
"I know you really want to do it. So if we don't, you're going to act all moody."
"No, I won't."
"Yes, you will. You're acting that way already."
"I am not. If you don't want to do it, I can live with that."
"Ha! So you say now, but you'll mope about it forever. Anyway, I didn't say I didn't want to."
"You're sure acting like you don't."
"Oh for crying out loud, just set up the chess board and let's play."
"If you really want to do it, then, fine, we'll do it."
"Look, if you aren't really willing...."
"I just said I was."
"You don't sound very willing."
"What do you mean? I said, okay, let's do it."
"But the way you put it...."
"'Okay' means 'okay.'"
"You said that if I really want to, then you'd go along. That sounds kind of reluctant to me."
"You said you really wanted to."
"I do, but I want you to want to, too."
"'To to too?' You lost me."
"I just mean that if you're only doing it because I want to, then it's not like you really want to."
"It was your idea."
"But the point is you don't seem very enthusiastic about it."
"What do you want me to do, jump up and down?"
"Of course not. It's just that...."
"Anyway, just because you really want to do it doesn't mean you have the right to expect me to want to do it as much as you do."
"It'd be nice if you wanted it at least a little."
"I said I'd do it."
"But that doesn't mean you want to do it; it sounds like you're only doing it to make me happy."
"Trust me, if I really didn't want to do it, I wouldn't."
"Not not wanting to do it isn't the same as wanting to do it."
"'Not not wanting?'"
"You know what I mean."
"Not really."
"Don't be obtuse."
"I'm not being obtuse, I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, you said you were willing...."
"Right, so what more do you want?"
"But you don't really want to."
"Like you just said yourself, I said I was willing."
"But willing doesn't mean you want to."
"What else could it mean?"
"It only means that you don't absolutely refuse. It's reluctant acquiescence."
"Did I say I was reluctant?"
"You sounded reluctant."
"In what way?"
"You just did."
"So you think you know what I'm thinking just from the way I say things?"
"Sure, I can tell."
"Well, if you can read my mind, then why bother ask me what I think in the first place?"
"I didn't say I could read your mind, I said I could guess."
"You said you could tell. That doesn't mean you guess, that means you know."
"Now you're nitpicking. Fine, I can't read your mind. So tell me, do you really want to do it or not?"
"I told you a hundred times, if you really want to do it, then fine by me."
"Arrgh, here we go again. Look, I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do it."
"You aren't forcing me. I wouldn't let you force me."
"But you wouldn't even do it if I didn't want to do it."
"Of course not. Why should we do it if you don't want to?"
"That's my point too. Maybe we shouldn't do it if you don't want to."
"I never said I didn't want to."
"But you never said you wanted to, either."
"Look, maybe I don't want to do it as badly as you do. Is that what you want me to say?"
"Then maybe we shouldn't do it at all."
"I know you really want to do it. So if we don't, you're going to act all moody."
"No, I won't."
"Yes, you will. You're acting that way already."
"I am not. If you don't want to do it, I can live with that."
"Ha! So you say now, but you'll mope about it forever. Anyway, I didn't say I didn't want to."
"You're sure acting like you don't."
"Oh for crying out loud, just set up the chess board and let's play."
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Reputation and Reality
Anyone who reads a lot of history, as I do, will frequently encounter assessments of historical figures, both in terms of their deeds and their characters. Historians will provide opinions as to whether a particular political or military leader was "good" in the sense that they fulfilled their role successfully, and whether they were "good" as far as their character was concerned, that is, whether they were humane and just or cruel and arbitrary. Even those who do not read much history will encounter such judgements regarding the reputation of historical figures; indeed many people will make such judgements themselves -- or more likely they will regurgitate judgements that they have learned from others. But, as should be obvious to anyone who spends a few moments' thought on the issue, historical reputations are usually based on a very narrow and often misleading set of facts, and are indeed often somewhat divorced from reality. The unreliability of many opinions regarding the reputations of historical figures is made clear by the fact that different sources can reach diametrically opposed conclusions about the same person. This can even be seen when the person in question is someone who is only recently dead, such as Ronald Reagan or (to take a pop culture example) Michael Jackson. Even cases where there seems to be a relative consensus among most sources, such as the Roman emperor Caligula, sometimes upon close examination are not that clear cut.
Many historical figures have wildly diverging reputations, with a number of different factors behind the variation. At the most basic level, the actual facts of a person's life are often unclear and sometimes end up being wildly distorted. For instance, the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang almost certainly did not have a mountain painted red (the color worn by condemned criminals) because he was angry at the god of the mountain for impeding his progress, the claim that the emperor Caligula tried to have his horse made consul is dubious, and most of the more lurid stories about Edgar Allen Poe's personal life were invented by a rival who claimed to have been made his literary executor (and who was widely reputed to be a dishonest, unpleasant person). Regarding Caligula (whose real name was Gaius Caesar, Caligula being a nickname), he now has a very infamous reputation, and even many historians say that he was probably tyrannical or insane or both, but some others have suggested that he was in fact a fairly decent emperor whose biggest mistake was badly antagonizing Rome's senatorial class, the class from which the Roman historians who later wrote about him came, such that his deeds were distorted or even made up entirely to vilify him. Other examples abound, such as the Chinese emperor Wang Mang, who was vilified by the historians of the Later Han dynasty which replaced his regime, or Richard III of England, whose record was distorted by members of the court of the man who overthrew him, Henry VII, to the point that they invented fictions about his appearance, such as the claim that he was hunchbacked (an image which Shakespeare unfortunately popularized).
Then there are facts that are certainly or at least probably true but open to varying interpretations, such as the time when Alexander of Macedon (commonly called Alexander "the Great", a name which in itself carries subjective notions about the reputation he deserved) killed his friend Cleitus in a rage. The two were drunk and trading insults, but exactly what was said, who was being more aggressive, what motivated the quarrel, and whether there were underlying motives involved are all subject to some dispute. To take another example, I recently read a book about a Texas family (one that I happened to be descended from) during the period between Texas's declaration of independence from Mexico and the end of the US Civil War. Sam Houston, who was the victor in the battle which won Texan independence, as well as serving as the president of Texas, as a senator, and as governor of the state after it joined the US, is frequently mentioned in the book, as he lived nearby and was an acquaintance of a number of the people in the family. While most people today view Houston positively, this book takes a more negative view, citing among other things his frequent drunkenness and his ambition. Towards the end of his life, Houston lost most of his popularity in Texas due to his opposition to the state's secession from the Union before the Civil War. This account takes the view that his sole or at least primary reason for his position was that he had ambitions to run for US president, something which obviously couldn't happen if Texas left the Union. While Houston clearly was ambitious, it is also quite possible that he opposed secession out of principle or simply because, as he said himself, it was a bad idea that would result in a war that the South would lose. Without getting inside his head, we obviously can't know what his true motivation was, and so whether his motivation was positive or negative is clearly a matter of interpretation (even aside from the issue of whether one agrees with the position he took or not). Similarly, Abraham Lincoln's actions during the Civil War led him to be considered either a savior and liberator (by most Northerners and African-Americans) or an undemocratic tyrant (by many white Southerners). In this case, the same actions were being viewed from drastically different perspectives, leading to contrasting interpretations.
But perhaps the most crucial deciding factor governing a historical figure's reputation is emphasis; that is to say, which events and actions one chooses to focus on when evaluating the person. In many cases, the way a person is generally regarded is based on how they acted with regard to a single event, with the result that someone with an otherwise solid record may be viewed negatively due to one major blunder, or someone who was highly flawed may be seen favorably due to success with regard to a particularly important event. An example of the latter is Winston Churchill, whose successful leadership of Britain in World War II is what is generally remembered about him. What is less remembered is that he was a diehard imperialist who called Gandhi a "half-naked fakir", and as British colonial secretary he was largely responsible for the creation of Iraq, a country with arbitrarily drawn borders containing three different ethnic groups who didn't get along, making him directly responsible for problems that plague the Middle East to this day. Often different people will focus on different events in the life of the same individual. Ronald Reagan is viewed by many conservatives as a great president due to his perceived victory in the Cold War (though how much credit he deserves for that is debatable) as well as his taxation and social policies. Of course those same policies are strongly criticized by liberals, who are also more likely to focus on events like the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan's support for dictators like Pinochet and Saddam Hussein, and his frequent ignorance of what was going on around him. Likewise, after the recent death if Michael Jackson, his fans focused on his musical legacy (though how great that is obviously remains subjective), while his detractors focused on his alleged pedophilia (though it should be remembered that he was found not guilty) and his eccentricity. And after Ted Kennedy died, while the majority of people talked about his achievements as a legislator and his long-time struggle for various liberal causes, some detractors chose to dwell on the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, in which he drove a car into a tidal channel and left his young woman passenger behind to drown while he escaped. Though many of those who raise this incident wildly exaggerate in their criticism, some going so far as to call Kennedy a murderer when even the worst possible interpretation of the facts shows that the woman's death was accidental, he was still guilty of serious negligence at best. But this of course begs the question of how much good someone has to do to balance out one or more major mistakes or evil deeds.
This latter question is an extremely vital one when it comes to evaluating historical figures, but the answer is necessarily subjective. A close examination of any person's history will reveal both good and bad, even in the best and worst individuals. Obviously in some cases the evil deeds so far outweigh any good ones that a negative assessment is a given, with people like Hitler and Stalin being among the most obvious examples. For figures that are less prominent, a single egregiously evil deed will outweigh any positives, such as the unfortunately numerous cases of perpetrators of bloody massacres of innocent people, including Reginald Dyer (responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India), Ernest Medina (the highest-ranking officer at the My Lai massacre), and the various white civilians and soldiers responsible for massacres of Native Americans. On the other hand, some individuals did sufficient good that, at least in most people's minds, their virtues clearly outweigh any faults. But in most cases, there are enough examples of both good and bad deeds that one could easily go either way in an overall assessment, depending as suggested above on the weight given to different deeds. Does Augustus Caesar's competent rulership and establishment of Pax Romana outweigh his utter ruthlessness and responsibility for numerous killings? Do Alexander's impressive military achievements and spread of Greek civilization outweigh his drunkenness, fits of rage, and occasional tyrannical behavior? Do Tang Empress Wu Zetian's able executive skills and defiance of patriarchal tradition outweigh her supposed cruelty and use of secret police against dissent? By modern standards, the answer would probably be no in all those cases, but nevertheless an objective assessment would have to acknowledge both the good and the bad, as well as the unfortunate fact that ruthlessness and cruelty were standard behavior for rulers and leaders in those times. Ultimately, when judging historical figures, we should remember that no one is perfect (or even perfectly bad), and we should try to get as much information as possible, both positive and negative, before reaching even a tentative conclusion.
Many historical figures have wildly diverging reputations, with a number of different factors behind the variation. At the most basic level, the actual facts of a person's life are often unclear and sometimes end up being wildly distorted. For instance, the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang almost certainly did not have a mountain painted red (the color worn by condemned criminals) because he was angry at the god of the mountain for impeding his progress, the claim that the emperor Caligula tried to have his horse made consul is dubious, and most of the more lurid stories about Edgar Allen Poe's personal life were invented by a rival who claimed to have been made his literary executor (and who was widely reputed to be a dishonest, unpleasant person). Regarding Caligula (whose real name was Gaius Caesar, Caligula being a nickname), he now has a very infamous reputation, and even many historians say that he was probably tyrannical or insane or both, but some others have suggested that he was in fact a fairly decent emperor whose biggest mistake was badly antagonizing Rome's senatorial class, the class from which the Roman historians who later wrote about him came, such that his deeds were distorted or even made up entirely to vilify him. Other examples abound, such as the Chinese emperor Wang Mang, who was vilified by the historians of the Later Han dynasty which replaced his regime, or Richard III of England, whose record was distorted by members of the court of the man who overthrew him, Henry VII, to the point that they invented fictions about his appearance, such as the claim that he was hunchbacked (an image which Shakespeare unfortunately popularized).
Then there are facts that are certainly or at least probably true but open to varying interpretations, such as the time when Alexander of Macedon (commonly called Alexander "the Great", a name which in itself carries subjective notions about the reputation he deserved) killed his friend Cleitus in a rage. The two were drunk and trading insults, but exactly what was said, who was being more aggressive, what motivated the quarrel, and whether there were underlying motives involved are all subject to some dispute. To take another example, I recently read a book about a Texas family (one that I happened to be descended from) during the period between Texas's declaration of independence from Mexico and the end of the US Civil War. Sam Houston, who was the victor in the battle which won Texan independence, as well as serving as the president of Texas, as a senator, and as governor of the state after it joined the US, is frequently mentioned in the book, as he lived nearby and was an acquaintance of a number of the people in the family. While most people today view Houston positively, this book takes a more negative view, citing among other things his frequent drunkenness and his ambition. Towards the end of his life, Houston lost most of his popularity in Texas due to his opposition to the state's secession from the Union before the Civil War. This account takes the view that his sole or at least primary reason for his position was that he had ambitions to run for US president, something which obviously couldn't happen if Texas left the Union. While Houston clearly was ambitious, it is also quite possible that he opposed secession out of principle or simply because, as he said himself, it was a bad idea that would result in a war that the South would lose. Without getting inside his head, we obviously can't know what his true motivation was, and so whether his motivation was positive or negative is clearly a matter of interpretation (even aside from the issue of whether one agrees with the position he took or not). Similarly, Abraham Lincoln's actions during the Civil War led him to be considered either a savior and liberator (by most Northerners and African-Americans) or an undemocratic tyrant (by many white Southerners). In this case, the same actions were being viewed from drastically different perspectives, leading to contrasting interpretations.
But perhaps the most crucial deciding factor governing a historical figure's reputation is emphasis; that is to say, which events and actions one chooses to focus on when evaluating the person. In many cases, the way a person is generally regarded is based on how they acted with regard to a single event, with the result that someone with an otherwise solid record may be viewed negatively due to one major blunder, or someone who was highly flawed may be seen favorably due to success with regard to a particularly important event. An example of the latter is Winston Churchill, whose successful leadership of Britain in World War II is what is generally remembered about him. What is less remembered is that he was a diehard imperialist who called Gandhi a "half-naked fakir", and as British colonial secretary he was largely responsible for the creation of Iraq, a country with arbitrarily drawn borders containing three different ethnic groups who didn't get along, making him directly responsible for problems that plague the Middle East to this day. Often different people will focus on different events in the life of the same individual. Ronald Reagan is viewed by many conservatives as a great president due to his perceived victory in the Cold War (though how much credit he deserves for that is debatable) as well as his taxation and social policies. Of course those same policies are strongly criticized by liberals, who are also more likely to focus on events like the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan's support for dictators like Pinochet and Saddam Hussein, and his frequent ignorance of what was going on around him. Likewise, after the recent death if Michael Jackson, his fans focused on his musical legacy (though how great that is obviously remains subjective), while his detractors focused on his alleged pedophilia (though it should be remembered that he was found not guilty) and his eccentricity. And after Ted Kennedy died, while the majority of people talked about his achievements as a legislator and his long-time struggle for various liberal causes, some detractors chose to dwell on the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, in which he drove a car into a tidal channel and left his young woman passenger behind to drown while he escaped. Though many of those who raise this incident wildly exaggerate in their criticism, some going so far as to call Kennedy a murderer when even the worst possible interpretation of the facts shows that the woman's death was accidental, he was still guilty of serious negligence at best. But this of course begs the question of how much good someone has to do to balance out one or more major mistakes or evil deeds.
This latter question is an extremely vital one when it comes to evaluating historical figures, but the answer is necessarily subjective. A close examination of any person's history will reveal both good and bad, even in the best and worst individuals. Obviously in some cases the evil deeds so far outweigh any good ones that a negative assessment is a given, with people like Hitler and Stalin being among the most obvious examples. For figures that are less prominent, a single egregiously evil deed will outweigh any positives, such as the unfortunately numerous cases of perpetrators of bloody massacres of innocent people, including Reginald Dyer (responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India), Ernest Medina (the highest-ranking officer at the My Lai massacre), and the various white civilians and soldiers responsible for massacres of Native Americans. On the other hand, some individuals did sufficient good that, at least in most people's minds, their virtues clearly outweigh any faults. But in most cases, there are enough examples of both good and bad deeds that one could easily go either way in an overall assessment, depending as suggested above on the weight given to different deeds. Does Augustus Caesar's competent rulership and establishment of Pax Romana outweigh his utter ruthlessness and responsibility for numerous killings? Do Alexander's impressive military achievements and spread of Greek civilization outweigh his drunkenness, fits of rage, and occasional tyrannical behavior? Do Tang Empress Wu Zetian's able executive skills and defiance of patriarchal tradition outweigh her supposed cruelty and use of secret police against dissent? By modern standards, the answer would probably be no in all those cases, but nevertheless an objective assessment would have to acknowledge both the good and the bad, as well as the unfortunate fact that ruthlessness and cruelty were standard behavior for rulers and leaders in those times. Ultimately, when judging historical figures, we should remember that no one is perfect (or even perfectly bad), and we should try to get as much information as possible, both positive and negative, before reaching even a tentative conclusion.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Warped Politics
I'm thinking it's about time to address some of the political nonsense that has been going on recently in the two countries I've spent most of my life in, the US and Taiwan. Of course politics is always full of absurd characters and ridiculous statements, but we've reached some new lows lately.
In the US, the big debate is over health care, but for the moment I don't intend to address this particular issue at length, but rather some of the rhetoric the extreme right wing has been directing at President Obama and his administration. Of course the latest example of this to make the news was the Republican from South Carolina actually loudly accusing Obama of lying when the latter was making a speech to a joint session of Congress. Now there are a couple of issues involved here. The first is of course whether Wilson's accusation (namely that Obama's statement that the reform he supported would not provide care for illegal immigrants) was true. The facts seem to indicate that it was not, as the current bills specifically exclude require proof of legal status. Of course some illegal immigrants may manage to take advantage of the system, but that is quite different from having a bill which would purposely encompass them. But then there is the second issue involved -- even if it was true that Obama's statement was not accurate, was the time and place appropriate from calling him on it? On this issue there is the greatest amount of agreement among reasonable people of both parties, who generally acknowledge that it is not considered good form for legislators to heckle the president in this kind of setting. So why does Rep. Wilson suddenly think it's acceptable for him to do so, abandoning civil discourse for the type of shouting that's been seeing lately at town hall meetings across the US? In my view, it is symptomatic of the bizarre, deep seated hatred the extreme right has for Obama, something that's surfaced again and again in the past few months.
First you had the idiotic birthers, who claimed that there was some doubt that Obama was born in the US, which was the intellectual equivalent of questioning whether humans landed on the Moon, whether the Holocaust happened, or even whether WWII was a real historical event. What was ridiculous was that a few conservative media figures seemed to give credence to this nonsense, though to be fair it must be noted that even some of the most extreme ones (such as Limbaugh and Coulter) dismissed the birthers' claims out of hand, as any sane person should.
Then there was Glenn Beck, who made the bizarre claim that Obama hated white people, despite the fact that his mother and the grandmother he was closest to were both white, he grew up more among white people than among blacks, and he himself is half white. Of course his borderline slander was strongly criticized, so seemingly partly out of revenge, he targeted one of Obama's advisors, Van Jones. Jones was accused of being a communist, of insulting Republicans, and of supporting a petition regarding 9/11 which asserted the government was responsible. Now I can't claim to have investigated these claims in detail, but from what I've seen they were frankly no big deal (certainly no worse than Beck's own ridiculous statement about Obama). First off, if Jones did ever say he was a "communist", I suspect he meant in the general sense, that is to say he considered a society where most property and capital was owned by the community rather than corporations and individuals (Jones is a community activist, after all). This type of "communism", while not popular among libertarians and the wealthy, is hardly sinister. Jones did call Republicans axxholes in a speech, but frankly many of them are, and in any case he said he himself was one in the same speech. As for the 9/11 petition, my understanding is that it simply called for an investigation on whether government officials might have known an attack was imminent. While I personally doubt this was the case, the idea is not completely absurd (as opposed to actually claiming the government was behind it, which is ludicrous); after all, to this day there are credible historians who suspect the Roosevelt administration may have had advance knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In any event, Jones has said he disagreed with the contents of the petition. So Beck himself is allowed to make ridiculous attacks on Obama but Obama's advisors are not permitted to have opinions that are basically reasonable, if slightly controversial? Give me a break.
Yet another recent incident was Obama's recent speech to school children. Without apparently having any knowledge of the content of the planned speech, rightwingers asserted that Obama planned to "indoctrinate" American school children with "socialist" ideas. Leaving aside the fact that socialism is not necessarily a bad thing, and that American children are already indoctrinated with questionable ideas that rightwingers support, such as nationalism (and if they had their way, they'd be indoctrinated with others such as Christianity and "intelligent design"), these paranoid claims revealed once again a bizarre fear and hatred of Obama, as if he could somehow poison children just by talking to them -- and talking to them only once. The idea that it's terrible for the US president to give a speech to school children is disturbingly strange; presidents have given this type of speech before, and no one got excited about it. And the actual speech, from what I've seen, was the noncontroversial type you'd expect to be given in this context. So what are these people getting excited about?
I generally try not to be like some liberals who manage to find racism as a subtext in almost everything, but in this case I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a factor in all the vitriol. Certainly many of the people we've heard the worst sorts of attacks from are mostly of the type whose racial sensitivity is somewhat questionable. Wilson of South Carolina, for instance, though I don't think he's truly representative of the average person of his state, unfortunately may typify a certain segment of the population (after all, South Carolina is not exactly known for liberals or for racial harmony). Beck of course actually accused Obama of being a racist, but an observant person will be aware that people who are particularly quick to make this type of accusation against others are often guilty of it themselves.
I suspect that the extremists' vitriol comes from a combination of factors. First, they are generally prone to this kind of thing, especially if someone they consider even slightly liberal is in the White House (after all, Clinton didn't escape this kind of attack). Second, they particularly fear Obama because of his popularity and his obvious rhetorical skills. Finally, they consider his background unusually threatening, because aside from being part African (the racism factor), he spent a lot of time abroad (horror of horrors!) and he used to be (shudder) a community activist (run for your lives!). Levity aside, though, this type of warped thinking seems to be far to prevalent in the US nowadays.
In Taiwan, meanwhile, the former president Chen Shuibian, the only non-KMT president in the nation's history, was convicted along with his wife, his children and several close confidants of graft by a district court. So what kind of sentence did he and his wife get? A life sentence. That's right, a life sentence for graft. Now don't get me wrong, I think corruption is bad and should be punished, especially if the guilty party is a national leader. What's more, I think Chen was probably guilty of something. But life? Normally people get life sentences for rape and attempted murder. I've never heard of anyone getting a life sentence for corruption, outside of countries like China, where they execute people for graft among many other things (actually in the case of corrupt officials, they are really executed for being unlucky enough to picked out as an example when the government decides to make people think they are doing something about corruption, and for belonging to the wrong political faction). No Taiwanese politician has ever gotten anything close to a life sentence for corruption. The notoriously corrupt KMT ran the country for 50 years, treating all of Taiwan like party property (or the property of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek and his family, which was also guilty of far worse crimes than corruption), and no KMT politician has received a sentence like this. What's more, Chen had his civil rights annulled for life, meaning he can't vote or run for office. By contrast, a few years ago a known gangster was able to run as an independent for the legislature from prison while serving a brief sentence (not a life sentence, of course) and won. A Taidong politician from the KMT who won the election for county commissioner was forced to surrender his position due to a conviction for corruption (again, the sentence he received was much milder than Chen's), he turned the office over to his wife (actually his ex-wife, as he divorced to get around a law forbidding him to appoint a family member to take his place). She in turn was accused of using county funds to take frequent trips abroad, but just a day after Chen was convicted, the prosecutor's office declined to indict her. Anyone aware of such cases or with even a basic knowledge of Taiwan's political situation and history can't help but see Chen's sentence as a blatantly political one. The irony is this will allow Chen to legitimately claim to be a martyr, a role he has already been overly eager to see himself in.
All this nonsense is almost enough to make one of those people who tries to ignore politics entirely. Unfortunately, I'm very aware of the truth of the statement which goes "you can ignore politics, but politics won't ignore you". So I'll continue to concern myself with what's happening, as bad as it may get.
In the US, the big debate is over health care, but for the moment I don't intend to address this particular issue at length, but rather some of the rhetoric the extreme right wing has been directing at President Obama and his administration. Of course the latest example of this to make the news was the Republican from South Carolina actually loudly accusing Obama of lying when the latter was making a speech to a joint session of Congress. Now there are a couple of issues involved here. The first is of course whether Wilson's accusation (namely that Obama's statement that the reform he supported would not provide care for illegal immigrants) was true. The facts seem to indicate that it was not, as the current bills specifically exclude require proof of legal status. Of course some illegal immigrants may manage to take advantage of the system, but that is quite different from having a bill which would purposely encompass them. But then there is the second issue involved -- even if it was true that Obama's statement was not accurate, was the time and place appropriate from calling him on it? On this issue there is the greatest amount of agreement among reasonable people of both parties, who generally acknowledge that it is not considered good form for legislators to heckle the president in this kind of setting. So why does Rep. Wilson suddenly think it's acceptable for him to do so, abandoning civil discourse for the type of shouting that's been seeing lately at town hall meetings across the US? In my view, it is symptomatic of the bizarre, deep seated hatred the extreme right has for Obama, something that's surfaced again and again in the past few months.
First you had the idiotic birthers, who claimed that there was some doubt that Obama was born in the US, which was the intellectual equivalent of questioning whether humans landed on the Moon, whether the Holocaust happened, or even whether WWII was a real historical event. What was ridiculous was that a few conservative media figures seemed to give credence to this nonsense, though to be fair it must be noted that even some of the most extreme ones (such as Limbaugh and Coulter) dismissed the birthers' claims out of hand, as any sane person should.
Then there was Glenn Beck, who made the bizarre claim that Obama hated white people, despite the fact that his mother and the grandmother he was closest to were both white, he grew up more among white people than among blacks, and he himself is half white. Of course his borderline slander was strongly criticized, so seemingly partly out of revenge, he targeted one of Obama's advisors, Van Jones. Jones was accused of being a communist, of insulting Republicans, and of supporting a petition regarding 9/11 which asserted the government was responsible. Now I can't claim to have investigated these claims in detail, but from what I've seen they were frankly no big deal (certainly no worse than Beck's own ridiculous statement about Obama). First off, if Jones did ever say he was a "communist", I suspect he meant in the general sense, that is to say he considered a society where most property and capital was owned by the community rather than corporations and individuals (Jones is a community activist, after all). This type of "communism", while not popular among libertarians and the wealthy, is hardly sinister. Jones did call Republicans axxholes in a speech, but frankly many of them are, and in any case he said he himself was one in the same speech. As for the 9/11 petition, my understanding is that it simply called for an investigation on whether government officials might have known an attack was imminent. While I personally doubt this was the case, the idea is not completely absurd (as opposed to actually claiming the government was behind it, which is ludicrous); after all, to this day there are credible historians who suspect the Roosevelt administration may have had advance knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In any event, Jones has said he disagreed with the contents of the petition. So Beck himself is allowed to make ridiculous attacks on Obama but Obama's advisors are not permitted to have opinions that are basically reasonable, if slightly controversial? Give me a break.
Yet another recent incident was Obama's recent speech to school children. Without apparently having any knowledge of the content of the planned speech, rightwingers asserted that Obama planned to "indoctrinate" American school children with "socialist" ideas. Leaving aside the fact that socialism is not necessarily a bad thing, and that American children are already indoctrinated with questionable ideas that rightwingers support, such as nationalism (and if they had their way, they'd be indoctrinated with others such as Christianity and "intelligent design"), these paranoid claims revealed once again a bizarre fear and hatred of Obama, as if he could somehow poison children just by talking to them -- and talking to them only once. The idea that it's terrible for the US president to give a speech to school children is disturbingly strange; presidents have given this type of speech before, and no one got excited about it. And the actual speech, from what I've seen, was the noncontroversial type you'd expect to be given in this context. So what are these people getting excited about?
I generally try not to be like some liberals who manage to find racism as a subtext in almost everything, but in this case I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a factor in all the vitriol. Certainly many of the people we've heard the worst sorts of attacks from are mostly of the type whose racial sensitivity is somewhat questionable. Wilson of South Carolina, for instance, though I don't think he's truly representative of the average person of his state, unfortunately may typify a certain segment of the population (after all, South Carolina is not exactly known for liberals or for racial harmony). Beck of course actually accused Obama of being a racist, but an observant person will be aware that people who are particularly quick to make this type of accusation against others are often guilty of it themselves.
I suspect that the extremists' vitriol comes from a combination of factors. First, they are generally prone to this kind of thing, especially if someone they consider even slightly liberal is in the White House (after all, Clinton didn't escape this kind of attack). Second, they particularly fear Obama because of his popularity and his obvious rhetorical skills. Finally, they consider his background unusually threatening, because aside from being part African (the racism factor), he spent a lot of time abroad (horror of horrors!) and he used to be (shudder) a community activist (run for your lives!). Levity aside, though, this type of warped thinking seems to be far to prevalent in the US nowadays.
In Taiwan, meanwhile, the former president Chen Shuibian, the only non-KMT president in the nation's history, was convicted along with his wife, his children and several close confidants of graft by a district court. So what kind of sentence did he and his wife get? A life sentence. That's right, a life sentence for graft. Now don't get me wrong, I think corruption is bad and should be punished, especially if the guilty party is a national leader. What's more, I think Chen was probably guilty of something. But life? Normally people get life sentences for rape and attempted murder. I've never heard of anyone getting a life sentence for corruption, outside of countries like China, where they execute people for graft among many other things (actually in the case of corrupt officials, they are really executed for being unlucky enough to picked out as an example when the government decides to make people think they are doing something about corruption, and for belonging to the wrong political faction). No Taiwanese politician has ever gotten anything close to a life sentence for corruption. The notoriously corrupt KMT ran the country for 50 years, treating all of Taiwan like party property (or the property of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek and his family, which was also guilty of far worse crimes than corruption), and no KMT politician has received a sentence like this. What's more, Chen had his civil rights annulled for life, meaning he can't vote or run for office. By contrast, a few years ago a known gangster was able to run as an independent for the legislature from prison while serving a brief sentence (not a life sentence, of course) and won. A Taidong politician from the KMT who won the election for county commissioner was forced to surrender his position due to a conviction for corruption (again, the sentence he received was much milder than Chen's), he turned the office over to his wife (actually his ex-wife, as he divorced to get around a law forbidding him to appoint a family member to take his place). She in turn was accused of using county funds to take frequent trips abroad, but just a day after Chen was convicted, the prosecutor's office declined to indict her. Anyone aware of such cases or with even a basic knowledge of Taiwan's political situation and history can't help but see Chen's sentence as a blatantly political one. The irony is this will allow Chen to legitimately claim to be a martyr, a role he has already been overly eager to see himself in.
All this nonsense is almost enough to make one of those people who tries to ignore politics entirely. Unfortunately, I'm very aware of the truth of the statement which goes "you can ignore politics, but politics won't ignore you". So I'll continue to concern myself with what's happening, as bad as it may get.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
One Day in China -- A Traveler's Tale
Way back in the mid 1990s, I took a long trip to China. I spent close to 3 months traveling all around the country. The following is an account I wrote some years later (but still close to a decade ago) of one relatively eventful day during that trip.
The sky was overcast as I stepped out of the hotel and walked to the bus station. This was a small, rather unimpressive building next to the train station. I managed to find my bus among the various vehicles that were scattered about the parking lot behind the station. It was properly speaking a minibus, and it was not blessed with leg room suitable for a foreign devil, especially one loaded with bags. Though fortunately it wasn't stuffed to its roof with passengers like buses in and around bigger cities, I didn't anticipate a particularly comfortable ride. On other hand, for the price I was paying I had no right to expect luxury, and, anyway, a little discomfort once in a while keeps life interesting.
Safely (more or less) crammed into my seat, I watched as the bus driver piloted us through the streets of Kaifeng. It was rush hour and the streets were filled with bicycles. They took up the whole road, so the occasional larger vehicles (generally buses and trucks, though there were also a fair number of private cars) had to push their way through, driving right in the center of the road. Though most Western drivers would no doubt have quickly lost their tempers trying to drive in such conditions, our driver was not perturbed in the least, though he used his horn more often than necessary.
Despite the slow pace, we eventually managed to make it out of the city into the less crowded countryside. Here the main obstruction, other than the less then perfect condition of the roads themselves, was grain. In villages all along the way, locals had spread their grain out on the road to sort and dry in the sun. Fortunately they always left enough space for vehicles to get by, though as in the city it was often necessary to drive in the middle of the road.
Throughout our journey we took on and off loaded passengers on the side of the road deep in the countryside. Most people seemed to take the bus for fairly short distances; in fact I believe I was the only one on the bus who traveled all the way from Kaifeng to its final destination. I was also one of the only passengers with a printed ticket, since all the people we picked up on the side of the road just paid the driver whatever he told them was the price for wherever they wanted to go. One or two did argue briefly about prices they considered too high, but they paid up in the end rather than stay on the roadside waiting for the next bus.
We crossed into Shandong province a couple of hours out of Kaifeng. In Heze, the first major town we came to, I moved up to a seat at the front of the bus at the driver's insistence. He, and the woman who took turns driving with him and was presumably his wife, appeared to be in his fifties. Both of them were friendly and talkative, though unfortunately I couldn't understand much of what they said, in part due to their accents and in part to due to my own language deficiencies.
My new seat was decidedly more comfortable than my old one, since there was more room to put my bags, though the road conditions sometimes negated any comfort gained by the move. At one point we left the paved road we had been following and drove along a dirt road which stretched along a ridge overlooking farm houses. Children playing in front of the houses stopped to gaze at our bus as it passed, but it was impossible to gauge from their reactions how often buses passed this way. It was presumably a short cut of some sort, though not surprisingly we didn't travel along at a great speed, and even at the speed we were going my teeth rattled and my bones shook. Fortunately we got back on a paved road before long.
Towards the end of our journey the bus broke down. As the driver and his wife worked to get it started again, I had visions of spending the night sitting there in a bus on the side of a country road in the middle of rural China. In the space between my seat and the driver's was a hatch of sorts which could be lifted to work on the engine, so it wasn't necessary to get out of the bus to do whatever repairs were necessary. The driver and his wife took turns trying to get the engine started while the other one fiddled with it. Apparently the oil wasn't flowing properly, because while one of them worked the gas pedal, the other sucked on a tube to try to get the oil flowing. Whatever they were doing, it was effective -- after ten minutes or so they got the bus started again.
We pulled into Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, at around four o'clock, some eight hours after our departure from Kaifeng. As soon as I exited the bus station I was accosted by a middle aged woman who offered to take me to a cheap hotel. It was cheap all right, the room was a stuffy (but reasonably roomy) cell in the basement furnished with a bed, a little wooden table and a fan, and the toilet was an outhouse. Despite the less than luxurious accommodations, I decided to take it, on the general principal that as long as there was a bed to sleep in and no obvious signs of rat or insect infestations, it would do for a night (though I would have preferred nicer toilets).
Though it was late afternoon, I hadn't had anything to eat all day other than some bread I had had for breakfast before leaving Kaifeng, so I decided to get a very late lunch. I found a small restaurant where I got some fried rice. As I ate the woman who ran the place talked to me, for the most part asking the standard questions ("Where are you from?", "What do you do?", "Are you married?") . At one point she suddenly asked me how many millions of dollars I had. I tried to explain that I didn't even have one million, that in fact the appropriate question would be how many thousands of dollars I had, but she didn't seem to believe me (perhaps she meant renminbi, the Chinese currency, but even one million renminbi is more than US$100,000). This was borne out by the fact that she charged me the outrageous sum of 25 RMB for my plate of fried rice -- well over ten times what I'd paid for a large bowl of noodles in Kaifeng the night before.
Upon my return to the hotel I met the landlady, who told me her last name was Kong, i.e. that she was a member of Confucius's extensive clan, and warned me to watch out for rip-offs, a warning I hardly needed after my experience at lunch. Nevertheless I survived the rest of the day without any significant holes being made in my wallet.
Sometime after midnight I was awakened by a knock on the door. Two uniformed men came into my room. One asked if I could understand Chinese and I indicated that I could, though I refrained from revealing that I could speak it as well, not wishing to prolong the conversation. They lectured me on the safety (or rather lack of the same) of cheap hotels such as the one I was in, and said I should stay in better hotels. I was tempted to point out that the only disturbance I had thus far encountered in this type of hotel was them but I thought better of it. After they had finished dispensing advice on accommodation choices, they left and knocked on other doors. Several hours later I was awakened once more by a hotel employee who took my passport to be checked (by whom I never found out). It was not clear whether this second disturbance was related to the first (though I presume it was) nor whether this was a random inspection, one inspired by word of a foreign devil in the hotel, or rather inspired by an overindulgence in Qingdao (Tsingtao) beer by the policemen on the night shift. In any case, I was left undisturbed for the rest of the night.
The sky was overcast as I stepped out of the hotel and walked to the bus station. This was a small, rather unimpressive building next to the train station. I managed to find my bus among the various vehicles that were scattered about the parking lot behind the station. It was properly speaking a minibus, and it was not blessed with leg room suitable for a foreign devil, especially one loaded with bags. Though fortunately it wasn't stuffed to its roof with passengers like buses in and around bigger cities, I didn't anticipate a particularly comfortable ride. On other hand, for the price I was paying I had no right to expect luxury, and, anyway, a little discomfort once in a while keeps life interesting.
Safely (more or less) crammed into my seat, I watched as the bus driver piloted us through the streets of Kaifeng. It was rush hour and the streets were filled with bicycles. They took up the whole road, so the occasional larger vehicles (generally buses and trucks, though there were also a fair number of private cars) had to push their way through, driving right in the center of the road. Though most Western drivers would no doubt have quickly lost their tempers trying to drive in such conditions, our driver was not perturbed in the least, though he used his horn more often than necessary.
Despite the slow pace, we eventually managed to make it out of the city into the less crowded countryside. Here the main obstruction, other than the less then perfect condition of the roads themselves, was grain. In villages all along the way, locals had spread their grain out on the road to sort and dry in the sun. Fortunately they always left enough space for vehicles to get by, though as in the city it was often necessary to drive in the middle of the road.
Throughout our journey we took on and off loaded passengers on the side of the road deep in the countryside. Most people seemed to take the bus for fairly short distances; in fact I believe I was the only one on the bus who traveled all the way from Kaifeng to its final destination. I was also one of the only passengers with a printed ticket, since all the people we picked up on the side of the road just paid the driver whatever he told them was the price for wherever they wanted to go. One or two did argue briefly about prices they considered too high, but they paid up in the end rather than stay on the roadside waiting for the next bus.
We crossed into Shandong province a couple of hours out of Kaifeng. In Heze, the first major town we came to, I moved up to a seat at the front of the bus at the driver's insistence. He, and the woman who took turns driving with him and was presumably his wife, appeared to be in his fifties. Both of them were friendly and talkative, though unfortunately I couldn't understand much of what they said, in part due to their accents and in part to due to my own language deficiencies.
My new seat was decidedly more comfortable than my old one, since there was more room to put my bags, though the road conditions sometimes negated any comfort gained by the move. At one point we left the paved road we had been following and drove along a dirt road which stretched along a ridge overlooking farm houses. Children playing in front of the houses stopped to gaze at our bus as it passed, but it was impossible to gauge from their reactions how often buses passed this way. It was presumably a short cut of some sort, though not surprisingly we didn't travel along at a great speed, and even at the speed we were going my teeth rattled and my bones shook. Fortunately we got back on a paved road before long.
Towards the end of our journey the bus broke down. As the driver and his wife worked to get it started again, I had visions of spending the night sitting there in a bus on the side of a country road in the middle of rural China. In the space between my seat and the driver's was a hatch of sorts which could be lifted to work on the engine, so it wasn't necessary to get out of the bus to do whatever repairs were necessary. The driver and his wife took turns trying to get the engine started while the other one fiddled with it. Apparently the oil wasn't flowing properly, because while one of them worked the gas pedal, the other sucked on a tube to try to get the oil flowing. Whatever they were doing, it was effective -- after ten minutes or so they got the bus started again.
We pulled into Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, at around four o'clock, some eight hours after our departure from Kaifeng. As soon as I exited the bus station I was accosted by a middle aged woman who offered to take me to a cheap hotel. It was cheap all right, the room was a stuffy (but reasonably roomy) cell in the basement furnished with a bed, a little wooden table and a fan, and the toilet was an outhouse. Despite the less than luxurious accommodations, I decided to take it, on the general principal that as long as there was a bed to sleep in and no obvious signs of rat or insect infestations, it would do for a night (though I would have preferred nicer toilets).
Though it was late afternoon, I hadn't had anything to eat all day other than some bread I had had for breakfast before leaving Kaifeng, so I decided to get a very late lunch. I found a small restaurant where I got some fried rice. As I ate the woman who ran the place talked to me, for the most part asking the standard questions ("Where are you from?", "What do you do?", "Are you married?") . At one point she suddenly asked me how many millions of dollars I had. I tried to explain that I didn't even have one million, that in fact the appropriate question would be how many thousands of dollars I had, but she didn't seem to believe me (perhaps she meant renminbi, the Chinese currency, but even one million renminbi is more than US$100,000). This was borne out by the fact that she charged me the outrageous sum of 25 RMB for my plate of fried rice -- well over ten times what I'd paid for a large bowl of noodles in Kaifeng the night before.
Upon my return to the hotel I met the landlady, who told me her last name was Kong, i.e. that she was a member of Confucius's extensive clan, and warned me to watch out for rip-offs, a warning I hardly needed after my experience at lunch. Nevertheless I survived the rest of the day without any significant holes being made in my wallet.
Sometime after midnight I was awakened by a knock on the door. Two uniformed men came into my room. One asked if I could understand Chinese and I indicated that I could, though I refrained from revealing that I could speak it as well, not wishing to prolong the conversation. They lectured me on the safety (or rather lack of the same) of cheap hotels such as the one I was in, and said I should stay in better hotels. I was tempted to point out that the only disturbance I had thus far encountered in this type of hotel was them but I thought better of it. After they had finished dispensing advice on accommodation choices, they left and knocked on other doors. Several hours later I was awakened once more by a hotel employee who took my passport to be checked (by whom I never found out). It was not clear whether this second disturbance was related to the first (though I presume it was) nor whether this was a random inspection, one inspired by word of a foreign devil in the hotel, or rather inspired by an overindulgence in Qingdao (Tsingtao) beer by the policemen on the night shift. In any case, I was left undisturbed for the rest of the night.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Ghost Month
Time to vent a little spleen...okay, there are lots of things I like to vent my spleen about (why is it the spleen, anyway? why don't we vent, say, our liver?), because I'm a cynic, fairly observant, and my view of humanity in general is fairly well expressed by the last line of Monty Python's Galaxy Song, or those bumper stickers which read "Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here." But today my target it is a local custom. For any strangers who by some chance might read this, I live in Taiwan, a small island country southeast of China and south of Japan. Overall, Taiwan's a pretty decent place to live in (otherwise I wouldn't be here), but like everywhere else in the world, there's still plenty of room for improvement. In Taiwan's case, one of the more obvious areas that needs work is people's attitude towards (and simple consciousness of) the environment, a fact that is particularly brought home to me every year about this time.
Why this time of year? Well, because on the traditional lunar Chinese calender (most Taiwanese are ethnic Chinese), this month, the seventh month of the lunar year, is "Ghost Month". It's a bit like the original All Hallow's Eve, when it was believed that the spirits of the dead roamed free on the Earth, but in this case it lasts all month. Now I don't believe in ghosts (or anything else supernatural, for that matter), but my particular problem with "Ghost Month" is not merely that I consider it nonsense. No, the problem is that to honor these spirits (or to bribe them to leave everyone alone), more traditionally-minded people (and even companies) have big worship ceremonies during this month. Again, I have no particular objection to worship ceremonies, whoever or whatever they are aimed at (though I may consider them silly), but as part of these ceremonies people burn what is sometimes called ghost money. The idea is that if they burn this money it goes to the ghosts, who are then happy and leave the worshipper alone (or even aid them in some way).
Even if it weren't for the very concrete objections I have to this, I'll have to admit I find the whole idea rather absurd. As I've pointed out to people, if ghosts use money, that means they have an economy, with ghost shops and restaurants. That would mean there are also jobs to be had, which in turn means the ghosts shouldn't need to sponge off the living. (Okay, that sounds a bit right-wing, but how do you know that the ghost that's getting your money is one who is really in need? Maybe they actually have a cushy job in some ghost business or something. I mean, if you are doing it as some sort of charity for ghosts, you should at least make sure it's going to the ones who really need it). But I stray....
The real objection, of course, is environmental. Here we are, living in a country which suffered terrible landslides following a typhoon a few weeks back, in part because people have been cutting down the original forest cover to plant cash crops, and people are burning large amounts of paper just so some imaginary ghosts can have a nice imaginary meal? We are profligate enough with paper as it is, considering all the documents, homework papers, test papers, newspapers, magazines, books, paper bags, and so forth that people in Taiwan go through every day. But at least most of those things have some kind of practical purpose, and they can be (and sometimes are) recycled. With ghost money, it all goes up in smoke, and doesn't accomplish anything at all, except maybe psychologically. What makes it even worse is that most ghost money is not pure paper (there are usually fancy coatings to make it look golden and glittery); it contains some highly polluting chemicals, which of course go straight into the air when it's burned. This is aside from the carbon that is released. Here it is, the hottest part of the year, in a world that's getting hotter all the time due to human-induced climate change, and when you walk around the city streets, you've got to walk past all these fires which are just making it worse.
Some might say, yes, but it's a tradition, and part of the religion, so we shouldn't interfere. To which I say...bullsh...er, nonsense (might as well avoid having this page blocked for bad language, at least for the time being). In ancient times, many religions had traditions of human sacrifice. Even in modern times, suttee (where the widow is expected to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre) in parts of India or female circumcision in parts of Africa are also "tradition". Should we "respect" those traditions and allow them to continue? I am a firm believer in respecting other cultures, at least in that I don't think European culture is in any general sense superior to the cultures of other parts of the world, and I think an effort should be made to preserve most traditions. But if a tradition is harmful in a direct and obvious way, then it should go. Tradition is no excuse for ruining our environment.
In fact, there are plenty of Taiwanese who feel the same way. Buddhist organizations in Taiwan often speak out against the burning of ghost money (though admittedly that's because the whole ghost money concept is Daoist, not Buddhist), and I personally know many Taiwanese who agree that it's not a good thing. Even the government has indirectly acknowledged the problem (I think not so much the environmental destruction, but because it's a fire hazard) by providing websites where people can burn virtual money. And why not? If you really believe that ghosts use money, then why shouldn't virtual money be just as good? After all, in the real world, most money is virtual money that only exists in computers, rather than physically in the form of cash. If it works for us, it should work for the ghosts too.
The upshot is, I hope that some day in the future, I'll be able to walk the streets of Taipei during ghost month without seeing anyone burning any ghost money at all. Rather than spending so much effort on dead ancestors, who don't even notice, let's think more about our descendants, who won't thank us for ruining their world for them. Toast the dead in your heart, or if you insist "burn" some virtual money online, but leave clean air and living trees for yourself and your children.
Why this time of year? Well, because on the traditional lunar Chinese calender (most Taiwanese are ethnic Chinese), this month, the seventh month of the lunar year, is "Ghost Month". It's a bit like the original All Hallow's Eve, when it was believed that the spirits of the dead roamed free on the Earth, but in this case it lasts all month. Now I don't believe in ghosts (or anything else supernatural, for that matter), but my particular problem with "Ghost Month" is not merely that I consider it nonsense. No, the problem is that to honor these spirits (or to bribe them to leave everyone alone), more traditionally-minded people (and even companies) have big worship ceremonies during this month. Again, I have no particular objection to worship ceremonies, whoever or whatever they are aimed at (though I may consider them silly), but as part of these ceremonies people burn what is sometimes called ghost money. The idea is that if they burn this money it goes to the ghosts, who are then happy and leave the worshipper alone (or even aid them in some way).
Even if it weren't for the very concrete objections I have to this, I'll have to admit I find the whole idea rather absurd. As I've pointed out to people, if ghosts use money, that means they have an economy, with ghost shops and restaurants. That would mean there are also jobs to be had, which in turn means the ghosts shouldn't need to sponge off the living. (Okay, that sounds a bit right-wing, but how do you know that the ghost that's getting your money is one who is really in need? Maybe they actually have a cushy job in some ghost business or something. I mean, if you are doing it as some sort of charity for ghosts, you should at least make sure it's going to the ones who really need it). But I stray....
The real objection, of course, is environmental. Here we are, living in a country which suffered terrible landslides following a typhoon a few weeks back, in part because people have been cutting down the original forest cover to plant cash crops, and people are burning large amounts of paper just so some imaginary ghosts can have a nice imaginary meal? We are profligate enough with paper as it is, considering all the documents, homework papers, test papers, newspapers, magazines, books, paper bags, and so forth that people in Taiwan go through every day. But at least most of those things have some kind of practical purpose, and they can be (and sometimes are) recycled. With ghost money, it all goes up in smoke, and doesn't accomplish anything at all, except maybe psychologically. What makes it even worse is that most ghost money is not pure paper (there are usually fancy coatings to make it look golden and glittery); it contains some highly polluting chemicals, which of course go straight into the air when it's burned. This is aside from the carbon that is released. Here it is, the hottest part of the year, in a world that's getting hotter all the time due to human-induced climate change, and when you walk around the city streets, you've got to walk past all these fires which are just making it worse.
Some might say, yes, but it's a tradition, and part of the religion, so we shouldn't interfere. To which I say...bullsh...er, nonsense (might as well avoid having this page blocked for bad language, at least for the time being). In ancient times, many religions had traditions of human sacrifice. Even in modern times, suttee (where the widow is expected to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre) in parts of India or female circumcision in parts of Africa are also "tradition". Should we "respect" those traditions and allow them to continue? I am a firm believer in respecting other cultures, at least in that I don't think European culture is in any general sense superior to the cultures of other parts of the world, and I think an effort should be made to preserve most traditions. But if a tradition is harmful in a direct and obvious way, then it should go. Tradition is no excuse for ruining our environment.
In fact, there are plenty of Taiwanese who feel the same way. Buddhist organizations in Taiwan often speak out against the burning of ghost money (though admittedly that's because the whole ghost money concept is Daoist, not Buddhist), and I personally know many Taiwanese who agree that it's not a good thing. Even the government has indirectly acknowledged the problem (I think not so much the environmental destruction, but because it's a fire hazard) by providing websites where people can burn virtual money. And why not? If you really believe that ghosts use money, then why shouldn't virtual money be just as good? After all, in the real world, most money is virtual money that only exists in computers, rather than physically in the form of cash. If it works for us, it should work for the ghosts too.
The upshot is, I hope that some day in the future, I'll be able to walk the streets of Taipei during ghost month without seeing anyone burning any ghost money at all. Rather than spending so much effort on dead ancestors, who don't even notice, let's think more about our descendants, who won't thank us for ruining their world for them. Toast the dead in your heart, or if you insist "burn" some virtual money online, but leave clean air and living trees for yourself and your children.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Memories of a Strange Dream
My, how time flies. It's been over two weeks since I last posted here, which is hardly the pace I would prefer to be setting. Since the latest essay I've started is incomplete (in fact I haven't gotten past the introducory paragraph), I'm posting something completely different. The following is a brief recounting of a vivid (though imperfectly remembered) dream that I had. Both the dream and the description of it date back to 2001. I have left it in its original form.
The other night I had a strange dream. I dreamed that the world was completely covered with water. Whether it had happened suddenly or was a gradual process I'm not sure, though my impression is that it was sudden. As I recall, I myself was suddenly underwater, a deep blue-green sea covering me and all the surrounding land. I barely had time to feel short of breath, however, before an unknown force lifted me clear out of the water.
I broke the surface of the ocean with a great splash. As I rose high into the air, I felt my fear of heights rising up within me. But I also felt a feeling of exhilaration as I sped through the air above the waves, carried still by the unknown force. And I was distracted from my fear by what I saw. I realized that not everything had been covered by water after all. There was a mountain range rising out of the ocean, covered still by green grass and trees, though all around was blue water. How high the mountains had been before the waters rose I had no idea, but they still were of considerable height, and I flew at their feet. Yet the air around me was warm, and my impression is that even at the peaks, the mountains themselves were not cold. The feeling was almost like a summer day, with green and blue below me and a blue sky with white clouds above.
Even the mountains were forgotten, however, after I saw what lay at their feet near the water's edge, just below me as I flew. There was a city, or at least some tall buildings, still standing. There were half a dozen or more skyscrapers, but they were scattered about on a level grassy area, with no immediate sign of paved streets (or people) between them. Furthermore, the buildings themselves had an otherworldly appearance. Though they resembled in form the steel and glass structures I was familiar with, they were of a reddish brown color and indeed looked as if they were made of stucco or some similar substance. It was as if they had been transformed completely into what looked like life-sized models of skyscrapers, made by some giant out of red clay. It occurs to me now that it was a little like they had been rusted through, but there was no sign of the crumbling appearance that goes with rusted metal. In fact, they were perfect and whole in appearance, and even now I can see in my mind the architecture of the building I was closest to (it resembled somewhat the Chrysler Building in New York, having a pointed top and arched, ornamental windows).
Still feeling the fear and exhilaration of flying with no visible means of support, I neared the ground at the feet of the buildings. I have some memory of seeing something on the grassy space below me as I descended, perhaps an overgrown fountain or statue or something of that sort. But before I reached it I woke up.
What if anything this dream means I'll probably never know. I don't believe that dreams are predictive, but perhaps what I saw was what subconsciously I imagine as the fate of a world overtaken by global warming. No doubt what images I still retain will soon fade. This is unfortunate, because together those strange stucco skyscrapers on those green mountains surrounded by that endless blue ocean make up one of the most dramatic scenes I've ever laid eyes on, asleep or awake.
The other night I had a strange dream. I dreamed that the world was completely covered with water. Whether it had happened suddenly or was a gradual process I'm not sure, though my impression is that it was sudden. As I recall, I myself was suddenly underwater, a deep blue-green sea covering me and all the surrounding land. I barely had time to feel short of breath, however, before an unknown force lifted me clear out of the water.
I broke the surface of the ocean with a great splash. As I rose high into the air, I felt my fear of heights rising up within me. But I also felt a feeling of exhilaration as I sped through the air above the waves, carried still by the unknown force. And I was distracted from my fear by what I saw. I realized that not everything had been covered by water after all. There was a mountain range rising out of the ocean, covered still by green grass and trees, though all around was blue water. How high the mountains had been before the waters rose I had no idea, but they still were of considerable height, and I flew at their feet. Yet the air around me was warm, and my impression is that even at the peaks, the mountains themselves were not cold. The feeling was almost like a summer day, with green and blue below me and a blue sky with white clouds above.
Even the mountains were forgotten, however, after I saw what lay at their feet near the water's edge, just below me as I flew. There was a city, or at least some tall buildings, still standing. There were half a dozen or more skyscrapers, but they were scattered about on a level grassy area, with no immediate sign of paved streets (or people) between them. Furthermore, the buildings themselves had an otherworldly appearance. Though they resembled in form the steel and glass structures I was familiar with, they were of a reddish brown color and indeed looked as if they were made of stucco or some similar substance. It was as if they had been transformed completely into what looked like life-sized models of skyscrapers, made by some giant out of red clay. It occurs to me now that it was a little like they had been rusted through, but there was no sign of the crumbling appearance that goes with rusted metal. In fact, they were perfect and whole in appearance, and even now I can see in my mind the architecture of the building I was closest to (it resembled somewhat the Chrysler Building in New York, having a pointed top and arched, ornamental windows).
Still feeling the fear and exhilaration of flying with no visible means of support, I neared the ground at the feet of the buildings. I have some memory of seeing something on the grassy space below me as I descended, perhaps an overgrown fountain or statue or something of that sort. But before I reached it I woke up.
What if anything this dream means I'll probably never know. I don't believe that dreams are predictive, but perhaps what I saw was what subconsciously I imagine as the fate of a world overtaken by global warming. No doubt what images I still retain will soon fade. This is unfortunate, because together those strange stucco skyscrapers on those green mountains surrounded by that endless blue ocean make up one of the most dramatic scenes I've ever laid eyes on, asleep or awake.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
'Terrorists' in US prisons
For this post, I decided to try something different. Instead of a standard prose essay, I offer for the perusal of any adventurous types who manage to find their way to this far corner of the Internet a Socratic dialogue. If it's good enough for Plato, it's good enough for me.
"Hey, did you read this? That socialist president of ours wants to move all these terrorists from Guantanamo to the US!"
"Hmmm. I see what you mean. It's not clear whether all of them will go to court any time soon, and so we still might end up detaining some people indefinitely without trial. That would seem to violate the spirit of Obama's pledge to end the violations of human rights that Guantanamo represents. But at least we aren't torturing people any more."
"What are you talking about? We never tortured anybody. We just interrogated them for vital information necessary to protect America."
"Oh? That waterboarding stuff sounds a lot like torture to me. And didn't I read that some poor guy got sodomized with a broom handle?"
"I don't know anything about that. Anyway, these are all terrorist scum we're talking about. I'm not going to cry for them. We need to do what it takes to beat the evil they are part of."
"But why do you say they're evil?"
"Because they blow people up and want to impose their radical ideology on everyone!"
"So they are evil for blowing people up but we aren't evil if we torture them?"
"We're just trying to protect ourselves from them! They're the ones who started coming here and killing our people!"
"Hmm. I thought the US was involved in the Middle East long before Al-Qaeda attacked us. But anyway, what you are saying is that since they attacked us, they are the bad guys, and since we are defending ourselves against them, whatever we do is okay?"
"That's about right, yeah."
"So if they grab one of our soldiers or civilians and chop his head off, they are evil, but if we waterboard some guy we think is one of them, that's not evil?"
"Something like that. But I wasn't talking about that. Some whiny bleeding heart fools may want to treat these scum like babies, but my point is that they want to bring them here to the US. I mean, can you believe that Obama's insane enough to actually bring terrorists to American soil?"
"Well, if he closes down Guantanamo and doesn't want to let them go, he's got to put them somewhere, right?"
"But he can't put them here! These people are dangerous! You see from the article that at least the Republican from Michigan is sensible enough to see it's a bad idea. I also read that the Republican congressman representing that district in Kansas is against it, and he said 95% of his constituents don't want them there."
"Yes, I see. But I also see that they already have prisons in those places, and they're maximum security. Surely those prisons already have some murderers and rapists in them?"
"Yeah, but these are terrorists! They're a danger to the whole nation! Look what they did in New York!"
"Well, I don't know that all of them are terrorists; maybe some just got caught by accident. But anyway, are you saying that just by being near us they are somehow deadly? Like terrorists give off some infectious disease or something?"
"Yeah, well, maybe not, but think, man! What if they got out?"
"But these people in Kansas or wherever already live next to a prison full of violent criminals. Why don't they worry about them getting out?"
"I'm sure they don't want that to happen, but anyway those are just ordinary criminals. These are foreign terrorists."
"But look, that's the point. Aren't the criminals they've already got in these prisons Americans?"
"Yeah, so while I'm sure these people don't like living near criminals, it could be worse. Obama could stick them with these foreign scum."
"Okay, but these criminals they've got now, they speak English and know their way around, so if they got out, they'd be able to hide out and maybe start committing new crimes. But these guys from Guantanamo, they're all like, what, Saudis and Yemenis and Pakistanis and whatever. I'll bet half of them barely speak English. What would they do if they did get out?"
"Are you kidding? They'd probably go straight to the nearest big city and blow something up! These guys are all crazy suicide bombers. Don't you watch the news?"
"How would they get the bombs? I doubt they'd even be able to find their way to any targets if they got out. Like I said, half of them probably don't even speak decent English. If they are fugitives who just got out of prison in a strange country, how are they going to even get around, let alone get the ingredients for a bomb?"
"Okay, some of them might have a little trouble, but some of them speak English, and some of them have been to the US before. And even the others would probably manage."
"So you think some English-speaking Pakistani guy is going to manage to break out of prison in Kansas and walk into stores and start buying bomb ingredients when everyone's out looking for him? I mean, I don't think much of racial profiling, but how many Pakistanis are there in Kansas? And everyone would be looking out for him, right?"
"He wouldn't have to stay in Kansas. He could go to New York or somewhere like that. There's all kinds of weird foreign types there."
"'Weird foreign types', right. So you think he could get all the way across the country -- a country he's not likely to be that familiar with, unless he's one of the few who has lived here -- with everybody looking for him, build a bomb, and blow a bunch of people up?"
"Yeah, sure. I mean, these guys are terrorists! They'd find a way. Look what they did to the World Trade Center!"
"But they spent months planning that, and they weren't all on the run when they did it. Not to mention there were a bunch of them."
"Okay, they might not be able to do something that big, but you can bet they'd do something. They're definitely too dangerous to be let into the country."
"I see. So your point is that people shouldn't worry too much about living next to a prison overflowing with murderers, rapists and other violent criminals, who if they escaped could go straight back to doing what got them put away in the first place, but we should worry about having some foreign people with lousy English who'd probably get lost on the way to the Greyhound station in our prisons, because they are 'terrorists'?"
"Right, that's what I'm saying."
"Okay, I get it. These guys are scary, 'cause they're foreign and they are called terrorists, as in 'terror'. Got you."
"Glad we got that straight. Now let's go get a beer. All this talking has made me thirsty."
"Hey, did you read this? That socialist president of ours wants to move all these terrorists from Guantanamo to the US!"
"Hmmm. I see what you mean. It's not clear whether all of them will go to court any time soon, and so we still might end up detaining some people indefinitely without trial. That would seem to violate the spirit of Obama's pledge to end the violations of human rights that Guantanamo represents. But at least we aren't torturing people any more."
"What are you talking about? We never tortured anybody. We just interrogated them for vital information necessary to protect America."
"Oh? That waterboarding stuff sounds a lot like torture to me. And didn't I read that some poor guy got sodomized with a broom handle?"
"I don't know anything about that. Anyway, these are all terrorist scum we're talking about. I'm not going to cry for them. We need to do what it takes to beat the evil they are part of."
"But why do you say they're evil?"
"Because they blow people up and want to impose their radical ideology on everyone!"
"So they are evil for blowing people up but we aren't evil if we torture them?"
"We're just trying to protect ourselves from them! They're the ones who started coming here and killing our people!"
"Hmm. I thought the US was involved in the Middle East long before Al-Qaeda attacked us. But anyway, what you are saying is that since they attacked us, they are the bad guys, and since we are defending ourselves against them, whatever we do is okay?"
"That's about right, yeah."
"So if they grab one of our soldiers or civilians and chop his head off, they are evil, but if we waterboard some guy we think is one of them, that's not evil?"
"Something like that. But I wasn't talking about that. Some whiny bleeding heart fools may want to treat these scum like babies, but my point is that they want to bring them here to the US. I mean, can you believe that Obama's insane enough to actually bring terrorists to American soil?"
"Well, if he closes down Guantanamo and doesn't want to let them go, he's got to put them somewhere, right?"
"But he can't put them here! These people are dangerous! You see from the article that at least the Republican from Michigan is sensible enough to see it's a bad idea. I also read that the Republican congressman representing that district in Kansas is against it, and he said 95% of his constituents don't want them there."
"Yes, I see. But I also see that they already have prisons in those places, and they're maximum security. Surely those prisons already have some murderers and rapists in them?"
"Yeah, but these are terrorists! They're a danger to the whole nation! Look what they did in New York!"
"Well, I don't know that all of them are terrorists; maybe some just got caught by accident. But anyway, are you saying that just by being near us they are somehow deadly? Like terrorists give off some infectious disease or something?"
"Yeah, well, maybe not, but think, man! What if they got out?"
"But these people in Kansas or wherever already live next to a prison full of violent criminals. Why don't they worry about them getting out?"
"I'm sure they don't want that to happen, but anyway those are just ordinary criminals. These are foreign terrorists."
"But look, that's the point. Aren't the criminals they've already got in these prisons Americans?"
"Yeah, so while I'm sure these people don't like living near criminals, it could be worse. Obama could stick them with these foreign scum."
"Okay, but these criminals they've got now, they speak English and know their way around, so if they got out, they'd be able to hide out and maybe start committing new crimes. But these guys from Guantanamo, they're all like, what, Saudis and Yemenis and Pakistanis and whatever. I'll bet half of them barely speak English. What would they do if they did get out?"
"Are you kidding? They'd probably go straight to the nearest big city and blow something up! These guys are all crazy suicide bombers. Don't you watch the news?"
"How would they get the bombs? I doubt they'd even be able to find their way to any targets if they got out. Like I said, half of them probably don't even speak decent English. If they are fugitives who just got out of prison in a strange country, how are they going to even get around, let alone get the ingredients for a bomb?"
"Okay, some of them might have a little trouble, but some of them speak English, and some of them have been to the US before. And even the others would probably manage."
"So you think some English-speaking Pakistani guy is going to manage to break out of prison in Kansas and walk into stores and start buying bomb ingredients when everyone's out looking for him? I mean, I don't think much of racial profiling, but how many Pakistanis are there in Kansas? And everyone would be looking out for him, right?"
"He wouldn't have to stay in Kansas. He could go to New York or somewhere like that. There's all kinds of weird foreign types there."
"'Weird foreign types', right. So you think he could get all the way across the country -- a country he's not likely to be that familiar with, unless he's one of the few who has lived here -- with everybody looking for him, build a bomb, and blow a bunch of people up?"
"Yeah, sure. I mean, these guys are terrorists! They'd find a way. Look what they did to the World Trade Center!"
"But they spent months planning that, and they weren't all on the run when they did it. Not to mention there were a bunch of them."
"Okay, they might not be able to do something that big, but you can bet they'd do something. They're definitely too dangerous to be let into the country."
"I see. So your point is that people shouldn't worry too much about living next to a prison overflowing with murderers, rapists and other violent criminals, who if they escaped could go straight back to doing what got them put away in the first place, but we should worry about having some foreign people with lousy English who'd probably get lost on the way to the Greyhound station in our prisons, because they are 'terrorists'?"
"Right, that's what I'm saying."
"Okay, I get it. These guys are scary, 'cause they're foreign and they are called terrorists, as in 'terror'. Got you."
"Glad we got that straight. Now let's go get a beer. All this talking has made me thirsty."
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