Years of Poems and Spirits

Jon Lee Anderson: Fidel’s Heir

Just after I finished Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, I came upon Anderson’s “extremely short” essay about Hugo Chávez. Convinced me more of my criticism of Arendt: in pursuit of an answer to the Holocaust, she stretched extreme instances of popular demagogy into “Totalitarianism”.

Chávez’s Venezuela is arguably at a midway point in the spectrum of demagogy: Chávez is not a total despot, for he does tolerate some opposition, submit himself to fair elections and accepts the results. Yet he is also very manipulative and inflamatory (e.g. how he humiliated Uribe in the Latin America summit meeting). In addition, he has two other traits Arendt would find interesting: appearing selfishless and has an international agenda.

Then there was Augusto Pinochet: who was not very popular (in a liberal sense) but very brutal. He is probably also somewhere on the spectrum. It is just very hard to demarcate what is true “Totalitarianism”. I don’t think Arendt found the right answer to Holocaust. If anything, she should have looked at the Continent during 1968 and find some solace in an emerging liberal civic culture.

To propose an alternative answer, I’d say that: for the Germans, there is always an element (however faint now) of collective romanticism and fanaticism in their cultural tradition. For the Russians, it is the Hobbesian distrust of each other and the longing for a powerful patriarch that led them to Stalin. Therefore, whether there is a countervailing force growing in each civic society is perhaps a much better indicator of how likely the past predicament will repeat itself.

A quick comment: very very painful to write again after school. But I am glad I tried.

Judith Thurman: First Impressions

Just a beautiful article. There is one paragraph talking about the short and possible interactions between the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens that is so very moving:

“They coexisted for some eight thousand years, until the Neanderthals withdrew or were forced, in dwindling numbers, toward the arid mountains of southern Spain, making Gibraltar a final redoubt. It isn’t known from whom or from what they were retreating (if “retreat” describes their migration), though along the way the arts of the newcomers must have impressed them. Later Neanderthal campsites have yielded some rings and awls carved from ivory, and painted or grooved bones and teeth (nothing of the like predates the arrival of Homo sapiens). The pathos of their workmanship-the attempt to copy something novel and marvellous by the dimming light of their existence-nearly makes you weep. And here, perhaps, the cruel notion that we call fashion, a coded expression of rivalry and desire, was born.”

During the oral defense of my paper, Prof. Chirot asked a question he’d asked us before, “would you call the nationalist sentiments in China, Korea or Vietnam ‘nationalism’”? I thought I answered it rather well: nationalism in its purest form is a Western concept. I am leaning more toward Hans Kohn (”Idea of Nationalism”) and Gellner (”Nations and Nationalism”) that nationalism is a product of the Enlightenment and/or Industrialization. It is associated with the secularization and democratization movement in the 18th and 19th century. With regard to the national identity present among East Asian polities, I stated those should not be labeled “nationalism” because “a body of knowledge only becomes so if it worked. Otherwise, it is just another experiment”.

That is what I implied in the Caribbean paper, that is, nation building does not end with declaration of independence. To expand it further, I don’t think German and Japanese nation building should be labeled as instances of nationalism, since their nation building exercises lead both to path of (self-)destruction. The polities resulted were still monarchical and authoritarian.

In short, my answer to Chirot’s question is not a teleological statement, rather it is a historicist one.

I am also reading Ann Anagnost’s “National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in China”. She frequently cited the national narrative in post-colonial countries as references. I wonder whether she’s bought into the structuralist argument of nationalism. But I have to finish reading it first. It is not an easy read by the way–I can re-write her Introduction part with phrases much easier to understand. For example, instead of saying China has large regional differences and varying ethos in recent times, she uses terms like “spatial and temporal” this and that. Scary, scary.

Didn’t want to do much but saw this poster and have to mark it down:

Really got a kick out of it!! By the way, the map is a real one, circa 1830s. Go Absolut!

I saw this right after seeing reports of the Olympic torch was extinguished three times in Paris amidst violent protests. Immediately I switched to Chinese news sites and saw almost nothing of it being reported.

This is totally fascinating because I’d think the development is a good thing for the Chinese government yet it chooses not to report it. Why is that?

Although in my paper, I am adopting Susan’s line to say it is useless to say if the state is strong or weak, by conventional standards, I’d say the government is very weak. It has such a tenuous hold on public opinion and national narrative, it chooses to put down anything that may generate excitement.

With regard to Tibet, in a “Absolut World”, the map should have been different. But there is little argument today what the map is. I am sure the Tibetans’ anger is legitimate. But they have to adjust their expectation: if Taiwan can’t become independent, where the Chinese government didn’t have any control for 60 years, Tibet has little hope to be independent either. For those who use East Timor or Kosovo as example, they really have to ask themselves whether those are exceptions or the rule.

Instead, the question of independence is now a wedge issue that split the Tibetans. If there is anything I want to tell them, that is, “don’t listen to the NGOs or Human Rights activists!” They can advocate indepedence because they don’t have to live with China. They can make all kinds of noise but they seldom deliver results. Most importantly, you have to have a unified front and you have to control the message.

Also, someone (Robbie Barnett?) brought up a good point: don’t forget the Chinese public in the whole issue. Dalai’s best hope is to have the Chinese public on his side. It was a improbably proposition. The way things are going, it looks like this is becoming increasingly impossible.