Years of Poems and Spirits

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.

为什么政客们亲那么多Baby不会得病，我亲一个就病得摇摇欲坠?!

When one is physically ill what does that do to one’s mind? I had many hours of sleep but dreaded the dreams. It was the day time stress and anxiety repeated over and again. I was making arguments that at once seemed to make perfect sense and no sense at all. Just like my paper… Early in the morning, I didn’t want to go back to sleep just because I didn’t want to go back to the dreams. But when I was at 39c, it wasn’t always up to me.

While sick, I had time to watch some TV and to read from New Yorker:
1. Watched the Indy Race in St. Petersburg on TV, I think the cry “it is green flag racing!” is very sexy!

2. Watched Carman the opera: I always enjoyed listening to Carman. After all, the Toréador Song was what got me into classical music to begin with. And I watched the opera couple of times before. But this time it was different. Something clicked. Micaëla’s solo in the Gypse’s camp is the most moving: not only the music beautiful, but perfectly encapsulates the obsession of Jose and the power of Carmen. Although Don Jose’s possessiveness is pathological, Carman’s free-will almost justifies one’s total admiration: she is woman worth dying for.

3. Watched One Flew over Cuckcoo’s Nest: It is more Owellian but definitely not Foucaultian. The antagnistic nurse Ratched is NOT how mass society works today. Rather it is the elaborate weddings and ceremonies that David Brooks talked about in the Bobos in Paradise. However, the movie is superb at portraying the tension between the subjected and the privileged once the sensation of being free is discovered and the pursuit of liberation is on.

4. Read Eric Alterman’s “Out of Print” on NYKr. I am certainly in Lippmann’s camp. For a while, I thought that is what Alterman’s argument too. But that is just not progressive enough, uh? This article deserves another entry. But in summary, I do think politics and governance are becoming too complicated, too nuanced to be decided by the general public.

I remember a skit from SNL where a weekend party is going on in a loft apartment somewhere. That was right after 9.11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. Suddenly a guy rushes in and says, “the Northern Aliance just took Jalalabad!” and everybody raises their glasses and cheers.

The moral of the joke is that the world is just too complicated. Alterman seems to be finding hope in the newly burgening phenomenon of “participating” journalism, or a mixture of opinions and leaks and rumors. He is well aware of the ptifalls of such a development: the degradation of journalistic integrity. And more importantly, the polarization of public opinions. But strangely, he seems to say this is actually good for democracy: the reason that more Europeans voted than Americans is because they have so many tabloids.

Of course, his musing stops right there. No further reasoning offered why these two are even corelated! That is rather ridiculous for a serious article (or posting, should I say). But he has several good points, for example, that the “veneer of neutrality” is becoming increasingly unsustainable. And the very effort to stay “above the fray” may render print journalism cold and distant.

5. By the way, just saw my old boss Dan Hesse on TV in a Sprint commercial. I was such a fan of his while at Terabeam. I still think he is a heck of communicator and salesman.

Watched “There Will Be Blood” tonight. After the movie was over, Song and I stayed in our seats, didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, I said, “Boy, I never saw so much anger in one movie.”

Not sure it is my kind of movie but I can tell it is a good one. If it does become some kind of arty cultish movie, I can image why.

I remembered once I went with a church group to hike Mt. Adams. On our way back, the leader, Paster Bob, decided to go spelunking in a cave nearby. When we got to the cave entrance, I knew it was a mistake: it wasn’t so much an entrance as a rat hole on the ground. Following a thread-thin ray of daylight, I could see the hole expanding into profound darkness. We squeezed, crawled, climbed and pulled each other along half a mile. Turning on flashlight didn’t help much, since all I could see was the light beam being sucked into endless darkness.

When I finally shake myself out of the ground, I knew full well this would be my last and only spelunking outing. However, thinking back, I have to admit it was a very memorable trip.

That is how this movie makes me feel: I was very uncomfortable while watching it. But I can totally see why it is extraordinary or why there are others who will like it.

One more thing, I don’t know why the director chose the allegro from Brahms’ violin concerto for the sound track. It is rather strange seeing a primitive industrial machine slowly cranking under an oil rig in the middle of Navajo desert while listening to Ann Sophie Mutter playing her hearts out …