A bit of linguistic levity here: self-annihiliating sentences.

From Time Asia's May 3 cover story, on the avant-garde architecture boom in China:

Zhang gave the ponytailed 70-year-old New Yorker few instructions. The building would need to accommodate several restaurants, two bathhouses, an art gallery, offices and a massage salon. Zhang said the design should evoke the sea and that it should be "the most radical building in Beijing." [emphasis added] A couple of days after their first meeting, [architect Raimund] Abraham produced a sketch—a meditation on the ocean's violent power in the form of a 12-story block gouged like a cliff at the edge of a raging sea. Zhang was dumbfounded. But after Abraham explained the idea behind the forbidding façade, the client grinned. Construction is set to begin in central Beijing later this year. "There's no way I could get a design like this built in America," Abraham says. "But in China, one starts to feel that anything is possible." [emphasis added]

It is useful to reflect on why this should be so, architecturally speaking at least. Erecting public monuments is always easier if the builder did not have to consider public opinions or have to account for the expenses to tax payers. This is true of China under Mao and under "socialist market economy", and is true all over the world throughout history from the Pharaohs on down; the only thing that changes is the architectural style.

Paradoxically, working for a despotic patron often means a greater measure of creative freedom for the architect and artist, especially if the patron has sufficient leisure to become cultivated. To invoke familiar examples, neither Pope Julius II nor Lorenzo di Medici are remembered as much for being statesmen as for being cultivated patrons. If Frank Gehry had worked for Napoleon III rather than the city of Los Angeles, he wouldn't have to modify the finish of his stainless steel clad Walt Disney Concert Hall because the neighbours complained about reflected heat.

The issue is that artistic and intellectual culture, fundamentally, are elitist practices. If in general, the modern age appears less intellectual, less artistic, less literary, if Socrates, da Vinci, Mozart, &c., no longer walk in the street, it isn't because civilisation has gone electronic. Societies have become far more democratic and democratically commercial. It is far harder now, for an opinionated elite to decide for the public what it ought to appreciate; and it is no surprise the public, mediocre by definition, often decides to like mediocre stuff. And the telescoping of history exaggerates this effect; everyone knows Mozart, no-one knows the most popular Viennese drinking song for the summer of 1781.

The question is: what should society do about this apparent cultural decline? Nothing, I say. High culture can survive either by fiat and patronage, or though it is hard to like this idea, survive on the periphery of a broad spectrum and wait for history to do the pruning. The problem with patronage is that it can suppress as well as support, and only in a free, democratic society is the broadest spectrum of cultural expressions be possible. It may be a heady time for avant-garde architecture in China now, but be reminded that neither the Soviet Union nor China post-1945, with their lavish state patronages, are exactly notable for enduring cultural achievements, architectural or otherwise.

The variegated splendors of decay and ruin, as it were.

In science, there are questions that ask themselves, and questions you make up. Am afraid it is a sign of my narrowness of mind that I only find questions of the first kind interesting. This, for example, would have struck me as a fairly contrived-up thing to do; but in fact it is a clever experiment with some very interesting implications. Not the implications by the way, advertised by the opening paragraph of the news blurb.

I know the first author of the paper from elementary school. Since then we have both gone into physics, and into related subfields at that. And yes, I am pulling on knots of a sort too. Small world, isn't it?

"Despotism of custom", Japanese style.

The one thing about China that always gives me a measure of optimism, is that it is such a large & diverse country, with a large measure of tolerance for differences; this is in spite the conformist stresses of Confucian and authoritarian doctrine. It is a curious fact, that places such as Singapore, Japan, and Korea, Confucian by adoption, can sometimes have a much smaller tolerance for exception and difference, even while being politically much more open. It is a common complaint, among the Chinese and the foreign, that China is so messy & chaotic (乱), without the discipline and coherence of say, the Japanese; I think this is a good sign. When Democracy does one day arrive in China, if it were to remain vigorous without becoming poisonous, it will be due to our diversity and the unavoidable measure of attendant chaos.

Incidentally, a common characterisation of China, especially in America, is as a "monolithic" & relentless organism; whether during the "blue ants" period of the Cold War, or the "the next superpower" fever of the present. This has always struck me as fairly ridiculous; anyone who thinks about China in monolithic terms has probably never been there.

当离开一年、两年以后，记忆中的人和世界都明显得不一样了；十年八年之后，不知到还能认出什么？人，第一个十年是朦胧，第二个十年是幻想，之后，是成家立业，是发现，是认识，是思考与创造的十年再十年。四个我的同龄人，只是因为他们试图去了解他们生长在的社会，只是因为他们试图表诉自己独立的思想和观点，只是因为他们不想无动于衷，只是因为他们是中国人生活在中国，所以他们要在囚牢里度过他们最宝贵的十年八年。我，十岁离去中国，那时仍是朦胧之中；十六年后，因为我在美国，在异国他乡，我可以毫无畏惧得去发现，去认识，去思考，去呐喊我自己的声音。但若不是十六年前的一个偶然，那铁栏之后的青年也许就是我；或许我的身体仍可以自由，但我必须压抑着自己的声音，昧捂着自己的良知，不去认识，不去思考，不去惹祸找麻烦。

十年，对与社会，对与历史，对与天体运行，是短暂的一刻；而一个人一生又能有几个十年？一个人十年可以认识多少、发现多少、创造多少、爱多少、生活多少……而一个人在高樯铁窗后十年远离生活，那又是什么样的苦涩？为什么只因为是中国人就必须选择或者人身的安宁或者良知的自由，选择或者在家乡苟且渡事或者在异地浪荡居客？中国人也是人，是顶天立地、有尊严、有自由的人；我们为什么要在两者之间做一个选择？

The next time your hear hyperbolic language used against Bush & Co., remind yourself what a real dictatorship looks like.

《华盛顿邮报》针对北京 “新青年学社” 事件的报道；坚持 “民主化是经济开放的必然结果” 的人可以在此反省反省。

Rock 'n' Roll cover of the classic Chinese Communist agitprop anthem "Socialism is good!" (1.4 MB flash animation). Part nostalgia, part subversion, part campy hilarity.

I am embarrassed to find "Political correctness, or, the perils of benevolence" by Roger Kimball, published in The National Interest, largely agreeable.

Kimball misses the point though, by focusing simply on the political correctness and "benevolence" of the Left. The religiously inspired politics of the Right, viz. Gay rights, abortion, Church & State, is not fundamentally different: substitute "traditional values" for "political correctness", and "morality" for "benevolence". Both have an idealised view of not only what people should do, but more importantly, what they should think; both insist it is not enough just to do good works, one must also Believe (with a capital "B") in Good (or God). Either way, it is really too much; I can't and am not terribly interested in being a Saint, secular or holy. Not being bad is hard enough.

Classical music's ten dirtiest secrets — David Hurwitz makes a good point on the reasons behind the decline of classical music in contemporary culture.

And yes, Liszt was a great pianist and an influential figure in music history, but fundamentally as a composer he is just no damn good. The Hungarian Rhapsodies are fun and easy to listen to, but how many times can one hear them before they turn stale? As for everything else, when you take away the Romantic posturing and facile affectations and technical demands, what is left? The only reason his music is still performed is because it is a vehicle for pianists to show-off. That, and his good-looks and torrid love affairs and old-age conversion to pious religiosity continues to provides material for juicy biographies.

"Gay or Asian?", from this month's issue of Details magazine.

This has predictably provoked much indignation and commentary, some of which is fairly thoughtful, but mostly it is standard-issue PC outrage.

A good part of the fury provoked, I think, lies in the prevalent homophobia (though usually not violently or very openly expressed) that exists in Asian & Asian American communities. This claptrap from Newsweek, published a couple of years ago, is as much a caricature as the Details piece. That it was re-published, approvingly, on ModelMinority.com ("a guide to Asian American empowerment", named apparently without ironic intent), is an indication of how shallow the critical facilities tended to trawl, not just in this instance viz. Asian American advocacy, but with mass-identity advocacy in general.

It is become something of an idée fixe here: another essay (actually a book extract) on eating animals.

Labels: eating animals

Scott Simon had an essay "The joys of adoption", on Weekend Edition Saturaday today; he had recently adopted a little girl from China.

Simon makes the remark China is an authoritarian state which do not value so many of its daughters. This is shamefully, true enough; but Simon's subtext seems to be: if China becomes a Democracy, girls will be valued more. But girls and women are not valued in China not because the state apparatus is undemocratic, but because China's paternalist Confucian culture and the economic discrimination against women together devalues the lives of women and girls. The oppression of Chinese women is not entirely, or even largely, by the state.

It is an illustration of the limits of Democracy that the status of women was far better under Mao, when state control was absolute; and that Indian women, living under a democratic government, are not much better off than their Chinese counterparts. Democracy, when not laid upon a foundation of civil society and the rule of law, will as often entrench oppression (against women, religious & ethnic minorities, &c.) as to ease it. The difficulty is undemocratic governments rarely have an interest in promoting civil society and the rule of law. The notion of The People collectively rising up and throwing off their Oppressive Yoke, is untenable when taken outside of Western Europe and North America. Orwell is right: Dictatorships can last a long time, provided it is sufficiently all-encompassing & brutal; Hitler, Stalin, and Mao comes to mind, or even relatively small tyrants such as Saddam. The instances, South Korea, South Africa, perhaps others, that do exist of democracy succeeding dictatorship, outside the Western Humanist cultural orbit, do encourage hope; but the small number of such instances do not encourage much.

Have started reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. His remarks on China and the "despotism of custom" is particularly acute. It is a view of worth examining, particularly by the Left with its often collectivist visions of Democracy.

In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say? And what lessons have you learned from it?

Hmmm. I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. I'm sure historians will look back and say, Gosh, he could have done it better this way or that way. You know, I just — I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet.

What most troubles me about W. Bush (and about extremists, Left an Right, in general), is not so much what he does: the cultural wars, the religious demagoguery, the imperial crusade-mongering, &c. It is his apparent utter incapacity for nuance, self-reflection, and self-criticism that arouses in me a most visceral dislike. The untroubled mind of a conservative, or a communist, has about as much life-like qualities as an algorithm, which can be upsetting enough to run afoul of during routine life. To find it in a position of enormous power is absolutely frightening.

A moment of shattering simultaneity between birth-pangs and death-throes, from the essay "Do fish feel pain?", by James Hamilton-Paterson:

The Siki shark, though, seemed more resistant to the shock of being wrenched up from a kilometre below, and several were still thrashing or twitching among the heaps of corpses. One lay on its back almost languidly among the bodies, lolling with the ship's roll. Suddenly, with a convulsive shudder, it gave birth. The baby was about sixteen centimetres long, black, its eyes little luminous beads of the same shade and fluorescent intensity as its dying mother's. Over the next three minutes it was joined by a further five siblings, blindly burrowing among the dead heaps of fish in a hopeless search for the sustaining sea.

Years ago, in California, I once went fishing for surfperch; it was in March or April, when they breed. The struggling fish, dragged through the surf onto the beach, would often give birth (surfperch give birth to live young) as it lay gasping on the sand. Often the young were still-born, born before they were quite ready to emerge. I remembering picking up as many of the fingerling fish as I could, and throwing them back into the surf, only to have them swept back by the next wave.

Did I feel pity for the fish and its ill-fated offspring? Yes. I was eleven or twelve then, my sentiments not reasoned thoughts, but a naïve sympathy for animals and for their perceived (undoubtedly anthropomorphised) suffering. It is not something I am embarrassed about as being childish, but then it is not a sentiment I can now defend via reasoned argument. I do not hunt and fish, because I am uncomfortable about killing animals through my own agency; I do, however, eat meat and fish without a bad conscience. This is perhaps inconistent, but how is it any more possible, or desirable, to rationalise sentiment than to sentimentalise reason?

Labels: eating animals, fish

A ride through Chernobyl.

On first look, I had wanted to call it the splendid decrepitude of post-industrial decay; on second thought there is really nothing splendid about Chernobyl at all. The difference is that between the decay of old age and the post-mortem effects of sudden death. Finding the bleached skeleton of a snake in the grass may be an occasion for detached contemplation, finding a dead snake crushed on the shoulder of the road is not.

A comment: The second paragraph here is an addition, made on 5 April, to the original brief post. This is antithetical, perhaps, to the spirit of these things which is to be disarmed and spontaneous. It certainly gives the false appearance of thoughts sprung complete & well formed at the first instant, which they never were. But innate to the medium of writing is the possibility of revision, and all writers, even the most un-self-conscious, are tempted to revise and re-revise. In electronica, where revision is particularly easy and rapid, the temptation is particularly great; the downside is it may be done without leaving evidence. I am not known for being spontaneous and disarmed, and I am self-conscious about what I write. This means everything I write here, with or without revisions, is intentional and measured as to effect and meaning. If it offers any reassurance, I do refrain from revisions that alter my original meaning & tone, and from revising from too late a date. Let this be a disclaimer.

Book acquisitions for April:

            

John Adams is particularly well-designed for a mass market paperback, with creamy paper, ample margins, and typeset in a French-style Roman with emphatic contrast between heavy & thin strokes. The typeface is a particularly unfashionable one, but which gives the pages an appropriately period character.

As of today, Ms Harriet Klausner is the #1 reviewer on Amazon.com, with 6739 reviews and 40403 helpful votes. I guess it helps if you like everything.

Interesting article here on those customer-contributed reviews at Amazon.com.

Obviously, people write reviews because one way or another they get worked-up about some book. But it seems to me people are far more likely to write positive reviews; at any rate, I really have to dislike something a lot before I will bother to agitate against it. In practice then, it is the bad reviews that are generally more useful. If the bad reviews are generally of the inane, "this sucks" variety, that generally augurs well for the book; and a thoughtful vat of bile offers far more insight than several dozen sugary declarations of enthusiasm.

In fact, instead of platitudinous blurbs, publishers should solicit unfavourable comments and print those on dust jackets. This will also put an end to the corrupt mutual back-scratching that exists, believe it or not, between blurbers & blurbees.