Rise and Fall of China

In a recent play of events not entirely dissimilar to the events described in the previous article, Chinese netizens and Chinese in general have banded together as a race to protect what they wrongly perceive as an attack on their race or nation or mother China or whatever. (In my opinion, racism and historical animosity are working in the subconscious background, but are no means the primary reasons for protests as perceived, I think, by the Chinese).

We should be terrified that China is coming to power if a majority of Chinese perceive things this way. My toes are shaking in my army boots. (Its skin is slowly peeling like rotten kum quats sweating over a flame). Bacterial fear swell screeching through the agonized folds of my trapped brain.

It is an obvious truism that without a grounding in rational evaluation of ideas, people would necessarily turn to more instinctive means: support the group you belong to, ideology, race, religion. And perceive the attack to come from "the West" as well.

And, the modern Chinese only have backgrounds in two things: starvation and communism. Anything else is roped in; the ancient identification is very much an artificial thing. See what the youth of China did in the Cultural Revolution? The ideas did not matter to them; communism was enough. Now, the glorious past is too distant. Modern China takes its modernity from the West, but it does not digest its ideas. And it failed to claim or make its own in that stead.

And it uses the knowledge of the great past as a source of pride, not a source of wisdom. No; race replaces thought, or any re-evaluation of ideas. Recollections (a manipulated one) of the past will be more dangerous than beneficial. It will remind them of lost greatness, and greatness only.

As an overseas Chinese, I do not join the others in predicting greatness for China. Power unguided leads to madness. Greater power leads to greater freedom from economic constraints and considerations that bound the globalised world. And I wouldn't put too much faith in any sense of global community on the part of the Chinese young.

About The Controversial Cartoons

The Dutch are at it again. All too selfconsciously being the political equivalent of the avant garde, initiating a pilgrimage into the hellfire of human anger that desecrated sancity arouses. Their destination lies in the pasture of ideas beyond, ideas that ascend above the sea of untided emotion to give man to appreciate the sovereign rights of man; to glide us through the winds on the wingtips of freedom with the vantage view of ourselves below.

The fundamental rights of man predicates on the premise that no free will should be coerced out of its freedom of thought or speech by the force of another independent of one's own. The Dutch cartoons were directed assertions of that principle in a continent where heightened sensitivity to racial and religious taboos has induced self-censorship in the discussion of issues such as immigration and terrorism.

But the fact that the promotion of free speech, a brilliantly conceived idea, had led to such insoluble quandries was highly intriguing, at first. Of course, there were the usual mediocre articles that explained the ideas away in the context of cultural differences. They were not wrong; their fault was in being content with easy explanations, as if to resolve the writer's own need for contentment and a clear decision (with the usual constructive solutions). (Although this is only representative of the few I read). Even if cultural differences did not exist, the philosophical ones which drove deeper did.

I guess that a layman's (my) interpretation of the whole state of affairs would be among one of the few below:

One, that the Dutch papers should not have published the cartoons at all for they simply abused free speech; they do not assert or promote it. Or worse, publishing them is akin to physical crime in the name of freedom, a flagrant breach of the spirit of freedom that grounds sovereign rights.

Two, that the Dutch papers should not have published them for the very purpose of promoting free speech is reversed by the backlash. (This among such other practical reasons I don't care about.)

Three, that the papers were right, for resistence and unhappiness of other wills made the freedom of speech a principle in the the first place. Backing down would constitue an unwillingness to uphold the original ideal.

Four, other reasons I don't care about today.

Now, the perimeters of human rights lie where they run in opposition to that of others. (Again, rights are freedoms from other people). As such, it is obvious that physical harm against the victim's will is a breach of rights, hence a prohibited act.
Of course, the the cartoon fiasco begins where the editor does indeed have the right to publish the offensive pictures, and Muslims have to respect his right to publish the cartoons (and therefore not coerce him in any way not to publish them). However, what rights, then, does the Moslem have, when insulted and distressed thus? It is the right to be free from his distress and hurt when that which he reveres is made base; it is freedom from his reaction to others, freedom from himself.

The aforementioned cultural difference between "the Muslim World and the West" (which is really a loose term for the more relevant philosophical difference, and as such divides attitudes unparallel to cultural adherence) would secure the traditional Moslem's choice of reaction, that is, a rejection of the cartoonist's rights and catcalls for holy blights and Godhate's revenge. But that is not the point. To pretend that it is distracts us from the inadequacy inherent within the codes of human rights itself. At deeper levels (of conflict), human rights founder simply because it fails to see that constraints of the human condition inherently limit man's freedom from other men, and that the mutual exclusivity of human rights that result thus require a different set of moral guides to secure the primacy of one right at the expense of another, to affirm or condemn a set of actions. Criminalization and law, for instance.

"Social responsibility" as the imperative to curb human rights can be interpreted as such: responsibility comes from the control we have over the emotions (or the environment) of others. Social responsibility as an approach deals with the fact that the nature of social contact that gave rise to the concept of human rights does not reflect that principle in reality. Human rights fail there; so social responsibility avoids it.

However, the concept of responsibility carries within it the implicit danger of consequences. Therefore the concept alone is always insufficient to provide the sense of responsibility that guides actions. It needs a guiding arrow external to the concept itself. In the case of the cartoon, the pre-judgement that the freedom of the Muslim World's emotions from the West's provocations is sufficient reason to curb (or self-censor) the freedom of speech, guides the argument for those against the cartoons. Of course, the actions now undertaken by the UN were not spurred with that in mind; forced "responsibility" was invoked for fear of economic and political fallouts. Is this tradeoff then justifiable?

In my opinion, no. Outlawing criticism of religion in the name of social stability paves a slippery slope with regards to free speech. And through its fear of turbulence, it obstructs the flow of ideas that drive progress. Let the viewpoints presented be judged according to their rational merits instead. Only when unattacked on the issue of its right to be published, can controversial or even racist remarks be judged as baseless rationally rather than justified on principle, promoting confusion as to one's intent.

For human rights to work perfectly, it must be be so completely. Nevertheless, it remains applicable; but it can never function on its own. The jurisprudence of one's rights over another's has traditionally been in favour of the individual against those in authority, or, in law, criminalization is guided by the basics of Christian morality.

Im tired. Good day.