June 4, 2008 came and went, an anniversary passing quietly here in Beijing under cover of national unity, official proscription, and general apathy. Societies progress and develop not when they build a taller building or reach a set ratio of people:cars or families:television sets but when thought and thinking move forward spurred on by reflection, debate, learning, and understanding. American society is littered with the detritus of history–slavery, colonialism, oppression, environmental degradation–but none of these problems would have been made better if we as a society had been systematically prevented from exploring, criticizing, and learning from our past. Fifty years ago it was almost impossible for African-Americans to vote in some parts of the United States, now an African-American man is a candidate for the highest office in the land. We still have a long way to go, but the way we–as human beings–move forward is to keep talking. Keep debating. Keep challenging old ideas and conventional thinking that tries to tell us, “That’s the way it was, this is the way it is.”
On to the links:
Ma Jian has a thoughtful piece this week in the NYT that has the temerity to link the June 4 anniversary with the recent