Jottings from the Granite Studio » Brief Comment

On Sun Yatsen, 1912, and Han Han

Jeremiah — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:28:43 +0000

It’s been a century since Sun Yat-sen was named president of the new Republic of China. Unfortunately, he was president for less than six weeks and spent most of that time negotiating the job away to Yuan Shikai. Trusting Yuan Shikai to nourish a fragile young republican government was akin to dousing a three-year old in A1 Sauce and putting him in the care of a rabid honey badger. But the conclusion of a well-contested and still (reasonably) civil election in Taiwan, won by the party Sun founded, makes me wonder whether the calamitous disintegration of China’s first republican experiment 100 years ago was inevitable.

There were always going to be challenges, and the fractious nature of Chinese society meant knitting together a nation based on a shared commitment to republican ideals would be a herculean task, but Sun had help. The young organizer Song Jiaoren, a trusted lieutenant of Sun’s, worked tirelessly to build a national party capable of winning a majority in the yet-to-be-seated national assembly. Unfortunately, Song was assassinated less than a year later by agents of Yuan Shikai. Yuan then dissolved parliament, outlawed opposition parties, and watched a “Second Revolution” launched by Sun in 1913 founder and fizzle. After Yuan’s death in 1916, what was left of central authority crumbled and the old Qing Empire became a failed state, a patchwork of warlords and occupying powers.

Sun and others argued that the political consciousness of China’s people was too limited to support the kind of popular participation required in a republican government. Sentiments still echoed today. Most recently, Han Han, the Justin Bieber of China’s literary world, posted a series of provocative essays conceding that even a century later, Sun’s assessment of the political potential of China’s populace was essentially nil.

A term which gets thrown around a lot is “suzhi” 素质, an amorphous term which captures everything from somebody’s education and manners to slightly more insidious connotations of heredity and ‘essential quality.’

Frankly, I find the argument that Chinese people are “too base” for democracy a little dismissive and patronizing. But while it can be tiresome when my urban middle-class Chinese friends resort to the “suzhi” argument, I have little patience for foreign ‘friends’ of China playing the same card. When well-heeled urban Chinese make this argument, it’s asinine and classist, but when trotted out by non-Chinese commentators, most of whom grew up with a full complement of civil liberties and legal protections, it comes across as not a little bit racist as well.

100 years ago, Sun famously compared Chinese society to a heap of loose sand, 400 million individuals who needed to be awakened so as to play a part in the forging of a new nation based on republican principles and rule of law. A century later, Sun’s vision has come true – if not for China as a whole – than at least for the people of Taiwan. Whatever can be said for the ‘suitability’ of democracy as a political system, in China or elsewhere, at least we can stop the lame excuses of ‘national condition’ or ‘cultural compatibility’ and other worn out essentialist pseudo-arguments.

What have I been doing since the Bob Dylan concert in April?

Jeremiah — Mon, 23 May 2011 11:14:35 +0000

1. Writing a dissertation and thinking deeply about dead French people.

2. Teaching. Though one student tried to convince me to change careers by repeatedly adding an “h” to the word “peasant” on her final exam. There’s only so many times you can read about Mao leading a “pheasant revolution” and not start to have apocalyptic visions of ring-necked wildfowl storming Luding Bridge.

3. Leading an extended study trip to Northwest Yunnan. A lot of fun. A lot of work. Need to give a shout out to our friends at the Compass Cafe in Zhongdian for fueling my students with the necessary quesadillas and banana pancakes as they put their projects together.

4. Taking a much-needed vacation to the great state of NH and learning that restaurant staff need not be surly; efficiency and competence are in fact part of services rendered in exchange for monetary remuneration in many stores and hotels; and, of course, unfettered and unfiltered Internet access. It’s kind of nice hanging in the US for awhile, I totally get why so many Chinese nationalists prefer to live here rather than try to hack it in China.

(And there’s always the whole ‘breathing actual air’ bit. YJ and I had just disembarked at Boston’s Logan Airport and couldn’t stop talking about how clear the air was. Of course,we were standing in the lower deck of an enclosed parking garage at the time. I guess that’s what nearly nine years in Beijing will do for you.)

5. Writing a book. In addition to the dissertation. And teaching. And life. Andohbytheway, I’m also going to be acting director of my center this summer, too. There’s like a 98% chance that by the end of August I’ll be more strung out than Pete Doherty after a three-day holiday in Bogota.

6. Did I mention trying to finish a dissertation while working and teaching full-time?

So, in any case, greetings from the Granite State, sorry for my absence, and I’ll try to be a bit more of regular correspondent this summer.

Happy New Year

Jeremiah — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:41:09 +0000

It’s nearing sunset on the last day of this, the year of the Golden Tiger. The first tentative booms and celebratory ka-kracks are sounding over the grey tiles of Minwang Hutong, occasional bursts of nervous energy, harbingers of what’s to come, like the claws of a wannabe werewolf clacking on the bars of his cage before letting out for a full-on full-moon rumble.

It’s my first Spring Festival in Beijing after many years of celebrating in Tianjin. This year we asked Tianjin to come to our house and I think we’re better for it. All of the things I like about the Spring Festival — dumplings, immediate family, bad television — are gathered in one place, leaving such things as crowded rail stations and traversing streets of drunken artillery for less fortunate souls.

In any case, wishing all of you the happiest of New Years and best wishes for the Year of the Golden Rabbit, may this year be full of joy, health, and good fortune.

Criticism, Critical Analysis, and Hurt Feelings

Jeremiah — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 09:23:56 +0000

Reading about a new book by Stefan Collini: That’s Offensive! Criticism, Identity, Respect.

Professor Collini is a professor of intellectual history and English literature at Cambridge University, and in this, his latest book, he looks at the very meaning of criticism, what it means to criticize, and distinguishes the most common understanding of the term (“fault-finding”) with it’s more academic usage, that is the close analysis of a particular subject or text.

Scott McLemee’s short review for Inside Higher Education notes, quite correctly, that in an increasingly poisonous and rancorous atmosphere for the public debate of important topics, understanding the goals and rhetoric of criticism is an important first step to overcoming the resistance to listening to a critical analysis of our own cherished ideas and views. (In the Levensonian language of Modern China, not to let ideas about “what is mine” prevent me from hearing “what might be true.”)

Of course, thinking of this through Levenson, it’s hard not to recall the rather prickly response on the part of the Modern Chinese state (and their supporters and advocates) to recent criticism of their handling of the Nobel Prize. In a recent Global Times masterpiece with the whimsical title of “A Prize for Westerners and Oriental Traitors,” CASS researcher Huang Jisu is quoted as saying:

“We are holding criticism toward our government,” commented Huang. “From my personal point of view, I don’t agree with the majority of Liu’s political opinions.

“But our criticism of the government should be independent from the criticism of the Western world.

“We should criticize based on most Chinese people’s fundamental interest, but not the standpoint of Norway, the US or Japan. Our attitude toward Liu should also be independent from the incident of Nobel Prize award.

Fair enough but do identity politics and the reduction of all identity to our nation or country of origin preclude our ability (if not responsibility) to occasionally speak as global citizens. As Professor Collini argues in his book:

“Criticism may be less valued or less freely practiced in some societies than in others, but it is not intrinsically or exclusively associated with one kind of society, in the way that, say, hamburgers or cricket are. And anyway, different ‘cultures’ are not tightly sealed, radically discontinuous entities: they are porous, overlapping, changing ways of life lived by people with capacities and inclinations that are remarkably similar to those we are familiar with. While there are various ways to show ‘respect’ for people some of whose beliefs differ from our own, exempting those beliefs from criticism is not one of them.”

I like the bit about respect. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of the criticism is not particularly respectful, but a lot of it is and the typical Chinese response to any criticism (whining hysterically and pitching a fit) seems somewhat counterproductive to building a bridge for dialogue. Then again, this assumes that the goal of the Chinese government is actually building a better China and not, ultimately, just finding ways to justify and reinforce their hold on power.

Liu Xiaobo and YJ’s Birthday

Jeremiah — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:19:22 +0000

So…Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think it’s great that Norwegians can cause so much discomfort in the halls of Zhongnanhai, unfortunately the timing of the announcement means that Yajun is going to be at work for the evening…kinda screwing with our plans to celebrate her birthday.

So…congratulations Liu Xiaobo but couldn’t the Nobel committee have waited a day?