Tuesday, December 30, 2008
History will be the Judge
Except that History doesn't exist as such, some lofty, impersonal final arbiter that is above all individual humans. It is only the consensus of future people, who can look back with a more detached objectivity and irony, at least compared to those who were participants, or victims, or first-hand witnesses. History will not be the judge. Future people, with a better sense of history, will.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Here's The Plan
This blog shall go bilingual from next year onwards. At least a third of the new posts will be in Chinese; the proportion shall rise to half by August.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Rambling in the Quantum Woods (I)
It is a common consensus that the best way to make sure you've learnt the subject-matter properly is to try and explain it to someone else who is completely clueless about said subject-matter. Before that, I shall just try explaining it to no one in particular. Comments are welcome. The subject-matter at hand is the contents of John Gribbins' In Search of Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality.
The main point of the Copenhagen Interpretation is that no property of a quantum system exists until it is observed. Before that, there are only probability waves. George Bush is a quantum system with a complex wave function. (No, it is incorrect to say that he is a wave function) He might be anywhere in this space with probability given by the square of the modulus of his wave function. He does not have a definite position, only probabilities of being in various places, until someone, anyone, makes a measurement of his position; this act of measurement collapses his wave function, and this, sadly for the rest of the world, particularly Iraq, gives him a definite position. It is rather a stretch from this to the slightly sensationalised simplification "reality does not exist"; it is only correct in the sense that the act of observation being what collapses wave functions and leads to the properties of quantum systems having definite values, there can be said to be no "objective reality" existing independent of this act. (Yucks. The whole truth is such a unwieldy thing.)
Okay. Now I observe that George Bush is not in the flat. Does that mean I have altered his wave function, by "measuring" (or restricting, rather) his position to be somewhere outside the flat?
The main point of the Copenhagen Interpretation is that no property of a quantum system exists until it is observed. Before that, there are only probability waves. George Bush is a quantum system with a complex wave function. (No, it is incorrect to say that he is a wave function) He might be anywhere in this space with probability given by the square of the modulus of his wave function. He does not have a definite position, only probabilities of being in various places, until someone, anyone, makes a measurement of his position; this act of measurement collapses his wave function, and this, sadly for the rest of the world, particularly Iraq, gives him a definite position. It is rather a stretch from this to the slightly sensationalised simplification "reality does not exist"; it is only correct in the sense that the act of observation being what collapses wave functions and leads to the properties of quantum systems having definite values, there can be said to be no "objective reality" existing independent of this act. (Yucks. The whole truth is such a unwieldy thing.)
Okay. Now I observe that George Bush is not in the flat. Does that mean I have altered his wave function, by "measuring" (or restricting, rather) his position to be somewhere outside the flat?
What's your Favourite Word?
"Peace"? "Joy"? "Happiness"? "Light"? "Lunchtime"?
Or are you perhaps one of those stranger ones, like yours truly, whose first thought is of form and sound rather than meaning? So that the candidates are words that are in the same spirit but rather more colourful, like "illume" or "ebuillient" or "brilliance", or just plain fancy-looking labels for mundane concepts, like "solstice", "sibilance" or "alacrity". Or "raspberry". "Peace" is rather too prosaic for the great idea it represents and something like "understanding" is completely unwieldy ("harmony" is better). Something like "bliss", "delight" or "serenity", on the other hand, has both form and meaning.
Of course, all this is probably deeply personal and completely arbitrary to anyone else who might be reading.
Or are you perhaps one of those stranger ones, like yours truly, whose first thought is of form and sound rather than meaning? So that the candidates are words that are in the same spirit but rather more colourful, like "illume" or "ebuillient" or "brilliance", or just plain fancy-looking labels for mundane concepts, like "solstice", "sibilance" or "alacrity". Or "raspberry". "Peace" is rather too prosaic for the great idea it represents and something like "understanding" is completely unwieldy ("harmony" is better). Something like "bliss", "delight" or "serenity", on the other hand, has both form and meaning.
Of course, all this is probably deeply personal and completely arbitrary to anyone else who might be reading.
Friday, December 26, 2008
厦门海景
Four-and-a-half hours of sleep was so not a good idea, but at least I got to the airport comfortably on time after all. Check-in was a breeze, and then Nar showed up to send me off. w00t. The flight was delayed for about half an hour because the documentation hadn't been cleared by depature time, and then other air traffic got in the way, but after that it was a smooth and uneventful journey.
Xiamen felt quite the same as nine months ago, only slightly warmer--and it's supposed to be winter now? The same light haze in the air, the same aged but sturdy buildings, the same cosy atmosphere, the same panoramic views of the clear blue sea. The taxi deposited me at the wrong gate of the University because the road ahead was blocked by a peloton of buses following a traffic accident and the driver couldn't be bothered with detours. Walking across campus to the gate where the parents were waiting didn't take too long though, and it was very agreeable weather to walk in: sun shining but not glaring, comfortably warm, the slightest hint of wind. Our living quarters are quite close to the sea, even closer than our home in Singapore. A hundred metres, perhaps? And the seaside here is quite different from Singapore's. The waters stretch out in a grand, sparsely-populated vastness. Ambling along the boardwalk that goes along the shore from near the University to somewhere half a dozen kilometres north, one could take in, along with the crash of the waves, the endless sight of sky blending into sea with only the occasional fishing boat or small ship to interrupt. Not like Singapore's sea, endlessly interrupted by anchorages and huge industrial chimnies and all sorts of industrial sounds.
[All hail Bluetooth]
Xiamen felt quite the same as nine months ago, only slightly warmer--and it's supposed to be winter now? The same light haze in the air, the same aged but sturdy buildings, the same cosy atmosphere, the same panoramic views of the clear blue sea. The taxi deposited me at the wrong gate of the University because the road ahead was blocked by a peloton of buses following a traffic accident and the driver couldn't be bothered with detours. Walking across campus to the gate where the parents were waiting didn't take too long though, and it was very agreeable weather to walk in: sun shining but not glaring, comfortably warm, the slightest hint of wind. Our living quarters are quite close to the sea, even closer than our home in Singapore. A hundred metres, perhaps? And the seaside here is quite different from Singapore's. The waters stretch out in a grand, sparsely-populated vastness. Ambling along the boardwalk that goes along the shore from near the University to somewhere half a dozen kilometres north, one could take in, along with the crash of the waves, the endless sight of sky blending into sea with only the occasional fishing boat or small ship to interrupt. Not like Singapore's sea, endlessly interrupted by anchorages and huge industrial chimnies and all sorts of industrial sounds.
[All hail Bluetooth]
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
I should start looking elsewhere
There were three people from Singapore who were admitted into MIT last year.
I know all three of them.
All three of them completely pwn my scrawny ass.
Damn.
I know all three of them.
All three of them completely pwn my scrawny ass.
Damn.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Utterly infuriating
Why are you so good at focusing obsessively on the most trivial things, but terribly bad at doing the same on less trivial matters, ones that actually matter? Grrr.
8 Wonton + 2 Bratwurst = Completely Stuffed
Culinary lesson of the day: always use fresh vegetables and never, ever pour spent oil into boiled soup. It's a terrible idea.
In other news, Bizet's Carmen is stuck in my head again. The most prominent point this time is the habañera rhythm. Joy.
(Note to interested readers other than the author: that's the opening line of Debussy's La Soirée dans Grenade. The habañera, a generic dance rhythm, is the dotted semiquaver-semiquaver-quaver-quaver figure doing two perfect fifths a bar.)
In other news, Bizet's Carmen is stuck in my head again. The most prominent point this time is the habañera rhythm. Joy.
(Note to interested readers other than the author: that's the opening line of Debussy's La Soirée dans Grenade. The habañera, a generic dance rhythm, is the dotted semiquaver-semiquaver-quaver-quaver figure doing two perfect fifths a bar.)
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Borderless World
I have crossed a lot of borders in my time-—not just in the process of migrating from Shanghai to Glasgow to Singapore, but also in the course of extensive travel. I was fortunate enough to have experienced, among other things, sunset slowly spreading over the Himalayas, the hopeful new dawn of Beirut when it was relatively peaceful and the Alhambra and its tranquil gardens exuding a serene sense of past Moorish glory.
When one crosses borders so often, especially at an impressionable young age, they start to lose some of their significance. The child may notice that the words people use and their outward actions differing slightly across borders, but he would more likely remember that on both sides of the border people go about similar daily business, that they react in happiness or sadness or anger in similar ways and to similar stimuli. Borders, to such a well-traveled child, are not severe boundaries separating distinct groups of people, different “nations”, different “cultures”; they are only lines drawn on a map, for mere administrative purposes. Unity in diversity, when he grows mature enough to understand the notion, becomes to him more than an abstract truism, it becomes an irrefutable truth built upon a wealth of personal experience.
So it was for me. Internationalism has always been a natural instinct, because I couldn’t figure out just what was so different between the various groups of people that called themselves “nations” that mutual hostility were possible between them.
Such a tendency to see arbitrariness, in some degree, in every boundary extends to other realms. Thus, instead of distinct and mutually exclusive “Eastern” and “Western” systems of thought, I see a universe of possibilities consisting of all the combinations of elements of both. Individuals would navigate their way through such a universe influenced by their social and cultural environment but also having a certain amount of autonomous choice, ultimately arriving at their own unique value systems, which may be more “Eastern” or more “Western” or a heterodox mix of both in equal proportions.
Nowadays it is in vogue to talk of globalization and infocommunication technologies creating a borderless world. For me the world was borderless long ago—only that people insist on continuing to artificially draw borders.
When one crosses borders so often, especially at an impressionable young age, they start to lose some of their significance. The child may notice that the words people use and their outward actions differing slightly across borders, but he would more likely remember that on both sides of the border people go about similar daily business, that they react in happiness or sadness or anger in similar ways and to similar stimuli. Borders, to such a well-traveled child, are not severe boundaries separating distinct groups of people, different “nations”, different “cultures”; they are only lines drawn on a map, for mere administrative purposes. Unity in diversity, when he grows mature enough to understand the notion, becomes to him more than an abstract truism, it becomes an irrefutable truth built upon a wealth of personal experience.
So it was for me. Internationalism has always been a natural instinct, because I couldn’t figure out just what was so different between the various groups of people that called themselves “nations” that mutual hostility were possible between them.
Such a tendency to see arbitrariness, in some degree, in every boundary extends to other realms. Thus, instead of distinct and mutually exclusive “Eastern” and “Western” systems of thought, I see a universe of possibilities consisting of all the combinations of elements of both. Individuals would navigate their way through such a universe influenced by their social and cultural environment but also having a certain amount of autonomous choice, ultimately arriving at their own unique value systems, which may be more “Eastern” or more “Western” or a heterodox mix of both in equal proportions.
Nowadays it is in vogue to talk of globalization and infocommunication technologies creating a borderless world. For me the world was borderless long ago—only that people insist on continuing to artificially draw borders.
Nice people
I intend to write an article in praise of nice people. But the reader may wish to know first who are the people that I consider nice. To get at their essential quality may perhaps be a little difficult, so I will begin by enumerating certain types who come under the heading. Maiden aunts are invariably nice, especially, of course, when they are rich; ministers of religion are nice, except those rare cases in which they elope to South Africa with a member of the choir after pretending to commit suicide. Young girls, I regret to say, are seldom nice nowadays. When I was young most of them were quite nice -- that is to say, they shared their mother's opinions, not only about topics, but what is more remarkable, about individuals, even young men; they said, "Yes, Mamma," and, "No, Mamma" at the appropriate moments; they loved their father because it was their duty to do so, and their mother because she preserved them from the slightest hint of wrongdoing. When they became engaged to be married they fell in love with decorous moderation; being married, they recognized it as a duty to love their husbands but gave other women to understand that it was a duty they performed with great difficulty. They behaved nicely to their parents-in-law, while making it clear that any less dutiful person would not have done so; they did not speak spitefully about other women but pursed up their lips in such a way as to let it be seen what they might have said but for their angelic charitableness. This type is what is called a pure and noble woman. The type, alas, now hardly exists except among the old.
Mercifully the survivors still have great power: they control education, where they endeavor, not without success, to preserve a Victorian standard of hypocrisy; they control legislation on what are called "moral issues", and have thereby created and endowed the great profession of bootlegging; they ensure that the young men who write for the newspapers shall express the opinions of the nice old ladies rather than their own, thereby enlarging the scope of the young men's style and the variety of their psychological imagination. They keep alive innumerable pleasures which otherwise would be quickly ended by a surfeit; for example, the pleasure of hearing bad language on a stage, or of seeing there a slightly larger amount of bare skin than is customary. Above all, they keep alive the pleasures of the hunt. In a homogeneous country population, such as that of the English shire, people are condemmed to hunt foxes; this is expensive and sometimes even dangerous. Moreover, the fox cannot explain very clearly how much he dislikes being hunted. In all these respects the hunting of human beings is better sport, but, if it were not for the nice people, it would be difficult to hunt human beings with a good conscience. Those whom the nice people condemn are fair game; at their call of "Tallyho" the hunt assembles, and the victim is pursued to prison or death. It is especially good sport when the victim is a woman, since it gratifies the jealousy of the women and the sadism of the men. I know at this moment a foreign woman living in England, in happy though extra-legal union with a man whom she loves and who loves her; unfortunately, her political opinions are not so conservative as could be wished, though they are merely opinions, about which she does nothing. The nice people, however, have used this excuse to set Scotland Yard upon their scent, and she is to be sent back to her native country to strave. In England, as in America, the foreigner is a morally degrading influence, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the police for the care which they take to see that only exceptionally virtuous foreigners are allowed to reside among us.
It must not be supposed that all nice people are women, though, of course, it is much commoner for a woman to be nice than for a man. Apart from ministers of religion, there are many other nice men. For example: those who have made large fortunes and have now retired from business to spend their fortunes on charity; magistrates are also almost invariably nice men. It cannot, however, be said that all supporters of law and order are nice men. When I was young, I remember hearing it advanced by a nice woman, as an argument against capital punishment, that the hangman could hardly be a nice man. I have never known any hangmen personally, so I have not been able to test this argument empirically. I knew a lady, however, who met the hangman in the train without knowing who he was, and when she offered him a rug, the weather being cold, he said, "Ah, Madam, you wouldn't do that if you knew who I am," which seems to show that he was a nice man after all. This, however, must have been exceptional. The hangman in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, who is emphatically not a nice man, is probably more typical.
I do not think, however, that we ought to agree with the nice woman I quoted a moment ago in condemming capital punishment merely because the hangman is not likely to be nice. To be a nice person, it is necessary to be protected from crude contact with reality, and those who do the protecting cannot be expected to share the niceness that they preserve. Imagine, for example, a wreck on a liner which is transporting a number of colored laborers; the first-class female passengeres, all of whom are presumably nice women, will be saved first; but in order that this may happen, there must be men who keep the colored laborers from swamping the boat, and it is unlikely that these men will be able to succeed by nice methods. The women who have been saved, as soon as they are safe, will begin to feel sorry for the poor laborers who were drowned, but their tender hearts are rendered possible only by the rough men who defended them.
In general, nice people leave the policing of the world to hirelings because they feel the work to be not such as a person who is nice would wish to undertake. There is, however, one department which they do not delegate -- namely, the department of backbiting and scandal. People can be placed in a hierarchy of niceness by the power of their tongues. If A talks against B, and B talks against A, it will generally be agreed by the society in which they live that one of them is exercising a public duty, while the other is actuated by spite; the one who is exercising the public duty is the one who is the nicer of the two. Thus, for example, a headmistress in a school is nicer than an assistant mistress, but a lady who is on the school board is nicer than either. Well-directed tittle-tattle may easily cause its victim to lose his or her livelihood, and even when this extreme result is not achieved, it may turn a person into a pariah. It is, therefore, a great force for good, and we ought to be thankful that it is the nice people who wield it.
The chief characteristics of nice people is the laudable practice of improvement upon reality. God made the world, but nice people feel that they could have done the job better. There are many things in the Divine handiwork which, while it would be blasphemous to wish them otherwise, it would be by no means nice to mention. Divines have held that if our first parents had not eaten the apple the human race would have been replenished by some innocent mode of vegetation, as Gibbon calls it. The Divine plan in this respect is certainly mysterious. It is all very well to regard it, as the aforesaid divines do, in the light of a punishment of sin, but the trouble with this view is that while it may be a punishment for the nice people, the others, alas, find it quite pleasant. It would seem, therefore, as if the punishment had been made to fall in the wrong quarter. One of the main purposes of the nice people is to redress no doubt this unintended injustice. They endeavor to secure that the biologically ordained mode of vegetation shall be practiced either furtively or frigidly, and that those who practice it furtively shall, when found out, be in the power of the nice people, owing to the damage that may be done to them by scandal. They endeavor to ensure also that as little as possible shall be known on the subjectin a decent way; they try to get the censor to forbid books and plays which represent the matter otherwise than as an occasion for sniggering nastiness; in this they are successful wherever and in so far as they control the laws and the police. It is not known why the Lord made the human body as he did, since one must suppose that omnipotence could have made it such as would not have shocked the nice people. Perhaps, however, there was a good reason. There has been in England, ever since the rise of the textile industry in Lancashire, a close alliance between missionaries and the cotton trade, for missionaries teach the savages to cover up the human body and thereby increase the demand for cotton goods. If there had been nothing shameful about the human body, the textile trade would have lost this source of profit. This instance shows that we need never be afraid lest the spread of virtue should diminish our profits.
Whoever invented the phrase "the naked truth" had perceived an important connection. Nakedness is shocking to all right-minded people, and so is truth. It metters little with what department you are connected; you will soon find that rtuth is such as nice people will not admit into their consciousness. Whenever it has been my ill fortune to be present in court during the hearing of a case about which I had some first-hand knowledge, I have been struck by the fact that no crude truth is allowed to penetrate within those august portals. The truth that gets into a law court is not the naked truth but the truth in court dress, with all its less decent portions concealed. I do not say that this applies to the trial of straightforward crimes, such as murder or theft, but it applies to all those into which an element of prejudice enters, such as political trials, or trials for obscenity. I believe that in this respect England is worse than America, for England has brought to perfection the almost invisible and half-conscious control of everything unpleasant by means of feelings of decency. If you wish to mention in a law court any unassimilable fact, you will find that it is contrary to the laws of evidence to do so, and that not only the judge and the opposing counsel but also cousel on your side will prevent the said fact from coming out.
The same sort of reality pervades politics, owing to the feelings of nice people. If you attempt to persuade any nice person that a politician of his own party is an ordinary mortal no better than the mass of mankind, he will indignantly repudiate the suggestion. Consequently it is necessary to politicians to appear immaculate. At most times the politicians of all parties tacitly combine to prevent anything damaging to the profession from getting known, for difference of party usually does less to divide politicians than identity of profession does to unite them. In this way the nice people are able to preserve their fancy picture of the nation's great men, and school children can be made to believe that eminence is to be achieved only by the highest virtue. There are, it is true, exceptional times when politics become really bitter, and at all times there are politicians who are not considered sufficiently respectable to belong to the informal trade-union. Parnell, for example, was first unsuccessfully accused of co-operation with murderers and then successfully convicted of an offense against morality, such as, of course, none of his accusers would have dreamed of committing. In our own day Communists in Europe and extreme Radicals and labor agitators in America are outside the pale; no large body of nice people admires them, and if the offend against the conventional code they can expect no mercy. In this way the immovable moral convictions of nice people become linked with the defense of property, and thus once more prove their inestimable worth.
Nice people very properly suspect pleasure wherever they see it. They know that he who increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow, and they infer that he that increaseth sorrow increaseth wisdom. They therefore feel that in spreading sorrow they are spreading wisdom; since wisdom is more precious than rubies, they are justified in feeling that they are conferring a great benefit in so doing. They will, for example, make a public playground for children in order to persuade themselves that they are philanthropic and then impose so many regulations upon its use that no child can be as happy there as in the streets. They will do their best to prevent playgrounds, theaters, etc., from being open on a Sunday, because that is the day when they might be enjoyed. Young women in their employment are prevented so far as possible from talking with young men. The nicest people I have known carried this attitude into the bosom of the family and made their children play only instructive games. This degree of niceness, however, I regret to say, is becoming less common than it was. In the old days children were taught that
One stroke of His almighty rodCan send young sinners quick to Hell,and it was understood that this was likely to happen if children became boisterous or indulged in any activity such as was not calculated to fit them for the ministry. The education based upon this point of view is set forth in The Fairchild Family, an invaluable work on how to produce nice people. I know few parents, however, in the present day who live up to this standard. It has become sadly common to wish children to enjoy themselves, and it is to be feared that those who have been educated on these lax principles will not display adequate horror of pleasure when they grow up.
The day of nice people, I fear, is nearly over; two things are killing it. The first is the belief that there is no harm in being happy, provided no one else is the worse for it; the second is the dislike of humbug, a dislike which is quite as much æsthetic as moral. Both these results were encouraged by the War, when the nice people in all countries were securely in control, and in the name of the highest morality induced the young people to slaughter one another. When it was all over the survivors began to wonder whether lies and misery inspired by hatred constituted the highest virtue. I am afraid it may be some time before they can again be induced to accept this fundamental doctrine of every lofty ethic.
The essence of nice people is that they hate life as manifested in tendencies to co-operation, and in the boisterousness of children, and above all in sex, with the thought of which they are obsessed. In a word, nice people are those who have nasty minds.
Mercifully the survivors still have great power: they control education, where they endeavor, not without success, to preserve a Victorian standard of hypocrisy; they control legislation on what are called "moral issues", and have thereby created and endowed the great profession of bootlegging; they ensure that the young men who write for the newspapers shall express the opinions of the nice old ladies rather than their own, thereby enlarging the scope of the young men's style and the variety of their psychological imagination. They keep alive innumerable pleasures which otherwise would be quickly ended by a surfeit; for example, the pleasure of hearing bad language on a stage, or of seeing there a slightly larger amount of bare skin than is customary. Above all, they keep alive the pleasures of the hunt. In a homogeneous country population, such as that of the English shire, people are condemmed to hunt foxes; this is expensive and sometimes even dangerous. Moreover, the fox cannot explain very clearly how much he dislikes being hunted. In all these respects the hunting of human beings is better sport, but, if it were not for the nice people, it would be difficult to hunt human beings with a good conscience. Those whom the nice people condemn are fair game; at their call of "Tallyho" the hunt assembles, and the victim is pursued to prison or death. It is especially good sport when the victim is a woman, since it gratifies the jealousy of the women and the sadism of the men. I know at this moment a foreign woman living in England, in happy though extra-legal union with a man whom she loves and who loves her; unfortunately, her political opinions are not so conservative as could be wished, though they are merely opinions, about which she does nothing. The nice people, however, have used this excuse to set Scotland Yard upon their scent, and she is to be sent back to her native country to strave. In England, as in America, the foreigner is a morally degrading influence, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the police for the care which they take to see that only exceptionally virtuous foreigners are allowed to reside among us.
It must not be supposed that all nice people are women, though, of course, it is much commoner for a woman to be nice than for a man. Apart from ministers of religion, there are many other nice men. For example: those who have made large fortunes and have now retired from business to spend their fortunes on charity; magistrates are also almost invariably nice men. It cannot, however, be said that all supporters of law and order are nice men. When I was young, I remember hearing it advanced by a nice woman, as an argument against capital punishment, that the hangman could hardly be a nice man. I have never known any hangmen personally, so I have not been able to test this argument empirically. I knew a lady, however, who met the hangman in the train without knowing who he was, and when she offered him a rug, the weather being cold, he said, "Ah, Madam, you wouldn't do that if you knew who I am," which seems to show that he was a nice man after all. This, however, must have been exceptional. The hangman in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, who is emphatically not a nice man, is probably more typical.
I do not think, however, that we ought to agree with the nice woman I quoted a moment ago in condemming capital punishment merely because the hangman is not likely to be nice. To be a nice person, it is necessary to be protected from crude contact with reality, and those who do the protecting cannot be expected to share the niceness that they preserve. Imagine, for example, a wreck on a liner which is transporting a number of colored laborers; the first-class female passengeres, all of whom are presumably nice women, will be saved first; but in order that this may happen, there must be men who keep the colored laborers from swamping the boat, and it is unlikely that these men will be able to succeed by nice methods. The women who have been saved, as soon as they are safe, will begin to feel sorry for the poor laborers who were drowned, but their tender hearts are rendered possible only by the rough men who defended them.
In general, nice people leave the policing of the world to hirelings because they feel the work to be not such as a person who is nice would wish to undertake. There is, however, one department which they do not delegate -- namely, the department of backbiting and scandal. People can be placed in a hierarchy of niceness by the power of their tongues. If A talks against B, and B talks against A, it will generally be agreed by the society in which they live that one of them is exercising a public duty, while the other is actuated by spite; the one who is exercising the public duty is the one who is the nicer of the two. Thus, for example, a headmistress in a school is nicer than an assistant mistress, but a lady who is on the school board is nicer than either. Well-directed tittle-tattle may easily cause its victim to lose his or her livelihood, and even when this extreme result is not achieved, it may turn a person into a pariah. It is, therefore, a great force for good, and we ought to be thankful that it is the nice people who wield it.
The chief characteristics of nice people is the laudable practice of improvement upon reality. God made the world, but nice people feel that they could have done the job better. There are many things in the Divine handiwork which, while it would be blasphemous to wish them otherwise, it would be by no means nice to mention. Divines have held that if our first parents had not eaten the apple the human race would have been replenished by some innocent mode of vegetation, as Gibbon calls it. The Divine plan in this respect is certainly mysterious. It is all very well to regard it, as the aforesaid divines do, in the light of a punishment of sin, but the trouble with this view is that while it may be a punishment for the nice people, the others, alas, find it quite pleasant. It would seem, therefore, as if the punishment had been made to fall in the wrong quarter. One of the main purposes of the nice people is to redress no doubt this unintended injustice. They endeavor to secure that the biologically ordained mode of vegetation shall be practiced either furtively or frigidly, and that those who practice it furtively shall, when found out, be in the power of the nice people, owing to the damage that may be done to them by scandal. They endeavor to ensure also that as little as possible shall be known on the subjectin a decent way; they try to get the censor to forbid books and plays which represent the matter otherwise than as an occasion for sniggering nastiness; in this they are successful wherever and in so far as they control the laws and the police. It is not known why the Lord made the human body as he did, since one must suppose that omnipotence could have made it such as would not have shocked the nice people. Perhaps, however, there was a good reason. There has been in England, ever since the rise of the textile industry in Lancashire, a close alliance between missionaries and the cotton trade, for missionaries teach the savages to cover up the human body and thereby increase the demand for cotton goods. If there had been nothing shameful about the human body, the textile trade would have lost this source of profit. This instance shows that we need never be afraid lest the spread of virtue should diminish our profits.
Whoever invented the phrase "the naked truth" had perceived an important connection. Nakedness is shocking to all right-minded people, and so is truth. It metters little with what department you are connected; you will soon find that rtuth is such as nice people will not admit into their consciousness. Whenever it has been my ill fortune to be present in court during the hearing of a case about which I had some first-hand knowledge, I have been struck by the fact that no crude truth is allowed to penetrate within those august portals. The truth that gets into a law court is not the naked truth but the truth in court dress, with all its less decent portions concealed. I do not say that this applies to the trial of straightforward crimes, such as murder or theft, but it applies to all those into which an element of prejudice enters, such as political trials, or trials for obscenity. I believe that in this respect England is worse than America, for England has brought to perfection the almost invisible and half-conscious control of everything unpleasant by means of feelings of decency. If you wish to mention in a law court any unassimilable fact, you will find that it is contrary to the laws of evidence to do so, and that not only the judge and the opposing counsel but also cousel on your side will prevent the said fact from coming out.
The same sort of reality pervades politics, owing to the feelings of nice people. If you attempt to persuade any nice person that a politician of his own party is an ordinary mortal no better than the mass of mankind, he will indignantly repudiate the suggestion. Consequently it is necessary to politicians to appear immaculate. At most times the politicians of all parties tacitly combine to prevent anything damaging to the profession from getting known, for difference of party usually does less to divide politicians than identity of profession does to unite them. In this way the nice people are able to preserve their fancy picture of the nation's great men, and school children can be made to believe that eminence is to be achieved only by the highest virtue. There are, it is true, exceptional times when politics become really bitter, and at all times there are politicians who are not considered sufficiently respectable to belong to the informal trade-union. Parnell, for example, was first unsuccessfully accused of co-operation with murderers and then successfully convicted of an offense against morality, such as, of course, none of his accusers would have dreamed of committing. In our own day Communists in Europe and extreme Radicals and labor agitators in America are outside the pale; no large body of nice people admires them, and if the offend against the conventional code they can expect no mercy. In this way the immovable moral convictions of nice people become linked with the defense of property, and thus once more prove their inestimable worth.
Nice people very properly suspect pleasure wherever they see it. They know that he who increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow, and they infer that he that increaseth sorrow increaseth wisdom. They therefore feel that in spreading sorrow they are spreading wisdom; since wisdom is more precious than rubies, they are justified in feeling that they are conferring a great benefit in so doing. They will, for example, make a public playground for children in order to persuade themselves that they are philanthropic and then impose so many regulations upon its use that no child can be as happy there as in the streets. They will do their best to prevent playgrounds, theaters, etc., from being open on a Sunday, because that is the day when they might be enjoyed. Young women in their employment are prevented so far as possible from talking with young men. The nicest people I have known carried this attitude into the bosom of the family and made their children play only instructive games. This degree of niceness, however, I regret to say, is becoming less common than it was. In the old days children were taught that
One stroke of His almighty rodCan send young sinners quick to Hell,and it was understood that this was likely to happen if children became boisterous or indulged in any activity such as was not calculated to fit them for the ministry. The education based upon this point of view is set forth in The Fairchild Family, an invaluable work on how to produce nice people. I know few parents, however, in the present day who live up to this standard. It has become sadly common to wish children to enjoy themselves, and it is to be feared that those who have been educated on these lax principles will not display adequate horror of pleasure when they grow up.
The day of nice people, I fear, is nearly over; two things are killing it. The first is the belief that there is no harm in being happy, provided no one else is the worse for it; the second is the dislike of humbug, a dislike which is quite as much æsthetic as moral. Both these results were encouraged by the War, when the nice people in all countries were securely in control, and in the name of the highest morality induced the young people to slaughter one another. When it was all over the survivors began to wonder whether lies and misery inspired by hatred constituted the highest virtue. I am afraid it may be some time before they can again be induced to accept this fundamental doctrine of every lofty ethic.
The essence of nice people is that they hate life as manifested in tendencies to co-operation, and in the boisterousness of children, and above all in sex, with the thought of which they are obsessed. In a word, nice people are those who have nasty minds.
Bertrand Russell, 1931
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Another Tale of Two Cities
My second hometown of Singapore has a reputation as a SimCity: a sparkling, spick-and-span place that might just have come from Will Wright’s groundbreaking simulation videogame instead of the real world. Beirut’s downtown, too, bore SimCity-esque touches at first glance, when I visited it two years ago. The place had been freshly reconstructed after the Lebanese Civil War and restyled the BCD—Beirut Central District. The office buildings were new, the intricate network of streets and tunnels clean and freshly-paved. Around the Place de l’Étoile, a smaller and rather cosier version compared to the demented Parisian one, discreetly expensive shops catered to the well-heeled. The Ottoman-era Seraglio nearby looked fresh and was far from dilapidated. But the similarities, in this case, end at the surface.
Singapore is an orderly place: pedestrian crossings and queues are only some of the exhibits on show in its exhibition of neat civility. In Beirut a congenial chaos reigns: crossing the road there is a veritable gladiatorial battle between man and car. Singapore is a peaceful place: the most recent bombs and riots were long ago enough to be treated as cautionary but sanitized bits of history, narratives which are no longer raw. Beirut still displays, very visibly, the scars of the Lebanese Civil War. The BCD may be fairly full of office buildings and shop spaces, but many of those are still just vacant commercial space, yet to be animated by human activity. One block south of the BCD along Damascus Street, apartment blocks stand next to abandoned, pockmarked testaments to the destructive power of modern munitions and firearms.
Beirut was once a great city, its profile then very much resembling Singapore’s now: a bustling entrepôt, a cosmopolitan centre of commerce, a gateway to the world for its region—the Middle East in the former case, South-East Asia in the latter. Tolerance was such a norm in the city the association between the two between cliché. So what went wrong? Why did Beirut dissolve into intractable chaos while Singapore successfully overcame her teething troubles and became a new paragon of diversity?
Maybe Lebanon’s diversity was just too much, even compared to Singapore’s. Not 50 kilometres from Beirut is the equally ancient city of Sidon (or, as most of the now Arabic-speaking local population would call it, Saïda) and its medina (marketplace), preserved from medieval times. The medina feels ages away from the BCD—a quintessential actualization of the somewhat hackneyed contrast between East and West—yet the two places are nearer apart than Paris and Lyon, or Beijing and Shanghai. The liberalism epitomized by Beirut’s famous nightlife exists alongside deep conservatism. Christianity and Islam, both rather jealous monotheisms by nature, claim nearly equal followings among the Lebanese population. Such a diversity of cultures, of religions, of attitudes became a Pandora’s box, out of which leapt intractable disputes over political power that were eventually exacerbated into civil war. Singapore similarly has a wide gamut of races and religions, but perhaps not as wide; moreover there is a clear majority, the Chinese, who, quite conveniently, are not big on any one religion, or indeed religion in general.
Maybe it was spillover from the south. The Palestinian exodus into Lebanon after the Catastrophe of 1948 created a lingering and destabilizing imbalance between the Christian and Muslim populations, encouraging both sides to try and get a one-up on the delicate sectarian compromise over political power worked out during Lebanese independence, by violent means or otherwise.
The continued presence of displaced Palestinians, some of them advocating violent resistance against Israel, occasionally invites Israeli attack and creates lingering insecurity. The Lebanese themselves are divided in their feelings towards the Palestinians in their midst—perhaps one of the reasons disunity continues to be a leitmotif of Lebanese politics. The day before we headed south to see Sidon and Tyre (Sour in Arabic), we were potting around Achrafiyé, east of the BCD, walking its pleasant leafy streets and exploring the grand old dames that lined them. In a restored Italianate mansion now occupied by a business school, we struck up a conversation with the receptionist. When we mentioned that we were visiting the south the next day, the receptionist told us to take care as there had been an Israeli air-strike just south of Beirut a few days before. “It’s between the Israelis and them [the Palestinians]. None of our business.” But are they not your neighbours and fellow human beings, and do not you fates closely intertwine?
Travelling around Lebanon, we ran into Palestinians every now and then. At the ruins of ancient Tyre, yet another reminder out of many that this land is no stranger to the vicissitudes of time, the only other people present nearby are a family living in a shack at the edge of the ruins. As we walk towards the very well-preserved Roman hippodrome, a teenage girl approaches and, using an involved creole of Arabic, rudimentary English and universal hand gestures, offers mulberries for sale. “Palestinians,” our taxi driver tells us later. They do not seem to be doing particularly well. On the way back to Beirut we pass by Shatila refugee camp and decide to alight and take a look. It was quite a bustling place, that entrance to the camp: the street full of human and vehicular traffic, the sides lined with stalls selling, among other things, radios and other electronic goods. There is no grinding poverty here, but still sulkiness and frustration pervade the air. As we turn back a battered old Mercedes screeches to a halt nearby, nearly hitting a street vendor. No one is hurt, but the pieces of glass craftwork on the vendor’s tray have hit the ground and shattered. The vendor slams the bonnet of the Mercedes hard with his palms, eyes flashing with anger, visibly enraged—there must have gone a substantial part of his income.
Maybe it was poor socioeconomic conditions which kept the conflict raw. Whereas Singapore has been an economic success story for the past four decades and counting, Lebanon’s economic outlook has been less rosy, and the lethal cocktail of a protracted civil war and an influx of impoverished refugees did not help one bit. People who are getting richer pay relatively less attention to their grievances against their fellow human beings than those who aren’t doing so well.
In the end, maybe, circumstances are really stronger than we mere humans—形式强于人 as the Chinese say. Maybe the triple whammy of general economic ill-being, an extremely volatile mix of ethnicities and religions, and a loony neighbourhood—with bad karma radiating not only from the south but also from Damascus—pre-ordained Lebanon’s sad recent fate. Not too long after we left, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, triggering off another cascade of assassinations, demonstrations peaceful and violent, and a second Israeli campaign in Southern Lebanon in the interim. Lebanon’s travails have not quite ended yet.
But does it have to be that way? What if the parties involved kept in mind the simple moral precept to do unto others as you would them do unto you? If they kept in mind that other people, no matter how much they may seem like pricks, are still after all humans too? Then maybe the Lebanese would be able to agree on a common, kinder line towards the Palestinians; maybe the conflict-locked sects and factions could acknowledge one another’s interests as equally valid and accept a compromise in the interests of all; maybe, just maybe, Damascus could be persuaded that less ham-fisted meddling in Lebanon may not be harmful to its interests.
There are many churches and mosques in Beirut. At certain times of the day, like around five in the evening, if one stands along Damascus Street near the BCD, one can hear the wailing of muezzins and the tolling of church bells sounding out together, in a novel but pleasant harmony. It may be difficult to argue, against the weight of history’s evidence, that appealing to humankind’s better instincts can keep the peace in trying circumstances, but even then, I believe firmly, we should never forget that our differences notwithstanding, we are all human beings, united in our humanity, and to therefore treat others as would have them treat you.
(I need to cut this down to half the length for an university application essay. God help me.)
Singapore is an orderly place: pedestrian crossings and queues are only some of the exhibits on show in its exhibition of neat civility. In Beirut a congenial chaos reigns: crossing the road there is a veritable gladiatorial battle between man and car. Singapore is a peaceful place: the most recent bombs and riots were long ago enough to be treated as cautionary but sanitized bits of history, narratives which are no longer raw. Beirut still displays, very visibly, the scars of the Lebanese Civil War. The BCD may be fairly full of office buildings and shop spaces, but many of those are still just vacant commercial space, yet to be animated by human activity. One block south of the BCD along Damascus Street, apartment blocks stand next to abandoned, pockmarked testaments to the destructive power of modern munitions and firearms.
Beirut was once a great city, its profile then very much resembling Singapore’s now: a bustling entrepôt, a cosmopolitan centre of commerce, a gateway to the world for its region—the Middle East in the former case, South-East Asia in the latter. Tolerance was such a norm in the city the association between the two between cliché. So what went wrong? Why did Beirut dissolve into intractable chaos while Singapore successfully overcame her teething troubles and became a new paragon of diversity?
Maybe Lebanon’s diversity was just too much, even compared to Singapore’s. Not 50 kilometres from Beirut is the equally ancient city of Sidon (or, as most of the now Arabic-speaking local population would call it, Saïda) and its medina (marketplace), preserved from medieval times. The medina feels ages away from the BCD—a quintessential actualization of the somewhat hackneyed contrast between East and West—yet the two places are nearer apart than Paris and Lyon, or Beijing and Shanghai. The liberalism epitomized by Beirut’s famous nightlife exists alongside deep conservatism. Christianity and Islam, both rather jealous monotheisms by nature, claim nearly equal followings among the Lebanese population. Such a diversity of cultures, of religions, of attitudes became a Pandora’s box, out of which leapt intractable disputes over political power that were eventually exacerbated into civil war. Singapore similarly has a wide gamut of races and religions, but perhaps not as wide; moreover there is a clear majority, the Chinese, who, quite conveniently, are not big on any one religion, or indeed religion in general.
Maybe it was spillover from the south. The Palestinian exodus into Lebanon after the Catastrophe of 1948 created a lingering and destabilizing imbalance between the Christian and Muslim populations, encouraging both sides to try and get a one-up on the delicate sectarian compromise over political power worked out during Lebanese independence, by violent means or otherwise.
The continued presence of displaced Palestinians, some of them advocating violent resistance against Israel, occasionally invites Israeli attack and creates lingering insecurity. The Lebanese themselves are divided in their feelings towards the Palestinians in their midst—perhaps one of the reasons disunity continues to be a leitmotif of Lebanese politics. The day before we headed south to see Sidon and Tyre (Sour in Arabic), we were potting around Achrafiyé, east of the BCD, walking its pleasant leafy streets and exploring the grand old dames that lined them. In a restored Italianate mansion now occupied by a business school, we struck up a conversation with the receptionist. When we mentioned that we were visiting the south the next day, the receptionist told us to take care as there had been an Israeli air-strike just south of Beirut a few days before. “It’s between the Israelis and them [the Palestinians]. None of our business.” But are they not your neighbours and fellow human beings, and do not you fates closely intertwine?
Travelling around Lebanon, we ran into Palestinians every now and then. At the ruins of ancient Tyre, yet another reminder out of many that this land is no stranger to the vicissitudes of time, the only other people present nearby are a family living in a shack at the edge of the ruins. As we walk towards the very well-preserved Roman hippodrome, a teenage girl approaches and, using an involved creole of Arabic, rudimentary English and universal hand gestures, offers mulberries for sale. “Palestinians,” our taxi driver tells us later. They do not seem to be doing particularly well. On the way back to Beirut we pass by Shatila refugee camp and decide to alight and take a look. It was quite a bustling place, that entrance to the camp: the street full of human and vehicular traffic, the sides lined with stalls selling, among other things, radios and other electronic goods. There is no grinding poverty here, but still sulkiness and frustration pervade the air. As we turn back a battered old Mercedes screeches to a halt nearby, nearly hitting a street vendor. No one is hurt, but the pieces of glass craftwork on the vendor’s tray have hit the ground and shattered. The vendor slams the bonnet of the Mercedes hard with his palms, eyes flashing with anger, visibly enraged—there must have gone a substantial part of his income.
Maybe it was poor socioeconomic conditions which kept the conflict raw. Whereas Singapore has been an economic success story for the past four decades and counting, Lebanon’s economic outlook has been less rosy, and the lethal cocktail of a protracted civil war and an influx of impoverished refugees did not help one bit. People who are getting richer pay relatively less attention to their grievances against their fellow human beings than those who aren’t doing so well.
In the end, maybe, circumstances are really stronger than we mere humans—形式强于人 as the Chinese say. Maybe the triple whammy of general economic ill-being, an extremely volatile mix of ethnicities and religions, and a loony neighbourhood—with bad karma radiating not only from the south but also from Damascus—pre-ordained Lebanon’s sad recent fate. Not too long after we left, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, triggering off another cascade of assassinations, demonstrations peaceful and violent, and a second Israeli campaign in Southern Lebanon in the interim. Lebanon’s travails have not quite ended yet.
But does it have to be that way? What if the parties involved kept in mind the simple moral precept to do unto others as you would them do unto you? If they kept in mind that other people, no matter how much they may seem like pricks, are still after all humans too? Then maybe the Lebanese would be able to agree on a common, kinder line towards the Palestinians; maybe the conflict-locked sects and factions could acknowledge one another’s interests as equally valid and accept a compromise in the interests of all; maybe, just maybe, Damascus could be persuaded that less ham-fisted meddling in Lebanon may not be harmful to its interests.
There are many churches and mosques in Beirut. At certain times of the day, like around five in the evening, if one stands along Damascus Street near the BCD, one can hear the wailing of muezzins and the tolling of church bells sounding out together, in a novel but pleasant harmony. It may be difficult to argue, against the weight of history’s evidence, that appealing to humankind’s better instincts can keep the peace in trying circumstances, but even then, I believe firmly, we should never forget that our differences notwithstanding, we are all human beings, united in our humanity, and to therefore treat others as would have them treat you.
(I need to cut this down to half the length for an university application essay. God help me.)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Entropied Meanderings
The Jaguar E-Type is truly a masterpiece of design. The curves are simply so graceful. Toyota's 2000GT, quite similar to the E-Type in terms of exterior design, seems but a poor copy. The likeness of shape is there, but the grace, the elegance, some sort of animating spirit in the original, seems to have been lost.Troyanos' Carmen still sounds more compelling than Callas'. Or maybe it's just force of habit here.
Internationalism is a bad name for the idea. It presupposes there are nations to straddle inter. What if one rejects the idea of dividing the globe into territorially-based nation-states to start with? What if ... but maybe it's a valid name for the notion in our present day. Where the existence of such nation-states is a reality whether we like it or not.
And now presenting ... dinnertime.
(Following paragraph annexed from this afternoon's output)
Why didn't I take Chemistry instead? I still have no idea. Mais je ne regrette rien. Studying History was an enormously enriching experience. Less half the lessons which were classroom examples of stultifyingly bad teaching, at any rate. It wasn't just the content, although that was not uninteresting. It was the sense of perspective, both in a specific historical sense but also a broader, more general sense.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Absolute Inertia
Even as the to-do list gets longer, you vegetate and decay into a worse and worse state. The second law of thermodynamics is really going strong.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Blimey! Application Essays!
"Using the statement below as a jumping off point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world." But how often does that happen? For most of us life isn't so dramatic. Values and worldviews are shaped, for the most part, by slow, long, drawn-out processes, and not the traceable results of clearly-defined events or experiences.
Or maybe they're asking you to generate your own drama. What happened, happened. How you want to tell it, though, is an entirely subjective decision. It's like giving a new twist to Tolstoy's quip about history being a doll one dresses up according to one's whimsy.
Or maybe they're asking you to generate your own drama. What happened, happened. How you want to tell it, though, is an entirely subjective decision. It's like giving a new twist to Tolstoy's quip about history being a doll one dresses up according to one's whimsy.
Why I Cycle
Everyday life is a pretty dull, and possibly rather tiring, proposition. That is why I really enjoy taking my bicycle out for a spin on the roads once in a while. The sheer sensation of speed, even at a measly 20 kilometers an hour, and the rush of wind against my skin inspire such a thrilling sense of freedom; the traffic whizzing by, the strain in my calves and volume of oxygen going through my lungs, remind me, with satisfyingly immediacy, that I am, after all, still alive after the grey monotony of everyday life.
(Draft Essay I)
(Draft Essay I)
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
We only live Once
'I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.'
Monday, December 08, 2008
East is East and West is West and never shall the twain meet
No, Kipling, I disagree. Profoundly.
Firstly, East and West are really quite arbitrary labels.
Consider that for most of our existence, we Chinese have described ourselves as the Centre, and everyone else as the periphery, or, to put it more bluntly, as barbarians. Before you start caterwauling about how unkind this is, note that the Romans indulged in more or less the same sort of name-calling when they labeled everyone living outside their borders barbari. We might as well have labelled ourselves the West and Europe the East -- if, starting from China, you go all the way East across the Pacific, across America, and then across the Atlantic, you do get to Europe, no? The point is, these labels are entirely arbitrary. They could very well refer to different things than they actually do, but for some accidents of history.
The labels are not only arbitrary, they are also shifting. For the forty-five years or so after the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies, when two of the Allies engaged in a crazed, frenzied staring match involving elaborate taunts, 'East' was appropriated to refer to one of the Allies and her friends, and 'West' restricted to refer to the opposing camp.
Even when these labels weren't being fitted to politically-motivated purposes, their meanings still change over time, as the horizons of human knowledge change. At first the emphasis of "East" was on the Islamic (and perhaps pre-Islamic) civilisations of the Middle East; then it shifted further East, to India and China. All of these perhaps share some common differences compared to the Judo-Graeco-Roman cultures of Europe, but they also have some substantial differences between themselves. With each subtle shift in meaning of the increasingly broad umbrella term "East", the underlying contrasts the labels are meant to bring out becomes increasingly general and vague and possibly, just, unclear.
So it just does not cut it to state, this baldly, that 'East is East and West is West.'
Secondly, and more importantly, cultures are not static, undying, eternal stone monuments. They evolve over time, sometimes with startling rapidity. They adapt to the emergence of new technologies and phenomena, communicate with and influence one another, and generally do not stay still. As countries Eastern and Western alike become industralised, and globalisation creates a continuous dialogue between East and West, the twain are not only meeting, but increasingly fusing to form a composite entity.
The general differences between the civilisations of Asia and those of Europe that might have, in the past, led people like Kipling to distinguish so ardently between "East" and "West", I propose, are really, above all, results of social and economic circumstances, governed largely by geography and historical evolution. They are not inexorable realities or signs of a mysteriously-ordained order. As these social and economic circumstances change around the world, so we see that these differences are no longer the same ones, or perhaps that they have narrowed and may disappear altogether.
Firstly, East and West are really quite arbitrary labels.
Consider that for most of our existence, we Chinese have described ourselves as the Centre, and everyone else as the periphery, or, to put it more bluntly, as barbarians. Before you start caterwauling about how unkind this is, note that the Romans indulged in more or less the same sort of name-calling when they labeled everyone living outside their borders barbari. We might as well have labelled ourselves the West and Europe the East -- if, starting from China, you go all the way East across the Pacific, across America, and then across the Atlantic, you do get to Europe, no? The point is, these labels are entirely arbitrary. They could very well refer to different things than they actually do, but for some accidents of history.
The labels are not only arbitrary, they are also shifting. For the forty-five years or so after the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies, when two of the Allies engaged in a crazed, frenzied staring match involving elaborate taunts, 'East' was appropriated to refer to one of the Allies and her friends, and 'West' restricted to refer to the opposing camp.
Even when these labels weren't being fitted to politically-motivated purposes, their meanings still change over time, as the horizons of human knowledge change. At first the emphasis of "East" was on the Islamic (and perhaps pre-Islamic) civilisations of the Middle East; then it shifted further East, to India and China. All of these perhaps share some common differences compared to the Judo-Graeco-Roman cultures of Europe, but they also have some substantial differences between themselves. With each subtle shift in meaning of the increasingly broad umbrella term "East", the underlying contrasts the labels are meant to bring out becomes increasingly general and vague and possibly, just, unclear.
So it just does not cut it to state, this baldly, that 'East is East and West is West.'
Secondly, and more importantly, cultures are not static, undying, eternal stone monuments. They evolve over time, sometimes with startling rapidity. They adapt to the emergence of new technologies and phenomena, communicate with and influence one another, and generally do not stay still. As countries Eastern and Western alike become industralised, and globalisation creates a continuous dialogue between East and West, the twain are not only meeting, but increasingly fusing to form a composite entity.
The general differences between the civilisations of Asia and those of Europe that might have, in the past, led people like Kipling to distinguish so ardently between "East" and "West", I propose, are really, above all, results of social and economic circumstances, governed largely by geography and historical evolution. They are not inexorable realities or signs of a mysteriously-ordained order. As these social and economic circumstances change around the world, so we see that these differences are no longer the same ones, or perhaps that they have narrowed and may disappear altogether.
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