The Useless Tree

Confucius in Taiwan

     I just returned from an evening discussion, with a group of students here at Williams, about China and Taiwan.  The idea was to have people from these different places talk about their understanding and experience of the other.  It sort of worked.  But what was most interesting to me was a brief exchange I had with a student from Taiwan about Confucianism.

     I mentioned my interest in the Confucian revival in the mainland and suggested that I would not find quite the same thing when I visit Taiwan in January (I am scheduled to be there during the upcoming legislative elections).  Pressing a bit further, I said that if I questioned people about the role of Confucianism in current Taiwanese identity I might meet with some uncomfortable responses: I am assuming that those in Taiwan who claim a distinct non-Chinese Taiwanese-ness would not want to explicitly recognize the effects of ancient Chinese thought in modern Taiwanese life.

     My student, a thoughtful person, said that Confucianism was very much a part of her Taiwan upbringing.  If asked about family obligations, her answers would draw from Confucian stories and ideas.  Indeed, as the conversation expanded to include another teacher from the PRC, it was decided that eduction in Taiwan has consistently maintained links to the Confucian past and that the classics - the Analects, Mencius, etc. - are more widely read and respected there than on the mainland. 

     But my student also rejects the simplistic formulation that "Taiwan is a part of China."  Obviously, Taiwan is politically, and to some degree culturally, distinct from the PRC.  But not only do these two places share a common language, they also participate in cultural expressions and re-imaginings of Confucianism.

       At  one level this is obvious.  I have been to the Confucian Temple in Taibei. 

      

      But on another level it is notable: Confucianism is not enough to unite China and Taiwan, just as it is not sufficient to unite China and Japan or China and Korea.  Although Taiwanese nationalists might want to deny or avoid the historical and contemporary presence of Confucianism on the island, it is certainly an element of Taiwanese culture, mixed together with the country's particular past and democratic present. 

     It reminds me of something that came up at the conference on Confucianism I attended in Beijing last year: Confucianism is no longer simply "Chinese," it is a cultural orientation that cannot be limited to a particular territory or sovereignty. 

Neither Confucian nor Taoist

   A rather bleak picture of middle class urban China painted by this Reuters story (hat tip, CDT)

The problem of grown only children having difficulties sustaining relationships is particularly pronounced among the affluent middle-and upper-classes who have accumulated enormous wealth from China's economic success.

Divorce figures in some cities show about one-third of all divorce cases involve children of the affluent "me" generation.

.....

Marriages among China's elite often seem to be more about amassing wealth than nurturing relationships, observers suggest. When a partner with better prospects comes along, some couples such as Li Lei and Wang Yang think nothing of breaking up.

It's a lifestyle that contrasts sharply to that of their parents who viewed marriage as a duty and divorce a shame.

 Nothing new here, really.  We've heard this story before: reaping the social and cultural whirlwind of brutally imposed, top-down socialist modernization that powerfully assaulted tradition and opened the way to high speed growth and globalization that now accelerates the materialist processes of modernization...

      What comes to mind here, for me, is not the obvious point, which I have blogged on before, that China is no longer a "Confucian society" (nor a Taoist one at that) but, rather the question: how can Confucianism and Taoism really have any relevance in such a society?  Confucianism presumes a certain social solidarity (or, at least an intention toward such solidarity), at the very least at the level of the family, which is precisely what seems to be missing.  Taoism follows an ascetic sensibility, which seems utterly lacking among the urban middle class. 

     In this context, it is completely understandable why Yu Dan's approach to Confucius, which has been criticized as overly personalized in a self-help sort of way, commands such popularity.  She is connecting with people where they actually are in contemporary urban China.  They are socially and culturally isolated, more individualized, for better and worse, than Chinese have ever been historically, and she has found a way to bring ancient thought to them.  Good for her.

     But it is not clear to me what is accomplished in so doing (and this is a critique that applies to my own work of applying ancient thought to modern life).  The economic and social forces working toward greater and greater personal alienation and atomization are obviously more powerful than any countervailing effect (which I take to mean an effect that produces some sense of social commitment and Humanity) of a few popularized classics.  The article suggests that urban China is now thoroughly liberal, in economic and social terms though clearly not in political terms.  So, any impact Confucianism and Taoism might have will be marginal at best: they will not transform modernized China but will be transformed by it.

      Then I stop and think and realize.  I keep referring to "urban China" and "middle class."  Perhaps social formations outside the cities and a bit further away from the materialist strivings of the new bourgeoisie could be sites for a more profound impact of ancient Chinese thought.   Is rural China a place where family ties and modest expectations might still be found?  Or is that just a utopian dream?

Thoughts on Wittgenstein and Chuang Tzu

    One of the nice things about my job is that I get to take a leave from teaching every so often (we get one semester off after three years on, or one year off after six years on).  I am on leave now, a nice time for writing and reading and thinking that is rapidly coming to an end (I am formally back on the teaching rolls in January).   What makes all this even nicer is our little Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, where faculty on leave get offices and share writing with one another. 

    Yesterday's seminar was led by a philosopher here, Steven Gerrard, who presented us with a marvelously insightful consideration of the analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and  American painter Edward  Hopper.  He focused on Hopper's painting , "Morning in a City," and used it to reflect upon, among other things, Wittgenstein's notions of the mystical and immanence.  It was a masterful presentation (for those interested here is a link to one of Gerrard's web-published papers in a similar vein). 

       Gerrard is a "New Wittgensteinian," which means, among other things, that he rejects the standard interpretation of a break in Wittgenstein's thought between his first great book, The Tractatus, and his second, Philosophical Investigations.   One of the ways Gerrard does this is to bring out the necessary immanence of Wittgenstein's ethics and orientation.  The famous ending of the Tractatus is especially important in this regard:

6.54   My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them - as steps - to climb beyond them (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

He must overcome [or defeat] these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

7    Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

    The standard interpretation (if I have this right) sees in that very last line an opening to a kind of transcendent mysticism: there are things beyond the capacities of our language and about such things we must be "silent."  That "silence" does not deny all expression; it points out the impossibility of linguistic expression, but leaves open the realm of artistic expression.  Art then becomes our avenue to the mystical beyond language.

     Gerrard, and New Wittgensteinians more generally, I believe, focus on the penultimate passage, 6.54.  What can this mean?  It could be that, to paraphrase another idea, language has meaning only in the stream of a particular life.  The language I use to understand my world might be helpful for another person in understanding his world but, ultimately, my words will not be able to capture his world accurately or completely because... language has meaning only in the stream of particular lives.  He can learn from my words but will, eventually, have to discard them in order to "see the world," his own world, which is different than mine, "aright." 

   If that is the case, then the very last line might mean something like: be careful! don't think we can come up with general ethical rules that capture the complexity of all cases.  Rather, keep constantly vigilant about particularities, focus always on the details and distinctions of specificity. There are limits on the generalizability of our language.

     Gerrard invokes a line from the Philosophical Investigations to make this point: "When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak the language of every day."  Gerrard then goes on to make the link to Hopper (this is taken from his seminar paper which may well change as the text moves toward publication...):

"What would the language of everyday look like if it were painted, rather than written or spoken?  Perhaps like "Morning in a City".  What do we see: an ordinary woman in an everyday room in a city so ordinary it is not even named. 

"Indeed, Hopper is famous for his depiction of the ordinary, everyday, quiet scene, distant from the dramas of public strife."

  There's lots to think about in all this.  But one thing that jumps to my mind, and which I shared with Steve, is Chuang Tzu, who tells us to "dwell in the ordinary."  Here is the whole passage, which many of you already know is one of my very favorites from the Inner Passages:

Sufficient because sufficient.  Insufficient because insufficient.  Traveling the Way makes it Tao.  Naming things makes them real.  Why real?  Real because real.  Why nonreal?  Nonreal because nonreal.  So the real is originally there in things, and the sufficient is originally there in things.  There's nothing that is not real, and nothing that is not sufficient.

Hence, the blade of grass and the pillar, the leper and the ravishing [beauty] Hsi Shih, the noble, the sniveling, the disingenuous, the strange - in Tao they all move as one and the same.  In difference is the whole, in wholeness is the broken.  Once they are neither whole nor broken, all things move freely as one and the same again.

Only one who has seen through things understands moving freely as one and the same.  In this way, rather than relying on you own distinctions, you dwell in the ordinary.  To be ordinary is to be self-reliant; to be self-reliant is to move freely; and to move freely is to arrive. That's almost it, because to arrive is to be complete.  But to be complete without understanding how - that is called Tao. (23-24)

    Maybe Chuang Tzu is more radical than Wittgenstein here, moving beyond simply asserting the limitations of language to embracing the fundamental inadequacy of language.  But there are family resemblances.  Both philosophers, and Hopper, ultimately find refuge in the particular, the immediate, the concrete, the "ordinary."  We'll give Wittgenstein the last word:

6.4311  If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Straw Dogs

    A piece in yesterday's NYT Book Review caught my eye, a review of a new book, Black Mass, by John Gray, the British political philosopher.  Gray has popped up here on The Useless Tree twice before, once in a post about inherent human morality and once in a comment by a reader recommending one of his books.   I must admit, however, that I have not yet had the chance to read Gray.  But this most recent review pushes him further up my reading list. 

    He seems a pessimistic man, especially with this subtitle to him most recent book: "Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia."  Here's the reivewer's summary of his argument:

In Gray’s telling, the doctrines of Soviet Communism, Nazi racism, Al Qaeda’s technophile fundamentalism and the Bushian “war on terror” are various forms (however incompatible) of an essentially utopian impulse derived from an Enlightenment notion of progress. That notion is misguided: scientific knowledge and technological power increase over time, but there is no reason to think that politics or morality can progress in the same way. The belief in progress is just a secularized form of Christian theodicy, infecting even those minds that otherwise seem combatively atheistic. Apocalyptic impulses are coded into every ideological genome.

And it gets worse. The coming century, Gray argues, will be one of ecological disaster and resource wars; technological improvements that will be promptly turned into instruments of destruction; and mutually reinforcing tendencies toward anarchy and violent order. Hostages of the crypto-theological belief that human beings are in some sense a uniquely important part of the world, we will continue to try to impose our illusions on it until the world proves we are wrong.

 Sounds rather bleak.  The Taoists out there may be picking up on some resonances with the Tao Te Ching here (the idea of human progress as folly...).  And you would be right.  Gray makes an explicitly Taoist move:

“In ancient Chinese rituals,” Gray writes, “straw dogs were used as offerings to the gods. During the ritual they were treated with the utmost reverence. When it was over and they were no longer needed they were trampled on and tossed aside.” That is our probable fate. He quotes Laotzu: “Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs.” If we don’t wipe ourselves out first, the cosmos may do it for us. 

     I'm not sure if Taoism would necessarily come down as pessimistically as Gray does, but it is refreshing to see a accomplished Western philosopher bringing some ancient Chinese thought into the conversation.  Indeed, his previous book is titled Straw Dogs and, as my earlier commenter, the estimable Zoomzan, pointed out, is loaded with Taoist references.  Here is Zoomzan's distillation:

One key theme of this book is that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals, that all artifices (technology, politics, economics) merely enable humans' rapacious nature. While artifices accumulate, true wisdom cannot be passed on. Ignorance of this fact produces the various religious and secular myths of progress. While the Christian myth left salvation in the murky water of theology, secular quests for social progress lead to unpredented catastrophes. John Gray suggests that we shed the illusion that we can somehow master our future, and instead take our cues from animals, who know how to live better than us.

We cannot contain our current proliferation of artifices (genetic engineering, nuclear weaponry), because the world consists of many warring nations. All advances in artifices will fall into the hands of criminal gangs, corporate interests, and secretive government programs. Neither can we, as a whole, check our continuing exploitation of nature - because humans are by nature rapacious. Therefore, the only plausible end in our engagement with nature is a Malthusian backlash, where nature rebalances herself through climate change.

John Gray is critical of all secular traditions, including neoconservatism, neoliberalism, capitalism, fascism, socialism, communism, interventionism, humanism, atheism. He also criticises many religious traditions, except Taoism. It appears that many Amazon reviewers, as well as literary critics, don't get the Taoist references. Nevertheless, this book has received high praises from many critics.

 Maybe it's time to get our Taoism on....

A China Guy Goes To India (2): Caste and Democracy

(Cross posted on China Digital Times)

Before I jump into today’s topic – caste and democracy - let me just note two newspaper stories that speak to my last China/India comparison. They both deal with the changing role of women in Indian society, which is, to my mind, a critical social dynamic in the interplay of tradition and modernity in India: one in the New York Times and the other in the Washington Post. A nice coincidence to see them.

Now, to the issue at hand: a clear difference between India and China is the historical experience and persistence of caste in the former, something that was palpable in my recent travels.

As we moved about from place to place, our main tour guide was quite straightforward and unapologetic about mentioning the caste status of other people we met. He himself was from a prominent Ksatriya (warrior and/or ruler) family, or, more specifically, a Rajput. One of our local guides was Vaisya (merchant, artisan), which he stated was the “number two” caste after the Brahmin (which would be disputed by Ksatriya but which also demonstrates the fluidity of caste hierarchy). We also noticed the matrimonial sections of the newspapers, pages dedicated to young people in search of marriage partners. These services were organized by caste – there would be a section of “Brahmin,” then “Agrawal,” etc. Some announcements said that caste was no bar to a match but the clear sense of the entire operation was that caste mattered very much for many, many people. The message was: you do not want your children (most marriages in many parts of the country are arranged by parents or senior family members) to marry someone from the “wrong” caste.

Nothing like this exists in China. But the question that this difference raises is: does it matter? Or, how does it matter?

Another Taoist Thanksgiving

     Here we are again on my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.  It is my third blogging Thanksgiving and I really cannot think of a better way to mark the occasion than with the post from my first blogging Thanksgiving.  There are differences, of course, between then and now, most obviously Aidan is no longer with us.  But he taught me a lot about life and thankfulness and I am happy to remember him today.  So, here is my annual Thanksgiving post:

A Taoist Thanksgiving

  It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize the one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

   A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

   It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

   But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding. Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many thinks I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.

  It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

A China Guy Goes To India (1): Tradition and Modernity

My two week tour of India (Mumbai, Rajasthan, Agra, Delhi) has brought comparison with China into my mind.   This is the first of three posts on those comparisons.  This story is cross posted on China Digital Times, as will be the others that follow.

First, I must publicly recognize the limits of my ability to compare these two vast and complex countries.  I am a China guy, trained in China studies with some facility in Chinese language, who has lived for fairly long stretches of time in the PRC.  In contrast, this was my first trip to India, I do not speak or understand any South Asian language, and my experience was restricted to tourist sites and areas. I have some book learning on India – I have been reading secondary literature and lecturing on it for about eights years now – but I will not pretend to know as much about India as I do about China. Thus, any comparisons drawn here must be rudimentary.  I welcome comments and criticisms, especially from people more knowledgeable about India than I. 

With those reservations in mind, let my jump right in.

One of the most noticeable contrasts between China and India is the apparent persistence of tradition in the latter....

Cloning: It's not just for Buddhists and Hindus

    John Tierney writes in today's NYT about global religious differences and human cloning:

“Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnology is about ‘playing God,’” says Cynthia Fox, the author of “Cell of Cells,” a book about the global race among stem-cell researchers. “Therapeutic cloning in particular jibes well with the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation.”

     I had not thought before about the connection between reincarnation and human cloning.  My sense is that it may not be the notion of reincarnation per se that provides a culturally more permissive environment for cloning research in Asia.  The key idea might be karma, the belief that what happens to us in the next life is determined by what we do in this life and, by extension, what happens to us in this life depends upon what we did in the last life.  Thus, for the cell that is to be destroyed or transformed by experimentation or cloning, its fate is a function of actions in its previous life.  Reincarnation without karma (which is conceivable, even if it is not Buddhist or Hindu) would likely not produce the same attitude toward stem cell research.

     There is something the short Tierney article misses, however.  No mention is made of Confucianism which, as I have argued elsewhere, also provides a rationale for stem cell research and cloning.  A Confucian defense of such scientific techniques would not rely upon a notion of God or reincarnation.  Rather it would emphasize the social utility of the research.  Since, from a Confucian perspective, individuals have meaning and significance only in social contexts (or, put differently, individuals isolated by themselves without social connections, have no meaning or significance), then research that might provide great social benefits is justifiable even if a not yet fully social life (which is how a Confucian might define a stem cell or embryo) is lost in the process.  This argument would not extend to the sacrifice of a socially embedded individual - and that would be any person who is a part of a family or social network, virtually every individual human who is born.  Rather, it would be limited to unborn human tissue.  That is how I understand it, at least.

     Also, Tierney misses an ancient Chinese basis for the rejection of stem cell research and cloning.  Philosophical Taoism would not invoke God in its avoidance of such research but would simply acknowledge the vastness of Way and our incapacity to ultimately control its unfolding.  Deep human intervention into natural processes would be seen, by Taoists, as going against Way. 

     In short, Tierney is focusing only on "religious" dynamics and ignoring philosophical grounds for or against cloning.  And in doing so, he is missing a rather large part of the East Asian story.

A Bad Day at the Delhi Airport

   We're home now, back in rural northwestern Massachusetts, quite literally a world away from India, but only after a harrowing and frustrating struggle at the Delhi airport.

    It was something out of a bad movie.  When we entered the departures hall the crowd was thick and disorganized.  Eight or nine "lines" snaked around the large open space, converging haphazardly on the only two check-in counters that were opened.  There was virtually no information about which outgoing flight was being handled where, what "line" (which seems much too formal a term) to join, or what sort of procedures where being followed.  And we were relatively lucky: the tour company had sent a local fellow to help us negotiate the disorder, and he was helpful.  But the situation was bigger and badder than all of us.

     As it turned out, Air India, had canceled at least one flight the day before and had failed to resolve the travel problems of many of the people affected.  They were there in the check-in area, angry and demanding attention.

     We stood in "line" for a while, until we realized that people were regularly pushing ahead of us to move forward toward the counter.  Then, my old China instincts kicked in: you do not do well in these situations by being polite and reserved; you must enter the fray.  There were about seven of us and we arranged ourselves so that others could not easily cut ahead, and that worked fairly well, though some especially adept line-cutters did find their way in front of us.

     After about an hour and a half of little progress, our fixer directed us to a counter that was soon to open (he had gleaned this information from his airport contacts), and that allowed us some hope of actually checking in before our flight was scheduled to leave (and we still had long lines at immigration and security to deal with).  But as we got close to the counter the first of what would be several confrontations erupted.  An Indian woman surged to the front of the mass of people, hopped up onto the conveyor belt that takes checked baggage away, plopped her one year old child right in front of the harried clerk and started to loudly berate him and Air India and the airport administration and anyone else she could think of.  She did this in a combination of English and Hindi, so I could pick up a fair amount of what she was saying:  "look at these old people here," sweeping her hand back to indicate several people in wheel chairs pushed to the side of the room, "someone has to attend to them!  Who will solve these problems!  No, don't tell me it is being handled, it is not!...."  And on and on.  Cheers erupted from the assembled throng.  It reminded me of the line in the movie Network: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"   After about 15 minutes or so, she yielded the conveyor belt and check ins continued, with chants sporadically going up from the crowd seemingly calling for attention and redress.

     We finally made it out of the first level of this airport hell and shuffled through immigration and security, but just as we were picking up our carry-on bags from the scanner, another crowd formed and sent up a chant. People were clearly mad and getting madder.  They clapped their hands and shouted, pressing up against the barriers that separated those in the security envelop from those outside.  People inside came to see what was happening and they, too, joined the chorus.  We were getting pressed in on all sides and I decided the best course was to push our way though deeper into the terminal and away from the crowd.   

    That turned out to be the best move, as reported in today's Times of India:

The IGI Airport witnessed riotous scenes early on Sunday morning as hundreds of passengers of five delayed Air India flights found themselves stuck for the weekend at the facility-starved international terminal.

    The "riotous" quality of the events was evidenced by groups of ticketless and tired people kicking and pounding on the security barriers demanding answers.  Scuffles were reported.  Ticketed people by the gates began to argue, some calling for us to join with those less fortunate to force a solution, and others arguing that that would not really bring an end to it.  Lots of shouting, lots of chaos.

      In the meantime, our flight had been postponed, with no information given.  For a long time no gate was announced; then one of the signs indicated our flight would leave from gate 5.  A "line" formed.  We stood for about an hour until the sign at the gate changed to show another flight would leave from there.  Again, no information, no explanation.  This went on for hours.   Finally, six hours late, our flight was called and, somehow, we left the detestable Delhi airport behind.   Another fight broke out later, after we were gone. 

     Moral of the story?  I'm not sure there is one.  Air India gets a lot of bad press, and they deserved all of it on this day.  They utterly failed to deal with the various problems.  The disorganization and disarray were beyond belief.  But I'm not going to generalize about India as a whole from this sorry state of affairs.  India is too big and varied for that.  But I will say, if you travel there, make sure that you do not fly out of Delhi.  Go through Bangalore or Hyderabad or Mumbai.  If you leave from Delhi, you may be in for a very bad day.

Agra and the Taj

     Let me be a tourist for a moment, because that is what I have been for the past two weeks...

      The Taj Mahal is extraordinary.  Yesterday we went to the "baby Taj," a tomb/memorial for the in-laws of Jahangir (sp?), built before the Taj but ancitipcating some of the design elements of the Taj.  But today we saw the real deal.  The scale of the thing is what is most awe-inspiring.  The balance, the delicacy, the workmanship.  Truly extraordinary in every way. 

      Among the most ingenious elements are the four minarets that frame the central domed masoleum.  They are pitched ever so slightly outward, so that when seen from a distance they do not appear to bend inwards, like the parallel lines of a railway track, but remain, to the eye, perfectly straight.   Also, the absence of any trees or buildings behind the massive Taj makes it seem as if it is suspended in air.  The enormous structure floats there, the hazy blue sky behind it, weightless and fragile....

      This afternoon we are going to see the Agra Fort, a reminder that the Mughal power that made the Taj possible ultimately rested, as does all political power, on military force and the extraction of resources from society (just thought I would throw in a bit of political realism there)....