The Useless Tree

More Thoughts on President Obama

Last week I started to ruminate on remarks I will make tomorrow at a dinner with students.  They asked me to speak about the upcoming elections.  As I mentioned, I am looking past what I take to be a very likely Obama victory.  My question is: what does an Obama presidency mean?

I am now thinking in a more Taoist manner.  Passage 11 from the Tao Te Ching is in my head:

Thirty spokes gathered at the hub:
absence makes the cart work.
A storage jar fashioned out of clay:
absence makes the jar work.
Doors and windows cut in a house:
absence makes the house work.

Presence gives things their value,
but absence makes them work.

    That last line says a lot.  In relation to this presidential election, it would lead us to ask: what is absent?  What is missing?  Whatever is it that is lacking may be key to understanding how the election, and possibly an Obama presidency, might work.

     One thing that is absent is the obstacle that race has been in American history.  As I suggested before, at any other time in my lifetime, up to this point, if I had been asked if a black man would be elected President of the United States, I would have answered, "no."  That was not the outcome I wanted, but it was the outcome that seemed to me inevitable, given the legacy of racism in American society.  But now, rather suddenly, that obstacle has been removed.  It is absent.  Not completely, of course.  I would never suggest that racism has wholly disappeared here.  But it has been diminished to such an extent that it no longer bars a capable man from becoming president.  It is effectively absent as an obstacle in this election.

    Some may want to reject his idea.  In my previous post, a commenter, "Taoist Voter," asks, among other questions: "What good is a black President if there a million black people in prison, and this President has no initiatives to help them?"  The suggestion here is that Obama is sufficiently ensconced in the political establishment and status quo that he cannot be an agent of significant social change.  He is simply more of the same.  His race is not politically relevant because his politics will not yield genuine social transformation.

    This strikes me as too pessimistic.  I do not expect Obama to transform American society to the extent "Taoist Voter" might desire.  Politics rarely works that way, especially American politics, which more often advances incrementally.  In my more radical days I, too, would have scoffed at mere incrementalism.   But the election of a black man for president is a significant step, however overdue, for the US.  It is a generational change.  Young people who have grown up in a more integrated and more multicultural society (compared to my own experience in the 1960s and 1970s), are not as easily swayed by racial stereotypes and fear-mongering.  They listen to what Obama has to say, size up his character, place him in the broader political context of the moment (which works so powerfully against Republicans - thanks W!), and see in him a promise for the future.  Race matters less to them then other qualities of mind and character.  And that's an important change, perhaps one that has come about incrementally over the years, but now seemingly one that has reached a critical moment, a tipping point.

    To repeat, an Obama presidency will not end, once and for all, racism in the US.  There will be critics ready to pounce on any preceived mistake he makes as evidence of the folly of electing a black man to the highest office in the land.  But his presence in the oval office will symbolize new national possibilities.  And that presence will have been facilitated by an absence of the race obstacle this time. 

Even if he didn't bury scholars alive, Qin Shi Huangdi was a bad man!

     Regular readers know that I do not like Qin Shi Huangdi.  So I was curious today when the Western Confucian made note of a talk last month at UCLA that took up the question of fenshu kengru - "the burning of the books and killing of scholars."  Qin is reported to have buried Confucian scholars alive in a pique of repression.  But the presenter at UCLA, Anthony Barbieri-Low reminds us that the historical evidence of the burying alive story is suspect.  I say "remind" because this same point is made in the Cambridge History of China, vol. 1 (1986) where we are told: "Yet objective examination...reveals good grounds for regarding it [the burying alive story] as more the stuff of fiction...than of history."   In short, Qin almost certainly burned the books, but may not have killed the scholars.

     But even if that is where we leave it, let's put this in broader context.  Qin oversaw an exceptionally repressive regime, responsible for the untimely deaths of thousands and thousands of people, both those he fought in battle and those who served him as subjects.   Even if a few hundred scholars were not killed at a particular moment, many, many people were destroyed by him.

    And, indeed, professor Barbieri-Low keeps things in perspective:

This literary inquisition resulted in an enormous loss of historical knowledge and cultural heritage and earned the First Emperor the enmity of book-revering Confucian scholars for two millennia.

    "Enormous loss of  historical knowledge and cultural heritage," that just about sums up Qin...

So, if you are going to China any time soon, forget about the terracotta warriors, the products of a brutal and violent man, and go to Dunhuang instead.

Honoring a Modern Mencius

This news was reported today:

BEIJING — Hu Jia, a soft-spoken, bespectacled advocate for democracy and human rights in China, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe’s most prestigious human rights prize, on Thursday. The award was a pointed rebuke of China’s ruling Communist Party that came as European leaders were arriving in Beijing for a weekend summit meeting.
....

Last year, Mr. Hu testified via video link before a hearing of the European Parliament about China’s human rights situation. Weeks later, he was jailed and later sentenced to three and a half years in prison for subversion based on his writings criticizing Communist Party rule.

Mr. Hu has been one of China’s leading figures on a range of human rights issues, while also speaking out on behalf of AIDS patients and for environmental protection. He had been considered a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize....

Hu is a modern Mencius in that he speaks truth to power.  He holds the government to certain standards of Humanity and he works for justice and fairness in Chinese politics:

“Whatever he does, he always stands in the forefront,” Mr. Teng [Biao] said in an earlier interview. “Everything he wrote, everything he said, is straight from his heart. We have poor people and marginalized people in society whose voices are being muzzled. Hu Jia was trying to be the spokesman for the unheard voices.”

"Straight from his heart" is also reminiscent of Mencius, who tells us we must understand Duty as internal; our impulse to do the right thing is something like an appetite, if we listen to our hearts (or "heart-minds") and we follow our natural inclinations, we will stand up and challenge governments that are acting against the interests of the common people.  Mencius, after all, expected men of honor to speak up against misrule:

Emperor Hsuan of Ch'i asked about ministers, and Mencius said: "What kind of minister are you asking about?"
"Is there more than one kind?" asked the emperor.
"Yes," replied Mencius.  "There are ministers from royal families and there are ministers from common families."
"May I ask about ministers from royal families?"
"If a sovereign is making grave mistakes, they admonish him. If they have to admonish him over and over, and he still refuses to listen - they replace him."
The emperor blanched at this, so Mencius continued:
"Why so surprised? You asked, and I wouldn't dare be less than honest and forthright with you."
After he'd recovered his color, the emperor asked about ministers from common families, and Mencius said: "If the sovereign is making mistakes, they admonish him.  If they have to admonish him over and over, and he still refuses to listen - they resign and leave the country behind."

Obviously, the reference to "royal families" does not apply in a modern context.  But the broader point here is that noble-minded people should admonish the government when it makes mistakes.  That, in essence, is what Hu Jia has done, and the government has punished him for it.  It is Hu Jia, however, who is upholding the best of China's ancient poltiical traditions.

Free Hu Jia!

Thoughts on President Obama

It's been busy of late.  I have a pile of seventy five-page papers that demand my attention.  My department just underwent an external review, which took some time as well.  And then there is the usual class preparation, writing anxiety, family stuff, etc.  Thus, blogging has been a bit off (even if those papers are not nearly all graded).

In any event, this evening [update: no, next week!] I have the pleasant task of going to dinner with a group of students here. They are holders of very prestigious scholarships and they have asked me to make some remarks about the imminent presidential election.  So, I am going to sketch out my comments here.

First, I think at this point it is a safe bet that Obama is going to win.  So, instead of getting down into the details of the campaigns, the strategies and speeches (which I follow fairly closely), I want to step back and think for a moment about the meaning of an Obama presidency.

I notice how critics of Obama sneer at those of us who support him, saying that we are making him into a messiah.  That is not at all my perspective.  He is a politician.  He will do some things that I will admire, he will do some things that I dislike.  He will pragmatically compromise.  The policy changes he brings will not be as extensive as his most ardent supporters suppose.  And his shortcomings will not collapse the republic (indeed, if we can survive eight years of W. we can survive just about anything!).  Yet, for all of that, there is a way in which an Obama presidency will be transformational.

Obama has been very careful and smart in the ways that he talks, and does not talk, about race.  He does not play it up; he brings it up only when others introduce it into the discussion.  His victory speech after the Iowa caucus, a key turning point in his campaign, was remarkable in this manner, in the unity message it presented.   But, however shrewd his political strategy, race matters.  The fact of a black man as president is of historical significance, and we must recognize it as such. 

I am not that old.  51.  Born in 1957.  But I have a clear memory, from when I was about 5 or 6 years old, of visiting relatives in Virginia.  We were at a restaurant and my sister, four years older than me, burst out crying.  She had seen a sign that read: "Whites Only."  She knew what it meant and it frustrated and saddened her to the point of tears.  I remember her face, her cries.  I didn't understand what was going on myself, but I came to understand.  Her reaction became a tangible sign post for my gradual awareness of segregation and racism in America.  It wasn't that long ago.

Of course, since then there has been a colossal struggle to redress the historical wrongs inflicted on African Americans.  We can talk about progress but we can also talk about continuing problems.  An Obama presidency, however, suggests a transformation of sorts.  To the extent that the president is the face of the nation, that face will now be black.  The years of restriction and repression, the obstacles of prejudice and bias, the pain and sorrow of so many dreams deferred, will now be transcended.  He will be a powerful symbol of possibility for all Americans - not only African Americans but those of Hispanic and Asian and other heritages.  He will stand as a sign of opportunity for all.  He will not solve all of our problems, but he will allow us to see ourselves in a new light, a new color.  And that is a beautiful thing.

I also agree with those who point out that Obama as president will improve the way the world looks at the US.  Racial prejudice has long been used by critics of America to point out the hypocrisy of our democratic ideals and promises.  While racism will not disappear with the election of one man, Obama's presence will powerfully work against that critique.  The multiculturalism that he symbolizes will display for the world a revived sense of American justice and opportunity. And that is all for the good.

I am not a wild-eyed idealist.  I fully expect disappointments and mistakes from an Obama administration.  But the historical moment is remarkable.  His election will be an achievement in itself.  And there is a possibility for a coming-together that might produce a more participatory and just society.  The hearts of many, many of us, to remember another transformational president, may well be touched by "the better angels of our nature."

Yes we can!

UPDATE: Nicholas Kristof has some similar reflections in today's (Thursday's) NYT. 

The Tao of Debt

A nice op-ed in the NYT today by Margaret Atwood, expounding on the human associations of "debt."  Debtor-creditor relationships are not simply the stuff of economic calculation, they are expressions of more deeply held understandings and expectations, something easily forgotten in our business-dominated world.  She writes:

We are social creatures who must interact for mutual benefit, and — the negative version — who harbor grudges when we feel we’ve been treated unfairly. Without a sense of fairness and also a level of trust, without a system of reciprocal altruism and tit-for-tat — one good turn deserves another, and so does one bad turn — no one would ever lend anything, as there would be no expectation of being paid back. And people would lie, cheat and steal with abandon, as there would be no punishments for such behavior.

    At first I was thinking of this in Confucian terms, the necessity of maintaining our focus on cultivating our social relationships even as we engage in material-economic activity.  But, then, I remembered a passage from the Tao Te Ching that gets at something similar.  It's passage 78:

You can resolve great rancor, but rancor always lingers on. 

Understanding the more noble way, a sage holds the creditor's half of contracts and yet asks nothing of others.  Those with Integrity tend to such contracts; those without Integrity tend to the collection of taxes.

The Way of heaven is indifferent, always abiding with people of nobility.

    This is not the same as the Shakespearean injunction "neither a borrower nor a lender be."  Rather is suggests that we should not carry debt.  Holding the "creditors half of contracts" is preferable.  Not only in money matters, but also in social relationships. Don't depend on others doing things for you, or don't let such debts go unpaid, but do things for others as the occasion arises.  

   This advice is offered because it is hard to overcome the resentments and rancor created by a sense of unresolved indebtedness.   The Tao Te Ching is not denying the inevitability of debtor-creditor interdependence in all facets of human life.  It is simply telling us to take care of how we manage our debts.  Doing so  is a reflection of our Integrity; not doing so leads us to rely upon extracting things from others, in the manner of demanding taxes - certainly not the best way to engage in human interactions.  

    Perhaps what is behind this is the general Taoist belief in balance.  To be a chronic debtor is to be out of balance in relation to others.  To avoid that possibility, we have to attend to our debts, resolve them, move ourselves back toward the "creditor's half," because, if we do not move in that direction we will drift the other way and be unbalanced.   Atwood suggests something like this as well:

But what we seem to have forgotten is that the debtor is only one twin in a joined-at-the-hip pair, the other twin being the creditor. The whole edifice rests on a few fundamental principles that are inherent in us.

    Maybe that's why the NYT op-ed page editor added an illustration familiar to Taoists everywhere:

Seventeen

Yesterday was Aidan's seventeenth birthday.

We bought a small tree, an evergreen that will stand out against the bare winter solitude, to plant in our backyard, next to the other trees that remember him and remind us of his presence.

He changed the path of my life, my understanding of time, my sense of possibility and chance.  Perhaps the best way to capture those changes is passage 22 from the Tao Te Ching:

In yielding is completion.
In bent is straight.
In hollow is full.
In exhaustion is renewal
In little is contentment.
In much is confusion.

This is how a sage embraces primal unity
As the measure of all beneath heaven.

Give up self-reflection
and you're soon enlightened.
Give up self-definition
and you're soon apparent.
Give up self-promotion
and you're soon proverbial.
Give up self-esteem
and you're soon perennial.
Simply give up contention
and soon nothing in all beneath heaven contends with you.

It was hardly empty talk
when the ancients declared in yielding is completion.
Once you have perfected completion
you've returned home to it all.

Happy birthday.

Republican Party Maoism

So Sarah Palin is attempting to mobilize the "pro-American" parts of the US against the rest, presumably the anti-American parts of America (think about that for a moment...). In seeking to clarify precisely what she meant by this distinction, she said:

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."

    This, for me, resonates with Mao Zedong's guerrilla strategy of surrounding or encircling the cities from the countryside.  The concept is perhaps most fully developed by Lin Biao:

To rely on the peasants, build rural base areas and use the countryside to encircle and finally capture the cities — such was the way to victory in the Chinese revolution.

        That seems to be the Republican Party strategy these days.  The Moderate Voice sees this as a loser, as does  Steve Chapman:

One of these days, the 80 percent of Americans who live in more populated areas may tire of being obliquely insulted. Most urbanites and suburbanites don't think they're any better than their country cousins. But Palin might want to think twice before telling them they're worse.

   That 80 percent number is interesting.  When Mao developed his strategy of "people's war," drawing on Sun Tzu, he was working pragmatically from the circumstances that surrounded him.  He was, as Sun might have advised him, creating a battle plan based on the "ground" or "terrain" or, we might say, realities that confronted him.  It just so happened that something like 80 percent of the Chinese population then lived in the countryside.  Pretty smart that Mao: mobilize the 80 percent against the 20 percent!  

    The contemporary Republican Party Maoism seems doomed to failure, however.  Somebody in the McCain campaign should read Sun Tzu.  They then might realize that they must create a political strategy that conforms to the "ground" or realities of present day America.  And one of the most brute of those realities is that the vast majority of American voters - Chapman's 80 percent - do not live in small towns.  

   Then again, as an Obama guy, I should just keep quiet.  Don't let McCain and Palin in on Sun Tzu (maybe it was one of the books McCain did not read during his rambunctious days at the Naval Academy!).  Don't point out the obvious demographic flaw in their small town strategy.  Rather put out a slogan that urges them on:

     Long Live the Victory of the Republican Party People's War!

18th Century British Confucianism

It's been a crazy week: lots of work, lots of distractions (third presidential debate), and various meetings thrown in for good measure.  I've thus gotten behind in blogging.  But before the week gained momentum and stole my time and attention I had a chance, on Monday evening, to go to a movie with my wife and daughter.  We saw "The Duchess."  It wasn't all that good, though cinemagraphically pretty.  But it brought to mind certain historical manifestations of Confucianism. 

    The story follows the life of Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire in the latter decades of the 18th century.  She is obviously privileged, born into aristocracy and elevated further up the social hierarchy through marriage.  Her life of wealth and comfort are disrupted, however, by the harsh realities of British society of that time.  The Duke to whom she is married turns out to be a jerk, taking what amounts to a second wife or concubine, treating Georgiana as merely a son-producing machine.  When Georgiana tries to fight back and gain some measure of autonomy and self-respect within the family, she is crushed.  She has no rights.  When she starts her own affair with another man, her husband threatens her with utter ruin, invoking the ultimate punishment: never letting her have contact with her children again.  He holds all the cards legally and socially and economically.  She must accept being forced into a social role of his choosing.  At one critical moment, when she turns to her mother for advice, the elder woman simply says, "there is not alternative."

     So, it should be obvious by now how this story brought to my mind images of Confucian practice in China.  Whatever the classic texts themselves might have suggested, Confucian thought was institutionalized, based on a fusion with Legalism (PDF!), in Imperial China in a manner that served hierarchy and power and patriarchy.  The subordination of women was fundamental.  Indeed, the early twentieth century rejection of Confucianism by many Chinese intellectuals opened the door then for an assertion of women's rights and a rejection of patriarcy (even if that promise would still take decades to realize).  

    In short, Georgiana Spencer's story is something high born 18th century Chinese women could completely understand.

    This leads to another point.  If women were so clearly dominated in 18th century Britain, if their experience shares some obvious similarities with their Chinese sisters, I think we then need to reconsider the distinction we tend to draw between "East" and "West."  These overly simplistic generalizations are usually meant to stand for a difference in regard to the position of the individual versus some notion of a collective.  The "West" is supposedly more individualistic, while the "East" is said to subordinate the individual to the family or society or some such collective.  To the extent that this distinction is ever really useful, the Spencer story  would seem to suggest that, in very fundamental ways the "West" was not really "Western" in the late 18th century.  Perhaps the "West" did not really become the "West" until it was in more direct interaction with the "East," which possibly was never as "Eastern" as our generalizations imply.

     So, here's a question: When did the West Westernize?  At what point did it become empirically the "West" of our stereotype?

      I'm thinking it was about 1970....

A Conservative, Christian Confucianism

I had not seen this before (hat tip: Western Confucian) but here is an intelligent and thoughtful consideration of Confucius from a Western, Catholic, Conservative point of view. Jim Kalb, the author, gets at many of the issues in regard to the contemporary relevance and use of Confucianism.  I would, however, offer the following comments:

    - It is harder to reconcile "Confucianism" with "small government conservatism" when Mencius is included in the discussion.  While The Analects has little to say about the positive obligations of political leaders toward those whom they govern, Mencius suggests a broader array of social welfare functions for the state.  The duty to secure a basic living standard for all people, so that they can carry out the Duty and Ritual necessary for Humanity, implies a state more regulatory and intrusive the most "small government conservatives" would accept.

  -  in discussing the possible parallels between Confucius and Christianity, it really is necessary to point out that Confucianism, in virtually all of its historical guises, does not require the invocation of a singular, transcendent God-like figure.  To put it most starkly: Humanity, and thus morality, is possible without reference to God.

   -  arguing that modern liberalism depends upon "...the existence of powerful elites selected and educated to secure their collective commitment...," in a manner similar to the  Confucian notion that the virtuous should rule, seems a bit of a stretch to me.  Liberalism requires a set of constitutional rules to protect minority rights.  To maintain those rules what is needed is a general consensus regarding their existence.  If that consensus breaks down, it is unlikely that a social elite could save liberalism from itself.  Again, to be stark about it: liberalism relies on institutions, Confucianism on moral individuals.  Think of Madison here; he did not assume that the virtuous would rule, and advocated for interest group politics to balance out contending political forces.       

    But whatever my criticisms or reservations, it is a good piece that raises key issues.  Worth a read for those interested in the possibilities of Confucianism in modern American life.

Remember: Bush Lost the War

There is a lot of talk these days about how the "surge" in Iraq has worked and that "victory" is at hand.  Rubbish.  While it is true that the "surge" was one of several elements (the others being internal Iraqi political shifts beyond the control of US policy) that contributed to a reduction in violence, it has not produced a political settlement.  And without a political settlement, Iraq remains a lost war.

    I was reminded of Bush's fundamental failure in Iraq when I heard this morning of the flight of Iraqi Christians from Mosul. From yesterday's NYT:

Violence has continued in the area despite months of concerted effort by American forces and the Iraqi government to root out violent actors there.

     I've noticed more reports of violence in recent weeks.  It is not at all clear that the reduction in the number of attacks associated with the "surge" will last.  

    My friend, Abu Aardvark, tells us that political reconciliation has not yet occurred and is likely not to occur until US forces are drawn down:

The problem lies in the fundamentally flawed belief that providing more security is the key to achieving political compromise. Restoring basic levels of security from the low point of 2006 was indeed essential. But now, contrary to what the authors argue, improved security is making the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki less likely to make meaningful compromises, since Maliki currently sees little downside to not doing so. The Iraqi government simply does not share American assessments of the negative consequences that would result from failing to achieve reconciliation. And as long as the U.S. military protects Iraqi leaders from the consequences of their choices, they are probably correct.

    The "authors" to which he refers include Stephen Biddle, who gave a talk here last week.  It was well informed and insightful but, ultimately, untimely.  His bottom line is that US forces must stay at least two more years, and perhaps longer, in order to assure political accord.  Abu Aardvark is arguing the opposite - Iraqi political actors have no real incentive to come to political terms with one another until they know they must bear responsibility for their own security upon the removal of US troops - and I agree with him.  We have had too many promises, too many disruptions and crises, to trust that the various Iraqi factions.  They now have the economic means to support themselves; let them do so.

    Indeed, listening to Biddle, I couldn't help but think: "this is a great talk....for 2004 or so."  Americans have moved beyond the war.  I cannot imagine much political support for an open-ended commitment, or even for a presence of two more years with no guarantee of withdrawal.  And when we add in the inevitable domestic effects of the current economic crisis, most Americans will oppose spending money on the Iraq war.  It's just too late for all that.

    To put it in Sun Tzu terms, whoever is the next president - which seems most likely to be Obama - he will face a domestic political situation in which pursuing war in Iraq will be out of keeping with the Way (Tao), the very first of Sun Tzu's "fundamental factors" of warfare.

By moral influence (tao) I mean that which causes people to be in harmony with their leaders, so that they will accompany them in life and unto death without fear of mortal peril. 1.4

     Iraq, it is safe to say, is not in the American Way.  

     Bush lost the war.