The Useless Tree

What Chinese Want To Know

    Virtual China translates Baidu's (a Chinese search engine) most popular questions for 2006 (hat tip, Roland).  Here is the original Chinese page.  What a great service!  It gives us a sense of the kinds of questions people in China ask of the internet.  It is almost oracular: Baidu as I Ching.   People sit and ask, they seek wisdom from the vast and open universe....

    They organize the search questions into four categories: "why" questions; "how" questions; "what is" questions; and "should I" questions.   Let me comment on a couple.

     The number one "should I" question asked of Baidu last year was: "Should I read the classics?"  The term translated as "classic" - mingshu - is not strictly limited to the "four books and five classics" of the Confucian cannon (scroll down on this page for a summary of the canon at various historical moments).  Rather, the term could be translated as "famous books" or "great books" and include other Chinese or, I think it is safe to say, "classics" from other cultural contexts.

    But even with that caveat, it would seem that young Chinese (I assume the average age of Baidu seekers is under 30...) have some interest in great books, including the "classics" - not only the Analects and Mencius but also the Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu and others.

     And we know the answer to their question: Yes!  By all means read the classics.  Indeed, if you do, you might find answers to other questions on the Baidu list.   For example, number 2 on the "Why" question list is: "Why are we alive?"

    OK, then.  This gets right to the heart of the matter.  In short, Confucius would say our purpose in life is to cultivate our closest loving relationships in order to move toward the ideal of Humanity.  In other words, we are alive to make ourselves and the people and world around us better.  Taoists, of course, have a different take.  They would say something like: we are alive because Way (or, as Chuang Tzu sometimes says: "this mighty mud-ball of a world") brings us forth. Tao gives us form.  Our purpose, then, is to live out our integrity (te) without interfering too much in the natural unfolding of Way. 

     And how about number one ("what is love?") and number 9 ("what is happiness?") on the "what is" question list?  Both can be answered in the classics - I won't go off on these now, but if anyone wants brief Confucian or Taoist answers, let me know...

     The "how" questions might seem to be rather remote from the concerns of the classics: "how to lose weight?" "how to get pregnant?" (c'mon, do they really not know?) "how to kiss?"   But, I would contend, the classics might turn the questions back on the questioner.  To someone asking "how to get plastic surgery?" (number 10 on the list), both Confucians and Taoists would make it a "why" question: why do you want to get plastic surgery?  And for those still unclear about the pregnancy thing, the religious Taoists would have a lot of pointers...

    You can catch my drift.  The answer to just about all of the questions is the answer to the very first "should I" question: yes, read the classics!  Although there is a simpler answer to the number 5 "should I" question: "Should I join the Party?"  No. 

"Hobbling the Army"

     Bush's impending senseless escalation of the Iraq war runs squarely against Sun Tzu's thinking (I know, lots of Sun Tzu this week: it's on my mind from my class...).   It seems that high level military planners are doubtful of the "surge" idea:

When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.

     My sense is that Bush is just lost: he cannot face the terrible defeat he has brought upon the country and he cannot create an effective way out of Iraq.  The outcome is a politically motivated performance, a last gasp effort to salvage something of his historical legacy.   The greatest tragedy is that more people will die - Iraqis and Americans - in this violent denouement of Bush's debacle.

     Sun Tzu would be horrified.  The final escalation is an example of a "ruler" meddling in military operations to no good effect, something Sun Tzu warns against:

Now there are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune upon his army:

- When ignorant that the army should not advance, to order an advance or ignorant that it should not retire, to order a retirement.  This is described as "hobbling the army."

- When ignorant of military affairs, to participate in their administration.  This causes the officers to be perplexed.

- When ignorant of command problems to share in the  exercise of responsibilities.  This engenders doubts in the minds of the officers.

If the army is confused and suspicious, neighboring rulers will cause trouble.  This is what is meant by the saying: "a confused army leads to another's victory."

Griffith (81-82)

 That last line leaves us with a grim prediction: Bush's ignorance and meddling will serve the interests of other states.  The leaders of Iran must be smiling...

The Tao of Gators

    A commenter, "Dave of the Coonties," over at WaPo's Achenblog, noted that I had not yet analyzed, from the point of view of Sun Tzu, the University of Florida's victory in the college football championship.  I am happy to oblige.  (Is this mere traffic whoring with the great and powerful WaPo?  In a word....yes).

    I watched a good portion of the first half (after which things seemed settled to me).  Truth in advertising: I am a Badger; a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and, thus, generally, a Big 10 sort of fellow.  I, like so many others, expected Ohio State to win.  In contemplating the stunning Gator victory, Sun Tzu can elucidate a thing or two.

    To start, let's look at the very beginning of the Art of War, chapter one:

Therefore, to gauge the outcome of war we must appreciate the situation on the basis of the following five criteria, and compare the two sides by assessing their relative strengths.  The first of the five criteria is the Way (Tao), the second is climate, the third is terrain, the fourth is command, and the fifth is regulation.

     Let's start with climate: obviously not a factor; same with terrain, not in the conventional sense of the condition of the field at least.  I don't think either side could claim much of an advantage on these terms.  This leaves "command," which in modern college football terms might translate into coaching; and "regulation" which would be something like game plan.

     From what I saw, Florida had the edge in "command;" coaching decisions were steady and controlled.  Ohio State's coach made some obvious mistakes, most glaringly the attempt to go for it on fourth and one in the second quarter that failed.  This not only led to a Florida field goal and an extension of their lead to 13 points, but it bolstered the Gators' confidence and contributed to the sagging fortunes of the Buckeyes.  Jim Tressel, the OSU coach, recognized the error:

"We thought we could make it," Tressel said. "It ended up being the wrong call."

     Indeed.

    As to game plan and preparation, the Gators seemed to have the edge. This was especially evident in the play of the Florida defense.  The Buckeyes had an excellent season offensively, but the Gators had obviously studied them very closely.  They understood where OSU was likely to strike and they were ready for it.  As Sun Tzu says:

If we can make the enemy show his position while concealing ours from him, we will be at full force where he is divided.  If our army is united as one and the enemy is fragmented, in using the undivided whole to attack his one, we are many to his few.  If we are able to use many to strike few, anyone we take the battle to will be in desperate circumstances. (125)

     I think that fairly well captures the Florida run defense.

     So, Florida had a certain edge in coaching and game planning.  But the real difference, it seems to me, is "Way" (Tao).  "Way" is famously hard to translate.  Sun Tzu emphasizes its manifestations as morale or legitimacy.  But it is much more than that.  "Way" might best be understood as the complex totality of all things unfolding in time together right now.  It unites the realms of being and non-being.  More simply, some summarize it as "Nature".  It also has connotations of fate or destiny.  And in the first half of the game, Way was clearly working for Florida.

    It looked like Way was against the Gators: the opening kick-off return touchdown by OSU star Ted Ginn, Jr. seemed to signal that the big, cosmic forces surrounding the game were flowing toward the Buckeyes.  But then Ginn goes down!  He cannot return.  It seemed a cruel turn of fate but, as the Tao Te Ching (a foundational text of Taoist philosophy) says: "Heaven and earth are inhumane; they use the ten thousand things like straw dogs."  We can never know how Way will unfold; it can seem to be with us at one moment, and against us the next.  Such was the fate of Ohio State.

      If climate and terrain are a wash, and you have command and regulation on your side, you might win or you might lose.  You could be better at command and regulation but, if Way is against you, you may well be vanquished.  But if you have mastered command and regulation AND have Way moving with you, victory is all but inevitable.

     That's what Sun Tzu would say.....

Is Sun Tzu Wrong About Speed?

     Here at Williams, where I work, we have a "Winter Study," an inter-semester short term, just the month of January, during which students take one condensed "course".  (I have a variety of gripes about Winter Study which I will not regale you with now, save to note the similarities it shares with the old notion about socialism; to paraphrase: students pretend to study and faculty pretend to teach...)

     In any event, my Winter Study course is on Sun Tzu.  We are reading two different translations (Ames and Griffith), watching Kurosawa (Kagemusha), and thinking about applications to politics, business and other contexts.

     In preparing for today's class, an explication of the first six chapters of Sun Tzu, I wanted to post something here: what I think might be an internal contradiction of Sun Tzu's thinking.  Not a giant contradiction, but a contradiction nonetheless.

     In chapter 2, Sun Tzu gives us his famous quotes on the advantages of speed in warfare (from Ames):

In joining battle, seek the quick victory...

Thus, in war, I have heard tell of a foolish haste, but I have yet to see a case of cleverly dragging on the hostilities... (107)

     He goes on to describe the disadvantages of taking too much time: increasing costs, losing momentum, weakening of morale, etc.  This all makes good sense and, obviously, military commanders over the centuries have taken this idea seriously.  But as early as chapter one (and we could find other moments in the text that would support this), Sun Tzu tells us that we must "shape a strategic advantage" from the circumstances that surround us:

Having heard what can be gained from my assessments, shape a strategic advantage from them to strengthen our position.  By "strategic advantage" I mean making the most of favorable conditions and tilting the scales in our favor.  (104)

   A bit further along he says:

If he is formidable, prepare against him.  If he is strong, evade him.

    These suggest a certain advantage to taking your time, especially if you are in a materially or numerically inferior position at the outset.   You may not want to rush if certain conditions are working against you.

    At the very least, this suggests that the advantages of speed are not absolute and universal - and I think understanding them in that way is in keeping with the spirit of the work - but are only one factor that must be weighed against other elements of the strategic context. 

    For some combatants, slow wars might be more useful and effective than fast wars.

Sad China and Master Chuang

     China Daily today tells us:

A survey conducted by chinahr.com, a leading Chinese recruitment website, shows over 90 percent of white collars felt anxiety and depression as the past year came to an end and a new year took off, with half of them planning to change jobs, according to Monday's Beijing Morning Post.

The results came from a poll of more than 1500 white-collar employees with government departments and companies in 15 industries, such as IT, finance, and manufacturing.

"Having lived a busy, humdrum and vain life for another year" was the reason cited most for their year-end blues, accounting for 28.4 percent of the respondents, followed by "falling short of set targets," cited by 26.7 percent. Just over 17 percent said they felt low because their work didn't go smoothly, while 14.5 percent were simply worried about getting old.

     And just in case we didn't get the point the editors run a series of links in the margin with titles like:

      "Sixty percent of white collars under stress in China"

      "White collar workers in Guangdong under extreme pressure"

      "Chinese no longer want 'white collar' title"

    Using a somewhat different idiom, we might go so far as to say: "it's hard out here for a white collar."

     In a way, this makes me think of the 1960s in the US.  People, young people in particular, were growing increasingly uncomfortable with the alienation and regimentation of the corporate life of "the organization man."  A "counterculture" came to life; hippies opted out of the expectations created by their parents and sought liberation in the grand trio of sex and drugs and rock and roll.

    In China, we are certainly seeing the embrace of sex and rock and roll (or other forms of rebellious popular culture).  Not sure about the drugs.  There have even been sightings of Chinese hippies.   But I think the process of alienation from modernization is still rather new in China.  More young people still seem willing to throw themselves into the maw of global capitalism and try to make their fortune.  Yet the kinds of stories that China Daily cites makes me wonder....

     If a "countercultural" turn does come (and if it is not immediately co-opted and commodified by capital as the US version was), perhaps young Chinese will seek solace in indigenous cultural resources, especially those of Taoism.  A Chuang Tzu revival born of frustration with the mindless competition of global business!  I'm all for it.  The Confucian revival has not yet crested, but maybe a Chuang Tzu renaissance is not too far off....  Sing it to me Master Chuang:

If springs dry up, leaving fish stranded together on dry ground, they may keep each other other with their misty breath and frothy spit - but that's nothing like forgetting each other in the depths of rivers and lakes.  We can praise Emperor Yao and condemn Chieh the tyrant - but that's nothing like forgetting them both and dwelling in the transformations of Tao. (86).

      Cool.

Modern Love: Fade to Black

   A beautiful piece this week by Patty Dann.  She recounts her husband's diagnosis of, and ultimate death from, a rare brain cancer.  There is a deep sadness in the story, but an elegant wisdom as well.  Dann does an extraordinary job carrying forward the life of her husband, Willem, in the clarity and love of her writing.

    There are Taoist and Confucian resonances here, even if not of Dann's intention.

     She found herself being very straightforward with the doctors and wondered about it afterward:

I don’t know why I was so blunt. Of course there are miracles. Of course there are exceptions. But I wanted to know the worst-case scenario. For me that made me feel more in control, even though I was acutely aware I was in control of nothing.

“Live in the moment.”

“All you have is the day.”

“We’re all terminal.”

These phrases ricocheted through my head....

    Becoming aware of our lack of control: a Taoist notion. She does not say if she came to accept that lack of control.  If "live in the moment" passed through her mind, was she then able to let go of her expectations and desires?  There is a certain peace in the tone of her writing that suggests that somehow she did find a way to let go.  And in that letting go, she has preserved her voice and, through her voice, Willem's spirit.

    But there is something Confucian here as well.  What strikes me is her loving work to maintain the social bonds of the family as she struggled with Willem's demise:

A week before his fourth birthday, Jake announced that he wanted a cake in the shape of a fire truck. I am not a baker. I have the urge to bake perhaps twice a year, and that usually results in an apple or pumpkin pie with, I confess, store-bought crust.

But my son wanted a cake in the shape of a fire truck, and in that way that mothers are able to lift cars off their children’s feet in an emergency, I somehow made one. I used practically a whole bottle of red dye in the frosting, which in earlier days would appall me. But now I reasoned that if Willem grew up on the purest whole-wheat bread and beet salad, perhaps junk food was the key to a long life.

I decorated the cake with care — licorice hoses, peppermint wheels, butterscotch headlights and a lattice of thin pretzels for ladders. It was my offering to my son on what I knew would be his last birthday with his father.

We had the party in Central Park. Friends helped push the party favors and food in carts. Willem was able to walk there slowly, but with elegance, holding my hand, wearing his navy blue Nike headband.

The children sat at a picnic table for cake. Jake blew out the candles on the fire truck cake and made a wish. During that period of our lives, he made wishes whenever candles were lighted, and on eyelashes and fluffy dandelions. “I always make the same wish, Mom,” he’d say, “and you can’t ever ask me what it is.”

 She found ways to support her son and maintain her husband's dignity, all of which created and reproduced the identity and meaning of each member of the family.  They all extended their humanity in that work and in those loving bonds.   However hard it is for a child, I am sure that, as he looks back on his own life, he will remember his father with warm affection.  And that is what a family is ideally supposed to be.  Beautiful.

Forever Small

    This story came across the wires yesterday:

In a case fraught with ethical questions, the parents of a severely mentally and physically disabled child have stunted her growth to keep their little ``pillow angel'' a manageable and more portable size.

The bedridden 9-year-old girl had her uterus and breast tissue removed at a Seattle hospital and received large doses of hormones to halt her growth. She is now 4-foot-5; her parents say she would otherwise probably reach a normal 5-foot-6.

The case has captured attention nationwide and abroad via the Internet, with some decrying the parents' actions as perverse and akin to eugenics. Some ethicists question the parents' claim that the drastic treatment will benefit their daughter and allow them to continue caring for her at home.

    I must admit that, at first, I was skeptical.  My Taoist sensibilities suggested that the parents were going too far, they were intervening too severely into the child's life and, possibly, opening her up to new risks down the road (what would the long term effects of the treatment be?).  But the more I thought about it, and the more I read through the parent's blog, the more reasonable the Confucian interpretation of this case became: the parents have done the right thing because the treatment, though apparently perverse, will, in fact, improve their ability to care for Ashley and it was an action rooted in the experience and love that the parents have demonstrated over the years.

    I elaborate on both the Taoist and Confucian positions below the jump:

Southern Comfort

    Just noticed this short piece in China Daily:

Guangzhou achieves developed city status

(Bernama.com/chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2007-01-04 21:48

The per capita of Guangzhou, the capital of China's richest Guangdong province, is expected to surpass US$10,000 last year, becoming the first developed city on the mainland by World Bank standards, the Bernama.com reported on Thursday.

The southern city of seven million has reported a 14.4 per cent rise in gross domestic product (GDP) of 623.6 billion yuan (US$80 billion) for last year, Xinhua News Agency said Thursday.

"The breakthrough in GDP per capita indicates that Guangzhou has become China's first developed city by World Bank standards," said Peng Peng, a researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted as saying.

The city's growth was on the back of automobile, petrochemical, electronics and communications equipment industries, according to Bernama. 

Guangzhou mayor, Zhang Guangning, said the city would hold growth at 12 per cent in keeping with the national shift from GDP expansion to achieving balanced and sustainable development.

 I mention it here, first of all, because I like Guangzhou.  I spent some quality time there for about four months in 1984, living and doing research at Zhongshan University.  I have always enjoyed the open and dynamic feel of the city and the people there.

    But I also mention it because Guangzhou often gets a bad rap.  Historically, the south has been seen as less civilized than the north of China, at least that is the view of the northerners, who who held the political power and wrote the official histories.  There is a way in which Confucianism, as a transmitter of civilizing behavior, is understood as a northern Chinese phenomenon/practice that gradually spread over time, bringing humane government and morality to the "barbarian" people of the south and west.   Now, it is true that Confucius was from Lu, in the north, but I do not buy the north-as-morally-superior argument.  There have been plenty of uncivilized depredations in the north, just as there have been civilized and refined cultures in the south.

    One of the best examples of the latter is the kingdom of Nanyue, which encompassed today's Guangzhou, and which had an autonomous political existence from about BCE 203-112.  It was a highly civilized place, as evidenced by the tomb of King Zhao Mei (who in the link provided is referred to as a "prince," even though Yue was, in his time, politically independent of the Han dynasty; for a fuller historical and archaeological account, if you have access to JSTOR, look here for a nice piece from the journal Modern China). 

    Now, some northern chauvinists might want to argue that by the time of the Yue state, the sinification of the Yue people had already occurred, thus demonstrating the north-as-civilized/the south-as-barbaric interpretation.  But, as Kwang-Chih Chang argues, in the Cambridge History of Ancient China, "Chinese" culture was the result of several different regional cultures interacting with one another to create a "Chinese integration sphere."  The southern predecessors of the Yue people gave to the resulting "Chinese" culture as much as they got - a process stretching back to the four millennium BCE.

    The uniqueness of Yue/southern/Guangzhou culture is a point of pride among contemporary southerners:

Yue people's cultural exchange with foreign countries dates back at least to as early as Han dynasty. Yue People are always open-minded, ready to accept new things and are good at copying and apprehending both material and spiritual achievements from the western world, then incorporating them with their own traditional culture.

With their courage to explore new horizons always, their broad insight, their strong sense of commerce and value, and their talent and skill in calculating, they created the multi-dimensional agricultural commodity economy in Pearl River Delta, and gained a reputation of "Guangbang Businessmen"(means Yue businessmen), the story of which extended all the way back to mid-Qing dynasty.

The influence of the advanced western ideology and the adventurous tint in their blood may somehow explain the fact that a bunch of Yue elites in Chinese modern history stood up, one after one, to fight for the overthrowing of the feudal imperialism, and also the fact that they have always be seen at the forefront of the economic development after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

   The generalizations might be crude and post hoc (i.e. they are good at adapting to Western ways because they were the first to be forced to adapt to Western ways; remember where the first Opium War started) but I think the general point is valid.   There is a certain open-mindedness and adaptability to southern Chinese culture.

     And when I think about how ancient Chinese thought might be made relevant to the modern world it is precisely the qualities of open-mindedness and adaptability that strike me as essential.

     I think it's time for me to take another trip to Guangzhou (I haven't been there in ten years!).

The Failure of Saddam's Family

     Here's a grim passage from the Guardian's obituary of Saddam Hussein (hat tip, Andrew Sullivan):

Saddam was born in the nearby village of Owja, into the mud house of his uncle, Khairallah Tulfah, and into what a Tikriti contemporary of his called a world "full of evil". His father, Hussein al-Majid, a landless peasant, had died before his birth, and his mother, Sabha, could not support the orphan, until she took a third husband.

Hassan Ibrahim took to extremes local Bedouin notions of a hardy upbringing. For punishment, he beat his stepson with an asphalt-covered stick. Thus, from earliest infancy, was Saddam nurtured - like a Stalin born into very similar circumstances - in the bleak conviction that the world is a congenitally hostile place, life a ceaseless struggle for survival, and survival only achieved through total self-reliance, chronic mistrust and the imperious necessity to destroy others before they destroy you.

The sufferings visited on the child begat the sufferings the grown man, warped, paranoid, omnipotent, visited on an entire people. Like Stalin, he hid his emotions behind an impenetrable facade of impassivity; but he assuredly had emotions of a virulent kind - an insatiable thirst for vengeance on the world he hated.

   I can't help but think about Confucius, who emphasized the importance of moral education.  If a child learns brutality when young, he will practice brutality when old.  Confucius told us to "cherish the young" and to cultivate our humanity in our daily lives.  The pathologies of Saddam Hussein are negative confirmation of the wisdom of Confucian compassion.

    I don't want to put all the responsibility on parents.  Obviously, even children who have been lovingly nurtured by good parents can still do bad things; there is a point for every individual when personal responsibility and agency must take charge over family ties.  But the abuse and brutality of Saddam's "family" life seem clearly relevant to his later career. 

    Cherish the young.

A Confucian Legislature

     A story ran a few days ago in the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, about a friend of mine, Daniel A. Bell, who works to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of ancient Chinese, and especially Confucian, thought:

Prof. Bell, believed to be the only foreign scholar to hold a philosophy post at a Chinese university, is making waves on campuses and websites across the country with his ideas for reviving Confucian beliefs and applying them to modern politics. He believes China can successfully reform its autocratic political system by drawing on the theories of the ancient philosophers.

    When I was in Beijing in October we had lunch together just outside the gate of Qinghua University and, when he had to leave for his son's birthday party, I had the pleasure of wandering about the picturesque campus; very nice.  But I digress.  Here is one of his main ideas:

His most controversial idea is a simple one. A future China should be ruled by a "modern Confucian democracy," with a democratic lower house and an elitist upper house whose members would be selected on merit, based on exam results -- just like the traditional method of choosing civil servants in East Asia.

"The country would have a group of talented and disinterested individuals ready to act for the common good," he writes in his book, Beyond Liberal Democracy.

A system based on meritocracy "would resonate with traditional political culture, it could be supported by interest groups at a constitutional convention, and it could be readily adapted from an existing political institution," he says in the book. "It would be Chinese-style democracy: rule by the people, with Confucian characteristics."

 I think Bell is serious and important thinker and this idea is worth thinking about but I will register my skepticism here.  On the one hand, if a selection process could be created that was truly beyond the influence and manipulation of particular interests, then a chamber of Confucian "gentlemen" (obviously women would have to be eligible as well - or, maybe, it should be all women since, as I have argued elsewhere, women tend to be better on Confucian ethics than men...) would be an improvement over the current decrepit Communist Party dictatorship.  Bell's notion could be an incremental improvement to Chinese politics.

     On the other hand, the idea of "a group of talented and disinterested individuals ready to act for the common good" strikes me as optimistic in the extreme.  It seems to me that whenever political institutions are created, they become objects of political struggle.  "Special interests," especially monied interests, will find ways to capture legislatures and bureaucracies and turn them away from the "common good."  This happens fairly often in modern democracies; maybe it always happens.

     What is good about democracy is not an idealist realization of a "common good"  but the avoidance of the worst abuses of tyrannical power.  We should not expect people - even Confucian "gentlemen" - to be able to transcend their particularistic interests completely.  We might ask them to be open to the arguments and interests of others, but it is probably too much to ask them to be "disinterested."  Perhaps I am just too American on these sorts of issues.  James Madison makes sense to me: don't try to create a system that abolishes all factions, which is really not possible, but build a system that allows for the profusion and balance of many factions.  It is not perfect.  It will create gridlock at times.  But it will, under most circumstances, effectively limit the abuse of centralized power and protect a realm of social and personal freedom.

     Maybe Madison was more of a Taoist than a Confucian.....