Fable, fable, fable … I suppose you, like I, feel a little dizzy from this merry-go-round. I had originally thought I should cut-and-run, answering this most recent post of yours only cursorily and attempting to make just a last point or two before I ditched; but then, I thought the better (or worse) of it, and decided to throw myself into yet another tirade. So hang on, I’m a going through your whole post.
Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG>You just quoted me, then ignored what I wrote:
"Lazarus, the problem with piecemealing every point in a post..."
Piecemealing every point is not identical to quoting from a post. I suggest two or three quotes or points help focus a reply. But if we jump into six topics, the full replies will exponentially grow in size.
</STRONG>
Ah! This is a simple enough mis-understanding. You seem to think that I should contain my responses to just one or two points in a post, quote them, and move on. I had thought your use of the term “peicemealing” simply meant using quotes. I can understand why you wish I would stop replying to the entirety of your post: it does indeed make for some pretty monstrously large replies. However, I cannot simply let things go when I have a response for them: it may make it appear that I cannot answer the question, and I don’t want you using that as a basis for later debate. No, I would rather take on the whole dang thing and have done with it. Sorry.
<STRONG>
I think, again, you're missing the point. I wasn't saying in effect, "If you don't or do believe in X, you can't speak about X," which was actually thrown at me by another poster recently. But you accused me of engaging in a load of whitewash on the Chinese government--this, because of a word I'd used, despite my actions. On the other hand, I was curious if with all your zeal and willingness to quickly judge, your own actions regarding the Chinese had lived up to your emotional intensity. As they haven't, based upon your subsequent comments, I'm afraid I'll have to question whether you aren't applying a double standard in your expectations of others (which I consider unreasonable in any case, as they are based upon the words they use rather than the actions they conceive and initiate) and yourself. Let me state this as clearly as possible without (I hope) oversimplifying it beyond recognition:
I work in a mild fashion against some of the PR of C's more extreme actions by organizing, writing, and picketing; but you consider me as whitewashing them, because of a phrase.
You, filled with zeal against the PR of C, condemning others who don't see the same things, do nothing against them.
Which of us is acting to match their words? Which of us is criticizing others furiously, without doing a thing, themselves?
</STRONG>
Wow, THAT was really, really unfair. I’ll take it as payment for my “politically left” remark, however, and respond as evenly as I am able. As I attempted to make painfully clear in my previous post, I do NOT accuse you of whitewashing the Chinese government IN SPITE OF YOUR ACTIVITIES. No, I quite openly praised you for your efforts. Where I see “whitewash” is in your failure to see the Chinese government as a whole, and with a basic, fundamental flaw. (I shall return to this again at the end of the post.) But what really gets my goat is this last insult of yours where you attempt to compare your activities to mine, and come to the conclusion that I have a double standard. If you would be so kind as to actually read my previous post, you would see that I have no problem with the way you choose to oppose the Chinese governments actions; I would HOPE that you would show me the same respect. I do NOT participate in marches or picket lines – what I DO is make every attempt to make the people around me UNDERSTAND the NATURE of the Chinese regime. If we want to bicker about methods (which I tried to avoid by praising yours in my last post), I could make the argument that standing around in the cold with a sign that says “China out of Tibet” is about as useful as US attempts to sanction Iraq. What I attempt to do is reach peoples MINDS. Your pickets, at best, will reach their eyes.
<STRONG>
I find the word evil in this context simplistic, used to demonize one's opponents. I have no interest in demonizing anybody or anything. I refer to actions as good or bad, and judge only these, because I can't judge intent, and because it helps arrive at a more realistic picture of individuals and groups of individuals (in a government, for instance).
</STRONG>
You have no interest in demonizing the devil? I only ask, because I myself believe that evil DOES in fact exist. I wish it were not so, but it is. I wish I had a spiffy definition I could give you, but I don’t. What I do know is this: governments exist for a reason, and that reason is the protection of the rights of their citizens. When such a responsibility is so obviously flaunted and perverted in the manner seen in China, I feel justified in using the term “evil.” Well, perhaps this is a point of linguistics. If you never, ever use the term EVIL, then you don’t use it. How would YOU describe the Chinese government? Good, bad, no comment?
<STRONG>
As I wrote, the Chinese government must be seen in context--how much reading of 19th and 20th century Chinese history and government have you done? I ask this because the absolute bankruptcy of effectiveness in the latter days of the Qing Dynasty and its successor, the highly corrupt activites of the mainland Republic of China, set the stage for Mao and his puritanistic revolution. I believe that if you or anybody were to pick up some good background on this, you would realize that the current mainland regime is considerably more effective in fulfilling the basic needs of its people than any 20th century government the Chinese have seen. Don't comment, yet. READ.
</STRONG>
Now, I believe, you are falling back to the same idea that to judge requires some – well, I dunno what. Here, you are saying that I must be a scholar of Chinese history to judge the current Chinese government; previously, you had intimated that unless I was out on the picket line, I had no business discussing this issue at all. So who can ever judge, fable? Frankly, I would doubt that YOU have a deep and thorough knowledge of Chinese history and culture. NCT said that we need to experience the “collective unconscious” (or some such) before we can judge – is that your thought, too? – if so, have you been born, raised, and educated in China? Did you live there all your life and immerse yourself in their world? No? Then I guess you can’t judge – and maybe that is what you believe. But that is where you are wrong again. All we need know is this: China refuses to recognize the rights of its people. ITS THAT SIMPLE. I don’t give a rats behind what sort of history you think can justify this - it can’t. I don’t care what sort of expert you believe yourself to be – if you are, then you are a blind expert, because you are not seeing what is plainly before your very eyes. China is a repressive, monolithic, dictatorship. No amount of history and culture can justify that.
<STRONG>
Thank you.
I was thinking you might jump to the conclusion that I was supporting all the actions of the Chinese Communists, since you appear to follow a pattern of taking flight off a single word.
</STRONG>
Ouch.
<STRONG>
And here, I'd written a paragraph about the CCs, without criticizing them at all, and in fact, justifying them...! But keep in mind that I have protested and organized against certain aspects of this regime which are wrong and have a severely detrimental effect on both their culture, and their neighbors. So if you consider that, it must follow that no, I don't wholeheartedly endorse the CCs, right?
</STRONG>
I have never, ever, come even close to saying that you wholeheartedly agree with the Chinese regime.
<STRONG>
But I won't label these actions "evil," simply because, like I said above, doing so only demonizes the person (or government, in this case) in question, without effectively seeking to understand why something is being done, whether something can be done to change it, and how to effect change. I can understand people more effectively and work against or with them more effectively if I see a person or group in its entirety, rather than as a label applied to attack everything they do.
</STRONG>
Here is where a genuine and substantial difference lies between our views. I have gone over this and over this (and I am sure you feel the same), but I am always willing to assume that I am at fault for not making my views sufficiently clear. So, I will attempt once again.
It is my firm belief that by refusing to judge China and find it guilty of, well, crimes against humanity for lack of better term, you have legitimated and sanctioned its acts. I am FULLY aware that you condemn individual acts of the Chinese government. I am not saying that you don’t. What I AM saying is that you are missing the ESSENTIAL of China (i.e. that it has no respect for human life – as I have said many a time). You may think that you can “more effectively” work for change by refusing to condemn them, but I disagree.
Take what I believe to be a parallel example: two people are debating the death penalty – one for, one against. The pro-death penalty guy gets up and makes his opening speech, explaining why he is for the death penalty, and then turns the podium over to his opponent. His opponent gets up and say: “Well, I guess you are right in some respects, I guess I just don’t like the electric chair – I think its inhumane.” You see, the anti-death penalty guy just GAVE UP whatever moral ground he may have had by accepting the essential tenet: that killing someone for a crime is OK – throwing in “as long as it isn’t by electrocution” is pointless at this stage of the debate. Similarly, I believe that you have GIVEN UP any possible argument against the Chinese government by saying that they have ANY legitimacy. They do not. You can run around in circles with the Premier of China, and say that he is doing “bad” things in Tibet, but unless you strike right at the ROOT of his system, unless you tell him: “People have rights, g-d-it, and you are WRONG to deny them!” until and unless you do this, you CANNOT have any success in a debate of morality with the likes of the rulers of China.
Or, for a historical example, take the appeasement of both Hitler and Stalin before and after WWII. No one had the courage to say early on: nazism is wrong, and we refuse to deal with it, and we will oppose it as far as we are able. No, instead you had Chamberlain declaring “peace in our lifetime,” and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Then, post-WWII, we have the grand game of appeasement with out former ally, Russia. Good old Uncle Joe! Poor Harry Truman going over to Potsdam, and thinking that he could “deal” with the USSR – ha! No more than you can “deal” with the Chinese regime, once you have accepted its legitimacy.
OK, I decided I WILL snip out part of your reply. I don’t think this section I am cutting is of any great debate value, but if you disagree, let me know and I will return to the topics and answer them.
<STRONG>
You seem both literate and intelligent (I don't mean this to sound condescending; read on), which is why I find it odd that you see feel it necessary to apply moral absolutes not just in any matters of judgement, but all matters. You appear from this POV to be using a halbred to make your way through a series of veils, without even noticing that some of the veils are quite attractive, and that some of them might well be yours.
</STRONG>
Well, I don’t mean to sound condescending myself, but I think the REASON I feel the need to apply moral absolutes is BECAUSE I am literate and intelligent. I just cannot for the life of me understand how we have come to a world so full of self-doubt that no one can bring themselves to condemn acts of hatred and – there’s that word again! – EVIL. Because evil does exist, fable. And it is not some “otherworldly” phenomenon (as I discussed with CE): it is brought into being by people, and by governments, and by beliefs that contradict the very essence of what it means to be human. Would that it were not so! But, until such time as the world learns to condemn evil for what it is, we will never see the annihilation of evil in all its forms. We MUST see it for what it is, and we MUST oppose it. And, for my part, I feel the need to EXPLAIN this idea to all those who will listen. THAT is my protest march – my picket line – THAT is what I believe will bring a better tomorrow. I am sorry that you believe otherwise.