Francis Fukuyama in The L.A. Times: China’s Powerful Weakness

by frontpersatuannasional

Full piece here.

Is it a stronger centralized government that China needs?

China’s peculiar road toward modernization after 1978 was powered by “township and village enterprises” — local government bodies given the freedom to establish businesses and enter into the emerging market economy.

Now that the local and village enterprises are much stronger, they will need the central government to counter local abuses of power within a federal structure. 

But it (freedom) will come about only when popular demand for some form of downward accountability on the part of local governments and businesses is supported by a central government strong enough to force local elites to obey the country’s rules”

This balance of power can create a more stable China…and a China more dedicated to protecting freedom and individual rights.  As usual, Fukuyama is keenly pragmatic and profound. 

———————

As a small aside, Fukuyama did support the Iraq military invasion, perhaps in part because of similar thinking he’s applying to China now (freedom through western democratic statecraft and balance of powers).

Iraq was bungled by this administration, but also, perhaps we were a little idealistic about how well our concept of freedom (Western, post-enlightenment, deeply individualistic) would travel.

China’s a different story, obviously, than Iraq, but does the model need tweaking a little?  

Is the use of military force to apply such thinking ever justified? 

Addition:  The PEN American Center has awarded Yang Tongyan a Freedom To Write Medal (which he’s apparently not so free to do).  Tongyan is in prison for challenging the very structures discussed above.  The good that PEN can do comes with its own idealism and limitations, I imagine, but is a good way to show the range of American influence on China…

Tuesday Poem–Robert Frost: Dust Of Snow

Dust Of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

-Robert Frost

Reverend Wright’s Extreme Views: Not A Friend To Politics Or Obama?

A cynic might say:  In the big picture, decades of excessively pursuing equality and social justice have succeeded in creating more chairs at the table, but neglected the table itself.

The relative weakness of current liberalism and the democratic party allow this kind of anger and extremism into the light.  

Maybe it’s just a bump in the road as Andrew Sullivan suggests:

“Obama’s vision is a great one for his party and his country. He mustn’t be sacrificed to the wolves of the past.”

Maybe it’s not that big of a deal?

See Also: From Althouse: Bill Moyers Interviews Jeremiah Wright, Friday Quotation From The Atlantic Monthly involving Bill Cosby, and Race and Obama’s Wright Speech

More Trouble At The NY Times? Cultural Relativity Castle?

The internet is changing the game, Jayson Blair hasn’t helped your reputation any, you’re laying off staff, and even Craig Ferguson tears into you at the 2008 White House Correspondence Dinner (begins at 2:40):

 

Maybe they’re laughing at you…not with you.

To the Times’ credit, it was easy for a large publication to take a walk down diversity lane, perhaps slowly realizing it’s the circular driveway in front of cultural relativity castle.  Those were heady times and doing what everybody else was doing was easy…though maybe not the best long-term business strategy…

The Times’ mission includes covering politics, foreign affairs, economics, war and the difficult moral decisions leaders make, but they seem to be a little too invested in global warming and the easy moralism of diversity and gender equality to always make them well.  Their coverage of the arts is almost fetishistic.

So is this just a print media problem at the Times, or is it something more?

From The Wall Street Journal–Predictive Voting: Betting Markets

Full post here.

The internet + the wisdom of collective intelligence + the de-regulation of anti-gambling laws can produce betting markets that are more efficient than polls.   Wise candidates may need to think about using predictive voting to their advantage, the article suggests.  Goodbye Zogby?

Cousin Tony wants to talk to you about that McCain spread…

See Also:  Slate’s Political Futures has been doing this for awhile.  Surely you trust Slate to use such methods in a responsible, mature fashion.

The Assad Brothers: Music While You Work

These guys are pretty good.

From Althouse: Bill Moyers Interviews Jeremiah Wright

Full post here.

Ann Althouse thinks Moyers is not up to the job of interviewing Wright.

Moyers has serious populist leanings, and he’s pretty far to the left. His natural inclination is to look for the cabal of corrupt people behind whatever curtain he’s lifting up (and he’s still one of the better journalists around). 

Althouse thinks either Moyers or his ideas fail to ask Wright the tough questions.

So does Wright transcend race-based theology?  Need the black church change even though many people are casting judgment? 

See Also: Bill Cosby’s conservatism and Race And Obama’s Wright Speech.

by biverson

Bernhard Henri-Levy In the Wall Street Journal: Jimmy Carter’s Mistakes

You’ve probably heard that Jimmy Carter hugged Nasser Shaer, a Hamas official, and laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat.

Bernhard Henri-Levy explains why these were bad ideas.

Is old Jimmy Carter letting a bunch of morally corrupt, dishonest people get the better of him?  

On that note:  Are you comfortable with former U.S. presidents and officials travelling around the world on their own agendas?

Friday Quotation From The Atlantic Monthly

Liberalism, with its pat logic and focus on structural inequities, offers no balm for this sort of raw pain. Like the people he preaches to, Cosby has grown tired of hanging his head.”

-Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic Monthly from ‘This Is How We Lost To The White Man.”

Is the conservatism of Cosby and many a barbershop a way to guide young black men to deeper national goals and moral commitments…say…beyond racial identity (Nation of Islam, Black Panthers) and peer groups (gangs)?

Is there a black conservative movement forming now?  in a few decades?

by childrensdefensefund

Jared Diamond: “Vengeance Is Ours” In The New Yorker

Full piece here. (abstract only now, subscription required)

Diamond focuses on a young man who’s a member of the Handa clan in Papua New-Guinea.  The clan, like many others, devotes a lot of time and energy to fighting, and specifically, getting revenge.

Daniel, the young man in Diamond’s portrayal, clearly likely feels honor and a sense of pride when acting on his desire for revenge…and gets satisfaction from it as well.  Diamond argues the lack of organized religious and moral codes (largely in service of the state here in the West) don’t exist in Papua-New Guinea.

In other words, most of the reasons we don’t go revenge killing here in the States and defer (usually) to the police, the courts, or to God aren’t really in effect.

This is one of Diamond’s conclusions:

“My conversations with Daniel made me understand what we have given up by leaving justice to the state. In order to induce us to do so, state societies and their associated religions and moral codes teach us that seeking revenge is bad. But, while acting on vengeful feelings clearly needs to be discouraged, acknowledging them should be not merely permitted but encouraged.”

So let me get this straight: from our own true nature, moral codes have deferred…

“feelings…natural and powerful”

…into a “cold monster” of the state?

Yet, if we invested in our feelings, wouldn’t we make the state more powerful by increasing its desire to control our feelings too?

Wait…I thought the state was bad, or un-natural?

Okay…so…according to Diamond, if we just feel enough, we’ll think clearly?

See Also: This post about David Sloan Wilson’s research.  Is a common thread between evolutionary biologists, anthropologists, and perhaps even psychologists the attempt to base morality in feeling?  Or a certain type of thoughts about feelings?

So…is Diamond an anthropologist?  It appears not.  My mistake.

Addition: So where do you look to deepen evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences?  To Nietzsche for starters, but Jesse Prinz looks to David Hume:  Another Note On Jesse Prinz’s “Constructive Sentimentalism”…Jesse Prinz Discusses “The Emotional Construction Of Morals” On Bloggingheads.…More On Jesse Prinz. A Review Of “The Emotional Construction Of Morals” At Notre Dame.

Remember that as with all utterances of truth, there will be a large percentage of the population who considers these ideas not a matter of debate, but as true.

Updated: From Savage Minds: More On The Lawsuit Against Jared Diamond…From The Chronicle Of Higher Education: Jared Diamond’s Lawsuit