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o Book Details:
Author: Sandra Silberstein
Paperback: 197
Publisher: Routledge, Taylor & Francis group
City of publication: London
Year of publication: 2002
Language: English
ASIN: B000OT8284
Price: USD $22.95
o About the author:
Sandra Silberstein is a professor of English at the University of Washington, Seattle. So far she has concentrated on women and language, choice reading, and technology and resources in teaching reading on the majority of her books.
o Book analysis:
The book “War of Words” is 197 pages long, divided into 8 chapters. The introduction attached to the first section of the book is a comprehensive one also summarizing whole the book in three pages.
This book can be recommended to all whose interests are on linguistics, even to those who are not expert in this matter.
Sandra Silberstein focuses on the creation of the national transformations including changes in American identity and national beliefs in post-9/11 by illustrating some examples which reveal U.S’s situation within the time of crises after 9/11 events.
the author does not go deeply into details regarding the field of linguistics and also she does not explain apparently how linguistics can be applied to the many phrases she has quoted;however those phrases and examples persuade readers to continue his/her reading to the end.
Sandra Silberstein in her book “War of Words: Language , Politics and 9/11″ has cited the speeches of George W. Bush in post-9/11 just for the sake of linguistic analysis ,so it is difficult to determine her political slant. She tries to focus more on the words created national transformations and new American identity in post-9/11 than the events themselves. As a result Silberstein concentrates on rendering the terrorist attacks in presidential speeches , media texts and eyewitness accounts
The most interesting part of the book in my opinion is its cover, carrying many important meanings and messages. For example, a sentence in Persian above the picture of two Afghans implies that Iran is a terrorist advocator.
“It is essential to examine the diction surrounding the particular sentiments of the aftermath , as Sandra Silberstein did in her book War of Words: language , politics and 9/11 ( Routledge , 2002 )
The initial rhetoric surrounding 9/11 was rightfully comforting, allowing Americans to heal. President Bush’s calming speeches were compared by Silberstein to President Roosevelt’s words after attach on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The perception they both try to create is one of necessity and urgency. For instance, Bush said of the war on terrorism: “These measures are essential. But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows. “He was, in effect, holding a war rally, similar to what Roosevelt said in 1941: “… I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. I believe I interpret the … will of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again. “(Dunkin, Journalism after 9/11 Review)
“This is vital reading today. At a time when hysteria is bubbling below the surface, Sandra Silberstein is cool, analytical, highly readable – and sane”
The Guardian, UK
o Summary:
The book’s introduction is an imaginary window drawn by Silberstein, through which she as an applied linguist illustrates that how “words helped many things happen.”(xiii) And also “how language can be employed to render national policy….”(xiii)
From the introduction it can be interpreted that the writer feels a duty on her shoulder, as a person born in New York, to explain about the events happened on September 11, 2001 not only attacked to the twin towers and pentagon but also affected American national identity.
In the first chapter Sandra Silberstein tries to discuss in details that how a nation can be constructed at war. To obtain her goal the writer in chapter second concentrates on all speeches and statements made by President George W Bush at those first moments after terrorist attacks that changed his Presidential position as ” the candidate with the perfect bloodlines [who came] to office amid charges that his was a bastard presidency, sired not by the voters but by the courts”(p.40) to an American hero. Also the writer compares Bush’s speeches to the statements of President Roosevelt in the story of Pearl Harbor.
In chapter 3 which is the most linguistic part of the book Silberstein focuses on the eyewitness accounts, tries to “examine the role of television in creating September 11 narratives and in constructing social identities.” (p.61) by borrowing two linguistic tools: “the methodological analysis of news discourse by Ron Scollon, to question the norms of TV news coverage; and the oral narrative structure by William Labov , to observe the eyewitness narratives as a process of manufacturing the news into entertainment .”(Xuelin he, 2003)
Also she emphasizes on the journalists’ skills on framing the events which had been unfolded around ground zero. For example in one of the interviews, a journalist asked a single eyewitness the following questions:” Was there screaming? Was there violence? Was it eerie? Were you terrified? Did you see people bleeding?”(Pp.79-80).
The book in chapter 4 also reveals that how New York transformed to be America(n) and Rudy Giuliani to be an “America’s mayor” by exploring the rhetorical reconstruction within American culture in post-9/11.
Through chapter 5 “Selling America” and chapter 6 “The New McCarthyism”, patriotism turns to be a matter. In the former chapter Silberstein analyzes advertisements in relation with the current terrorist attacks, revealing that American people in post-9/11 supported the government and showed their patriotism by shopping as the way to mourn for their lost countrymen.
In the latter one, the writer criticizes the emergence of new McCarthyism which let to overdoing patriotism in post-9/11. According to her opinion, the ACTA took the “cultural wars” to a new level transformed a “war of words” to the “war on words” by publishing 100 examples of disagreeable voices of the American campuses.
The next chapter is a comparative study on ABC documentary, ” Minefield: The United States and the Muslim Word,”by Peter Jennings and CNN documentary on Islam by Christiane Amanpour. Although in a former documentary Islam is a worldwide problem, the latter one tries to avoid the clashes between two kinds of civilizations. “For the vast majority of Muslims, the terrorist attacks against the United States were an offence against the teachings of Islam.”(p.155)
“Despite the militants’ claims, nothing in the Koran, the Islamic holy book, justifies this kind of crime against humanity. … In fact, the Koran forbids suicide.”(p.155)
And the last chapter, chapter 8, deals with the new set of rhetorical transformations from the second anniversary and beyond follows the march of civic discourse from New York to Baghdad. In this part of the book the writer also covers the war in Iraq and accusations against the US president and the former heroes for their mendacity.
(you can contact me through this email:hnasseri@ut.ac.ir)
1. Dunkin, Andria. “The Newark Metro.” review essays: Journalism after 9/11/2006.
2. Laversuch, I.M.”Springlink.”Book review. 2006
Author: Hedyeh Nasseri
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker
March 8th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
And if the oligarchs are attuned to the interests of the middle class minority, then what’s to like about democracy?
Isn’t the theory that the elites will still be screwing over the middle class, but they give them the illusion of democracy to keep them from revolting, and then convince them they need to side with the elites against lower classes who would screw them over even worse? Just convince enough of the lower classes they are middle class enough to have someone else even lower down trying to screw them, plus disenfranchise enough of the recalcitrant lower class, and voila: you’ve got “democracy” reliably serving elite interests, while staving off violent revolution.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
The biggest difference may be that the current generation of leaders remembers the Cultural Revolution more vividly (the older ones had to go and work in farms themselves) and are still terrified of their own people (and of a Mao-style dictator).
But apparently the new generation is already ready to behave like pampered aristocrats.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
US policymakers and the broader elite seem to invariably find themselves persuaded by the arguments of the people who speak English.
Perhaps because the class interests of the English speakers correspond more closely to the biases of the US policy makers, rather than that the policy makers automatically slave themselves to those they can speak to.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Personally I’m suspicious of anyone who doesn’t regularly make use of foul language in their English, probably because my parents cussed a lot.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Perhaps because the class interests of the English speakers correspond more closely to the biases of the US policy makers, rather than that the policy makers automatically slave themselves to those they can speak to.
See Chalabi as a counter-example
March 8th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
US policymakers and the broader elite seem to invariably find themselves persuaded by the arguments of the people who speak English.
Not that I disagree necessarily, but what are some examples of this? I can think of European examples where cable news especially was slanted toward the fluent-in-English (e.g., Christine Lagarde all over the cables last year), but beyond that, what are there some obvious examples of a political clash where we sided with the English speakers? Note, I’d separate that from places where we share lots of cultural traits with one side, not just English (Israel being a classic example).
March 8th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
WaPo:
In the fall of 2008, Bo gained national praise for the way he managed strikes by teachers, police and taxi drivers in the city as China’s economy began to contract. While other regional leaders around the country faced with similar problems treated striking workers as criminals, arresting leaders and sending in police, Bo made what was considered a radical move in China: He invited taxi driver representatives to meet with him in a forum broadcast on state television and negotiated terms for ending the strike.
Maybe China will have a soft landing. Still according to Krugman and others, they’re following beggar-thy-neighbor currency policies.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Russia vs. Georgia. The Georgian president was an English speaker with a Master’s degree from George Washington University with old classmates who now are policymakers in the State Department and journalists in the media. Something similar was at work with the popularity among policy makers of the English-fluent, Harvard-educated Benazir Bhutto.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
DTM @ #1,
Your evaluation of the dynamics of a democracy is a good one. If you were to add a sentence or two about dividing the working-class along racial lines you could could then apply it to the USA.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Known as “tuanpai” — a reference to the China Communist Youth League that they were members of and that was once considered the place to groom future leaders — these men are considered technocrats who have helped China carry out the goals set forth by previous generations but stopped short of reinventing them.
The distinction between the tuanpai and the princelings is that the tuanpai can see the economic development in front of their noses, but don’t have the historical vision to see that systematically, as a society, China’s philosophy has got to change. The system in which every dynasty is overthrown after a few hundred years, in a sort of Elizabethean wheel-of-life, eternal-return sort of way, is not at all reflective of the linear and agglomerative history of Western development.
The princelings understand that for China to really prosper long-term, it has to shake that cycle. It has also to be inoculated against the Japanese disease of a zombie, inflexible society that eventually drags the country down. They understand that China must become, at a fundamentally, cultural, sociological, more like America, and they know how that is to be reached. That is the sort of historical perspective, the understanding that to perpetuate the Confucian system of society would be to doom China long-term, you are not going to have as a Chinese unless you are born in the right backgrounds.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
1) Stratfor thinks that China is experiencing a bubble, that she has lost a ton of money in ill-advised government investments, that her attempt to stave off problems with high growth will fail, and that social unrest will ensue.
2) They note the big disparity in wealth between the Pacific coastal region (e.g., Shanghai) and the poor interior and predict a struggle for power between the wealthy families of the Pacific Coast and Beijing — with the US government possibly intervening a la Opium Wars because of the investments our own wealthy elites have made there and which they can’t afford to lose.
3) China is highly vulnerable to a naval blockade by the US — she is now heavily dependent upon import of raw materials (metal ores,oil, etc) and her navy is still a joke compared to the US (Strategypage gives US navy a power rating of 300+ versus only 15 for China.)
However, Stratfor notes that China may trying asymmetrical techniques to offset the US advantage — e.g., ICBMs with real time targeting updates from satellites and neutron warheads to handle US carriers.
4) Kinda puts Bush’s Iraq adventures in perspective, no? Sun Tzu advised 2500 years ago that one should attack the mind of the enemy ruler, especially if the ruler is a hot-headed fool.
Anybody want to guess who benefited greatly from the Bush stupid and hugely expensive “war on terror”?
Anyone want to guess where Bin Laden is hiding?
March 8th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
The classical early democracy transition driven by the (still very small )middle class in the US and Uk, had a rather long period off middle class only democracy where the poor just werent alowed to vote in the first place. Germany is the classical counterexample, where the middle and upper class ultimatly allied against the poor masses so that democracy transition failed. Classical marxist analysis all that. Now leaving Marx aside, ultimatly democracy transition worked in every damn rich country expect Singapore. China is still quite far away from that point. I think somewhere arround 10000 Dollar was the threshold where most countries tend to become stable democracies that dont fall back into dictatorships.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
re: Georgia, it seemed to me the “old classmates in powerful positions” meant a lot more than knowledge of English. And English is an official language in Pakistan, to my knowledge virtually all factional leaders are fluent speakers, certainly Musharraf was completely fluent. Again, MY’s point wasn’t that we side with those who have stronger historic western ties.
I find Matt’s point intuitive, but I can’t think of many examples of it. OTOH, Latin American history is filled with socialist leaders fluent in English opposed by US governments who supported their non-English-speaking rivals (Castro and Ortega being two obvious examples).
March 8th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
[...] Carl M. Cannon wrote a very interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt:And in my experience, when faced with one political faction that contains many fluent English-speakers and another political faction that doesn’t, US policymakers and the broader elite seem to invariably find themselves persuaded by the … [...]
March 8th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
what are there some obvious examples of a political clash where we sided with the English speakers?
Really pretty much anywhere in Eastern Europe. In the ’90s we tended to prioritize the interests of the English speaking political opposition to Communism rather than the other flavors of anti-Communism. Ironically, the English speakers were/are often more likely to be from the old Communist nomenklatura class than non-English speakers. Often this influence is very subtle – English speakers were (obviously) more likely to be hired to help US journalists, to work at the Embassy, to be employed by USAID or the World Bank, work in US NGOs, etc. A lot of Americans find their experience in a foreign country filtered through foreign English speakers, and often don’t realize how big a filter that can be.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I think everywhere with significant numbers of English speakers they’re either going to have other cultural traits in common with America or they’re just going to be richer and better educated than the rest of their countires. Think South America, the richer ones speak English and the US backs their interests. Wealth is probably a bigger factor in the trend MY mentions than language or culture, it’s just richer people around the world know English.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Matt, I would be suspicious of any article premised on describing foreign political struggles as a neatly-packaged metaphorical dichotomy. You’re giving this article more credit than it deserves. Turn on your Friedman Filter.
That said, I think there’s a lot of truth in your response.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I posted before you wrote that, true but I was thinking more of the movements they led than the leaders.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I find Matt’s point intuitive, but I can’t think of many examples of it. OTOH, Latin American history is filled with socialist leaders fluent in English opposed by US governments who supported their non-English-speaking rivals (Castro and Ortega being two obvious examples).
It’s not so much the language factor, as Latin American left-wingers tend to be the most gasbaggy, self-righteous, blowhardly, unpleasant, and doctrinaire wretches you’ll ever have the unluck to encounter. Dealing with the Latin American elite, who tend to be attractive and gracious, is at least an improvement over that experience.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
The Latin American leftists are so bad they actually manage to turn their European social-democrat compatriots off.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
To be fair, the Confucian system of society also pioneered the idea of meritocracy. The civil service examination system of Imperial China was practically unique, in its time, in assigning government administrative posts via merit rather than background. (The metric used—the ability to memorize classical texts—was flawed, but no worse than, say the emphasis on classical Greek and Latin in Imperial Britain.)
March 8th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
To be fair, the Confucian system of society also pioneered the idea of meritocracy.
It isn’t the meritocracy you think it is. In America meritocracy is understood to be what you can do; no matter your background, no matter if you had or not had a privileged upbringing, no matter if your parents got you into Harvard and you thus benefitted from it or if you worked purely for it on your own, what matters is the end product, what you can do in the real world, your ability to accomplish things, make things happen. So American society treats the Harvard-educated mediocrity and the non-college-educated genius equally, as long as for a specific task they perform equally.
Confucian meritocracy is completely different. It isn’t a meritocracy of achievement or of concrete action; it is a meritocracy of ability and theoretical equality. So it’s all fucking bullshit and hookum when people claim that Confucians invented meritocracy. It isn’t the same at all. And that’s where the fault lies. Instead of making things happen, it is obsessed with equalizing things that cannot be equalized. So sons of imperial officials are prevented from gaining any advantage in civil service exams, but precisely because of the relative handicap (can you imagine how much on-your-toes you would be if your dad was an imperial mandarin and you might not even pass the damn exam?) after that it’s nepotism all the way.
That’s also precisely the distinction between tuanpai and princelings. The princelings understand that for long-term national success; origins don’t fucking matter. Having privilege or non-privileged upbringing doesn’t fucking matter. What matters is a meritocracy of outcomes, not a meritocracy of backgrounds. The British university system, as a background mechanism, is extremely meritocratic today; but outcomes are extremely nepotistic nonetheless. The whole American idea is that we don’t begrudge people their privileged schooling and privileged prepping and all that, as long as out in the real world they are fighting on their own.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Sometimes the sheer, unbelievable idiocy of people who talk about Confucism and meritocracy is just stunning. They are almost as idiotic as Asians who bloviate about the greatness of the Confucian idea when it is precisely his rigid, immobile, and paternalistic idea that killed Asian development in the womb.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
By the way, when I say that sons of imperial mandarins are prevented from any advantage, I was referring to the fact that exam questions would be deliberately designed to be completely un-preppable in any systematic way, basically making the test not one of achievement.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
(The metric used—the ability to memorize classical texts—was flawed, but no worse than, say the emphasis on classical Greek and Latin in Imperial Britain.)
The emphasis, shocking it must be to one who isn’t familiar with British imperial history, isn’t actually Latin and Greek; it’s the temperament and background that makes possible the lengthy study of such obscure subjects, which is judged to be appropriate for imperial service; i.e., the ability and the inclination to be able to act in a completely detached manner from one’s immediate surroundings, and instead based on abstract principles and directives.
March 8th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Re: Don Williams (#11): Anyone want to guess where Bin Laden is hiding?
Interesting idea. As a counterpoint, long before 9/11, the Chinese leadership noted the issues the Russians and they have with Muslims in Central Asia. Supplying the Afghan resistance had unintended consequences for us, and we’re on the other side of the northern hemisphere.
I doubt the (we’ll assume) short term presence of 150k US service personnel in Central Asia was high on the list of ways the Chinese would seek to dull the US’ sword. But, that may just be shallow thinking on my part.
March 8th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Ariana Eunjung Cha: “Bo made what was considered a radical move in China: He invited taxi driver representatives to meet with him in a forum broadcast on state television and negotiated terms for ending the strike.”
Ah, transparency. Now that is change I can believe in.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Increased literacy and communication among the poor break this model down. What you don’t get is a stable result. You get a lot of very angry people with half the answer. You get the Tea Party. You get India’s Naxalites.
China’s poor would be no different.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Woof Woof,
I’m not sure I get your point about Ortega. The Somoza family were highly fluent in English- they even sent their kids to school in the United States, and were culturally very Americanised. I’m pretty sure that that nasty piece of work Ms. Chamorro was fluent in English as well.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
In other words, “a meritocracy of ability and theoretical equality”.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
This is the theory. In practice, American society has below-average low income mobility for a developed country; so “American-style” meritocracy is hardly ideal either.
I’ll thank you to leave your condescension at the door, by the way. I was quite clear about the shortcomings of the form of meritocracy represented by the imperial Chinese examination system (and of its historical antecedents, such as the civil service of imperial Britain, arguably, many public education systems today). But my main point still stands: regarding your claim that in “the Confucian system of society… you are not going to have [sic] as a Chinese unless you are born in the right backgrounds”, the examination system demonstrates that Confucianism is not inherently associated with a class system.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
But my main point still stands: regarding your claim that in “the Confucian system of society… you are not going to have [sic] as a Chinese unless you are born in the right backgrounds”, the examination system demonstrates that Confucianism is not inherently associated with a class system.
It isn’t. In fact Confucianism quite made a stable, pacifying class system impossible, because it hollowed out all the different layers of loyalty and allegiance and re-directed it toward a singular, abstract allegiance to Authority. In the Confucian system the Emperor supersedes all other layers of loyalty (even filial loyalty); this basically made any sort of a stable society an impossibility as power cannot be devolved in any permanent sense (to say, local magnates or even local shire-councils or assembly of burghers), and a continental country without any systematic devolution of power is doomed to eventual chaos.
The essential distinction, and the central fault, of Confucism is the fusion of Supreme Power with righteousness and unrestricted allegiance. This lies at the root of why, even today, there is largely no rule of law in East Asia as we would conceive it; for example, the Japanese government authorities is quite unscrupulous when foreign companies do things which are perfectly legal but un-endorsed by Japanese national policy (i.e. the Supreme Power); they would show up at your office every morning and put you through the exquisite torture of auditing every single one of your books even when it is absolutely clear your books are sound. Thus the letter of the law is followed (the government can audit books) but the spirit of the rule of law (that this regulatory power not be used to further purely partisan or industrial goals) completely non-existent.
I think you get the gist of what I am saying. All this springs from Confucism; because Confucism justifies all that the Supreme Power does as long as it is holistically Righteous. And the Power itself is the only arbiter of what is Righteous, in this case furthering Japanese industrial goals. The tuapai, I think you can see, shares the exact same mindset as the Japanese auditors; but the princelings understand for China to be a truly great nation, such duplicitous application of the rule of law, and other appendages of the Western system, must cease.
And this is indeed another difference with the British imperial system.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
You misidentify the class system as the opposite of meritocracy. Not so; the true enemy of (genuine) meritocracy is the Confucian theory of Righteous Power, because meritocracy is a function of individual autonomy, and individual autonomy, indeed any sort of classical liberalism, is impossible under a Confucist paradigm.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Or let me put it this way: what erodes meritocracy? Unfair advantage. But not every kind of unfair advantage. Unfair advantage that is private and individual in origin does not harm meritocracy very much at large. The parent shelling out thousands of dollars for SAT prep doesn’t, in any substantial sense, kill meritocracy; he works around the edges.
But when the unfairness is public and systematic in origin, then it is truly corrosive. Nothing killed the Soviet Union faster than the realization that the nomenklatura were systematically benefiting from the regime at the expense of others. Because the playing field has not just been tilted; it has been gerrymandered into a thousand, unrecognizable pieces among which it is impossible for the uninitiated to walk.
The greateast unfairness in China is systematic; the greatest unfairness in the U.S., individual and private.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Strange thread. Trying to understand contemporary China through an analytic lens of Confucism/Confucianism is like trying to understand contemporary America through the lens of democracy. In both instances, the analysis is limited at best. There are so many other historical, environmental, cultural factors. And there is also the micro-level; in fact, I would say the rural/agrarian sensibility in contemporary China is not much different from the rural/agrarian sensibility in Kansas, is not so much different that the rural/agrarian sensibility in Kenya.
If the point of the original article is to try to explain or analyze contemporary Chinese politics, wow. We have enough trouble understanding/predicting/analyzing our own society and politics here at home. Politics in China should be just as inscrutable to analysis. Open to opinion, sure. Open to ideologically driven interpretations and biases, sure. But understandable through analysis, not so much.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
The current leaders, as it was mentioned above, can remember the atavistic rage of the Cultural Revolution. Which is why they pour money in the PLA – which isn’t just an army, it’s arguably China’s largest (and very inefficient) industrial conglomerate.
The current leaders can also remember, at least vaguely, the last time the Mandate of Heaven got lost – and what happened to the losers. If they can’t remember it firsthand, then they certainly heard about it from their mentors, who may or may not still be alive, but could remember things firsthand, since they participated.
The younger generation can’t really remember the Cultural Revolution firsthand, and their version of the KMT/GMD, the Long March, the Japanese, and the Civil War isn’t any better than our “Band of Brothers” memory.
China’s huge, and it’s got a lot of wealth because of that, and because its skilled population is as brilliant as anyone’s.
But it’s got something like three quarters of a billion peasants, and another quarter of a billion urban poor.
These kids would be well advised to listen to their elders, because, at least in the past, when the Imperial Court decided to be selfish and decadent, bad things happened. Really, really bad things.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Myles,
You’ve got to be kidding. Wealthy parents giving their kids advantages through good school systems, SAT prep courses, and the like may be _understandable_, but it isn’t meritocracy. It’s the antithesis of meritocracy.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
What can’t get is that the Chinese seem to like making $5 and Soup Kitchen Care just fine and you progressives don’t.
I’m sure that Bo Xilai would support the following program:
Soup Kitchen Care
Fair Pay Act 2011
Public Employees getting a 20% pay cut
Post Office Privatization
Privatization of Federal and State Highways
Palin/Cheney 2012
These are practical solutions for the American people!!!
March 8th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
And where is this magical fairyland where American meritocracy is practiced? Because the America I live in is the America of “Heck of a job, Brownie” and Bush being re-elected, the America where no bank CEO has yet been fired, the America where fraud in mortgage financing went on for years but apparently will never result in prosecutions, the America where the primary purpose of HBS is to establish the social contacts that will smooth the rest of your life.
Judging people on possible talent, as you claim about China, may be less than ideal, but it’s damn better than judging that people who have money are automatically always right, which appears to be the current American model.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Actually this strikes me as a terrible move, an aping of the worst aspects of American politics. Recall Matt’s post a few days ago about what transparency should mean in politics — that it is desirable for people to see in detail the outcomes of government, along with who contributed what to those outcomes, BUT that it makes no sense to perform negotiations in public because then all parties land up playing to the cameras rather than actually trying to figure out the best compromise.
IMHO the real issue with China is not this Confucian analysis bullshit (which is like trying to analyze current European politics using the worldview of the 30 years war) or imagined divisions between generations; it is what are China’s leaders learning from the rest of the world. Are they pretty much all being educated in American universities, and being brainwashed into believing that everything America does, from political theory to culture to economics, is the one right way; or are they being exposed to a wide diversity of views — internal Chinese theories of the world, Euro theories of the world, Japanese theories of the world, etc?
It would be an astonishing irony, would it not, if 100 years from now the primary legacy of the Bush administration turns out to be that its myriad colossal fsckups were what persuaded the Chinese elite to be a little more cautious in adopting the American world view, and much more enthusiastic about considering a wide variety of alternative arguments?
I suspect that the real split in China is between plutocrats and plutocrat wannabes, who look at America and say “how can I get me a state like that”, and the rest of the elite who look at America (even under Obama) in horror and say “how the hell can I get me something not in the slightest like that”. Do you really think DECENT Chinese look at the Iraq war, or New Orleans, or the current health care idiocy and want to copy the system that gave us these?
March 8th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Re Myles at 33: “Not so; the true enemy of (genuine) meritocracy is the Confucian theory of Righteous Power, because meritocracy is a function of individual autonomy, and individual autonomy, indeed any sort of classical liberalism, is impossible under a Confucist paradigm.”
But hasn’t the individuality of Taoism has as great an impact on Chinese culture? And hasn’t it posed a continual challenge to Confucianism?
And what about the influence of Budda?
How did the Falun Gong arise within the Confucist anthill?
March 9th, 2010 at 12:35 am
But hasn’t the individuality of Taoism has as great an impact on Chinese culture? And hasn’t it posed a continual challenge to Confucianism?
And what about the influence of Budda?
How did the Falun Gong arise within the Confucist anthill?
Look. Taoism and Buddhism, for the Chinese, is only a religious belief. It has, for the most part, as much impact on their value-system as religion has on the Japanese one; after all the Japanese are famous for mixing and matching religions as suit them.
The primary moral and ethical system in Chinese culture is Confucian; Taoism and Buddhism are merely religious beliefs about the supernatural within that existing, Confucian framework. And it is the same with Falun Gong; it is actually the reason the cult is so noxious; they combined the worst aspects of Confucism and laying-of-the-hands-style cultism and produced a ghastly combination.
Wealthy parents giving their kids advantages through good school systems, SAT prep courses, and the like may be _understandable_, but it isn’t meritocracy. It’s the antithesis of meritocracy.
This is precisely the reason you don’t understand American meritocracy, Hector. American doesn’t care what advantages you might or might not have had in your life; it is only about what, with the advantages and skills you heretofore possess, you can do. It is a philosophy of doing; it isn’t a philosophy of equity or origin. To focus on whether someone had extra SAT prep is to focus on origin rather than on product. So what if he had extra help? The big deal is, whether with that help, he has developed the ability to do a certain job competently and successfully. And if the extra help made him more competent and successful at his job, then so be it; we are not going to begrudge people the possibility of increasing productivity just on some abstract philosophy of fairness. That’s the real deal.
After all, all self-help and self-improvement involves an element of inequity, because it means relative improvement other existing peers based on one’s own resources that others might not have.
And where is this magical fairyland where American meritocracy is practiced? Because the America I live in is the America of “Heck of a job, Brownie” and Bush being re-elected, the America where no bank CEO has yet been fired, the America where fraud in mortgage financing went on for years but apparently will never result in prosecutions, the America where the primary purpose of HBS is to establish the social contacts that will smooth the rest of your life.
I am hesitant to argue with the extreme cases you have presented, but the general situation, which I have observed to be true, is that a) rich kids in America tend to work a lot harder in school than poor kids b) rich kids in America tend to be, perhaps very much as a product of family conditioning and excellent educational access, very much more academically and intellectually advanced and capable of complex, difficult mental work than poor kids, and c) even at elite colleges, people from the better prep schools (Fieldston, Trinity, St Pauls, Choate, etc) inevitably perform better than people who came from so-so publics, even if they were recruited athletes.
Lest you not understand the import of the last sentence, the recruited athletes from prep schools and the best suburban publics (Brookline, etc.), who are held to supposedly lower academic standards at admission, go on to earn higher GPA’s than those who supposedly had less advantage and earned their way into those colleges on pure merit. This is without any of that infamous college-athlete tutoring and decrepit stuff like that which happens the big schools.
If this isn’t meritocratic, I don’t know what is.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:37 am
And yes, HBS is useless intellectually. But we already know that. Graduate business programs are, as a rule, useless everywhere in the world, whether be US, Europe, or China.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:44 am
By the way, this is way, despite the great widening of access and diversification of demographics in Ivy colleges, standards and quality of students have largely not changed in the last few decades; because the core group of schools, from which the best students arise, have remained the same, i.e. suburban publics in Boston, Westchester County, Fairfield, Long Island, DC suburbs in MD/VA, Main Line Philly; the great New England prep schools, a few Southern prep schools, a few schools in Texas; the international schools in world capitals. It has only really been changed by the addition of the prep schools in California and some public schools in the Bay Area, plus the influx of people the great suburban schools in Chicagoland and schools like Lab and Culver. Otherwise, the source for the first-tier students remain pretty much the same.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:53 am
@40 Maynard Handley: “BUT that it makes no sense to perform negotiations in public…”
Negotiations in public and necessary degrees transparency are two different things. Siege lights and clamoring journalists don’t have to be hovering over the participants at all times. Just an unobtrusive stenographer in the corner will do.
Maynard, your able and admirable post at @39 is about transparency. There is no transparency in America, at the top, and that’s our problem. American Oligarchs are committing crimes, heinous crimes -literally, crimes against humanity- without any fear whatsoever of prosecution, because their universe is so perfectly sealed, no light of justice can possibly penetrate.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:05 am
standards and quality of students have largely not changed in the last few decades
In fact, standards and quality have gotten better, since they get top students from all over the country, rather than just a few select east coast private schools.
Though it amuses me that Myles SG sees fit to tell us just who the best and most hard working students are from his “I got rejected from the Ivy League as well as from Williams and Amherst” perch at Wesleyan.
The smartest and most hardworking students tend to be… well, the smartest and most hardworking. The “rich”? Meh. A general bourgeois attitude towards education tends to suffice. The top students from Fieldston or some other top private school is as likely (or more likely) to be the child of an newly upper middle class foreign-born family as it is to be a child of an investment banking family. But maybe Myles is hoping that if he’s enough of a suck-up, it will get him a job as an analyst at Goldman. Well, maybe he’ll be more successful at his attempt than Alesky Vayner was, but he comes across as just as desperate.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:37 am
@40 Maynard Handley: “or are the [Chinese] being exposed to a wide diversity of views — internal Chinese theories of the world, Euro theories of the world, Japanese theories of the world, etc?”
I believe that’s it. Think of the breadth of China’s political spectrum. The far, far, left, the Maoists, the great levelers, still have powerful voice in government. But so too, does the far, far right, represented by the anarchic, hardcore Capitalist class of the coastal regions.
It’s fascinating. Especially in comparison to our political spectrum, which consists of the far right Global Free Market Democrats vs the far right Global Free Market Republicans.
The Chinese have broad range of ideas from which to choose, from which to find a possible — perfect synthesis. In our country, we have one very narrow idea, one system. Our system is to hand over the sovereign power of the nation-state to international oligarchs, and pray they can provide broad prosperity by pretending to compete with each other.
It may be the best system, but if isn’t, if proves to be a bad system, we are royally fucked, because we have given up our flexibility. We are stuck with what we got.
China, on the other hand, has nothing but flexibility. They can sit back, try different things, and watch us. If our system makes a miraculous comeback, and proves to be viable, they could adopt it, they have that choice.
China could choose to give up their sovereignty, like we have. I doubt they will, but they could. Or they could continue on the path they are on now, functioning as a nation-state, with sovereign power over their banks, over their giant energy companies; all the while maintaining total control over the use of their fiat money supply.
If I was China, I would choose the latter, but, you never know. China has choices.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:49 am
In fact, standards and quality have gotten better, since they get top students from all over the country, rather than just a few select east coast private schools.
Not really. I happened to be reading through senior theses from the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s, and trust me the level of erudition and quality of thought has not changed at all.
The smartest and most hardworking students tend to be… well, the smartest and most hardworking. The “rich”? Meh. A general bourgeois attitude towards education tends to suffice. The top students from Fieldston or some other top private school is as likely (or more likely) to be the child of an newly upper middle class foreign-born family as it is to be a child of an investment banking family.
Not really. I have known some incredibly hard-working kids from meh public schoools. But they just aren’t up to snuff; the conditioning and the stimulating social environment and the background knowledge and the intellectual stimulation provided by foreign travel and exposure, all that, that just isn’t there. You get a sort of empty shell who can expound on philosophical theories, but the quality of intellectual vision is just uneven and jagged. Even today, the top feeding school to Oxbridge, whose entrance is supposed to be absolutely meritocratic, remains St Pauls, which is sort of like the Eton for City honchos and big-time cosmopolitan jetsetters. It’s hard to get the point across that background conditioning, wealth and breadth of experience, plays an incredible role in intellectual development, and it isn’t just of the “STUDY HARDER!!!” variety; otherwise the Japanese and so on would have taken over every single Nobel prize by now. It’s simply impossible to achieve the sort of wealth of conditioning equivalent to an Ivy standard without a very upper-middle class (and this excludes like 98% of the population of Australia and Canada, which don’t really have an upper-middle class anymore) background.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:54 am
Though it amuses me that Myles SG sees fit to tell us just who the best and most hard working students are from his “I got rejected from the Ivy League as well as from Williams and Amherst” perch at Wesleyan.
It’s sufficient of a perch to judge things like this. A good number of kids at schools like these have Ivy parents and/or siblings and relatives, not to mention friends from high school. Most of my friends’ parents went to Ivies, back when Ivy admission standard was equivalent to what Little Ivies’ are today. It’s most the same people, to a surprising extent; people are just working harder today for the same spots, which are getting somewhat fewer in number due to geographical diversification and increased public exposure.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:55 am
By the way, Tyro, where the hell did you go to school?