To MAJ: in reply to his idea of “verifiable empirical research” on Tibet

A while ago, I had a disagreement with Mark Anthony Jones, one of our regular commenters, over the issue of so-called “independent” ”verifiable” ”empirical” research on Tibet.  I called into question the type of “independent authority” on Tibet that MAJ had extensively quoted to justify his assessment of the Chinese government’s policy on Tibet.  The discussion has been cut short due to my extremely busy work schedule.  An interesting piece of news at Friday’s the Guardian has prompted me to pick up where we left off.  I would like to see whether we can ignite another round of debate.

Let’s have a look at this report from the Guardian:

The BBC should have informed listeners that an academic interviewed about Tibet on Radio 4’s Today programme was speaking from a pro-Chinese government viewpoint, the BBC Trust has ruled.

In its latest roundup of rulings, the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee partly upheld a complaint about a Today Show item on demonstrations in Tibet aired in March 2008.

The complainant said Professor Barry Sautman of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was allowed to express his views in support of the Chinese government’s policy on Tibet “virtually unchallenged”

The English-speaking China Blogosphere is dead

Let’s speak the truth about what is obvious:    The English-language China-blogosphere is dead.

It died slowly and gradually between 2007 and 2009, simultaneously with the death of fantasies of China’s becoming a “superpower.”   As America’s status as a “superpower” has belatedly died, so has the very American fantasy of China becoming a “superpower”.

MAJ is everywhere! MAJ is Elvis!

As Catherine and Ned and Ivan have recently discovered from  our friend Mark’s comments on this post, it seems that the English-China-Blogopshere is now once again aflutter with excoriations of Mark Anthony Jones and innuendos that his is the hidden hand behind virtually every imagineable blogosphere conspiracy against the “One China Blogosphere” policy, and all mysterious unexplained phenonomena which trouble the sleep of paranoid China-blogosphericals.

Now we are finally ready to reveal the cosmic truth:    We are Mark Anthony Jones! And so are all of you, all of our readers are Mark Anthony Jones too!      We have decided to reveal this truth to Mankind at this time, because we believe Mankind is now ready for a quantum leap of consciousness.    The hidden purpose of our blog has been to prepare Mankind for this revelation, that Mark Anthony Jones is everywhere, and Mark Anthony Jones is everybody!

But Mark Anthony Jones is only one person of the “Holy-Shit-Trinity”.   The other two persons of the Trinity, are Ivan and Elvis.

Mark and Ivan and Elvis are “three persons in one blog”.    Elvis is the Big Daddy, and Ivan is the Son of a Bitch, and Mark is the Holy Shit Spirit.    We are everywhere, and we are in everybody and everything.

Our prophet Mojo Nixon foretold this final revelation in the 1980s, in this song:

Enlightening Jones’ “China Discourse”

The Pacifist William Penn's Treaty With The Indians

Now I’ve taken a look at one of Mark Anthony Jones’ essays on his new “China Discourse” site, titled, “Chinese Governance and Society”.

I won’t parse and fisk the entire article line by line. I do agree with many of Mark’s observations, even if not with his general approach to the topic. But my main criticism is, “Mark, I think you – along with some whom you criticize in this article –overstate the equation of “The West” (especially the Anglosphere, including America) with the Enlightenment. How much does the Enlightenment REALLY inform the civic, popular and political cultures of the West, or of the Anglosphere, or even more specifically of America?”

Very little, I think, and the American case is one of the most complex, and not quite what it seems on the surface. And as I (even as an Australian bandit) have considerable personal experience and expertise in American culture and history, I’d like to focus on that detail and “enlighten” Mark a bit:

Mark, you wrote:

Without (certain kinds of counterbalances), Reason itself simply becomes a question of power: the object of Enlightenment knowledge simply subjects the Other to itself. When, for example, English farmers occupied Native American lands upon arrival at Plymouth, they stripped away from Nature its aura of mystery, the sacredness with which Native Americans invested in it – values which we today could benefit greatly from, as many of today’s environmental scientists now argue.

My responses:

1. First you need to learn, or to acknowledge, that most of America’s first colonial settlers from England (and later from Scotland and Ulster in the 1700s) were not Puritans. The Puritans settled mostly in the far Northeast, collectively called “New England” – today those are all the states northeast of New York. (New York is not part of it.) The Puritans left a profound cultural stamp upon New England, but NOT upon the other two thirds of the original 13 English-American colonies. The first English settlement in America was in Virginia in 1607, and THEY were ANTI-Puritan! The nickname for Virginia (named after Queen Elizabeth, the so-called “Virgin” Queen) is “Old Dominion”, because Virginia was a haven for Royalists/Cavaliers during the English Civil War. The same is true of North and South Carolina (both founded in 1661), both Royalist, mostly Anglican and ANTI-Puritan settlers!

Dis Course and Dat Course

Discourse

Our friend Mark Anthony Jones has invited us to peruse his new site, “China Discourse”, and to share our first impressions. Here are mine, while Catherine will chime in later:

So far I’ve only read the introductory page, and my first question is, Mark, why do you constantly use the postmodern jargon term “discourse” instead of its simpler, old fashioned synonym, “essay”? And what is the necessity, if any, to call your essays “texts”?

I mean, your overemployment (without paying extra wages for overtime!) of the word “discourse” reminds me of the theme song from the delightfully lowbrow 1960s American tv sitcom, “Mister Ed.” Here is a video of the opening song, and here are the lyrics:

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.

Go right to the source and ask the horse
He’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse.
He’s always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed.

People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one’ll talk ’til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?

Well listen to this:
I am Mister Ed!

So let’s spin those lyrics around, from me to you, MAJ:

Discourse is discourse, of course, of course,
But no one can talk through discourse, of course,
That is, of course, unless discourse
Becomes dissed by MAJ.
Stop saying “discourse”, because DIS course
Of yours is a habit I don’t endorse;
Postmodern jargon is a farce,
PLEASE JUST TALK, MAJ!

Postmodern post disappears!

Yesterday Catherine and I posted a very postmodern post here.

For the sake of postmodern thoroughness, we have decided to make it disappear.   We have however saved a copy on our hard drives and will be happy to give one to MAJ in the future.