We are aware of several posthumous praises of him posted in some parts of the Anglophone China-blogosphere.    But Catherine and I (and our fictional friend Ivan) would prefer to say, as  Scott Fitzgerald wrote near the end of “The Great Gatsby”, “Let us speak well of a man while he is alive.”

Mark Anthony Jones can speak for himself, with his peculiar charm, in this discourse he generously shared with us.

Catherine and I have faith that Mark is presently enjoying a discourse with God, Who will certainly enjoy Mark’s stories.

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 BBC Trust committee ruled that Sautman, who has published books on the subject of Tibet under Chinese rule and has contributed to other news outlets such as al-Jazeera and Voice of America, was a credible choice of interviewee.

Sautman’s use to counter the Tibetan viewpoint was also reasonable, given that the Chinese authorities rarely agree to interviews.

However, the committee said the programme breached the rules on impartiality by not making it clear that Sautman was associated with a particular viewpoint rather than giving an impartial view as an academic.

“Professor Sautman had been introduced only by his name and university, not by his affiliation to any particular viewpoint,” the ESC ruled. “The audience would not have been aware, for at least the first part of the interview, that he held any more than an observant academic’s opinions on the subject.”

The fact that Sautman had strong views only became clear when the interviewer asked if he had any sympathy with the Tibetan independence movement and he replied that he had none.

[ … ]

Before I proceed, I’d like to point out that I have no issue with Professor Sautman’s scholarship.  I very much doubt it is fair to classify his viewpoints as entirely “pro-China”.  Those who are familiar with Sautman’s earlier research will know that he has also been very critical of the ways in which the Chinese government aids and abets the spread of racial nationalism and Han chauvinism in China.  When it comes to the 3.14 incident in Lhasa and the Dalai Lama though, Sautman’s position is very much in step with those of the CCP official line.  Even so, it will not deter me from consulting his research or quoting him in my own writings.  The only thing is: unlike MAJ, I will not claim that I am quoting from some independent and/or impartial authority.  Nor would I use such description as “verifiable empirical evidence”.

Anyone who has formal training in conducting field research will know that the term “objective empirical research” is self-contradictory.  Empirical data are usually collected based on observation.  The researcher/observer plays a central role in this type of research.  Data collected vary greatly, depending on: how the researchers plan their research, whom they choose (or exclude) as participants, and what questions are asked.  In Social Sciences research in particularly, an observer’s academic vigour, that derives from his/her personal belief, political affiliation and bias, is known to be an important factor affecting the impartiality of his/her findings.  So it is utterly legitimate for me to ask questions about the ideological affiliation of these “empirical” researchers, and to determine the validity of their argument based on such investigation.

For this reason, I concur with the BBC Trust’s ruling.  What is objectionable is not Sautman’s scholarship or his political affiliation.  It is the way in which the producer of Today Show has failed to notify viewers of Sautman’s pro-Chinese government viewpoint on the Tibetan issues discussed in the program.  Similarly, I also find MAJ very dishonest when he attempts to disguise biased viewpoints by justifying them as the outcome of “independent research”. 

There is no doubt that Amy Mountcastle and Jamyang Norbu are biased.  But at least they do not pretend to be objective or try to disguise themselves as “independent researchers” who are neutral to the free Tibet movement.  And I see no reason why I should not endorse their argument on merit basis.

Before I end this post, I’d like to draw MAJ’s attention once again to the US-China People’s Friendship Association.  If you still think that it is “bollocks” to link this organisation to CCP’s United Front Department, then I suggest you should check out a couple of its founding members.  Do names such as Clark Kissinger, Carl Davidson and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) ring a bell for anyone?

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”.

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:

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!

So, most of America’s “Old South” was settled by ANTI-Puritans. Thus, the American Civil War was, in many ways, a reprise of the English Civil War, fought between heirs of the Puritans (literally “the Yankees”) and the Cavaliers (the South).

But then we have the colonies in between. These were New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. They’re more complex. They weren’t settled so much by Cavaliers, but none of them were Puritan.

Let’s take them from North to South. New York was not settled by English, but by the Dutch. It used to be called “New Amsterdam” until England took it from Holland (and the local Dutch settlers preferred English rule!) Thus, the founding culture of New York was Dutch, VERY commercial, and yes Calvinist but NOT Puritan. And as New York was (and remains) America’s commercial centre, it is perhaps the most –perhaps the ONLY – truly “Enlightenment” culture in America. NOT New England –because (see below) the Puritans were ANTI-Enlightenment!

New Jersey was a marginal, sparsely settled colony/state until relatively recently. It was never Puritan. It made little impact upon American culture, except as a virtual “suburb” of other settlements of New York and Pennsylvania. So let’s look at Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania was founded by a QUAKER named William Penn. He barely escaped being arrested on the high seas by the Governor of Puritan Massachusetts – because the Puritans called the Quakers “heretics”. The Governor of Massachusetts wanted to sell Penn and his Quaker settlers into slavery in Barbados. And there was very little “Enlightenment” about Penn; he was the son of a Cavalier, and a romantic who revered nature, and he made the one and only HONEST, peaceful deal with the local Indians, in all American history. In sum, the Quaker influence upon Pennsylvania (and adjacent Delware) made it a profoundly anti-Puritan AND considerably anti-Enlightenment colony.

And then Maryland was founded as a haven for English Catholics; it was named after the Catholic Saint Mary. Not Puritan at all, to say the least.

So, Mark, the only American colonies which were founded on anything like “Enlightenment” principles were New York and, to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania – Pennsylvania because of the great intellectual and religious tolerance of Quakers. But even then, it’s a bit anachronistic to say they were founded by believers in “the Enlightenment”, because the Enlightenment began long after those colonies were founded. But those two colonies, New York and Pennsylvania, were the most hospitable to the Enlightenment – as New England and the South were not.

2. Your mention of America’s first Puritan settlers (Massachusetts, 1620) is in context of reference to the Enlightenment. But the Puritan settlers of New England had little or nothing to do with the Enlightenment. Remember the Salem Witch Trials of 1692? The people of New England were still hanging “witches” in 1692.The English-American Puritans, AND the Cavaliers of the Old South, were (and in the South, many still are) holdovers from the Middle Ages. Most people in the world (including most Americans) do not understand that America’s English settlement began at the very end (the end cusp) of the Middle Ages. The 1600s remained very medieval in many ways – remember the trial of Galileo. Most of America’s first settlers thought in very medieval ways – as most Americans still do today (even though they don’t realize it!)

Now, yes, the LEADERS of America’s “revolution” (as Americans call it, otherwise called the War of Independence) WERE informed by the Enlightenment, and so was America’s Constitution (1787). But that was over 150 years after the English settlement of America began at the end of the Middle Ages. Consequently, America is a hybrid of superficially Enlightenment Age FORMS of politics, superficially overlaying a culture which remains, in many ways, a fossil of the Middle Ages.

And to restate my point simply: America’s first English settlers were mostly antipathetic – and later their heirs were, and remain, hostile – to the Enlightenment, even though their Constitution is informed by the Enlightenment.

And one more detail, about your assumption that the Native Americans revered nature in ways the English settlers did not: That’s VERY contestable. (And before I go on, please remember that Catherine and I are both passionate environmentalists.) The stupid eco-fantasy movie, “Dances With Wolves” (1990) is bullshit. When the Indians of the Great Plains hunted buffalo, they were as ecologically destructive as Dick Cheney, insofar as their technology enabled them to be. They would drive a whole herd of buffalo over a cliff, then take one or two buffalo for food, and leave the rest to rot. And most of the “Native American” civilizations which perished BEFORE any Whites arrived, perished because they destroyed their own environments.

Yes, many American Indians (which they prefer to be called, by the way, as “Native American” literally includes native Whites and Blacks etc!) did revere nature. Many did, and many others didn’t. The same goes for the English settlers and their descendants – because Human Nature really is universal, don’t you agree?

But that’s not my main point. My main point is that the Enlightenment is only one small aspect of America, a very superficial one which informs its Constitution considerably, but informs its culture very little.

And one more thing: As Marx was a representative PAR EXCELLENCE of the Enlightenment, isn’t the Enlightenment already part and parcel of China’s political and cultural condition, both for good and ill? And hasn’t the Enlightenment already done a lot of harm to China? I vastly prefer the Romantic Age over the Enlightenment, and I think China would be better off finding its own path through its own kind of “romantic counterrevolution” against the Enlightenment, instead of trying even harder to emulate Western Enlightenment ideas which have done so much harm to the West, and to China.

Let China find its own path, not just “out of” the mess of China’s troubled past, but also TOWARD a renewal of China’s ancient heritage, China’s romance, China’s heart. Because, you know (and I forget who said this – maybe it was Kierkegaard?), “the heart has reasons which Reason cannot tell.”

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!

So now to your introductory essay. You wrote:

Colin Mackerras, in his book, Western Images of China, believes that the dominant images the West has had of China, both past and present, ‘accord with, rather than oppose, the interests of the main Western authorities or governments of the day.’

Mark, could you please clarify what part of the West’s “past” you (and Mackerras) are talking about? Do you mean as far back as Ancient Rome, when old fashioned Roman patricians were complaining about Roman women’s excessive love of imported Chinese silk? Or the so-called “Dark Ages” (which weren’t so dark) when Chinese artifacts were common part and parcel of the plunder of the Vikings, via the Vikings’ invasions of, and trade with, Byzantium and its environs? If so, then just what constituted “the West” (or “Christendom”) back then, and how much did they know or think about China at all? Or if you mean more specifically the Modern Age West (post circa 1500), then that would raise another series of problematic questions, especially in light of the collapse of unified religious authority post 1500 and the consequent intellectual and political turmoil of “the West” which has remained essentially DISunited to this day.

And you wrote:

Mackerras’s study shows quite convincingly that there has been a ‘regime of truth’ concerning China, which has raised ‘the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true’ about this increasingly important and emerging new player in the global economy.

Again, I call into question just WHOSE “regime of truth” this would be. Simply calling it “Western” just won’t do.

And you wrote:

It is not my purpose here to dismiss or to trivialise any of China’s ongoing human rights problems, though as I will attempt to demonstrate here on the pages of this site, China’s human rights situation is not only improving, but is already in many ways quite impressive given the country’s current level of economic development, especially when collective, or macro-level human rights, are factored into the equation.

Please explain the reasons, either deductive and/or inductive, for your premise that China’s – or any country’s – “level of economic development” (whatever that means!) must or should be assumed to condition any “human rights situation” (which, as you and I agree, is yet another essentially contestable concept.) I know that’s what Marx would say – and I agree with Marx about a lot of things – but you’ll have to do better than tacitly positing Marxian historical materialism as your premise, unless you specify that that is your premise.

]]> http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/dis-course-and-dat-course/feed/ 32 Ned Kelly http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/ivan-comes-back-to-talk-about-mark-anthony-jones-maj/ http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/ivan-comes-back-to-talk-about-mark-anthony-jones-maj/#comments Sat, 17 May 2008 17:55:02 +0000 Ned Kelly http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/?p=204 ]]> 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.