The other "Canon"

[JBI]

- Not against the use of force does not mean being militant. So does anyone in the world now a pacifist like Mozi? On a relative scale, my point is that at least the ideals as written in the classical Chinese texts are list militant / chauvinistic than those in the classical western texts.
- So what does the modern western world do in terms of breaking down hereditary rights? Did they just hand off land and money? No, they try to get their public to be educated. Oh, that was just what Confucius did in a broad way. If your father lives in inner-city slump, your chance to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur? Well, I guess you are out of luck too. The real world has not been just - neither Confucius, Marx, Mao, founding fathers of US, whoever have been able to fix. So what is the point?
- Ideology works as a mask - clearly a great problem. Here I would simply say that it does not just happen to China, or Communism.

One would think the true great thing of countries I do not like like the United States is the people's commitment to an ideal where people can become the king of Silicon Valley coming from nothing. That's generally in this world what equality means, and what countries try to do by providing state education, healthcare, and other problems. It's no wonder that Norway, for instance, is regarded as one of the most desirable places to live. Many Chinese people too have sought the shores of other countries for that exact same reason, to go from being a nothing to someone regarded as a person, an equal, who can better themselves. Grow up? Isn't that what the world is striving for, to allow this kind of equality?

I told you my problem is based on the Chauvinism, it's a similar criticism I apply to American policy, but because the actual literary tradition is unquestioned, I find myself required to raise the questions. There is no need to be on such a defensive. IT's like this, China, and its government right now preach how good they are because of their 5000 year long tradition, so why not deconstruct that? They preach confucianism, so lets ask what it is exactly they are preaching. Jin Yong has an idea of China, lets look at it.

Seriously, these are all legitimate questions.

[lawpark]

Even Tian Long Ba Bu maybe he is more accepting of non "Han" people, but he still has a wall around China to the last story in Lu Deng Ji, where he has his protagonist and the novels tenure essentially laugh in the face of Russians, and by extension the world. He never really got beyond the idea of China, though he moved away from Han racism (a product really of the Boxer rebellion not really ancient Chinese thought) toward Nationalism in the Jingoist sense, we can trust those Dali people now, and those Liao people (who were absorbed pretty much completely into China) but not those Russians, or Englishmen, or Portuguese, or whatever.

- Jin Yong writing clearly has a Nationalistic element, but jingoist as in someone advocating extreme foreign policy? I would clearly disagree. The episode in Lu Deng Ji was really a entertaining episode reminding people that up till the 17th century, China was probably a much more civilized country than Russia - a fact in world history which I doubt most scholars now would disagree. If I recalled correctly, the novel's treatment of Kangxi's Jesuit advisors were not objectionable.

As for China wanting to rule the world - well, right now, for instance, Qin through Han Dynasties definitely, Qing dynasty, most likely, and Tang dynasty, maybe not rule but get tribute from. The general imperial system as set up by Han Wudi is that you give a present to people, and then they run and kiss your bum and kowtow to you. You pay people to kiss your a$$ essentially, which was the system of China up until the Brits decided they wouldn't bow - we are the best, we are the centre of the universe, there is only one son of Heaven and he is me, and you need to rub your face on the ground.

- Qin / Han might have wanted to rule the world, but Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi was clearly discredited in the tradition before the 20th century.
- Getting tribute in the form of first giving a huge present - was it that bad? Wasn't that also the US policy after WWII to support Germany / Western Europe (Marshall Plan) and the support to rebuild Japan? I would argue this form is better than the Roman peace, which require others to become subjects first.

Yes, but in practice? How many got rich? How many wrote the exams for the sake of getting rich? How many fictionalized for power and wealth - aristocrats are one thing, but the Song dynasty saw the power of selfish games - that's where Jin Yong's most famous novel is born from - the fact that Chinese people, including scholarly class people, generals, and emperors, are more concerned with their own decadence and careers than the state of affairs. As for rich never being glorified, well, how many idioms do you know that involve with getting rich? What do people put on their doors every new year? What is Jin Pingmei about? What is the Imperial exam about, and what is blood about? The country developed monetary system quite quickly, do you mean to tell me nobody cared about getting rich? The merchant class of people in Chinese culture are the most ridiculed and loathed, that gestures to a sense of immorality and ruthlessness on their part - the modern equivalent would be landlords, and seeing as how in almost every major Chinese city there is a property bubble, I would think the issue is hardly over.

- People wanting to become rich is one thing (can any system of thought / ideology stop that?); glorifying it in the tradition is another. There was no glorifying of entrepreneurs / industrialists who made it big - until really just 20th cenutry.

They fail, and that is the lesson of the book, 碧血剑 would be a good example - the hero ultimately realizes his country is destroyed, and goes into exile - exile is the ending for almost all his major books, and it is almost always self-imposed. The heroes almost always fail at the end of the book, except in reaching maturity - his books are set in episodes of crisis in Chinese history, and the heroes go on the Good Chinese guys side, and retire when the Good Chinese Guys lose - Mongols, Manchus, Jurchens, even Western people in some cases - the whole idea of the genre of Wuxia fiction is about the Chinese paranoia with the Western enemy - the big white guy who comes to fight the kung fu master in all the movies - big white imperialism coming to destroy merry old China, or what they've disillusioned themselves is Merry old China anyway.

- The lesson about retiring is that pockets of conscience might not win against the tide of history, but does not mean that conscience would be completely lost or bad deeds eventually forgotten.

To compare them, I think Cao is better at painting the more nuanced concept of traditional Chinese culture - he is far more ironic, and post modern in that youcan look in there, even in the introduction, and find a sort of duality in everything, and a parallelism in everything - for instance, the funeral at the beginning and the funeral at the end, or the contrast between richness and poorness, women and men, there are contradictions which makes it a more rich novel rather than an amateurs work - that's why it's prized, since you can never really hold still with anything there, as it turns and it second guesses itself, and that it lacks an ending.

- Cao is of course good - all your points are good. But my original point is against you saying Jin Yong is sexist, which does not differentiate Cao from Jin - in fact in Jin Yong's world, because it is Wuxia (imaginary - no one takes them seriously as reflecting true historical settings btw), he has more leeway to give more prominent roles to female characters than Red Chamber (which is a novel set in a historical setting).

Ok, lets discuss here the serialized editions - lets just say for arguments sake that he is best known not for the serial, but for the reprint in second edition.

Now, to take the first half - his career parallels Mao's Red China essentially. They share the same view. In terms of outward politics, according to a paper I read on the subject, Ming Pao refused to align itself with any viewpoint until really the cultural revolution, where they of course opted against Mao.

Now, to the next point, what is the China lost, and what does it mean to write in exile? Well, the first point, as an exiled author, he is overwhelmed with nostalgia, that is a given. Secondly, as someone living under British Hong Kong, I would argue he essentializes himself as Chinese, and tries to stamp a notion of universal Chinese identity - his forward to his last novel that he penned later about Wei xiaobao would agree with this. But who is he writing for? Well, namely Chinese people, and by extension, Chinese people in exile (be they in Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Canada, or Wherever). Seeing himself in exile, he glorifies a Chinese past created out of nostalgia and identity crisis, as well as a slight rejection of modernization (as you insist, comparison, I would bring Soseki's Kokoro into this).

As to your last point about supporting, he remained neutral until the outbreak of the cultural revolution, and even then reported obliquely, besides which, he controlled a nice chunk of the news.

True, but he rewrote them for a mass audience (China). Now we must talk about the second edition - the rewrite, the reconfiguration - he was not silent for the years afterward, there is even a third edition, he changed the novels as clearly to support the regime change - he could get his stuff in, so he polished it, and increased details, like adding a Brunei Chinese exile's return to war torn China at the beginning of 碧血剑. Or by making characters more nuanced and less cut and dry.

- Here I think to support your points the burden of proof is in establishing that in the second edition the novels were modified significantly to cater to support the Deng regime.

No, I think the opposite, I think Deng's views are the same as the views held by such rulers as H. H. Kung, and quite close to those of Chang Kai-shek, or even holding closely with the Manchu court. He basically supported pure capitalism, but with a slow transition, and intense nepotism and corruption. He basically embodied all that Mao warned the party against before calling on the cultural revolution, and ironically, after the revolution failed, that's what happened.

- Agreed with you mostly here. But in this case, to say Jin Yong wrote to "support" the "current regime" (of Deng's), the burden of proof is in pointing out the significant changes in the second edition that does this; because clearly the first serialized edition was against the then "current regime" (of Mao's).

It is obsessed with it - it is obsessed with leaving historical details out, like how can a woman kick when her feet would have been bound, or how would someone like that have learned to read - these details are called history, a nuanced view would have made the fiction a lot more tolerable. And he never transcended nationalism, he very much encouraged it - he was the King nationalist of new China, meaning, you may be the few % of the population who isn't Han, but you are still within our borders which means you can grow crops for us. The same Han China that is engaged in cultural wars within its own borders but reaffirms them as part of the tradition, after all, Jin Yong's novels reaffirm them, and so does our history (a vague occupation only in name of most of Xinjiang during the Tang dynasty, and then a further vague annexation during the Qing, for instance) or a religious tradition sort of linked to Tibet, or a Buddhist tradition that kind of mirrors the tradition of Dali (who are part of China in most of his novels and he considers Chinese), or a culture that historically loved to absorb by genetics or the sword, causing things like the old enemy Jurchens, or the old enemy Mongols, or the old enemy Liao to not really be conflicting with his Nationalist agenda.

- Wuxia is imaginary kungfu novel - the heroes don't need to earn money. And no one believe that you can point a figure and kill the others like with a gun. C'mon. It is like criticizing a Monty Python movie that it is not really medieval enough as people did not pretend to have horses by making similar noises with coconut shells in the middle Ages.

I think Red Chamber is not a novel about China, but a novel about a household and an idea - nationalist ideas hide behind Chinese novels in the 20th century, but at that point I see nothing distinguishing it as "Chinese." As such, it has a cultural criticism, but it has no discussion really of nation, since nation is not a concept local to the time it was written (the concept really gets its shape after the first opium war, but solidifies with Han Chauvinism during the Boxer rebellion).

- Clearly Red Chamber cannot be nationalistic because the concept hasn't been developed in Europe, or if it has, it hasn't spreaded to China yet.
- But to count out anyone as a great author because he is nationalistic? That would disquality many 18th / 19th century Western and 20th century non-Western authors.

In essence, the Chinese government set 4 merchants as a council to deal with foreigners, holding a monopoly. Likewise, they cheated, and opium increased in demand. Europeans were at that period mostly eating opium rather than smoking it, but yes there was a domestic market. It's just the Chinese could not get enough of it, and became addicted - I would like to think that the emperor would have had to go through withdrawal if not for the English keeping him in good supply. The Chinese themselves were producing opium locally during that time period, but they couldn't grow enough to support themselves. As for not letting things in, well, they shut themselves off from the world, and the rest of the world said no - as far as history goes, China had ego problems and shut themselves off, so the rest of the world barged in half invited - there were enough people buying the opium, we all know - the market wanted their drugs, it wasn't that they just wanted to sell them - you try putting 30% of the male population of a country through withdrawal.

- Emporer Dao Guang clearly looked addicted in his portrait.
- US has drug demand, does it mean US government should just let it go in? Your argument hardly makes common sense.
- Let just assume China since Ming after Zheng He has shutted itself off (which really wouldn't be true because its silver base came from trade), and it were all reasonably well (with big ups and down, and at least on the surface) till end of 18th century. Then some Westerners come in with guns, trying to sell opium and claim that Chinese has a ego problem of not opening the door, wouldn't it actually make sense for people in China to think that the problems do start with the Westerners? Similarly, Romans did think the "barbarians" at gate were the problems. It is hard to argue that it wasn't.

As for the war itself, the cost was something I believe like 500pounds of silver as a tribute to England for the first one, in compensation for the drugs dumped into the ocean in protest. Nothing much for China to handle. What really off set the population was the local markets undergoing trouble because of a failed feudalism, and, the local bourgeois looking for foreign ideas. England was as much welcomed as anything, but the Qing court could not adapt to a modern world, likewise, the rich folks in China would not let their populations adapt, and the squeeze on money tightened, leading to almost a necessity for immigration, be it legitimate or slavery. The Americans may have Shanghaied people to work on their railroad, but back home they would most likely have starved to death. The traditional feudalism long stopped being supportable, throw in a lack of mechanical advancement and you have a Malthusian situation.

It stopped being a sustainable situation because the "modern" world was being created, staring in the West - further supporting the view that the problem for China indeed started from the West. China was more established, of large scale and took longer to adapt. It have not adapted well - but it also didn't have the free continent and slave labor at its disposal in dealing with the transition.

As for the presence of the West, well it is exaggerated on all things but the opium. They were barely there, and had rather minimal influence - what hit China were plagues of rebellion and overpopulation, and they spiraled and their court kept playing polo and claiming to be the Sons of Heaven and the best place on the planet while their upper class kept on cutting from the lower class - I've been to 刘文彩‘s house, I've seen it. Likewise, the Empress Cixi, whose clothing took over a year to stitch, was said to never have worn the same thing twice - there was decadence, and extravagance, and serfdom, not unlike today.

- Was it that different from the difference in wealth between the British Royalty in UK vs. the Indian farmers at the turn of the 19th/20th century? Or between the Rockerfellers vs. the railroad workers at that time in US?

Not really, just read something like Mao Dun's Ziye, for instance. It's like this, there is not enough farm land, the taxes on farms are too high, and people are not really able to do anything but borrow - eventually, their standard of living deteriorates, meanwhile they get no advances. It's an economic diagram - there was clearly a peasant class, which exists today. The population is still more or less enslaved, only now it's harder to enforce (a Hukou is pretty much a ticket of serfdom, especially with the farms now pretty much unowned by the ones who make it). Even wage labour took forever to develop properly.

- Well, many US households went broke, house prices went too high, taxes are also high, they were not able to buy their own home but to borrow, eventually they suffer. But this is NOT slavery.

Didn't agree, no they had a relapse, why give up? Why would a richer class ever give up their right? They didn't exactly have it bad in Hong Kong did they, especially when the mainland free'd up. The May Fourth movement is strange in that it failed completely - it was important, but in the end, there has been a huge reversal. As for not agreeing, he basically tried to take 阿Q and make a new one, his Wei Xiaobao, the cute, overly loyal, overly clever hero of his last novel - he tried to answer to Lu Xun. He wrestled with it clearly, since he was so freaking nostalgic, and patriotic, and heaven forbid this guy criticize. There is no nuance either, no irony, he wrote fiction as if it were written 200 years ago - no irony or metafictional level. It takes itself real seriously.

- My personal view - you are reading it too seriously. Wuxia clearly is a non-serious form of novel; and Lu Ding Ji made it even less serious as a Wuxia. And if anyone writing in the late 20th century needs to be post-modern (similar to in arts in the 20th century - if you made art this not as distorted as what the Europeans felt as a result of the two world wars - you really shouldn't be considered to be in the leading edge), then, no Jin Yong was not; but his was not nearly as linear as some other popular Wuxia.

True, but lets be honest, you saw what happened in 1989 when the tanks rolled in, the whole world did. China has forgotten it, since the benevolent ruler could never harm its population, and everything is equitable, but 16 year old kids roll down the window of their Benz and spit on the poor old vendors selling potatos for less than a dollar a day.

- If you talked to older people in Beijing - no one has forgotten about it. But why does that need to come into Jin Yong's novel discussion?

He wrote historical fiction. It's like writing an historical novel set in the Southern US during slavery times no racism, let alone slavery to talk of. IT cheapens the historical narrative, which is particularly dangerous given that the books are written with a semi-intention of inspiring nationalism and reaffirming a rich Chinese culture. You would think pointing out the bad things to get away from (things the May Fourth people were writing about) would be at least part of the agenda, but no, he cheats. We never had a sexist past, we are the most equal people in the world. Nothing happened here in 1989, or better yet, there is no inequality in China - yeah right people.

- Wuxia is probably more like Harry Potter; by no means historical fiction.
- Actually the novels are full of bad things about China - in fact, the world the heroes operated in are pretty bad.

I did end up spending my whole night responding. Time to call it off now.

[lawpark]

It's not the same as China making institutions called the Confucius institute with clear state sponsorship and control.

The similarity is both uses taxpayers' money.

[lawpark]

One would think the true great thing of countries I do not like like the United States is the people's commitment to an ideal where people can become the king of Silicon Valley coming from nothing. That's generally in this world what equality means, and what countries try to do by providing state education, healthcare, and other problems. It's no wonder that Norway, for instance, is regarded as one of the most desirable places to live. Many Chinese people too have sought the shores of other countries for that exact same reason, to go from being a nothing to someone regarded as a person, an equal, who can better themselves. Grow up? Isn't that what the world is striving for, to allow this kind of equality?

I told you my problem is based on the Chauvinism, it's a similar criticism I apply to American policy, but because the actual literary tradition is unquestioned, I find myself required to raise the questions. There is no need to be on such a defensive. IT's like this, China, and its government right now preach how good they are because of their 5000 year long tradition, so why not deconstruct that? They preach confucianism, so lets ask what it is exactly they are preaching. Jin Yong has an idea of China, lets look at it.

Seriously, these are all legitimate questions.

I agree yours are reasonable questions to ask - but if they were to be real, they need to be based on more than just a general dislike of the current Chinese regime, and more than a general dislike as a result of being too immersed in propaganda that exists in the Western world. My defensiveness comes from your claim that the Chinese tradition is not moral becaue the reality on the ground is bad. I would say "equality" as in everyone could become king of Silicon Valley is as much a myth, an ideological propaganda as much as the Chinese sort.

[JBI]

I agree yours are reasonable questions to ask - but if they were to be real, they need to be based on more than just a general dislike of the current Chinese regime, and more than a general dislike as a result of being too immersed in propaganda that exists in the Western world. My defensiveness comes from your claim that the Chinese tradition is not moral becaue the reality on the ground is bad. I would say "equality" as in everyone could become king of Silicon Valley is as much a myth, an ideological propaganda as much as the Chinese sort.

Why not connect world politics with world literature? if we are talking about a world tradition here, doesn't world esteem play a roll? After all, Japanese texts are so available in English translation for the exact same reason - namely the occupying forces payed money into "studying" the defeated.

[JBI]

The similarity is both uses taxpayers' money.

Yes, but the difference is this. Plato is not a state ideology, and academics do not agree on it. Confucius is not monolithic in interpretation, but the Chinese government funds a preaching of one set of views based on it for the purpose of spreading propaganda. Likewise, there is no freedom of media there, which means there is no accurate debate.

Hong Kong is different to an extent, but lets ignore there since in the grand scheme it's more confusing to look at Hong Kong in this picture.

[JBI]

As a reply to the seriousness, well, Jin Yong himself is obsessed with his seriousness. He even published in his Ming Pao a "classics of Wuxia" line up to try to get himself recognized as part of a tradition. As for the version, well, lets just deal with the second/third edition, as you said you have not read Ming Pao ever, which means you are getting him on a reprint anyway, we might as well look at the format is he most known by.


On that regard, what does he hold up most of all - firstly, heterosexual romantic love - the woman falls in love, and is married in the end to her husband, who generally by the end of the book is the most powerful living person or close to it, with the exception of Lu Deng Ji, where he just marries a series of women and never learns anything.

Themes of loyalty, of self-betterment, of questing, and of doing what is right dominate his work. That isn't bad in itself, except they always fail, or realize they are hypocrites, or march off into exile.


The problem with the Deng era is it comes after a time period that tried to break with feudalism, Jin Yong's novels attempt t glory that era - how does one go backward - well, it's easy, the whole system just lurched backward. The view of imperial China now is so warped we are stuck in a problem - the old feudalism is merely continued, and Jin Yong's novels do nothing to undercut it, as they never really support people's movements, or governmental change.

As for them being stupid novels, well I agree, but they are taken seriously, so lets move away from the serialized versions, which we know were sloppily written, and lets look at the published versions since they are what he tried to "preserve." He clearly took himself seriously, that is why it is fair to poke. He wrote historical fiction, he is using history, so let us look at what he screwed up with, and what he bent.

Even notions of romantic love are troubling to look at in classical Chinese thought - arguably the idea of romance is negative, whereas duty is more important, women of higher classes in much of when the books are taking place would not even be seen outside, and would probably see their husband right before he took her to the back room to hump (age 14 give or take).

Now, you have hero and heroine roaming this fictional world made up of fancy, then we can only hope to understand the construct as something out of an allegory or a game, it's troubling to read it seriously since it is so absurd. Likewise he cannot map out time, so the distance and time lapse in his novels are out of whack, which causes in a headache. Even the setting then feels strange as it is confused.

Now as for characters, I didn't say he was misogynist particularly, I just don't think he understands women at all. His characters are ridiculous, intentionally perhaps, but it doesn't work to his credit. In general, the female leads function as romantic sidekicks who are kicked into a nationalist drive by their others - with the exception of only a few novels, his texts all deal with nationalism, one of the protagonists of one of his novels is female, I have not read it, and it is not one of his most famous ones. In general, his books are about men going out into the world, finding a romantic sweet heart, and saving the country to an extent, before retiring in disgust, or removing themselves from the conflict.

Since nationalism and national identity are so central to his thought, then lets look there first, and apply that to his resurgence on the mainland, as the first to shake Deng's hand, and the first to welcome reunification. What does it mean for him to have this ingrained Chinese identity that is universal - a Chinese cultural "gene" if you will that transcends borders and makes people better. That is my question, what is he meaning by that. It gives a weird impression that Chinese people are all alike, but having been to all ends of the country, I can tell that is hardly true, much less applicable for those in different countries. What then does he mean? Where is he going with his idea?

[WymanChanning]

I heard Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays, I believe it is true. From the ancient time till this day, China is a place lack a sort of religion that every one could easily worship. They do have the Buddhism and Confucius, but they are more for upper class and well educated people and too fuzzy to be understood. What JBI said about the "Polygamy" means mistress, which is different from prostitution. The former is more evil than the later. It crushes family and cultivates corruption. I guess "Mistress" is quite a spectacle in China now. Whether in developed or developing contries, whether regarded as legal and illegal, it is certain that there are many cities in the world have prostitutions not only China, which is ok, especially when it is managed decently as a business.

[ralfyman]

Really? Where are the anthologies of 100 years ago? And the publishers decisions that left out several of canonical authors?

I'm not referring to works that will remain in what should be an ever-growing list or anthologies that should last. It's that works are excluded, and teachers are not the only ones doing that.

And really, lists from a famous author? Who Stephen King canonized? There is a work that he lists several horror influences, but where is all this importance? Well, Borges has a list, but if you read Borges, you already access the canon, so such listing as beginers guidance is meaningless.

Well, you already mentioned Borges, if not the claim that by reading Borges, one can "already access the canon." In which case, you implicitly gave a list. It's just it contains only one name: Borges.

You certainly does not expect that something that is lasting is determiend or helped by stuff that people forget in 3 years, do you?

That's not my point. My point is found in my previous message.

[JCamilo]

I'm not referring to works that will remain in what should be an ever-growing list or anthologies that should last. It's that works are excluded, and teachers are not the only ones doing that.

Teachers are quite influential, but the point is that such anthology are almost irrelevant. Either excluded or included. The anthologies respect first the rules of market, not of aesthetics.

Well, you already mentioned Borges, if not the claim that by reading Borges, one can "already access the canon." In which case, you implicitly gave a list. It's just it contains only one name: Borges.

And? I am not denying the lists. I am saying those guides are not so relavant, as they say almost nothing about anything. There is no real conection when you read a list that may put together Voltaire, Edward Gibbon, Goethe, Schiller, Diderot, William Beckford, Samuel Johnson and they do link enough to make a list.

That's not my point. My point is found in my previous message.

Your point is that such lists works as a travel guide. I point it not so great. The lists have no clue or path to which place you should turn. Even the most famous of them, Bloom canon, is impossible (and lazy, as he resume several authors with a complete works edition) and easily replaced by some classic section on a library. And he is not canonical at all, therefore his influence wont last as his classics. Right now, he is even missing something, as Harry Potter can be find in almost all libraries and the books you can borrow is a stronger influence than the books Bloom or any critic listed to make money with self-help (yes, because it is boil down to it) be a good reader list.

[lawpark]

Why not connect world politics with world literature? if we are talking about a world tradition here, doesn't world esteem play a roll? After all, Japanese texts are so available in English translation for the exact same reason - namely the occupying forces payed money into "studying" the defeated.

It is ok to connect world politics with world literature, but if you link "world esteeem" based on current Anglophone media ideology, ultimately you just get token recognition that the rest of the world exist (unimportantly), as in the most historical survey of old-school world history (like those by J.M. Roberts), or world philosophy, or world literature, or world art history, etc. If one consider that satisfactory, there is no need to really talk about further making world canon truly more worldwide.

Secondly, if we talk politics, let's apply the same type of criticism to all potentially canonical texts. Say, why didn't Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky criticize selfdom? Why is it ok that the Red Chamber is not against feet binding when it was happening right then, but not ok if Jin Yong wrote with a moderate nationalism right after de-colonization?

Third, ultimately, I believe Harold Bloom has a little bit of a point in that ultimately, the "school of resentment" (essentially studying the canon with just politics) can only go so far - and the problem with using world politics to screen world literature ends up just excluding the non-western texts from the view of most layman, and as such enforces continuity of a western canonical domination the texts in which are known to contain as much "bad politics" as those excluded. How is that constructive?

[Arrowni]

The aesthetics of world culture would be hard anyways, not just anyone can "get" chinese ancient music.

[cl154576]

Why not connect world politics with world literature?

Because what you say about China can be very offensive.

Where exactly did you stay there? China is too diverse to generalize the way you do in some of your comments.

Also, if you were to nitpick with every country in the world the way you do with China, what country would come out entirely clean?

[Alexander III]

Because what you say about China can be very offensive.

Where exactly did you stay there? China is too diverse to generalize the way you do in some of your comments.

Also, if you were to nitpick with every country in the world the way you do with China, what country would come out entirely clean?

He is not ragging (not a proper word, but cant think of la mote juste right now) at the fact that china has problems, the problem and I agree with JBI is that China is unwilling to look at itself in the mirror, while it scrutinizes everyone else in their mirrors. JBI is railing against the Hypocrisy. And in the most part I agree with him, from when I spent some time in China I saw a lot of what he seems to have seen as well. Of course China has plenty of good, but its determination to pretend that the bad doesn't exist and it never has, and how it has mind-washed generations into actually thinking that, is infuriating - especially for a westerner who has grown up with different notions of what society should be, and different notions of individual liberty and freedom.

However I will say I think the problem is not so much China as it is Communism. I mean yes China has a history of being a vainglorious nation and xenophobic - but so much of the hypocrisy which is infuriating with the present day China is a staple refuse of all communist regimes, which have held power in the world.

However I think the cristism of JBI against Jin Yong, to me seems unfair. Your criticism of him appears mostly politically infused. I mean Tolstoy in War and Peace completely warped history for a nationalistic agenda. He conveniently forgets to mention how the russian army was the most barbarous, raping and pillaging wherever it went, on a scale which most European armies found disgusting and would never dream of doing. Instead of the barbarous army led by ineffectual leaders who held power only due to nepotism - Tolstoy focuses on showing us the national bravery and Valor of the russian soldier which is much more noble and honorable than those Operational Germans, Vain French and Excitable Italians.

Also he describes Alexander as a beautiful angel and genius oppressed by the men around him, and Napoleon as a vile and base man. Historically this is all poppycock. Napoleon was a tactical Genius and had immense influence upon europe, while Alexander was an immature and ineffectual leader who wanted to play soldier, and was to weak willed to ever make decisive choices.

This is all historical manipulation for a nationalistic agenda, and also one of the greatest novels ever written.

[cl154576]

He is not ragging (not a proper word, but cant think of la mote juste right now) at the fact that china has problems, the problem and I agree with JBI is that China is unwilling to look at itself in the mirror, while it scrutinizes everyone else in their mirrors. JBI is railing against the Hypocrisy. And in the most part I agree with him, from when I spent some time in China I saw a lot of what he seems to have seen as well. Of course China has plenty of good, but its determination to pretend that the bad doesn't exist and it never has, and how it has mind-washed generations into actually thinking that, is infuriating - especially for a westerner who has grown up with different notions of what society should be, and different notions of individual liberty and freedom.

Most people in Chinese cities at least aren't as mind-washed as it might appear to outsiders. They realize that the government is lying to them, and sometimes they know the truth too, only they're not allowed to show it (for instance in the case of the recent train crashes). No adult I know in China is happy with the government but no one dares to complain either.

Also, as a passing note, most governments conceal some of their history, maybe just not as much.

I find the Chinese government infuriating, but I don't think it's fair to call the entire culture corrupt or immoral, or that "Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays" ... That's some people, and that's a stereotype. It's impossible to generalize like that with a whole nation.