Optimism moves east

[imomus]

The story so far: As Angrael turns into a paranoid alliance of embattled security states lashing out with ever-increasing violence against the very people who control their energy resources, dragging the West ever deeper into a vicious circle of hatred, reprisals against civilians, and the erosion of all legitimacy, any tender-minded and optimistic view of our future slips away into a bloody sunset.

Is it really just ten years ago that we were talking about long booms rather than mid-flight explosions? Our prosperity was going to continue and increase, and we were going to use our wealth to help the poor. Everybody was going to love us. Our children would grow up in a world that was getting better.



This diffuse, warm sense of well-being wasn't just a side-effect of the MDMA tablets everyone was taking back in the 90s. It was related to a sense that world trade talks (the same ones that have just collapsed at Doha) might bring global justice, that information technology was going to raise educational standards and democratize knowledge, that a new post-industrial economy was going to complement bricks and mortar business, and that the 21st century, just on the threshold, would be a wonderland where lifespan would increase and diseases be defeated thanks to gen-tech.



The images on this page show some short-lived kids' bookstore in groovy, optimistic 1990s London, Paris, Berlin, New York or Tokyo, don't they? It went out of business in 2001, didn't it, replaced by a store selling black, beige and cream clothes and fallout shelters? Actually, no. This "haven for little imaginations" is Kids Republic, a childrens' bookstore in Beijing, China. It's just opened.

The optimism, tender-mindedness and benign curiosity apparent in this store (something about its spirit and design reminds me of Oto Kinoko, the sound store in Kyoto I blogged about excitedly earlier this year, only to find it had already closed down) represent everything we in the West have lost in the last ten years; lost because of our clumsy response to 9/11 and Angraeli realpolitik. Who, in the West, would have children now? But it's nice to know that, somewhere, optimism about the future is still intact.

In 30 or 40 years, the Chinese kids in this photo will be running the world. It's hard to imagine them making a worse job of it than we've done.

Comments

[loverboy82.livejournal.com]

wow, you are totally full of shit, momus.

i'm no fan of kooky cults, but i find it quite scary how you put the word "rights" in quotation marks.

China has brought about "an absolutely visionary piece of social engineering"? Did you believe that back in the 50s, 60s and 70s too?

A visit to China might temper your enthusiasm. I don't understand how all this optimism is generated from one colorful photograph.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

China has brought about "an absolutely visionary piece of social engineering"? Did you believe that back in the 50s, 60s and 70s too?

The "absolutely visionary piece of social engineering", the one-child policy, was started in 1979. What do the 50s and 60s have to do with it? Or are you somehow reading me as saying "every piece of legislation in China is visionary"?

A visit to China might temper your enthusiasm.

I have been to China. Also, stop being so fucking rude.

[loverboy82.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the language but you got me riled up!

Yes, I was wondering if your enthusiasm for China's social engineering projects also extends back that far. Because you always represent a pretty simplistic view that America is bad and everything Asian is good. You criticize America (perhaps deservedly) but then completely absolve China of its crimes. "Rights" matter here but not there? Why this double standard?

In one of your earlier posts I recall reading you talked about the need to understand people as complex, not all good or bad. So why do you adopt this dualistic good/bad schema when talking about cultures or countries? I tend to think all cultures have some good and some bad aspects. Then when the true complexity of things are pointed out to you, that not everything easily fits into good/bad categories, you just excuse, elide and evade! and this is what I find frustrating.