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

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I also want to point to an interesting article (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_pesek&sid=aHG3GmK5ftp4) I read yesterday about how it's India and China, not the West, who are lifting Africa out of poverty.

[(Anonymous)]

Is this the same China where you're only allowed one child? Or the youngsters hot-bunk in Guangzhou to make the world's toys? Or they bump off criminals for their internal organs?

You rightly criticise the West for looking to *external* things as a means of bringing happiness and contentment, but I suggest it is wrong to look to another external thing - the 'East' - as an alternative.

There are extremes of sickness and health, bad and good, sadness and happiness, in all parts of the world. What we need to know is what makes healthy peaople healthy in a society that is as sick as ours (West). Then we can emulate them and turn our society around from the inside.

[(Anonymous)]

- Eamonn

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'd also like to say that it's worth following the Oto Kinoko link for the conversation about colours that develops. Because this entry is also very much about colour. Where did colour go in the West, and in Japan? That's one of my big questions, and I believe it's a political question. These photographs of Kids Republic were a sort of answer. The colours we used to see in the West and in Japan in the 90s -- and all the things they represent about worldview -- are alive and well and to be found in Beijing.

[me-vs-gutenberg.livejournal.com]

Who, in the West, would have children now?

Interesting question: In the case of Israel, I'd say anyone who's still alive on account of not being eradicated.

Also, did you find this on boingboing or Neatorama or The Cool Hunter, or did someone else give you a link? Not like it's mandatory for a blogger to cite his sources, but in the case of fast-travelling memes, it's interesting to see who each one's "content aggregator" of choice is.

[me-vs-gutenberg.livejournal.com]

It is also interesting that you're quick to condemn "Angrael" (a word that rings of certain anti-semitic stereotypes if you're sensitive to that kind of thing) for being "a paranoid alliance of embattled security states", and then say, 'But behold, hope lies in the east' and point to China, the world's greatest censor and violator of human rights? I know, this is probably one of those things that are about "texture, not text", but this has to be too far a stretch even for you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's from The Cool Hunter, via cityramica.

I am going to get this tattooed on my forehead: being against the current behaviour of Israel and its accomplices is not anti-semitic. In fact, the very people who are against this are the people who would have been against the Nazis. There is no racial monopoly on virtue -- or vice.

I'm afraid China has been outstripped in its role as the world's human rights pantomime villain. By ourselves.

[la-aquarius.livejournal.com]

If you're liberal-leaning and living in the "West", you'd better have children now!

There's some startling statistics about the tendency of progressive-minded Americans and Europeans to not have children. This is all fine and dandy, why overpopulate the world, etc. etc. But who is having all the kids in America and Europe?

The right-wing fundamentalists, that's who! The devout, conservative traditionalists who continue to believe in the doctrine, "Be fruitful and multiply!"

If we liberals don't have children and expose them in responsible ways to progressive values, we're going to be even more vastly outnumbered in the future (look at the American South)...

[ex-newironsh15.livejournal.com]

I've read that before, but I think it's an oversimplification to say that it's just the Dobson crowd having kids, when it's also poor-ish people, no-future materialists, the daytime TV watching set, etc. People facing an uncertain and increasingly lonely future, giving themselves both a cause and a distraction. I don't necessarily approve of this. What kind of people will the "gloom babies" grow up to be?

Countering one generalization with several others probably isn't the most enlightened thing but I'm going to be quiet now.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

So it's Angrael vs. Eurabia, right?

Right? (How come one is reductionist and the other isn't? Why can't they both be reductionist?)

Which lends itself to another question: why are the questionable elements of Israeli democracy cruel and sickening to you, but you can go on about the hope engendered by one of the most autocratic powers on Earth?

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about that. As far as I know, no part of "Angrael" currently routinely harvests dissidents for their organs, as China does. (A few months ago, I read an account by a doctor who had worked in a prison hospital processing Falun Gong prisoners. The prison, located in a remote part of China had prisoners arriving and not leaving; according to him, they were vivisected for their organs, and then cremated whilst still (barely) alive.) That's the sort of thing that doesn't happen in Gitmo or the Occupied Territories or wherever. And then there is the mass displacement of a million people from the Three Gorges, the cultural assimilation of Tibet, and so on.

And then there is the routine censorship and repression of dissent in China, which is orders of magnitude more severe than anything in the west. For example, I doubt that Click Opera would be tolerated by the Chinese authorities for very long there in its present form.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Actually, the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom combined have executed perhaps a tenth of the individuals the PRC executes in a year. And very few of our executions are for political dissidents.

Face it, Nick, we're willing to accept you being Pollyannaish about lots of things, but not China.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

And China's Palestine is where? China's Iraq? China's Afghanistan?

As for "China's Africa", did you read the article I linked to in the first comment, that said that there's more chance China and India will save Africa than that the West will?

[la-aquarius.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm naive or old-fashioned, but I still believe in having children, for a number of reasons, and having a distraction and a cause aren't among them.

I still believe in the continuity of life (one does not have to be religious to believe in this, although I am); I still believe in making it possible for another human being to experience all this, which I feel, despite all this "gloom", is ultimately worthwhile.

And I still want to be a provider at some point, and not just a parasite (someone raised me, after all). Not just in terms of ideas and material, but in straightforward, physical ways: providing shelter, clothes, comfort from bad dreams, etc.

None of this, of course, excludes adoption, which I've always thought is a good and positive thing (even before Brangelina made it trendy!).

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

China's Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all within its own borders. Are you simply ignoring Tibet, Xinjiang, and the millions of intellectuals like you being imprisoned and, well, vivisected, or have you conveniently forgotten?

As for China's Africa, it's in the Sudan, where it supplies money to the government that funds the militias perpetuating the Darfur genocide in exchange for oil.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I consider the Chinese one-child policy an absolutely visionary piece of social engineering, on a par with Kennedy declaring that within ten years a man would walk on the moon, or California stating that it wants to achieve zero emissions. There's also a very promising determination on the part of the PRC government to take firm steps on ecological issues, if we're to believe environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.

The "rights" of Falun Gong to start some cranky new religion pale into insignificance beside the fact that a major world power is coming into being that, so far, doesn't seem to need a global empire or endless wars to sustain itself. That's what I call "hope". What I call fear is the idea that a US declining into "fascism lite" will feel the need to challenge China at some point.

Dark Times, But . . .

[(Anonymous)]

I know it is dark times and difficult to have hope, but I have a hard time understanding:
1. Deploying broad categories (West, East, Angraeli) vs. specific behaviors (killing civilians, detaining dissidents, invading a soverign nation, blowing up planes, etc.) The categories just don't seem productive and are more than cynical given the diverse ideas, actions, etc. that they are meant to swallow up.

2. Looking to a child's bookstore as an illustration of burgeoning hope. It's cute, but alas so are a lot of children's culture.

3. Looking to China. While no country has clean hands, I find it difficult to pin my hope on what are essentially market reforms. Regardless of your position on markets impacting any country's behavior toward their citizens, there has been very little that I have read at this point that seems hopeful in China.

-Joshua

Now your just being provocative . . .

[(Anonymous)]

Now your just being provocative:
-comparing social engineering to engineering projects
-finding Falun Gong (and perhaps China's handling of it?)insignificant, while US is the only one with blood on their hands.

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

It seems that in the future, all metropolitan centres will have one area designated as Soho, where this shop is located in Beijing. It was designed by Keiichiro Sako (http://framemag.com/article.php?id=397&mag_id=51&current=1) and the shop itself is owned by Poplar, which I think is a Japanese publisher. Poplar's Chinese website (http://www.poplar.com.cn/) might reveal more if you can navigate it.

According to that link "A mere 60 per cent of the clientele at Kid's Republic is Chinese, with foreign residents making up the remainder."

An expat Japanese mother visits here (http://keiya.cocolog-nifty.com/beijingbluesky/2006/04/post_24be.html)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think anybody is more "gloomy" than the liberals right now. Take today's post, for instance.

I think most liberals would qualify as "no-future materialists." When religion died off after the enlightenment, those liberals had a void of purpose in their lives. They quickly found it by adopting revolutionary doctrines. They said, in effect, if there's no afterlife, we need to hurry up and create heaven on earth. Unfortunately, all the revolutionary doctrines turned out to be discredited in the 20th century.

What are God-less people left with to hope for? There is still some hope that electing Democrats to office will save the world, as if they weren't fallible people just like the rest, but mostly all we have left is the pursuit of wealth and fame. This is reflected in the pro-capitalist nihilism of Vice Magazine and the indie mindset in general, as well as the preponderance of reality shows making stars out of average everyday idiots. Now, I'm more or less a "non-believer," or a deist, so this is not a criticism, but a legitimate question for all of us to consider. Why are we having children when life is meaningless?

It's just interesting to me that the same group of people who were so eager to get rid of religion -- which gave people a non-material purpose to life, a destination, a light at the end of the tunnel -- are now wondering why most people are mindless capitalists now.

-henryperri

[whip-lash.livejournal.com]

In 30 or 40 years, the Chinese kids in this photo will be running the world.

Or tanks will be running over them. Or they'll be fighting the kind of aggressive war that usually results from having an artificial surplus of young males.

Call me back when Tibet is free and the Great Firewall of China is down. I understand you dislike the West and that's fine, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of your writing in the slightest. But let's not be absurd and hold up China, of all places, as the great hope for a happy future.

[whip-lash.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, funny you post this on the same day another member of my LJ Friends list posts this (http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2006/08/swaddling_cloth.html#003189):

As a blogosphere inhabitant you learn things. One that has come as a surprise to me is that many people don't understand how kiddie-centric America has become. To me, this is one of the central givens of contempo American life. It seems so blazingly evident to me that I tend to assert it as established fact, and am amazed to encounter people who dispute it.

What's my proof? Not a lot, I'm afraid. Mere impressions, really. I'm hardly a world traveler -- I've lived overseas for a total of a little more than a year, and I haven't visited any more foreign countries than most standard-issue, middle-class Americans. Nonetheless, what has jumped out at me most during my times abroad is the way that other cultures don't organize themselves around children to the same extent that the U.S. does.

I spent a school year in Rennes, Brittany in the early 1970s. Here are a few examples of how their attitudes towards kids differed from ours.

* They never took vacations for the kids -- to visit landmarks for the sake of the kids' educations, or just because the kids were clamoring to go someplace. Theme parks were nonexistent, and the idea of devoting a few weeks of one's treasured time-off to a kiddie destination would have been found laughable. Vacations were to be spent where the parents could enjoy their well-earned leisure.

* Days and weeks weren't organized around the kiddies' obligations and plans: playdates, music lessons, soccer games, SAT-coaching appointments, etc. Life was organized around the parents' rhythms.

* Grownups didn't choose neighborhoods to live in strictly for the sake of the kids. They might (or might not) move someplace because they knew the schools there to be better. But that was rare. And, in any case, parents certainly wouldn't sacrifice anything in the way of their own dignity and pleasure for the sake of, say, a big backyard.

I saw two assumptions being lived-out in France: One was that adult life has worth in its own right. The other was that the kids would make do.

A self-centered American teen during this year abroad, I was often most struck by the way the French viewed adolescence. The teen years weren't viewed as Americans often see them -- as a sexy high and a big deal, however agony-riddled and pimple-filled. Adolescence was viewed instead as a fairly unfortunate 3-5 year stretch during which youngsters had to be cut a little more slack than usual. And then it was over. Come 20 or 21, you were expected to leave the silliness and the acting-out behind. Incidentally, one reason why French pop culture is so laughable compared to American pop culture is that the French simply don't take adolescence as seriously as we do. So their pop culture has nothing like the ringing conviction to it that ours sometimes does.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of "absolutely visionary" social policies in China that have created generations of poorly socialized individuals. The one-child policy is no different. Few of these children, effectively spoiled and not nearly as willing to work, are willing to pick up the slack for the rapidly greying society China has become as a result of this policy.

Beyond that, I can't believe you think that freedom of religion is some kind of "special right", to be given the sort of scare quotes that rightist thugs give the rights of any minority group they disapprove of. Are you really willing to go this far beyond the pale because someone in Beijing made a kids' bookstore with cubbyholes that you think are cute?

Re: Dark Times, But . . .

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I come from a school of thinking that looks at actions and events from the perspective of the people participating. (It's called verstehen, and you could describe it as "seeing with".) Now, the interpretation of terrorists -- the people who planned to blow up a dozen planes this week, if we're to believe Scotland Yard -- is that they're involved in a struggle that's everything to do with race, religion and culture. And yet UK government figures like John Reid try at every opportunity to delink terrorism from a specific political struggle. He seems to forget Tony Blair's words "We must be tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime." To do that, you have to see what causes the crime of terrorism from the participant's point of view. Branding terrorists "evil" is as big a cop-out as saying the situation is one of endless nuanced complexity, impossible to summarize. Only when you've linked things analytically can you start to work on ways to de-link them on the ground. Being "tough on the causes of crime", in this case, would involve solving the abuse of the Palestinians, for a start.

As for seeing children's culture and textural signals as something to base hope on, that's part of an ongoing exercise in my thinking -- an attempt to find cultural meanings in things like the use of colour, how people treat children, and so on. Call it "aesthetic paranoia". It may well make no sense to anybody else.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Oh, and don't get me started on the PRC's alleged ecological interests. Making a nature preserve or two for pandas really can't hold a candle to the massively spoiled industrial backwaters of coastal Chinese sweatshop regions.