The Asianist

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Well, that title is a mouthful. Oh, where to begin?

"Spengler" posits a fascinating (thanks Spock) and thoughtful comparative analysis of humor in Judeo-Christianity and the West as opposed to in Islamic societies and notes the necessity of "submission" rather than "dialogue" for Islamic societies to function stably (h/t Charles Ganske; read the whole thing, it's worth the time).

His citations and graphs of correlations between secularism, literacy and population growth rate are interesting -- he argues that as literacy rises, religious ferver decines, secularism rises and the population growth declines.

Of course, like all arguments involving correlations, they do not explain the possible hidden causal factors that could change the picture dramatically with even a slightly different configuration of variables.

More interesting are some of his associated observations:

Muslims rage at affronts to their faith because the modern world puts their faith at risk, precisely as modern Islamists contend. [3] That is not a Muslim problem as such, for all faith is challenged as traditional society gives ground to globalization. But Muslim countries, whose traditional life shows a literacy rate of only 60%, face a century of religious deracination. Christianity and Judaism barely have adapted to the modern world; the Islamists believe with good reason that Islam cannot co-exist with modernism and propose to shut it out altogether...

With stable institutions and material wealth, the secular West evinces a slow decline. Not so the Muslim world, where loss of faith implies sudden deracination and ruin. In the space of a generation, Islam must make an adjustment that Christianity made with great difficulty over half a millennium. Both for theological and social reasons, it is unequipped to do so. Muslims might as well fight over a cartoon now; they have very little to lose.

As I mentioned briefly in a previous entry, the toleration for "doubt" and "dialogue" (as "Spengler" puts them) began with a series of painful, widespread societal convulsions in the West. The Thirty Years War was utterly destructive, a freebooter fest, that practically depopulated much of Central Europe. But this destruction created conditions for eventual tolerance of spiritual dissent, primacy of the state over church, rationality and other good things associated with the Rise of the West. And the West got to do this in relative international isolation (the Ottomans were lurking in the periphery, but never posed a serious threat at this time).

I agree with "Spengler" that Islamic societies face similar challenges only with significantly more compressed time and place. With 24-hour news cycles beamed through satellites, global air travel booked on the Internet and rapacious societal/civilizational, if not political, competitors, they are in even worse position than the West was to undergo the repercussions of Reformation with Islamic characteristics.

Even China's "rise" was achieved with so much blood and destruction. As competition becomes ever keener in a networked globe, what chance do Islamic societies have? As "Spenger" writes:

It is not a good thing to come late to the table of globalization. China and its neighbors have emerged from the maelstrom of revolution and the violent loss of tens of millions of lives to become actors on the world economic stage. Of China's 1.3 billion people, 400 million are integrated into the world division of labor, and millions more are becoming urbanized, literate and productive by the year. India remains behind China but has good prospects for success. Against these formidable competitors, few countries in Western Asia, Africa or Latin America can hope to prevail. In a world that has little need of subsistence farmers and even less need of university graduates with degrees in Islamic philosophy, most of the Muslim world can expect small mercy from the market.

Yet, what is the alternative? The Islamic world cannot shut the world out and oppress their own masses to maintain the untenable status quo. Everyday delayed is another pound of gunpowder added to the powderkeg, which worsens the repercussions of the inevitable explosion.

An Islamic Reformation and Islamic Thirty Years War will mean human suffering of massive scale, but without them, Islamic societies will not be able to reach the 22nd Century as full-fledged members of the advanced human civilization, especially as Western societies begin to rely more on non-petroleum sources of power-generation.

[Cross-posted in Guns and Butter Blog]

*I* am excited anyway. Are you?

I will announce shortly. Stay tuned.

Maybe my brain's switches are mixed up. I am beginning to see strange parallel patterns between North Korea and the U.S.!

Exhibit A: Elaborately constructed tunnels.

First the North Korean version:

It has a prefabricated wall of concrete and slate. When discovered, there were 220-volt and 60-watt lamps, electric lines, railways, and track vehicles. The ground is inclined by 5 degrees to the north to prevent water from gathering. There are turning points on the railroad. The tunnel is large enough to allow the transit of a regiment of troops and heavy artillery every hour.

Now, the U.S. version (more accurately the U.S.-Mexican version):

Unzueta described the shaft as technically advanced, with electricity, a ventilation system, pumps to remove groundwater, cement flooring for traction in steep areas, and wood roofing to bolster the walls and ceiling. It had a clearance, he said, of nearly six feet and was about five feet wide.

At 2,400 feet, the tunnel is the longest and most sophisticated of the 21 underground passageways linking the United States and Mexico that have been discovered since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when investigations and enforcement were beefed up in the region. Unzueta said most of the tunnels have been located in the San Diego area because the composite soil of that region is ideal for such work. From 1990 to 2001, 15 tunnels were unearthed.

Exhibit B: Fire fights and incursions at the borders.

First, the U.S. version:

An American law enforcement officer and news crew in Texas have witnessed another armed incursion into the United States by men dressed in Mexican army attire, the second such incident in just two weeks.

Now, the North Korean version (h/t OneFreeKorea and DPRK Studies):

One of the South Korean leading newspaper, Dong-A Ilbo, reported on February 7th that there had been simultaneous attacks and gunshots at the Sino-Korean border patrol checkpoints. Where the incidents occurred are Huiryeong City and Onsung-gun, in North Hamkyung Province.

Ah, but the action figure for our (U.S.) leader (who also happens to be the Leader of the Entire Free World^TM) is much more snappily dressed than the action figure for their (North Korean) Leader. So we win.

Okay, okay, I'm in the mood for levity, so sue me.

An exciting announcement for "The Asianist" coming soon. Stay tuned.

Not Asia, I know, but I gotta plug my own work!

My latest RCP column is up.

February 2, 2006
Another "Rising Star" Governor Takes on President Bush
By James J. Na

Oh, no. It's yet another "rising star" governor of the Democratic Party to the rescue!

After President Bush's State of the Union address, Democrats trotted out Tim Kaine, the recently elected "centrist" governor of red-but-increasingly-purple Virginia to present their response.

Governor Kaine gave a laundry list of purported ills that afflict America and declared repeatedly, "there is a better way." Apparently the qualities Kaine represents are some democrats' vision of what it takes to beat Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

On the surface, Kaine seems politically appealing. He can "talk faith." He speaks the vocabulary of free enterprise and often speaks of Virginia as "the best managed state" as if it were a corporation. More importantly, he is "a rising star in the [Democratic] party who... [won] election in a state that Bush won comfortably in 2004." During that election, he even did unexpectedly well in Loudoun County, Virginia, where I live, which is a quintessentially Republican exurb.

But, as the saying goes, I have seen this movie before.

Read the rest here.

[Cross-posted in Guns and Butter Blog]

Anti-tank obstacles in Uijongbu and other South Korean cities in the traditional invasion corridor to Seoul from the North are being dismantled:

But in yet another sign of the easing of tensions between the Koreas and the changing nature of warfare, South Korean workers began dismantling the fortification at Uijongbu (pronounced wee-jong-boo) last month and are expected to finish tearing it down before spring...

"Tanks, coming?" Jung Bin said, as her eyes widened and the two seventh graders erupted in a fresh round of giggling. "It sounds like a story from far away."

Well, it's not a joke if you lost family to the commie invaders. Or if you know about the premature blowing of the bridge across the Han River that trapped the bulk of the ROK army on the north side in 1950 that led to the virtual disintegration of the Southern defenses.

Like most young people interviewed in the area, Kim Nan Hee, a 19-year-old student waiting at a bus stop next to the fortification, said the sooner it was gone, the better.

"It's ugly," she said. "Besides, we'll be reunifying soon."

Yeah? Dream on. Thankfully, one of my clansman sticks up for the sane side!

But Na Jung Seon, 59, who operates a small real estate office in the shadow of the fortification, was less optimistic about the possibility of reunification.

"I'm a conservative person," he said. "I don't trust the North Korean regime. They're our adversaries."

Seeing as there is only one Na clan in South Korea, the man is distant family I guess... even if I don't know him. Anyway, he took the words from my mouth.

Only lovely young things need apply:

The stewardesses on Asian airlines tend to be much younger and more attractive than their matronly - sometimes even grand-matronly - counterparts on American and European airlines.

I am very torn on this one. It seems unfair to fire women over 35. On the other hand, I do enjoy the people-watching on some Asian airlines. My favorite airline in the world is Singapore Airlines. They have it all: service, high-tech IFE (that's inflight entertainment system, for those of you outside the aerospace industry), comfortable cabin, decent food (although Asiana has better food now I hear) and, yes, beauty.

Oh, it would be so tough to give that up on trips to Asia.

But maybe it won't be so bad. It is, after all, possible that my sour experiences on domestic, U.S. airlines is due to sour service from these "matronly" flight attendants rather than lack of beauty.

And speaking of Singapore, does anyone else notice the great service orientation of businesses there? Those plucky, adventurous, ever-so-proper Brits (Raffles et al.). They really instilled lasting service sense when they lorded over the place long ago. Like imperial vestige of a periphery long forgotten at the center, I often find that the British sense of service and propriety is more alive in parts of once Anglophone Asia than among Brits themselves (esp. the young ones).

A couple claiming to be of the perished Laotian royal house was assassinated (h/t Kyle H).

Reader "Kyle H" who alerted me about it writes:

The man claimed to be a descendant of Chou Anouvong, a very revered Lao king who led a failed rebellion against the Siamese almost two centuries ago. The failure of three Lao kingdoms, serving as vassal states, to unite led to the utter destruction of the city of Vientiane, which is now the capital of Laos. I personally think that he was full of it-- the Siamese systematically absorbed or wiped out his blood line-- and the royal family that was either murdered or escaped after communist takeover of Laos was from an entirely different line.

Very intriguing. There is little attention being paid on what's going on in what used to be called French Indochina in American policy circles right now. Things are happening while we are paying attention elsewhere.

It's tough and busy work being the global hegemon.

Here is another thought about Google.

My best friend and mentor, Jack (a warrior and a patriot who has given so much to defend our country), once told me this little old joke to teach me about compromising with "the reality of life," aka, evil:

A well-dressed man meets a really attractive woman at a bar. He approaches her and then propositions her. "Would you be interested in having sex with me for a million dollars?"

The woman thinks for a while. And then says, "For a million dollars? Yes."

Then the man says, "Well, actually, I don't have a million bucks. How about I pay you $50."

The woman then becomes indignant and says, "What? $50? What kind of woman do you think I am?"

The man retorts smartly, "We already established what kind of woman you are. Now we're just negotiating the price."

This is now what comes to my mind when I hear and read about all kinds of legal and technical gyrations Google intends to implement in China to be "less evil" after having agreed with the Chinese government to censor search results.

None of these "lessening" measures change the fundamental moral implications of what Google has done. We've already established what kind of company Google is and what kind of people run it. The rest is just negotiating the price.