I'd highly recommend reading the comments posted on this topic through the link provided, as they're really fascinating.
Also, I didn't intend for that post to be quite so long. I always start a post thinking "This'll be a relatively short one." As it turns out, I have a lot to say...pretty much all the time. Who'd have thought?
;)
Friday, 29 June 2007
More belated commentary
I suddenly like Nicholas Kristof a little less.
I’ll let go of the fact that his voice is nothing short of squeaky and I was so profoundly disappointed when I heard it for the first time. I was expecting a mysterious-stranger-in-a-trench-coat-and-fedora-smoking-a-cigar-
while-leaning-against-a-lamppost-in-the-dark-of-the-night kind of voice. A voice – to steal a description from Dan Brown – that is like “chocolate for the ears”. Anyway, not the point.
Mr. Kristof (yeah, no more informal “Nick” – at least not for awhile) wrote a column and filmed a video a couple months ago comparing the relative growth and potential of India versus China, asking readers to place their bets on which country will be on top in 2100. Kristof, predictably, picks China. I’m not surprised by that fact, as he’s more invested in China than he is in India, and not just because he’s married to a Chinese-American. What bothers me, though, is that the idealistic and moral appeal that Kristof usually applies to his writing is absent from this particular column.
Though he has brought up China’s human rights and free speech failures in recent weeks, these factors are strangely absent while he’s weighing the strengths and shortcomings of both countries. It’s easy to dismiss India’s democracy by calling it corrupt and chaotic – or “functioning anarchy” as one enlightened [sarcasm] poster dubbed it – but the fact remains, and it matters. I’m aware that I’m not completely objective here, but neither is Kristof. That said, I’ll try to make my point as objectively as possible.
Kristof pinpoints the fact that India has a long way to go in terms of making the most of its human capital and widening the base of people that reap the benefits of the economic boom. Fair enough. We all know that the Indian system reeks of corruption, lack of discipline and overall inefficacy. Social conduct values that are conducive to efficiency (e.g. punctuality) are seriously lacking in the overall cultural consciousness. Still – the story of India over the past sixty years is a gripping one, and it’s full of successes.
If you’re a young student in China, you can’t Google the truth about what your government did in Tiananmen Square in 1989, or to the Falun Gong throughout the last decade. You can’t get full access to BBC News. You can’t find out what Buddhism really is, or what the Dalai Lama is really about. You can’t have a sense of humour about your people, because sites that mock anything near and dear to the hearts of the Chinese are censored. That. Is. BAD. And I’m pretty disappointed that none of this came up in Kristof’s speculation. The Indians may have issues with sex toys, but as far as I’m aware, there are no comparable instances of censorship. Call me idealistic or what you will, but I value an open society and I take it as a sign that a community or a country is doing well. We have enough problems at the moment with the US government being secretive (DOWN WITH DICK/KARL/ALBERTO) – we don’t need to condone it in other societies as well.
In a different vein, India’s recent history has been ignored in this account. If you’re going to make this sort of comparison, that’s something that you can’t neglect. India came out of imperialism with a fierce dedication to democracy, a truth stranger than fiction, when you consider that democracy had no foundation there previously. The panchayat system hardly counts as a predecessor. It also managed to bounce back from the 1970s Emergency, an event that could've easily destabilised many other post-colonial nation-states. These facts are indicative of how absorbent Indian society is when it comes to outside influence (sometimes annoyingly so, when it comes to Bollywood and pop culture in general). It’s the reason that Indians have maintained a strong sense of identity even after centuries of foreign rule. China, by comparison, retreats further into its introverted and autocratic regime and states for the official record that it is 100% atheist. By deduction, India’s more likely to be a trustworthy ally, either to the US or whoever else is a major player in 2100.
I’m well aware of how idealistic all of this sounds, and I don’t necessarily believe that it’ll be India on top in 2100 for the reasons outlined by Kristof and several bloggers. I just think that the issues outlined above are wrongly overlooked by many when making this comparison.
Much of this can be summarised using Olympic athletes as an example. The Chinese hand-pick young children who show athletic prowess and breed them into successful Olympians through rigorous single-minded training. The Indians, despite all their genuine interest, always fall short of the Olympic dream. So it’s really a question of priorities – do you want to create a society of clones that still bring home the gold, or do want your society to value personal freedom of choice above a superficial, though somewhat glamorous, gauge of success? I think I've made it clear where I stand.
I’ll let go of the fact that his voice is nothing short of squeaky and I was so profoundly disappointed when I heard it for the first time. I was expecting a mysterious-stranger-in-a-trench-coat-and-fedora-smoking-a-cigar-
while-leaning-against-a-lamppost-in-the-dark-of-the-night kind of voice. A voice – to steal a description from Dan Brown – that is like “chocolate for the ears”. Anyway, not the point.
Mr. Kristof (yeah, no more informal “Nick” – at least not for awhile) wrote a column and filmed a video a couple months ago comparing the relative growth and potential of India versus China, asking readers to place their bets on which country will be on top in 2100. Kristof, predictably, picks China. I’m not surprised by that fact, as he’s more invested in China than he is in India, and not just because he’s married to a Chinese-American. What bothers me, though, is that the idealistic and moral appeal that Kristof usually applies to his writing is absent from this particular column.
Though he has brought up China’s human rights and free speech failures in recent weeks, these factors are strangely absent while he’s weighing the strengths and shortcomings of both countries. It’s easy to dismiss India’s democracy by calling it corrupt and chaotic – or “functioning anarchy” as one enlightened [sarcasm] poster dubbed it – but the fact remains, and it matters. I’m aware that I’m not completely objective here, but neither is Kristof. That said, I’ll try to make my point as objectively as possible.
Kristof pinpoints the fact that India has a long way to go in terms of making the most of its human capital and widening the base of people that reap the benefits of the economic boom. Fair enough. We all know that the Indian system reeks of corruption, lack of discipline and overall inefficacy. Social conduct values that are conducive to efficiency (e.g. punctuality) are seriously lacking in the overall cultural consciousness. Still – the story of India over the past sixty years is a gripping one, and it’s full of successes.
If you’re a young student in China, you can’t Google the truth about what your government did in Tiananmen Square in 1989, or to the Falun Gong throughout the last decade. You can’t get full access to BBC News. You can’t find out what Buddhism really is, or what the Dalai Lama is really about. You can’t have a sense of humour about your people, because sites that mock anything near and dear to the hearts of the Chinese are censored. That. Is. BAD. And I’m pretty disappointed that none of this came up in Kristof’s speculation. The Indians may have issues with sex toys, but as far as I’m aware, there are no comparable instances of censorship. Call me idealistic or what you will, but I value an open society and I take it as a sign that a community or a country is doing well. We have enough problems at the moment with the US government being secretive (DOWN WITH DICK/KARL/ALBERTO) – we don’t need to condone it in other societies as well.
In a different vein, India’s recent history has been ignored in this account. If you’re going to make this sort of comparison, that’s something that you can’t neglect. India came out of imperialism with a fierce dedication to democracy, a truth stranger than fiction, when you consider that democracy had no foundation there previously. The panchayat system hardly counts as a predecessor. It also managed to bounce back from the 1970s Emergency, an event that could've easily destabilised many other post-colonial nation-states. These facts are indicative of how absorbent Indian society is when it comes to outside influence (sometimes annoyingly so, when it comes to Bollywood and pop culture in general). It’s the reason that Indians have maintained a strong sense of identity even after centuries of foreign rule. China, by comparison, retreats further into its introverted and autocratic regime and states for the official record that it is 100% atheist. By deduction, India’s more likely to be a trustworthy ally, either to the US or whoever else is a major player in 2100.
I’m well aware of how idealistic all of this sounds, and I don’t necessarily believe that it’ll be India on top in 2100 for the reasons outlined by Kristof and several bloggers. I just think that the issues outlined above are wrongly overlooked by many when making this comparison.
Much of this can be summarised using Olympic athletes as an example. The Chinese hand-pick young children who show athletic prowess and breed them into successful Olympians through rigorous single-minded training. The Indians, despite all their genuine interest, always fall short of the Olympic dream. So it’s really a question of priorities – do you want to create a society of clones that still bring home the gold, or do want your society to value personal freedom of choice above a superficial, though somewhat glamorous, gauge of success? I think I've made it clear where I stand.
Monday, 25 June 2007
Has Feministing heard about this?
Yesterday, rather than making the trek out to Southall to get my eyebrows threaded, I wandered around my neighbourhood looking for something similar. I found a salon owned and operated by a bunch of Arab men, but I realised too late that I was the only female in sight. They were well-behaved, and my initial apprehension subsided. But I didn’t really want the threading done by a dude. Is that sexist? Anyway, I had already walked in and asked how much they charged, so I decided to give it a try since I already felt invested. It turned out well enough- not as good as the girls in Southall, but everything’s a trade-off.
Speaking of sexism, though, I’m reminded of a book I came across while browsing in Soho over the weekend. I don’t often find myself getting up on the feminist soapbox, but the title of this book, along with the credentials of the authors versus its content, distressed me. It’s called “Skinny Bitch,” and it’s something of a guide to healthy eating written by a former model and a modelling agent (insert hysterical laughter here). I didn’t think too much of it at first glance, but after picking it up and reading something to the effect of “The authors might be bitches, but at least they’re skinny bitches” on the back cover, I got a little ticked off.
Why does being skinny mitigate bitchiness? Why is it necessary to use a title like that to draw people to your cause? If anything, I’m repulsed. That title validates anyone who believes that women have a tendency to be more petty and shallow (not to mention anyone that judges LA on its ostensible superficiality).
As far as the actual content of the book is concerned, I’ve come across some contradictory reviews after some cursory research. It’s worth noting that the authors are vegan, and therefore dish out some of the typical “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian” rhetoric. I think that quotation is from Linda McCartney, if anyone cares. The negative review focused on some of the things that caught my attention – the stupid title and the authors’ complacency, or even pride, after dubbing themselves “skinny bitches” – in addition to the gratuitously graphic accounts of slaughterhouses and the folly of veganism in principle. The positive review, sourced from the objective site www.vegparadise.com, praised the book for constructing a “thoughtful argument for adopting a vegan diet and lifestyle” and goes on to say “Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin are to be commended for their unique approach in bringing the vegan message to young women.” The review brushes off the stigma inherent in the title as plain and simple “attitude” – convenient, since they’re primarily concerned with the vegetarian/vegan agenda.
The most pathetic thing is that the authors confess in the end that they “conceived the title ‘to get attention and sell books,’" that they don’t advocate bitchiness, that they realise that kindness is important, blah blah blah. Hilarious. Seems quite typical of the bitchy persona – a two-faced approach that’s really just a publicity ploy to get ahead. It’s pretty obvious that these model types aren’t interested in helping young women with their self-esteem if 1) they’re equating skinny with healthy, and 2) they’re playing off stereotypical female insecurities so they can make a buck.
Speaking of sexism, though, I’m reminded of a book I came across while browsing in Soho over the weekend. I don’t often find myself getting up on the feminist soapbox, but the title of this book, along with the credentials of the authors versus its content, distressed me. It’s called “Skinny Bitch,” and it’s something of a guide to healthy eating written by a former model and a modelling agent (insert hysterical laughter here). I didn’t think too much of it at first glance, but after picking it up and reading something to the effect of “The authors might be bitches, but at least they’re skinny bitches” on the back cover, I got a little ticked off.
Why does being skinny mitigate bitchiness? Why is it necessary to use a title like that to draw people to your cause? If anything, I’m repulsed. That title validates anyone who believes that women have a tendency to be more petty and shallow (not to mention anyone that judges LA on its ostensible superficiality).
As far as the actual content of the book is concerned, I’ve come across some contradictory reviews after some cursory research. It’s worth noting that the authors are vegan, and therefore dish out some of the typical “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian” rhetoric. I think that quotation is from Linda McCartney, if anyone cares. The negative review focused on some of the things that caught my attention – the stupid title and the authors’ complacency, or even pride, after dubbing themselves “skinny bitches” – in addition to the gratuitously graphic accounts of slaughterhouses and the folly of veganism in principle. The positive review, sourced from the objective site www.vegparadise.com, praised the book for constructing a “thoughtful argument for adopting a vegan diet and lifestyle” and goes on to say “Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin are to be commended for their unique approach in bringing the vegan message to young women.” The review brushes off the stigma inherent in the title as plain and simple “attitude” – convenient, since they’re primarily concerned with the vegetarian/vegan agenda.
The most pathetic thing is that the authors confess in the end that they “conceived the title ‘to get attention and sell books,’" that they don’t advocate bitchiness, that they realise that kindness is important, blah blah blah. Hilarious. Seems quite typical of the bitchy persona – a two-faced approach that’s really just a publicity ploy to get ahead. It’s pretty obvious that these model types aren’t interested in helping young women with their self-esteem if 1) they’re equating skinny with healthy, and 2) they’re playing off stereotypical female insecurities so they can make a buck.
Friday, 22 June 2007
Utter ramblish
Man, I had hastily jotted down a list of things I wanted to write about. As it turns out, I can’t read my own handwriting and my short-term memory sucks.
Actually, I can still think of a couple of things worth writing about. But they’re incredibly profound topics, and I’m not in the mood for profundity.
That was meant to be taken with a grain of salt and a dash of irony.
“Jow”? WTF did I mean when I scribbled down “jow”? This is grinding on my nerves.
It seems I’ve picked up a base of loyal readers who yell at me when I don’t post for days on end. I find this simultaneously flattering and disturbing…don’t you lot have anything better to do with your time? Kidding. Cheers to you- you know who you are and so do I, even if you aren’t leaving comments :)
This is ridiculous and it pisses me off.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, no matter their creed, colour or native continent, will inevitably pick out the most trivial aspects of their societies to wax moralistic about.
And then this old related article. I love how the dude at the end of the article jumps to his desi brothers’ defense by citing India’s population growth.
That’s not the point, buddy. It’s time to stop pretending that successful procreation is the only factor to consider.
Crazy Indians. At least no one can ever say we’re boring.
Actually, I can still think of a couple of things worth writing about. But they’re incredibly profound topics, and I’m not in the mood for profundity.
That was meant to be taken with a grain of salt and a dash of irony.
“Jow”? WTF did I mean when I scribbled down “jow”? This is grinding on my nerves.
It seems I’ve picked up a base of loyal readers who yell at me when I don’t post for days on end. I find this simultaneously flattering and disturbing…don’t you lot have anything better to do with your time? Kidding. Cheers to you- you know who you are and so do I, even if you aren’t leaving comments :)
This is ridiculous and it pisses me off.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, no matter their creed, colour or native continent, will inevitably pick out the most trivial aspects of their societies to wax moralistic about.
And then this old related article. I love how the dude at the end of the article jumps to his desi brothers’ defense by citing India’s population growth.
That’s not the point, buddy. It’s time to stop pretending that successful procreation is the only factor to consider.
Crazy Indians. At least no one can ever say we’re boring.
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