The Wondering Mind

You wonder if the Chinese leadership realize just how much harm they are doing to themselves. In the most recent leg of the Olympic torch procession, there were angry demonstrations in South Korea. Ironically, most of the anger was actually from Chinese protesters, demonstrating in support of their country.

That seems reasonable and understandable, especially among a community that is living abroad and missing their homes. What’s doing the damage is the manner of the Chinese protests. Both in Japan, and now in Korea, there are reports that Chinese supporters surrounded and physically assaulted anti-Chinese protesters. China’s people engaging in behavior for which their government is being condemned only serves to highlight accusations of Chinese human rights abuses and their support for regimes accused of perpetrating such abuses.

It also shows a nation and a people not yet mature enough to play a role as world leaders. We see selfishness, intemperate behavior, and playground bullying tactics we don’t expect to see from a great nation. China condemns, quite rightly, such behavior when it comes from the U.S. and others, so it should come as no surprise when it is called on it.

It also gives lie to the ridiculous opine that we separate politics from the Olympics. Hosting the Olympics is a political act, to demonstrate the power, the prestige, and the glory of the host nation to the world. So to condemn the politicization of the Olympics is plain rubbish.

I think the German doctor quoted in the Times article says it best.

This torch run reminds me of Hitler, who first invented it in 1936 to divert world attention from human rights problems in Germany under the disguise of ‘world harmony.

China will only get the respect and admiration it so desperately craves when its government and its people act like responsible members of the world community.

Every few months we see articles like this one in newspapers and on TV, and alarm bells are rung on the dire straits of U.S. education, again.

And it’s easy to understand why. It’s a nicely written piece on the extraordinary drive and achievements of children from a country that has seen extraordinary economic success. Just 10 years ago no one had heard of Samsung and now, it’s overtaken Sony as the preeminent global electronics titan. Hyndai actually make cars people want to buy. The article promises us an insight into how the people of this nation have become so successful and, worst of all, seems to imply that they have no intention of slowing down any time soon.

The truth is probably nothing quite as inspirational or dire. From a purely analytical point of view, this makes for a very unpersuasive study. Yes, the two Korean schools do apparently achieve scores better than even the most exclusive American preparatory schools. But neither of these schools, nor Phillips Exeter, can be said to be representative of the average school in their country. Although I think the average Korean school does better than the average American school, I doubt that the differences are so eye-popping. And I think most people are more concerned, rightly, about how to improve the performance of average and below-average students rather than the brightest and most highly motivated ones.

The article also mentions, all too briefly, that there are cultural differences between the two countries which might explain some of what is going on here. With a strongly Confucian culture, Koreans revere education above anything else when it comes to their children. Of course, greater support for academic achievement would certainly not be bad thing in this country. But perhaps less ardor for academics might not be a bad thing in Korea.

The grueling regime of studying portrayed in the Times article is not atypical for many Korean students. 18-hour days for 7 days-a-week are expected of many children from about the age of 9 or 10 until they go to college. Suicides among teens who crumble under such enormous pressures, or who fail to get into college, are not uncommon. These children may receive extraordinary education, but you have to wonder what kinds of people they will grow up to be under this kind of duress.

The exodus to American universities also points to a huge problem in the Korean education system: there aren’t enough universities for all the students, and certainly not enough good ones. Every year in the national exams, there are thousands of students who fail to get into a university. And there is murderous competition to get into the few elite institutions every parent prizes for their children. In terms of sheer numbers, if you can afford to send your children to an American university, they might actually have less competition getting into a Harvard or Yale than getting acceptances from the best Korean universities.

Ironically, the educational problems Korea faces seem to be exactly the opposite from the U.S. In the U.S., people are worried about the woeful condition of much of the public schools at the primary and secondary levels, while they have some of the best schools in the world at the tertiary level. In Korea, primary and secondary level students get some of the best results in the world, but nothing extraordinary is going on with their colleges and universities.

In fairness, elite academic institutions take time to build. And with the national focus on science and engineering, there is every reason to believe that Korean universities may be developing departments in those fields which may one day rival that in any university around the world. We would also not recognize the stature of great programs and schools until long after they have been established, so it’s possible that there are great schools and programs in Korea right now, but we won’t recognize them until 20 years from now.

Or the Koreans may go the way of Japanese universities. There are some very good institutions, and they do some interesting work. But students, and their parents, around the world do not dream of their children going to the University of Tokyo the way they dream of their children going to Harvard or Princeton.

We are not yet at the stage where American children dream of going to Korean universities. Until then, there are things both countries can learn from each other to improve their own education systems. While articles like this make for interesting reading, it smacks of panic and naked envy. What would really help the debate are articles containing cool-headed analyses that rises above the level of human-interest stories.

So it turns out that the Bush White House is still playing games with torture.

To say that anyone is playing games with something as serious as torture may seem rather flippant. But to watch what these people are doing and saying is like watching children trying to negotiate with their parents as to what they can get away with. The latest revelations on this issue show the Bush lawyers trotting out the same old rationale they’ve pushed since the first day of this presidency: it’s only torture if we say it’s torture, which is whenever it’s convenient for us.

For people who don’t care about “terrorists” being tortured, let’s not forget the safety of American troops who put their lives at risk in foreign lands and who may be subject to torture if they are captured by enemies. It may seem in many of these cases that the captors totally disregard international laws and the Geneva Convention, and there is little to stop these people from perpetrating despicable acts. But if it deters just one act of torture on a soldier risking his life and safety for his fellow citizens, should we not as a people also be willing to make the sacrifice of living with a little more danger for their sakes? And by keeping a moral high ground, we make and keep more friends; friends who would willingly put themselves in harm’s way alongside us out of love and admiration, not reluctantly from cajoling and bullying. This can only be a good thing for the soldiers.

For those of us with more principled objections, this whole line of thinking makes a mockery of the very idea of the rule of law. The purpose of a rule of law is to have a predetermined agreement on what we should do and how we should behave when bad things happen. This agreement is reached when heads are cool and no heroic acts of compassion are called for in order for us to behave like human beings. It’s the reason why we have trials for murderers and thieves, rather than lynching them on the nearest tree; not because murderers and thieves don’t deserve harsh punishment, but because such acts of revenge only diminishes us. And that’s what this administration is arguing, with a nudge and a wink. “It’s O.K. to torture these scum because they deserve it. Sure, it sounds bad when you actually rationalize it, so just buy this horse manure we’re selling, knowing what we’re really talking about.“

Only the most hopeful or gullible actually believe the justification that torture has saved lives and prevented criminal acts. This administration has demonstrated time and again that for them truth is negotiable and murkier than the Delaware river.

Every few months, organizations publish poll results showing American popularity around the world at pitiful levels, and commentators ask why. With behavior like this, the real question should be why American popularity isn’t lower than it is.