安靜地，流動著

近日隨感

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:11:20 GMT

臺北這禮拜冷雨不斷，有人說，每下一次雨，會拂去一層暖意，雨絲飄飄中，不覺迎來寒冷的冰點。

上禮拜的臺灣並不平靜，直到此刻，陳水扁被收押、蘇治芬等民進黨縣市長在獄中絕食，野草莓運動也在持續靜坐。陳雲林來台前後，從張銘清被打事件開始，全台調動大規模警力維安、過當執法，到群眾圍晶華、聚中山橋，政客的言詞煽動下，石塊鐵條汽油彈，血光齊飛。藍綠兩邊為「暴民」與「造成暴民的兇手」，爭論不休，在我眼裡卻是這二十年來本土化族群議題發酵後，必然的結果。馬英九上台，兩岸政策大轉彎所引起的不安，不論是壓根不接受或被排除在外的，都感受到兩岸議題被資本主義巨大車輪輾過的猛烈衝撞，而那股主權將被稀釋的焦慮感，在不斷被簡化和分貝升高的政治口號中，攀升到最高點，炸開。

有人說，馬的兩岸經濟政策不夠具體，一味的開放對臺灣不好。在我看來，目前任何的開放政策都只是亡羊補牢，並不會帶來實質的經濟成長，只是減緩台灣過去八年所遺留的傷害罷了，更何況全球的金融風暴之下，若非大陸的經濟市場不若歐美般自由化，早已如骨牌效應，雖然全球化下，重大傷亡、無人能免。

一整個禮拜，看著新聞、推特上的高熱討論，我卻感到一陣真實的疲憊與抽離。所有的事件、情緒、仇恨、撕裂，像無止盡循環的黑洞，街頭運動被熱烈頌揚著，但諷刺的是，最終證明訴求正確的紅衫軍，我們這一群七年級世代對之卻最冷漠，而從來無人反省，相比於警察的過當執法，位高權重者傾國家機器之力貪污時，你們為何不憤怒？八年共犯結構執政下的政客們，你們憑什麼出來再高喊人權？而那些對紅衫軍冷眼以待、在2000、2004年熱切支持過陳水扁、沒有一絲懷疑的人，你又憑什麼說服我再次走上街頭？甘地說過，「貧窮是對人民最可怕的暴力」，可是我依舊看不到任何真切的止步、反省、希望。如今，犯罪的人只會一哭、二鬧、三上吊，拼命指責他人亦非清白，卻是狗咬狗一嘴毛，難堪、無恥。

重溫經典的傳記電影「甘地」，其中有一段，是甘地率領印度人到海邊曬鹽，作為經濟來源，這妨害了英帝國的殖民統治。於是很多警察到海邊抓人，由於甘地倡導非暴力運動，現場他們一邊有人帶頭堅定非暴力的意志，一邊婦女組成的救護隊就在旁邊。只見一排又一排的印度男子，老少皆有，一排上前被警棍毆打、倒下，另一排又遞補上去，那些穿著土製白棉衣沈默的人群，就這樣發揮了巨大的力量，在旁報導的美國記者先是不解、氣憤，最終也被徹底感動了。

達成任何事情的手段，有急有慢、有暴力有寬容，有些手段也許立刻見效，但卻不及那些忍辱負重、過程更艱辛、卻也達成更終極關懷的動作。甘地的能量感動了許多人，然而最後他依舊逃不過主張印度教與回教分離的激進份子，死在印度人手上（而印度教與回教在英國殖民者主導下的人為分離，最終造成千萬人大遷徙，對彼此的恐懼、仇恨又造成數百萬人的死亡，甚至有許多父親害怕女兒被異教徒強暴，親手弒女的人倫慘劇無數）。愛的力量很偉大，但面對兇狠的仇恨是極其脆弱的阿……。

前幾天才和一位老人談當年國共內戰的慘況，一家人裡有國民黨、有共產黨而相互廝殺的，所在多有，當年的意識形態之爭賠上百萬條年輕的性命，又造成多少人一輩子就這麼離開家鄉、四處飄零（許多共黨的老官員老來也不願回鄉）。戰爭的恐懼，對他們而言並非虛幻陌生，所以即便雙方曾誓不兩立，但如今兩岸和平是他們最大的企盼（而另一種情況，則是從小被教導堅定的反共教育，長大後卻趕上本土化，外省籍讓他們被排擠到最邊緣的位置，加上國民黨的無能，這些人苦悶的心情也成為社會裡另一股隱藏式炸彈）。

我一直開放地認為，統獨議題只是政治選項，哪邊能提出好意見、對臺灣有實質益處，大家就有理由聆聽、抉擇，但如今演變成你死我活的二分、無法溝通亦無迴旋餘地的政治信仰，只是長期內耗阿。也想著同志平權運動和台獨，不知為何，後者總給我一種排外感。但一項運動的成功，應在於融合更多力量，而不是排除異己。或許是因為這不以解消主權為前提，而在確立主權，所以區分他、我的同時，「我」也必須再凝固確立，過程也就少不了壓制。換句話說，政治正確永遠伴隨對政治不正確的扼殺。

另外，當大家亟呼人權的同時，卻從不考慮人權與國權相互衝突對撞時，前者會否被後者徹底地壓垮、粉碎呢？中共對台的飛彈，可以看做是一種威脅，也是決心。中共不像當年搖搖欲墜的國民黨，能以同樣的手段對付，而當層級與規格拉高的同時，臺灣準備好了嗎？我們究竟在尋求一條聰明的兩全之道，亦或只是放任政客將我們推上火線、做不花本金的籌碼呢？現代國家的建立，有可能繞過暴力與流血嗎？主權問題為何不能暫時擱置、維持現狀，一定要不斷碰撞、去試探雙方都無法承受的底線呢？

所以野草莓運動如火如荼之際，謹記長輩給我的一句話：「情感要熱，腦袋要冷。」而一場運動能否說服自己與內心的直感，才是最重要的。我想，一開始帶頭的學者們就無法說服我，二來時機點也不對，在台灣政治高熱之時，我想他們的臨門一腳有打鐵趁熱之算（當然，也就得承擔被媒體誤解、扭曲的風險。這是兩面刀）；此外，我覺得法律以這樣的方式來要求修改，會不會也造成示範效應，現在台灣幾乎無事不以街頭運動和民粹來解決，法律與秩序的要求也相對被忽略了（「公民不服從」也講究比例原則吧）。另外，修法以外的下台與道歉訴求，更是政治性議題。法律不會要求人的道德崇高性，充其量只是保護最低限度的秩序，縱使暴民有千萬個讓人同情的理由，可一旦失序、觸碰法律的界線，為整體社會秩序的權益來衡量，國家暴力也就無可避免。

無論如何，我不覺得頻繁政治動盪是社會之福，過多內耗會消磨對正經事的專注；同樣，我也不贊同被資本主義鐵籠給圈住的人們，一點反應都沒有是好事。如同我從不否認對國民黨無能的厭惡，但也無法接受民進黨對族群議題的操弄（依國外反歧視言論的標準，早被起訴了吧）。立場本是複雜變動、有議題針對性的。

總之，以後不管是政治文或其他文章，會少寫。一來徹底自覺於能力之不足，年輕時應該多多充實；二來精彩、獨立的識見很少在網路上；三來大概就像轟轟烈烈的戀愛之後，人都有重返安寧的渴望，這幾年下來，內心的波動，真累了，我想是時候以疏離感來維持彼此善意的溫度、表面的和平了（苦笑）

※Lucinda Williams, Plan to Marry, in "Little Honey", 2008. (Also here)

When leaders can't be trusted
And hero's let us down
And innocence lies rusted
Frozen beneath the ground

And the destitute isolated
We've all been forgotten
And the the fruit trees we planted
Are withered and rotten

The abuse and magnificent
Suffer from infection
And the promises were given
But never with intention

War becomes common place
Secrets overheard
And violence, big business
And love is just a word

Why do we marry, why do we fall in love?
Keep on believing in love
Because love, love is my sward
Love is a weapon, love is a lesson

And we, we are the conquerors
We are the soldiers, we are the lovers
That's why we fall in love
That's why we believe in love, that's why we marry...

[日劇SP] 天狼星之路，2008

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:10:58 GMT

※官網。

一開始對這部日劇 SP 有興趣，是因為裡面有兩位我很喜歡的女演員：大塚寧々和真矢みき，後者常演一些有趣的配角，譬如「天才伽利略」的女法醫或「絕對達令」裡貼心的酒館老闆娘，本人有股特出的個性氣質，一查，果真以前是寶塚劇團的花組男役，這次總算演上女主角——一個事業成功、家庭感情卻辛苦的廣告界女強人。

改編自藤原伊織（1948-2007）的同名小說，雖名為推理小說，但重點卻不在推理，反著墨更多在藤原出身的廣告職場與下層勞工被裁員後的不平。就像山崎豐子（1924—）的《白色巨塔》、《華麗一族》一樣，老一輩的日本小說家都有某種深厚的社會關懷在背後，當然，比起山崎擅於結構複雜的人事鬥爭，藤原的手法並不相同。這部戲藉由男主角一段25年前的秘密，三個兒時玩伴重又糾葛在一起，而兒時的純真美好對比於成人社會的險惡，成為一段讓人沈湎也最有力量的過去。

內野聖陽將瀟灑有魄力的男主角詮釋得很迷人、有穿透力，原來早稻田大學畢業後，他就進入二次戰前即成立、至今日本歷史最悠久的話劇團——文學座。（中文簡介）這個劇團著重藝術性、文學性，由岸田國士、久保田万太郎、岩田豊雄創立，其中岸田與岩田偏重法國戲劇的研究，他們也最早開始了實驗劇場，內野也一直將主力放在舞台劇和音樂劇上。有趣的是，晚婚的內野的另一半——一路真輝，過去也是寶塚雪組男役，兩人相識相戀於舞台劇演出中。

飾演內野兒時玩伴的寺島進也是性格男星，所以整部戲充滿熟男熟女的戲劇張力，裡面的台詞也很棒。雖沒看過原著小說，但單就此戲來說拍得極好，讓人想把小說找來看。很喜歡某些深夜日劇或特別編，一直有關注社會題材的寫實路數，這樣的傳承真地很重要。
...

[影。] 海角七號, 2008 (with 陳昇，晚安母親)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:10:15 GMT

補上一首昇哥寫給臺灣的歌吧。

※陳昇，晚安母親，收於「思念人之屋」，2000。(Also here)

晚安母親 　　詞、曲：陳昇

不要搖醒我我想在你懷中安靜的沉睡
我是你的孩子我想你那樣做也不是故意
秋天的月看來那樣的圓
孩子們就都依偎在你的身邊

也許我們無法感覺到你的疲憊
難道你已經不允許我再愛你
是否你有些話都說不出口
難道你已經不允許我再愛你

每個人都跑來笑我說你的母親長得真醜
因為這樣我在回家的路上就跟別人的孩子打破了頭
雖然有時候你顯得太冷漠
但但我真的喜歡依偎在你懷裡

我們是成長中的孩子
受了傷就很難復原
因為你總是那樣沉默從來都不言不語
我我還以為你也喜歡那樣宿命的邂逅

還是你在南太平洋昏黃的夜色之中受盡了凌辱
孩子們總是想要爭氣偶而會迷失自己
也天真的以為沒有發覺你已枯萎的奶水
而什麼樣的話　我都可以聽得進去

母親卻不能相信你已不再愛我
並不因為外面的世界奇異感到特別的恐懼
卻只是難過不能夠再安靜的擁抱著你睡去
當然你也明瞭我已承繼了你蠻子一樣的脾氣
會含著眼淚倔強的睡去

◆◆◆

算一些隨感吧。

電影由日本教師的七封情書貫串。還記得開頭的一封信裡，提到戰敗國子民的悲哀，他向臺灣人友子訴苦，我心裡就想：那麼友子作為一個被殖民者的悲哀，你又瞭解嗎？如果要一個國民扛下一個國家的歷史責任，稍嫌沈重，但在實際上由魏導執筆的這七封信中，日本教師對自身與國家的榮譽，卻又連繫得緊密。記得有報導提過，魏導的台日劇情是為了顧及日本票房，然而，把依舊敏感的歷史問題拿來作商業題材，並不能把複雜性抹去，反而有過度簡單化的危險。因此，這樣的題材也少不了被討論、檢視的命運了。

所以整部片若想的多一點，的確有臺灣一直想尋求日本認可的感覺（關於日本的現代化光環，想起以前轉過的舊文，鄭鴻生的〈國民黨是如何失去「現代」光環的？──水龍頭的普世象徵〉），一如陳宜中所說，但現實是日本作為一個國家，有對臺灣平等看待嗎？在他們心裡，臺灣人已脫去被殖民的色彩了嗎？我想只要日本未就歷史問題好好對亞洲各國道歉、釐清，一如陳映真對余光中的建議，那日本永遠無法掙脫某種歷史加諸的心理／文化上的困阨，也無法贏得亞洲各國真正的尊敬與接納。

另外，許介麟的文章雖被大家目為「奇文」，或許是他太過剛強的立場加上行文語氣，讓人不舒服，但他提到過去黃春明對日本人的指控，正涉及到臺灣主體性建立的問題。片中臺灣像日本的後院，上了年紀的人都樂之與友子講日文；然而我卻遇過長輩，因為中日之間的歷史傷痕，即便他會講一口漂亮的東京話，卻從來不說……。

當然，商業片不能要求太多，只是它所呈現一切討好人的因素，仔細想想，都是臺灣，似乎也不完全是臺灣？它呈現了台灣在這一波本土化下的流行樣貌，卻不深刻，譬如搖滾樂，阿嘉的面貌就被簡單地形塑成一個失意樂手，有著典型的壞脾氣、叛逆，然而搖滾樂這個符號的意義卻完全未被探究、介紹；反而最搖滾的精神卻出現在鍵盤女孩安慰民雄，那體貼寬容的一吻。

我想這也是臺灣最主要的問題：當遇到他者的時候，作為參照係數的我，究竟是什麼？特別臺灣作為一個海島，加之特殊的歷史背景，這個主體性的融合、建立、確信，又要怎麼達成？近日得諾貝爾文學獎的法國作家勒克萊喬，出生地也有著複雜的殖民背景，作為一個白人，他深切反省造成錯誤歷史的西方文化，他自身更有著世界主義者的浪蕩氣息，但他依舊強調法語作為一個文化祖國認同的重要性。我想，我亦言盡於此了吧。

◆◆◆

中國時報 2008.10.09　
《海角七號》的台日苦戀
◎陳宜中（中研院人社中心副研究員、《思想》季刊編委）

    　大家都說《海角七號》好看，我也有同感。沒錯，《海角》片中的茂伯、馬拉桑、水蛙等人物，及其營造出的多元族群、多元文化意象，還有恆春、墾丁的場景，都令人感動。但魏導用心良苦的「台日破鏡重圓」寓言，卻是我覺得最有意思的地方。

    　片中，台灣的角色是：一位受到深愛但因日本懦弱而落空的女人（一九四五年在碼頭空等的台灣「友子」）；一位生子後被日本拋棄的女人（「友子」的外孫女）；以及一位堅持與日籍女友（也叫「友子」）在一起、不惜跟到日本去的年輕男人（男主角阿嘉）。一九四五年的分離之苦，六十多年來的相思之情，在阿嘉的身上獲得了「救贖」。

    　嚴格來講，《海角》的主題並不是「台日和解」，而是「台日苦戀」。彼此吵架的怨偶，才需要和解。被外力無情拆散的姻緣，是終生遺憾，沒有和不和解的問題。由此觀之，《海角》並沒有拍出台日和解，但成功地拍出了台日相思，特別是台灣對日本的苦戀。

    　這樣的被殖民慾望，似乎還隱藏著對一九四五年以後中華民國/國民黨統治的有罪控訴。有趣的是，在《海角》片中，「外省人」幾乎不曾出席。一九四五年接收台灣的中華民國/國民黨政權可謂完全缺席──除了片頭被男主角罵三字經的「台北」，以及片尾台日臨別依依時的持槍國軍外。更確切地說，在片中缺席的外省人/中國人，似乎就是拆散台日姻緣、使台灣（女性）得不到日本（男性）的愛的「第三者」。

    　進而言之，所謂「台灣人的悲情」，在《海角》片中獲得了某種新的詮釋：等不到日本的愛、被日本拋棄，即是「台灣人的悲情」所在。一九四五年拆散台日美好姻緣的外來統治者，似乎就是「台灣人的悲情」的最主要來源。

    　台獨運動過去所反對的壓迫，不只來自中國大陸，也包括日本的殖民統治。在台灣人四百年來被外人壓迫的獨派史觀之中，日本也是壓迫者。但如今，在《海角》片中，日本的壓迫者身分消失不見了。台灣人的悲情意識，似乎不再是抵抗一切外來壓迫的悲情意識，而轉變成「無法得到日本的愛」的悲情意識。《海角》既隱含著這種新的悲情意識，同時也透過性別翻轉，由台灣男子和日籍女友的身心結合，以及片尾的台日大合唱，使這種悲情得到救贖。

    　由此，我不得不間接聯想到兩個問題。第一個問題是：戰後的中華民國統治，是否極為失敗？一九四五年，實際發生的情況不是台日依依不捨，而是歡迎祖國軍隊的到來；但二二八事件乃至白色恐怖，以及外省政權的省籍面向等等，後來改變了台灣人對日本與祖國的相對評價。如今，《海角》的台日苦戀戲碼，似暗示「台灣」與「中華民國」的「和解」仍遙遙無期？若然，則更多的歷史反省，應是有必要的。

    　第二個問題是：到底什麼是「台灣主體意識」？《海角》的選擇，是與想像中深愛台灣的日本結合。很可能，多數台灣年輕人是因為拒斥中國，所以選擇較為先進的日本。但是，台灣人的主體性究竟是什麼？台灣人難道只能是被動等待救贖的「亞細亞的孤兒」嗎？

    　有人說，商業電影好看賣座就好，為什麼要去想「歷史」這種沉重的問題？然而，我們選擇以何種形式再現殖民歷史，將影響年輕人如何記憶、如何界定自我。

    　把殖民關係浪漫化，應該是很令人難堪的出路。但《海角》的台日寓言，或許是一個契機，讓我們睜開眼睛重新看看，看看那段滿目瘡痍的歷史。在這一點上，《海角》的貢獻很大。

海角七號…殖民地次文化陰影
【聯合報╱許介鱗／台灣日本綜合研究所所長（台北市)】

「恆春郡海角七號（番地）」是台灣在日本殖民統治下，所賜予的地址。

六十多年前，大日本帝國戰敗投降，日本人被迫從台灣遣返。一名返鄉日本人所寫的情書，從頭到尾貫穿了「海角七號」的故事情節，不斷的以日本語文朗誦情書旁白，充分顯露日本人離開台灣的依依不捨，並以愛情、音樂和夢想襯托出來，觸動了只「向錢看」而失去靈魂的台灣觀眾。

台灣真是沒有文化或說文化水準不高的島嶼。在太平洋戰爭時期被驅使到戰場的台灣人日本兵、軍屬、軍伕，超過廿萬人之多，他們都歷經生離死別的創痛，竟找不到一個人能寫出比日本人更扣人心弦的情書。台灣的影評，都在誇獎「海角七號」表現了「台灣的主體性」，解說這是國片的驕傲，台灣電影未來的希望。

海角七號的主題曲：「國境之南」，歌詞：如果海會說話，如果風愛上砂，如果有些想念，遺忘在漫長的長假，我會聆聽浪花，讓風吹過頭髮…。

在大戰前，「國境之南」指大日本帝國的國境南方台灣，而恆春又是台灣的最南頂端。大戰後，日本作家村上春樹，寫「國境之南、太陽之西」，把國境之南描述為烏托邦。「國境之南」歌詞，只是摹仿村上春樹的作品「聽風的歌」、「挪威的森林」等意境。村上春樹本來是歐美文學的翻譯作家，「海角七號」所朗誦的情書旁白，就是這樣大量複製了村上春樹的文藝腔，離台灣自己藝術創作的主體性，還遙遠得很。

「海」片充斥搞笑、媚俗、本土、浪漫、音樂，加入搖滾樂等所有流行文化的「討喜」元素，雖然能讓觀眾看到台灣的下層社會的繽紛色彩與本地人「愛打拚」的生命力，但畢竟只不過是美日「次文化」的大拼盤，缺乏的是哲學思想與世界觀。

鄉土文學作家黃春明，他的「莎喲哪啦‧再見」，還深刻地洞悉台灣殖民文化的殘渣，他的作品會激起敵愾同仇的愛鄉情操；但到了徹底擁抱美日「次文化」的今天，觀看「海角七號」的現場，只激起一片搞笑的莫名笑聲，卻對本地人不文明的舉動，沒有任何的反省。

我不得不說，「海角七號」隱藏著日本殖民地文化的陰影。一封由日本人所捉刀杜撰的情書，以日本人的調調滔滔不絕地表露，對過去殖民地台灣的戀戀「鄉愁」，其間參差了以日文唱的世界名曲，甚至終場的歌曲「野玫瑰」（德國、歌德詞），還要重複以日文歌唱。台灣終究逃不了日本文化控制的魔手。

幸虧日本人在背後撐腰，又有台灣報紙、電視的加油宣傳，「海角七號」的票房紀錄，慶幸已破了一億多元。縱使有一天在台灣島內，到達七億元的佳績，恐怕落得陳水扁「海角七億」的命運。阿扁所欠缺的，正是哲學思想和世界觀，這樣「發財夢」就會像肥皂泡沫的彩虹，那樣地隨風飄搖破滅。

【2008/09/25 聯合報】@ http://udn.com/ ...

[觀點] Slavoj Zizek 談金融海嘯、中國與西藏

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:10:58 GMT

對近來金融海嘯底下美國的紓困救援政策，齊澤克的評論。

Don’t Just Do Something, Talk
◎ Slavoj Zizek (9 Oct 2008)

One of the most striking things about the reaction to the current financial meltdown is that, as one of the participants put it: ‘No one really knows what to do.’ The reason is that expectations are part of the game: how the market reacts to a particular intervention depends not only on how much bankers and traders trust the interventions, but even more on how much they think others will trust them. Keynes compared the stock market to a competition in which the participants have to pick several pretty girls from a hundred photographs: ‘It is not a case of choosing those which, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligence to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be.‘ We are forced to make choices without having the knowledge that would enable us to make them; or, as John Gray has put it: ‘We are forced to live as if we were free.’

Joseph Stiglitz recently wrote that, although there is a growing consensus among economists that any bailout based on Henry Paulson’s plan won’t work, ‘it is impossible for politicians to do nothing in such a crisis. So we may have to pray that an agreement crafted with the toxic mix of special interests, misguided economics and right-wing ideologies that produced the crisis can somehow produce a rescue plan that works – or whose failure doesn’t do too much damage.’ He’s right: since markets are effectively based on beliefs (even beliefs about other people’s beliefs), how the markets react to the bailout depends not only on its real consequences, but on the belief of the markets in the plan’s efficiency. The bailout may work even if it is economically wrong.

There is a close similarity between the speeches George W. Bush has given since the crisis began and his addresses to the American people after 9/11. Both times, he evoked the threat to the American way of life and the necessity of fast and decisive action to cope with the danger. Both times, he called for the partial suspension of American values (guarantees of individual freedom, market capitalism) in order to save the same values.

Faced with a disaster over which we have no real influence, people will often say, stupidly, ‘Don’t just talk, do something!’ Perhaps, lately, we have been doing too much. Maybe it is time to step back, think and say the right thing. True, we often talk about doing something instead of actually doing it – but sometimes we do things in order to avoid talking and thinking about them. Like quickly throwing 0 billion at a problem instead of reflecting on how it came about.

On 23 September, the Republican senator Jim Bunning called the US Treasury’s plan for the biggest financial bailout since the Great Depression ‘un-American’:

Someone must take those losses. We can either let the people who made bad decisions bear the consequences of their actions, or we can spread that pain to others. And that is exactly what the Secretary proposes to do: take Wall Street’s pain and spread it to the taxpayers . . . This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American.

Bunning was the first publicly to give the reasoning behind the GOP revolt against the bailout plan, which climaxed in its rejection on 29 September. The resistance was formulated in terms of ‘class warfare’, Wall Street against Main Street: why should we help those responsible (‘Wall Street’) and let ordinary borrowers (on ‘Main Street’) pay the price for it? Is this not a clear case of what economists call ‘moral hazard’? This is the risk that someone will behave immorally because insurance, the law or some other agency protects them against any loss that his behaviour might cause: if I am insured against fire, for example, I might take fewer fire precautions (or even burn down my premises if they are losing me money). The same goes for big banks, which are protected against big losses yet able to retain their profits.

That the criticism of the bailout plan came from conservative Republicans as well as the left should make us think. What left and right share in this case is their contempt for big speculators and corporate managers who profit from risky decisions but are protected from failures by ‘golden parachutes’. In this respect, the Enron scandal of January 2002 can be interpreted as an ironic commentary on the notion of a risk society. Thousands of employees who lost their jobs and savings were certainly exposed to risk, and had little choice in the matter. However, the top managers, who knew about the risk and also had the opportunity to intervene in the situation, minimised their exposure by cashing in their stocks and options before the bankruptcy. So while it is true that we live in a society that demands risky choices, it is one in which the powerful do the choosing, while others do the risking.

If the bailout plan really is a ‘socialist’ measure, it is a very peculiar one: a ‘socialist’ measure whose aim is to help not the poor but the rich, not those who borrow but those who lend. ‘Socialism’ is OK, it seems, when it serves to save capitalism. But what if ‘moral hazard’ is inscribed in the fundamental structure of capitalism? The problem is that there is no way to separate the welfare of Main Street from that of Wall Street. Their relationship is non-transitive: what is good for Wall Street isn’t necessarily good for Main Street, but Main Street can’t thrive if Wall Street isn’t doing well – and this asymmetry gives an a priori advantage to Wall Street.

The standard ‘trickle-down’ argument against redistribution (through progressive taxation etc) is that instead of making the poor richer, it makes the rich poorer. However, this apparently anti-interventionist attitude actually contains an argument for the current state intervention: although we all want the poor to get better, it is counter-productive to help them directly, since they are not the dynamic and productive element; the only intervention needed is to help the rich get richer, and then the profits will automatically spread down to the poor. Throw enough money at Wall Street, and it will eventually trickle down to Main Street. If you want people to have money to build, don’t give it to them directly, help those who are lending it to them. This is the only way to create genuine prosperity – otherwise, the state is merely distributing money to the needy at the expense of those who create wealth.

It is all too easy to dismiss this line of reasoning as a hypocritical defence of the rich. The problem is that as long as we are stuck with capitalism, there is a truth in it: the collapse of Wall Street really will hit ordinary workers. That is why the Democrats who supported the bailout were not being inconsistent with their leftist leanings. They would fairly be called inconsistent only if we accept the premise of Republican populists that capitalism and the free market economy are a popular, working-class affair, while state interventions are an upper-class strategy to exploit hard-working ordinary people.

There is nothing new in strong state interventions into the banking system and the economy in general. The meltdown itself is the result of such an intervention: when, in 2001, the dotcom bubble burst, it was decided to make it easier to get credit in order to redirect growth into housing. Indeed, political decisions are responsible for the texture of international economic relations in general. A couple of years ago, a CNN report on Mali described the reality of the international ‘free market’. The two pillars of the Mali economy are cotton in the south and cattle in the north, and both are in trouble because of the way that Western powers violate the same rules that they impose so brutally on Third World nations. Mali produces cotton of the highest quality, but the US government spends more money to support its cotton farmers than the entire state budget of Mali, so it is small wonder that Mali can’t compete. In the north, the European Union is the culprit: the EU subsidises every single cow to the tune of five hundred euros a year. The Mali minister for the economy said: we don’t need your help or advice or lectures on the beneficial effects of abolishing excessive state regulations; just, please, stick to your own rules about the free market and our troubles will be over. Where are the Republican defenders of the free market here? Nowhere, because the collapse of Mali is the consequence of what it means for the US to put ‘our country first’.

What all this indicates is that the market is never neutral: its operations are always regulated by political decisions. The real dilemma is not ‘state intervention or not?’ but ‘what kind of state intervention?’ And this is true politics: the struggle to define the conditions that govern our lives. The debate about the bailout deals with decisions about the fundamental features of our social and economic life, even mobilising the ghost of class struggle. As with many truly political issues, this one is non-partisan. There is no ‘objective’ expert position that should simply be applied: one has to take a political decision.

On 24 September, John McCain suspended his campaign and went to Washington, proclaiming that it was time to put aside party differences. Was this gesture really a sign of his readiness to end partisan politics in order to deal with the real problems that concern us all? Definitely not: it was a ‘Mr McCain goes to Washington’ moment. Politics is precisely the struggle to define the ‘neutral’ terrain, which is why McCain’s proposal to reach across party lines was pure political posturing, a partisan politics in the guise of non-partisanship, a desperate attempt to impose his position as universal-apolitical. What is even worse than ‘partisan politics’ is a partisan politics that tries to mask itself as non-partisan: by imposing itself as the voice of the Whole, such a politics reduces its opponents by making them agents of particular interests.

This is why Obama was right to reject McCain’s call to postpone the first presidential debate and to point out that the meltdown makes a political debate about how the two candidates would handle the crisis all the more urgent. In the 2000 election, Clinton won with the motto ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ The Democrats need to get a new message across: ‘It’s the POLITICAL economy, stupid!’ The US doesn’t need less politics, it needs more.

Slavoj Žižek, a dialectical-materialist philosopher and psychoanalyst, is co-director of the International Centre for Humanities at Birkbeck. His latest book is In Defence of Lost Causes.

齊澤克以西方內省的角度來看待中國與西藏問題。

What if China now is our past and future?
Tibet: dream and reality

The West is projecting not only its own spiritual fantasies upon Tibet, but its own economic fears upon China, imagining a power struggle quite different from that which has actually happened in Tibet. We have to learn to look at Tibet as it is – and China too.

By Slavoj Zizek (2008. 5)

All the media reports impose an image which goes like this: the People’s Republic of China, which illegally occupied Tibet in 1950, engaged for decades in brutal and systematic destruction not only of the Tibetan religion, but of the identity of Tibetans as a free people. Recently the protests of the Tibetan people against Chinese occupation were again crushed with brutal police and military force. Since China is organising the 2008 Olympic games, it is the duty of all of us who love democracy and freedom to put pressure on China to return to the Tibetans what it stole from them. A country with such a dismal human rights record cannot be allowed to whitewash its image with the noble Olympic spectacle.

What are our governments going to do? Will they, as usual, cede to economic pragmatism, or will they gather the strength to put our highest ethical and political values above short-term economic interests? While the Chinese authorities did no doubt commit many acts of murderous terror and destruction in Tibet, some things disturb this simple “good guys versus bad guys” image. Here are nine points which anyone passing judgment on recent events in Tibet should bear in mind:

1. Tibet, an independent country until 1950, was not suddenly occupied by China. The history of its relations with China is long and complex, with China often acting as a protective overlord – the anti-Communist Kuomintang also insisted on Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. (The term “Dalai Lama” bears witness to this interaction: it combines the Mongolian dalai – ocean – and the Tibetan bla-ma.)

2. Before 1950 Tibet was no Shangri-la, but a country of harsh feudalism, poverty (life expectancy was barely 30), corruption and civil wars (the last, between two monastic factions, was in 1948 when the Red Army was already knocking at the door). Fearing social unrest and disintegration, the ruling elite prohibited any development of industry, so all metal had to be imported from India. This did not prevent the elite from sending their children to British schools in India and transferring financial assets to British banks there.

3. The Cultural Revolution which ravaged the Tibetan monasteries in the 1960s was not imported by the Chinese. Fewer than a hundred of the Red Guards came to Tibet with the revolution, and the young mobs burning the monasteries were almost exclusively Tibetan.

4. Since the early 1950s there has been systematic and substantial CIA involvement in stirring up anti-Chinese troubles in Tibet, so Chinese fears of external attempts to destabilise Tibet are not irrational (1).

5. As television images show, what is going on now in Tibetan regions is no longer a peaceful “spiritual” protest of monks as in Burma over the last year, but also gangs burning and killing ordinary Chinese immigrants and their stores. We should measure the Tibetan protests by the same standards as we measure other violent protests: if Tibetans can attack Chinese immigrants, why can’t the Palestinians do the same to the Israeli settlers on the West Bank?

6. The Chinese invested heavily in Tibetan economic development, as well as infrastructure, education and health services. Despite undeniable oppression, the average Tibetan has never enjoyed such a standard of living as today. Poverty is now worse in China’s own undeveloped western rural provinces than in Tibet.

7. In recent years the Chinese changed their strategy in Tibet: depoliticised religion is now tolerated, often even supported. The Chinese rely more on ethnic and economic colonisation, rapidly transforming Lhasa into a Chinese capitalist Wild West with karaoke bars and Disney-like “Buddhist theme parks” for western tourists. What the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers and policemen terrorising the Buddhist monks conceals is a far more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation. In a decade or two Tibetans will be reduced to the status of Native Americans in the United States.

It seems the Chinese Communists finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments, compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations? The Chinese are doing what the West has always done, as Brazil did in the Amazon or Russia in Siberia, and the US on its own western frontiers.

8. A main reason why so many in the West have taken part in the protests against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly spun by the Dalai Lama, is a major point of reference of the New Age hedonist spirituality which is becoming the predominant form of ideology today. Our fascination with Tibet makes it into a mythic place upon which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss of the authentic Tibetan way of life, they don’t care about real Tibetans: they want Tibetans to be authentically spiritual on behalf of us so we can continue with our crazy consumerism.

The philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote: “If you are snagged in another’s dream, you are lost.” The protesters against China are right to counter the Beijing Olympics motto of “one world, one dream” with “one world, many dreams”. But they should be aware that they are imprisoning Tibetans in their own dream. It is not the only dream.

9. If there is an ominous dimension to what is going on now in China, it is elsewhere. Faced with today’s explosion of capitalism in China, analysts often ask when political democracy, as the “natural” political accompaniment of capitalism, will come.

Valley of tears

In a television interview a couple of years ago, the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf linked the growing distrust of democracy in post-Communist east European countries to the fact that, after every revolutionary change, the road to new prosperity leads through a valley of tears. After the breakdown of socialism, one cannot directly pass to the abundance of a successful market economy. The limited but real socialist welfare and security have to be dismantled, and these first steps are necessarily painful.

For Dahrendorf, this painful passage lasts longer than the average period between (democratic) elections, so that the temptation is great to postpone the difficult changes for the short-term electoral gains. Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, pointed out (2) that democracy can only catch on in economically developed countries: if developing countries are prematurely democratised, the result is a populism which ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism. No wonder the three formerly third world countries that are the most successful economically – Taiwan, South Korea, Chile – embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule.

There is a further paradox: what if the promised democratic second stage that follows the authoritarian valley of tears never comes? This is the most unsettling thing about China. There is the suspicion that its authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of our past, the repetition of the process of capitalist accumulation which in Europe went on from the 16th to the 18th century, but a sign of the future. What if the “vicious combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market” proves economically more efficient than our liberal capitalism? Might it signal that democracy, as we understand it, is no longer a condition and motor of economic development, but an obstacle?

Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and author most recently of Violence, Big Ideas/Small Books, Picador, and In Defence of Lost Causes, Verso, both published in London in 2008

(1) See Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison’s detailed study, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet, University Press of Kansas, 2002.

(2) The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy, WW Norton & Co, New York, 2003.

October 11, 2007
How China Got Religion
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK (London)

THE Western liberal media had a laugh in August when China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs announced Order No. 5, a law covering “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission: no one outside China can influence the reincarnation process; only monasteries in China can apply for permission.

Before we explode in rage that Chinese Communist totalitarianism now wants to control even the lives of its subjects after their deaths, we should remember that such measures are not unknown to European history. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the first step toward the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War, declared the local prince’s religion to be the official faith of a region or country (“cuius regio, eius religio”). The goal was to end violence between German Catholics and Lutherans, but it also meant that when a new ruler of a different religion took power, large groups had to convert. Thus the first big institutional move toward religious tolerance in modern Europe involved a paradox of the same type as that of Order No. 5: your religious belief, a matter of your innermost spiritual experience, is regulated by the whims of your secular leader.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Chinese government is not antireligious. Its stated worry is social “harmony” — the political dimension of religion. In order to curb the excess of social disintegration caused by the capitalist explosion, officials now celebrate religions that sustain social stability, from Buddhism to Confucianism — the very ideologies that were the target of the Cultural Revolution. Last year, Ye Xiaowen, China’s top religious official, told Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that “religion is one of the important forces from which China draws strength,” and he singled out Buddhism for its “unique role in promoting a harmonious society.”

What bothers Chinese authorities are sects like Falun Gong that insist on independence from state control. In the same vein, the problem with Tibetan Buddhism resides in an obvious fact that many Western enthusiasts conveniently forget: the traditional political structure of Tibet is theocracy, with the Dalai Lama at the center. He unites religious and secular power — so when we are talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, we are taking about choosing a head of state. It is strange to hear self-described democracy advocates who denounce Chinese persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama — a non-democratically elected leader if there ever was one.

In recent years, the Chinese have changed their strategy in Tibet: in addition to military coercion, they increasingly rely on ethnic and economic colonization. Lhasa is transforming into a Chinese version of the capitalist Wild West, with karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks.

In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations?

It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha? Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions.

The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.

“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.

Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.

Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of “The Parallax View.”
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