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Common Sense Revolts at the Idea

I just started reading Lessig’s new book Free Culture, which is generously available for download under the Creative Commons license and I’m already loving it. On page 2 he quotes a Supreme Court ruling on traditional land rights including the sky above the land and how this conflicts with the new age of flight travel. Lessig focuses in on one quote from this and adds his own comment:

“Common sense revolts at the idea.” This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, but eventually, this is how it works.

When I saw this, I was immediately reminded of my moral theory courses as an undergraduate philosophy major, and I couldn’t help thinking that, at least for the field of ethics in analytic philosophy, the above statement needs little adjustment:

“Common sense revolts at the idea.” This is how ethics usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, but at the heart of every logical argument, this is how it works.

In the case of a normative field like ethics, of course, it is the “when” and “who” absent in this formulation that gives rise to so much trouble.

Shanghai in August 1945

You pick up the most circulated newspaper in Shanghai on August 15th, 1945, the day of Japan’s surrender. What do you see? Well, the news of the surrender hasn’t made it for the day’s issue. Instead, in the days leading up to the end of the war the newspaper focuses on the Russian advances in Manchuria, or the arrival of B29 bombers attacking Japanese targets in China. Of course, you still see the usual advertisements for CPC Coffee, and various brands of penicillin. But how will the newspaper change in the next few days as Japan’s control over Shanghai comes to an end? While this wasn’t a question related to my research, it was at the back of my mind as I skimmed through an important Shanghai newspaper called 申報 from the second half of the year 1945.

I have become a big fan of the 郭廷以 library next to the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica (中央研究院) See my English entry about it on my reference wiki for more information. Pretty much anyone can use the library without any membership or introductions, and its stacks are open for browsing. Their collection of history related materials is great and includes a lot of Japanese and English materials as well as Taiwanese and mainland China sources. On this trip to Taiwan I have started looking at early postwar newspapers to get a preliminary look at how Chinese traitors (collaborators, or 漢奸) are portrayed. For now, I’m concentrating on the period of 1945 to say 1948, by which time most of the trials of 漢奸 had finished up. I was only able to get a start on this project this time. Also, newspapers (and “traitors” in China) are only a first stop, but hey, I haven’t even started my PhD program yet.

I have to say though, the leaning over musty (ok, they aren’t musty, but try to get in the mood with me here) volumes of old newspaper collections has so far been a lot of fun. Today I took a little extra time to jot down some notes on things I found interesting in Shenbao issues just after the fall of Japan. Read on if you think advertisements for cosmetics, candy and movies from 1945 can actually be interesting.
Continue reading Shanghai in August 1945

Echo Chamber

Sometimes Sayaka pats my head and in a patronizing voice says,「いい子いい子」Sometimes I pat her head and tell her she is an「いい子いい子」Today I tried to explain to her that what we essentially have going on here is an echo chamber (in which we each congratulate the other for being a “good little boy/girl”). She said, “No, we have an いい子 chamber.”

Open Access

One thing I hope to think a lot about in graduate school (assuming I will still have time for personal thinking) is how academic work is published/distributed. As most of my friends know, I’m very interested in and active in the “open” source/access/content movement but I’m far from having sorted out all my thoughts on this when it comes to history and the academic world. The key word, and most troublesome issue is “peer review” or more broadly the academic world as meritocracy. There are lots of blogs talking about this already but the postings are all over the place. One particularly high concentration of stuff is being written on the Open Access News blog. For example see this entry on how the scientific journal Nature is thinking about open access publishing.

Smurfs and Socialism

Karl Marx I love the smurfs. I always have. My sister and I were raised on Smurf songs and the cartoons. Never, never did I (and I doubt Carleen did either) turn the analytical eye on the holy smurfs. Others have, though. Now, after all these years, do I realize where my deep socialistic instincts find their source. I must overcome these urges towards an egalitarian society born of the propoganda of my youth and the seeming tranquility of Norwegian welfare society and embrace the invisible hand! 資本主義萬歲! :-)

History for the Youth

My friend Duckling, over at Blackberry Picking has a fantastic idea about creating a history related blog targeting young adolescents, say 10 to 15 years old. I think this will make for a very unique and valuable project. She is nearing the close of her own graduate studies in history. In the fall I begin a half decade or more journey of a doctorate in history. I hope eventually I’ll be able to call myself a historian, and with even greater pride, a teacher. I must confess though that, at the end of the line, I have rather quaint images of myself as a writer of children’s stories, holed up in a Norwegian mountain cottage which is somehow miraculously connected to the internet.

I don’t know what Duckling’s motivations are, but I tend to agree with a line from Dostoyevsky’s Idiot, “It is through children that the soul is cured.” (p90 in my copy). Whenever I interact with children, I can almost feel the years of meaningless crap being scraped from an aging heart. It is the storyteller that inspires children. The only difference between them and us, as far as I’m concerned, is that we see this in them, but refuse to see it in ourselves. Whatever one’s stance on the relationship of history to literature, I think we can all agree that history is born of the storyteller’s craft. In my case, I fed a hunger for fantasy with reading and child’s play. The interactive element provided by a love for role-playing games was incredibly important as well. I think Duckling’s idea is an exciting one and I wish her luck in it and her other projects.

A Day of Protests

There has been a day of full protests here in Taipei. After lunch, Sayaka and I headed downtown to see what was going on. Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall and the surrounding area was pretty empty but a few thousand people were protesting in front of the KMT headquarters and the red presidential building. You can download all my pictures I took from today’s protests and last night’s victory rally near the DPP headquarters here (18 MB) but I’ll take them down eventually.

Lian and Song are Ready for Battle

Opposition leaders Lian and Song are ready for a post-election war. After Chen Shuibian was elected for another term by a razor edge lead, opposition leaders Lian and Song declared the election invalid and their intention to sue for irregularities in the votes, etc. The votes are going to be recounted and the investigation into the assassination attempt on the 19th continues.

The protests on TV were getting out of hand with some rioting and violence around the country. What we saw was quite calm by comparison, with snack booths set up, songs being sung, and drinks and sandwiches being passed out to protesters. The government buildings were cordoned off by barbed wire and police lines on all sides, but individuals could pass through the 2/28 Memorial Park to get behind the police lines.

Riot Police Snoozing

The riot police were friendly, that is, those who were still conscious. The police had been there since late last night when the protests started. They seemed to be rotating between those manning the lines and the dozens who were sleeping in their riot gear along the edge of the park or, if awake, enjoying a relaxed coffee in the park’s cafe. Some waved, one yelled in English, “Welcome to Taiwan” and I spoke a bit to one exhausted riot police officer surounded by the rest of his sleeping unit. No one seemed to be bothered by the fact we were wandering around in their carefully cordoned off area or that stray KMT protesters were wandering in from the park. I did hear however, that apparently this area was closed off more tightly later in the day as the protesters grew in number.

Later in the day TV showed more scenes of violence (a KMT truck tried to break through police lines somewhere) which my KMT friend assured me was rare (indeed we were puzzled at one TV shot of a man shaking the fence near where the above police line picture is – he could have just walked around if he wanted to get to the other side. The media was definitely looking for anything juicy) and there have been lots more photos released of Chen Shuibian’s exposed belly button, dazed face during his surgery, and various medical files all designed to put to an end questions about the assassination attempt.

The Day After the Election

Things are getting crazy here in Taiwan, much more so than yesterday (the election day). The opposition is out of control with anger and there are protests everywhere, some violence. Sayaka and I are going down town to see how things are in Taipei. This is sooo sad. I’ll be blogging here throughout the next few days and will update this entry today as I see things…

More than Palm Trees in Common

The Taiwan election is officially over and Chen Shuibian has won another term. I’ll be reading the various newspapers tomorrow at nearby coffee shops (which Taipei has an abundance of). The opposition KMT party has disputed the election, the suspicious facts surrounding the assassination attempt yesterday, hundreds of thousands of invalidated votes, etc. Whether or not foul play is proved regarding the assassination, or if some of the invalidated votes were done so unfairly, the dispute of the election is a blow to Taiwanese democracy and rings all too familiar. More on this at NYT and BBC in English. It would be very sad to see this get ugly in the next few days.

Taiwan Election Results

The election polls closed 48 minutes ago. All the TV channels are showing the votes adding up on screen. I don’t understand what is going on. Of the four channels we are flipping back and forth from, there are 3 different vote counts being displayed for the two sides (Blue and the President Chen’s Green). Two Channels have the KMT etc. (Blue) in the lead by 20,000 votes or so, one channel has it in the lead by 100,000 votes and the fourth channel has President Chen’s DPP etc. (Green) in the lead by 20,000. I don’t understand why there are these different counts…because of the way the numbers differ, it not just a matter of time lag. I’ll update this through this evening as I continue to watch. See the updates below:

Blue=KMT etc. (Lian and Song)
Green=DPP etc. (President Chen Shuibian)

16:50 TTV is showing KMT in the lead by 400,000 votes, TVBS shows KMT in the lead by 15,000, CTI shows KMT in the lead by 6,000 votes…
17:10 Channel 37 (?): Green by about 50,000 TVBS: Blue by about 15,000 TTV (Channel 40): Blue by about 350,000 CTI: Blue by 40,000 Minshi Xinwen: Green by 25,000 SET: Green by 100,000 TTV (Channel 44?) Blue by 350,000
17:30 Channel 37 (?): Blue by 3,000 TVBS: Blue by 200,000 TTV (Channel 40): Blue by 400,000 CTI: Blue by 40,000 Minshi Xinwen: Green by 50,000 SET: Blue by 80,000 TTV (Channel 44?) Blue by 410,000
18:00 Channel 37 (?): Blue by 60,000 at 5,324,264 TVBS: Blue by 18,000 with 5,346,171 TTV: Blue by 150,000 with 5,634,425 CTI: Blue by 200,000 at 5,589,979 Minshi Xinwen: Green by 130,000 at 5,078,662 SET: Blue by 70,000 at 5,494,622 Taishi (Ch. 8) Green by 1000 at 5,470,696 CTV (Ch. 10) Green by 50,000 at 5,933,906 Huashi (Ch. 12) Green by 50,000 at 5,383,564
Referendum Results Got more than the 50% it needs to count, Minshi Xinwen scores show overwhelming support for both measures.
18:30 Channel 37 (?): Green by 17,000 at 6,162,565 TVBS: Green by 116,000 at 5,745,747 TTV: Green by 54,000 at 6,162,551 CTI: Green by 50,000 at 6,312,241 Minshi Xinwen: Green by 100,000 at 6,018,878 SET: Green by 30,000 at 5,954,745 Taishi (Ch. 8) Green by 3,000 at 6,261,157 CTV (Ch. 10) Green by 51,000 at 6,179,834 Huashi (Ch. 12) Green by 23,000 at 6,085,621
19:00 Channel 37 (?): Green by 60,000 at 6,306,247 TVBS: Green by 52,000 at 6,399,558 TTV: Green by 42,000 at 6,359,133 CTI: Green by 40,000 at 6,441,478 Minshi Xinwen: Green by 52,000 at 6,194,353 SET: Green by 90,000 at 6,334,543 Taishi (Ch. 8) Green by 7,000 at 6,359,499 CTV (Ch. 10) Green by 51,000 at 6,179,834 Huashi (Ch. 12) Green by 50,000 at 6,239,652
Notes: People seem to be getting crazy now as the number of uncounted votes are dwindling, massive partying by the DPP, referendum votes are overwhelming for the two measures (strengthen defense and conduct dialogue) but Reuters is reporting there is probably not enough of the electorate voting in the referendum for it to count.
19:30 Channel 37 (?): Green by 130,000 at 6,514,209 TVBS: Green by 27,000 at 6,469,171 TTV: Green by 31,000 at 6,453,162 CTI: Green by 27,000 at 6,469,187 Minshi Xinwen: Green by 80,000 at 6,324,697 SET: Green by 36,000 at 6,466,477 Taishi (Ch. 8) Green by 21,000 at 6,421,698 CTV (Ch. 10) Green by 28,000 at 6,454,888 Huashi (Ch. 12) Green by 100,000 at 6,312,654
Note: The vote number I’m giving is the amount of votes for the winner and the number of votes they are ahead is only approximate.
20:00 Channel 37 (?): Green by 23,000 at 6,463,568 TVBS: Green by 27,000 at 6,470,517 TTV: Green by 27,000 at 6,470,516 CTI: Green by 27,000 at 6,470,517 Minshi Xinwen: 89,000 at 6,393,918 SET: Green by 34,000 at 6,471,700 Taishi (Ch. 8) Green by 27,000 CTV (Ch. 10) Green by 27,000 at 6,470,786 Huashi (Ch. 12) Green by 33,000 at 6,476221

The 20:00 TV update will be my last. Sayaka and I have been watching this since about 16:30 this afternoon, with snacks in hand, and while at least all the channels now seem to agree that the president is going to slide into a second term, many still have different numbers. We are now going to head over to the DPP election headquarters (競選總部) here in Taipei where, at least on TV, there seems to be one massive happy victory party going on. The heading at the bottom of CTI TV channel right now says, 陳水扁輕傷，國民黨重傷 (Chen Shuibian received a minor injury, the Nationalist party has been badly injured) referring to the assassination attempt yesterday and the current grim election outcome for the KMT party. The KMT crowds look pretty miserable and their horns are not blowing with much enthusiasm any more, but their party spokesman (who I believe uttered the above line) says “we will never leave the KMT” Personally, I would like to see the party, with its long and marred history, dissolve and a new political scene develop in time for the next election. Ok, we are off to find the party…