Author: Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

What is theory?

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This is the first in a series of main articles relating to theory. A new article on either sustainability, the buddha or theory will be posted fortnightly.

Theory (or postmodern theory) will only make sense when we look at the definitions of Modernity, Modernism and Postmodernism because theory can be said to be interchangeable with the term “postmodernism”.

Modernity (or the Modern) is the development of Western history of, say, the last five centuries. Characterized by the rise of capitalism, science and technology, and rational thought, it challenged traditional authority, that of the Christian Church and legitimacy of political power. It can be seen as the beginning of liberalism. But from it also came even more brutal forms of power, like the absolutism of Louis XIV, XV and XVI. And countries such as England and the Netherlands saw political instability but saw the gains through capitalism and Imperial expansionism. And during the Enlightenment the very notion of “Modernity” becomes self-aware, defining itself against previous traditional ways of lifes, Christian dogma and superstition. So by the 19 century transformation and upheaval was seen as the rule.

Modernity can be seen as beignning of the ideas of progress and evolution, and of ideas as different as capitalism and communism. And even today the technological progress is still a place of much of our misplaced hopes. Modernity is now no longer something we celebrate but rather it is something to which we feel we are comdemned.

Modernism – which moved on from the novelty, the “scandal and challenge”, of Modernity – is a constellation of intellectual and artistic Western ideals from the mid-nineteenth century. And it is a late development of Modernity. Modernism is an awareness of Modernity’s conflict and upheaval. But it also thoroughly believed, perhaps more than Modernity, in progress and evolution. And it had hoped to solve problems brought about by Modernity with more radical and absolute forms of Modernity, creating even more absolute answers. An example of Modernism in politics is Marxism. And Expression, Symbolism, Cubism, Futurism and Art Nouveau are further examples of Modernist art movements.

Postmodernism can be defined as the dismantling of the ideas and beliefs of Modernism, and does not replace the latter. Postmodernism maintains a relationship with and relativism to Modernism. It returns with rigour to older ideals but in renewed fashion. In art and literature figure painting and realism respectively becomes important once again. Irony and pastiche – rather than metaphysics and parody – become the main vehicles for expression. And with its borrowing of styles it becomes clear that Postmodernism is both anti-authoritarian and anti-foundational in outlook.

Examples of Postmodernism are Deconstruction, Psychoanalytic Criticism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, Feminist Criticism, Queer Theory, Poststructualism, Neo-Marxist Criticism, Post-colonial Theory, Reader Response Theory, Postmodernism (as a self-aware position), New Pragmatism, etc. Names associated with Postmodernism are Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Kristeva, Said, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams, Deleuze, Lacan, etc.

Diversity and microgeneration

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A friend and I had an email conversation about water recently. He reminded me that it was once each individual’s responsibility in the sense the they seeked it out and found solutions to their own water problem. And in a way this is similar to what we need to do now with microgeneration – find our own solutions.

Microgeneration is also like diversity in the sense that unique solutions must be found for each case. But govenerments in the so-called developed world have set up barriers to microgeneration in the form of controls and regulations. Whereas once we created our own solutions without restriction today everything needs approval before it can be done. Thus governments are a hinderance to our well-being “inadvertantly”.

While I understand the need for such restrictions and regulations in today’s close-knit society I still believe it might not be to the benefit of its people. finding solutions to energy – like finding solutions to water – that were once solved by individuals are now out of their hands and placed in a collective effort. And when the system fails like in the 2003 North America Black Out large sections of society are put out. But I don’t think it is such an inconvenience since the benefits outweigh the occasional ‘hickup’. However there seems to be a lack of diversity in energy generation, something that I think is important even if it is more complicated, time-consuming or troublesome to create.

This might seem like going against the ideas in my last water and the government article it does not because governments must find unique solutions for each case. What I am not satisfied with is the way governments homogenize everything and everyone. The very words “our government” blind us to the fact that not all indivduals accept the decisions it makes. In other words, the system and the people it is governing is anything but homogenous and politicians need to remind themselves of that.

Simply, diversity must be seen to be everywhere.

Water is the government’s responsibility

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“Governments, not private firms, must take responsibility for getting water to their people, a new report argues.”

Why is it today we need a new report to tell us the obvious. When I was a secondary student our Economics teacher taught us that basic utilities like water, electicity, gas and telephone are the responsibility of the government. And that was the way it was and should be.

When utilities like water move from service to business profit becomes the bottom-line. But what about the farm a little out of the way who is not getting water and will not get water because the water business decided it was not profitable or not in its interest? Would this farm not get the benefits if it had been a tax payer?

A service would not think twice in making subsistance possible for this farmer. A business will see profit first over viability. But what the government does not realize is that we need people like this farmer, for diversity is a key ingredient to survival.

Diversity within any system is essential whether in nature or human constructed ones like the economy. Somehow we have come to a point where we simply have forgotten that we are part of a larger system that follow the physical and biophysical laws of the universe and that even our system must follow this.

It is a like a “good” Hollywood movie: it is so real we think the movie is the reality. How many people have you known literally bend over backwards to avoid bullets? It can only happen on film. And even if it can happen in reality the effort involved is much. So we need a reality-check. In short, we, humankind, are so good at deception that we even deceive ourselves.

So when are we going to wake up to the fact that we have been deceived by the economic discourse?

Happy Birthday, Dr David Suzuki

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Today is David Suzuki‘s seventieth birthday.

The first time I became aware of this Canadian geneticist was in a children’s science program. But it was years later before I saw him again on television. This time he was talking at the Foreign Press Club in Australia. It was then I realized that he was an environmentalist. He was a passionate and articulate speaker much like David Bellamy (British botanist) or David Attenborough (British naturalist).

It was this televised speech that got me curious about environmentalism. Back then I associated this term with radical thinking, protests and trouble makers. A nuisance was what I thought of them. For this humble and concerned man talked about problems I was scarcely aware of, or worse, I dismissed as alarmist. But he made some sense and it shattered the image I had of environmentalism and environmentalists.

Then a couple of years later I came across one of Dr Suzuki’s books – Good News for a Change – when I was stuck in Calary Airport due the Big North American Black Out of 2003 . Remembering how impressed I was with his talk I bought it and read at the airport. And this is not an exaggeration: every page shocked me. The things I didn’t like about politicians, big businesses, society and culture suddenly began to make sense, as did the big outage I was sitting in just then.

Sometimes we have to be pushed over the edge before we see things that are plainly in front of us, because we choose to blind ourselves of the truth as it is simpler. It is a kind of laziness. It is a human trait to be lazy and therefore senseless. I noticed this in Buddhism about ten years ago. And I noticed how everything – like theory – seemed to point towards laziness as the cause of most of our problems.

So this very page – I guess you could say it is on our problems – wouldn’t be here if it was not for Dr Suzuki. So I thank him and I pay homage to him. And I pay homage to all human beings out there who are trying to make this world a better place, whether it is through environmentalism, Buddhism, theory or any other honest means. But remember it is possible to get lazy in any of these things also, just like any human endeavour. It is possible to be misguided no matter how good our intentions are. It is possible to be not honest even in environmentalism, Buddhism or theory. That is something I learned from this great man. You need to be rigourous and with scrutiny, always.

Happy 70th Birthday, Dr Suzuki.

Woking the Green Path

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Woking, England… remember this name. Because this town of 90,000 is showing us that it is possible to cut carbon emissions by 77 percent.

Related Posts:
Micro-generation

Buddhist practice may help spread the bird flu

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In a recent article entitled “Bird Flu Puts an Element Of Peril into Buddhist Rite” Alan Sipress points out the possibly of a link between certain Buddhist rites and the spread of bird flu in Asia. In countries like Cambodia Taiwan and Thailand the practice of “releasing” birds as a way to gain “karma points” is widespread. And it is because of the nature of caging a large number of birds together for a length of time that concerns environmental groups like the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Environmental issues aside I am more concerned of the Buddhist practice itself. One Cambodian monk interviewed in the article recounted the story of Shakyamuni (the Buddha) helping an arrow-wounded swan. He nursed it back to health before releasing it. And it is on the basis of this story that the practice became widespread.

Yet the birds used for release in these countries are neither sick nor injured. They are captured for the sole purpose of the “act of release”. Children apparently attempt to recapture the birds as soon as they are released in order to resell them (I guess this could be called recycling). One bird vender even boasted that she sells one thousand birds on most days.

Mr Sipress pointed out that the practitioners and bird-sellers seldom remark on the contradiction of trapping of the birds for release. But this comes as no surprise to me as I often talk about the difference between the Buddha’s teaching and Buddhism. And this is just one good example of what I dislike about Buddhism as a social organization.

If the Buddha were to see this practice today he would no doubt be saddened by the empty gesture. Practice is not about acts like this. It is about sincerity and rigour. From the article Mr Sipress did not come across as being Buddhist, so he was rather cool about it all. But I feel, as a buddhist, the bird-act cheapens the “religion” of Buddhism.

Mara’s Dictionary – government; politics

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government [s] – (n) a hinderance to the well-being of its people. (see also politics)

politics [s] – (n) a hinderance to the well-being of the people of other nations. (see also government)

See the rest of Mara’s Dictionary.

Nature+Youth=Environmentalism

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A new study has shown that exposure to nature at a young age may lead to environmental awareness. But it stresses that freeplay with nature, rather than controlled or organized exposure, to be the key. One of the authors of the study, Nancy Wells, wrote:

“Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory [like the scouts or other forms of environmental education programs] evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don’t have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism.”

And all the more reason we should worry when The Economist warns us with an article on rural and urban population in its The World in 2006 magazine. It said for the first time in the history of humankind there will be more people living in the city than the country. Put another way it means more children are seeing and interacting less with nature, and they have no choice.

This reminds me of one of my favourite sustainability jokes, Most people in the city have come up from the country to make enough money to leave the city and live in the country. Joke aside, the above humour has two flaws to its attitude. Firstly, it suggests that that it is hard to make a living in the country. But that really it all depends on how much you make and spend. Quoting my father, who is a fountain of wisdom, he said, “it doesn’t matter how much you make, three-thousand dollars or three-million, if you spend one-dollar more than you earn you are in the red”.

So in this case, country living does not necessarily equate to poverty – country life can be comfortable but not extravagant. It is only when the city glitter blinds you that you are made to feel inadequate. Which brings me to the second flaw: after being blinded by the city glitter and you return to country living you are all but unprepared for its frugal, but sustainable, lifestyle. And this is why you need that money – to bring with you the luxuries and convenience of the city that you are now so used to.

So why not just not get blinded by the city glitter? Why not feel adequate and proud of your frugally sustainable country life? City people are really just deluded and insecure. Someday they will realize their iPods don’t make them a better person, but hearing the music in nature will. It seems that people like Ms Wells and the guy who wrote The Economist article (and the thousands of other people who write on environmentalism) are saying most of us need to get to know nature before we forget how to live within it.

Mara’s Dictionary

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Note: This is a dictionary of humour, not of actual accepted definitions in use, though some of it might have some truth in them.

Key: [s] = sustainability, [t] = theory, [b] = buddhism

biodiversity [s] – (n) a tertiary education institution divided into two distinct levels for the animal kingdom and humankind, with the former being higher.

decadance [s] – (n) [pronounced: dead can dance] 1. to live as though the ‘dead can dance’. 2. Title of I M Wallstreet’s 1985 bestseller, Decadance: Ten Ways to Waltz from Rags to (the) Riches.

differance [t] – (n) [pronounced: the France] The desconstruction term used to put France on the map (orig. late 20c. see also Derrida).

government [s] – (n) a hinderance to the well-being of its people. (see also politics)

internet security – (n. phr.) the warm fuzzy feeling one gets when one connects to their internet service provider and finds is not down due to server failure or maintenance.

no-soul [b] – (n) 1. what some people don’t have. 2. what some people don’t have.

park ranger [s] – (n) the electronic device on the back of modern cars that warn you before you reverse into an endangered tree.

politics [s] – (n) a hinderance to the well-being of the people of other nations. (see also government)

post-modern [t] – (v. ph.) [or post… modern] what most bloggers are doing when they write junk.

Shakyamuni [b] – (prop. n) the name used to denote the period in the Buddha’s life after he left his teachers to search for enlightenment alone. He is the distant relative of 1980s pop singer, Chaka Khan.

sustainable economics [s] – (n) what economists think is possible, but environmentalists do not.

sustainable politics [s] – (n) 1. a politician’s ability to continue to deceive the voters long after he has left office. 2. there is no such thing.

theory [t] – (n) what everybody believes their own to be right, but nobody can prove.

What is Mara’s Dictionary
I have always wanted to write my own dictionary. And now I have. It is called Mara’s Dictionary. Its style was inspired by “Wiley’s Dictionary” that regularly features in Johnny Hart’s very funny, very cynical BC comic strip. And the title is a tongue-in-cheek take on Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary.

Mara is the embodiment of death (and temptation) in Buddhism, which can be loosely equated to the Christian concept of the Devil. And all the words in the dictionary are related to the blog’s main theme – sustainability, the Buddha and theory – in some way.

I will continue to add new “definitions” as I go. Right now, I am aiming for a list of 50 words before the blog’s first anniversary (mid-February, 2007).

What Is Sustainability?

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This is the first in a series of main articles relating to sustainability. A new article on either sustainability, the buddha or theory will be posted fortnightly.

The idea of sustainable development – or sustainability – was first given prominence in the 1987 United Nations report, Our Common Future. Also called the Brundtland Report (named in honour of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who was the leading spokesperson for the report) it puts forward the idea that the current level of natural resource consumption by the industrialized world and the growing economies of developing nations (together with a rapidly increasing population) is unsustainable. In pragmatic terms sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Weak and strong sustainability

Sustainability is sometimes described as either being weak or strong. Weak sustainability does not differentiate between human-made capital and natural capital, while strong sustainability makes that distinction. In weak sustainability, the measure of natural capital as profit loss – or gain – is seen to be sufficient in defining the problems of sustainability. But strong sustainability contends that this is too human-centred – from the perspective of human interests only – and is insufficient in tackling the problem of our unsustainable practices. Furthermore, strong sustainability sees discussion of sustainability from within economic jargon or terminology as problematic. In other words, it keeps the agenda wholly within economic defining boundaries.

In strong sustainability the present value system of human-based structures are seen as working against the values of nature-based mechanism or biosystem. In short, present human discourse ignores and suppresses (oppresses) nature, seeing only a binary opposition between humankind and nature with the former on top.

Case against sustainability

There is also the extreme view that the sustainability discourse is simply untrue – that it is possible to continue our present pattern of consumption indefinitely. The argument goes like this: through our ingenuity and technology we will create new and alternative ways to sustain (or even increase) our present levels of consumption.

But such an argument often ignores the fact that 1) it is the very same science and technology they are putting their faith in that is the cause of current environment environmental problems, and 2) resources are finite. It is with this kind of cultural logic and wishful thinking that Western culture has driven humankind toward ecological collapse “taking with them to their graves” other life forms along the way. There is no doubt the ecological system can and will recover from such a collapse but it is unlikely to include humankind in its picture.

Brundtland report revisited

If one had to say whether the Brundtland Report is of the weak or strong sustainability variety, one would have to say it is of the weak kind. Because human needs are given priority over those of other life forms that we share this planet (…meeting human needs… , etc). This kind of thinking can also be called anthropocentric where little or no consideration is given to the larger picture that is the environment. It ignores the systems that govern life-giving interaction.

The anthropocentric binary (though not really its opposite) is the biocentric view, which takes in account all life forms and resources within the system in which humankind is a part. Thus in the biocentric view we are neither the only life form, nor the better one (due to our uncanny ability to manipulate or alter the environment). In fact, the ability of radical manipulation should be seen as a weakness, not as a strength.

I say this because as intelligent as we are we have lost the ability to adapt to the environment. And by adapting the environment to suit us – instead of adapting to the environment – we may someday lose all ability to survive in the less habitable world of the future that we are creating for ourselves this very moment.