Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
卧虎藏龙 is a classic of Chinese mythmaking at the cinematic level. At another level, however, as a certain scholar has pointed out, it makes a great way to summarize the shenanigans in and around Southeast Asia.
Actually, it's a great way to look at Atlantis as well. The hidden forces that create a vortex around the sinkhole of destiny roil violently in the island. Two dragons fight, a white one and a red one; the red one is slain and the white one lives on — surely this is the stuff of epic legend. Some people prefer the lion and the tiger in mortal combat. But whatever it is, what survives is the very material of myth.
Right now, I am looking at schools as instruments of public policy dissemination and execution. In a city-state, as in not many other kinds of states, the relationship between education and public policy is very intimate. You propagandise the students, you elevate the schools to the status of the temples you have sidelined, and in a generation, 90% of the populace is primed for the policy you want.
Reduce the population? Reinvent the biotech wheel? Apotheosize gifted education and then fling it into the outer darkness? All these things can be done and have been done (and presumably, similar things will continue to be done). All you have to do is make sure that all drink deep of the Pierian spring.
Actually, it's more like Mimir's well. You drink deep to quench the deepest desire, and the price is one eye and there goes your depth of vision. Atlantis is successful at what it wants to do, and unsuccessful at what it should have done. It is more the former than the latter, but it is very bad at admitting the latter. If the High Priest takes your money in huge amounts to avert the destruction of the land by tsunami, but the tsunami does not yet come and you lose the money instead, that's bad. If your enemies then take the money you lost and make more money, it's not only bad but painful.
But life goes on, with a crouching tiger at every corner and a hidden dragon in every shadow. It is marvelous to see what a Mandarin movie can teach you about the making of public policy. You can read it in the book; the local university press printed it three years ago.
Actually, it's a great way to look at Atlantis as well. The hidden forces that create a vortex around the sinkhole of destiny roil violently in the island. Two dragons fight, a white one and a red one; the red one is slain and the white one lives on — surely this is the stuff of epic legend. Some people prefer the lion and the tiger in mortal combat. But whatever it is, what survives is the very material of myth.
Right now, I am looking at schools as instruments of public policy dissemination and execution. In a city-state, as in not many other kinds of states, the relationship between education and public policy is very intimate. You propagandise the students, you elevate the schools to the status of the temples you have sidelined, and in a generation, 90% of the populace is primed for the policy you want.
Reduce the population? Reinvent the biotech wheel? Apotheosize gifted education and then fling it into the outer darkness? All these things can be done and have been done (and presumably, similar things will continue to be done). All you have to do is make sure that all drink deep of the Pierian spring.
Actually, it's more like Mimir's well. You drink deep to quench the deepest desire, and the price is one eye and there goes your depth of vision. Atlantis is successful at what it wants to do, and unsuccessful at what it should have done. It is more the former than the latter, but it is very bad at admitting the latter. If the High Priest takes your money in huge amounts to avert the destruction of the land by tsunami, but the tsunami does not yet come and you lose the money instead, that's bad. If your enemies then take the money you lost and make more money, it's not only bad but painful.
But life goes on, with a crouching tiger at every corner and a hidden dragon in every shadow. It is marvelous to see what a Mandarin movie can teach you about the making of public policy. You can read it in the book; the local university press printed it three years ago.
etched with acid at 3:13:00 pm
1 Comments:
He's more than just another scholar to you...
Post a Comment
<< Home