To put my last post into a broader historical context, Japan was but one of many imperialist powers over the last 200 years. It's just that they came in somewhat late. European powers had been colonizing and plundering African, American and Asian peoples for centuries in a process that came to a head in the 19th century. China's current posture of not tolerating any encroachment on its perceived territory harks back to the poor treatment meted out to it by foreign powers during the last century of the Qing Dynasty. Japan was one of the last to jump on that bandwagon and consequently has suffered the greatest criticism from Beijing.

Japan's problem lies not only in how recent its wayward behaviour is, but how it has managed to mix up the messages. An apparent heartfelt apology is followed by a Prime Ministerial visit to Yasukuni. Regret at the outrages of the Imperial Army are followed by obfuscations about the nature of the atrocity (eg: Nanjing) or the extent, such as in the debate over "comfort women." It is a Yes, but... approach that casts doubt over the sincerity of any regret. Cue Shinzo Abe.

When I taught in Japan, the subject of the Great Pacific War, as it is called there, sometimes came up with adult students. I never raised the issue myself, but was happy to tread carefully and politely in any debate that followed. Certain patterns emerged in such discussions, usually starting with the tricky question, "Were the atomic bombings justified?" Leaving aside that thorny moral dilemma, the line of argument that followed was that Japan had been starved of resources and initiated a justifiable conflict with the United States. Putting to one side again the fact that Japan had already racked up 50 years of conquest and aggression against its Asian neighbours, the argument continued with the conspiratorial riposte that President Roosevelt had known about the attack on Pearl Harbor for some time and had allowed the attack to continue in order to get the US into the war.

I miss those class chats a lot, never mind the disagreement. You had to keep your wits about you and the disputes were always amiable.

With the 70th anniversary of the end of W.W.2 approaching this year, Shinzo Abe has weighed, with the subtlety of a brick through a window, into the debate. He is quoted today as saying that it has never been established that Japan fought a war of aggression. Perhaps in 1945 it was not deemed necessary to lay out with clarity the fact that Japan had acted aggressively, since the evidence for such a claim was everywhere to be found. Wherever one looked.

Japan seized Taiwan from China after a brief war in 1894/95, then annexed Korea in 1910. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, then provoked another conflict with China in 1937. The latter invasion was still in full swing when Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, before waltzing through South-East Asia on a war of, ahem, liberation and friendship.

As you can see, the evidence for Japanese aggression is very thin indeed and perhaps we should revise our textbooks in line with Mr Abe's critique.



I give you a new peace in our time!

Tom's first day of 4th Grade began today at Hazelbrook PS. Reluctant as he seemed to be to go to school, he looked relaxed when I picked him up from the Moosh this afternoon and he buzzed with chatter for a solid 45 minutes thereafter. Modern kids have a menu of ambit claims that need to be met when it comes to their new class - that it has to contain at least one significant friend, that the teacher is fun and slightly flexible in the enactment of The Rules and so forth.

As best I remember, my cohort just turned up, were allocated a teacher and classroom and got on with it. I didn't discuss preferences with my parents. But then again, I was in streamed classes until 6th grade, when a radical sixties experiment descended upon us. Mixed ability classes. From that day onward until the end of the year, my world of relative pronouns was turned upside down. And for who, whom, whose, which and that the bell tolls!

Schools are nicer places for kids to be these days. Freed from much of the pomposity, caning and petty vindictiveness of a plurality of former educators, there is much to like about modern schools. The downside is a new regime of testing and an overloaded curriculum, one that does not bode well of creating lifelong learners.

I love to learn and yearn

"To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

According to the best predictions, the universe may be teeming with life of one sort or another. Modelling suggests that evolutionary processes should have produced intelligent life from this happy crop, even within our own little cosmic backyard. Over 50 years ago, The SETI project pioneered the scientific search for intelligent extra-terrestrials, though there has been a curious and abiding silence over that time. Most recently folks working in this field have started to wonder where all the aliens are, given the apparent plethora of potentially habitable solar systems.

Amongst the many theories that abound over the causes of this grave cosmic silence, one in particular caught my attention. Creatures evolve over a long period of time and as best we know, in competition with each other. One species may become dominant (as in humans on Earth) and develop to a point where they achieve genuine technological significance (cue humans again). At some stage though, the technology becomes advanced to the point where the civilization destroys itself. And there is us again, maybe.

The trick is getting through this technological ceiling and surviving, which suggest a significant element of ethical and moral growth and perhaps some good luck. There are lots of reasons why I don't think our species will survive the journey past the age we are at this moment transitioning, though I do hope, for all the children and their children, and beyond, that we do.

For a much fuller and more lucid discussion of Where are all the aliens? go to this excellent article:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

I like a good affirmation. And on the whole, I like positive people, by which I mean, those who adopt a sunnier outlook on life when conditions seem to warrant a more downcast demeanour. People who have a more sanguine take on experience are often kinder and more tolerant, and tend to be better company too, though not always. Positive thinking has a proper role in psychology and in life in general, if only we can remember the wise words we read the night before.

But I am not especially in favour of the snake-oil version of positivity that dominates much social media, especially Facebook. Some of this is in the magical thinking category, whilst other contributions are so obvious or platitudinous as to make anyone with any self-respect weep. There is a lot of inspiring material in the world, but the sample below is not.


It is bollocks parading itself as wisdom.

Reading Qin Xiaolong's Years of Red Dust, a series of short stories based upon the lives of the people of an old street in Shanghai over the course of some 60 years, was a palliative to all the drier histories of that period. Qin's skill involves not only drawing vividly the individual vignettes of lives in rapid change and adaptation, without overt political comment, but also in backgrounding these very personal stories within their historical context. He does this by the simple device of beginning each chapter with a blackboard analysis of the year's political events (the same blackboard is used by characters in the lane as an ersatz CCP teaching device), then allowing his characters to fill the space beyond with their lives. In this sense the book operates like a script, the stage directions establishing conditions for the characters to exist within. The first of these finds us back in 1949, with the CCP triumphant.

This wordy paragraph (my apologies) should really just have said that I liked the book and can recommend the author, who incidentally, also writes fiction and translates Tang Dynasty poetry. On the basis of a fragment of Tang poetry quoted in one of the stories in Years Of Red Dust, I bought an anthology of poetry from this period for my kindle. The translations into English may be a little dated now but nevertheless it is a delightful read.

Religion, for the most part, promotes various forms of rigid thinking. Obvious, right? You get, with belief, a bunch of rules or conventions that come in the instruction manual. I have experienced this first-hand, having become a Christian at 20, and a fairly zealous one at that. The zeal can wear off as the rules and boundaries become increasingly onerous or contradictory. I had another try two years ago but found (despite the many blessings) that the vision was too narrow. I like faith but I want one that is more inclusive. That is no slight on God (in whom I believe), but rather a critique of the flawed human end of divine engineering.

Of courses, all organisational structures engender rigid thinking. It seems to be a necessary part of the human condition that rules are needed to create socially workable situations. The looser the structure (such as in alternate-lifestyle communes), the more the inclination towards chaos and decline. Open marriages (an oxymoron if ever there was one) are doomed by the very fact of their rule abandonment.

Which makes the times we live in, centuries after The Enlightenment, all the more interesting. Attempts at trans-national unity (as in the EU) find themselves increasingly bogged down in a minutiae of bureaucracy. Extremist Islamic fighters ( I should say, terrorists) blend a medieval black and white world view with a concomitant punishment mentality. Rule breakers are everywhere and they must be eliminated.

One might have hoped that with the fall of communism (another monumentally rule-driven ideology) last century we might have respite now. At least for a decade or two. But no, it is with us to stay.

The shape of things to come, in the cosmos, always adds perspective to life on earth. Our time here, when measured against the unimaginable eons of the universe, seems like straws in the wind.

Today there was another terror attack in Paris and I suspect that, in addition to the sadness of loved-ones, freedom of one kind or another is the loser. More security and surveillance means a loss of anonymity and the freedom to express, without being monitored. Self-censorship becomes a factor - 'what can I say and how can I say it?'

So in looking forward to a time beyond humanity, one can find solace in the sheer length of the perspectives, far beyond the end of life on earth, of the earth itself, of this period of stellar illumination and the looming creative darkness beyond that.

The original of the chart below is found at : http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future

New Year's Eve was surprisingly pleasant. Because Nadia had Tom for an extra night away camping, I was released to attend a very-late-notice party. With a decent view out across the Nepean Plain towards Sydney, a group of smart, nothing-to-prove people and some fine champagne, the evening went like an arrow towards the forfended hour.

When it came (and I surprised myself by actually being awake!), tiny florets of light appeared on the distant horizon. The large flat screen behind us mimicked this miniature performance with vast megapixels of cascading light and sound. A surreal contrast, to be sure.

NYE may be a foolish and irrelevant celebration, but it is nice to spend it in the company of pleasant people.