Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Bee Hiving Moon<\/p>\n
In all the tsunami\/earthquake, nuclear crisis, air strikes in Libya, brother coming, dog biting haze I missed this story about Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident artist whose marble chair is in our Wu Family Reception Hall.\u00a0 I’ve attached a summary from the Financial Times and a video interview with Dan Rather (see above).\u00a0 Especially in the Rather interview I can see the problem he poses for an autocratic regime.\u00a0 He gets the notion of freedom, of individuality, of free expression.\u00a0 That’s frightening stuff to autocrats.<\/p>\n
As a man who admires Chinese civilization, its arts, its literature, its inventiveness, its long, long history, I know China and Chinese civilization has room for Ai Weiwei and his kind.\u00a0 Wandering Taoist sages, eccentrics all, the mountain poets, literati painters are just the ones who come to mind right now.<\/p>\n
The more I read Chinese literature and history I do know that they inflect the dialectic rebel\/government in a way not easily understood by Americans.\u00a0 That is, the rebel is bad and the government good.\u00a0 Or mostly, anyhow.\u00a0 This has to do in part with the notion of the mandate of heaven.\u00a0 As long as the government achieves order, the people are fed and happy, then the government reflects the will of heaven.\u00a0 But, if the people are starving, crime and violence becomes rampant–see the Warring States period and the end of the Han Dynasty as examples–the government has lost the mandate of heaven and must be replaced.<\/p>\n
I have also added a TED video (above) about China, one that defines it as a civilization-state rather than nation-state and speculates on the impact of China’s rise.\u00a0 I think the idea is germane to this topic.<\/p>\n
Enough.\u00a0 I’m thinking about how to impact this man’s detention in a positive way.\u00a0 If you have any ideas, let me know.<\/p>\n