The East-West Counterpoint

Old Age Makes You Stronger

At the time YiWen was born, we were living in Nei Hu, a suburb of Taipei. During the latter weeks of my wife's pregnancy we were commuting to an inner city hospital to attend childbirth preparation classes in the hospital where YiWen was born. That day I stayed in the hospital until late that night and, returning home missed the last bus and had to walk. It was close to midnight. Near the Ta Hu Road I saw a theater troupe performing a Chinese play. I sat on a bench and watched the play. When the play ended I expected someone to collect a fee, but no one did. Actors packed their props and departed. This left me puzzled. The next day I told my wife the story, asking why the actors played even when no one was watching except me. My wife explained that someone asked God of the neighboring temple to grant him a favor, promising to arrange a theatrical performance as a reward. God granted the favor, the performance was paid for, and the actors did not care if anyone was watching. They were performing for God.

Faces of Janus In the time of war, the doors of the Janus temple in the Forum opened and Roman commanders departed through them, their steps marking the beginning of their mission. Before leaving they could have caught the last glimpses of the temple of Saturn to the west, the temple of Vestal Virgins to the east, and the Basilica Aemilia to the north. They might recall patriotic speeches pronounced from the Rostrum, speakers’ platform decorated with the prows of captured enemy ships, and harden their resolve by viewing the Arches of Augustus and Septimius Severus. Janus signifies beginnings and endings. The first month of the year, Januarius is named for him. Janus is also the doorkeeper of Heaven. The statue of Janus has two faces. One of his faces looks to the East and the other to the West. This spatial alignment follows the trajectory of the Sun, associating polarities of sunrise and sunset, of the beginning and the end. For the civilization of the West, East-West is the principal dimension of the Earth. The very name, Western civilization, refers to this dimension.

Europe, Land of the Setting Sun

Land of the setting sun  The cradle of Western Civilization, Europe, means the “land of the setting sun.” To call the countries of the Pacific Rim ‘East’ or ‘Far East’ also reflects the Western perspective. To Chinese, theirs was the land of the Middle, and their principal dimension was that of North and South. The Emperor was always seated facing the South, all others facing the North. The Chinese Empire had two capitals, Beijing and Nanjing, Beijing meaning ‘the Northern Capital’ and Nanjing meaning ‘the Southern Capital.’ Westerners prefer to write from left to right, Chinese prefer to write from the top of the page toward its bottom. In this narrative, the metaphor of the two faces of Janus and their orientation is used to describe the polarity of Eastern and Western civilizations. This metaphor seems quite appropriate, as so much of what the cultures of the East and West value, appears so different in each.

Space for Imagination Classical Chinese art does not depict violent scenes. Painting, calligraphy, and poetry were means of self-improvement. Beauty in artistic expression was judged by the degree to which it reflected the ideal of harmony. Art had educational value by reflecting subtle aspects of Confucian philosophy. Classical Chinese art was not subject to controversy typical of Western theoreticians, extolling realistic or abstract art. Classic Chinese considered realistic art crude and abstract art dishonest. Only by incompleteness was art complete, and only by imperfection was art perfect. In Chinese paintings there is often an empty space leaving room for imagination.

About Velvet and Hell Walking into a typical museum of Western art, one is often surrounded by violent scenes. Cavalry attacks, foot soldiers advancing, cannons firing, daggers stabbing, sabers slashing, rapiers puncturing bodies of enemies, bodies of Saint Sebastians punctured by arrows, battle axes splitting soldiers’ brains, wide swords cutting their heads off. Following are the scenes of retreat, bodies trampled upon, close-ups of the agony of dying soldiers, and panoramic scenes of battlefields strewn with bodies of dead and dying. One of course may encounter the of charming art of Watteau, the verdant landscapes of Gainsborough, and the beautiful Madonnas of Raphael. Western concepts of art includes the rustic scenes reminiscent of paintings by Peter 'Peasant' Bruegel, Sr., paintings of Jan 'Velvet' Bruegel with their soft contours, as well as visions of Peter 'Hell' Bruegel, Jr.. Western art reflects the artist and his society. It does not pertain to possibilities of their existence or how things could or should be.

Western judicial oligarchy  During the times China was ruled by Confucian traditions, Chinese society had an aversion to lawsuits. With the exception of serious crimes such as murder, both parties bringing a lawsuit to a court were administered caning with bamboo rods prior to the hearings for not being able to resolve the conflict among them. Confucian teachings opposed methods of behavior control by instilling the fear of punishment, as lawmakers do. They understood that other methods of behavior control are not only more humane, but also more permanent and effective. Well documented by Skinner's analysis of operant behavior, punishment or the threat of punishment suppresses, but does not extinguish, the undesirable behavior. Also, classical Chinese society understood that the legal and police systems cannot solve the problem of crime, because these agencies, by eliminating crime, would also lose their raison d'ętre.

When the towel is missing  Respecting ancestors, preserving family traditions, ancestral wisdom - the Chinese use past wisdom to make decisions that, in turn, shape future. Associated with this past-present-future orientation are feelings of loyalty and attachment to one's family, relatives, friends, and employers. Stability of family and work were the foremost, but not absolute, goals of the society. Before firing employees, executives reduce their salaries, reduce everything, reducing the working force as the last resort. Telling an employee that he or she was fired would be too painful for both parties. Traditionally, after a company dinner employees would wash their hands and dry them with personalized towels. A missing towel meant that the employee was dismissed.

Actors-Presidents  In classical China, government jobs were open to all but a few professions. Actors were excluded from these posts. The nature of acting is pretense creating the illusion of being a person the actor is not. The value continuum anchored on one pole by actors and on the other by teachers is quite distinct within classical Chinese culture: actors propagate illusions, teachers implant knowledge. To the Chinese, scholars and teachers ranked highest, followed by farmers, workers, and merchants, with actors, comedians, and entertainers at the end of the social prestige scale. In contemporary America, entertainers assume the role nobility used to play in Europe with teachers finding themselves close to the bottom of the social scale of values.

Scholars-Mandarins  Classical China was not a democracy. Classical China was a meritocracy. The Chinese Empire was ruled by educated, cultured officials selected on the basis of examinations in Confucian philosophy. The ruling class was not hereditary. Since the Zhou Dynasty, the Chinese recognized that the right to govern is not absolute but contingent on the moral qualities of the ruler and since the Han dynasty, government positions were filled by those scoring highest on the imperial civil service examinations in the Confucian classics, stressing benevolence, respect for parents, loyalty, and harmony with respect to interpersonal relationships. Confucianism combines a theory of society and a theory of human nature. Mandarins were held responsible for the well being of people within their precincts. Chinese recognized that human nature can be modified by education that establishes a hierarchy of values and behaviors. The goal of the Chinese Empire was the world at peace and harmony.

Love As Self-Hypnosis One of the factors in the growing divorce rate is the gradual displacement of the traditional, arranged marriage by Western ‘love’ marriages, reflected in contemporary China by substitution of the Ai Ren, love person, for the traditional Nei Ren, inner person, as a designation of one’s wife. Modern research shows that the ‘falling in love’ phenomenon is a form of self-hypnosis. Within the framework of Wilson’s sociobiology and Dawkins’ theory of ‘selfish genes,’ deception plays a major role as one of nature’s devices for increasing the probability of our species’ survival. However, this self-hypnosis does not last indefinitely. While protecting the marvel of procreation from doubts about mutual compatibility, as in any deception, the love self-hypnosis may become another Pandora’s gift in the long run. Marriages arranged by parents protect their children from this kind of deception and increase the probability of long-term successful marital adjustment. Research shows that with the passage of time, within the arranged marriages, the initial 'coldness' of their relationship is gradually replaced by love and understanding while the reverse trend is often observed when partners marry for love.

Lawyers and Family Marriage and divorce laws in Western civilizations are derived from ancient Hebrew laws, which strictly regulate marital relationships. Douglas Mac Arthur, head the Allied Occupation Government of Japan, disliked the fact that marriage in the Eastern civilizations was not regulated by the marriage laws. After changing the flow of traffic from the left side of the roads to the right side and distributing ten million copies of the Bible among the Japanese population, he legislated divorce. During the postwar years, the rate of divorce continued its steady ascent within both the Japan and the United States. However, the United States kept its leading position in this respect over Japan and, for that matter, the rest of the world. In the United States, in terms of the frequency of suits, divorce is not only the most important tort, but it is also the most frequent suit of any kind brought into courts. It is also the most lucrative, ranking among the best sources of revenue for the legal professions. In the United States, the monetary gains to the members of helping professions and lawyers from divorce proceedings exceed the combined profits of the entire automobile industry. While obviously determined by many factors, the increase of divorce rates among the countries of the Pacific Rim is proportional to their acceptance of the American culture. For example, between 1980 and 1990, China experienced a growth of divorces from 341,000 in 1980 to 800,000 in 1990, and this trend is continuing.

Growth of Teenage Suicides in the  United States between 1960’s and 1980’s.

You've Come A Long Way, Baby  Paralleling the growing divorce rates and changes in the status of the family within society is the growth of teenage suicide in the United States, as shown in the figure below for the second half of this century. This is one of the strongest indictments of the social changes pertaining to the status of the family during recent times. These changes altered the status and mutual relationship of females, males, and children and created a disturbance of basic human relationships, unparalleled in the history of humankind. Research shows that today's children are almost constantly concerned with the fear that their parents will divorce. Maybe ‘you've come a long way, baby,’ maybe your child’s way was not that long.

Child Abuse Charges Kirkpatrick (1995) in his study Escalation in Child Abuse Charges tied to Divorce observes that while it used to be that the state had no cause to intervene in family matters or to break through family bonds,

'... today that breach is so routine that mention of the possibility of abuse will cause the immediate removal of a child to shelter care --the first stop on the paved way to termination or suspension of parental rights, and a plunge of the child into foster care. In 1991 we started to see a strong correlation between divorce and the allegations of child abuse. Add to this the fact that most states make a profit whenever they take a child as their ward. The federal government coughs up just under 20 thousand dollars per year for each child a state has in foster care. On the whole, a state invests about fifty-five hundred dollars in each child, and pays about seven thousand to those who administer the case. That leaves about seventy- five hundred dollars. That means that the state is in a fairly profitable business. Not only is their public assistance to the child paid for, but they make a small profit besides. In doing this, families get divided, parents are driven into financial ruin trying to prove their innocence, and all of those involved -the children too- are subjected to such emotional trauma that their lives are permanently and negatively altered. In 1992, the Department of Health and Human Services released information which clearly showed that children raised in single- parent homes, or had been taken into the foster care system fared much worse than any other group of children. These kids had a greater number of problems with and in school, a higher propensity for crime, and a much greater incidence. As we can see, none of this bodes well for the children. It doesn't hold much promise for parents either. In fact, the only ones who profit from the system as it is are the states and the accusers. Each, in their own way, has the ability to achieve desired results. But not for those they seek to protect.'

About 80% of the allegations of child sexual abuse made during divorce custody and visitation disputes are blatantly false (Wakefield and Underwater, 1991). Aaron L. Hoffmeyer (March 11, 2005) comments that

'... yet the courts choose, "in the best interests of the children", to subject them to intense examinations with proctoscopes, colposcopes, ulvascopes, vaginascopes, cervix-scopes, "play" interviews with life-sized dolls with anatomically over-sized genitalia, placing them to high risk categories for drug-use, delinquency, academic failure, psychological problems, and suicide.'

Parental Alienation Syndrome   According to Dr. Richard A. Gardner (1990), with increasing child custody disputes has also come a growth in parental alienation syndrome, described as follows:

Abetted by one parent, the child develops an obsessive, irrational hatred of the other, who is viewed as the incarnation of evil. The denigration has a litany quality; every altercation of the past is used to justify the hatred. Bizarre charges may be made. In severe cases of parental alienation syndrome, the alienating parent is so filled with rage, paranoia, and delusions that a folie a deux will develop with the child, ensuing in lifelong alienation from one parent.

In countries in which people were not encouraged to take the family disputes to court, the Parental Alienation Syndrome was virtually nonexistent. Glenn F. Cartwright (2002) in the Changing Face of Parental Alienation Syndrome observes that this syndrome is an

 'artificial problem, promulgated and exacerbated by the adversarial system of child custody dispute adjudication. Nurtured by a divorce industry of lawyers, judges, social workers, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and guardians ad litem, it is no surprise that we have harvested a crop of children who see nothing wrong with hurting and rejecting one of their parents out-of-hand, often permanently.'

Passive Killings  In 2003, articles started to appear in mainstream media that antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in teenagers and, after public hearings, the Food and Drug Administration mandated a prominent warning on the antidepressant labels, cautioning about the possibility of increased suicide risk in minors. Following the fear campaign by the media, physicians - either influenced by the media or afraid of possible law suits - stopped or limited prescribing antidepressants to minors. The following year the number of teenage suicides increased from 4,232 in 2003 to 4,599 in 2004, an increase of 7.32 per 100,000 people.

Administration of virtually any medication carries a risk of possible adverse effect. The physicians role is to weight probabilities of adverse vs. beneficiary effects. The threat of law suits increased by fear campaigns by the media also increased the probability that physicians will decide against administration of possibly life-saving medication, as the litigation in cases when adverse effects follow the administration of a drug are more likely and more likely to succeed. Thus the litigation-prone society increases the probability of relatively risk-free passive killings. As social scientists you should ask yourself a question who should speak for hundreds of children whose life ended with a noose around their necks with the fear-mongering society helping to place it there?