Those two meta-narratives

Who is Eric Li?

If interested, check out his June 2013 TED Talk , timely for two reasons. One, as one of my fellow teachers noted while we were zooming down Tiansheng Lu to a before-school dinner, TED talks can be lively conversation starters in language classes. Two, we were fuming over the possibility that Congress had already voted to support an air strike in Syria. Someone in the front seat had heard (mistakenly) that it was a fait accompli,  and our Chinese colleague "Sparrow" thought the US could learn a thing or two from the Chinese: resist assuming it has the answer for everyone else's problems. Resist assuming it has some universal moral supremacy. Someone in the back seat said why that was precisely Eric Li's point in a TED talk last summer.

Mind you, in his June 2013 TED Talk, Eric Li was not addressing Obama or an air strike on Syria; rather, he was chastising what he considers Western hubris and the wrong-headedness of imposing Western-style democracies on everyone, whether they want them or not. Also, please bear in mind that none of us in that car is planning to use that particular TED Talk for reasons I could explain later.

In this rhetorically-savvy fifteen-minute or so talk, Eric Li first trashes what he calls two meta-narratives, one the prevailing ideology during the Cultural Revolution (when he was born), and two the prevailing ideology of many Western democracies, each one tracing a linear progression of political systems to the culminating "best one"--whether communism or democracy. The fallacy of both is universalizing a progression that places one and only one system at the top. After saying he had been a Berkely hippie who thought this and that, the venture capitalist proceeds unabashedly to defend China's one-state policy on the grounds that it is characterized by "adaptability, meritocracy, and legitimacy." He somewhat paradoxically calls for plurality of viewpoints about political systems elsewhere while vehemently denying the need for any such thing at home. The venture capitalist doesn't pretend to be defending communism; he is defending the firm grip of a one-party state, which is not quite the same thing.

The speech is fascinating partly because it is slick. He is a gifted orator. His casual tone at the beginning might soften some of those who wouldn't otherwise hear him out. But the speech is full of contradictions and paradoxes, all the more provocative because the issues are so important.

Just days before the vote on the Syrian air strike, I find myself in a curious position, agreeing heartily about some things with people I might take serious issue with at other times on other points. Since when would I align myself with Tea Party members against something Obama wants? And when would I align myself with some of Eric Li's claims, even as I find very problematic some of his other assertions?

And yet, brutal and horrible as the activity is in Syria, I think it would be a grave mistake for the US to intervene. Worse than breaking one's word about a threat, the infamous red line, is assuming that we have the answers for Syria. We don't. And we don't have the prerogative to ignore the will of the UN.

With this, I'll give Eric Li the last word: "If [Western democracies] would spend just a little less time on trying to force their way onto others and a little more on political reform at home, they might give their democracy a better chance. China's political model will never supplant electoral democracy because, unlike the latter, it doesn't pretend to be universal."