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About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age. Recent posts
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Oct 24, 2005 01:24 PM ’Mao’s legacy is not all bad’: <BR>today’s Walter Duranty Award Winner by James Panero
This is part one of our posts on ’Mao and the Maoists,’ Keith Windschuttle’s feature article in the October issue on Mao, Jung Chang & Jon Halliday’s essential new book. I had been meaning to write about Keith’s piece for a while. Here at the offices of The New Criterion, Keith’s ten-page essay struck all of us as among the more powerful pieces we have published in a long time. Our interest in this story rests not only in Mao’s murderous legacy among his own people, but as revealed in the Halliday/Chang book, in the poisonous influence of Maoism on intellectual life in the West. Which leads us to Nicholas D. Kristof’s review of Mao in The New York Times--in particular, Kristof’s closing remarks: Mao was a catastrophic ruler in many, many respects, and this book captures that side better than anything ever written. But Mao’s legacy is not all bad. Land reform in China, like the land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today. The emancipation of women and end of child marriages moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea. Indeed, Mao’s entire assault on the old economic and social structure made it easier for China to emerge as the world’s new economic dragon.What is it with public intellectuals and mass murderers? Kristof’s disgraceful conclusion to his review speaks volumes to the acceptability and even expectability in intellectual circles of praising the most murderous villain--in terms of numbers killed--of the twentieth century. Kristof’s shameful display caps a review that applauds the book in disclosing the details of Maoism in China but fails to mention anything about Maoism here at home. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, then, at Kristof’s critical and moral breakdown. It’s the old "Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time" defense--a defense as indefensible for Il Duce as it is for Chairman Mao. Nicholas D. Kristof, thank you for telling us how you really can improve a country by murdering twenty million people. And for this, you are today’s Walter Duranty Award Winner! UPDATE: Michael Feinberg YFOTNC (Young Friend of The New Criterion) writes in: I think you’re missing out on the worst part of Kristof’s review, which, this being The New York Times, is the unbearable liberal condescension toward the group being written about -- in this case, the Chinese. The metaphor of "China emerging as the world’s new economic dragon." "New economic dragon?" Yes, because they became economically powerful by wearing one of those paper mache Chinese New Year costumes while selling fish ball soup. Then there is the "Well of course I know one of the author’s sources, so I just got on the phone and was able to check the author’s ten years of research by chatting up an old chum." Lastly, and my personal favorite, is Kristot’s "My wife is Chinese, therefore I’m an expert on the culture" posture.
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