http://homepage.mac.com/haroldsjursen/iblog Default Dot Mac Weblog haroldsjursen@mac.com © Harold Sjursen Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:14:08 -0500 Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:14:29 America/New_York iBlog 1.3.1 Polytechnic University is creating an Institute for Global Technology Education. This Institute will be a consortium of universities and other institutions involved in global technology education and transfer. For reasons that will be explored in this Weblog the Institute will focus on triangular relations with Europe, the United States and China. The role of technology in contemporary Chinese life and the implications of this for the West will be central to these reflections. ]]> Sat, 11 Dec 2004 21:28:35 -0500 In light of our departure in a few days to China and prompted by the natural gas well disaster near Chongqing I am reminded that the most obvious sense of exchange these days is of money.

Here are some my photos from a trip to Beijing and Shanghai taken two years ago in January on a trip to plan another educational exchange. The scenes are mostly from the Forbidden City, on the campus of the North China University of Technology (including me with officials from the school) and street scenes and contemporary architecture in Shanghai. ]]> Fri, 26 Dec 2003 14:25:38 -0500 The relation between culture as philosophy (definition from previous entry) and civilization as a politically, historically, economically and generally geographically bound expression of culture leaves open the question of the status of technology. Techne or practice emerges within the horizon of a civilization usually as a means to solve a practical problem. Different needs, environmental conditions, materials available, etc., all contribute to the determination of the specific techne. Tools, techniques, work strategies can be transfered or exchanged between and among civilizations. ]]> Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:45:42 -0500 For some time I have thought that philosophy, the sort I am most interested in at least, manifests the conjunction of metaphysics (in the Aristotelian sense of first principles), political theory and religious phenomenology. A philosophy thus understood and well articulated is the most penetrating expression of culture. It is in this sense that we speak about Greek philosophy or Chinese philosophy. Of course on this reading philosophy in the west derives largely from Greek philosophy.

Culture and civilization are far from synonymous terms but they are sometimes used interchangeably in a manner that works serious confusion. If we allow as suggested above that philosophy is the expression par excellence of culture then we can use the term civilization to refer to the continuity of practices for a self-defined people. Civilizations unlike cultures are historically determined and tend to have geographic and economic elements. Civilizations are productive of variant norms of cultural ideals which explains nationalistic music and art, for example. In some cases a civilization and a culture are coextensive as may be said of China. But if western philosophy is derivative of Greek philosophy then whereas we can speak of Scandinavian civilization we should not strictly speaking call it culture. It is one of the European variants of Greek culture/philosophy.

Personal identity emerges from the influences of life experience, the normalizing effect of civilizational practices, and the assimilation of cultural values and beliefs. The processes by which each of these factors combines to produce an individual personal identity have many differences, including the degree of free will or choice involved. Some aspects are inherited as surely as genetic qualities are while others are chosen and may be revised or rejected outright. For this reason no individual is simply an exemplar of a culture or civilization.

]]> Sun, 21 Dec 2003 14:17:33 -0500 The flowery kingdom, now divided into China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, is having a difficult time managing the opportunities for dialogue available on the Web in internet chat rooms. The electronic exchange, combining as it does anonymity and directness, is confounding the social engineers of the three polities in distinctive but quite similar ways. ]]> Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:11:15 -0500 Yesterday's entry is unclear and incomplete. I am trying to connect official foreign policy positions, in general but the example is the one China policy as viewed by China, Taiwan and the U.S., with the theme of cultural exchange and tourism. Foreign policy posturing, cultural definition and commercial tourism all must coincide in national identity. We add to this mix the specific features of technology. ]]> Fri, 12 Dec 2003 22:36:46 -0500 The one China policy has rested on an ambiguous unwillingness to acknowledge the truth. In recent years the unwillingness resided mostly within official U.S. policy as both China and Taiwan were beginning to make public statements that revealed their own disbelief in the myth of one China, although in different ways and to different ends. Taiwan began to speak of independence meaning that they acknowledged that they were not really the head of all of China in exile. China on the other hand reacts not with the threat of a police action to bring in a wayward province but rather that any forceful attempt to prevent Taiwan's independence would in fact be a military action within the international arena. Now the US in its diplomatic language is moving away from the ambiguous formulation of one China to assert that neither side should disturb the balance. The question why interests me. Certainly the United States has not avoided bellicose language in other equally or more sensitive situations. Why not say to both Taiwan and China that military engagement between them is unacceptable and that should it begin the U.S. would intervene to maintain the current situation of de facto sovereignty of each. ]]> Thu, 11 Dec 2003 21:13:35 -0500 Cultural exchange suggests trading ideas and artifacts. Technology transfer is more like colonization. ]]> Thu, 04 Dec 2003 00:49:28 -0500 In the 13th century an Italian Jewish merchant, Jacob D'Ancona, made an extensive tour of China for the purpose of trade. The record of his experiences, whether genuine or not is a matter of great dispute, has been translated and published, as The City of Light. Here is an excerpt from a review, published in the Sunday Telegraph, by a descendent of Jacob.

Seven hundred and twenty-six years ago, a learned Jewish merchant called Jacob set out from the Adriatic port of Ancona on a journey that would take him from Italy through Syria, the Persian Gulf and India. He reached China before Marco Polo, and like the Venetian who followed him, resolved to write an account of his travels. Some time after his return to Italy in 1273, Jacob wrote a magisterial memoir, more than 400 pages long, called The City of Light ...

[It] describes an epic adventure across the deserts and on the high seas. It is far better literature than the book that Polo wrote with his cellmate Rustichello of Pisa. Although Christopher Columbus read The Travels for inspiration, he might have learned more from The City of Light ...

Jacob's book is the intensely personal recollection of a scholar who also happened to be a wealthy merchant, a man who knew as much about the wisdom of the rabbinical sages as he did about the value of the velvet, wool, gold, wire, mercury, linen, soap, wind and corn which he took with him to
the Orient. At [the book's] heart is an unparalleled account of medieval Chinese society and manners seen through the eyes of a Western intellectual.

[For a contrasting view read this web review which gives some sense of the dispute over the text's authenticity.]

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]]> Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:30:42 -0500 A little progress has been made on plans for the China trip. Eugene Yu from the Shanghai YMCA, where the Polytechnic student group had stayed in the Fall of 2001, has arranged hotel accommodations for Katie and me in Xian and Beijing. Lin Ping is arranging accommodations in Chengdu. ]]> Fri, 28 Nov 2003 18:46:31 -0500 How is it possible for a tourist to be part of a genuine cultural exchange? As a tourist what do you bring and what do you take away? Normally tourists bring money and take away commodities and commodified experiences. ]]> Tue, 25 Nov 2003 00:08:23 -0500 Katie and I will be traveling to China and Korea in January. ]]> Mon, 24 Nov 2003 20:31:10 -0500