April 7, 2010By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)
We are living in interesting times when the ether and the airwaves are full of surging angry rhetoric; when talking with one another in civility seems beyond reach and shouts, screams and insults take over.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me," goes an old phrase that kids repeat on the school ground -- until someone is knocked to the ground in a fistfight.
"Words are alive; cut them and they bleed," said American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson; Lord Buddha said, "The tongue like a sharp knife ... kills without drawing blood." And the Turks say, "A knife wound heels; a wound caused by words does not."
Today, I would like to begin with the words from the Foundation of Critical Thinking, which confirms how thinking and writing are no simple matter. The foundation guides us on "How to say something worth saying about something worth saying something about."
In the past two weeks, two columns by Anne Applebaum -- a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a former member of the editorial board of The Washington Post and wife of Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski -- rekindled my own desire to learn. A mother of two, Applebaum received degrees from Yale and the London School of Economics.
In her March 29 column, "In Poland, lessons in first lady 101," Applebaum wrote how "mythological versions of history attained the status of 'fact,'" as people "argued about them with extraordinary passion." As a journalist, she said, "I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean ... the permanent fury of the blogosphere."
Applebaum writes about "an unrecognizable version ... (in) the public sphere" of her husband when he declared his candidacy for president of Poland.
Days earlier, Applebaum wrote in "The GOP's Warterloo warning" about David Frum's "critique of radical right-wing talk-show rhetoric," as she returned from London, where she took a "close-up look" at the state of the British Conservative Party. The Tories ran "angry campaigns that reeked of xenophobia" and lost power for 13 years, since 1997.
While the Tory Party's "nasty public image -- arrogant, mean, small-minded -- is proving difficult to discard," she writes, now, "they have changed the way they speak: No more shouting. No more anger. No more arrogance." And they have become "once again real contenders."
Back to America: Applebaum said she's in favor of universal access to health care, but "horrified by what President Obama's bill is going to cost." She wants "nothing to do with" those screaming "communist" and "fascist" at Obama.
Applebaum advises: An angry campaign that excites the base but loses the center can cost a political party an election.
In the March 31 column "Whose Revolution is this?" in The Washington Post, Northwestern University American history professor T.H. Breen, author of a forthcoming book "American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People," writes about how "when Americans protest" -- whether it's today's Tea Party members or Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 -- "they often lay claim to the ordinary patriots of the Revolution" -- those ordinary American colonists "who risked killing and getting killed" as they resisted British imperial power at the birth of America's independence.
Breen cited the lessons from the colonists: The 13 colonies could have broken up into "small, squabbling units" that trumpeted "narrow regional, ideological or class interests" and doomed resistance to Great Britain, but the "patriots of 1773 and 1774 worked hard to promote unity ... (and) a general American cause." They did not protest taxation, but "taxation without representation."
They appreciated "any disgruntled person can mouth words of protest. But resistance to Britain demanded serious sacrifice" -- giving up something they desired to demonstrate intentions and forge solidarity, rather than angry rhetoric. And, as they were able to distinguish between resistance to "arbitrary rulers" and engagement in "lawless riots" that could turn "tyrannical, imperious, and oppressive," the colonists instituted the Continental Congress.
Today's Americans need to know the history of the early generation's sacrifice in launching "an insurgency that became a revolution that brought independence" and "a new republic dedicated to rights, equality and liberty," Breen wrote.
Of course, knowing what writers tell us above only fills our brain with information. Using what we know to build a better world today and a better world in the morrows, devoid of pitfalls, is what knowledge is about.
A Russian proverb says, "There's no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out." American physicist Albert Einstein said, "Learn from yesterday, live today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
It opens doors to choices.
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me," goes an old phrase that kids repeat on the school ground -- until someone is knocked to the ground in a fistfight.
"Words are alive; cut them and they bleed," said American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson; Lord Buddha said, "The tongue like a sharp knife ... kills without drawing blood." And the Turks say, "A knife wound heels; a wound caused by words does not."
Today, I would like to begin with the words from the Foundation of Critical Thinking, which confirms how thinking and writing are no simple matter. The foundation guides us on "How to say something worth saying about something worth saying something about."
In the past two weeks, two columns by Anne Applebaum -- a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a former member of the editorial board of The Washington Post and wife of Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski -- rekindled my own desire to learn. A mother of two, Applebaum received degrees from Yale and the London School of Economics.
In her March 29 column, "In Poland, lessons in first lady 101," Applebaum wrote how "mythological versions of history attained the status of 'fact,'" as people "argued about them with extraordinary passion." As a journalist, she said, "I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean ... the permanent fury of the blogosphere."
Applebaum writes about "an unrecognizable version ... (in) the public sphere" of her husband when he declared his candidacy for president of Poland.
Days earlier, Applebaum wrote in "The GOP's Warterloo warning" about David Frum's "critique of radical right-wing talk-show rhetoric," as she returned from London, where she took a "close-up look" at the state of the British Conservative Party. The Tories ran "angry campaigns that reeked of xenophobia" and lost power for 13 years, since 1997.
While the Tory Party's "nasty public image -- arrogant, mean, small-minded -- is proving difficult to discard," she writes, now, "they have changed the way they speak: No more shouting. No more anger. No more arrogance." And they have become "once again real contenders."
Back to America: Applebaum said she's in favor of universal access to health care, but "horrified by what President Obama's bill is going to cost." She wants "nothing to do with" those screaming "communist" and "fascist" at Obama.
Applebaum advises: An angry campaign that excites the base but loses the center can cost a political party an election.
In the March 31 column "Whose Revolution is this?" in The Washington Post, Northwestern University American history professor T.H. Breen, author of a forthcoming book "American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People," writes about how "when Americans protest" -- whether it's today's Tea Party members or Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 -- "they often lay claim to the ordinary patriots of the Revolution" -- those ordinary American colonists "who risked killing and getting killed" as they resisted British imperial power at the birth of America's independence.
Breen cited the lessons from the colonists: The 13 colonies could have broken up into "small, squabbling units" that trumpeted "narrow regional, ideological or class interests" and doomed resistance to Great Britain, but the "patriots of 1773 and 1774 worked hard to promote unity ... (and) a general American cause." They did not protest taxation, but "taxation without representation."
They appreciated "any disgruntled person can mouth words of protest. But resistance to Britain demanded serious sacrifice" -- giving up something they desired to demonstrate intentions and forge solidarity, rather than angry rhetoric. And, as they were able to distinguish between resistance to "arbitrary rulers" and engagement in "lawless riots" that could turn "tyrannical, imperious, and oppressive," the colonists instituted the Continental Congress.
Today's Americans need to know the history of the early generation's sacrifice in launching "an insurgency that became a revolution that brought independence" and "a new republic dedicated to rights, equality and liberty," Breen wrote.
Of course, knowing what writers tell us above only fills our brain with information. Using what we know to build a better world today and a better world in the morrows, devoid of pitfalls, is what knowledge is about.
A Russian proverb says, "There's no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out." American physicist Albert Einstein said, "Learn from yesterday, live today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
It opens doors to choices.
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
6 comments:
Thank Dr Peang Meth!
Once again ,are you writting for cambodian compatriots for any resolution of current complex problems that cambodians faced,or it is only to gain the impression?
It is a dream but a weird dream that out of reality.
Kaun Khmer
7:18am
"When you cease to dream, you cease to live".(Malcolm Forbes)
"If you've got a free ticket, don't complain the show".(?)
Maybe Dr Peang's brains can team up with your brawn. I bet you believe that any successful political work needs brains as well as brawn.
Dear Lok Doctor,
I see you wearing the same shirt every time I read your poste.
For this coming Khmer New Year I would like to see you in a new shirt.
Thank you.
Dr. Gaffar, I like your philosophical view in this article. But you seem to take the middle position in all of your writing posted in Ki Media Website. I believe you are one of those individuals who does not like to take position on issue, not to mention extreme position. Were you a journalist in your past experience at some point?
Prince Charming
a wise man like dr. peng always chooses to be in the middle, not to take side with anyone, just expressing views, etc... well, after all, he was the professor at the university, so the way i see it, it's typical of many college professors to have a calm, patient and non-judgmental attitude like dr. peng. good observation.
When not quite sure which side to turn on highways/express ways, smart driver likes to stay in the middle lane in constant fear of missing the right exit. C'est la vie.
All politicians or statemen are to keep their eyes wide open for the unexpected in current political affairs.
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