Tag Archives: The New Republic

Fukuyama's evolution problem

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I haven’t read Francis Fukuyama’s most recent book, but I like this point made by John Gray in a TNR review.

THE NOTION THAT ONLY one type of government can in the future be legitimate is as far-fetched as the idea that history has literally come to a halt. To be sure, it is not a thesis that can be falsified, since it is not really an empirical claim. In The Origins of Political Order, Fukuyama is explicit that he is applying evolutionary theory, declaring that “the overall framework for understanding political development presented here bears many resemblances to biological evolution.” He acknowledges that there are “many important differences between biological and political evolution: human institutions are subject to deliberate design and choice, unlike genes; they are transmitted across time culturally rather than genetically: and they are invested with intrinsic value through a variety of social and psychological mechanisms, which makes them hard to change.” That is all very good, but it misses the main point about Darwinian evolution, which is that it is a process of drift, with no purpose or direction. If the development of human society is an evolutionary process, it is one that is going nowhere in particular. Actually, the idea of social evolution is not much more than an ill-chosen metaphor. As refined by later scientists, Darwin’s theory posits the natural selection of random genetic mutations. In contrast—despite all the fashionable chatter about memes—no one has come up with a unit of selection or a mechanism through which evolution operates in society. Judged by the standards of science, theories of social evolution are not theories at all.

This reminds me of an idea I encountered in college that sticks with me far better than most. The sociologist Georgi Derluguian taught two of three quarters of a required sequence for international studies majors, “Introduction to World Systems.” At the time, I didn’t know just how marginal the Immanuel Wallerstein school of historical sociology seems to many thinkers. (I stay out of this debate, myself.)

All quibbles with Wallerstein aside, Derluguian left a deep impression that I’ve stuck to through much later reading. Teleology in social analysis, the conviction that human events happen on a unilinear path toward some more developed state, represents what he called “steamrolling the copious bush of life.” Evolution is a good metaphor for social and institutional change precisely because it is non-linear.

This, he said, was a point taken from Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary scientist famous for writing in a way that can be understood by mere mortals. (As it happens, a search for “copious bush of life” gives us Derluguian’s book.)

It’s unfortunate, I think, that this kind of thinking is marginal in U.S. social science. More attention should be paid to the problematic metaphor of “science” in studying society. If only the study of “history” would allow a more thorough consideration of the present and very recent past.

When the U.S. Wants to Criticize 'Chinese Art'

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In The New Republic, Jed Perl exercises no economy of words in lambasting art from China and its growing global following. Based on a reading of “Chinese art” that does not apparently leave the island of Manhattan, Perl makes several questionable statements, often abetted by lack of knowledge, and Alan Baumler at Frog in a Well has already taken some of them to task.

I find some solace in Perl’s admission that: “This is not to say that there is nothing of value going on in China today: I do not know all there is to know about art in China. What I do know is that the work that is being promoted around the world as the cutting edge of new Chinese art is overblown and meretricious.” Fine, but this comes only after hundreds of words of under-informed negativity and no apparent experience with Chinese art that hasn’t arrived in New York or Venice.

Missing from Perl’s account is the pervasive sense of unease among many in Beijing’s art scene, both Chinese and foreign, as they have watched the transformation of spaces such as the 798 Art District into pedestrian mall commercial centers, and as they have watched some of the artists Perl criticizes grow their bank accounts with manufactured art.

That’s one of the things Angie Baecker and I tried to capture with our article in the current issue (No. 59) of Art Asia Pacific. We examined the plans and sentiments of some major art spaces and figures in Beijing leading up to the Olympics. And we found a mixture of excitement and trepidation, sometimes with both sentiments coming from the same person.

Totally unexamined by Perl, for instance, are the artists whose work rarely if ever engages political and nationalist issues. And others who openly criticize the government and the country’s history, even if with a certain care to avoid publicity that could threaten their livelihood. Then there’s Ai Weiwei, both involved with and vocally opposed to the Olympics. In the classic media formulation, his contributions to the design of the Olympic stadium are tempered by his criticism of the government. (“The Olympics are an opportunity to redefine the country, but the message is always wrong,” Ai says in our article.)

I would not discount the possibility that some of Ai’s repeated statements have been motivated by a desire for publicity. But for those who make their commentaries in private and whose art-with-message works face government scrutiny, the spotlight is neither welcomed nor sought.

Criticizing a country’s art without engaging even well-reported examples that don’t support one’s criticism is an art world example of the basic structure of [insert country]-bashing: Find some well-accepted tropes about the target country that are well-reported but unconfirmed by the critic, and then use them as the basis of an argument that makes no effort to engage the actual thoughts or facts of life of those involved.

Could it be that a critic writing in a derivative way in the milieu of China-bashing is just as guilty as artists who profit from market-friendly, easily digestible political messages?