There Can’t Be Any Such Thing as Civilization Unless People Have a Conscience

“There can’t be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience” is a notion in movie Ox-Bow Incident, 1943. Donald Martin, one of victims by that lynch, wrote a letter to his wife about this incident. The letter represents the theme of the movie, it reads:

My dear wife, Mr. Davies will tell you what’s happening here tonight. He’s a good man and has done everything he can for me. I suppose there are some other good men here, too, only they don’t seem to realize what they’re doing. They’re the ones I feel sorry for. `cause it’ll be over for me in a little while, but they’ll have to go on remembering for the rest of their lives. A man just naturally can’t take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin` everybody in the world, `cause then he’s just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It’s everything people ever have found out about justice and what’s right and wrong. It’s the very conscience of humanity. There can’t be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody’s conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived? I guess that’s all I’ve got to say except kiss the babies for me and God bless you. Your husband, Donald.

If civilization is built upon conscience, what is conscience then? Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) said: “Now this original intellectual and (as a conception of duty) moral capacity, called conscience, has this peculiarity in it, that although its business is a business of man with himself, yet he finds himself compelled by his reason to transact it as if at the command of another person. For the transaction here is the conduct of a trial (causa) before a tribunal. But that he who is accused by his conscience should be conceived as one and the same person with the judge is an absurd conception of a judicial court; for then the complainant would always lose his case. Therefore in all duties the conscience of the man must regard another than himself as the judge of his actions, if it is to avoid self-contradiction.” Kant gave the double personality of a man to explain that conscience should be the accuser (the noumenal) and the judge, not the accused (the phenomenal) to be the judge. Otherwise, the accused would always win the cases.

The Chinese people have a very different concept of conscience. Basically the Chinese don’t believe there is conscience; one Chinese saying is “if man had conscience, dog would lose its nature”. The Chinese generally regard conscience to be gratitude: if a man showed his gratitude (phenomenon), they would say he had a conscience (noumenon). The Chinese people, especially the Chinese rulers, are used to being the judges by themselves when they feel uneasy internally, so the winners are always themselves. The consequence is they have failed to grasp what consciences mean to themselves for long history; and this has profoundly influenced the Chinese culture. Almost every Chinese knows Liang Qichao’s (1873 – 1929) Four Great Ancient Civilizations and is proud of China among them. But the Chinese sense their civilization is more or less astray, so they are struggling in constructing a new civilization. Of course, that won’t be easy while the Chinese keep ignoring the calls of their consciences; but it must be done since a civilization without conscience means its future is obsolete.

The Chinese Communist is so used to being the judge that it will make consciences lose all cases. The Chinese elites are so used to wagging their tails that they hardly have their consciences in their whole lives. The Chinese soldiers are so used to being conscienceless that they helped the Chinese Communist to commit the June Fourth Massacre in 1989, etc. The Chinese people are so used to being oppressed that they don’t know how to protect their rights in right ways; some of them ended their tragedies in extreme ways, such as, Chinese school attacks and Chinese factory suicides in 2010. In truth, it is a societal tragedy in China when conscience could not be aroused massively. When the Chinese tries to build a new civilization, they ought to arouse their long lost consciences first. So answer the door when a conscience is knocking on it.

Individuality, Minority, and Majority

The adage that “the Chinese voters do not vote” is spreading like a pandemic in this world. I don’t know if the swine flu in 2009 (a highest phase pandemic according to the World Health Organization) could infect more Chinese world-widely than this adage.

This week, the results of the special election held in Hong Kong came out and made the lowest turn-out rate in Hong Kong history, less than 18 percent. Someone might take objection: it is because of the boycott led by the Hong Kong government. Sustained, but it only upholds that adage, doesn’t it? This awkward self-disruptiveness orchestrated by the Hong Kong administration could be revealed from the news No softballs for Henry Tang [Chief Secretary] at school meeting:

The school teacher said: “The by-election was legal. As teachers, we promote civic education at school and encourage students to register as voters once they turn 18. But you, the chief executive and the politically accountable officials did not vote … All the teachers and students sitting here want this ([she] raises sign reading ‘I want the right to elect the chief executive!’)”
Mr. Tang replied: “I very much agree with your slogan and this is exactly what will happen in 2017. And about the question of voting, civic responsibility is important in every election, but in Hong Kong there is no compulsory voting. Civic responsibility is about a person making a decision after thinking independently. It is not about blindly following others.”

From Mr. Tang’s context, it appears that he concurs on the importance of individuality. Granted, yet he probably already undermined his own individuality for his “blindly following others” – his superior’s no-vote decision. However, individuality should not be taken to impede voters to vote; instead it should encourage voters to vote; because, by voting, voters can assure their liberty to be individuals. Liberty is one of human unalienable rights according to the American Declaration of Independence. Furthermore: “Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.” (James Cooper, 1789 – 1851)

Before this election, one of the Hong Kong officials said that the power of this administration is from the central government of China. Bully for you, but it only affirms that the officials of Hong Kong are the vassals of the Chinese Communist Empire, doesn’t it? If the power is not from the voters – the people in Hong Kong, why bother to poll elections then? No wonder the reason that the Chief Executive of Hong Kong gave for no-vote decision is: it is a waste of public funding. Based on the fact that he is selected by his lord, the true reason of his no-vote decision is because the voters in Hong Kong are powerless, doesn’t it? What a cynic he is! “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” (Oscar Wilde, 1854 – 1900) Yes, in any measures, the pro-democratic voters are minority in Hong Kong, yet they are on the right side of history. Henry Thoreau (1817 – 1862) said: “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.”[Note 1]

Now, this Chief Executive of Hong Kong is challenging pro-democratic parties to take a debate. He acted so pompous as if he had the truth in his hand. He is ready and cannot wait to impose his agenda “that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” (James Madison 1751 – 1836, the Father of the Constitution in America, his presidency, 1809 – 1817) So what will he sell to the people in Hong Kong in his proposed debate for his lord? Let’s face it: what the pro-democratic parties want is this vassal cannot give; he cannot give because his lord does not give him. What this vassal wants merely is a mission accomplishment for his lord, will the pro-democratic parties help him to fulfill? Please don’t tell me: “His proposal is the best one he could offer in regarding to his position”. Please don’t tell me: “The people in Hong Kong are much luckier than the people in China in regarding to suffrage”. For me it likes to say: “The condition in a ‘horse jail’ is much better than in a ‘human jail’[Note 2] and he tried his best to put the people in Hong Kong into ‘horse jail’, while the people in China are still in ‘human jail’”. My question is: why cannot the people in Hong Kong get their freedom like the people in Taiwan have, so this “horse jail” would be unnecessary in Hong Kong?

Note 1: In the age of Thoreau’s, American suffrage was with many restrictions, such as, white man with property, poll tax, and literacy test, etc. Not every American can vote. Grant (1822 – 1885, his presidency, 1869 – 1877) was not eligible to vote in 1860, because he was not living longer enough in Illinois then. Also, in America, the election day is set on Tuesday, because, in the past, Sunday is for religion, Monday is for remote voters to travel, so that they can cast their votes on Tuesday.

Note 2: Both “horse jail” and “human jail” are the terms in movie Gone with the Wind, 1939. In the movie, a rich man was taken as prisoner of war, but he bribed jail keepers to stay out of jail because “human jail” was inhumane, instead he stayed with horses in this satiric “horse jail” for a better treatment.

A Military Coup D’état is a Hindrance to Democracy

Before World War II, there were just three old glorious countries in Asia that held their independence: China, Japan, and Thailand. During the War, none of them could defend its own country from invasion with its own standing army: China and Thailand were invaded by Japan. Japan finally lost its war to America. After the War, the standing armies of China and Thailand have constantly interfered in their domestic affairs, by showing their savageness towards their people, instead of their valor for them. It is probably a good thing for the Japanese people that Japanese army is restrained as a result of war so that they needn’t suffer more from their own army.

Thailand is supposed to be a republic of Machiavelli’s (Niccolo Machiavelli1469 – 1527) republic government form: a tripartite state of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. However, when a military coup d’état occurred, it became a despotic government. Thus, its people, in the democratic part of its tripartite, are no longer citizens, but subjects. That is why the world is seeing the standing army of Thailand shoot at its peaceful mass assembly, because “[a]s fear is the principle of despotic government, its end is tranquility; but this tranquility cannot be called a peace: no, it is only the silence of those towns which the enemy is ready to invade.” (Charles de Montesquieu, 1689 – 1755)

The People’s Republic of China is its ruler’s self-entertainment republic. Deng Xiaoping (1904 – 1997) was the worst type of ruler; he ruled China nakedly with his military leader title. Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) still knew to add a ruling party leader title upon himself whether for his ostentation or not. Deng was a retired army political officer, yet he re-entered the Chinese PLA as its top leader. I don’t know if his “out and in” the Chinese PLA was inspired by the notion of Japan’s “in and out” China or not; yet by this, he still didn’t make himself a real statesman, but merely a state leader. The consequence is: Deng executed like a leviathan and committed the June Fourth Massacre through his most trustworthy troops in the standing army of China. It is shameful to the standing army of China because it likes the Thailand’s army to be only able to show its valor to its own people, not to its country’s enemy. “Add to this [to the standing army] that to pay men to kill or to be killed seems to entail using them as mere machines and tools in the hand of another (the state), and this is hardly compatible with the rights of mankind in our own person.” (Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804)

If, in soldiers’ mind in China, Japan, and Thailand, their killings were not only for their lords, but also for their countries, that would only show their un-enlightenment. In the movie Doctor Zhivago, 1965, there is a scene about the Russian officers to urge their soldiers to go to the front line in World War I:

Officer: Listen, lads. Ten miles up that road are the Germans!
Soldier: Rubbish!
Officer: It’s not rubbish. They’re coming. And they’re coming fast. You’ve let them in! They’re coming for your wives, your houses, your country.
Soldier: Your country, officer!
Officer: Yes, my country! And Proud…
[Some soldier shot at that officer and killed him at the scene.]

Those Russian soldiers knew: wives were their own wives, houses were their own houses; but country under Czar was theirs? Humm…

So how do military personnel participate in the political affairs as he/she is entitled for being a citizen? Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) said:

I reply: The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind; the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise hindering the progress of enlightenment. … Thus it would be disastrous if an officer on duty who was given a command by his superior were to question the appropriateness or utility of the order. He must obey. But as a scholar he cannot be justly constrained from making comments about errors in military service, or from placing them before the public for its judgment. …

In America, both Ulysses Grant (1822 – 1885, his presidency, 1869 – 1877) and Dwight Eisenhower (1890 – 1969, his presidency, 1953 – 1961) retired from their military position before entering their political life, and neither them re-entered US army afterwards. Grant’s military retirement cost his finance dearly, for until 1958, the former presidents of the United States were without pensions.