Sound east, strike west

Author: Liu Qing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: If the political philosopher Strauss was once troubled by the "ghost of Weimar," then the "9/11" event, as a similar ghost, has reappeared in the contemporary era. For the United States, and indeed for the entire West, this lingering specter is extorting an extreme solution, a black-and-white final resolution from the intellectual world. Liberalism cannot offer such a decisive resolution; the so-called victory of liberalism may only be an illusion, merely a brief respite between the rise and fall of two other extreme forces. As the tragic romanticism of kitsch is always scheming for an impending climax—a sentimental indulgence, or grief and sorrow, or fervor and indignation, or joy and ecstasy—yet it lacks irony and humor. Because any satirical narrative would disrupt the impulses of beauty and the sublime, causing the schemed climax to unsatisfactorily fall into the ordinary, impure world. From the traditional Chinese character for "love" (), where the heart () is removed, leaving the simplified version commonly used today—a love without a heart—this clean and decisive "heart surgery" schemed for a funeral for romantic love. This may be a highly metaphorical event in the history of modern Chinese character evolution. Love without a heart signifies an intimate way of connection that has shed the burden of the heart, which could be called simplified love.