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Asia Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Asia Times
The real meaning of Japan's 'men without chests'
' The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils, we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. ' -C.S. Lewis, 'The Abolition of Man' A recent article published in Asia Times , written by the author Han Feizi (which I presume is a pseudonym), used a phrase that caught my attention. The author spoke of 'men without chests,' a phrase used by Francis Fukuyama in 'The End of History and the Last Man.' The article was the second of a multi-part series titled an 'Asia without America' and presents a (compelling) case that the American military, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the political and cultural occupation of Japan have been corrupting post-war Japan since the founding of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955. The author hopes for the possibility of a 'Tang renaissance' in Japan in which a truer and more authentic Japan would emerge if only America's influence was withdrawn. Han Feizi writes, 'Japan has everything to gain from America's military departure and rebuilding a nation of men with chests.' If this essay can be understood in any way as a disagreement, it is a subtle one, since I do not seek to contradict Han Feizi's basic thesis of America's corrupting influence on the soul of Japanese culture. It is the usage of the phrase 'men without chests' where I take particular issue. When Fukuyama speaks of 'men without chests', he is referring to the middle component of Plato's tripartite soul, which is composed of the head ( logos , reason) chest ( thymos , spiritedness) and bowels ( eros , appetite). However, from reading Fukuyama alone, it would be easy to make the assumption that thymos means almost exclusively 'ambition' and 'desire for recognition.' Fukuyama writes, 'Plato's thymos is… nothing other than the psychological seat of Hegel's desire for recognition' and that ' thymos typically, but not inevitably, drives men to seek recognition.' The original meaning of thymos in the Phaedrus does indeed include the desire for recognition, but certainly not exclusively so. Fukuyama, perhaps in the interest of supporting his argument, heavily overemphasizes this aspect. When Socrates was sentenced to death for 'corrupting the youth of Athens,' he exhibited no signs of discontent or remorse at the prospect of dying in infamy and disrepute. If Socrates is to be regarded as a role model for Plato's ideal man, then what he meant by thymos cannot be how Fukuyama interprets it. Han Feizi, while disagreeing with Fukuyama in other areas, seems to accept Fukuyama's interpretation of thymos at face value. As a result, the philosophical foundations of Han Feizi's otherwise incisive analysis may suffer from a kind of linguistic photocopying that strays quite far from the original meaning. Just as a 1-degree difference in direction can determine whether an airplane lands in Rome or Tunisia, the slightest nuance in our definitions can lead us to radically different conclusions. How we define ' thymos ' and 'men without chests' directly affects how we are to understand the cultural situation in Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which are currently experiencing, in Han Feizi's words, the 'nihilism and cultural anomie of end-state capitalism and liberal democracy.' Since this essay is largely in response to 'Part II: Japan's Tang renaissance', I also focus here primarily on Japan. Fukuyama took the phrase 'men without chests' from C.S. Lewis's 1943 essay 'The Abolition of Man. ' It is important to understand that when Lewis advocated for 'men with chests' he was never thinking about the relative breadth of one's pectoral muscles. The term 'men' here referred to general humanity and was not as gender-specific as it would be interpreted today. Insofar as Lewis did specifically refer to men, his vision for masculinity was arguably much more holistic. For Lewis, 'men without chests' were men (and women) who lacked integrated sentiment about reality—what Iain McGilchrist would call a balance between the left and right brain hemispheres, and others may call 'emotional intelligence.' 'The Abolition of Man'is about the abolition of humanity, not strictly the abolition of masculinity. Lewis provides the example of Coleridge, who once observed two tourists admiring a waterfall: one said it was 'pretty' and the other thought it was 'sublime.' For Coleridge, the tourist who called the waterfall sublime had a more proper response. Lewis does not use this example to be a snob about sophisticated literary vocabulary. He segues from this example to argue that the real purpose of education is to cultivate 'proper sentiments' that are appropriate to the contemplated object—a project that Lewis considered inseparable from the cultivation of virtue itself and a necessary component of civilization. Men (humanity) ought to be moved by a landscape, a narrative, or a line of poetry in a certain way; to remain unmoved would be the equivalent to a dead nerve, even a moral defect. While physicality is not totally irrelevant here, Lewis's clarion call for broad-chested men was not primarily so that they can bench-press 200 pounds but so that they could accommodate a large heart : that is, to feel and explore all of reality more deeply. It is not so that they can pursue 'Fukuyamian' thymos (like samurais committing hara-kiri) but true Platonic thymos, where the heart serves as the liaison between the head and the bowels. 'Men with chests,' therefore, should not recall the likes of Donald Trump, but rather someone more like Saint Augustine: 'our souls are like a house–too small for You [God] to enter, but we pray that You enlarge it.' Interestingly, when Lewis writes about what these 'just sentiments' should entail, he does not appeal to Platonic thymos or even his own Christian theology but the Tao (道) of Chinese philosophy. Although Lewis himself was not a scholar of Sinology or the Sinosphere, my own specialization can testify that his invocation of the Tao is quite appropriate. Chinese thought is deeply rooted in what might be called 'affect-centered ethics.' While foundational texts such as Lao Zi's 'Dao De Jing ' and Confucius's 'Analects ' differ in terms of method, they are nonetheless both in basic agreement that the way to the Tao begins with learning to feel 'appropriately.' I need only cite the very first passage from the 'Analects ' as evidence: 'The Master said: To study and at due times to practice what one has studied, is this not a pleasure ? When friends come from distant places, is this not a joy? To remain unsoured when his talents are unrecognized, is this not fitting for a gentleman [ junzi ]?' [emphasis added.] The Confucian method of education advocates rigorous memorization, something that is still widely practiced in China today, as well as many other Confucian-influenced Asian countries. But mere memorization itself was never the end goal. The end goal could be summed up in that single rhetorical question: 'Is this not a pleasure?' It was not pleasure per se that was the goal, but rather proper pleasure cultivated to align with the Tao. If you have only learned to recite a line of poetry from Li Bai or Du Fu but not learned to delight in it, Confucius would probably say his project had failed. If, on the other hand, you remain bitter because your talents go unrecognized, it is also a sign that your sentiments have not yet been properly cultivated. You have not become a real 'superior person' ( junzi ). This is true thymos in the original Platonic sense: the education of the heart. Not only does Confucius's delight in learning have nothing to do with the drive for recognition, but Confucius even explicitly states that the sign of a true junzi is precisely the absence of this desire . His vision for the completed junzi was the individual whose natural desires were completely within the bounds of ritual, and therefore needed no suppression or restraint: The Master said: When I was 15, I set my heart on learning. At 30, I took my stand. At 40, I was without confusion. At 50, I knew the command of Heaven. At 60, I heard it with a compliant ear. At 70, I follow the desires of my heart and do not overstep the bounds. Lewis, as it turns out, is quite in agreement with Confucius here: 'Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not.' One can see from this that the whole discussion of men, with or without their chests, has been missing the point. I blame Fukuyama for this misunderstanding, not Han Feizi. Fukuyama co-opted the term 'men without chests' to mean 'men without thymos ' and by thymos he meant 'the primeval drive for recognition and glory which is present in ancient civilization but is now eclipsed by modern liberal democracy.' Fukuyama does not see 'men without chests' as necessarily problematic—since thymos (under his definition) is the primary cause for history's bloody wars. Han Feizi (if I understand him correctly) does since it has turned the land of 'samurai warriors and hardened salarymen' into 'a theme park filled with kawaii anime, Pokemon, Super Mario and schoolgirl manga.' It is not entirely true that postwar Japan can be reduced to these extremes. No culture is that simple. Neither the wistful regret of Haruki Murakami nor the fiery samurai passions of Yukio Mishimia should be seen as examples of what it means to have a chest or to not have one. For this reason, it is not clear what Han Feizi means for Japan to be liberated from its 'bonsai pot' and become 'men with chests' again. If the rape of Nanjing was an expression of Japan's thymos , we might prefer Fukuyama's world to it—the world happily denuded of thymos via liberal democracy. But was this hideous act really a true expression of samurai culture, or a betrayal of Japan's own Bushidō (武士道) code of conduct? If the latter, we may be much closer to locating the real heart of culture from which we could craft a vision for Japan's 'Tang renaissance.' The final kanji character ' dō ' (道) is in fact a direct loanword from the Chinese Tao. If there is anyone who carries the seeds of Japan's 'Tang renaissance,' I suggest Hayao Miyazaki as a candidate, the legendary creator of classic films such as 'Spirited Away ', 'My Neighbor Totoro ' and 'Princes Mononoke .' There is a distinct Confucian flavor in all of these films, one that prioritizes relationships, mutual respect and the balance of reason, intuition and emotion. The heroes and heroines of Miyazaki are not hyper-masculine glory seekers or listless, dispirited recluses. They are real men, and real women, with 'chests,' with thymos and eros balanced and directed by Logos, or the Tao. This was Lewis's interpretation of Confucius and Plato. Without these kinds of full-chested men so defined, we should not expect Japan or anyone else to experience any kind of real cultural renaissance in our lifetimes. Raymond Dokupil holds a Master's degree in Asian Studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
NHK
21-05-2025
- NHK
High school stabbing: Suspect allegedly attacked seated students from behind
A 17-year-old girl in western Japan arrested on suspicion of injuring three classmates with a knife at a correspondence high school is believed to have stabbed them suddenly from behind as they sat in a classroom. Police arrested the suspect at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder at Ozora High School in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, on Wednesday morning. None of the three reportedly sustained life-threatening wounds. The attack took place during a break, when there were about 20 students in the classroom. NHK has learned from investigative sources that eyewitnesses told police and others that the student attacked her schoolmates one after another without warning. She reportedly didn't chase them when they ran away. A member of the school faculty who went to the scene confiscated the knife from her. She reportedly told police she carried out the attack because she wanted to kill the students and has admitted to the charges against her.
NHK
21-05-2025
- NHK
Female high schooler in Japan arrested after injuring 3 with knife
Police have arrested a female high school student who allegedly used a knife to attack and injure three other students at a correspondence high school in the western prefecture of Hiroshima. The local fire department said it received an alert about the alleged attack at the Ozora High School in Fukuyama City, which took place shortly after 10 a.m. on Wednesday. The police arrested the suspect at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder. She told investigators during a questioning she stabbed them because she wanted to kill them. They say the three victims have been transported to hospital, but none have life-threatening injuries.
Mint
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Global flux: Can a spate of deals transcend a clash of convictions?
After a tumultuous month, the US and China seem headed for a trade deal, with Donald Trump probably dreaming of billions more as he lands in the Gulf. Once upon a time, human rights, advancing democracy, peace and security would have been foremost on the US president's agenda. But the world order has changed abundantly since the defining moment of post-modern history, 12 June 1987, during the dizzying heights of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union. It was on this day that Ronald Reagan uttered perhaps his most famous words, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Fast forward to 1989: the Berlin Wall crumbled and brought the Iron Curtain crashing down with it. America, it appeared, had emerged as the winner of the Cold War together with capitalism and liberal democracy. Communism as a political ideology was debunked and disparaged. Pieces of the Wall went on sale at huge prices in what seemed like a celebration of capitalism's victory over communism. The uprising in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June that year added to the impression that the days of totalitarianism were numbered. Also Read: How Trumpian volatility is forcing policy changes in China Earlier that year, Francis Fukuyama had presciently summed up the moment in his article, The End of History? Human social evolution in which rival ideologies marked the development of history, he argued, was now at an end. He was inspired by Hegel and Marx, who had both written about their competing versions of the pinnacle or 'end' of human development. Now totalitarian states had been shown to fail, while the political and economic principles of liberal democracy thrived, Fukuyama noted; hence history was over. The Soviet Union split up in 1991. But history was not over. The era of identity politics had just begun. Identity-based pre-colonial political yearnings, which had been quashed under uneasy Cold War alliances, increasingly resulted in separatist movements, violent upheavals and sometimes new borders. The bipolar world may have faded, but the new world left in its aftermath, it seemed, was not going to be united peacefully under capitalist and democratic ambitions. In 1992, Samuel Huntington published The Clash of Civilizations? Throwing down a gauntlet to Fukuyama, Huntington theorized that the fault lines of humanity were drawn along cultural fault lines and no longer along state lines. The Balkans war, 1993 World Trade Centre bombings and genocide in Rwanda lent credence to his theory; yet, it was staunchly resisted by the liberal intelligentsia. Modernization, Huntington claimed, had eroded traditional values and created a void among citizenry. That, coupled with rising disenchantment with Western hegemony, had fanned fundamentalism. History had not ended, but history as we knew it had. Also Read: Mint Quick Edit | US-China trade war: Peace in the air? Post 9/11, Western academics accepted some hard truths in the Clash thesis. But they clung firmly to two axioms that were influential in driving Western foreign policy for the next few decades. The first was that democracy in itself was a goal worth fighting for and the second was that free market success would entice citizens in illiberal repressive regimes to democratize. The hope was that the two would co-exist and reinforce each other. Containment gave way to economic engagement, as the West tried to foster market economies and strengthen democracy in states of the former Soviet Union, among others. Bringing China into the World Trade Organization was part of this strategy. While economies did indeed grow, in some countries, the free market's 'invisible hand' inspired no democratic revolution. Instead, the Iron Curtain gave way to an Iron Vault. Massive profits from trade with the West, instead of ameliorating the quality of life of the average Russian, Venezuelan or Zimbabwean, enriched and strengthened autocratic leaders and their cronies in these countries. Anne Appelbaum calls them 'Autocracy Inc': a group of strongmen 'bound not by ideology but rather by a ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve their personal wealth and power." In this, they are complicit with an international network of ultra-rich friends, lawyers and financiers who help them make deals to sidestep sanctions, evade taxes, launder assets and manipulate the media. Also Read: Harsh Pant: Trump's dice roll will throw up a new world order The biggest threat to such autocracies are democratic laws that protect free speech, civil liberties and due process. Such strongmen abhor institutions that observe, respect and enforce these inalienable rights, domestically or internationally. Their weakening of such institutions is deliberate and intentional. Attacks on political opponents, universities, multilateral organizations and branches of government that seek to protect the law are part of their trademark playbook. Today, even as trade deals are in focus, a new clash is at play: a clash of convictions. On one side is liberal progressivism, marked by a belief in the rule of law and civil liberties dating to the Code of Hammurabi, idealized by Locke and Voltaire and encompassing a belief in constitutions, international law and a multilateral world order. On the other side are autocratic and quasi-autocratic regimes where laws are manipulated, where science, the arts and education are co-opted to promote a particular narrative, where civil liberties are selectively enforced and where might, money and messaging triumph. Hearteningly, people in Canada and Australia recently voted resoundingly for the former to protect their democracies against the remotest threat of the latter. History isn't quite over, but the future of democracy hangs in the balance. The author is a former World Banker and writer.
Asia Times
14-04-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
Michael Pettis misleading the American zeitgeist on China
Every so often, an American public intellectual captures the political zeitgeist and sends the nation down decades-long paths, for good or for ill. Ralph Waldo Emerson provided the nation with spiritual rigor and moral fortitude, resulting in the Republican Party, the Civil War and the end of slavery. Francis Fukuyama provided America with a stunning vision of national triumph, resulting in military debacles, a financial crisis, a stratified society and our current insane clown posse politics. While no one in our current cacophony has the stature of Emerson or made an 'End of History' star turn like Fukuyama, the Trump economics team are known acolytes of heterodox economist Michael Pettis, currently teaching at Peking University. Pettis's unconventional ideas and even more unorthodox career path have managed to short-circuit the traditional economics idea-to-policy pathway. Ben Bernanke, Joseph Stiglitz, Larry Summers and Paul Krugman were all PhD economists teaching at Ivy League universities. They had three Nobel Prizes among them, advised dozens (if not hundreds) of PhD students and published hundreds (if not thousands) of academic papers. Their path to the Washington policy world is, for what it's worth, highly credentialed. Pettis was an emerging markets bond trader with two master's degrees, international affairs and an MBA (both from Columbia University). He currently teaches MBA students at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management and, for the most part, does not publish academic research. Pettis has likened himself to a 19th-century pamphleteer, writing mass-market economics books and op-ed articles. What he also does is tweet. And oh does he tweet. He is peer-reviewed, often ruthlessly, but by the Twitter peanut gallery – not credentialed economists. Do public intellectuals shape public opinion? Or does the public elevate obscure academics and thinkers to prominence based on the national mood and its desires? Or is it a pas da deux between thinker and audience, leading and following concurrently, both inseparable parts of the zeitgeist? America was young, still finding its footing, when Emerson wrote his transcendentalist essays, giving the nation a spiritual mission based on individual self-reliance. This expansive philosophy of personal freedom was readily accepted by an exceptionalist nation looking for meaning as it filled its frontiers and confronted its demons. Fukuyama did his star turn in an established America at its moment of greatest triumph. The Soviet Union had just crumbled, the Japan bubble was bursting and China was still a backwater. A happily bewildered America latched onto kid Fukuyama – who effortlessly juggled Marx, Hegel and Tocqueville – and floated off into exceptionalist bliss. History has not been kind to the man who dared to declare its end. Singapore's ex-foreign minister Kishore Mahbubani publicly stated that Fukuyama's book gave America collective brain damage. Perhaps harsh, but Fukuyama does not come out looking much better in the alternative scenario – the kid who could juggle Marx, Hegel and Tocqueville with one hand was just a grifter. In the heady days after the Soviet Union dematerialized, 'The End of History and the Last Man' just about wrote itself. America was looking for flattery and the Japanese American kid who can quote Hegel and Tocqueville wins. Where does Pettis fit into all of this? This eccentric thinker issuing expositions by Twitter thread has amassed a substantial following. He has unfortunately become the nexus of China economic thought in mainstream Western media, which, Han Feizi believes, has caused significant brain damage to China analysis and now threatens to cause irreparable economic damage to America as his acolytes formulate policy around his follies. While a triumphant America looked to Fukuyama for flattery, an anxious America latches onto Pettis for affirmation. And it appears the favor was returned. For two decades, Pettis has told the Western world that China was overinvesting and under-consuming and that growth will collapse to 2-4%. China grew two to three times as fast. Unsurprisingly, his ideas are now more popular than ever, worming their way into the minds of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Stephen Miran. In recent Twitter posts, Michael Pettis appears beside himself at the feckless design and implementation of Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, writing: It is hard to see much systemic thinking in the new round of tariffs, and because trade can only be resolved on a systemic basis, and not on a bilateral basis, this means that they are unlikely to be very helpful. Pettis seems aghast at what Trump has done, viewing it as a perversion of his belief that the global trading system needs to be systematically rebalanced: The new tariffs don't really address the real US problem. One obvious reason is that the tariffs are largely bilateral, and while bilateral imbalances may impress those who don't understand trade and capital flows, they are, in fact, pretty useless. Han Feizi has written extensively about China's economy in ways which challenge Michael Pettis's heterodox views (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Fundamentally, Pettis believes that America runs persistent trade deficits because Asia has implemented policies that incentivize production at the expense of consumption and is externalizing those imbalances onto the US, the 'consumer of last resort.' His preferred set of policies would involve taxing capital flows, targeted tariffs and industrial subsidies that even out the playing field. Han Feizi believes this framing is erroneous and Pettis's policies, even correctly implemented, will result in years of suboptimal growth, impoverishing the US for decades. America runs persistent trade deficits because that's what happens when asset-rich economies trade with labor-rich economies. Yes, China has implemented industrial policy to marshal its abundant labor but, at the same time, the US has implemented policies to better harness its abundant assets (e.g. mortgage market, agency bonds, derivative market etc.), allowing them to be financialized and traded. Yes, China took advantage of the US's open market for growth and employment. At the same time, the US took advantage of its massive asset endowment and China's productivity also for growth and employment. The concern that Pettis displays for China's put-upon consumers does not hold water. In the past few decades, under this system, China has increased household consumption faster than any other economy, all 194 of them. And not by a little. China grew household consumption twice as fast as second-place South Korea. And the US has increased household consumption faster than all major developed economies. Graphic: Asia Times Disturbing this organic trade between an asset-rich economy and a labor-rich economy is not only economically inefficient, it is highly destructive in the short to medium term. America's labor force is set up for asset sales. It does not have the skills for manufacturing. The two most dangerous ideas promulgated by Pettis are 1) China's economy is wasteful, inefficient and on the cusp of stagnation, and 2) consumption creates value. Both of these ideas are not only wrong, they could not be further from the truth. It is highly likely that belief in these two ideas misled the brain trust (or lack thereof) surrounding President Trump, believing that the US had the upper hand in a trade war against China. Han Feizi has written extensively about how erroneous the China collapse/stagnation view is (see links above). If Bessent, Howard Lutnick and Stephen Miran were not stuck in the Western media echo chamber, they would figure out that the United States was about to start a trade war with an economy 2-3 times its size – not 36% smaller as reported nominal GDP would suggest. This is the Jaws, 'We're going to need a bigger boat' moment. But perhaps more pernicious is this economic fallacy that consumption creates value and that China's factory workers need American consumers more than American consumers need China's factory workers. Pettis has been trafficking in this fallacy for decades – the idea that consumption, especially US consumption, is a public service of some kind. This fallacy has high purchase in America because it appeals to what Americans have become – shoppers. It has also resulted in unfortunate economic formulations like 'supply of demand.' As in the US economy is accomplishing great feats by supplying demand to needy Asian factory workers. As if supply and demand were not useful enough economic concepts, we now have supply of demand. Which, of course, begs the question, what about demand of supply? Or supply of supply of demand? Or demand of supply of supply? Or supply of demand of supply of supply? Capiche? This is all nonsense. There is no such thing as supply of demand. American consumers are not supplying their demand in exchange for Nikes from Vietnam. American demand has no value to the Vietnamese. American consumers are trading American assets for Nikes from Vietnam. That's what the Vietnamese want. The liquid dollars which can be turned into Treasuries, Freddy Mac bonds, Apple stock or Malibu mansions. The wants and desires of American shoppers, as wonderful as they may be, are worthless to the Vietnamese. They, and everyone else, want New York City apartments overlooking Central Park. Similarly, the Pettis MO is to take something conventional– efficiency gains drive wage growth – and flip it on its head in a way that soothes American anxiety. High wages drive efficiency! The whole thing is then wrapped with a sprinkle of virtue signaling, 'The stereotype of high-saving Asians is racist!' and fed to status-anxious Americans who then think that they've been granted some secret knowledge. Dealing in economic hogwash to sooth American angst is just as big of a grift as Fukuyama dropping that perfect Tocqueville quote in the heady days of American triumph. Pettis and Fukuyama have their grift. It's easy, Americans want to be fooled. It is hard to even blame them. In any other time, they may have just been obscure academics backstabbing colleagues for a low-paid professorship. But the American zeitgeist made them stars. For those who don't know, Han Feizi is American – but destined to occupy a tiny niche in the American zeitgeist. Emerson I will never be, although I gave it a shot (see here). We all saw what happened to Vivek Ramaswamy. He brown gaffed – an Indian American accidently told white Americans the truth – and was quickly shuffled off the stage. Here are some numbers. There are 45 times as many highly able (top few percentiles in the US) math students in China as there are in the US. Nine of the top 10 research universities, according to the Nature Index, are now in China, up from zero 25 years ago. Out of 64 technology verticals tracked by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China now leads in 57. Two decades ago the US led in 60 out of 64 technologies. These trends are accelerating and have about 25 more years to go. Graphic: Asia Times And let me be more frank with my fellow Americans. 60% of those who score in the 99th percentile on the math portion of the SATs are Asian Americans who make up 5% of the population. Math skills at the American 99th percentile are table stakes in Asia. 20-30% of Chinese high schoolers would likely score in the 99th percentile on the US math SAT. When Chinese American families contemplate moving to China, the biggest hurdle is the fear that their children cannot keep up with local students – these are PhD families. All the tariffs, taxes on capital flows and industrial subsidies will amount to a hill of beans if Americans do not fix their education system and lift their game. The Ivy League should not be 25% Asian. Silicon Valley should not be 50% Asian. Even Wall Street should not be 16% Asian. As America had been led down the disastrous 'End of History' path after its moment of triumph, we fear the zeitgeist is now leading the nation down a nonsensical 'supply of demand' economic path during its age of anxiety. The nation certainly should not be starting an economic war with delusional strategies like, 'They need our consumers.' The first humiliations are already in with Trump caving on certain tariffs. Han Feizi fears that when the returns all come in, the final American humiliation will be psychologically unbearable.
