[QUIZ] Via aisb23

Via aisb23.

( Which Illuminati am I? )

[BRIEF NOTE] Audace, audace, toujours de l'audace

This afternoon, I was pleased to read the latest article of Russell Smith, a new-generation Canadian writer of some renown and wit, and also a fellow graduate of the MA English program at Queen's. "Monday night torture" starts by examining Iranian actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo, star in the recent film House of Sand and Fog and now playing the mother in the fourth season of 24. Smith notes that, yes, 24 does make use of Muslim stereotypes. He also points out that the superabundance of torture (and venality, and treason, and simple incompetence) on the part of the United States' security forces doesn't paint them well, either. I'm particularly fond of his conclusion.

[One] tension-making device employed by the creators of 24 is the choice between Family and the Cause. One by one, characters on both sides of the conflict are put into unbelievable situations in which they must choose to sacrifice a close family member or abandon their military obligations. You must choose to sacrifice your mom to a nuclear meltdown if you want to save the nation from catastrophe. You must choose to ignore your daughter's need if you want to serve the nation. You must choose to sacrifice your son if you don't want to betray your people. . . .

This was a theme particularly common in French classical tragedy. In the plays of Racine and Corneille, a hero or heroine is frequently given an impossible choice between obligations to the state or the society and a lover or family member. It was a particularly interesting dilemma for people living in 17th-century France, a totalitarian state. Predictably, in their plays the state always wins.

Since 24 presents contemporary life as a perpetual state of war, the idea of constantly negating one's emotional ties also makes sense as a relevant theme. It is interesting that so far in 24, the only person to have chosen family over cause is one of the bad guys: It's Dina Araz, played by the regal Aghdashloo. Once she decides to save her son, everything starts to unravel for her: She gets taken into custody and has to betray her leader. And that's why her side is bound to lose. Our guys are much more steely: They choose state security over friends and family every time. That's what you have to do in a perpetual state of war.

[BRIEF NOTE] More on Lebanon

Part 4 of Jonathan Edelstein's series of posts on Lebanese politics is up.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the Likelihood of Going South

Last June, I argued that when the Koreas, the South--economically developed, politically more-or-less democratic, strongly connected to global cultural and demographic trends--will face an immense task of construction in the North, given the massive gap between northern and southern living standards. Speed is particularly of the essence in the Korean case, since this gap would serve, in a fully reunified Korea, as a potent spur to massive North Korean migration to the South. The gap between the former East Germany and West Germany was significantly smaller, on the order of two-to-one against the East, but two million East Germans (out of a 1989 population of 18 million) migrated. How much greater could North-to-South migration be in Korea?

Over at Asia Times, Jeffrey Robertson argues in his article "Young North Korea could save old South" that South Korea's rapidly aging population will make it essential to draw upon younger immigrants. He points to the North--poorer, younger, supposedly more fertile--as a natural source well into the 21st century. He acknowledges that this projection is vulnerable, like every other medium-to-long-term demographic projection, to changes in birth and death rates. In the case of North Korea, the sheer opacity of the regime makes the projections even more unreliable: The true toll of the devastating famine of the 1990s is uncertain, while the possibility of HIV/AIDS crossing the Chinese border (despite the regime's current claims) is very real.

I've two things to add to Robertson's analysis.

• South Korea, as a large First World economy, has the heft necessary to attract immigrants from around the world. It already does, with a population of illegal immigrants drawn from around the world, including from Korean populations in China. Precedent worldwide demonstrates that however South Korea's immigration policies are tailored, immigrants will enter with little regard for official goals.


• It's very rare for migratory trends to be perfectly beneficial to both sides, with no more emigrants leaving a region than are necessary to reduce unemployment and no more immigrants entering a region than are needed to fill local employment niches. Arguably, the volume of emigration from the South Caucasus threatens the region's chances for prosperity. I won't mention Atlantic Canada, just on principle.

My thoughts? In the event of a complete reunification of the Koreas, with unrestrained freedom of movement across sovereign Korean territory for Korean citizens, the North will quite rapidly depopulate itself. It will not be a good time to be a blue-collar worker native to the South. And immigrants from the wider world will still come, simply because however bad things in South Korea are they're better than in their homelands.

[BRIEF NOTE] The Structure of the Blogosphere

Over at Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum describes a study that erxamined the amount of linkage between blogs. Among other findings, it seems that liberal blogs have fewer connections to each other than conservative blogs, while Andrew Sullivan, Crooked Timber, and the Volokh Conspiracy are some fo the only major blogs which link left with right.