Taiwanese minds
In his letter, Herbert Hanreich reacts to my letter, itself a reaction to Hanreich’s opinion piece (“Naive religious views,” June 15, page 8; “Religious provocation,” June 8, page 8; “Missionary positions in Taiwan,” May 30, page 8).
I think our dispute is not based on religious views — it was the editor who gave our letters titles suggesting this — but about the quality of young Taiwanese minds, the education they receive and the general culture that fosters that education.
Hanreich writes in his letter that he is simply stating his experience and that he accepts that mine might be different.
Yes, now he does, but Hanreich’s original point was categorical: Young Taiwanese minds are vitiated by an authoritarian culture that honors blind obedience and discourages people from thinking for themselves.
I realize that in an opinion piece, nuance can fall victim to argument, but by giving no scope at all to possible experiences outside of his own, Hanreich gets his argumentative way too much at a discount.
My experience, as I wrote in my letter, is that in every classroom there are a few bright minds in a majority of more humdrum ones. Without such spots of brightness being a teacher must be a truly dispiriting experience. I hope this is not Hanreich’s lot. I do not think it has to be.
Nearly all of Hanreich’s students agree with his portrayal of educational practices, he writes — but how happy can Hanreich be with such support, coming as it does from people who, according to his own view, are simply unthinkingly obedient to a teacher’s authority?
Given the force of Hanreich’s argument, you would expect that he would give more weight to the few dissenting voices. Perhaps those one or two students are unacknowledged bright minds in his classes?
As for our views of religion: I never used the word “naive” in my letter to characterize Hanreich’s view: It is a word he puts in my mouth.
I recognized in Hanreich’s view those of “New Atheists” such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. I read those authors with fascination and they are anything but naive. Their argument is Hanreich’s: If the Bible is read literally, it is nonsense and dangerous to boot.
I take this largely to be true, but much of worth that has been written releases its value only when not taken literally — a closed chapter for anyone who cannot find other ways to read.
Rudolphus Teeuwen
Kaohsiung
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend, but what if it does? That is the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests would occur tomorrow. The Future I Saw, a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity, but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read “Major disaster in March 2011.” Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever
Chinese intimidation of Taiwan has entered a chilling new phase: bolder, more multifaceted and unconstrained by diplomatic norms. For years, Taiwan has weathered economic coercion, military threats, diplomatic isolation, political interference, espionage and disinformation, but the direct targeting of elected leaders abroad signals an alarming escalation in Beijing’s campaign of hostility. Czech military intelligence recently uncovered a plot that reads like fiction, but is all too real. Chinese diplomats and civil secret service in Prague had planned to ram the motorcade of then-vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and physically assault her during her visit to the Czech Republic in March last
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
RSS