可治症与不治症
To Treat the Incurable and the Curable

价值一语： Words of Value:

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. --- However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. --- Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

虽然完美是经常达不到的，一个人应该去尽量达到完美。 --- 有意志尽量完美的人会比那些用完美是不可能作借口的灰心丧气的懒人更接近完美。 --- Philip Domer Stanhope Chesterfield

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By Kai Chen 陈凯 (Written 7/27/2006, Reprint 9/27/2011)

In the field of medicine, mankind has long discovered that there are curable diseases such as TB and some other bio-infectious diseases. Medicines such as anti-biotics will kill the germs and bring the patients back to health.

But many diseases, especially those deadly and very infectious diseases such as leprosy, Aids, cancer, flu, Sars, syphilis, hepatitis, etc. are not curable. Only vaccination, quarantine, changing certain behaviors such as stopping smoking and certain dietary habits can prevent and reduce the occurence of the diseases, and especially prevent the diseases from spreading to the healthy population. Some drugs humans invent to treat such deadly and incurable diseases are only to control the symptoms, not to eradicate the roots of the diseases. Nonetheless, humans have succeeded in eradicating certain diseases such as small pox.

In the realm of social and cultural health, I see the parallel of such phenomenon as curable and incurable social and cultural disorders and diseases. In the Chinese case, there are certain cultural habits that are harmful to humans (such as sharing the same utensils and containers when eating together) which can be cured with some education and effort in forming healthy dietary habits, such as using disposable chopsticks and designated utensils for common use. But there are incurable Chinese social and cultural diseases which can only be treated with prevention, quarantine, vaccination, separation the diseased from the healthy population with change of certain human behaviors...

I want to list a few main incurable Chinese social and cultural diseases below, diagnosing them and prescribe some treatment for them. If you have better suggestions in treating such diseases, please feel free to post your prescriptions here so all of us can benefit from your wisdom:

1. Chinese character-based syllabic language:

Origin of the disease: Primitive, tribal sorcerers invented such symbols to mesmerize and control the mind of the population, making them following the irrational behaviors of the tribal leaders.

Individual symptoms from the disease: Slave-minded conformers, lack of creative energy, following eratic masses, ancestor-worshipping, small and close-mindedness, castration of one's ability to initiate and invent, confusion of artistic and logic aspect of human mind, confusion of superficial with substantial, confusion of individual with collective, moral confusion about what is right and wrong with what is powerful.

Prescription: Stay away from it. Making a transition toward adopting English as the official language, via a first bi-lingual system, then a full useage of English. Using Chinese characters only as a display of art, never as a tool to transmit knowledge, much like nowadays in the West, people tatoo themselves with Chinese characters as artistic symbols. Caution: making sure that your children study Chinese only as an art, not as a tool. Example: Many illiterate parents want their children to be educated for they know the pain of being illiterate. By the same token, do you want your children to be void of creativity and unable to reach their full potential?

2. Confucianism:

Origin of the disease: An ill-fulfilled Chinese petty official invented certain fake and false moral and ethical codes for the masses to follow, in order to secure the stability of the cruel and despotic Chinese emperors' rule.

Individual symptoms of the disease: Social hierarchy and classification of social status by ascribed identities such as family background, age, gender, vocation, generation, race and ethnicity, native and foreign, social status, etc., Loss of moral compass, confusion in morality; status and power-worship, strict memorization and confomity in education, fear of the unknown, lack of pioneer spirit, fear of authority rather than God, fear of truth, true knowledge and reality, fear of future, fear of facing oneself, fear of freedom and equality, fear of being joyful and happy, fear of expression of individuality, fear of humanity. Hostility toward true morality and ethics, hostility toward individuals and minority, hostility toward foreigners, hostility toward goodness and God... I now coin the term to describe this unique Chinese syndrome: Chinese Eunuchism (Individual's self-castration to serve the state and emperors).

Prescription: Adopting Christianity from the West, following Christian values and Christ teachings, establishing true morals and ethics by pursuing truth and reality. erecting the concept of God to endow the Chinese with a sense of moral absolutes, humanity, objective reality, common sense, logic, rationality, love, empathy, establishing a culture of existence as against Chinese nihilism, establishing the concept of joy and happiness experienced only by individuals, establishing a culture of values and life, as against a culture of nothingness and death.

3. Chinese despotism:

Origin of the disease: Qin -- the first Chinese emperor who used violence and bloodshed to unite China and silenced all dissenting voices. Political power by the point of the gun has since become the only reality in Chinese political lives.

Individual symptoms of the disease: Silence of one's inner voice to express oneself, conformity of individuals to majority, passivity of individuals to blindly accept authority's edits and fate, pursuit of absolute unity regardless freedom, joy and happiness, hostility toward differences, hatred toward individual excellence in the absence of majority and authority, oppression toward minority, repression against dissention, pursuit of positions in officialdom as the ultimate success in one's life, domination of weaker groups and nations....

Prescription: Establishing Western concepts of democracy from bottom up, individual freedom, free press, independent judiciary, separation of powers within the government, sacredness of private ownership, individual rights to liberty, life and pursuit of happiness. Initiate American-style constitutional republic with a federalist system, with maximum autonomy to regional government and individuals. Private enterprises and capitalism with free market as the most rational mechanism to create and distribute wealth, free flow of ideas with in the society, free flow of population within and without the borders. Rule of law to control governmental and public abuses, educate many in the Western schools and colleges with Western concepts of jurisprodence.

4. Chinese "People Racism" 民族主义：

Origin of the disease: A modern phenomenon since the coin of the term of "China" 中国, after the downfall of the last Chinese dynasty. Boxer's Rebellion 义和团 had contributed to the rise of such a disease.

Symptoms of the disease: Xenophobia, suspicion, hostility and outward hatred toward anything foreign, anything individual, anything not originated in Chinese tradition, schezophrenia and bipolar symdrome, aggressiveness toward weaker nations, envy and hostility toward stronger nations, void of sense of morality, single-mindedly pursue national power and glory, blindly follow authority with fear and false sense of pride, using skin color and ethnicity to escape individual freedom and responsibility, using national symbols such as dragon and national flags to cover up corruption in individual souls, spiritual emptiness, circular thinking with hatred toward progress, yearning for past glory with fatansies and illusions, dellusional paranoia and hyper-sensitivity about one's birth place, racial identity, national origin and family background...

Prescription: A knock on the head with a blunt object such as a big stick, then showering the head with dog blood, as Mr. Lu Xun once prescribed. Many of these mad dogs cannot be cured or educated to be disillusioned and outside forces, with tremendous cost to human lives, is but one solution, much like what Japan had been through during WWII -- Two Atomic Bombs knocked them back to reality.

Having listed these incurable Chinese social and cultural diseases, their origins and prescriptions for treatment, I welcome your comments on these crucial and fundamental issues facing China and the world today. As a freedom-enjoying and freedom-loving American, as one who was born in China and fought through the Chinese brain-wash and indoctrination, I invite you to post your views and opinions on treating these incurable diseases. I will appreciate it very much.