Edward Said is one of the intellectuals quoted by the right and the left in cultural issues. His major work orientialism is criticize how the west see other culture only from their own perspective. His thinking is a hallmark for the post-colonial theories and is heavily influenced by post-modernism. I watched his speech The Myth of the Clash of Civilization about his critics on the clash of civilization theme in the post cold war era. Some intellectuals, especially the right wing claim in the next century, the world conflict will be from the clash of civilization, the West, the Confucianism and the Muslim are the three major players fighting for global domination. Edward Said is right that this view is too simplified by categorize people into the we vs them. There is are difference inside a civilization and generalizing everyone within under the umbrella of a single culture is misleading. Moreover, culture and tradition are not static, they are in the constant flux of change. His conclusion and the suggested route seems too naive, everyone just hug each other then we will have world peace. His post-modernism background misleads him to reject there exists universal value. I follow the enlightenment tradition and think different civilization are in difference stage in finding the universal truth. The core of all civilization are the same universal value, on the surface there are different culture preferences service difference taste of the people. The West are not imposing their culture on the Muslims, the more advance culture are just helping the slower culture to ascend into the next stage. Japan is a good example of successful transform, China is following the same path. The conflict is not between the difference of the cultures, rather it is the force holding back all the cultures and the force move them forward.
The video is separated into 5 parts. It is interesting that the first part is watched by over ten thousand people, while the last part is only watch by two thousand people. Looks like most people cannot sit thought a pure intellectual speech on serious topics.
Today, my company have a massive layoff, 15% of the employee is gone. I have been stressed out for the whole week. Since the beginning of the month, there were rumors about the company is having a layoff plan. The rumour is leaking more and more information out, and we even know the numbers of people to cut last week. It is 180 out of 1200 employees, probably the biggest cut since 2001. My project team has been idling since we finished our project in january. Some of us are working in feasibility work, and myself was on loan to help out another project. Seems like the whole team is the redundant overhead that can be chopped away. I would expect my team have lots of causality, but it term out only the director and one guy is laid off. I guess closing down the remote sites helps save our job. The company still need someone to take over whatever tasks in the remote site. It is cheaper to keep workers in the headquarter than in the remote sites. The productivity of the company drop to the lowest level due to the layoff rumour. I havn’t been doing any real work last week, just waiting for the day to come. Some people can work as usual like nothing is going to happen, probably their brain is built differently, they just couldn’t feel there is something wrong in the atmosphere.
不要被這動畫那個甚有氣勢的名字騙了﹐「南瓜剪刀」並不是一套緊張刺激的軍事類動畫﹐反而是碗充滿溫馨人情味的心靈雞湯。時空設定在一個很歐陸風情的虛構國家﹐長年累月的戰爭剛剛結束﹐隨之而來是動蕩不安的和平時代。人民飽受戰火催殘民不聊生﹐軍方於是成立軍情三課「南瓜剪刀」統籌戰後重建的工作。第三課說穿了只是一個無權無勢的小部門﹐救災的工作僅限於派糧修路疏導難民﹐實際上只是軍隊用來裝飾門面的宣傳工具。雖然第三課不被軍方重視﹐但「南瓜剪刀」的隊員仍堅守他們的信念﹐希望他們的救緩工作像利剪一樣﹐剪開像南瓜皮層層不斷的貪官污吏﹐幫助有需社會上有需要的弱勢社群。人物描寫是這套動畫的靈魂﹐每個隊員來到第三課的理由不盡相同﹐隨著劇情發展透露每個人背後的故事﹐交織出對社會上不公義的控訴﹐亦展現人類在困難中不放棄追求建設理想世界的希望。
