Dear Spengler,
An ungrateful group of Buddhist monks are rebelling in a distant province of my
country. I have done my best to deal with the matter quietly, but they have
managed to get the leaders of Western countries involved. President Bush is
demanding that I negotiate with their leader. I cannot give credibility to the
instigator of a provincial rebellion without encouraging mutinies elsewhere,
but I do not want to sour our relations with important countries, especially
not with the Olympic Games in our capital this summer. What should I do?
Bothered in Beijing
Dear Bothered,
You might apply Spengler's Iron Law of History: stick around long enough, and
you turn into a theme park. The province in question has an ancient and
colorful culture with a devoted Western
following among spiritual tourists, including a number of prominent Hollywood
actors. It appeals to Western nostalgia for a non-existent past far from the
anxieties of modern life. You can't afford to allow a province to secede, of
course. Why not change the name of the provincial capital to "Shangri-La" and
say that it isn't a province at all, but only a theme park? No one cares about
a rebel theme park. Let the monks run the place, and give them the gate
receipts as well as the food and beverage concession. They can spin their
prayer wheels all day and get paid for it.
It's all about money, after all. As Abraham Lustgarten wrote of your rebels in
the Washington Post on March 23, "Their culture has been packaged for tourism.
Business is booming. But they aren't getting any of the bounty. This, more than
violations of human rights and religious freedom, is what fueled the riots."
It may seem outrageous to turn a substantial chunk of territory over to an
amusement park, but the idea has been floated before, of all places in the
United States. New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof proposed to turn
part of 10 American states into a theme park called "Buffalo Commons", thus
"rescuing the rural Great Plains by returning much of it to a vast Buffalo
Commons. The result would be the world's largest nature park, drawing tourists
from all over the world to see parts of 10 states alive again with buffalo,
elk, grizzlies and wolves" (October 29, 2003). That was before the boom in
wheat prices, of course. Farming pays better than tourism these days. Still, if
Americans can take seriously the idea of turning North Dakota into a Wild West
theme park, they hardly can object to the same treatment for the province in
question.
There is no shame in running a theme park. Some of my favorite cities have been
theme parks for quite some time, for example Venice, the Las Vegas of the 17th
century, or Vienna, where instead of Mickey and Goofy, you meet Mozart and
Maria Theresa. That appears to be the main function of the British monarchy
after the Diana business.
The monks do not practice a religion so much as a sort of folkloric animism
that is out of place in the modern world. That is what makes them appear so
charming to the spiritual tourists of the West. Attractions of this sort aren't
rational, and there is no point arguing about it. Give the tourists and the
monks what they want, and promote the exchange of currency for a spiritual
frisson. Spengler
Speak truth to paranoia
Dear Spengler,
Just when I thought I had locked up the Democratic nomination for president of
the United States, the media made a scandal out of the pastor of my church.
They played video clips in which he blamed the government for inventing the
AIDS virus and for giving drugs to young black men order to get them into jail.
It sounded pretty crazy, and made me look bad. Now, I denied ever having heard
his craziest sermons and gave a speech arguing that my white grandmother was
just as big a racist as my pastor, but the problem lingers on. What should I
do? Shivering in Chicago
Dear Shivering,
You may have to take a big risk. Your white grandmother doesn't frighten
voters, but your pastor does, not only because he sounds racist and
anti-American, but also because he sounds like a raving loonie in the video
clips. Some voters may fear that you are one person in front of a black
audience, and another person altogether on the campaign trail. The voters want
to hear you speak truth to paranoia. You should ask for the pulpit of your
church and tell your congregation (and the television cameras) something like
this:
Our pastor was wrong to appeal to your rage. Rage only hurts you.
Rage is what puts a third of young black men in the criminal justice system.
The government doesn't give them drugs to sell. Criminals do. And the drugs
they sell hurt you more than anyone else. The government helps you by locking
up criminals, because black people are the main victims of crime perpetrated by
other black people. And don't blame the government for AIDS. If you don't want
to get AIDS, don't shoot dope with dirty needles, and you fellows, get off the
"down low". Stop blaming other people for your troubles and take responsibility
for your own lives.
If you get out of the room alive, you will
be a shoo-in for the White House. Spengler
Three-card Bernanke
Dear Spengler,
I am chairman of the central bank of the world's biggest superpower. Some of
our biggest investment firms have failed recently, and I have had to bail them
out. The rest of them are stuffed full of ridiculously complex structured
securities, and many of them would be bankrupt if we forced them to value their
portfolios at fair market prices. I cut interest rates almost every month, but
it doesn't seem to do any good. What should I do?
Paralyzed on the Potomac
Dear Paralyzed,
Even your superpower doesn't have enough money to bail out all of the bankrupt
banks and brokers, so you will have to employ triage. Instead of holding
auctions for central bank liquidity, take a leaf from the street hustlers who
play Three Card Monte, and propose a central-bank game called Three Card
Bernanke. Each bank that guesses the right card out of the three on the table
gets a bailout.
Why would you want a job where everybody will blame you for all the things that
go wrong due to the malfeasance of your predecessors? You might be happier
teaching economics again. Interest rates in your country are headed towards
zero. Now that Toshihiko Fukui has left the Bank of Japan, why not ask him to
take your job? He's already brought interest rates down to zero and bailed out
a bankrupt system once, and it will bother him much less than it will bother
you. Spengler
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
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