Prehistoric Picasso and the case of Western recipe for Chinese governance reform
- By Ali Biniaz
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 14, 2016
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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, shakes hands with deputies to the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as he attends a plenary meeting of the PLA delegation to the NPC during the ongoing annual parliamentary session held in Beijing, capital of China, March 13, 2016. Xi also delivered an important speech here on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Gang) |
In regard to the real progress in President Xi's bold initiative of governance reform, including deepening economic reform, rule of law, ecological civilization, cultural development, etc., the following points may help understand the challenges ahead, now being deliberated by participants at the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
They require an understanding of ancient art, however. Ian Morris, in his 2010 book entitled: "Why the West Rules - For Now" touches on the 1879 and 1994 excavations of Northern Spain's cave of Altamira and Southern France's Chauvet Cave. The former, in particular, revealed paintings more than 25,000 years ago that represented bison, deer, layer upon layer of multicolored animals on the ceiling.
When the artist Picasso visited the site years later, he was stunned, saying: "None of us can paint like that. After Altamira, all is decadence."
Morris concludes that "none of the African or Australian examples [of prehistoric paintings] compares esthetically with the best French and Spanish work, and there are quite a few deep caves outside Western Europe that have no paintings (like Zhoukoudian in China)."
However, mentioning a tiny model of a bird carved perhaps 15,000 years ago from a deer antler and discovered at Xuchang in 2009, Morris says we can be confident that future excavations will reveal a flourishing Ice Age artistic tradition even in China.
Still, it is unquestionable that Westerners have a clear artistic edge over Easterners and this should have important implications in modern life. The fact is that high diversity and abundance of theoretical models especially in the realm of economic and political life in the West do not differ from past Western artistic creativity.
Westerners know how to define these models, play with them, apply them and change the destiny of other nations through connectivity facilitated by the functionality in this age of globalization.
If this story has any truth, then Chinese policy makers, rather than adhering to these highly beautiful but rigid and artistic models, should focus more on their own intrinsic capabilities and historic natural endowment so an appropriate set of tools can be explored and defined, without ignoring the accumulated knowledge and modeling understandings and capabilities of the West.
The second point is about the diversity of Western readings on the nature of economic development, although perplexing for Easterners, another implication of Western artistic capabilities and talents.
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