2nd UPDATE: The End of Everything

How Greek Tragic Truths Apply to Taiwan

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” ― Franz Kafka

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8 May 2024 (Wednesday)

The End of Everything

How Greek Tragic Truths Apply to Taiwan

By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德

TAIPEI - The legendary Victor Davis Hanson (VDH), ancient and modern military historian and a walking encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, not to mention a good ole’ farm boy, has just released his book, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation.

I am drilling down into the Kindle edition for my second read and when I am not reading it, I have the audio version for my walkabouts.

My conclusion?

For China, according to Hanson, Taiwan is an “aberration” that does not really exist in the modern world of diplomacy. China will not tolerate a bifercated Chinese identity.

Like the U.S. left-wing lingo, China’s perspective is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are the “deplorables, the clingers, the irredeemables”.

As I have argued, along with others, Taiwan became the fly-over country to the real China.

Taiwan, an island of only 24 million, is no different than the Greek city-states that were raped, razed, and removed from the history books.

Entire cultures, languages, identities were eradicated by the victors.

Like Taiwan, those inside the city walls always said the same thing.

These will sound familiar to foreigners living here trying to decipher Taiwan’s rich imagination of denialism:

• “there would be a negotiated settlement”

• “just a change in management”

• “economic issues”

• “they need us”

• “the U.S. military will save Taiwan”

• “organ harvesting is a conspiracy theory”

• “they would never do the horrible things to us they have done to the Uyghurs or Tibetans; after all, we speak the same language”

Hanson’s book demonstrates the same type of naivety of war. Taipei’s chattering political elites poo-poo the notion that there will be a systematic destruction of Taiwan’s civilization/culture and the local language of Taiwanese.

After Taiwan’s subjugation, Washington will quickly find a new shiny object to bedazzle policy makers.

Look no further than the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, now considered verboten subjects even within the inner circles of Washington.

It was Taiwan’s KMT that saved China’s historical manuscripts, culture, language (traditional Chinese), artifacts. Taiwan has religious temples to every imaginable Chinese deity. China’s Cultural Revolution managed to destroy the temples and statues of the past (sound familiar?). Today, China’s remaining temples exist only as tourist traps.

Beijing refused to accept Hanson’s book for publication in China unless portions referring to Taiwan were removed. The author refused; a very unlikely position for an elite progressive academic (but VDH is none of those things).

It is my opinion the book’s historical references echo in Taiwan’s group think, the military’s wordplay in the new doctrine of “resistance” replaced with “resilience”, and how the ghost in the machine (American Foreign Policy) will save Taiwan, are all priceless gems.

Perfect examples of Taiwan’s decadence, debauchery, and denial amongst the chattering elites of the DPP has been the Party’s demilitarization of the armed forces over the past 20 years.

Those who point to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan of F-16 fighters and other high-technology killing machines do not understand Taiwan’s mindset that such purchases are “protection money” for the day China attacks.

If not that, they will serve as bargaining chips during surrender negotiations with China.

Hanson’s references to the protectors of the city-gates, the cohortes praetoriae, those who guard the elite while they sleep, are reflected in the DPP’s dismantling of the Military Police Command, once 20,000 strong, now down to 3,000 active duty.

Hanson’s epilogue should be taken to heart by the DPP: “How the Unimaginable Becomes the Inevitable.”

The only other book anywhere near the level of foreboding is Camille Paglia’s 700-page Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990). Of which, today, Taiwan would encompass an entire chapter.

Her book is one of only several I still keep next to my bedside, including Michael Walsh’s Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost and Ernest Jones’ On the Nightmare (1909/1910).