Political Economist

The following essay was written for my personal heurstical purpose. It is about human stem cell research. Even though current debates associated with stem cell research have been usually accompanied by religious, moral assumptions, I tried to exclude those metaphysical aspects of the debate. I hope you will have a good chance to think about the issue while reading this essay.

Stem Cell Research, Human Cloning, and then What?

Scientific research on human stem cell has been developing rapidly for the last decade or so. Since the cloned sheep Dolly appeared in the world in the late 1997, another pioneering research on embryonic stem cell engineered by a group of Korean scientists started to decorate news headlines nowadays. However, those who propose human cloning research should consider the potentially detrimental repercussions of the research on human dignity, the danger of the polarization of a society by genetics and various other unknown consequences of the research.

One of the most frequently cited examples for the human stem cell research is its potentially positive contribution to the longevity of human life. It is also argued that scientists can prevent probable diseases in advance due to the broadened knowledge of human stem cell. However, it will be possible only at the expense of the violation of human dignity.

Firstly, until now the most dangerous human disease does not originate from the mutation of human cell itself but from various infectious diseases. It is widely known that at least 3,500 children are still dying in every 10 minutes from chronic malnutrition due to persistent poverty and various contagious diseases such as typhoid fever, measles and AIDS in South Asia and most African countries. Talking about extended longevity of life expectancy and the necessity of preemptive medical care cannot be justified in the name of human dignity once we consider these nonsensical deaths.

Secondly, there is another aspect of human dignity in this matter. Suppose that you can produce one part of the human body due to stem cell research. Imagine that David can buy one eye and one left leg from a university hospital refrigerator. With these supplemental organs, suppose that David can replace his weak or problematic organs whenever he wants, then how can he define himself as a human or an individual? How do we know whether David is still David if he has replaced every part of his body with a stronger or younger head, hands or heart? How, then, is it far from the callous story of humanoid? Can we still talk about human dignity in this new brave world?

In this sense, the problem is not about technology or our lack of sufficient medical knowledge, but about the political and social structure in which those who are suffering from various infectious diseases do not have access to proper medical treatment. Thus those who argue that stem cell research is necessary for human beings’ welfare are misleading the reality. We are suffering not from sufficient medical knowledge but from lack of proper ways to distribute this knowledge.

We should also consider the demographic aspect of stem cell research. Let us suppose that there are no serious technological barriers to human cloning. In other words, suppose that it is perfectly possible to produce another human body with the same genome. By this juncture, it will be also likely that scientists can differentiate potentially problematic gene from healthy and intelligent gene. From this stage, it is not so great a leap to imagine various situations where every parent competes to transplant better or perfect gene into their test tube babies.

Since it is quite natural to think of a society where most human beings are not totally different from those of the society today, in other words, there is no guarantee that future society will be filled with more moralistic and egalitarian citizens, it is also plausible to imagine endless competition among people to achieve perfect genome for their children. Like the present days, this endless competition among citizens of a future society will be determined by uneven economic and political powers in the end.

If that is the case, nobody can guarantee that the society will not be divided into two or three groups of people; those who have superior gene and those who do not have. From this stage, society will be burdened not only with unequal income distribution, which has been the main determinant of social classes, but also with unequal genome distribution, which will be an advent of the “brave new world,” genetically divided new caste system. In this way, another serious socio-political problem will be derived from seemingly scientifically neutral stem cell research.

Someone may argue that the government can control the goals and objects of stem cell research or at least will succeed in channeling the direction of the research; The government can protect the society from potentially detrimental negative side effects of the research through its active policy intervention. For example, the government can ban human cloning even though it allows cloning itself on animal experiments; It is also possible to imagine that the government will pass a law encouraging medical researches based on the knowledge of human stem cell but banning commercial trades of human embryo and genome and so and so forth.

However, we do not have to be economists in order to see how the government has been misguided by the myth of free market fundamentalism, and how various social institutions have shown their lethargy in protecting public goods in front of market forces. We do not have to be nuclear physicians to see how previous scientific researches on atom have brought unexpected catastrophes to society. The idea that the government or more abstractly speaking ‘society as a whole’ can draw clear lines between positive potentials and usages of the stem cell research and its probable abuses is hardly convincing. There is no such an omnipotent institution or a spiritual mighty which can easily overcome this slippery slope.

Thus, if we have to decide to do something about stem cell research, it is not about whether we should ban or allow the research; it is about when we should prohibit this potentially detrimental play which is still being committed by arrogant ‘as-if-God-human creatures.’ All arguments on the potentially beneficial effects of stem cell research such as extended human longevity, preemptive medical care are based on a total ignorance of the political and socio-economic complexities of human society.

The Differences between Political Science and Economics

When I was in Korea, some of my friends and younger students sometimes asked me why I had chosen to study political science. They wanted to know whether there were special reasons for me to choose that particular area of study in social science. I have been asked the same question since I studied economics in the U.S.

Personally speaking, I studied political science as my undergraduate and graduate major for about 6 years in Seoul. Recently, I am studying economics in New York. Due to this personal experience, I am in a better position to draw big pictures of two major social science research areas.

In this essay, I would like to introduce some similar aspects and major differences between political science and economics for those who are about to choose either of two area of study in social science.

Historically, political science dates back to classical Greek’s philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. They tried to provide us with general principles of and foundations for good commonwealth in their major works.

Compared to political science, the history of modern economics originated from J.M. Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money published in 1939. In his book, Keynes paved the ways for modern macroeconomic analyses of capitalist economy.

Even though, some economic historians argue that the history of economics can be traced back to the date earlier than Keynes’ era, it is widely accepted that before 1939 any economic analysis could been incorporated into other social science disciplines such as politics and sociology. Thus, the origin and history of each study are different from each other.

Secondly, both political science and economics have their own distinctive goals and objectives. While political science has been oriented to offer normative rules and principles for desirable community, economics has limited its roles only for the predictable analysis of economic phenomena. Thus, while political science has normative and idealistic properties, economists usually have circumscribed their roles to mathematical data analysis and policy recommendation.

Admittedly, it is also true that there has been a certain level of convergent tendency in both methodology and area of interest between two studies; if you have chances to take one or two classes in a political science department related with comparative politics and international relation, you would easily find these subfields of political science have been highly influenced by modern economics’ methodology.

Similarly, if you are planning to study macroeconomics for your major area of study in economics, you will also have to delve into the role of government and bureaucracy in the economic development process and public policies. In other words, various political foundations for economic development are one of the most significant areas of study not only in political science but also in economics.

However even when we consider this similarity, there are enough reasons for economics to be called economics, not political science. Most of all, economists are all interested in macroeconomic phenomena and economic indicators such as inflation, unemployment and international trade (deficit) even when they take the role of government and bureaucracy into account. In other words, even when they analyze a particular government’s economic policy, they usually focus on the policy with its economic consequences, not on the party politics or the decision making process in which most political scientists are interested.

Finally, due to these different academic orientations, economics has traditionally developed highly abstract mathematical methodologies for its analysis. Recently, contemporary economists especially those who are influenced by the U.S-dominant academic trend have attempted to incorporate human needs and subjective desires into their mathematical equations.

Compared to recent trends of economics, political science mostly employs logical inference as its main approach. Even though there are various political scientists who are ready to borrow mathematical data analysis from economics, who eagerly use anthropological observations as their powerful methods, these trials are still in their incipient stage.

In sum, both economists and political scientists try to offer scientific analysis of certain social phenomena. However, their methodology and area of interest, not to mention their respective objectives are significantly different from each other. Thus, those who want to learn the history of political philosophy, and want to know how the society as a whole works will surely prefer political science. By the same token, for those who are interested in the dominant roles of economy in society, for those who want to know how the economy grows in historical perspective, I would like to recommend them to choose macroeconomics for their major area of study.

The Case of Andre Stein

Andre Stein is a professor of Human Communications at the University of Toronto. He is also practicing psychotherapy for Holocaust survivors. According to his own explanation, he survived the Holocaust when he was a young child. (255) Due to this personal experience, he might be invited to respond to Simon’s Dilemma.

Stein begins his essay with quotation of some sentences from The Sunflower. According to him, Simon’s silence as a response to Karl’s request for forgiveness was inevitable, choice-less choice considering the situations of the concentration camp Simon had to face.

With this introduction, he starts to deal with various important moral, religious and sociological issues raised by Simon’s story. They are all about Karl’s role in this story, the necessary condition for true repentance, the meaning of Simon’s two silences (one to Karl and the other to Karl’s mother) and the possibility of collective guilt or German’s collective responsibility of massacre of the Jew.

Firstly, there is an issue of Karl’s attitude. With respect to this question, Stein argues that Karl does not have any right to ask for forgiveness from a Jew in the first place. Karl, the dying SS man, could have followed his own religious faith and moral values of his family. However, it was the young SS murderer himself who volunteered the military personnel, and joined in collective massacre of the Jews. In this respect, Karl’s “moral pains” are not so greater than those of Simon and other Jewish prisoners, or are not pains at all. (251)

Furthermore, Stein argues that Karl does not show any truly repentant attitude toward Jewish people. Rather, the dying SS man had the nurse to bring him a Jew – “any Jew” – so that he could confess and receive the Jew’s forgiveness in order to die in peace in his own way. According to Stein, this kind of request is not only absurdity itself but also shows the fact that the dying SS man still think of the Jew as an object, or instrument of his own salvation, not as an individual subject or fellow human being. (252) In other words, Karl did not change his prejudice against the Jew even before his death, and this attitude cannot be understood as true repentance.

For this reason, those who blame Simon for his not forgiving Karl can only be understood that they have a greater affinity with the dying murderer than with his victims. Furthermore, those who grant forgiveness to the SS man show that they do not know about Nazism at all. In other words, only those who do not have the same experience as Simon and his colleagues did, namely only those who do not understand fully their situations can either blame Simon or argue that Karl deserves to be forgiven. (251)

Second question is about Simon’s silence. How can we understand and judge Simon’s silence in front of Karl’s death? As we already know, Simon kept silent while listening to the dying SS man’s confession and request for forgiveness. To Stein, Simon’s attitude was charitable enough to the dying SS man because he had listened to the young murderer’s confession not by “his own ears but also by ears belonged to the dead and other dying Jewish people such as Eli and his mother and his comrades” at the situation; Simon could have told Karl, “I heard what you did, how you feel about it. I can see how scared you are of dying with a burdened conscience. And this is all that I can do. I am not telling you how much I hate you, for the flames of my hatred would burn me before they would reach you. I cannot forgive you not only because I have no right to speak for your victims but also because you have forced me to listen to your story. For me this is another curse.” According to Stein, not saying these words, keeping silence was sufficient charity that Simon could show toward Karl. (253)

In addition, Simon did not treat the dying SS murderer as a monster. Instead, he respected the last humanity of a human who had lost his humanity; He listened to Karl’s confession quietly. He even flied away the fly from Karl’s head. Even though listening to Karl’s murderous misdeeds was another mental torture to Simon, he did neither condemn Karl nor get away from the chamber. To stein, this attitude was the most honorable deed that Simon, a Jewish concentration camp prisoner, could show toward the murderer. Thus, Stein argues that Simon should not be troubled anymore by those who blame him for not granting forgiveness to Karl. (253)

The final argument that Stein addresses is about Simon’s another silence in front of Karl’s mother and German’s collective responsibility of the crimes. Stein argues that Simon should have told the truth to Karl’s mother. To Stein, “Simon had a responsibility toward past and future victims to tell her the truth. And Karl’s mother had the responsibility of rising above her personal pain and telling the world what her son had done.” “Karl’s mother should have taken some of the burden of a guilty collective conscience. We must not forget that millions were murdered by a nation of good sons. Thus everyone who holds on to a pristine moral image of his or her children is a collaborator in their crime.” In this respect, Stein argues that “Karl’s parents are not guilt-free in his joining the SS. And by keeping the truth under cover, Simon enabled Karl’s mother to live a nasty lie.”(255)

Allan Greenspan’s testimony to Congress and the U.S FED interest rate policy

Greenspan’s last words?

Jul 20th 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda

Alan Greenspan, the chairman of America’s Federal Reserve, has given what may be the last of his twice-yearly speeches to Congress on monetary policy before his expected retirement. Those pleading for lower interest rates—or at least an end to the rises—found that he has not gone soft in his old age

OVER the last decade, as the baby-boomers have watched retirement lurching closer, an aura of mania has hovered over the American marketplace. Telecoms were going to carry workers along the information superhighway to the land of effortless wealth, and dotcoms promised to turn the stock market into a sort of perpetual-motion money-making machine—at least until the Y2K bug brought the entire world to a crashing halt. Now those fads are regarded with (rueful) nostalgia, and Americans are ploughing their money into real estate, with expectations of recouping a modest 20% or so a year on their investment.

Despite the madness of the crowd, at least one man has remained remarkably steady: Alan Greenspan, the chairman of America’s Federal Reserve. Credited with godlike powers by the markets in the late 1990s, he has taken something of a shellacking in the press in recent years for the usual sins with which central bankers are charged: making monetary policy too easy, which causes inflation and encourages people to bury themselves in debt; or making monetary policy too tight, which throws people out of work and makes it hard for people to pay the debts they amassed when monetary policy was looser. Open a newspaper these days, and you can often find him accused of both within a few pages.

Despite entreaties from both sides, Mr Greenspan has held his ground. The Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates at the slow, steady pace originally promised as the economy inched out of the 2000-01 recession. As he headed into his biannual testimony on monetary policy before Congress on Wednesday July 20th, all eyes were watching to see if his words would presage any wavering from this course. With Mr Greenspan expected to step down in January, two months before his 80th birthday, this may be his swan-song before the legislative body.

The dollar rose sharply ahead of Mr Greenspan’s testimony, in the expectation that he would hint at more interest-rate rises to come—as indeed he did. Even so, there are those who feel it is nearing time for Mr Greenspan to let them level off, as they approach the range which many analysts believe to be “neutral”—neither low enough to spur economic growth, nor high enough to hinder it. That level is believed to be somewhere between 3.5% and 4.5%. In recent months, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates in quarter-point increments, most recently to 3.25% (see chart above).

Though economic growth has remained strong (especially compared with sluggish Europe), there are ample worries to fuel the case for restraint. Oil, the fuel of the world’s economy, remains expensive. And America’s job market is still surprisingly subdued considering how far the nation is into the current economic expansion. Unemployment stands at 5%, down from a high of 6.3% in June 2003, but much of the early improvement came from workers leaving the labour force, rather than job creation. Labour-force participation remains well below its 2000 peak, and payroll headcounts have only this year returned to their 2001 levels. Consumer spending remains strong, but (it is feared) increasingly dependent on housing wealth and desperate corporate measures to shake consumers loose from their hard-earned dollars—the Big Three automakers have offered their employee discounts to the entire country to move backlogs of 2005 models off the lots.

Nonetheless, even before he testified it was clear that Mr Greenspan's words would not satisfy those hoping for easier money. In a July 11th letter to Representative Jim Saxton, the chairman of Congress’s joint economic committee, the Fed chief said that the economy seemed to be coping with higher oil prices, and that the narrowing spread between short-term and long-term interest rates, which can herald a recession, should not be cause for alarm. Mr Greenspan's testimony confirmed this view. Saying that “the US economy has remained on a firm footing, and inflation continues to be well contained”, Mr Greenspan made it clear that the bank is not done yet with rate increases. Another 0.25% increase is expected in August, and rates are likely to hit 4% by the end of the year—provided the economy remains co-operatively robust.

There are worries in some quarters, however, that this is not hawkish enough. Mr Greenspan’s letter also indicated that the bank is not acting to rein in the bubble which many fear has developed in America’s housing market. Mr Greenspan has long held that interest rates are not a good tool for bursting asset-price bubbles. This position has brought him grief from critics who blame him for allowing the stock market bubble of the late 1990s to continue to inflate long after he warned of its “irrational exuberance”. There are fears that the economy has simply lurched from depending on increasing stock prices to relying on house price appreciation to fuel growth—and that the longer this goes on, the stiffer the price Americans will pay when the bubble pops.

Rational exuberance

Mr Greenspan's testimony acknowledged the fears of both sets of critics, pointing to three primary areas of uncertainty that could derail his current, favourable assessment of the economy's prospects. Unit labour costs, which have remained subdued in recent years, have turned up of late, which will put upward pressure on inflation if the trend continues.

The possibility of further increases in energy prices threatens not only higher inflation but also slower economic growth, though Mr Greenspan noted that the forecast currently embedded in futures markets is for oil and gas prices to level off. And the unusual behaviour of long-term interest rates, which are currently hovering abnormally close to short-term rates, entails a current risk of excess borrowing, particularly in the housing market, and a future risk of higher rates and slower growth.

Mr Greenspan endorsed the view expressed by Ben Bernanke, the chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, that at least part of the unusual narrowing is due to a mismatch between high levels of global savings and relatively low levels of global capital investment. With capital investment recovering in America and Japan, this problem may heal itself. But it will remain worrying until it does. As will the housing bubble: Mr Greenspan noted that, at a minimum, some local markets are distinctly frothy and a decline in prices would undoubtedly entail economic distress. However, he was careful to add that such a decline is by no means inevitable, nor sure to produce large macroeconomic effects even if it does occur.

Mr Greenspan's speech will probably reassure those who fervently hope he is steering America between the Scylla of speculation and the Charybdis of contraction. Interest rates high enough to pop a bubble could be high enough to throw the economy into a tailspin, causing more damage than they avert. Interest rates low enough to stimulate employment may also be low enough to unleash inflation, as the central bankers of the 1970s found to their dismay. So far, America seems to be muddling through. Economic growth is strong, payrolls are recovering (however slowly), and America’s monetary policy seems to be reviving the dollar from its recent lows, which should give another fillip to consumer wallets. Mr Greenspan’s powers may not be quite godlike, but many hope that he may yet have a couple miracles up his sleeve.

The following is one article of The Economists dealing with China's exchange rate policy change.

China lets the yuan rise—but how far?

Jul 22nd 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda

So far, it is not clear exactly how the new system will operate. The Chinese called it a “managed floating exchange-rate regime”, which may well imply more management than floating. Neither the currencies in the basket used to set the level of the yuan, nor their weights, have been disclosed. The fact that the Chinese have acted at all is important. But the eventual economic and political effects of the revaluation will depend on how far and how fast the yuan moves from now on. In Friday's trading it barely budged—and in fact closed a fraction below 8.11 to the dollar, suggesting the authorities are keen to damp down market expectations of further rises.

Such a slight initial revaluation is unlikely to do much to slow China's fast-expanding economy. The day before the currency regime changed, the country's official statisticians said that GDP in the second quarter of 2005 was 9.5% higher than a year before—more than most pundits had forecast and only a shade less than the figure for the same period of 2004 (see chart below). Growth rates of industrial production, ahead by 16.8% in the year to June, and investment in fixed assets, up by 25.4% in the first half, year on year, have both eased from their levels at the end of 2003, but remain strong. Inflation, as measured by the consumer-price index, is mild. It slid to 1.6% last month, down from 5%-plus a year ago.

In truth, the economy is slowing more markedly than these (highly suspect) official figures suggest. Many economists say that China has an institutionalised bias to over-reporting growth at the bottom of a cycle and under-reporting it at the top, to reduce the volatility of the numbers. Judged by physical indicators, such as electricity consumption or freight volumes, GDP growth probably peaked at over 12% in 2003 and should slow to 8% by 2006. Since China's macroeconomic growth is driven more by fixed investment than by household consumption (which dominates in the West), it is especially vulnerable to any slowing of corporate investment or public spending on infrastructure.

“In investment cycles,” says Andy Xie, Asia economist at Morgan Stanley, “the leading indicators are profit margins, product prices and property prices, which forecast corporate cash flow or ability to borrow.” These three indicators are slowing. For the past five years, Chinese industrial firms have enjoyed record profit margins as revenue growth has outpaced the increase in wages and raw-material costs. In 2003 and 2004, industrial production and sales grew at an annual rate of nearly 30% in real terms, analysts estimate, but in 2005 the pace has slowed to around 15%. With commodity prices high, companies' margins are being squeezed: overheated industries such as cars, steel, cement and basic materials are suffering especially.

Property prices are also moderating after a period of extraordinary growth, particularly in big cities. Shanghai house prices, up by half since 1998 and by almost 10% in the first quarter of this year, have fallen back by 10-20% since mid-April. Transaction volumes in most urban centres have also dropped, because the government has imposed a property-sales tax and tightened mortgage requirements.

Overall, however, China seems to be managing the soft landing that it wants. The authorities have acted earlier and more decisively than they did in the mid-1990s, curbing growth before it gets out of hand. Policymakers have also been more sophisticated, targeting selected sectors with administrative restrictions while shifting to market-based measures, including last October's increase in interest rates, to rein in money and credit growth. A dearer yuan—but much dearer, probably, than after this week's move—would give the economy another downward nudge.

In addition, the economy is looking better balanced: there are signs that consumer spending is doing more to support the economy, alongside fixed investment and exports. Rising incomes are boosting households' spending power, lifting retail sales by 13% in the first half of the year, compared with the same period of 2004. And the countryside is finally playing a part: after six years of lacklustre growth, rural incomes rose by 12.5% in the first half.

That said, China's policymakers cannot afford to rest on their laurels. On the one hand, there is a risk that the economy will steam away again as spending for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 takes off. On the other, the vast amount of manufacturing capacity built up over the past few years means that a slightly sharper slowdown, perhaps triggered by lower growth in America, could tip the country back into deflation. Already, a staggering nine-tenths of manufactured goods in China are thought to be in oversupply.

In the short term, the biggest worry is that China becomes a victim of its own international success. Until recently China has been a powerful engine driving the world economy. If it slows, existing political and trade tensions could still worsen. Thus an unfortunate side effect of China's attempts to cool its domestic economy has been an exploding trade surplus, because import growth has softened while exports have remained robust. In June, China's exports rose by 30.6%, year-on-year, while imports grew by just 15.1%, widening the monthly trade surplus to $9.7 billion. The cumulative surplus for 2005 is now nearly $40 billion, more than for the whole of last year. This year's current-account surplus could reach 9% of GDP. “Just one year ago, China was the world's fastest-growing importer of heavy industrial products,” says Jonathan Anderson, chief Asia economist at UBS. “Today, the mainland is actually a growing net exporter, with shipments of not only textiles but also steel, other metals and chemicals accelerating visibly.”

Slowing imports (of everything but commodities) are bad news for international companies, at a time when those doing business in China are already suffering from increased competition and oversupply. And mainland firms are becoming aggressive exporters of everything from textiles and steel to electronics and even cars. Ningbo Bird, based in Zhejiang province, is flooding Asia with cheap mobile-phone handsets it cannot sell profitably at home.

Revaluing the yuan should make some of the tensions created by all this less acute. American politicians, in particular, have been demanding a step in this direction—President George Bush's spokesman welcomed the move. However, some congressmen have been demanding a much bigger stride. And investment is becoming as touchy an issue as trade has been. China is no longer using its huge stock of foreign-exchange reserves—over $700 billion—merely to buy American Treasury bonds, but to snap up physical assets too. The $18.5 billion contested bid by CNOOC, a big Chinese oil company, for America's Unocal is causing an uproar in Washington, DC. China's currency move may dampen calls for trade protection and revaluation for a while. But if its domestic economy slows and thus becomes less supportive of global growth, such calls are likely to return soon.

* The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is one of the most prestigious spiritual leaders of Buddhism not only in his own country, Tibet, but also around the world. After the Chinese government’s invasion and occupation of Tibet, he escaped to India in 1959. Since then he has continued to preach to Tibet people nonviolent and peaceful independence movement.

As a Buddhist spiritual leader, he asserts that we “should forgive persons who have committed crimes against oneself and humankind.”(129) According to him, however, this forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting those atrocities. Instead, it is necessary not to forget in order to prevent such atrocities from reoccurring. Thus, his opinion to Simon’s dilemma is to forgive, but never forget.

However, Simon has no right to forgive the dying SS man on behalf of other victims in the first place. As a respected Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama has to say that we should forgive criminals. But it is very hard for ordinary man and woman to follow his maxim.

* Mary Gordon + Cynthia Ozick

Mary Gordon is a novelist and a professor of English at Barnard College. I do not have any clues for understanding why she has been invited to respond to Simon’s dilemma, but her opinion is one of the clearest ones. Instead of asking how Simon should have behaved in such a circumstance, she asks what the dying Nazi expected from a desperate Jew. According to Gordon, Karl’s request to forgiveness from Simon was a mere “narcissistic act,” not a moral one.

From this perspective, she argues that the dying SS man’s request for forgiveness was wrong in following two reasons: firstly, by asking forgiveness, the dying SS man was asking Simon to “serve as a public symbol for all Jews.” However, Simon was not able to be such a public symbol in that circumstance. In other words, he was not in the position granting forgiveness on behalf of others. Thus, the dying SS man was asking something impossible from Simon; secondly, the dying Nazi misunderstood the meaning of confession. Even in Catholic Church, according to Gordon, sinners must acknowledge their guilt publicly before asking for absolution if their crimes had affected the public. Thus, Simon, neither as a Catholic priest nor as somebody who has moral authority, cannot grant forgiveness to Karl.

Like Mary Gordon, Cynthia Ozick is also a famous novelist. Her essay is composed of 4 parts, each of them dealing with the characteristics of Hitler’s Third Reich, differences between vengeance and forgiveness as a response to crimes, and the significance of moral responsibility of intellectuals. Even though her essay is filled with so many metaphoric expressions, it is evident from the beginning that her position to the question of forgiveness is explicit and stubborn; she asserts that it is impossible to forgive the Nazi soldier.

Ozick starts her essay by mentioning the fact that the dying SS Nazi has Catholic education. However, whether or not the dying SS man had Catholic education before does not have any significant meaning in this story. So this fact has nothing to do with the question of forgiveness.

Secondly, Ozick reveals that the Third Reich was a sort of Moloch state demanding human’s live flesh and blood to live on by citing the Second Commandment of the bible. If that is the case, how can we deal with these collective crimes? Ozick asserts the necessity of vengeance, not forgiveness. She argues that forgiveness is possible only when there is a possibility of repentance on the condition that there will not be the same mistake. However, if a murderer kills somebody, this murder cannot be “revocable” and “reversible.” In these extreme cases, she argues that there is no room for forgiveness to the dying Nazi soldier.

Of course, Ozick admits, even if we revenge somebody, this act will not also be able to bring the dead back. Yes, it is true. But this vengeance can bring public justice to evil. Contrary to public justice, forgiveness sometimes became merciless to victims, not to murderers. “Vengeance, only vengeance, knows pity for the victims,” she says.

In the last part of the essay, Ozick deals with the problem of moral responsibility. As we already know, the dying SS personnel was not the same as other brutal SS soldiers; he had a moral temperament. He was educated in Catholic Church. He was also intelligent enough to think what his crimes would bring about.

However, Ozick argues that this difference cannot be a tool for immunity privilege of the SS man’s crimes. Rather, the Nazi soldier should be punished more severely than other brainless brutes because he committed the same crimes even though he had conscience and sensibility. “The intelligent man of conscience also shovels in the babies, and it does not matter that he does it without exaltation. Conscience, education, insight – nothing stops him. He goes on shoveling. --- He is a morally sensitive man, and he shovels babies to glut the iron stomach of the idol. --- The morally sensitive SS man goes on shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.”(219) Here Ozick seems to insinuate the heavy moral responsibility of the intellectuals.

*  Dith Pran

Dith Pran is a New York Times journalist and a survivor of Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime’s labor camp. As a survivor of the brutal military regime’s concentration camp, he says that “he can never forgive or forget what the top leadership of the Khmer Rouge has done to him.”(230)

However, he asserts that we should differentiate ordinary soldiers from the leadership of the regime because what they did was to follow the orders from the above under the threat of death. Even though these ordinary soldiers are not without guilt, “there is a chasm between someone who intentionally plots to destroy the very souls of people and someone who is not only stupid and brainwashed, but fears death enough to be forced to do wrong.”(232) In this perspective, Pran says he would have forgiven the dying SS man if he were Simon.

His argument on (the necessity of the) distinction between the top leadership of Khmer Rouge and ordinary soldiers is very interesting point and seems to be very useful especially when we judge the degree of crimes. However, the problem is that this kind of distinction is not evident from the beginning. Sometimes it may be very difficult to differentiate those who are mainly responsible for the crimes from those who involuntarily follow the orders. How about those who voluntarily followed the orders or voluntarily involved in such crimes without any physical or mental threats? Should we forgive them? How and why?

Furthermore, it may be also argued that the distinction between two groups of criminals has nothing to do with forgiveness. Even though someone admits the necessity of the distinction between two or three (or more) groups of people according to their relative degrees of crimes, he or she can also argue that they do not deserve to be forgiven. In other words, the differentiation of the degree of crime has nothing to do with forgiveness because it is not about moral judgment but about the issue of legal punishment.

Thus, once again the question of forgiveness still remains untouched. Should we forgive the dying SS man. His relative degree of guilt is, of course, slighter than Hitler or Himmler. He was not an architect of the notorious gas chamber. However, he is not like “ordinary soldier” Pran mentioned. He was engaged himself in the massacre of the Jews even though he was repenting his crimes. Should we forgive him?

* Mattheiu Ricard

Mattheiu Ricard is a Buddhist monk and serving as a French language interpreter for the Dalai Lama. As a sincere Buddhist, he says that “forgiveness is always possible and one should always forgive” in any cases. According to him, “forgiveness does not mean absolution, but an opportunity for “the inner transformation” of both victim and perpetrator.” Forgiveness is a way of transforming the victim’s own grief, resentment or hatred into good.

Furthermore, the author argues that Simon should have said to the dying SS man that he should pray that he would be able to atone for his crimes by doing as much good as he had done evil in his future.” As a Buddhist, the author also argues that Simon should have felt compassion not just for the soldier and his victims, but for all sentient beings in the world until endless cycles of suffering end.

Even though the feeling of mercy and pity is one of the most significant virtues in Buddhist teachings, however, I think the author’s argument does not have any relevance to Simon’s case. Firstly, the argument that “an action cannot not be considered negative or sinful in and of itself” has nothing to do with true Buddhism. As far as I know, Buddhism is not a religion without any moral, ethical judgments regarding human behaviors. Rather, Buddhism is based on the most ethical and highly moral sentiments on human being. In other words, every human is always deemed to be judged by their action.

Secondly, if human beings are surely supposed to suffer continuously in later world due to their misdeeds in this world, there is no room for forgiveness in this world. Nobody can forgive someone who commits crimes because he or she will surely be suffering someday in the later world due to his or her own deeds. Thus if we once accept the principle of chain rule of suffering, we don’t have to decide to forgive or not to forgive the criminals. In other words, this basic circular viewpoint of the world contradicts to another Buddhist principles; so-called unconditional possibility of forgiveness.

Thirdly, I cannot accept this Buddhist’s indiscriminative attitudes toward victims and perpetrators. It may be true that “inner transformation” is the most important moment for both victims and perpetrator. However, most innocent victims are already dead without having chances for what is called inner transformation or giving forgiveness to perpetrators. The problem was that Simon was expected to forgive the dying perpetrator on behalf of other Jews who are already dead. Thus, the argument on the significance of the moment of inner transformation can only be uttered at the expense of the ignorance of sacrificed victims.

Finally, it is surprising to see this Buddhist’s ignorance of the situations. Ricard does not want to see the situations where Simon was forced into. Simon was under the continuous threats of death in concentration camp. If he really knew what was going on in the camp, can he still argue that Simon should deliver these kinds of abstract Buddhist cannon – Buddhist would have felt compassion not just for the soldier and his victims but for all sentiment beings until endless cycles of suffering ends - in such a horrible situation?

In sum, Mattheiu Richard’s opinion seems to be based on either so highly unrealistic principles or total ignorance of the situations that Simon would not be able to find proper answer to his dilemma.

* Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu is a South African bishop and a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He argues that Simon should have forgiven Karl on his death chamber. In order to justify his response, he cites various examples of forgiveness in his home country. Among them are those who “have been tortured, whose loved ones were abducted, killed and buried secretly,”(267) but in front of the commission’s testimony say that they are ready to forgive. Nelson Mandela’s sublime attitude toward former Apartheid regime was also cited as a good example of forgiveness.

However, there seems to be nontrivial difference between these examples Tutu cites and Simon’s case. Contrary to Simon’s case, former victims including Nelson Mandela in South Africa are all on the winner’s position both morally and politically when they say they can forgive the former perpetrators.

For them, forgiveness may be “practical politics.” But, for Simon, who had to face ceaseless threat of death and humiliation without any hope for surviving in concentration camp, forgiveness cannot be conceived as practical politics.

From this significantly different circumstance emerge Simon’s dilemma: he had to decide to forgive or not to forgive the dying SS man when he was a prisoner of concentration camp, not as a investigation commission member; he had to accept lots of innocent Jewish people’s death as their common fate in the camp; under this gruesome circumstance he also had to decide whether or not he could forgive the dying, repenting SS man on behalf of other Jewish victims.

Once this different situation is considered, then the question of forgiveness can be justifiably brought back to Tutu and other South African leaders in different form: Can you forgive them if you were still in the position of victims? Can you forgive white racist police officers, who are torturing you, intimidating you, killing your loving sons and daughters, if you are still forced into as a prisoner of Apartheid camp? Can you justifiably say that forgiveness is always practical politics in such a situation?

* Harry Wu

Harry Wu is a Chinese writer and a human rights activist. He had experienced Chinese prisoner’s labor camp for 19 years. Instead of dealing with Simon’s moral question of forgiveness directly, he introduces his own experiences as a political conscience prisoner of communist labor camps; he was detained and imprisoned due to his refusal to join in self criticism and “struggle session.” He experienced harsh treatments and humiliations by the prisoner guards.

Upon released from the camp, he had a chance to meet Comrade Ma who played major role in his indictment and imprisonment. However, she did not apologized to him or asked for his forgiveness. Instead, she advised him to forget the past.

Harry Wu thought that Comrade Ma was a typical character the Chinese communist regime had produced. Compared to the dying SS soldier, Harry Wu exclaimed that there had been no such a person like Karl who had asked for forgiveness in China. Rather, at least for him, communist China was filled with so many “Comrade Ma” who did not care about an individual’s well-being.

In the end, Wu says that he would not have forgiven the Nazi soldier on his deathbed, but “I would have been able to say to him: I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you.”(274)

This book is about the U.S economy in 1990s, what the author calls “the age of diminished expectation.” Paul Krugman, a professor of economics at Princeton University and New York Times columnist, aims to deal with main economic problems and successes of the current U.S. economy.

In order to present the reasons for economic success and follies, he traces back to the early 1930. Unlike the age of welfare, current U.S economy is characterized by the slowdown of labor productivity since 1980s, increasing income gap among social classes and the fear of rapid inflation. Thus, according to Krugman, without the turnaround of productivity growth, the contemporary pressing issues in the U.S economy such as trade and budget deficit, financial market volatility cannot be solved.

This book is composed of 5 chapters, dealing with the roots of economic welfare after the 2nd world war, current economic problems such as twin deficit and inflation. While analyzing these issues, he also introduces how the U.S government and the Fed have adopted economic and public policies to deal with the problems not only arising from domestic market but also from international financial market.

(3) R.M. Brown

R.M Brown is a Professor of Theology and Ethics at the Pacific School of Religion. As a lifetime theologian and ethical philosopher, he may resolve the questions Simon had to face.

He starts his essay from the memory of a commemoration ceremony he attended in Warsaw in 1979. Even though he admits that the slogan, “never forget, never forgive” should be maintained as a maxim in most human atrocities, he also offers Nelson Mandela’s and Tomas Borge’s sublime attitudes toward their perpetrators as good examples for the possibility of opposite reasoning; in their cases, even though they are not so common, forgiveness sometimes does much more than the simple punishment can.

Based on this preliminary sketch, Professor Brown says that if he were Simon, he “would have urged the dying SS man to address his plea directly to God, and throw himself on the possibility of Divine Mercy.”(123)

This main argument on Simon’s dilemma is based on his own reflections on Elie Wiesel’s theological and ethical questions. According to Professor Brown, Elie Wiesel raised two serious questions in his novel: “Where is God in all these atrocities?” and “what is there left for us to do?”(123-24)

Brown confesses that he could not find any proper answers to these questions. Thus, the only thing he can do is to urge to follow and respect God’s rules without doubting the omnipresence of God. “And if we do so, perhaps, just perhaps, a world will begin to emerge in which we do not have to ask unanswerable questions any longer.”(124)

With respect to Professor Brown’s responses, I wonder whether it was possible for Simon to urge Karl to pray for forgiveness to his God, not to Simon, in that situation. Maybe Karl, the dying SS man, already prayed for absolution to his God. But it might not be sufficient for him to feel that he could die in peace. That was perhaps the reason why he made up his mind to confess his crimes in the face of a Jew, Simon. If that is the case, Professor Brown’s ‘humble opinion’ may not be useful answers or even advice for Simon.

(4) Robert Coles

Robert Coles is a professor of both Psychiatry and Medical Humanities and Social Ethics at Harvard University. As a scholar who has studied ordinary men’s and women’s vulnerable and fragile mentalities, he does not hesitate to recognize Simon’s consistent moral attitude toward the dying SS man.

But if he were in Simon’s shoes, he says, he “would pray for the Lord’s forgiveness” of the dying SS man, even though “he would have turned his eyes away in a tearful rage.”

The reason for this forgiveness is not because he believes that everyone is alike as a “sinner” under God, but because he knows the absolute finiteness of human beings.

This seems to me that we, as ordinary human beings with limitations, don’t have any absolute rights or authority to decide to forgive or not to forgive somebody instead of God.

At any rate, even after he uttered he would have forgiven Karl, he added that he had no “conviction of righteousness.” Robert Coles’ stumbling attitude reminds me of Simon’s silence. In the end, Robert Coles himself may not know how to deal with the dilemma.

(5) The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is one of the most prestigious spiritual leaders of Buddhism not only in his own country, Tibet, but also around the world. After the Chinese government’s invasion and occupation of Tibet, he escaped to India in 1959. Since then he has continued to preach to Tibet people nonviolent and peaceful independence movement.

As a Buddhist spiritual leader, he asserts that we “should forgive persons who have committed crimes against oneself and humankind.”(129) According to him, however, this forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting those atrocities. Instead, it is necessary not to forget in order to prevent such atrocities from reoccurring. Thus, his opinion to Simon’s dilemma is to forgive, but never forget.

The followings are the summary of various responses to Simon's dilemma. As I already posted, this essay is based on the review of the book, The Sunflower.

(1) Jean Amery

Jean Amery was born in Vienna. He is a European critic and essayist. After German’s invasion and the proclamation of the Nuremberg Laws, he fled from his native country and joined the Resistance movement in Belgium. Due to this activity, he was captured by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. After the liberation, he wrote a book based on his personal experiences as a Holocaust victim and survivor.

He starts his essay by expressing his best regards to Simon for his continuous investigative activities as a commission member for investigation of NAZI crimes. At the same time, Amery explains his distinctive position, as one who does not have any moral authority to judge Simon’s behaviors, as a survivor from the concentration camp. He also wants his opinion to be understood as a private one with no significant influence on others. With these preliminary introductions, Amery argues that the question of forgiveness has two different aspects in this case: a psychological one and a political aspect.

Firstly, for him, whether to forgive Karl or not was dependent on various accidental factors which might influence Simon at such particular situations. If Simon, for example, had chances to meet one of decent SS mans who treated him relatively more gently than those of other typical SS soldiers, his decision might have been different. In this way, psychologically speaking, whether Simon should forgive Karl or not does not pose any serious moral question.

Secondly, Amery also argues that forgiving or not-forgiving is quite an irrelevant question, because this question belongs to the realm of theology or morality. Thus, the question as such does not pose any serious dilemma once we reject any metaphysics of morality and religious principles.

Amery himself want to see the whole question only in this political perspective. Thus, for him, the question simply does not exist. There is no metaphysical norm or morality upon which Simon’s attitudes can be evaluated.

However, does not this argument avoid moral questions Simon wants to discuss by shifting it to another terrain? With respect to this probable doubt, Amery said “no.” As a previous Restistance activist and as a firm advocate of political justice, he recommends that we should leave Simon’s dilemma (“the moral-theological, moral-philosophical” question of forgiveness) in the hands of professional philosophers and university professors.

In this way, Amery assures Simon not to bother himself with this metaphysical question. Even if Simon forgave the dying SS man at that time, according to Amery, nobody can blame Simon.

In my opinion, however, Jean Amery’s simple solution to the problem is not sufficient for Simon’s dilemma, because Amery’s political perspective is simply to transpose the question into another terrain. It is not the solution to Simon’s moral questions but only recommendations for self-assurance.

(2) Mark Goulden

Mark Goulden was a British journalist and publisher. After introducing his moral judgement on atrocities and inhumanity, Goulden asserts that nobody has “the privilege of granting forgiveness.”

This does not mean that we should ascribe the question of forgiveness to the realm of divinity. Rather, he criticizes any attempt to close down the dialogues about forgiveness by saying that only God can forgive. Instead, he expresses his own opinion saying that “if the dead cannot forgive, neither can the living.” He goes on “How can you forgive monsters who burned people alive in public?”

With respect to Simon’s dilemma, he does not hesitate to say that, if he were Simon, “I would have silently left the deathbed having made quite certain there was now one Nazi less in the world!” even though he admits the possibility that the answer may be different from person to person.

Will Simon accept or agree with Goulden’s attitude? From a personal aspect, as Goulden agrees, there is no single answer to the question. Thus, nobody can blame Simon’s decision. From a political perspective, Simon will surely agree with Goulden’s opinions that every citizen should fight against inhumanity and brutal crimes.

* English has become one of the most dominant languages in the world. English is not only a tool for understanding different cultures but also barrier or social pressure in Korea. I wrote this essay for my own reflection and heuristic purpose. I hope that you wil have chances to think about the role of English in this society while reading this essay.

I started learning English when I became a middle school student. Since then, English used to be not a simple language but a complicated and contradictory substance; English has not only been the object of my affection but also the barrier to overcome for various purposes.

In principle, learning foreign languages is to understand different cultures. Because the language contains various aspects of its users, we can easily understand a different culture by its language. English is no exception. By learning English, it is expected that we will learn various social phenomena and the culture of English speaking countries. In this sense, English studies should be regarded as powerful tools, not goals as such, with which we can communicate with native English speakers.

However, this point seems to be frequently ignored by many school teachers as well as students most of the time. In retrospect, there has been a certain level of social pressure related with English studies in Korea. In my case, English studies have always come to me as uneasiness or stress. For example, when I entered one of the most prestigious universities in Seoul, I had to show good grades on English tests. When I was about to get a high-paying and relatively stable job, I also had to pass a very difficult English examination with a certain level of proficiency. Even when I decided to continue my post-graduate studies abroad, I had to take various standardized English tests such as TOEFL and GRE, etc. in order to show my application qualification. In this way, English has always reminded me of standardized tests and stresses.

Furthermore, I thought that English language was not only a language but also a political weapon. If there are certain types of institutionalized social pressures related to English studies, there must be good reasons for these social contradictions. In this way, I once thought that English was not a simple language containing a particular culture, but a powerful weapon for Western imperialists. I still remember my undergraduate days; wrapped up with passionate nationalist spirits, I thought that every intelligent university student should contemplate their privileged social status critically, and in doing so they should protest not only against the rationalized structural inequality in world political orders but also the English-dominant cultural realities of Korea. At that time, English language seemed to have another symbolic meaning, namely one of cultural decorations of the strongest, representing world hegemonic powers against which I had to protest.

I was not able to put aside this mistrust toward the English language even after I graduated from the university. After graduation, I worked as a book editor at a social science publishing company for 3 years. My main job was to do some social science research and translate various English books and articles into my native language. At that time, I could not think much about English. It might be because I thought of English language as a simple way of living. It is not surprising to see that something uneasy once becomes your ordinary chores, it should no longer be a trouble.

However, English language as a complicated subject-matter exerted itself when I decided to study abroad in English speaking countries. All of a sudden, I was reminded of every complicated aspect of English language. The most difficult thing that I had to overcome was that I had to answer to my various questions in my own ways: Was English a pure language? Were not there any imperialist or mystifying aspects in English? Why should I study English or why should I prepare the TOEFL and the GRE?

At any rate, I passed various standardized English test with good grades. And, fortunately, I am in New York studying what I really want to. Of course, there were so many troubles and frustrations before I came to New York. However, since I continued to study, I have tried to communicate only in English. And I have been expected to read huge volumes of articles and books written in English, to write research papers succinctly in English on time. Unnoticeably, the language has become my official means of living.

But I can’t still cease to think about the role and socio-political status of English language in this hierarchical world order. Sometimes, the language approaches me as one of the most influential imperialist weapons covered with rosy fantasy called ‘global standard.’ It is also true that sometimes English became an ambivalent complexity itself. Even though I know that the English language is as such much more practical and simpler than any other languages such as German and French, I will not stop thinking about these multi-faceted characteristics of English for the time being.