Thursday, January 20, 2011

Confucius in Tiananmen Square


In recent correspondence, a friend offered some China news and a reflection about it:
They just erected a 30 foot bronze statue of Confucius in Tiananmen Square, facing the Mao Memorial.
One of the rallying cries of the May 4th Movement in 1919 was "Down with Confucius, Inc.!" a theme that has reverberated through the Cultural Revolution. Now that Confucius, Inc. has been dismantled, it is apparently safe to honor Confucius, Teacher.
In that I have been studying China's dynastic history, my friend's reflection brought to mind the transformation in the beginning of the Han dynasty.  The Han looked back resentfully at the short-lived Qin dynasty that preceded it, it's cold "legalist" philosophy, its Procrustean, often cruel prescriptions for societal order. Early in its evolution, the ruthless Qin had rejected and summarily cast out Confucian thought from the life of the court, scholarship, the army, and society. Then the Han, in turn, threw out the philistines and philosophy of the Qin, and restored anew Confucian philosophy, albeit a more pragmatic, more authoritarian, and nonexclusive version of it. To this day, the Han is revered for how well it reflected much of the best of Chinese culture and identity.

In a place and time when symbols and gestures imply so much--China, today--do I reach too far to see parallel implications in a statue of Confucius in Tiananmen Square? If the 20th century offered the Chinese people too much the experience of the Qin, might the 21st offer them more their proud identity and experience as "sons of Han"?

China's Leadership After Mao: Genius?

Yesterday, Hu Jin Tao, President of the People's Republic of China, enjoyed being feted and heralded by American President Obama as leader of an ascendant China, already among the world's most powerful and influential countries. As President Hu arrived to accept this gesture of anointing, it marked an open, Western acknowledgement that China has now arrived. China is back.

The day before, I arrived for a meeting of the Naples Chinese Art & History Group (Planning) Board, of which I am a member. At this meeting on the 2013 speakers program--they do plan in advance--they discussed the subject: Modern China, or China in Transformation (after the Qing Dynasty--the Manzhou--and the child emperor Pu Yi). Increasingly an apologist for, or at least a student of, the leadership and development of China after Mao, I referred to the "genius" of China's leadership during this period beginning with Deng Xiao Ping. That inspired a short, confused discussion, which led me to send the group this follow-up message to clarify my use of the word, what I meant by it.
"Genius" may have seemed an odd choice of words to describe the collective enterprise and process of China's return to international power and prominence. I understand why it might be questioned. I questioned it myself; hence, this apologia. But if it could be applied to the founding fathers of America's collective revolutionary enterprise, to the process of crafting the foundational principals of functioning representative democracy and nurturing the development of the world's most robust market economy--and I think it can, there can be such a wisdom-driven, collective political creativity, genius, if you will--then it could also, rightly, be applied to Chinese leadership after Mao. (And there are some who would argue that China could not be in the position to set this direction and process in motion if not for Mao--notwithstanding his disturbing excesses and Stalinesque genocidal purges, likely to the number 50 million or more.)
Yet even those of us who struggle to see any good that may have come out of the Cultural Revolution must recognize the consistent wisdom, discipline and patience of the Chinese leadership, the political and economic development progressively built upon, beginning with Deng Xiao Ping. China methodically worked its way out of the cultural, geopolitical and economic abyss it had been relegated to after the Communist and Cultural Revolutions, and began working its way back toward the prominence it had enjoyed for most of its history. Although, in a late-20th and early 21st-century global community driven more by economics, technology and intellectual capital, they have had to come down the learning curve faster, more efficiently and effectively, than any other country has before. And they have had to do it competing against the long-established Western powers of America and Europe, and the developed Pacific Rim tigers of Japan and South Korea.
So far, having done just that to an astonishing extent, they are poised to contend for the prominence and role of the strongest economy and and one of the most advanced societies in the world. And they may fully achieve those goals within a 50 year period or less, by 2030, rather than the much longer period most would have projected in the late 1970's--if they would have projected it all. In many respects, by many measures, most would agree they are already there. As Hu Jin Tao meets with President Obama today, it is with our president assuring the world that America welcomes China to the ranks of the most powerful and influential, and invites China to assume a place of shared world leadership.
But some of you are right to remind us that China still has a long way to go. It's record on human rights is troubling to people who enjoy the freedoms we in America and the West have. But the Chinese have made some progress, and they will make more, even if social welfare issues, aging, employment, and the environment pose significant challenges. The wisdom of their priorities may be hard for us to appreciate, but political and social stability as well as bold, directed economic development are critical to their continuing progress.
They know that their necessary and successful ventures into world markets, sending as many students as possible to Western universities, and greater participation in global affairs and problem solving, will necessarily cause them to include more and more democratic features in Chinese economic and political life. But these changes will not be driven so much by embracing Western democratic values, as the utilitarianism of what makes their society become stronger, faster, with the necessary stability and efficiency. At least, that's the way I see it as a Westerner who reads as much as I can find about China's evolving internal processes and progress.
Some might find informative--perhaps surprising--just how effective and efficient Chinese government has become, notwithstanding all their challenges and issues. I addressed that question in a recent blog post titled, "Of Coal and Energy and Leadership: China's Broadening Advance, America's Deepening Dysfunction." Other than the first section, the post is really more just a tying together of several recent articles from the periodicals Foreign Affairs and The Atlantic. I think you will find them illuminating if you haven't read them. (Just click on the blog post title immediately above.)
And I do understand that the very notion of associating words like "genius" with Chinese leadership, or mentioning modern Chinese leadership in the same breath with America's founding fathers, would fail to resonate with most all Americans who see China only in the threatening, adversarial role cast for them and interpreted for us by our political spin machinery.

Adversarial? Only in the competitive markets of global economics. Threatening? Only to the extent they outperform us in those markets. A political or geopolitical threat? Only to the extent that evolving Chinese leadership, government, economic vitality, and societal strength eventually produce a more attractive, more effective political, economic and social model to America and the developed world. But, while emerging and third-world countries alike are beginning to ask those questions and to discuss the "Beijing Model," it is still a long way from here to making that case to the developed world.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Answer: Aerobics, Meditation & Video Games

Question: How do we best increase and prolong the highest functioning of the brain and intelligence?

That's the basic question and most important conclusions reported in a recent article in Newsweek magazine, "Can You Build a Better Brain?"  But in arriving there, it also offers a lot more useful information on what may also help in some ways, and what will not. And it expands on the how and why of those conclusions.

                   *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

It doesn't seem to matter who we are. You could be 64, as I am, and concerned that the natural loss of some memory is the early warning sign of approaching Alzheimer's or dementia; you could even be one of those in their 50s (for some, even their late 40s) who are for the first time experiencing difficulty recalling names, dates, or events with the same ease. Then too, you could be among those college students trying to cram for tests, or young professionals trying to get a leg up on the competition. You could be anyone who just wants to be as healthy, able and high functioning as your genetic prescriptions and predispositions allow. And the function of our brains does tend to start deteriorating as early as our 20s. So, almost everyone would just as soon be a little smarter, have faster recall of more memories, and think and analyze a little faster, a little better. It's only natural.

And there have been a lot of ideas about how to do that over the years. When I was in college it was about cramming and short-term recall. It was about "bennies" and "speed" (Benzedrine, and other amphetamines), and for those seeking more exotic, "awareness-enhancing" experiences and possibilities, there were the psychedelic drugs. Decades later, it would be Ritalin and Adderall to help attention and focus. Nicotine and caffeine, yes, those too. More recently, there has been a lot written about exercising the mind, especially for we aging folks: verbal and math puzzles and games, studying a new language, that kind of thing.  And then there have always been those who have rightly advocated a holistic regimen of good diet, exercise and sleep--always part of a healthy prescription for any aspect of healthful living and performance.

According to the article, research has found no evidence to support the use of most vitamins and herbs, that kind of thing.  But there were important specific findings about factors that make a real difference, and what causes that to be broader or more limited in effect. From the article:

One of the strongest findings in the science of how the brain changes its structure and function in response to input is that attention is almost magical in its ability to physically alter the brain and enlarge functional circuits. In a classic experiment, scientists found that when monkeys repeatedly practiced fine-tactile perception, the relevant brain region expanded, just as it does when people learn Braille or the violin. Similarly, a region of the auditory cortex expands when we hear a particular tone over and over...[But] identical input—tactile sensations and sounds—produces a different result, expanding a brain area or not, depending only on whether attention is being paid.
That might explain why skills we're already good at don't make us much smarter: we don't pay much attention to them. In contrast, taking up a new, cognitively demanding activity—ballroom dancing, a foreign language—is more likely to boost processing speed, strengthen synapses, and expand or create functional networks.
By nailing down the underpinnings of cognition, neuroscientists can separate plausible brain boosters from dubious ones. With apologies to the political-correctness police, nicotine enhances attention and cognitive performance in both smokers and nonsmokers. Nicotine, they found, has "significant positive effects" on fine motor skills, the accuracy of short-term memory, some forms of attention, and working memory, among other basic cognitive skills. The improvements "likely represent true performance enhancement" and "beneficial cognitive effects." The reason is that nicotine binds to the brain receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that are central players in cortical circuits. (Caveat: smoking also increases your risk of dementia, so while cigarettes may boost your memory and attention now, you could pay for it later. To be determined: whether a nicotine patch delivers the benefits without the risks.)
--- "Can You Build a Better Brain?"  by Sharon Begley, Newsweek magazine (January 10 & 17, 2011).
And what about Ritalin and Adderall?

Neuroscience supports the cognitive benefits of stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, too, at least in some people for some tasks. Both drugs (as well as caffeine) raise the brain levels of dopamine, the juice that produces motivation and the feeling of reward. On balance, finds psychologist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania, studies show that both drugs enhance the recall of memorized words as well as working memory (the brain's scratchpad, which plays a key role in fluid intelligence). They do not improve verbal fluency, reasoning, or abstract thought, however, nor provide much benefit to people with a gene variant that keeps dopamine activity high, Farah found in a recent study.
These limitations suggest two things. First, if you're naturally awash in dopamine and are highly motivated, then increasing dopamine levels pharmacologically is unlikely to help. [And] no difference was found between the performance of volunteers given Adderall and volunteers given a placebo on a battery of cognitive tasks, suggesting that you can get the same dopamine-boosting benefits of the drug by simply believing that you'll do well, which itself releases dopamine. Second, the divide between the mental functions that drugs do and don't improve suggests that psychological factors such as motivation and reward help with memory, but not higher-order processes such as abstract thought.

So what findings and axioms about "higher order" cognitive skills and abstract thought have been found reliable across all the research?
 [T]he more you use a circuit, the stronger it gets. As a result, a skill you focus and train on improves, and even commandeers more neuronal real estate, with corresponding improvements in performance...The rule that "neurons that fire together, wire together" suggests that cognitive training should boost mental prowess. Studies are finding just that, but with a crucial caveat. Training your memory, reasoning, or speed of processing improves that skill...Unfortunately, there is no transfer: improving processing speed does not improve memory, and improving memory does not improve reasoning. Similarly, doing crossword puzzles will improve your ability to?...do crosswords.

So let's cut to the chase here. What are the best, most reliable, healthiest approaches to bringing home the whole cognitive package: memory, cognitive speed, reasoning, abstract thought? What training or experience does transfer? And why?

The holy grail of brain training is something that does transfer, and here there are three good candidates.
The first is physical exercise. Simple aerobic exercise, such as walking 45 minutes a day three times a week, improves episodic memory and executive-control functions by about 20 percent. His studies have mostly been done in older adults, so it's possible the results apply only to people whose brain physiology has begun to deteriorate—except that that happens starting in our 20s. Exercise gooses the creation of new neurons in the region of the hippocampus that files away experiences and new knowledge. It also stimulates the production of neuron fertilizers such as BDNF, as well as of the neurotransmitters that carry brain signals, and of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. Exercise stimulates the production of new synapses, the connections that constitute functional circuits and whose capacity and efficiency underlie superior intelligence. Kramer finds that a year of exercise can give a 70-year-old the connectivity of a 30-year-old, improving memory, planning, dealing with ambiguity, and multitasking. "You can think of fitness training as changing the molecular and cellular building blocks that underlie many cognitive skills," he says. "It thus provides more generalizable benefits than specifically training memory or decision making." [Wow. I'm motivated. I can feel the dopamine flowing.]
The second form of overall mental training is meditation, which can increase the thickness of regions that control attention and process sensory signals from the outside world. In a program that neuroscientist Amishi Jha of the University of Miami calls mindfulness-based mind-fitness training, participants build concentration by focusing on one object, such as a particular body sensation. The training, she says, has shown success in enhancing mental agility and attention "by changing brain structure and function so that brain processes are more efficient," the quality associated with higher intelligence. [The reference here may be to an approach that borrows from the meditation practices of Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh (Peace is Every Step) or Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (Mindfulness, in Plain English), practices which stress Buddhist "mindfulness".]
Finally, some video games might improve general mental agility.
Stern has trained older adults to play a complex computer-based action game called Space Fortress, which requires players to shoot missiles and destroy the fortress while protecting their spaceship against missiles and mines. "It requires motor control, visual search, working memory, long-term memory, and decision making," he says. It also requires that elixir of neuroplasticity: attention, specifically the ability to control and switch attention among different tasks. "People get better on tests of memory, motor speed, visual-spatial skills, and tasks requiring cognitive flexibility," says Stern. Kramer, too, finds that the strategy-heavy videogame Rise of Nations improves executive-control functions such as task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and reasoning in older adults.
Few games or training programs have been tested to this extent, and many of those that have been come up short. Those with increasing levels of difficulty and intense demands on attentional capacity—focus as well as switching—probably do the most good … as does taking a brisk walk in between levels.
My son, Adam, an expert, competitive video game player since his youth is likely smiling, perhaps smugly--and with justification. Dad was often luke-warm at best about the time he invested in that pastime. The fact that he now also adhere's to a disciplined regiment of aerobic exercise, mindfullness meditation, and a healthy, vegetable-dominated diet, could appear to make the scorecard read Adam-3, Dad-0. But that's not totally true.

Adam outscores me 3-0 on personal initiative and discipline. But what's also true is that you can teach an old dog new tricks. And what I can feel really good about is how informative and encouraging Adam has been about my own exercise program, healthier diet, and regular meditation, although mine is more faith-driven and informed. So yes, the father can also learn from the son--if he's smart enough, that is.

(Although, I am still slow down the learning curve on the video games. No, I'm not even on the curve! Two out of three is still pretty good. Don't you think?)

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/03/can-you-build-a-better-brain.html

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Beginning 2011: A Swan on New Water


If W.S. Merwin's singularly mindful and challenging verse served so well in bringing 2010 to a close, then Mary Oliver's touching signature verse serves well to begin 2011. These poems are from her new book, Swan. And yes, like the Merwin poems, I chose these because they speak to me and hold me, and refuse to let me move on until I understand why.
 
 
                How Many Days*

How many days I lived and had never used
the holy words,
Tenderly I began them when it came to me
to want to, oh mystery irrefutable!
Then I went out of that place
and into a field and lay down
among the weeds and the grasses,
whispering to them, fast, in order to keep
that world also.

It is Early*
It is early, still the darkest of the dark.
And already I have killed (in exasperation)
two mosquitoes and (inadvertently)
one spider.
All the same, the sun will rise
in its sweeps of pink and red clouds.
Not for me does it rise and not in haste does it rise
but step by step, neither
with exasperation nor inadvertently, and not with
any intended attention to
any one thing, but to all, like a god
that takes its instructions from another, even greater,
whose name, even, we do not know. The one
that made the mosquito, and the spider; the one
that made me as I am: easy to exasperate, then repent.

When*
When it's over, it's over, and we don't know
    any of us, what happens then.
So I try not to miss anything.
I think, in my whole life, I have never missed
    the full moon
or the slipper of its coming back.
Or a kiss,
Well, yes, especially a kiss.

Of Time*
Don't even ask how rapidly the hummingbird
    lives his life.
You can't imagine. A thousand flowers a day,
    a little sleep, then the same again, then
        he vanishes.
I adore him.
Yet I adore also the drowse of mountains.
And in the world, what is time?
In my mind there is Rumi, dancing.
There is Li Po drinking from the winter stream.
There is Hafiz strolling through Shariz, his feet
loving the dust.

What Can I Say*
What can I say that I have not said before?
So I'll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
    and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
    chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
    were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is still singing.
*from Swan, poems and prose poems by Mary Oliver (2010)
 
 

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Unfriending Facebook


It's 2011, a new year, and I've concluded facebook just doesn't work for me. It felt wrong for me from the beginning, but it has taken some time to sort it all out and remove myself. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But most of my friends are not on facebook. Those who are seldom post anything--although there are exceptions. And for those few old friends who have found me through facebook, any real communication has been through the message board, e-mail.

So I am removing myself from facebook friendships--unfriending facebook, more accurately--and all the newsfeed and wall communications that go with it. But I will leave my facebook page, info and e-mail address up and open so old friends may still find me that way.

I am truly hoping no offense is taken; surely none is intented. But while it's nice to find and catch up with old friends, the facebook thing is just not that for me.

I also recognize that this could be read as cold or aloof. I am sorry if that's how it reads to you. I'm just trying to explain. But the simple point is that I am just not one of those people at home on facebook. I will welcome anyone who wants to contact me, catch up or follow up, through the more personal, more substantive process of just e-mailing me.