Re: Phe^ bi`nh ba`i phe^ bi`nh cu?a Tra^`n Ma.nh Ha?o

[Tuan Pham <Tuan.Pham@unsw.edu.au>]

>These morally unacceptable things are proliferating in
>Vietnam. "DDa.o ddu+'c suy ddo^`i, xa~ ho^.i suy thoa'i" is
>one of the phrases commonly used to refer to this
>phenomenon. A good portion of Vietnamese literature has
>addressed this phenomenon. The problem is: either they
>describe it in an accurate but utterly cold,
>devoid-of-any-touch-of-humanism manner, a` la Nguyen Huy
>Thiep (some will argue that there is a touch of
>humanism underlying NHT's writing, I don't really agree with
>that); or they seem to glorify and justify it, using
>whatever ta? pi' lu` reasons/theory they can come up with.
>

Hi bac Anhai

This is extremely dangerous territory. On one hand there is a 
danger of "poisoning youth", on the other there is a danger of 
Stalinistic - Khomenistic style intellectual and artistic 
dictatorship. 

In VN's situation the latter danger is way, way bigger than the 
former and has happened time and time again, while the latter 
has never been proven. If anybody asked whether the poisoning
of youthful minds by permissive literature is the cause of
Vietnam's situation today, I would laugh (is it humanistic
or cold-hearted to laugh that way?).

A humanistic touch is hard to discern - what is humanistic
to you may be hypocrisy to me, what is cold-heated to you 
may be humanistic to me, just as what is good music to you 
may be rubbish to me and vice versa. Socrates was put to 
death for poisoning youths' minds. I would rather risk the 
poisoning of youths than the evils of thought control.

Cheers
Tuan Pham