"Shut the fuck up about the food" would make a solid bumper sticker
Really enjoyed this one as well as Chris'. Another interesting exemplification of the Asian/liberalism dynamic was the rather flaccid "Stop Asian Hate" movement at start of COVID/Summer of Rage.
I think part of the problem for Asian folx is that under liberal moralism they "don't have the right to complain" since they're doing well by most of liberalism's metrics (economic/education) as you point out, but are instead suffering more from issues you're not supposed to acknowledge (social coherence, mating dynamics).
Agree on all points, and the "food as a cultural signifier" thing has always been hollow for me. It just doesn't make any sense. It's not a strong symbol even if it we claim it has such. It has no heft to it, hence its easy co-optation into globalist neoliberalism.
our current moral-political moment has absolutely no clue what to do with The Jew, either. this is a really interesting essay & i'll have to re-read it a few times, i think.
We like to joke about being "Schrödinger's whites" - we're grouped with the whites by people who are fighting to eradicate white supremacy, and we're grouped with the non-whites by people who are trying to secure the existence of their people. And we're blamed by both for having started the whole mess in the first place. Scapegoating the Jew is, as I'm sure you're already aware, not exactly a novel idea.
While reading this essay I was struck with the thought that Jews are actually the inverse of Asians in the American context. Yes, we're strivers too, but we got to where we did by being non-conformist, whereas your strategy is precisely the opposite. We break the rules you do your best to follow. Even that ten-second Chomsky quote illustrates my point. Who's in the interviewer's seat, the conformist or the outlier? Do you even know his name? Does it matter?
As a white dude who hangs/has hung with a few Asians, I've seen this simultaneous resentment towards American culture joined with this suffocating careerist conformity. As if they hate America but want to milk it for all it's worth so they sublimate that resentment into more peripheral complaints that won't hurt their climb up the career ladder. Seems to be what Christopher Jesu Lee discusses. Unhappiness with the status quo but never allowed to be too unhappy.
It debases us into our pleasure-seeking individual tendencies, like you stated. Hence why I cannot stand it. This piece reminds me of the many subtle themes of The Sopranos.
Thanks so much for this great follow-up to my piece. Anyone who's not included within this "PMC liberalism" (or whatever one's own label is for this distinct yet nameless culture) is actively denied their own dignified purpose. If purpose is an increasingly scarce resource in our modern world, then the metropolitan progressive is hellbent on defining our collective purpose to be in service of protecting and nourishing his or her fragile self-esteem. It's pure narcissism, perfectly suited for our era.
It's become the main piece that I point people to if they have any interest in Asian-American literature.
Your point about the "PMC-ification" of literary fiction rings true. A lot of my complaints could be boiled down to "this narrow class has captured the literary institutions and is gatekeeping everyone else out." And that is true of Asian lit-PMC's as it is for all the other PMC's in modern publishing.
Thanks for sharing this essay. I purchased your Incel novel some weeks ago but haven't read it yet.
Your description of the moral thermodynamics of liberalism sounds right. May I make that precise as Classical Liberalism? Or is that also imprecise because whatever liberalism is dominant is changing right now, in part under influence of technology and post-(perhaps post-post-) modernism. Maybe we need to focus on one part of liberalism, the market?
You link dominant morality with aesthetics--
"THE BORDERS OF ACCEPTABLE ART—THE DIMENSIONS OF ITS AESTHETIC OVERTON WINDOW—ARE DICTATED BY CONSENSUS MORALITY. MORAL BOUNDARIES DETERMINE AESTHETIC BOUNDARIES."
I think a key word here is "acceptable" and that needs more exploration. This might help you find different conclusion than turning left or right in search of ferocity. There are plenty of left or right sheep and automatons, just obedient to a different domination. There are a lot of problems with liberalism in 2023, which you're aware of. I'm sure you're aware of the conflicts and irritations and other problems.
You already know that violations of "acceptable" art became, after some cultural and sometimes legal conflict, waypoints of the modern canon (James Joyce, Jackson Pollock). Border crossing the lines of "acceptable" art has not always resulted in artistic success. Maybe you mean "acceptable" in another way I don't understand?
This surprised me--
"The trade that the Anglo-American empire/economic zone has made with us and our parents—the value proposition it is offering to the 'BIPOC immigrant'—is that he can achieve a high level of social status domestically (reduced interpersonal discrimination) in exchange for geopolitical loyalty whenever this is required of him."
... because it seems like a digestion of Woke arguments, or a subaltern argument. I prefer not to speak on BIPOC experiences if I can avoid it, but all my grandparents were non English-speaking immigrants. All had to (or chose to) melt into the melting pot. We lost something to gain something. Sometimes that was prosperity. Always it meant education.
What is it specifically that Asian-Americans had to give up to achieve a high level of social status domestically? You mention loyalty to the regime... Do you specifically mean character-harming versions of loyalty, obedience, silence, subordination? Does any of this resonate from an extension of strong family culture?
"Bloodlessness", "severed from the cords of memory"? Am I correct to sense vibrations of Bronze Age Pervert? The main problem for me for seeking aesthetics in the far left and the far right, is that I don't see how that won't lead to violence and chaos. I had enough of that in 2020 for my lifetime. It would be disappointing to the BIPOC artist who adopted far right or far left ideology in search of bloodful ferocity, only to find bloodless dogma and the same old problems mixed with the smell of ashes, fear, and hungry children.
But I admit I don't have solutions to the problems of liberalism. I just fear that anything else will be much, much worse. I'm sympathetic to your essay in general, in a brotherly way, but I worry about the conclusion.
I'm not sure but you also might want to specify what you mean by art--all forms of art? I mention this because thinkers are approaching this challenge from other angles, for example "the decline of of the marriage plot" in novels.
I don't have the links handy but here is the information:
Liberalism Is Bad for Literature, Mark Bauerlein, May 4, 2012, and Santiago Ramo's reply: The Problem isn’t Liberalism, the Problem is “You”. Then Bauerlein's response: Liberalism, Relativism, and the Novel: A Reply to Ramos, MAY 25, 2012.
You may have heard the novel actually called "The Marriage Plot" which addresses this--
Mentioning this discussion does not mean I think I have the answer for you.
I don't want to say everyone should write like him; I don't (or can't), but the stories of Anton Chekhov achieve timelessness through quiet observation without blood or ferocity. I'm sure you know examples, but I don't understand why you dismiss them as an option for BIPOC artists.
The subaltern bloodless BIPOC artist argument doesn't address the universality of other human conflicts and problems, Freudian or other family struggles, all kinds of human issues. I become mad when a leaf falls in my path, trying to trip me. Obviously the trees have a conspiracy of nature against me, and if I look carefully, I see more and more signs of it. I haven't read your novel yet but I imagine you already know this, but I don't know your argument against it.
My sole substack essay addresses the "acceptability" question from a different angle.
Thoughtful comment, but I got lost at the very liberal perspective of 2020. The violence against the lower classes is as heavy as it has ever been in the US. I see this thoroughly fake-thoughtful centrist liberal gloating about a fear of violence when it is happening right under your nose, and it speaks to such a thorough disconnect.
Liberalism's connection to capitalism is the clear problem and there is a solution. The violence is going to continue to accelerate and its strange to me to once again take the solution people like MLK have spoken about so thoroughly.
I once took a class on modern Chinese literature where we covered many works of Chinese literature from around 1900 to 2000. We read Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Yu Dafu, Lao She and some Maoist stuff from the Cultural Revolution. My professor admitted he preferred Japanese literature from the same period (Kokoro) because he felt that the Chinese writers of that time were often so consumed with using literature as a vehicle for promoting their political beliefs and attacking traditional Chinese culture that they seldom produced deep work. It reminds me of your point about modern liberalism robbing contemporary literature of any vitality or nuance because everyone’s identities have been shredded by this homogenous system to the point that whenever they write about identity, they can only do so from a dogmatic, shallow way (RF Kuang). The good news is, the underground literary scene is very lively and there seem to be more and more opportunities for indie writers .
I’m sorry for the confusion, I meant the indie literary world in the US. It seems that lots of independent small publishers are proliferating and writers who aren’t accepted by legacy publishing for whatever reason are able to use resources like Substack to reach people and build audiences. I’m afraid I don’t have any special insights on current Chinese literature but Death Notice by Zhou Haohui was really good!
I'm going to get into trouble but some of the Asian-American novels remind me of the old Jewish novels. Well-educated, well-off second-generation writers whose anxieties have to do with assimilation into a white upper middle class and attraction to white women and men.
Of course, "white" is a flexible category and for all I know one day someone else will be writing this genre--and if you return to the US, pining after "white" you and your established success...
I'm not well versed in Jewish-American literature (as one of several examples, I gave up reading 'Portnoy's Complaint' about halfway through), but it wouldn't surprise me if assimilationist anxiety/class anxiety might've been a major thematic focus of an earlier era of Jewish-American literature as you indicate that it indeed is. The broader argument is straightforward and at least feels intuitively plausible to me.
Supposedly Ang Lee was writing 'Eat Drink Man Woman' with James Schamus and they thought the characters didn't sound Chinese enough, so they rewrote it as a Jewish story and they sounded more Chinese.
Could be the emphasis on education winds up giving the cultures a certain similarity--Jews retained their culture through studying their religious texts, and the Chinese had a standardized test system for a millennium or so. (And it was also a pretty verbal culture--you had to write lengthy eight-part essays using quotes from Confucian classics to get a government job. There's a famous bit in Three Kingdoms where a royal sibling saves his bacon by composing poetry extemporaneously.) Winds up turning a lot of the guys into nerds, which produces its own set of similar issues.
I think a lot of the guys who would be unrestrained enough to write something interesting had some negative encounter with a woman at some point in their lives and would get cancelled by the female-predominant literary establishment. Look at Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, etc. One pass at the wrong lady and you're toast.
Liked this a lot, mate. That section about Korean cinema felt like being hit by a bus, it had that much truth in it. Glad to see a new piece like this from you. Top shelf.
BTW - a recent Korean film that was really, really good - "12:12 - The Day." About a coup in the aftermath of the head of the KCIA assassinating the president of Korea.
Appreciate I'm a year late to this, but I liked the second half of your essay a lot, and thought it had some really substantive points to it.
I don't think your point about jihadism works though, if you're arguing that Islamism has been co-opted into a liberal ideological framework. Not least because I don't think America ever had a serious home-grown jihadi movement in the first place - none of the 9/11 hijackers was American, so you can't compare them to Muslim American youth today. America's whole 2000s Clash of Civilisations was never really a battle that took place *at home* against Sharia law; it was an overseas adventure, as you note. But compare the US's lack of jihadi violence to France, Belgium, Germany, even the UK in the years from 2003-2025 and I think there's excellent evidence that violent Salafist philosophy still has the power to motivate acts of terror. It absolutely hasn't been through the liberal shredder in other liberal countries; only the States, because there was never really anything substantial to shred there in the first place.
Have you thought about basically becoming a weeb, but for China? It's your *actual heritage*, so nobody could make fun of you, and there is so much great stuff in there. I mean, you've got over two thousand years of literary heritage from the most populous nation on earth, even just looking at the stuff that's been translated. Han Fei was Machiavelli a millennium and a half before Machiavelli. Three Kingdoms is Game of Thrones but with real history and actually influential on literature (and video games). Water Margin is more violent and politically incorrect than anything Hollywood would dare to make now. Journey to the West is funny and full of slapstick.
And like any real literature, you learn stuff. Heck, I have no Chinese ancestry I know of, and it was plowing my way through *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* that finally made me realize I didn't have to tell the truth to people who weren't going to help me.
"Art of War? *Everyone's* read the Art of War. The *real* good stuff's in T'ai K'ung's Six Secret Teachings..."
Freud addressed these issues pretty thoroughly a long time ago. Check out 'Civilization and its Discontents.' It's a very short book.
The problem is that we're too civilized. If you want to call that "liberalism," okay. It's true that liberalism is the main ideology by which we're civilized.
The solution is to reclaim some irrationality, without becoming too irrational. Like I want maybe 10% of Tao Lin's irrationality.
I was thinking about something broadly similar in an Irish context the other day. Ireland is very proud of how it cast aside its colonial shackles and became an independent nation-state. Barely 20 years later, Ireland joined the EU. After 700 years of colonial oppression, we had a brief gap of 20 years during which we were truly independent, after which we immediately traded one colonizer for another. We imported their language, their religion (or lack thereof), their values, their multiculturalism. Regardless of social class, young Irish people almost exclusively look upon their native culture with cringing disdain, aspiring to emulate Americans (or more rarely, Brits) instead. Unlike Asians, we don't have even the fig leaf of our native cuisine to cling to - there's no such thing as Irish cuisine. A modern Irish person is just a generic European who incidentally happens to be holding a pint of Guinness.
really interesting assessment of the publishing industry & where things are at & a great read. Different context but I feel really similarly with regard to queer art and have for a while. A lot of it has become so dull and flattened and co-opted into the liberal machine, and its supposed to tick all these boxes and be a bunch of boring gay (derogatory) shit instead of gay (laudatory) shit. When I go back and, for example, watch the 70s films of John Waters I feel so creatively inspired seeing some transgressive, courageous bullshit — nobody seemingly, at least not in the mainstream, is making queer art that is that from that kind of headspace, or at least even is influenced by it at all, unless its extremely watered down and has removed all that was interesting about what it is referencing. To get funding and access to make these things you have to be the kind of person who would want to make them in the first place, and everyone interesting is largely shut out…
This reminds me of Murakami’s concept of Superflat, where people’s identities are both erased and exaggerated through media images. I see Superflat everywhere today.
Thoroughly enjoy this, and while I know from the later part of the text where you stand, the first half had some interesting things jump out.
Interestingly this article sort of “does the thing” it observes. By centring the young Muslim Identity specifically within the American context (which you’ve done as focal point for the piece and not out of obscurity) it negates the space for other Muslim identities that exist within proximity to “western values”. Not those who have adopted them or assimilated but the countless Muslim men who have access to American culture and whose identity is shaped rather than directly informs. By excluding the rich theocratic history of Islam and actual left wing iterations of its practices, the article excludes possible and real identities.
It also strikes me as extremely strange to suggest that progressive politics is out of reach when embracing Islams more radical tendencies and only accessible in the American culture.
I do agree with the central premise though, that liberalism shreds identities into homogeneous groups ripe for marketing. I just don’t think that “Islamic theocracy” and “lib secular” are the only categories and that through liberalism’s ideological grip you’ve fallen into the very mechanism of thinking that you’re observing.
(From the later half of the article I can quite clearly see that you were not suggesting that these are only options but presenting the illusion of it)
If I did read this correctly, you were making a critique of the phenomenon while not endorsing the mechanism. In that case my above response is aimed directly at the text and not the author, and it trying to balance observation with actual stance.
I did enjoy this though and I think your link between Asian American fiction and the liberal assimilation of American Muslims is very clear and definitely worth exploring even more.
Lots of interesting points for me to consider here, e.g.:
>By excluding the rich theocratic history of Islam and actual left wing iterations of its practices, the article excludes possible and real identities.
My view on religious texts comes down to something like "interpretive distance" - i.e., the text stands on its own, and it has to traverse a terrain of psychological, political, social conditions in order to 'arrive' at a particular reading (to complicate things further, there's bidirectional causality there - the text can of course shape the terrain). e.g. with Christianity you can see it express itself as Liberation Theology in South America or Neoconvservative interventionism in the US.
Agree that there are many interesting interpretations of Islam beyond these two extremes presented.
"Shut the fuck up about the food" would make a solid bumper sticker
Really enjoyed this one as well as Chris'. Another interesting exemplification of the Asian/liberalism dynamic was the rather flaccid "Stop Asian Hate" movement at start of COVID/Summer of Rage.
I think part of the problem for Asian folx is that under liberal moralism they "don't have the right to complain" since they're doing well by most of liberalism's metrics (economic/education) as you point out, but are instead suffering more from issues you're not supposed to acknowledge (social coherence, mating dynamics).
Agree on all points, and the "food as a cultural signifier" thing has always been hollow for me. It just doesn't make any sense. It's not a strong symbol even if it we claim it has such. It has no heft to it, hence its easy co-optation into globalist neoliberalism.
our current moral-political moment has absolutely no clue what to do with The Jew, either. this is a really interesting essay & i'll have to re-read it a few times, i think.
Thanks!
If you liked this, you might enjoy my novel as well.
We like to joke about being "Schrödinger's whites" - we're grouped with the whites by people who are fighting to eradicate white supremacy, and we're grouped with the non-whites by people who are trying to secure the existence of their people. And we're blamed by both for having started the whole mess in the first place. Scapegoating the Jew is, as I'm sure you're already aware, not exactly a novel idea.
While reading this essay I was struck with the thought that Jews are actually the inverse of Asians in the American context. Yes, we're strivers too, but we got to where we did by being non-conformist, whereas your strategy is precisely the opposite. We break the rules you do your best to follow. Even that ten-second Chomsky quote illustrates my point. Who's in the interviewer's seat, the conformist or the outlier? Do you even know his name? Does it matter?
Because Asians shouldn't be concerned about being beat up and murdered?
Well aren't you a ray of sunshine.
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/the-duchess-the-stories-of-john-cheever
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
As a white dude who hangs/has hung with a few Asians, I've seen this simultaneous resentment towards American culture joined with this suffocating careerist conformity. As if they hate America but want to milk it for all it's worth so they sublimate that resentment into more peripheral complaints that won't hurt their climb up the career ladder. Seems to be what Christopher Jesu Lee discusses. Unhappiness with the status quo but never allowed to be too unhappy.
The pursuit of capital debases us all, I suppose.
I won't pretend to be entirely outside that category, haha.
And yes - Chris' blog is very, very good.
It happens
Even y'all Asians gotta eat sometimes
It debases us into our pleasure-seeking individual tendencies, like you stated. Hence why I cannot stand it. This piece reminds me of the many subtle themes of The Sopranos.
Ugh. Marxism is so tedious.
https://marlowe1.substack.com/p/the-duchess-the-stories-of-john-cheever
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
Thanks so much for this great follow-up to my piece. Anyone who's not included within this "PMC liberalism" (or whatever one's own label is for this distinct yet nameless culture) is actively denied their own dignified purpose. If purpose is an increasingly scarce resource in our modern world, then the metropolitan progressive is hellbent on defining our collective purpose to be in service of protecting and nourishing his or her fragile self-esteem. It's pure narcissism, perfectly suited for our era.
Thank you for writing the original!
It's become the main piece that I point people to if they have any interest in Asian-American literature.
Your point about the "PMC-ification" of literary fiction rings true. A lot of my complaints could be boiled down to "this narrow class has captured the literary institutions and is gatekeeping everyone else out." And that is true of Asian lit-PMC's as it is for all the other PMC's in modern publishing.
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
Hi Arx-Han,
Thanks for sharing this essay. I purchased your Incel novel some weeks ago but haven't read it yet.
Your description of the moral thermodynamics of liberalism sounds right. May I make that precise as Classical Liberalism? Or is that also imprecise because whatever liberalism is dominant is changing right now, in part under influence of technology and post-(perhaps post-post-) modernism. Maybe we need to focus on one part of liberalism, the market?
You link dominant morality with aesthetics--
"THE BORDERS OF ACCEPTABLE ART—THE DIMENSIONS OF ITS AESTHETIC OVERTON WINDOW—ARE DICTATED BY CONSENSUS MORALITY. MORAL BOUNDARIES DETERMINE AESTHETIC BOUNDARIES."
I think a key word here is "acceptable" and that needs more exploration. This might help you find different conclusion than turning left or right in search of ferocity. There are plenty of left or right sheep and automatons, just obedient to a different domination. There are a lot of problems with liberalism in 2023, which you're aware of. I'm sure you're aware of the conflicts and irritations and other problems.
You already know that violations of "acceptable" art became, after some cultural and sometimes legal conflict, waypoints of the modern canon (James Joyce, Jackson Pollock). Border crossing the lines of "acceptable" art has not always resulted in artistic success. Maybe you mean "acceptable" in another way I don't understand?
This surprised me--
"The trade that the Anglo-American empire/economic zone has made with us and our parents—the value proposition it is offering to the 'BIPOC immigrant'—is that he can achieve a high level of social status domestically (reduced interpersonal discrimination) in exchange for geopolitical loyalty whenever this is required of him."
... because it seems like a digestion of Woke arguments, or a subaltern argument. I prefer not to speak on BIPOC experiences if I can avoid it, but all my grandparents were non English-speaking immigrants. All had to (or chose to) melt into the melting pot. We lost something to gain something. Sometimes that was prosperity. Always it meant education.
What is it specifically that Asian-Americans had to give up to achieve a high level of social status domestically? You mention loyalty to the regime... Do you specifically mean character-harming versions of loyalty, obedience, silence, subordination? Does any of this resonate from an extension of strong family culture?
"Bloodlessness", "severed from the cords of memory"? Am I correct to sense vibrations of Bronze Age Pervert? The main problem for me for seeking aesthetics in the far left and the far right, is that I don't see how that won't lead to violence and chaos. I had enough of that in 2020 for my lifetime. It would be disappointing to the BIPOC artist who adopted far right or far left ideology in search of bloodful ferocity, only to find bloodless dogma and the same old problems mixed with the smell of ashes, fear, and hungry children.
But I admit I don't have solutions to the problems of liberalism. I just fear that anything else will be much, much worse. I'm sympathetic to your essay in general, in a brotherly way, but I worry about the conclusion.
I'm not sure but you also might want to specify what you mean by art--all forms of art? I mention this because thinkers are approaching this challenge from other angles, for example "the decline of of the marriage plot" in novels.
I don't have the links handy but here is the information:
Liberalism Is Bad for Literature, Mark Bauerlein, May 4, 2012, and Santiago Ramo's reply: The Problem isn’t Liberalism, the Problem is “You”. Then Bauerlein's response: Liberalism, Relativism, and the Novel: A Reply to Ramos, MAY 25, 2012.
You may have heard the novel actually called "The Marriage Plot" which addresses this--
https://www.commentary.org/d-g-myers/eugenides-marriage-plot/
Mentioning this discussion does not mean I think I have the answer for you.
I don't want to say everyone should write like him; I don't (or can't), but the stories of Anton Chekhov achieve timelessness through quiet observation without blood or ferocity. I'm sure you know examples, but I don't understand why you dismiss them as an option for BIPOC artists.
The subaltern bloodless BIPOC artist argument doesn't address the universality of other human conflicts and problems, Freudian or other family struggles, all kinds of human issues. I become mad when a leaf falls in my path, trying to trip me. Obviously the trees have a conspiracy of nature against me, and if I look carefully, I see more and more signs of it. I haven't read your novel yet but I imagine you already know this, but I don't know your argument against it.
My sole substack essay addresses the "acceptability" question from a different angle.
https://mosby.substack.com/p/oh-native-land-bu-bu-bu-miaow-miaow
Good luck!
PS Consider this-- "One's existence should be in two parts: one should live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod." --Gustave Flaubert
Mosby, this comment was so good, so thoughtful, that I'm going to have to respond in a longer SubStack post down the line.
Thank you for taking the time to critique these ideas so thoroughly.
Thoughtful comment, but I got lost at the very liberal perspective of 2020. The violence against the lower classes is as heavy as it has ever been in the US. I see this thoroughly fake-thoughtful centrist liberal gloating about a fear of violence when it is happening right under your nose, and it speaks to such a thorough disconnect.
Liberalism's connection to capitalism is the clear problem and there is a solution. The violence is going to continue to accelerate and its strange to me to once again take the solution people like MLK have spoken about so thoroughly.
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
I once took a class on modern Chinese literature where we covered many works of Chinese literature from around 1900 to 2000. We read Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Yu Dafu, Lao She and some Maoist stuff from the Cultural Revolution. My professor admitted he preferred Japanese literature from the same period (Kokoro) because he felt that the Chinese writers of that time were often so consumed with using literature as a vehicle for promoting their political beliefs and attacking traditional Chinese culture that they seldom produced deep work. It reminds me of your point about modern liberalism robbing contemporary literature of any vitality or nuance because everyone’s identities have been shredded by this homogenous system to the point that whenever they write about identity, they can only do so from a dogmatic, shallow way (RF Kuang). The good news is, the underground literary scene is very lively and there seem to be more and more opportunities for indie writers .
Please tell me more about the underground literary scene in China - very interested in this.
I’m sorry for the confusion, I meant the indie literary world in the US. It seems that lots of independent small publishers are proliferating and writers who aren’t accepted by legacy publishing for whatever reason are able to use resources like Substack to reach people and build audiences. I’m afraid I don’t have any special insights on current Chinese literature but Death Notice by Zhou Haohui was really good!
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
I'm going to get into trouble but some of the Asian-American novels remind me of the old Jewish novels. Well-educated, well-off second-generation writers whose anxieties have to do with assimilation into a white upper middle class and attraction to white women and men.
Of course, "white" is a flexible category and for all I know one day someone else will be writing this genre--and if you return to the US, pining after "white" you and your established success...
I'm not well versed in Jewish-American literature (as one of several examples, I gave up reading 'Portnoy's Complaint' about halfway through), but it wouldn't surprise me if assimilationist anxiety/class anxiety might've been a major thematic focus of an earlier era of Jewish-American literature as you indicate that it indeed is. The broader argument is straightforward and at least feels intuitively plausible to me.
Supposedly Ang Lee was writing 'Eat Drink Man Woman' with James Schamus and they thought the characters didn't sound Chinese enough, so they rewrote it as a Jewish story and they sounded more Chinese.
Could be the emphasis on education winds up giving the cultures a certain similarity--Jews retained their culture through studying their religious texts, and the Chinese had a standardized test system for a millennium or so. (And it was also a pretty verbal culture--you had to write lengthy eight-part essays using quotes from Confucian classics to get a government job. There's a famous bit in Three Kingdoms where a royal sibling saves his bacon by composing poetry extemporaneously.) Winds up turning a lot of the guys into nerds, which produces its own set of similar issues.
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
I think a lot of the guys who would be unrestrained enough to write something interesting had some negative encounter with a woman at some point in their lives and would get cancelled by the female-predominant literary establishment. Look at Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, etc. One pass at the wrong lady and you're toast.
about 97% of jewish fiction is deeply depressing as well, for similar reasons... mrs maisel made me want to take a blowtorch to my televsion
Liked this a lot, mate. That section about Korean cinema felt like being hit by a bus, it had that much truth in it. Glad to see a new piece like this from you. Top shelf.
Appreciate the kind words brother.
BTW - a recent Korean film that was really, really good - "12:12 - The Day." About a coup in the aftermath of the head of the KCIA assassinating the president of Korea.
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
I don't click on Gdrive links. But I flip flop between them, depending on the story and what's required.
Appreciate I'm a year late to this, but I liked the second half of your essay a lot, and thought it had some really substantive points to it.
I don't think your point about jihadism works though, if you're arguing that Islamism has been co-opted into a liberal ideological framework. Not least because I don't think America ever had a serious home-grown jihadi movement in the first place - none of the 9/11 hijackers was American, so you can't compare them to Muslim American youth today. America's whole 2000s Clash of Civilisations was never really a battle that took place *at home* against Sharia law; it was an overseas adventure, as you note. But compare the US's lack of jihadi violence to France, Belgium, Germany, even the UK in the years from 2003-2025 and I think there's excellent evidence that violent Salafist philosophy still has the power to motivate acts of terror. It absolutely hasn't been through the liberal shredder in other liberal countries; only the States, because there was never really anything substantial to shred there in the first place.
Have you thought about basically becoming a weeb, but for China? It's your *actual heritage*, so nobody could make fun of you, and there is so much great stuff in there. I mean, you've got over two thousand years of literary heritage from the most populous nation on earth, even just looking at the stuff that's been translated. Han Fei was Machiavelli a millennium and a half before Machiavelli. Three Kingdoms is Game of Thrones but with real history and actually influential on literature (and video games). Water Margin is more violent and politically incorrect than anything Hollywood would dare to make now. Journey to the West is funny and full of slapstick.
And like any real literature, you learn stuff. Heck, I have no Chinese ancestry I know of, and it was plowing my way through *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* that finally made me realize I didn't have to tell the truth to people who weren't going to help me.
"Art of War? *Everyone's* read the Art of War. The *real* good stuff's in T'ai K'ung's Six Secret Teachings..."
That’s a good idea and you’re not the first one to mention it to me - something I really ought to do.
Appreciate the encouragement!
Sure! I think a lot of these stories should be better known across the world, frankly.
I think more Western nerds should meet Zhuge Liang...after all there is no shortage of Cao Caos out there.
Freud addressed these issues pretty thoroughly a long time ago. Check out 'Civilization and its Discontents.' It's a very short book.
The problem is that we're too civilized. If you want to call that "liberalism," okay. It's true that liberalism is the main ideology by which we're civilized.
The solution is to reclaim some irrationality, without becoming too irrational. Like I want maybe 10% of Tao Lin's irrationality.
Interesting. I wonder if that’s why the duality of Confucian and Daoist thought works well as a pairing.
Of course the empire demands the former, but you’ll lose your mind without a little irrationality.
I was thinking about something broadly similar in an Irish context the other day. Ireland is very proud of how it cast aside its colonial shackles and became an independent nation-state. Barely 20 years later, Ireland joined the EU. After 700 years of colonial oppression, we had a brief gap of 20 years during which we were truly independent, after which we immediately traded one colonizer for another. We imported their language, their religion (or lack thereof), their values, their multiculturalism. Regardless of social class, young Irish people almost exclusively look upon their native culture with cringing disdain, aspiring to emulate Americans (or more rarely, Brits) instead. Unlike Asians, we don't have even the fig leaf of our native cuisine to cling to - there's no such thing as Irish cuisine. A modern Irish person is just a generic European who incidentally happens to be holding a pint of Guinness.
really interesting assessment of the publishing industry & where things are at & a great read. Different context but I feel really similarly with regard to queer art and have for a while. A lot of it has become so dull and flattened and co-opted into the liberal machine, and its supposed to tick all these boxes and be a bunch of boring gay (derogatory) shit instead of gay (laudatory) shit. When I go back and, for example, watch the 70s films of John Waters I feel so creatively inspired seeing some transgressive, courageous bullshit — nobody seemingly, at least not in the mainstream, is making queer art that is that from that kind of headspace, or at least even is influenced by it at all, unless its extremely watered down and has removed all that was interesting about what it is referencing. To get funding and access to make these things you have to be the kind of person who would want to make them in the first place, and everyone interesting is largely shut out…
This reminds me of Murakami’s concept of Superflat, where people’s identities are both erased and exaggerated through media images. I see Superflat everywhere today.
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog
Thoroughly enjoy this, and while I know from the later part of the text where you stand, the first half had some interesting things jump out.
Interestingly this article sort of “does the thing” it observes. By centring the young Muslim Identity specifically within the American context (which you’ve done as focal point for the piece and not out of obscurity) it negates the space for other Muslim identities that exist within proximity to “western values”. Not those who have adopted them or assimilated but the countless Muslim men who have access to American culture and whose identity is shaped rather than directly informs. By excluding the rich theocratic history of Islam and actual left wing iterations of its practices, the article excludes possible and real identities.
It also strikes me as extremely strange to suggest that progressive politics is out of reach when embracing Islams more radical tendencies and only accessible in the American culture.
I do agree with the central premise though, that liberalism shreds identities into homogeneous groups ripe for marketing. I just don’t think that “Islamic theocracy” and “lib secular” are the only categories and that through liberalism’s ideological grip you’ve fallen into the very mechanism of thinking that you’re observing.
(From the later half of the article I can quite clearly see that you were not suggesting that these are only options but presenting the illusion of it)
If I did read this correctly, you were making a critique of the phenomenon while not endorsing the mechanism. In that case my above response is aimed directly at the text and not the author, and it trying to balance observation with actual stance.
I did enjoy this though and I think your link between Asian American fiction and the liberal assimilation of American Muslims is very clear and definitely worth exploring even more.
Lots of interesting points for me to consider here, e.g.:
>By excluding the rich theocratic history of Islam and actual left wing iterations of its practices, the article excludes possible and real identities.
My view on religious texts comes down to something like "interpretive distance" - i.e., the text stands on its own, and it has to traverse a terrain of psychological, political, social conditions in order to 'arrive' at a particular reading (to complicate things further, there's bidirectional causality there - the text can of course shape the terrain). e.g. with Christianity you can see it express itself as Liberation Theology in South America or Neoconvservative interventionism in the US.
Agree that there are many interesting interpretations of Islam beyond these two extremes presented.
Please tell me and share with other authors.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZNMWvDwid83GA92rYIZu4Q7L81XIAgDsWC5QtGyZqoOPXfw/viewform?usp=dialog