Video summary
Kiri Paramore, speaking from a recorded message due to personal constraints, offers a philosophical reflection on the shifting landscape of international politics by contrasting Western liberal thought with contemporary realities in China. Drawing inspiration from Isaiah Berlin's analysis of Russian thought, Paramore highlights how Berlin viewed the world through a monist versus pluralist lens, often associating monism with totalitarian regimes driven by romantic, idealistic visions of a unified future. However, Paramore argues that the modern world has evolved significantly; today's authoritarian or fascistic elements in the West, exemplified by figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, are not fueled by such grand romantic ideals but rather by a profound lack of belief and an absence of any teleological vision for progress.
In stark contrast to this Western disillusionment, Paramore observes that China still maintains a strong, pervasive faith in modernity and the possibility of societal advancement. This enduring belief is evident across various sectors, including technology, academia, and government policy, where there remains a conviction that human civilization can continue to move forward. This optimism underpins essential policy approaches such as environmental protection and efforts to reduce wealth disparity, suggesting that these initiatives are driven by a deep-seated confidence in progress rather than mere economic calculation. Paramore notes that this belief system is particularly strong among China's educated elites and the scientific community, creating a significant divergence from what he describes as the increasingly skeptical or faithless attitude prevalent in Western liberal universities.
The core argument presented is that while the West has largely abandoned the idea of inevitable historical progress, China continues to operate within a framework that assumes positive development is achievable. This difference in worldview offers a crucial lens for understanding current geopolitical dynamics and policy decisions on both sides of the Pacific. Paramore suggests that recognizing this fundamental disparity in how belief systems shape political action can help explain why certain policies are pursued with such vigor in China while facing resistance or cynicism elsewhere. Ultimately, he leaves the audience with the provocative thought that the persistence of faith in progress in China stands as a massive contrast to the prevailing mood in the West, challenging observers to reconsider their assumptions about modernity and governance.
The session concludes with an acknowledgment that despite differences in disciplinary backgrounds and political ideologies, the panelists found significant overlap in their analysis of China's current situation. This convergence of perspectives across diverse fields is presented as a valuable outcome for academia, demonstrating how different frameworks can still yield a coherent understanding of complex realities. The event ends on a note of gratitude toward the speakers and the audience, emphasizing that while ideological differences exist, the shared goal of analyzing global events objectively remains a productive endeavor for scholars from various backgrounds.
Read the full video transcript
Kiri Paramore,
who wasn't able to be here
for for personal reasons,
nonetheless, just really in the 11th
hour said he felt so strongly that he
wanted to participate that he sent us a
recording. And I think you'll find
actually that he says has he he touches
on some things that echo things other
people have said. So, if you are staying
on this side of the table sitting at
this side of the table, you may want to
turn around to see what Kiri has to say.
Yeah.
>> Hi, my name is uh Kiri Paramore. I'm
very sorry not to be there with you
today. What an amazing panel you have
there before you.
Um Nathan, Professor Hills asked me just
to make a couple of brief comments
um in relation from my own perspective
of of the history of political thought
on on the topics that you're covering
today,
uh particularly as they relate to sort
of politics. And I'm actually going to
engage issues of political philosophy.
So,
when I was in China over the last year
based at Shanghai University,
um I wrote a a bunch of things sort of
more impressionistic uh things about um
contemporary China.
But what I want to focus on just in
these 2 minutes is just to sort of go
directly into the heart of a
philosophical um issue that I think it's
the
at the core of um
considerations [clears throat] of what's
happening uh today
uh in international politics.
Um and what
really
um
triggered me
to think about this
was I was reading um Isaiah Berlin's
book on Russian
um thought.
And uh
of course, there's many people on the
panel there who know a lot more about
Russia than me. In fact, I know nothing
about Russia.
But it's an amazing book in the sense
that, you know, Isaiah Berlin
>> [clears throat]
>> is this
quintessential
British liberal philosopher in the late
20th century. The essays are written in
the late 20th century.
And his whole approach to the history of
Russian thought
over which he wrote several really
interesting essays, of course, comes
from that liberal post-war position.
And that was a post-war position that of
course um
saw as as their antithesis, if you like,
what these days some people refer to
using the word autocracy,
which they used to call totalitarianism.
Um and they sort of saw the world in
terms of what I say Berlin's words that
he used a lot were a monist versus
pluralist world.
And in the context he was writing in the
1960s, '70s,
his thinking about monist worlds in
terms of of course their recent
um experience of
mid-20th century European fascism.
And also a sort of anti-communist
liberal like Isaiah Berlin is also
thinking about Marxism-Leninism as
another form of of monism.
And his starting point for analyzing the
roots of modern Russian thought
and the how that interacts later with
Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, etc.
is
the German romantic roots of that
thought.
It's belief, the idea the belief in a
sort of unifying
um
idealistic
outcome for the world.
And as a late 20th century liberal for
Isaiah Berlin, that was what was scary,
you know?
And of course it was, if you look at the
roots of mid-20th century European
fascism,
those sort of romantic
beliefs, belief in a sort of romantic
ideal
did underlie that those sort of fascist
ideas. And of course they underlie many
socialist ideas as well.
But, as I was reading it,
I realized how different our world is
to the world Isaiah Berlin was writing
in.
If you think about the manifestations of
more totalitarian or fascistic politics
um as they exist today.
If you think about certain policies of
the European Union or of uh the current
government of the United States,
especially including, you know, people
like Peter Thiel and uh Elon Musk and
these kinds of people.
What's really interesting about their I
won't call it fascism, but their sort of
fascistic uh
aspect of the way they think and act
is there's no belief.
It is an incredible lack of
>> [clears throat]
>> of any
idealistic vision for the future.
So, in our world,
those sort of more fascistic political
elements are not underpinned by romantic
sort of overbelief, as Isaiah Berlin
might put them. But, actually it's a
lack of belief. Now, that's very clear
if you look at the pronouncements of
people like Elon Musk, for instance, or
indeed Donald Trump.
But,
it's
it's also present everywhere. It's
present for us who are academics in our
Western liberal universities. You know,
this sort of lack of belief, this lack
of faith, and especially a lack of
belief
in in a teleological idea of progress.
You know, of course, we're trained to
critique the idea of teleological pro-
progress, of the idea of that human
civilization is always moving forward.
And what struck me about so many aspects
of my experience um in China
over the last year, both in the academy,
um
I had a lot of friends who were
engineers, including Japanese engineers
working in China, and so forth. And And
in all these aspects, these aspects of
technology, politics, academia, in which
I was moving.
The overriding difference
was
the fact that a belief in modernity
is still present.
People still believe
that it is possible that the world can
progress.
And I think that aspect of belief is a
way to understand, you know, why one way
to understand why, for instance,
environmental policies
um or reducing wealth disparity
or many other uh policy approaches that
we know from any economic analysis and
are necessary for the progress or the
continual moving forward of society,
whether you look at that socially or
economically.
What underpins that is a faith and a
belief in progress.
And I think
the fact that that still exists and is
quite strong in contemporary China
especially among the elites, be that the
educated elites, the scientific elites,
or the party
is a huge contrast to
what we can lazily call the West.
Um and I'm just going to leave you with
that provocation and hope that's helpful
in some way. Again, very sorry I can't
be with you.
>> All right, well, THAT WAS FROM KERRY.
YEAH, I THINK then I'll uh I'll just
thank everyone for for coming. It will
end uh 5 minutes early cuz we're we we
have to be out of here
uh for the next event at uh 1:42.
Uh so, I'll just thank everyone and say
I think we had a nice discussion and
exactly what I was hoping for, which is
uh I think uh people would agree we had
a difference of perspectives in terms of
um
different disciplines, different, if you
like, uh political ideologies. Uh but in
terms of the analysis of what's going on
in China today, a a large degree of of
overlap, and I I think that's, you know,
the the best we can hope for in academia
in terms of
uh
looking at the same reality and coming
up with an an analytical framework for
understanding
Uh so uh
So, that's where then I'll stop and
thank all of our speakers uh for coming
and thank you, the audience,