美國不是我們的家 - 野火集 龍應台

This more appropriately belongs in Hard Drafts, but whatever yo. Parts 2 and 3 shortly, I'm lazy.

America isn't our home
Wildfire
Long Yingtai

Part 1

I received lots of letters in the mail. An older reader wrote, “Every time I read one of your essays my heart starts racing and it won’t stop. My tears start falling and they won’t let up.” A college student wrote, “Before we all end up apathetic, please tell us what we can do for Taiwan, our so-called ‘motherland’?” An high school student had this to say, “Anything we do won’t make a difference anyway. After I graduate I’m just going to leave for America.”

That young people are angry and pissed and older people are sad and in tears certainly isn’t due to the quality of my essays. For people who care to notice, this outpouring of emotion reveals two things. One, the seriousness of the situation facing us today. The pathetic nature of the environment we live in isn’t something only the servants of the upper class are complaining about, they’ve become a problem for everyone. Two, is the feeling of powerlessness individuals have. If this society had any useful ways of allowing people to express their opinions and see their demands met, things wouldn’t have reached the explosive level they are at now. They wouldn’t be looking to a trivial bunch of essays to express their anger.

The second issue is much more serious than the first. No matter how much the environment deteriorates or how complex are problems become, if people take the appropriate actions and believe they can make a difference, they will continue to forge ahead successfully. If on the other hand, our problems aren’t that serious but people believe they have no ability to change things, their frustration will just build up inside them waiting to explode.

Six months ago a young girl who loved reading went over and killed her neighbor because she was always reading loudly and disturbing her. There’s obviously no excuse for violence, but let’s look at the causes here. If all this girl had to do was call the police and they would come and tell the girl to stop, couldn’t we have prevented this murder? Even if she called over and over begging the police to stop her and they didn’t do anything, and she went and pleaded with the other women to stop reading over and over to no avail, couldn’t she just have moved? But seriously, where in Taipei can you find any guarantee of peace and quiet? With the annoyance day after day and night after night and no reasonable chance to change things, what was she supposed to do?

After Socrates was condemned to death he decided against breaking out of prison. He said, “When I’m faced with a system I’m not happy with I have two choices: I can either leave the country or I can try to improve it by taking the appropriate legal actions. I have no right to destroy the entire system just to fight against it.”