“Vague Notion”
Posted on October 27, 2018A couple of days ago, I read a interview of Fuchsia Dunlop, the author of “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: a sweet-sour memoir of eating in China”. As the first westerner who was trained as a chef at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, also a famous food-writer, she summarized the traditional food notion in China as: “In a nutshell, if you know how to eat nutritiously, this is actually better than science. It is hard to understand because it is complicated, a wholistic notion”.[1]
Most of folks in China are not experts with plentiful knowledge of nutrition, cooking and therapy, but there is a non-exact feeling, a “vague notion” about healthy eating allows folks to determine what types of food they need, when to have them and how the order is while eating. The vague notion make profound contribution to their health. More importantly, it is a vague notion that we should care about our body. On the contrary, for who restrictly follow nutrition calculation, they may not get to know their real body conditions, explained by Dunlop, “Like we analyze what influence you take from a cup of wine per day. Good or bed? That’s meaningless since the consequence is always changing”.
This arouse my contemplation about the issues in my daily life, and the challenges we are facing. So, does a vague notion better than exact calculation? How would it affect our life? To answer the questions above, perhaps we need to jump into a specific instance.
The Flow of Data
A well acknowledged fact about myocardial infarction, a common problem for elders, is that if we define this infarction as a consequence caused by a high level of the blood flow decreasing, actually this process of decreasing may happened even from one’s 20 year old. However, if I walk into a common hospital and tell the doctor that I need a exam for my heart, the result won’t highlight the process of infarction and maybe no one would give a warning. So, apparently I will do nothing but simply persuaded by the data, “I am save”. There is no changes are required, or at least the consolation from the data, known as “there’s a lot of youth have the same issue like you, if it can be recognized as a issue”, would largely recompose me. “Big Data is supposed to be freeing knowledge from subjective arbitrariness”.[2] So, does our feeling and concern of the potential problem of our body is a mere subjective arbitrariness?
A reversed situation occurred while I take medical treatment at a department of traditional Chinese medication in a hospital, Nanning, China. Doctors there would concentrate more on the balance of body conditions of patients. Even the most effective medication just adjusts the malfunction of body back to normal statue. They believed the body’s immunity and function for recovery should be set the highest value. The work to balance the body condition of patients can maintain their immunity and the ability for recovery so that illness will be prevented by body itself. However, the youth often ignore the notion of body balance. They are so intrepid to immerse into the answer provided by data, and allow it to govern themselves. Doctors in this case are required to establish strong connection with patients for transmitting their notion.
Through the instance above, I would like to argue that we hold the data we’ve already know, but don’t care about its flow. Where are they come from? Where will they go? Like a old proverb said by Hegel, “the truth is the whole”, in this way we never really grasp the means of data since the flow of data is often omitted. Actually, it is impossible for us to get fully understanding about the flow, because the flow is a whole thing and can only be known ambiguously.
A Current Complexity
One of most remarkable threat, the economic stagnation resulted from monopolistic capitalism is widely spreading under the tendency of globalization. Economic stagnation is a long lasting phenomena led by excessive savings.[3] When the capital keep increasing and being accumulated, current demand of consumption will be unable to compare with such capital, so for the high class of capitalists, accumulating more money rather than investing is a rational strategy since there is no investment opportunity is capable to create sufficient profit compared with its investment. A predictable result is further shrinkage of consumption demand with overcapacity and decreasing job opportunity until economy crisis. Extra stimulus become the only reliable, also negative, solution to stimuli economy, which is familiar with the attitude while we are using data. People, or even governments, tend to accept the comfort made by data, a temporary stimuli but not to change the core of issues, like what the book—“Thinking in System”, by Donella Meadows, described “Policy[solution] resistance comes from the bounded rationalities of the actors in a system, each with his or her own goals”. [4] Hence, our goal to solve the problem is oppressed by this resistance and our actions become mere strengthening to the current system.
So I question that how might we address or intervene the problem in our daily life or even complexities by what one person can do? After the struggling of contemplation, I will recall the notion introduced by Dunlop. Maybe the first steps for us is simply trying to build up a vague notion that we should be compassionate and care more about our own doing. Through it, we can shift our actions from strengthening to real intervention.
ZW
Reference:
[1] Menglong Zeng. “英国美食作家扶霞·邓洛普，如何通过饮食了解中国和中国人？”. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1615015839293427800&wfr=spider&for=pc
[2] Byung-Chul Han. “Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power”. Verso, 2017
[3] Foster, John ; Mcchesney, Robert. “The Endless Crisis”. Monthly Review, May 2012, Vol.64(1).
[4] Meadows, Donella H. “Thinking In Systems: a Primer”. London; Sterling, VA: Earthscan. 2009.