Pencil A Smile

Had it occurred to you is it easier to smile or to frown?

A popular Internet adage claims that it takes 43 facial muscles to frown and only 17 to smile. This has always been cited to persuade us to smile more often.

I find this intriguing and I conduct my own research.

The scientific answer according to a renowned plastic surgeon is that smiling takes 12 muscles and frowning surprisingly takes just 11.

I bet this won’t be the reason you start finding smiling is harder to do.

When I told my Thai boxing friend about this, he had this to say.

If someone insults you, don’t even stretch the 11 muscles to frown when it takes only 4 to extend your arm to punch the swine.

This brings me to “Pencil a Smile”.

If you think that there is a grammatical error in the title. I have checked with our grammarian. He has confirmed that the word pencil, besides being a noun for pencil, could also be used as a verb.

The title does sounds like I am going to talk about how to draw a smile with a pencil.

This is simple. Take a pencil.

First, draw a black circle, ideally with a yellow background.

Then, in the upper middle section of the circle, draw 2 oval black dots representing the 2 eyes.

And finally in the lower middle section of the circle, draw a smaller semi-circle, from the 3 o’clock to 9 o’clock ‘positions, representing the mouth.

There you go, pencil a smile.

When do we smile? Why do we smile? We smile when we are happy or because we are amused.

If what I say tickle your funny bone, you are amused and you smile; if your partner gives you a surprise, only a pleasant surprise, you are happy and you smile.

This seems logical enough. What is interesting is that the converse is also true.

Many behavioral studies have consistently shown that the emotion we experience is associated with our own expression.

The more you smile, the happier you are.

The best thing is that the increase in happiness does not drain away the moment we stop smiling. The effects linger on making us feeling more cheerful when interacting with others and also more likely to remember the happy moment.

But, life is not a bed of roses.

What if I am not happy, having just lost a huge investment, a job or worse a loved one? How do I behave like a happy person? How do I force that smile?

Many self-help gurus have suggested the power of positive thinking that is simply pushing the negative thoughts out of the mind.

Unfortunately, research suggests otherwise. Suppression of negative thoughts is far more likely to increase, rather than decrease, misery. The more you attempt to avoid a topic the more obsessed you are with it, the more haunted you are by it.

Another approach proposed by many psychotherapists is to share your pain with someone who is empathetic. This is -”the problem shared is the problem halved approach.

Most of us will find this approach intuitive and many of us may have actually tried this approach.

Ironically, research shows that talking isn’t as effective and we are better off penciling our way out of misery into a smile.

Research actually shows that writing an account of our deepest thoughts or our feeling about an unhappy or depressing or traumatic event is more effective to return us to physically better health and emotionally happier mood.

This sounds bizarre. Why talking isn’t as effective as writing?

The reason is talking can be somewhat unstructured, disorganized and thus confusing. In contrast, writing encourages putting down a structured story line that help people make sense of what has happened and work towards a solution.

Other research has also shown that by writing a note expressing gratitude or affection could significantly enhance our likelihood of smiling and thus our state of happiness.

There you go again, pencil a smile.

What if you are like me neither good at penciling a smile nor writing down the feelings, there is still another way that always guarantees you a smile with a pencil.

Take a pencil with you right now. We shall do the warm up first.

Stretch your mouth like this, moving from the left to the right and repeat it several times.

I introduce this step to prevent you from suing me in case your face suffers a cramp from extended smiling.

Now the crucial step, please open your mouth and then hold the pencil between your teeth.

It is important that your lips do not touch the pencil. Or else, your smile would turn into a frown.

Here you go again, pencil a smile.

You have heard me. By now you should be able to apply the three techniques on pencil a smile: draw a happy face; write out your feelings; hold a pencil between your teeth.

Revisiting Chinese History - Xiao Jiansheng

Chinese History - A Revisit, a banned book in mainland China, critically reviews the Chinese History from her mythical foundation from Pangu to the present day of the CCP's rule.

The writer, Xiao Jianzheng gave an elaborate and at time repetitive account as to why human right, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law failed to develop in China even though there were several opportunities in the the 4 millennia of history.

Xiao gave generous credit to the Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period for allowing an atmosphere of relative freedom to the peoples then. I was surprise to learn that there were then many practices that requires the ruler to defer to the "Guo Ren" (arguably the closest concept is citizen as opposed to the general subject who have no political rights).

He was highly critical of Qin Shihuang, Han Wudi, the Yuan Mongol, the Ming's Zhu Yuanzhang and the Machu Qing for imposing a dictatorial, illiberal and oppressive regime.

He complaint that the Legal School of Thought for the largest part of Chinese history was the various dynasty ruling philosophy with the Confucianism co-opted to legitimize the heavenly mandate. The imposition of brutal penalty by killing indiscriminately the offender's family members simply by association or massacring the defeated soldiers or civilians after conquest was a constant feature of the Chinese history.

The respect for life and the mercy for the weak are absent in larger part of the Chinese history and are not regarded as virtue but seen as a weakness. There maybe literature recorded the suffering and poverty of the peoples but none were critical to scrutinize the rulers. None offered a rival ideology or political doctrine to challenge the status quo. All dynasty were established by and large by the concept of replacing the heavenly mandate except that of the racist Yuan Mongol.

Surprising he gave raft review of the Song even though the Song was regarded generally as the weakest of all dynasty in the Chinese history. Xiao's justification vest in the Song's founding philosophy in governing the country with civility and humanity and that in turn allows mercantilism and high culture to flourish as witnessed by the quantity of finished goods and literature, poem and painting unearthed.

With the end of Song at the end of the genocidal Yuan Mongol, it also ended the Chinese civilization which once honored self integrity, respect life, relative equality for the woman, merciful of the aged, orphan, widows and the sick, promote mercantilism and literature.

What became the subsequent Chinese civilization are best exemplified by the values promoted by the classical novels of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin. The violence committed by the various heroes against many innocent was not condemned. The practice of camaraderie akin to gansterism is worshiped and not despised. The conduct out of legal bound is not criticized but regarded as loyalty to the clans and the family. These negative values together with the authoritarianism inherited from the earlier authoritarian dynasty became the mainstream vices into the present generation.

Xiao also analyzed the structure of power of the government. The earlier dynasty divided the power between that of the ruler and the prime minister. However the Ming destroyed the prime ministerial office with the power soley vested in the ruler which was then usurped by the eunuch or empress without check and balance. The Qing continued with the practice without the prime minister.

Coming close to the modern era, Xiao was also critical of the conduct of Dr. Sun Yat Sen in the early years of the Republic for failing to deliver a constitutional China. Admittedly many of the Sun's shortcomings while known but is not widely published. Sun's dictatorial traits in managing the KMT came to be scrutinized and his political decision away from a federated China in early 1920s was heavily criticized.

Most interestingly, the May Fourth Movement was severely criticized. The movement whilst promote science and democracy was premised upon a sense of lawlessness and mass popularity.
Eventually the movement was stolen by the Communism to legitimate violence revolution as opposed to a constitutional change of government.

Toward the end of the book, it became very clear that Xiao viewed the failure of China to develop democracy, constitutionalism, human right and the rule of laws to the lack of faith in God unlike the Judeo-Christian civilization in the West.

He favor a multi-polar power structure to keep a healthy check and balance for the peoples welfare. No wonder the single polar ruling structure of CCP China bans the book.

大江大海1949 - A Book Recommendation

This Blog strongly recommend Ms Lung Ying-tai's (龍應台) latest book "大江大海1949" (Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949). She wrote a famous letter to Hu Jintao, not too long ago, urging him to "please pursuade me with civility" (请您以文明说服我)

This book is a story of the "losers" of the Civil War. It is a personal story of the writer and the generation who experienced it.

It is a collection of stories from those who made it to Taiwan following the defeat of the Natonalist. They were those who were forcefully enscripted. They were those whose spouse, chidlren and parents who were left behind and never got to see other again. There were places that disappeared from the map. All these were the story, a personal story of a generation of Chinese, many of whom are still alive, that required to be written and understood.

Ms Long wrote a very moving book judging by the first chapter I have just completed reading. Her prose is beautiful and her thoughts is always humane.

Her intention of writing the book is simple. Without understanding, there is no empathy across the Strait and there is no reconciliation and the peace, if any, will be fragile, and surely, I must add, there is no basis for reunification.

It is unsual for me to write a book recommendation before I finish reading it. It is just so good that I must make it known here to share with you.

By the way, this book is apparently banned in the mainland. I am hoping that the mainland censor can see the big picture.

It is time for INCLUSIVENESS especially after 60 years.

Please see www.cw.com/tw/book/1949 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5DqjiDdEic&feature=channel for more information.

Neo-Slavery of African American

In Slavery By Another Name, a putlizer winner, Douglas Blackmon wrote an excellent book on how the Southern White de-enfranchised the African American through trick and terror and reinstated neo-slavery to the former Confederate states in the aftermath of 1865 Emancipation Proclaimation.

The book spoke about the lynching that frightened the African American into submission and servitude. The book spoke about how the African American were victim in the most appalling condition without respect and dignity, not to even mention right and lawful entitlement.

Black men toiled to death and black women were sexual play toy at whim of her White master. In the course of reading the book, I discern that a lot of lynching and attack on black were started by the unsubstantiated time-honored allegation of blackmen sexually attacking white girls.

The book elaborated in great details how the due process was manipulated by the White to convict large number of African American for seemingly minor or non-offence such as vagrancy and how these convict were quickly sold to labor or rather to be enslaved at various mines, farms and factory.

The working and living conditions were no different from a Gulag. The treatment meted out to the African American convict were inevitably inhuman and motivated by racism. The flogging, the whipping, the water torture were the daily routine every African American convicts had to face. The bloodhound were used to hunt down the run away. Many of them caught were first tortured and made to never live again.

The South was a society and a system where the justice was systematically denied to and cruelty was selectively applied to the African American. Almost every if not all Southern White institutions, media and church included, were innocent.

The segregation implemented in the South under the guise of the separate but equal doctrine was Apartheid, plain and simple.

No question that the White Supremacist's reign was morally untenable however the history shown that the emancipation was successfully highjacked and slavery was reincarnated with most American then stoodby and did little to live up to the American credo.

"It was a strange irony", in the word of Blackmon, "that after 74 years of hollow emancipation, the final delivery of African Americans from overt slavery and from the quiet complicity of the federal government in their servitude was precipitated only in response to the horrors perpetrated by an enemy country against its own despised minorities."

The turning point for the eventual success of the Civil Right movement stems more from American's akward position in treating her own citizen in reaction to the Nazist, Fascist and Communist ideologies.

It is like the old saying he who live in the glass house shall not throw stone. This was the awakening moment. The return of large number of African American soldier fighting the WW2
led to unprecedented civil right movement in taking discrimination to court.

One of which culminated in the landmark decision of Brown V. Board of Education 1954 that overruled Plessy v Ferguson 1896 which in turn led to the civl right legislation in the Johnson's Administration.

This is a great book to read and what I like best were the following passage where Blackmon reflected:

"whether any company or an individual, we are marred either by our connections to the specific crimes and injuries of our fathers and their fathers. Or we are tainted by the failures of our fathers to fulfill our national credos when their courage was most needed. we are formed in the molds twisted by the gifts we received at the expense of others. It is not our "fault". But it is undeniably our inheritance."

and in another passage:

"I had no hand in the horrors perpetrated by the 20th century slave masters who terrorized American Blacks for four generations. But it is nonetheless true that hundreds of millions of us spring from or benefit as a result of lines of descent that abided those crimes and benefited from them."

Denouncing Mao

I wish Mao should have been dead in early 50s.

I have been in and out of beijing as if she is my second home. With so many opportunities, I refuse to go to the mausoleum knowing full well that i will remove my belt from the waist and wipe him into pieces earning myself life sentence in doing so.

Mao, together with Hitler and Stalin, were the three giant monsters men have seen in the last century. The ease with which they eliminated their own peoples were appaling, senseless and cold blooded. Of course, Jews or class enemy could hardly be described as their own peoples is perhaps their justifcation. I don't recall Imperial Japanese killed his own peoples. In this sense, the Imperial Japanese looked like saint, no wonder they still are to many right wing Japanese.

I just read Anne Applebaum's book on The Soveit's Gulag. This history was not easy to read. Too sad, too tragic. The cruelty, the brutality and the babanality of the communist system meted out against their opponents, very often perceived if not imagined, make the reading very painful.

The numbers of peoples subjected to the gulag system was enormous. One conservative count gave the figure of almost 28 million peoples in 30 years between 1920s to 1950s.

Who were these peoples? Why suddenly such a huge rise. Even the Tsarist system that Lenin and Stalin were fighting against made them seemed like amateur gaolers. There were peoples arrested simply because they were late to work or an adolecent stealing just piece of bread. Many were detained by virtue of association having the bad fortune of being the spouse or the children of the enemy of the peoples, a political crime. Some told a bad joke on Stalin.

These peoples were made to walk through a system only enduring is the survival strategy. What they experienced? It was an experience of arbitrary arrest, brutal interrogation, unjust trial, disproprotion penalty even if guilty, the often fatal journey to the designated gulag camps in the far north or the far east, the hard labor in the mine, forest occassioned by the sub-zero temperatures without decent warm clothing and safe equipment (if there was any equipment), the poor food ratioining (as low as 300g of bread for a day), the bugged and infested living conditions, and the not infrequent crime from gang rape to theft and murders.

Whatever the ideal of the classic Communism, its association with the repressive regime the ideology help created render it eternally notorious.

The gulag is known as the labor reform camp in China. I don't know how many peoples went through the hell. It must have been enormous as well. Deng himself went through it too. The numerous campaign launched during Mao's era to eradicate, landlord, land owning peasants, business owners, intellectuals, former officers, right wings must have erased million of peoples besides the very often published 30 million casulty in the great leap forward disguised as "the three year of natural calamtiy" in the mainland propaganda.

After reading the book, it becomes easier to understand why there are so many peoples apprehensive of the CCP. The highly repressive and brutal system CCP installed and is now gradually dismantling remain alive in the memory of the peoples living today, especially those who escape the mainland. Those who stayed were probably dead and if they survive, they become deaf or amnesia on the matters.

There was a girl who survived because her mother was determined enough to bring up the three children on her own after her husband, a small time bourgegeoius, was made a collateral casulty in the class struggle. What was his guilt? There was no crime against society, no rebelion against the party. The life was taken away simply because he was a bourgegeoius. You and I are unlikely to survive either in those conditions. That girl grew up and eventually became my family member.

I am asked how do I feel with Mao's portrait remaining in the RMB 100 dollar bill. It is more than ironic. It is actually tragic to the Chinese. As far as I am concerned for the last 20 years (after I know China better), my answer is outrage of the highest order.

To my mind, his corpse should be removed at once from public scene and his portrait from Tiananmen Gate to the dollar bill should be removed as well.

Think of Hitler, it is even now a crime to praise him in Germany! Think about Stalin, there was even a secret speech denouncing him only few years after his death. (I find it repugnant that many places in the world, Lyon included, still name a street after him.)

What about Mao, the CCP and the peoples treat too kindly of him. He should take his place with the other two monsters.

Chinese peoples gotta be taugh about this history. CCP has to face its record, as much as the American democratic party faces its pro-segeragation past. Mao maybe the father of PRC but he is not the father of China. He is not China's Washington; he is China's Stalin.

If the orignal sin of America is the slavery and the original sin of PRC is Communism ( admittedly much has been removed), removing it's final ties with Mao as the symbol help create a modern, progressive, liberal and democratic China.

We can go down that shinning path.

Team of Rivals - a short comment

In Abraham Lincoln, America is so fortunate to have such a great man born, lived and died for her. I am endeavoured to consider that Pax-America derives her good karma from Lincoln's deed.

I said it not in the religious sense. Rather, having read the highly acclaimed "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearn Goodwin, I begin to appreciate and understand better of Lincoln and of the strenght of the American system that make it possible to produce such a truly great leader.

Very often, we tend to classify a great leader in term of the territory they conquer or the building they constructed. To my mind, they are better described as a successful leader. Greatness really mean preaching and practicing universal values that transcend time and geography.

The time was was April 15, 1865 and the place was Washington DC.

Abraham Lincoln died 9 hours later after an assasin struck a bullet into his head when he was watching in a theatre. Lincoln's passing made him one who belongs to the ages. Yes, I subsribed to this view and am convinced that he was really a benovalent and sagacious leader.

In my reading of historical figures, I don't recall any comparison that equal or coming close to such an achievement by any person of such a background within such a short time.

Lincoln, in his two Presidential terms of slightly more than 4 years prematurely terminated by the assasination, was not only maintaining a precarious Northern Union but also succeeded in ending the civil war unifying the United States and in the process presided over the end of slavery.

No question, in territorial term, his accomplishment is but a tiny fraction of what was accomplished by Alexander the Great or Caesar. In architectural term, he left nothing of monumental values resemble even the least of the Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal or the Qin Shiwang's Great Wall.

Lincoln's greatness lies beyond these. His greatness was unusual in that it vested in his magnanimity and good-natured temperament as a leader.

How often a man lost with grace and won in humility? He was one. How often, a man is tolerant of his competitors. He was one. How often the victorious is not vengeful against the loser. He was one.

The team or rivals consisting Willian Seward, the Secretary of State, Edward Bate, the AG, Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War and Salmond Chase, the Secretary of Treasure were largly won over by his sheer strength of character, not imposing or overbearing, but subtle and intelligent.

A contemporary described Lincoln as very wise - if more radical would have offended the conservative - if more conservative the radical. That was the best desciption of the precarious North he was presiding.

At the high time of civil war between the Free States and the Slave States, Lincoln keenly believed that "there never will be two countries.... securing peace to the peoples of our one common country". The dichotomy of free states and slave states echo what we heard now from Obama, the red states and the blue states. These men appeal to the values that laid the state foundation - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When the civil war was coming to an end, Lincoln in his second Presidential inauguration speech said the famous words "with malice towards none; with charity for all,.... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nation." It is still so apt at this time for America and for the world.

Doris has written an exceptional good book with Lincoln's management of team of rivals and what makes this book even better in my view were those passage that touched on his loss of parents, chidlren and friends, his ability to identify and empathize with others who sufferred a great deal during the war or of disease that made him so human an so sagacious.

Team of Rivals is a very moving book. I felt immense sadness for Abraham and Mary Lincoln for the sacrifce they made without having the opportunity to live long and in happiness to see their accomplishment.

House of Scholars - A Confucian Parliament

Daniel Bell's East Meets West proposed a bicameral legislature to China with an upper house called House of Scholars where the members are selected through a competitive examination, inspired by the Confucian tradition of respect for a ruling intellectial elite and the belief that democracy and confucianism can co-exist in China just like how capitalism and communism co-exist to give China a socialist system with Chinese characteristic.

To Bell, the infusion of Confucianism into Chinese political system gives the democracy the Chinese characteristic.

The key argument put forward is premised upon the dillema of having vulgar democrat on one side versus the reflective meritocrats on the other. This give birth to the idea of having the House of Scholars to restrain the democratic majorities who maybe too occupied with the next election and heavily influenced by the commercial interest to favor short term economic growth regardless of the long term ecological consequences.

Bell tried to balance the elitist view of good governance based on the need for capable and far-sighted rulers in modern societies and political legitimacy by conceding that the House of Scholars is nonetheless constitutionally subordinated to the lower democratic house to resolve the gridlock issue.

In the American context, Bell proposed to impose term limit for the American's House Representative and Senator to water down the lobbyist and donor's influence by retiring them to a proposed third chamber of Congress, the House of Counselors whose members are experienced and disinterested to act for common good.

The major weaknesses of the House of Scholars is one of political legitimacy and perceived independence.

Competitive examination together with the traditional Confucianist respect for elite in itself do not confer political legitimacy per se.

The UK's House of Lords and closer to home, the CPPCC (often regarded as the upper house but actually do not possess constitutional power), both unelected bodies face the problem of legitimacy.

The British govornment under the Labor Party has instituted reform by removing all the hereditary peers and resorted to political appointment based on supposedly meritocracy. CPPCC's delegated are selected along similar line with appointment goes to many retired senior politicians, officers and academics.

Functional constituency in Hong Kong's unicameral legislature is arguably more superior to using a competitive examination. Nevertheless, its limited electoral mandate drawn from professional or industrial bodies is widely regarded as antithesis to "real democracy".

In additional to the issue of political legitimacy, there are too many intrinsic problems with a competitive examination - what kind of scholars in term of talent and virtue are desired? what are their content? how can they be objectively appraised? how often they are to be conducted? how many are to be selected? how are they made accountable? These were not adequately and satisfactorily addressed by Bell.

A competitive examination is accepted to select the qualified to be officers serving the peoples. To be representative of the peoples, the qualified must however goes through the political baptism to obtain the legitimacy. This applies to all the aspiring politician from among the graduate of Ecole Nationale d'Administration of France, Harvard or Yale of USA, Oxbridge of UK, or even NUS of Singapore.

On ensuring independence of the House of Scholars from corruption, Bell went on to suggest a number of familiar mechanism, including free press, high pay and harsh penalty. What I find rather amusing is that Bell suggested family-based punishment as potentially a last resort to curb the rampant corruption in China. I supposed Bell didn't intend it as a serious scholarly argument.

Bell's generally favorably argument for elite rule, rooted in Confucianism, appears to me anarchronistic in conception and unrealistic in practice.

The Future of Freedom - a book review

In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria studied the tension between liberty and democracy and call for restoration of balance between the two.

He argued favorably with facts why constitutional liberalism and up to a point, the capitalist system provides more condusive and stable conditions for democracy rather than the other way around. Constitutional liberalism is a reliable restraint to the democratic majority.

Zakaria's book is very penetrating in that he highlighted the problem faced with democracy in its various forms whether illiberal or unregulated.

In Chapter 2, Fareed called it the twisted path of democracy when the democracy without constitutional liberalism went awry. Nazist German was the classic example.

In Chapter 3, he cited Russia and Venezuela among many other in Balkan, Central Asia and other parts as example of illiberal democracy. India, with its increasingly Hindu fundamentalism advocated by BJP is in danger of heading to the same direction.

Fareed's observation that without constitutional liberalism, the introduction of democracy in divided societies has frequently formented nationalism, ethnic conflict and war. Suharto's Indonesia or the former Yugoslavia maybe autocratic, yet the order and stability they provided were much preferred to the state of ethnic cleansing and war following their demise.

In Chapter 4, the Islamic Exception, he noted that the Arab world is trapped between an autoritarian state and an illiberal society. As the state becomes more repressive, the opposition within the society grows more pernicious, goading the stateinto further repression. It is a vicious circle.

Only with political liberalism allowing the Arab intellectual and the peoples the freedom and the economic reform to allow for improvement to peoples lives, will religious extremism and violence be arrested. The road to democracy in the Middle East is not distinctively different.

One particular point that Zakaria made regarding Islam is worth noting. Contrary to the popularly held view that Islam is about devotion to authority as suggested by Islam as meaning submission in Arab, Islam has actually an anti-authoritarian streak. It orginates from some hadiths - that says, obediance to the ruler is incumbent upon the rulers observing the God's law (simialat to Mencious' right to rebel against a ruler who lost the heavenly mandate). With Sunni Islam without a religious establishment, the decision to oppose the stae on the ground that it is unislamis and insufficiently islamis belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

In Chapter 5, Fareed calls it too much of a good things when he pointed out the problem of having too much democracy. With the politicians are frequently in the state of permanent campaign and the increased practice of referendim and initiatives, a lot of power is now highjacked by an ever growing class of professional consultants, lobbyist, pollster and activist.

In Chapter 6, the Death of Authority, Zakaria studied the decline of varios institutional authority in America. The best example given was the decline of the mainsteam churches - Episcopalian, Methodist and the rise of Evangelical Christianity.

The rise of Evangelical is attributed to its taking the more populist and democratic stance. The tactis employed is to mimic the mainstream culture and values and preaching what the peoples wants, which is a less religiously demanding and more warm and service oriented Christiantity.

In this chapter, one senses Zakaria's elitism. He lamented the suicide of American elite as part of the death of authority. He suggested that the increasing democratization has done away with the ruling elite class and released them from a string of responsibilities that comes with their privileges.

On this, Zakaria gave the story of the real Titanic history where one of the richest American on board, after fighting to put his wife on the rescue boat, refused to take a seat observing the convention of "women and children first". It is honorable that the elites observe an unwritten code even though it meant certain death, it is another to suggest non-elites are not as capable. Zakaria gave the statistic that 70% of the men in first class perished, 90% in the second class. He didn't go into giving the survival rate of men in the other lower classes.

Suffice it says that there were still 30% of men in the first class survived, 20% more than the second class. Who knows whether those perished in the first two classes are more altruistic than the third fourth and others.

This is not a good example and I find this segtion most disagreeable.

In the final chapter, Zakaria's precsription to America is less democracy as the way out. He argued that delegated democracy subject to democratic control is the right dose for good governance with legitimacy. Invoking Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court, that are both well functining and well regarded in opinion poll, as successful example for delegating specialised areas to specialists, Zakaria advocate further use of delegation.

In developing countries, he was highly positive of the successful liberal authoritarian regimes - Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Chile, Indonesia and even China (to my mind, China at best qualified as economically liberal authoritarian country). He seems to suggest that to make democratic system works, the pre-condition is the economic development and followed by a healthy dose of constitutionalism and delegation.

The problem in this final chapter is that Zakaria didn't disntinguish the difference between political and economic liberty in the developing countries, like in China

Also problematic is that Zakaria recognise only that liberty thrives with constitutionalism, least he knows is that constitutionalism can survive without liberty. Singapore comes to mind.

Overall, this is a deligthful book to read and I am looking to reading his next book - the Post-American World.