I Am SO Happy to Learn This

Yesterday, in my long post on "The Death of Environmentalism," I mentioned that the cover of the report features the predictable aphorism that "the Chinese character for Crisis equals Danger + Opportunity."

I can't stand that phrase. If someone ever needs to torture me into confessing to just about anything, all you have to do is tie me down and repeat that to me for an hour. I'll crack. I think it's because I associate it with two of the most vapid people I've ever known, both of whom would repeat it predictably in any meeting as if it was a profound insight personally discovered by them through their deep immersion in the inscrutable Orient.

And just last night I was walking home, and I started thinking, "I wonder if it's even true. I bet it's not even true..." I was thinking of posting the question, seeing if any of the many Decembrist readers who happen to be fluent in written Mandarin could help.

Then today I was directed to the blog at Grist Magazine, http://grist.org/gristmill, and in the middle of a lengthy discussion of "The Death of Environmentalism," there it was, in a comment: "you are repeating myths, not facts, about Chinese characters. First, Chinese characters do not represent an ideographic writing system. Second, "crisis" does not equal "danger" + "opportunity"."

The user links to this article, which seems authoritative enough. The author has me cheering:

A whole industry of pundits and therapists has grown up around this one grossly inaccurate formulation. A casual search of the Web turns up more than a million references to this spurious proverb. It appears, often complete with Chinese characters, on the covers of books, on advertisements for seminars, on expensive courses for "thinking outside of the box," and practically everywhere one turns in the world of quick-buck business, pop psychology, and orientalist hocus-pocus.

The author actually goes even further than I would:

Those who purvey the doctrine that the Chinese word for "crisis" is composed of elements meaning "danger" and "opportunity" are engaging in a type of muddled thinking that is a danger to society, for it lulls people into welcoming crises as unstable situations from which they can benefit. Adopting a feel-good attitude toward adversity may not be the most rational, realistic approach to its solution.

"A danger to society"? I'm not sure about that. It's certainly no worse than Crossfire. But it is annoying. And I'm really glad to know that it's not even true. Please use this knowledge to stop this awful phrase whenever possible.