All the Light We Cannot See: Book Review

 

Protecting Humanity and Living Through War

I enjoyed this book for its rich descriptions of the war mindset and the loss of place that pervaded the world during this time. At its core, it’s a story of how beauty, truth and humanity must be protected in dangerous times. War’s anti-human nature demands an all-consuming drive toward a common goal. World War II isn’t unique in this, but because of the Nazi push toward control it feels that way. All the Light We Cannot See shows humanity as the hidden, protected thing we value most.

Setting

The author Anthony Doerr does this in a few ways. First, in the person of Marie-Laure and her position as a protected store of value. Second in the character of Werner, the orphan with a technical mind that impresses a senior level Nazi officer.

We know about the ugliness of war, it’s everywhere in the bombed cities and starving citizens. But also the beautiful and transcendent exist in the midst of it. It’s never completely destroyed despite the best efforts of conflict. Beauty must be kept hidden though. It’s too important to treat casually.

Such is the story of the Sea of Flames diamond from the museum where Marie-Laure’s father (Daniel) works as a locksmith. He’s detailed to a fault and skilled at hiding small objects in models he builds. He does this for his daughter, who is blind, and prides herself on unlocking the secret hiding spot for trinkets. He creates miniatures of the city she lives in, first Paris and then Saint Malo. It’s a practical game designed to teach her how to find her way by counting drains in the street.

Separation

They are forced to flee Paris as the Germans threaten to take over the city. They hide out with her uncle, Daniel’s brother Etienne, in the coastal city of Saint Malo in France. He’s a recluse who hasn’t stepped outside his mansion since the Great War. He was a radio broadcaster who sent signals across the country with his massive transmitter. Etienne is a picture of the loss and devastation of war. His broadcasts are meant to communicate with his brother who was killed in the Great War. “…I thought that if I made the broadcast powerful enough, my brother would hear me. That I could bring him some peace, protect him as he had always protected me.” (page 161).

Etienne’s radio becomes a transmitter for the French resistance despite his initial reluctance to have any part of it.

Werner and Jutta are brother and sister at an orphanage in Germany who hear the educational broadcasts Etienne created before the war. Werner is an orphan in Germany with a gift for assembling radios and fixing broken parts. It’s a skill he parlays into a position at a school for kids from connected families in the third Reich. The school prepares kids for battle and separates the soft kids from the tough. It’s here that he again, distinguishes himself as an intelligent pupil and gets special placement with an officer who devices a way to triangulate radio transmission and find the location. 

Through Werner’s school experience he sees the cruelty of a wartime footing. The sensitive souls are beaten in submission by the pliable. It’s a necessary transition that turns Werner’s stomach, for a while. His sister Jutta’s voice, the voice of conscience against the Nazi regime.

Arrangement

The book was written by Anthony Doerr in 2014. He got the idea to set the story in Saint-Malo (France) after visiting the city and marveling at how, despite its drastic reconstruction since the war, it still looked ancient. He alternates characters throughout and uses short chapters to keep the reader engaged. I don’t know why this works better than long chapters but it seems to. The story jumps forward and backward a little bit, but never gets confusing. We instinctively understand the timeline and the characters’ places in it. But there is pain, loss and unanswered questions. 

We all like a tidy wrap up with novels but we don’t get always get them. Such is the case in war. It’s grief, acceptance and then new beginnings. Doerr wants us to feel the unfairness and the uncertainty of life on a daily basis.

Characters

The museum that Daniel and Marie-Laure in Paris sent one courier with the famous Sea of Flames diamond to hide it from the Nazi treasure hunters. They also sent multiple fakes. The idea being, no courier is sure which of them carries the real thing. But all are required to hide it. Von Rumpel is the Nazi collector who searches for the diamond after failing to get it from the museum in Paris. He represents the banality of evil and how greed destroys the soul. He's not inherently evil, he loves his family but becomes obsessed in his pursuit and it overtakes him.  

Another character that undergoes a significant change is Frederick, a student at the school Werner attends. He’s a gentle soul with the mind of a scientist. School is very difficult for him. He’s not as athletic, or brutal as the others. Although he is pragmatic about the difficulty, the training is designed to create warriors not scientists. He’s not up to it and the kids are merciless toward him. His character represents the death of innocence and wonder. Only cold killers are allowed to go forward. If you’ve seen Full Metal Jacket, you’ll think of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Private Pyle.

Conclusion

All the light's theme is the connection we seek to those around us, and how we survive without becoming monsters. The “light” we can’t see is about the humanity that animates all people. We can’t see it in war. Our objectives are to survive and protect. In the same Marie-Laure can’t literally see, war closes off our ability to see beauty and worth in others. It closes off our ability to explore for the sake of learning about the natural world. What kind of life would Werner lead if not for the school and the war? But even in the darkness, light gets through. Marie-Laure still reads her braille books and learns about radios from her uncle and problem-solving skills from her father. She represents the light of humanity even without the ability to see.

It's over 500 pages but reads very quick. I recommend it with the caveat that it’s quite dark in spots. Never gratuitous, but the entire story is set in wartime and that mean death and man’s inhumanity to man.

Shen Yun Get's Unfairly Targeted by NYT

 

China’s Influence on America’s Media Giant

The New York Times did a hit piece on the American dance company Shen Yun. Like most hit pieces, it’s unfairly negative but with a hint of truth. But Shen Yun’s faults are beside the point. The attack by the NYT is illustrative of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence on American media. China uses agents living in the United States to go after their political enemies on our own soil. Shen Yun is emphatically anticommunist and as such, faces attacks. They tell the truth about the repressive regime and its organ harvesting against members of the Falun Gong. Expressed in dance and music and colorful imagery, the performers travel all over the world spreading their message.

Pressure Abroad

The CCP makes it their mission to go after Chinese democracy dissidents, living in the US. Last year, two men were arrested in New York for allegedly running a foreign police station and going after Chinese who had fled Beijing’s oppression. They threatened their families both here and abroad. In 2018, the same station, allegedly coerced another Chinese citizen to return to the country or risk having their relatives killed. These stations operate through non-profits a lot of the time. That’s the word from the legal NGO Safeguard Defenders at least.

In this case, the non-profit responsible for the police station in New York is called American ChangLe association. A second case, filed in Los Angeles accuses two citizens of the PRC of trying to submit a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against US members of the Falun Gong. Both men, who lived in Los Angeles at the time, pleaded guilty. This was less than a month ago. In America we’re used to seeing coercion tactics among foreign countries in China’s periphery. In South Korea, the Chinese government has put pressure on Seoul to revoke Shen Yun’s charter. Diplomatic pressure is what they specialize in. Attacks on our own soil are becoming more frequent however.

Not a Lot Here

Why is the hit piece on Shen Yun illustrative of China’s influence in our own country? Because it shows me that the Times will go after an American company over the silliest of complaints, at the behest of a big rich country.

The article is loaded with complaints that could’ve come from any American football team or Olympic wrestling program. I was forced to play through injuries. Coaches/teachers were pushy and demanding. They said I didn’t have heart and I needed to loose weight. They embarrassed me in front of my peers.

 Elite sports is highly demanding and stressful. These are athletes, not accountants. It’s a grueling life that most of us aren’t cut out for. The physical and emotional demands have to be high or the performance suffers. But sure, they probably overlooked legitimate injuries and forced people to perform hurt. Again, all within the realm of pro sports. It doesn’t feel like enough of a problem to warrant an “investigation”.

Cult or Legit

I’ll acknowledge a few differences here. Falun Gong is the quasi-religious philosophy that underlies Shen Yun. And yes, it's culty. An enigmatic leader (Li Hongzhi) who's followers study his teachings in a compound and use meditation to achieve enlightenment? That's basically cult behavior 101. But before the group was declared illegal (1999) they had close to 100 million adherents. That’s more mainstream religion than cult. But after they silently protested against the government in Beijing, the hammer dropped.

The CCP hates challenges to its authority more than most. After that big protest in 1999 it was open season on Falun Gong believers.. Always a non-violent movement, they were tossed into prison and summarily beaten. The organ harvesting came after that. It’s not hyperbole either, this really happens on a massive scale. I don’t care how nutty your religion, surgically removing your vital organs after putting you under anesthesia is demonic.

Another thing about the NYT article. As a Christian I know how crazy some of our beliefs sound to non-believers. The idea that God created the universe in 6 days is one; that same creation was saved from a flood by hunkering down in an ark with 2 of every animal is another one. I’m not making a moral equivalence here. But we live in a country that doesn’t restrict religious belief or practice. I’m not sure if the adherents of Falun Gong would consider it a religion anyway. What is clear however, is that their message of “truth, compassion” and “tolerance” is best understood through a Shen Yun performance.

Historical Sideline

I see a lot more of the Shen Yun ads than most people. I read the Epoch Times, a principle financier of the show that’s trying to reinvent Chinese culture around the world. They aren’t reinventing it, so much as taking it away from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). Ever since the 1960’s, Chinese culture has been defined by whatever the communist party says it is. Under Mao Zedong, history that didn’t promote workers rights and revolution was destroyed by the Red Guards. Capitalism was a filthy poison from the West (enemies) and only through revolution could the country purify its sordid past. That meant the resources, education and social constructs began servicing the communist party. The wealthy were sent to labor camps or shot. Agriculture was organized under strict social controls. The ideas of Marx were put in place at scale. Millions died.

Art and culture meant ugly labor posters and propaganda that pushed collectivization. After Mao’s death the CCP moved away from total control and started seeking foreign investment. Private companies began to pop up, although sharply controlled. Chairman Deng Xiaoping set much of the country on a path toward prosperity, if not liberalism. He cracked down hard on democracy advocates, as did Zhang Zemin who followed Deng. He, more than any other Chinese leader, persecuted the Falun Gong movement.

Media Matters

Li Hongzhi fled the country for America. He's been waging ideological war on the communist party ever since. As to the hit piece on his efforts, the Epoch Times thinks the article is a gift to Beijing. I understand they’re biased. They’re a part of the same family of financers trying to undercut the CCP around the world. But it’s also probably true. American and British newspapers are constantly getting kicked out of China for exposing this or that. Or, for writing critical stories about party functionaries. Maybe they’ve run afoul of the Chinese government enough times to offer a quid pro quo in the form of a nasty article on Beijing's enemy.

The CCP’s influence has grown in so many other sectors in America, why wouldn’t it also affect media? It’s not just propaganda, in other words, messaging that tells the CCP’s version of history. The China Daily and other social media sites serve this purpose because they’re owned by the party. It’s also censorship of articles that makes the party look bad. They can put pressure on the ownership to make a story go away. Or pay to get an investigation started on enemies, like Shen Yun and the Falun Gong. This is probably what happened with the New York Times.  

Conclusion

Whatever one thinks of Shen Yun and the Falun Gong and the Epoch Times, they are a major irritant to Beijing. When you think of China, does your mind go to Mao Zedong or the Cultural Revolution or the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Does communism loom large in your mental map of the country? I imagine this is what Shen Yun wants to change. If they can untether the CCP from the cultural history of the place, they’ll make people understand what a tragedy communism is. The culture of the place is still defined by the communist party. It wasn’t always.  

Conformity Kills Creativity: Challenge Group Think Everywhere

Conformity Must be Defeated in Modern Life and Institutional Thinking

I was thinking about conformity the other day. It’s one of those amoral words where context is everything. It’s necessary for armies to take ground and high school football teams to score touchdowns. Ego is a killer in team sports. The unit is supreme when selfishness is kept at bay. It’s a disaster in the creative arts. Ever see the Chinese Communist propaganda posters from the Cold War era? They’re drab and one dimensional. It’s all “duty” and “labor” and “service”. It resembles religion because it has to. The input from free peoples isn’t wanted. Democracy is for capitalist dogs.

Conformity is terrible for ideas as well. After years of doing things one way it becomes tough to change. Institutions become entrenched in protecting themselves instead of creating new, better ways, to innovate. It’s true in corporations as well as government offices. As members in a social contract, however, we deserve to have a functioning state. But if it’s functioning specifically against the interests of the citizens, it’s time for change. Americans overwhelmingly wanted border security when George W Bush was president, also when Obama was elected. We never got it because Washington didn’t want it.

Conformity crushes opposing voices and popular concerns.

Changing Views

 In large part the way I read news has changed. A regular Economist subscriber for over a decade, I finally canceled my subscription around 2017 or 2018. They were very unfair to Trump. Not because he’s a Republican either. I’m used to them dumping on Republicans. With Trump it was especially nasty. He was clearly an outsider within the normal range of political animals and globalists hated him with a fierceness. I wasn’t on board with Trump at first. As a general rule I hate braggers. But I hate liars even more. Washington is full of liars. They wanted cheap labor and a dependent class from an open border. They didn’t care about the “huddled masses yearning to be free” like they told us.

 For whatever DJT’s sins as an exaggerator, he stood out as someone speaking truth to a corrupt cabal. I would’ve snickered at the phrase “corrupt cabal” before 2016 but now it’s as obvious as the border crisis.

Compromising Views

I’m of two minds on the idea that all politicians are compromised by some hidden fault or sin. Every corner of America sends representatives to the House and Senate. No matter their background or values, they mostly end up voting the party line. I don’t mean the partisan line either, I mean the D.C. groupthink line. Many of them are compromised.

The rest though, just want to be liked in their circles of influence. Peer pressure gets us all at some point. Why would we think it’s different in the nation’s capital? I heard Thomas Massey of Kentucky say something like this on Tucker Carlson’s show. Could he be downplaying the blackmail? Of course. He can’t exactly say the people he works with everyday are all crooks and perverts. He can’t possibly know anyway. Rumors are just rumor.

But I think his assertion is largely true. For the truth on why so many representatives end up voting against their previously stated principles, look to Occam’s Razor.

Peer pressure is the least complicated answer. We all know how powerful this can be when we think of high school. It’s only the most unique kid that charts a course of their own making, aside from any outside influence. Even that kid will feel pressure in some areas of life.

Changing Narratives

Conformity is so powerful and so simple that we often don’t consider it when trying to understand why our rep voted the way they did. That they caught him with a prostitute is a more complicated explanation, even though it happens. Ask Trump what it’s like being the most hated man in government circles. People all over the country used to love him. He was the “You’re Fired” guy from TV. He taught New York City how to rebuild old towers and make them prosperous again. He donated money to the Democrats and bought and desegregated Mar a Lago.

Now he’s Hitler.

He told Americans that China was ripping them off and that Washington D.C was in on it. He ran on border security because it mattered to the rest of the country. He blasted his enemies from his Twitter bully pulpit. He played the populist with such zeal it scared established politicos. Then he won. A wealthy brat from Queens who never missed a chance to promote himself, won. He’s been a target since then. From lawfare skullduggery to an assassination attempt, they want him gone. Trump doesn’t conform.

I won’t pretend that all of his qualities are beneficial to him or the country. But he plays offense. He attacks and pushes and forces. Because of this the Economist depicted him with a KKK hood for a bullhorn and implied he was spewing racism. I’d had enough by then. It showed me how closely aligned Big Media had become. Was ABC or NBC saying anything different?

 The similarity at least suggested the same playbook across media companies. White patriot who hates unchecked immigration, “racist”. Minority progressive who hates our Christian heritage, “patriot”.

Magazines can have their working biases and points of view, but why do they all take the same antagonist view of Trump? No one at the Economist could make a fiscal case for a secure border?

Conclusion

It's just one example where I started seeing collusion, or at the very least a lack of differentiation in media. Conformity forces everyone to think alike. Like so many institutions that represented the best of us, they’re stacked with loyalists and dying from the inside. A wholesale cleansing is needed. It’s already begun. Industry players like Musk and Zuckerberg have given tacit support to Trump, an unheard of development. Zuckerberg was largely responsible for the cheat during the 2020 election. Even if Trump isn’t elected in November. His example of offensive juggernaut will have a lasting impact on the way we approach these issues in the future.

Conformity must be defeated if we want a meritocratic society once again. Sometimes it takes a determined, offensive man to remind us of it. Otherwise we’ll start seeing those ghastly communist unity posters everywhere.