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Captivated by their scintillating Web advertising and marketing, I went to see Shen Yun, now branded “China earlier than Communism”. Shen Yun is the theatrical enterprise of Falun Gong, apparently a rather profitable venture. Falun Gong is a controversial spiritual motion that’s ostracized in mainland China and Shen Yun is controversial, too: see, for instance, the New Yorker here.
I wasn’t notably excited. The present is split into many, shorter bits. Some are quite attention-grabbing: I used to be enchanted by an Erhu soloist and located the singers fairly good. I believed the orchestra was glorious, and Shen Yun appears clearly able to attracting nice expertise. They attracted nice curiosity too; the theatre was packed, for a matinee in a mid-size Italian metropolis, and a lot of the viewers members have been Italians, quite than Chinese language expatriates. Within the songs, a few verses have been explicitly anti-evolution and anti-atheism, with out a lot of an argument greater than, “this stuff are dangerous for you.” Nonetheless, I don’t suppose many seen in any respect.
I used to be extra puzzled by the quite naïve and cartoonish, dancing presentation of dramatic occasions comparable to protest repression and “organ harvesting”. I want I might ask any person from China if that sort of illustration, which is essentially euphemistic because it goes via dancing in stunning costumes, resonates together with her. To the Western eye, it doesn’t: it trivializes one thing very severe.
Nevertheless, the massive criticism of Falun Gong is that this present is propaganda wrapped up in theater. I feel that’s unfair. If that is propaganda, it’s of the plain, therefore innocent, variety. The denunciation of communism is evident, however it’s not overwhelming (it doesn’t contact any financial arguments, for instance) and it may be ignored by the viewers. The truth is, I feel a lot of the viewers, within the case of the illustration I attended, didn’t pay a lot consideration and wasn’t nudged to. Plus, I can hardly see why this type of “propaganda” must be an issue, in a world during which we’re deafened by politically appropriate propaganda of the other time: which isn’t extra refined, however solely extra urgent. Whereas my sympathies don’t lie with the spiritual values of Falun Gong, I’m appalled that such a present will be thought of a “downside” by anyone.
A final, bittersweet remark. Falun Gong might have gone for extra spiritual preaching, or extra political pamphleteering. As an alternative, they created a music present and achieved super success. They understood one thing most of us libertarians don’t: that individuals reply to tales, to not arguments. Maybe some inventive minds in our motion ought to create a present, “America earlier than socialism”, and tour the world and compete with Shen Yun. I guess it wouldn’t be the worst strategic transfer within the historical past of libertarianism.
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