Poetry: Questioning the EU Referendum

Editorial note: “Many readers outside Europe will not have heard of Britain’s plan to vote on whether or not to stay in the European Union – nor indeed may any who have care very much. But Chengde’s thoughts apply not only to a single referendum, but to democracy itself.  They apply to every item we buy in the shop, every deposit someone makes at a bank.”

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A poem by Chengde Chen 

Questioning the Referendum

Britain is split by whether to remain in the EU or not
but very much united over the way of resolution
All the parties have agreed to settle it by a referendum –
let the people decide – the great principle seems indisputable
Yet, there’re two questions like a fish-bone stuck in my throat:
is it true that people always understand their own interests?
is it democracy to vote on things the voters don’t understand?

Democracy contains two elements that are linked
One, people have the right to vote for their own interests
Two, voters should know what their interests are –
only such voters can really exercise their right to vote
Children can’t vote, as they don’t understand their interests
Nor can mental patients, as they may not know theirs either
To ask people to vote on things they don’t understand
is to let the blind select colour or the deaf judge music
Do ordinary folks always understand their own interests?
With the increase in scale and complexity of society
there are issues beyond most people’s comprehension
For such matters, adults are in fact ‘children’ –
sufficient age does not mean sufficient knowledge
Although knowledge can be obtained through education
not all that is needed can be given by a short course

How would voting be affected by ignorance?
Operational research shows that
if there is a correct choice, ignorance reduces its chances
When a thousand vote on an issue understood only by ten
the rationality of the 1% will be drowned in the sea of ignorance
So, when doctors are divided over a surgical procedure
the hospital refers it to an expert panel, not a referendum
People need specialists’ help for their democracy
just as they need their GPs and solicitors

Whether Britain should stay in the European Union
is an extremely complex matter that is highly technical
Either way has countless advantages and disadvantages –
many many economic, political, and cultural concerns
many many short, medium, and long term consequences
Some effects may be foreseen, while most are not…
an overall understanding takes sophisticated calculation
 (Some want to leave the EU because they dislike Germans
as if they could go to war with Scots because of their kilts!)

If the principle of not allowing children to vote is right
to use a referendum to determine the EU matter is wrong
Parliament shirking its responsibility in the name of democracy
is like a pilot handing over his plane to the passengers in that name!
The matter should be decided by a certain ‘expert democracy’
for example, to let a thousand economists vote on it
Although this won’t guarantee a correct decision
it will be a more scientific one, rooted in reason

I do not, of course, expect the country to heed my advice
so I leave this poem to those heading for the ballot box
A ballot box is the symbol of democracy
but its slot should be guarded by knowledge
Voting with knowledge is democracy with reason
while a box of ignorance is a political dustbin
Britain did not have Confucius, but can have his words:
‘Understanding is understanding, and not so is not so’
A rational man shouldn’t vote on things he doesn’t understand
while an abstainer can be proud of his or her rationality!
 

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Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poetry: A Royal Question

Editorial note: In this poem, Chengde talks at one level about the Queen of England, a topic of perennial interest to the English and the social media - but evidently of rather limited 'philosophical' interest. However, we feel he uses the theme to explore deeper and and more subtle issues. Is he making a very contemporary point about the relationship of parents and children – and how economic power can lie (stay) with the parents even in old age?

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A poem by Chengde Chen 

A Royal Question

With Her Majesty’s 90th birthday approaching,
Britain can’t help asking an inconvenient question:
why still no sign of abdication?
Apart from anything else, won’t the 68-year-old future king
become too old for his future?
It is said that there are two reasons for her persisting.

One, it’s a British tradition that the monarch doesn’t retire.
Two, she made her vow in her coronation to serve for life.
Yet, how does she see her heir apparent’s situation?
Isn’t a mother’s devotion an instinctive “tradition” and “vow”?
If a ceremonial title weighs more than her son’s happiness,
hasn’t wearing the crown exhausted her motherhood?

To succeed to the throne is a prince’s natural desire,
much as students want to graduate or fledglings want to fly.
The humiliation of the long wait, the grey hair from restraint:
wouldn’t the mother have seen and understood?
She can pretend not to have, or choose to ignore them, but
can she ignore the resentment growing in his heart?

If he is waiting for, or even longing for, his mother’s…,
what would this mean to her?
The soul-stirring succession stories that happened in history
–the internal strife, the murderous fighting with drawn swords–
are the logical development of prince psychology.
To keep the throne, or the son, that is the question.



 

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Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poetry: The Making of Terror

A  poem by Chengde Chen

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Terrible as terrorism is, should we be so terrified, just as terrorists want?

It’s much less frequent than road accidents that kill hundreds every day; nor scarier than psychopaths’ random attacks that are as unpredictable.
There’re greater chances of being killed by a common cold or diarrhoea.

It is the media that 'turns' a homemade bomb into a nuclear explosion.
It is the government that 'legalises' the fear of it by changing the laws.
It is the trembling public psyche that completes the process of terror –
a religion of fear, jointly founded by enemies in the name of war!

The Americans should invite their 32nd President (Roosevelt) back,
as he understood that 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'.
Or they might consult successful or unsuccessful actors on Broadway,
who know only too well that a play can’t run long without audience

Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poetry to Refute Dawkinsism

A special poem by Chengde Chen to launch the new blog

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How to Refute Dawkins’ Atheism

 

Dear Professor Dawkins, 

Yes, your bestseller, The God Delusion, is bought by millions;
more so your TV debates taking on archbishops, hotly YouTubed.
“No belief without evidence”, your atheist crusade is convincing,
like sounding the new death-knell of religion, with web power.

When the believers defend faith with Scripture,
you dare them to “walk on water” or “turn water into wine”.
When they count the moral good religion brings,
you attribute enough wars and scandals to the Church.
When they’re lost for words, or deeds, and God is laughed at,
you harvest applause, like the invincible spokesman of reason.

However, let me ask you a hypothetical question: 
 
“If you knew it was the case that, without the fear of God,
human society would collapse, would you still reject religion?”
 
If you say “yes”, surely you would see how irrational you were –
worse than cutting off a man’s head to treat his headache.
A rational person, as you firmly claim to be, has to say “no” –
doesn’t this mean faith could be justified without evidence?

Reason has two functions: seeking truth and weighing expediency;
if we can’t tell if it’ll rain, we’ll carry an umbrella as a precaution.
Since “God’s existence” can neither be proved, nor disproved,
it’s reasonable for man to discipline himself with the imagination,
which wasn’t a “delusion” that happened to occur in all cultures,
but a spiritual organ driven by the evolutionary need to coexist.

Without the simple idea of the-Almighty-for-good-and-against-evil, 
what could have turned a race of jungle animal into a moral being?
True or not, the great invention of man’s “second heart”
deserves Nobel returning to history to award his best prize! 

 Yours sincerely, 

     An agnostic-who-explains-religion-with-evolution
 

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Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here