[Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and Entrepreneurs [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au
Tue Jul 15 19:01:55 PDT 2008 

Dear brother Hoanh and brother Binh

Thank you very much for your view on these complicated terms. 

I am not completely sure the meaning in English of the "class". But in 
Vietnamese, normally people understand "tầng lớp" as a kind of "social", 
or "sociological" term, while "giai cấp" is somewhat more "political". 

Besides of this, I don't think that there is a "giai cấp trí thức" - 
intellectual class, in the society. 

Regards
----------------------------------------------
Nguyen Quang ANH

 



Vu The Binh <binh at netnam.vn> 
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Re: [Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals and 
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[ Vietnam Business Forum ]

Hi a. Quang Anh,

What I've remembered from Marx definition (translated into Vietnamese,
probably): "giai cấp" will lead to "đấu tranh giai cấp", but "tầng 
lớp"
won't lead to "đấu tranh tầng lớp" ;-)

Best, Binh.

QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au wrote:
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Dear anh Hoanh
>
> Thanks a lot for your discussion.
>
> I translated the word "class" from the original Vietnamese term of that
> research: tầng lớp. Is that a little bit different from the word: 
"giai
> cấp"?
>
> Regards
>
> */----------------------------------------------/*
> */Nguyen Quang ANH/*
> Activity Manager
> Economic Governance
> AusAID Hanoi
> 8 Dao Tan, Ba Dinh, Hanoi, Vietnam
> Web: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/vietnam/
> Tel: +84 4 8317755 ext. 129 Fax: +84 4 8317706
> Mobile: +849032 88813
> Email: _QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au_ <mailto:QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au
>
> */----------------------------------------------/*
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *"Tran Dinh Hoanh" <tdhoanh at gmail.com>*
> Sent by: vnbiz-bounces at mail.saigon.com
>
> 14/07/2008 10:48 PM
> Please respond to
> vnbiz at vietlinks.net
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> Subject
>       Re: [Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals 
and
> Entrepreneurs [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear Brother Quang Anh & CACC,
>
> Thanks for the interesting issue you have just laid out on the table.
> We need to cover it a little before going further into this "building an
> intelligentsia" issue.
>
> The elements and characteristics of "class" are different from society
> to society, and also from each classifier (i.e., scholar) to classifier,
> but generally the term "class" implies a hierarchy in the society.  The
> group of people in the top layer of the hierarchy is called "high class"
> and the group at the bottom is "low class."  What makes a class high or
> low is the power and/or money and/or prestige that the people in the
> class hold.  Power,  money and prestige in turn may come from
> profession/vocation, family heritage, racial heritage and other cultural
> factors (ex: Brahmin was the highest class and the "untouchable" was the
> lowest class in India).
>
> A hierarchy of classes can be very rigid or less rigid.  A hierarchy
> that doesn't allow people to change class and move into a higher class
> easily is a rigid hierarchy. If upward movements are allowed, then the
> hierarchy is less rigid.
>
> When we use the characteristics of Medieval Europe's aristocracy or
> intelligentsia as standards, we may say that Vietnam didn't have
> aristocracy or intelligentsia.  But if we just look at Vietnam itself
> and figure out who had the most power, money and prestige, then Si nong
> cong thuong were very much the four layers in the hierarchy:  Si was
> obviously the class with most power and prestige.  Some si phu didn't
> have much money if they didn't get to be government officials and worked
> as ong do gia in the village, but they still held the highest prestige
> in the village.  Thuong was obviously the class that looked down upon,
> even if you had money.  These classes were not very rigid in Vietnam as
> in Europe or India.  So it depends on what we mean when we say
> "class."   Yes, Vietnam didn't have the European-style classes, but
> Vietnam had the Vietnamese-style classes.
>
> The idea of class is still important today in sociology and other
> studies of human behavior.  My observation is that marketing people are
> the true masters of social classes today.  They group people into all
> kinds of grouping, by age, profession, gender, hobbies, shopping
> habit, etc. and they don't use the term "class" at all; instead they
> use "category," "group" and the like.  But that is really the study of
> class to the extreme degree.  My point is that the idea of class (or
> group) is still very useful in today sociology and social engineering.
>
> Given the socialist revolution in the recent pass, which was premised on
> all kinds of bloody class conflict, many people today don't want to use
> the term "class" and don't want to say that we have any class.  That is
> very understandable.  I would avoid using the term "class" or  "giai
> cap" in all of  my writings if I can.
>
> Now back to the intelligentsia, the word "intelligentsia" was coined by
> the Russians writers during the Russian Revolution, to indicate the
> class of intellectuals, which is between the exploiting class and the
> proletariat at the bottom.  The intelligentsia, according to the Marxist
> Leninist tradition, were paid by and served the exploiting class
> (Obviously, the proletariat didn't have money to pay the intellectuals).
>
> OK, we are not talking about the "intelligentsia" in that way.  Let's
> clarify the term "intelligentsia" as we understand here (or at least, as
> I intend to use it here).  First, I define intellectual loosely as a
> person who works mostly by brainpower, especially creative brainpower,
> more than physical power or repetitive tasks without much thinking.
> This would include writers, journalists, teachers, lawyers, doctors,
> government managers, engineers, social workers, etc.., and college
> students as young intellectuals.
>
> By intelligentsia, I mean the connections among, and the network
> of, these intellectuals so that they are close to each other, they
> stimulate each other's thinking, they share their thinking wide to the
> public at large, and their thinking provide insight or at least
> intellectual input for many parts of the nation, especially the
> government and the policy-making bodies.
>
> To have a vigorous such a vigorous intelligentsia, first and foremost,
> intellectuals have to be free to talk and publish their thinking.  This
> is 90 percent of the issue.  If intellectuals are free to talk, we have
> gone 90 percent of the way.  The rest 10% is for technical management
> issues.  You simply can't have an intelligentsia if intellectuals have
> to talk the Party line.  That is no intellectual.  Why should we need
> any brainpower to repeat the Party line?  All we need is a cheap tape
> recorder  (Don't even need an expensive one).
> And let us be clear that "the Party line" here doesn't just mean the VCP
> line (although I do mean the VCP), but it also covers other party
> lines.  Ex: Can an intellectual talk freely against the anti-communist
> line in a Vietnamese language newspaper here in the US or Australia?
> You can do it for a couple of days, and no one can guarantee how you
> would be after that, right?
>
> I have talked with enough high ranking friends in the VCP to know that
> everyone of you understand the issue as much as I do.  No need for me to
> keep talking about it.  I just want to have a message to the
> brothers/sisters in the VCP, especially you guys in the top leadership
> role:  I know there are practical concerns for development stability.
> But we all, both you and me, also know that the nation needs to unleash
> its brainpower.  I know everything needs to be within certain limits,
> but the limits you guys have now are ridiculous; they simply choke the
> intellectual bloodlines, suffocate our intellectuals, and make the
> nation so uncreative. This issue involves the brainpower, i.e., the
> current and the future, of the nation.  Please work on it seriously.
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
> __________________________
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:53 PM, <_QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au_
> <mailto:QuangAnh.Nguyen at dfat.gov.au>> wrote:
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
> Dear brother Hoanh,
>
> This is an interesting topic. Actually, in a similar view, there was
> another comprehensive research some years ago on "dân tộc tính" (people
> characteristics) in Vietnam. I read a part of the book and really
> impressed by a conclusion made by one professor (sorry I forgot his
> name). His view was:
> 1. Vietnam has no class of aristocrat;
> 2. Vietnam has no class of intellectuals (or ideologist)
> 3. Vietnam has no class of business people.
>
> I heard that this a little bit shocking view was appreciated by a large
> number of intellectuals. In short, the rational of those conclusion was:
>
> 1. Vietnam has no class of aristocrat: in history, it was rarely found
> an aristocrat family, continuously existed from dynasty to dynasty. The
> system of "cong - hau - ba - tu - nam" was a "learning" replication from
> Chinese system. Not many of those family continue to be aristocrat when
> the kings were changed. It was said that even in some contemporary
> "royal" family, the role of the later generation are not quite important
> as their ancestors.
>
> 2. Vietnam has no class of intellectuals (or ideologist): in a view that
> those people could impress or imprint their idea to the society or
> especially the emperors to rule the country. There is no man like
> Confusius (Khong tu) or Han Phi Tu, or Machivielli appeared during our
> history. Great politician like Nguyen Trai, or Nguyen Binh Khiem, did a
> perfect job from time to time, but more in a role of a senior official,
> not an ideaologist that provide strategic influences to their kings and
> making the policy for ruling the country. And it appeared that they were
> more successful in the role of a culturalist, or artist not ideologist.
>
> 3. Vietnam has no class of business people: In feudal time, business
> (thuong nhan) was not respected (the usual order of society classes was:
> si - nong - cong - thuong or intelectual -  farmer - mechanic - business
> people) and therefore, there was no name of businessmen were mentioned
> in history. They  found that there were a few businessmen successful in
> the period from end of 19th and early 20th century (before the
> liberation 1945). However, it appears that those people did not become a
> true force that could lead the whole economy at that time. It was
> understandable because most of the economic power was controlled by the
> colonial administration.
>
> Currently, this class become more and more remarkable since the "doi
> moi". However, it is only in this starting point. A large number of
> business people are actually leaders of state corporations, which are
> leading the economy with resources provided by the State.
>
> Have a nice week
> */----------------------------------------------/*
> */Nguyen Quang ANH/*
>
>
>
>
> *"Tran Dinh Hoanh" <**_tdhoanh at gmail.com_* <mailto:tdhoanh at gmail.com>*>*
> Sent by: _vnbiz-bounces at mail.saigon.com_
> <mailto:vnbiz-bounces at mail.saigon.com>
>
> 13/07/2008 10:48 PM
> Please respond to
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>       Re: [Vnbiz] Building the Vietnamese Intelligentsia--Intellectuals 
and
> Entrepreneurs [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear CACC,
>
> The late historian Tran Khac Vien (I love him) said in his now famous
> quote: "Vietnam has intellectuals but no intelligentsia."  How do you
> think about that comment?
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
>
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 3:18 AM, <_Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov_
> <mailto:Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov>> wrote:
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
> Dear anh Hoanh,
> This is not the same as the call to build an intelligentsia as the old
> writings you read about that was produced in the first half of the 20th
> century in Vietnam.  More accurate, this is a call to build up a
> technocratic class with specific technical expertise in business.  This
> is simply a call to train more MBAs.
> Vietnam has always had intellectuals, with great historical ones such as
> Nguyen Truong To, Phan Chu Trinh, Ba Huyen Thanh Quan, Bui thi Xuan,
> Nguyen Trai, Nguyen Du, Doan thi Diem (not in any order).  But, not
> counting the "intelligentsia" in the feudal courts,  Vietnam only had a
> nascent such group that came together in the latter part of colonial
> French rule, but was pretty much wiped out by the time of Nhan Van -
> Giai Pham in the late 50's.  South Vietnam's two decades plus of
> existence hosted the renmants of the northern refugee intelligentsia
> along with its own home grown for a few short years of feverish,
> war-distorted development before being stunted domestically or scattered
> to the four corners of the globe in 1975.  Until "intelligentsia" no
> longer required the qualifier "patriotic" in Vietnam's political lingo,
> calls for the development of a local intelligentsia is either
> superfluous or insincer e.
>
> While the first steps toward building a private economy is to just let
> it grow, sustained market economy is no piece of cake.  An entire
> appropriated legal framework has to be developed and implementing
> regulations have to be put in place to handle not just the economic, but
> as attendant social and political changes.  Unbriddled capitalism
> inevitably leads to negative things like the "com tu" problem you've
> observed.  But, just to put things into perspective, if such a
> restaurant existed 20 years ago, even with the food and service quality
> of a state-owned establishment, passengers would have considered it a
> blessing.
>
> Building an intelligentsia is not the business of the government, unless
> you want a state-owned intelligensia.  If intellectuals need
> government's encouragement to think, speak and write freely, the nation
> is in deeper trouble than we can imagine.  The government should
> encourage/support education, protect the people's rights to think, speak
> and write, and not persecute intellectuals who do not agree.
>
> It is wrong to attribute lack of public discourse to culture, unless you
> chose to ignore traditional culture and focus only on contemporary
> culture which is heavily and directly influence by the regime.  There
> is little space for public discourse and only one voice addressing all
> major issues, that of the regime.
>
> Depending on where you are and what you say, speaking out in public may
> mean that your spouse will spend all her time and energy supporting
> you while you're on an extended involuntary vacation, and your friends
> will get numerous requests to meet with the local public secutity 
office.
> Cheers,
> HPP
>
>
> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
> Washington DC
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> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
> Washington DC
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