Words matter : West Asia, not the Middle East

Once again, Chas Freeman (born in 1943) aka Fu Li Min 傅 立 民 Fu4 Li4 Min2 demonstrates vividly that he is a scholar & a gentleman. The other Anglo-Saxon coming spontaneously to my mind having this kind of refined grasping of reality is obviously Alastair Crooke.

Chas Freeman was the main interpreter for the 1972 Richard Nixon China Visit.

He was the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992.

The World has really changed : from now on, the Middle East is no more except in History manuals.

West Asia is.

He also showed the quality of his mind by choosing a staggeringly precise word for his 2013 book called : China, America and the shifting balance of PRESTIGE.

Words matter.

They matter because they build a representation of the World and contribute to cultural hegemony, a major tool of power, if a given representation of the World is THE representation, acknowledged by everyone or by the majority.

A last word.

Confucius offered in the chapter 13 of his Selected Sayings (Analects or 论 语 Lun2 Yu3) his ideas on the Rectification of Names (Zheng Ming 正 名 Zheng4 Ming2). The right names for designating the corresponding realities is the foundation of right living and right governance. Zheng Ming is the inescapable rock for the epistemological journey. The true naming comes from the understanding & complete penetration of the Timeless Forms, not from the nominalist games making words playthings for the unhealthy or under-developed minds.