Hong Kong pan-democrats exhibit a suffocating sense of moral superiority
Perhaps it's time to call the whole thing off. It's getting clearer by the day that what separates the Hong Kong and central governments from the pan-democratic lawmakers over the electoral reform package for 2017 runs so much deeper and is infinitely more complicated than the "You like to-may-toes and I like to-mah-toes" kind of disagreement. Their differences are as much ideological as they are epistemological. While one side seems to care only about what is politically possible, the other side is fixated on what it believes to be morally right.
Then who is to blame more? Well, it has to be the pan-democrats. In politics, there is nothing more foolish and destructive to the cause and detrimental to society than morality for the sake of morality. There are situations in which a politician can adhere to his principles, yet still advance his cause. It would be foolish for him to betray his principles when holding to them would give him the same benefit. But more often than not, a politician has to compromise on his principles to get others on board and get things done or just moving, if only for the simple reason that other people have principles too.
What makes the pan-democrats so difficult to do business with is their suffocating sense of moral superiority. They never stop believing for a second that they are right and their opponents are their moral inferiors. This is interesting and calls to mind two of my favourite television characters.
One is Thomas More of , the BBC adaptation of two Man Booker Prize-winning novels by Hilary Mantel. In this compelling television drama, Thomas Cromwell is a shrewd fixer of the Tudor era who is a hero not because he is virtuous but because he has no illusions and is willing to do what is necessary. Thomas More is his mirror self, a torturer and a religious fanatic who insists that he is the good guy because of his unshakeable ideals.
In Hong Kong, currently rerunning at midnight on TVB Jade, , first broadcast in 1992, is regarded by some as the best drama in local television history. Its canonical status has much to do with the unusual and, seen from today's perspective, profoundly poignant characterisation of its anti-hero Ting Hai, who is played by Adam Cheng Siu-chow. Ting Hai is a murderer - he beats his best friend to death and throws his four sons, one by one, off a skyscraper. But he is a murderer armed with a false sense of moral superiority. He thinks he is the only infallible one in a fallen world. As do the pan-democrats.
