 A classic of pre-modern Korean literature (according to the Introduction, anyway). Hong Gildong is born the illegitimate son of a minister and one of his concubines (common family formation back then for elites in Korean society, or so the Introduction tells) and cannot "address [his] father as Father, [his] older brother as Brother." A youth with superlative intelligence and physical abilities, along with a noble countenance ("I saw not only the magnificent features of a grand personage without equal but also the spirit of rivers and mountains deep in his brow..."--perhaps this is one reason for the obsession with plastic surgery in Korea; one becomes not only a better commodity but also the possessor of a destiny), Hong Gildong becomes the leader of a group of bandits, being structurally excluded from holding an official position due to his illegitimate status. He lives sort of a Robin Hood-like existence, stealing from corrupt officials and distributing back to the poor, and eventually creates an ideal Confucian society on an uninhabited island. It is interesting, as the Introduction writes, that his utopian society completely replicates the society he was excluded from. Hong Gildong is not a radical by any measure.
There is nothing that resembles character development in the book. There is no extended description of the agony, the resentment, the suffering of being an illegitimate child. Near the end of the book, once Hong Gildong is able to claim legitimate status, there is more written about Hong Gildong's ritual actions toward his father and his mother (e.g. ancestor worship) than about Hong Gildong the protagonist. This may speak to a different ethical orientation: Hong Gildong, despite his numerous adventures and his individual capabilities, is not as important as an individual as he is a son and a brother in the context of the Korean family.
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 "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." begins the famous introduction of A Tale of Two Cities, establishing the theme of dualities (e.g. best and worst, wisdom and foolishness, Light and Darkness, England and France, etc.). The readers are soon introduced to two characters, a pair of doubles, who embody this contradiction: the aristocratic French Charles Darnay and the English Sydney Carton. Both characters lack family ties (one cast away ties to his aristocratic origins and the other is an orphan) and both fall in love with the French-English Lucie Manette.
The structure of the novel also follows the theme (I have not done a thorough evaluation of this). There are two trials in the novel, one at the beginning and one at the end. Both are for the life of an innocent Charles Darnay. Twice it is Sydney Carton and his amazing likeness to Darnay that saves the French aristocrat. Dr. Manette is brought to England from France to be returned to life; Sydney Carton is brought to life through his sacrificial act. The tale takes place during the French Revolution, but there is little recognition of the Revolution as an epochal Event; the abdication of the French King and Queen happens with barely a comment; the context of the Revolution seems merely borrowed so that Dickens can write about class conflict and the absolute destitution of the lower classes, while setting the story in both England and France. I think it was E.M. Forster in his book, Aspects of the Novel, where he commented that Dickens' characters are "flat" as opposed to "round"; there is little that Dickens' characters say or do that is unexpected. Charles Darnay is always Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette is always Lucie Manette; they are as flat as a minor character like Stryver. Dr. Manette is a bit rounder. I like Sydney Carton because of his redemptive act (I'm actually not sure if this makes him a "round" character, but it certainly makes him a lot more interesting than the others).  This is the third volume of Andreas Antonopoulos' The Internet of Money series, where his lectures are transcribed.
There was nothing too novel with the third volume in comparison to the ideas presented in the first two volumes, where Antonopoulos introduced ideas like sousveillance (the opposite of surveillance) and the inadequacy of current design metaphors for Bitcoin. There are roughly three topics in the collection. For Andreas the libertarian/anarchist (not sure where he would fall politically, exactly), money is a form of control. In his view of the world, the banking system is dominated by organizations that control centralized and corrupt networks, who are gatekeepers preventing democratic decision making. Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) protocols become recast by Antonopoulos as mechanisms of control and surveillance. These mechanisms do not prevent money laundering; it makes it the sole prerogative of these financial institutions. Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology that takes control back from the banks and other centralized institutions and extends financial inclusion to those currently excluded in the current system. Most people in the world who do not live in the developed world are deemed not worthy of basic financial services by banks; Bitcoin gives them a bank in their pockets. Antonopoulos discusses his ideas of success for the community. For him, success depends on the extent to which Bitcoin keeps to its principles, which he articulates as "remaining free, open, decentralized, neutral, and censorship-resistant" (p. 26), and not mainstream adoption or market capitalization. Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology that facilitates decentralization (peer-to-peer and removal of intermediaries) and disintermediation. The most important aspect of Bitcoin for him is the core architecture and the core values that the architecture conveys; he notes that there may be other cryptocurrencies in the future that are more accepted than Bitcoin. Only by sticking to these core values can Bitcoin advance financial privacy, and by extension, privacy for the individual, which he claims as a human right. Financial privacy is under threat by a "world of totalitarian financial surveillance" (p. 55). There is a tension between governance and liberty; Antonopoulos explores this tension in the ability to write unstoppable code on Ethereum. Antonopoulos remains optimistic and believes in the goodness of human nature in this debate (like most anarchists and maybe libertarians) and thinks that a framework for unstoppable code will lead to great applications that benefit other people. |
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