Cassandra's Dream

In Greek mythology, Cassandra is a tragic prophetess: the god Apollo grants her the ability to make accurate prophecies, yet simultaneously curses her so that her prophecies are never believed by the public. The most famous example is her prediction that the city of Troy would be captured, but the Trojans refused to believe her and dragged the wooden horse built by the Greeks into the city, ultimately leading to Troy's defeat and destruction.

As I see it, many journalists and political commentators today are essentially playing the role of "Cassandra," earnestly reminding our government and society to pay attention to this and that, lest we head down the path of national decline and ruin. Unfortunately, most of the time, these opinions are just like Cassandra's prophecies—no one wants to hear them, no one believes them, and they often end up being dismissed as "barking dogs chasing trains" or "alarmist talk," only for people to suddenly remember and feel deep regret after misfortune or catastrophe strikes. On this point, Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of Intel Corp., mentioned in his bestselling book Only the Paranoid Survive: "If you have someone like Cassandra in your company, do not lightly dismiss their prophecies." If that holds true for a company, how much more so for a nation?

Over the past twelve weeks, having had the honor of being invited to publish articles on judicial reform and policy analysis in this column, I was given the opportunity to serve as a "moonlighting" Cassandra, and thus experienced firsthand how immense the psychological pressure of being Cassandra is! From my personal experience, every time an article was published, people would always come to discuss it with me or offer criticisms and advice. At first, I thought this wouldn't affect my life or mood, but to my surprise, after finishing my sixth piece regarding the amendment opinions on the "Personal Data Protection Act," I suddenly had a dream one night. In the dream, I had to walk through a long, narrow alley of the night, where every two or three meters stood a tall utility pole, and beside each utility pole stood a fierce, barking large dog, forcing me to desperately climb up the utility pole the moment I moved forward so as not to be bitten by the constantly barking dogs on the ground. To make matters worse, when I climbed down from the first pole, even though the first large dog no longer paid much attention to me, the second large dog would immediately pounce on me, scaring me into mustering all my strength to climb up the second utility pole. All through the night, back and forth, up and down, I "climbed" an unknown number of utility poles before I could safely pass through that long alley with a fright. Upon waking up, I initially didn't know what this strange dream meant. After thinking carefully, writing articles is called "climbing grid squares" in Chinese, while an English column is literally named a column (which also has the meaning of a cylindrical pillar); therefore, in my dream, "writing a column" was materialized into "climbing utility poles," and the comments from people who intimidated me and brought psychological pressure were "transformed" into scary, barking, and jumping large dogs beside the utility poles! From this, one can see how difficult it is to be a competent Cassandra!

Fortunately, after finishing this article I will be "stepping down," and in the future more Cassandras will release more messages that are worth everyone listening to attentively. During this period, I am deeply grateful for the readers' guidance and China Times' invitation to write. Finally, let me reveal a bit of the reason why I accepted this column in the first place, a reason that is actually written on the wall right as you enter the Judicial Reform Foundation:

Looking forward to a day when—
Those who abide by the law are not lonely,
Those who violate the law harbor fear in their hearts,
And everyone can attain the justice in their hearts.

Looking forward to a day when—
Judiciary can become our shared promise,
Promising a fair trial,
An egalitarian culture,
A society that embodies justice.

Perhaps you might call this a Cassandra's dream, but I know I am not the only one harboring this dream. Let us all work hard together!

※ Published in: 2004-7-29 / China Times