Netizens Should Be Tolerant
The following is the translation of a series of blog posts in which three Chinese bloggers went through a process of public debate. Please note that the exchange did not go through 'comments.' Rather, each blogger wrote at their own blogs.
(Wu Jiaxiang's blog) Xue Yong, Why Don't You Go To The Countryside? March 18, 2007.
[in translation]
When I saw his (note: Xue Yong's) "brand," I was astonished: "An anti-intellectual scholar"! A graduate from the Department of Chinese at the top university of China (Peking University) and a history doctoral student at one of the most famous universities in the world (Yale University) (he has not yet gotten his degree and it does not look like he has any hope of ever graduating), an American university history teacher ... so why is he an anti-intellectual?
It seems that he is not really anti-intellectual. He is a fake anti-intellectual. He is an anti-intellectual as much as someone who became president denounces power, a woman who is a prostitute denounces prostitution, a man who robs a house denounces robbers, a guy who is pulling up his pants after getting off a naked woman rushes over to the computer to write an essay that claims that sexual abstinence is healthy for the body ...
What is true anti-intellectualism? True anti-intellectualism means you better pack quickly, hop on the first plane from the United States to China, find the most remote mountain area and heed the call from Chairman Mao forty years ago to go into countryside, join a production brigade and be educated by the poor and middle-class peasants. Or else you can find a Project of Hope elementary school in a backward area and become a volunteer teacher so that you don't have to do what you are asking teacher Wu Jinglian to do -- public disclosure of his income. The American literary writer Thoreau was a true gentleman who loved nature, rejected city life thoroughly and established his home next to Walden Pond; Xue Yong is a hypocritical gentleman, who draws a salary from an American university which treats wisdom as a product while he opposes the pursuit of wisdom which is one of the highest goals of mankind ever since the times of ancient Greece.
(Lili Ruth Jiang's blog) Xue Yong and Wu Jiaxiang -- who is right and who is wrong? March 26, 2007.
[in translation]
A couple of days ago, the Sohu blog front page made a recommendation of Wu Jiaxiang's blog post <Xue Yong -- Why Don't You Go Into The Countryside?>. Just the title alone was enough to cause me to jump, because I thought that I must be back in the Beijing of forty years ago. I went to Wu Jiaxiang's blog and read his biography. He is a research associate with the Chinese Communist Central Department -- no wonder he is giving out these kinds of suggestions!
Wu Jiaxiang had doubts about Xue Yong's brand name of "anti-intellectual scholar." Wu wrote: "It seems that he is not really anti-intellectual. He is a fake anti-intellectual. He is an anti-intellectual as much as someone who became president denounces power, a woman who is a prostitute denounces prostitution, a man who robs a house denounces robbers, a guy who is pulling up his pants after getting off a naked woman rushes over to the computer to write an essay that claims that sexual abstinence is healthy for the body ..."
When I lived in the United States, I knew that there is a tradition of "anti-intellectualism." I don't know why such a proper topic could debase Xue Yong? So I went to Xue Yong's blog and I found out that his concept of anti-intellectualism is basically this:
A person who does not know a single word should be able to sit at the same table with a Nobel Prize winner, no matter about political rights or character. If this tradition is used properly, it may be able to challenge and check elitism, break though the cultural hegemony created by the interests already obtained by the intellectual class and maintain the creative originality of society and the grassroots nature of democracy.
There are 519 essays in Xue Yong's blog. I spend most of this weekend reading the majority of them. My overall impression is: he is very serious about his scholarly work; he is honest and sincere towards people; he is filled with humanitarian concerns for the world and the people.
Xue Yong said that "he has never gone on a vacation tour in his ten years in the United States; he spent the whole time reading in the library or else at home." This is not easy to do. You must think about the network of roads in the United States, the beautiful rivers and mountains and the convenient hotel/motel services. It is such an enjoyment to travel! But he did not do that for ten years!
There are any number of Chinese-language essays that present the United States. My personal view is based upon the understanding of the values, and Xue Yong is among the top three for me. First place belongs to Zhao Haosheng. The series of essays that he wrote back then in <Reference News> gave us a glimpse of the outside world in an age of restricted information. Second place goes to Dong Dingshan, the brother of Dong Leshan, and those two opened the window on the United States for us in <Dushu> magazine in the 1970's and 1980's. Concerning Dong Leshan, Xue Yong wrote in a memorial essay: "Now that I am living overseas, I often think about people like Mister Dong. He spent his whole life hoping to help the Chinese understand the United States. As the top Chinese expert on the United States, he seldom had the chance to see the United States. Instead, a younger person such as myself gets to stay there for ten years. Therefore, in memory of the soul of Mister Dong, we ought to keep writing." Third place goes to Xue Yong.
Wu Jiaxiang said: "Xue Yong is a hypocrite." I don't know Xue Yong and I have no right to speak. He also said that Wang Shuo has turned from a "fake hooligan to a fake gentleman." It is hard for me to believe that Wang Shuo is a fake gentleman -- this is like asking me to believe that Li Xuejian stole 5 RMB from the neighbor's house! Wang Shuo does not even want to become a real gentleman, so why does he need to become a fake one? So I have my doubts about Wu Jiaxiang saying "Xue Yong is a fake gentleman."
Wu Jiaxiang analyzed this way: "Why does Xue Yong want to be anti-intellectual. Because his sensitive sense of smell detected the heavy 'grassroots' smell in China. He knows that the true grassroots do not have vocal chords to make sounds, and therefore all those grassroots who can cry out must be fakes. Simply put, anti-intellectual scholars must be like Lenin in exile on the shores of Lake Geneva and become the spiritual leaders of the 'oppressed' people. The difference is that the former 'proletariat' has become today's grassroots."
I am really impressed by Mister Wu's power of imagination!
As a fake grassroot, I also have a question: In Mister Wu's system of analogy, where does he place himself? Bukharin before Lenin returned to Russia? Or Stalin? Or Mao Zedong before Wang Ming returned from Soviet Russia?
I have no experience in academics, politics or business and I don't have those kinds of vistas. My vista is that of an ordinary citizen. As an ordinary citizen, I want to talk about things calmly. We are not living in the dark ages that Mister Lu Xun lived in, and we don't have to act like Mister Lu Xun -- treating each essay as a knife or spear.
I am not qualified to figure out the rights and wrongs of Xue Yong and Wu Jiaxiang.
But I hear a different voice in my heart. This voice is very loud and clear. This voice is saying: If you think that you are living in a grand and bright era, you must have a bright and warm heart that corresponds to this era.
No matter what, I am grateful to Mister Wu for letting me discover a good blog. Without his rant, I don't know how much more time will it take for me to find Xue Yong! I also want to be fair and say that I like many of Mister Wu's writings.
(ChineseNewsNet) Netizens Should Be Tolerant. By Xue Yong (薛涌). March 28, 2007.
[in translation]
I have always believed that there is a fine balance between maintaining Internet civility and defending freedom of speech. While Internet civility is good, it could infringe upon freedom of speech; in that case, I would rather the Internet be more vulgar instead. Particularly during last year, there were some "well blowouts" in netizen opinions. So some people believe that netizen opinion is not the same as public opinion and netizens are not rational beings ...
Actually, we understand that the lack of civility on the Internet came about because certain people lack other channels to express their feelings and opinions and they feel belittled. Since we are unable to provide more opportunities for public debate and expression at this moment, we hope that people who want to hear their own voices can vent themselves on the Internet. Even if their language is sometimes rude, they have at least let the steam come out and maybe they will become gentler in their normal daily lives. This may not be a bad thing for society. The worst solution would have been to deprive people of their right to speak, including their right to vent their opinions on the Internet.
I say all this in order to assert: although it is not a good thing for the Internet to be uncivil, it is not so horrible. We do not have to be overly concerned. Let me give you an example. Recently someone left his reaction after reading my blog:
When I saw his (note: Xue Yong's) "brand," I was astonished: "An anti-intellectual scholar"! A graduate from the Department of Chinese at the top university of China (Peking University) and a history doctoral student at one of the most famous universities in the world (Yale University) (he has not yet gotten his degree and it does not look like he has any hope of ever graduating), an American university history teacher ... so why is he an anti-intellectual?
It seems that he is not really anti-intellectual. He is a fake anti-intellectual. He is an anti-intellectual as much as someone who became president denounces power, a woman who is a prostitute denounces prostitution, a man who robs a house denounces robbers, a guy who is pulling up his pants after getting off a naked woman rushes over to the computer to write an essay that claims that sexual abstinence is healthy for the body ...
I have no idea what the point of his essay was. But I was thinking: If you had a young and pretty daughter and she went to the office of a professor who wrote those words in order to seek advice, wouldn't you be somewhat concerned? Perhaps you say: Don't be silly; those words came from some Internet hooligan and not from some well-mannered professor? But the author of those words is the famous Mister Wu XX.
I am placing his words here not because I saw any bad tendencies within him. On the contrary, as I said in the above, the rant will release some of the psychological tensions and make it safer in his daily normal life.
What I am really thinking is: At the same time that we tolerate these kinds of writings, we must also be more tolerant about those people who write these types of things -- those nameless and faceless people who are ranting on the Internet. It is not nice to curse out someone's mother on the Internet, but this is just the common national phraseology in China -- it is uncreative and it has no impact. You only know that someone is unhappy.
Mister Wu explained why he wrote that essay. First, I had written a book entitled <The grassroots form the true mainstream>. Mister Wu Jinglian (note: see Wikipedia entry)) said that he was concerned about the method of using "grassroots" and "mainstream" to analyze society. Secondly, I recently asked Mister Wu Jinglian to publicly disclose the sources of his income. This is because he holds important posts at the State Council and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as well as being independent board director at large corporations. This means that there are conflicts of interests. Mister Wu Jinglian has declined to respond so far. However, Mister Wu XX is incensed at me and he is attacking my "anti-intellectualism." He is claiming that "true grassroots do not have vocal chords to make sounds, and therefore all those grassroots who can cry out must be fakes."
This is the principal disagreement between us. In my several books, I repeatedly explained the meaning of "anti-intellectualism": In a democratic society, each person gets one vote, whether they are smart or dumb. The experts do not monopolize the decision-making process, and the major policies can only come about after public debate by the people. Knowledge and power often form dangerous alliances that monopolize the political process. "Anti-intellectualism" lets those who are weak in knowledge enter into the political process and this is healthy for the development of democracy.
Indeed, I came out of "China's top learning institution" and I am a doctoral candidate at Yale University. But this does not mean that I ought to have more political rights than an illiterate peasant; furthermore, it does not seem that I have any moral superiority over him either. While at university, I read a touching story about ancient Athens: A politician was faced with a citizens' referendum about whether he should be exiled. On his way to the forum, he met an illiterate person who wanted help to write down the name of the person to be exiled. The politician found out that the other person wanted to sent him into exile. So he asked: "Why don't you like this one?" The other party said, "No special reason except I don't like his name." So the politician faithfully wrote down his own name on the paper, even though the other party had no idea what was being written down. In the end, the politician was indeed exiled.
This is how democracy is, for it allows a person who did not seem to have "vocal chords" to express his/her own voice. Since I was 20 years old, I have always treated ancient Athens as the hometown of my soul. I am now more than 40 years old and this story still touches me. If Mister Wu feels that he has the right to curse people out, then he should also acknowledge that the people have the same rights. How come when someone else curses, you say that they are Internet hooligans; but if you start cursing, that is not what you are?
(Wu Jiaxiang's Blog) Publishing the evidence of how I was caught by netizen friend Lili-Ruth Jiang. March 29, 2007.
[in translation]
After reading Lili-Ruth Jiang's essay, I am embarrassed. Then I began to reflect. The short essay <Xue Yong, why don't you go down to the countryside?> is another piece of evidence that I have made mistakes in my thinking. This shows that the demons in my heart are running amok. I admit that I wrote that criticism before I had fully studied most of Xue Yong's works. In retrospect, when I wrote that short essay, my heart was filled with hatred. I hated anything that defended that absurd era of the past. I detest all the "post-modernism/anti-culturalism/deconstructionism." In my opinion, China has not even modernized, so how can there be any post-modernity? China is still a cultural desert, so how can there be any anti-culturalism? The modern social system still does not have a structure, so what is there to deconstruct? We have just gone past an anti-intellectual era and we have not completed campaign to eliminate illiteracy, so how can there be any anti-intellecualism? But my mistake was that when a person with a rich imagination reads a special label, he wants to whack it with a stick. Every word has been immersed in poisonous brew before and this is the same old class struggle thinking that I am supposed to hate.
In retrospect, I made the same mistake in at least three of my previous essays: two of them are critiques of the New Left and one is a critique of Wang Shuo. My language was shrill, my arguments were incomplete and, more importantly, my heart was filled with hatred. I would like to apologize here to all those who have been offended by my improper language. My case provides ample evidence that we can easily become the types of people that we hate.
I promise that I will seriously study the works of Xue Yong and then I will comment. I thank all those (such as Lili-Ruth Jiang) who have encouraged me, so that we can all live, think and write better.
(Xue Yong's Blog: The Anti-Intellectual Scholar) My regards to Mister Wu Jiaxiang. March 29, 2007.
[in translation]
No sooner did I post an essay to criticize Mister Wu Jiaxiang than a netizen left a comment to say that Mister Wu Jiaxiang has apologized to me in his blog. I read his essay closely, and I am deeply moved. I admire him totally for his courage.
My guess is that he wrote his original essay in anger, as opposed to any improper reason. Perhaps he admires Mister Wu Jinglian. I can understand all those people who admire Mister Wu Jinglian. It is just that my views are different from theirs.
First, I believe that since Mister Wu Jinglian is a spokesperson for the market economy, then he should not become an independent board director for state enterprises. He should also pay more attention to the private entrepreneurs such as small stall operators and vendors. Mister Wu Jinglian holds positions with the State Council and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which may have conflicts of interest with his independent board director positions. Therefore, I hope that he could disclose his sources of income. This will set a good leadership example for all party and political leaders to disclose their sources of income.
Secondly, the theory that displaced households should not be compensated at market prices is against the basic logic of market economy. I must criticize it immediately. But I am very supportive of Mister Wu Jinglian's suggestion to raise the gasoline tax. As for his proposal on the Spring Festival train ticket price, I am not qualified to judge. But I have personally advocated raising the admission price at the Forbidden City in the past.
These views of mine were not adequately expressed. When Mister Wu Jiaxiang read what I wrote, he thought that I was an irrational Internet hooligan and denounced me harshly. Perhaps because of his mood at the time, his choice of words went too far. I am actually another person whose choice of words often go too far. But I am a little more "slick" than he is. As I have said before, I make a living out of writing and I will seldom post my writings on my blog immediately. Instead, I will attempt to sell the articles first and get paid. Then I publish the essay afterwards. This vulgar commercial process actually gives me a lot of time to consider and therefore I am less likely to make a fool of myself.
The Internet is very exciting. Sometimes, one gets struck by a fancy idea and rushes out to publish something without any self-protection. Therefore, I hope that Mister Wu Jiaxiang does not feel too badly about this. He should be more careful in the future about falling into the Internet trap and find some time for himself to consider. People can sometimes explode for no apparent reason, and you won't even know what happened. Recently, I had an argument with an editor and it was horrendous. In the end, I tried my best to apologize. Therefore, anyone can commit this kind of thing. Some people get caught, while others are not. But I feel compelled to say that Mister Wu's apology is not something that anyone is capable of doing in this age. Therefore, I express my gratitude and admiration here.
The Chinese people lack the habit of conducting a vigorous public debate. I have been criticizing the "mainstream economics scholars" for some time, but nobody has stood up to debate me. With respect to the recent Chongqing nail house case, I was hoping that the mainstream people would debate me vigorously. We may have different viewpoints, but I cannot believe that I represent irrational sentiments that are unworthy of attention. Therefore, I look forward to have a genuine public debate with Mister Wu Jiaxiang in order to clarify the theoretical problems of China's progress towards the market economy and democratic constitutionalism.