http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=316&fpage=1&toread=1
It is obvious that the discussion in this thread is mainly aimed at Teacher Tian (the Lean Knight). Schopenhauer’s swagger is long gone; what is being displayed now is basically my own swagger. Personally, I find this sort of dispute quite interesting. Although such arguments are hard to develop into something profound, they can still expose problems fairly well. Many of the ways I now phrase things first emerged in similar disputes—in the past on Teacher Liu’s and Teacher Jiang’s blogs, and now with BBS as an even better venue.
I’ve been eagerly hoping that someone would come to my blog too and “provoke” me. How interesting that would be……
New Studio Old Jiang
Zhang Tiankan: Maglev Must Win Over the Public with Scientific Evidencezz
: Zhang Tiankan Source: The Beijing News Published: 2008-1-14 11:15:8
Zhang Tiankan: Maglev Must Win Over the Public with Scientific Evidence
To dispel the public’s concerns, scientific evidence should be provided to them, explaining how far people’s homes need to be from maglev in order to be relatively safe, and a unified standard should be used in construction.
On January 12, some residents from neighborhoods along the route of Shanghai’s westward-extending maglev line gathered at People’s Square to express their views on the maglev passing by their doorstep. The residents believed that the draft airport link line and the environmental impact assessment report, separately posted two weeks earlier on the websites of the Shanghai Municipal Planning Bureau and Environmental Protection Bureau, had not resolved the safety and environmental concerns they had cared about a year earlier. (Southern Metropolis Daily, January 13)
This is a large-scale expression of public opinion by Shanghai citizens regarding their own environmental safety, following the Xiamen PX project.
The electromagnetic field generated by maglev is harmful to humans and other living things; this has already been confirmed by quite a number of basic research and epidemiological studies. Of course, the health hazards of electromagnetic fields are conditional, namely: the magnitude of the electromagnetic field’s energy (radiation intensity), the distance between humans or organisms and the radiation source, and the length of time exposed to the radiation. Generally speaking, electromagnetic field energy is usually distributed in a spherical form, centered on the radiation source with the transmission distance as the radius. Therefore, radiation intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
What the public is concerned about now is how far away from the radiation source is safe. Some residents along the route hope that the maglev will be farther away from them, rather than the mere 30 meters it is now. Relevant experts have revealed that the closest distance between the maglev track and neighborhood buildings is no more than 30 meters, a distance that is already slightly greater than the 22.5 meters designated by Shanghai’s environmental authorities as the safe distance. Even so, some residents still suspect that they will live in an unsafe environment of electromagnetic radiation.
The residents’ suspicions have several reasons. First, the government’s publicly announced environmental standards are inconsistent. In 2003, the Pudong district government had specified the distance between the maglev and buildings: the first-level protection zone on both sides of the track was 50 meters, and the second-level protection zone was 100 meters. In sparsely populated Pudong, the 50-meter first-level protection zone was entirely covered in neat greenery. But in the public notice in the spring of 2007, for the westward extension from Longyang Road, along both banks of the Diyanpu River that it would cross, the 50 meters had been reduced to 22.5 meters.
Second, China’s standards are inconsistent with international standards. Shanghai imported maglev from Germany, and according to the standards for Germany’s test line, the safe distance on both sides of maglev is 500 meters.
Third, members of the public have already reported that maglev has affected their health. On January 24, 2007, the Pudong New Area Weekly published a short piece reporting that residents along the maglev line had been affected in their bodily health, sleep, and even television reception by maglev.
Fourth, some owners with professional backgrounds believe that the intensity of alternating electromagnetic fields (maglev) and the intensity of the earth’s permanent magnetic field may have different degrees of impact on human health.
Obviously, to persuade the public along the route and dispel their doubts, scientific evidence should be provided to the public—especially animal or human injury test data—explaining how far people’s homes need to be from maglev in order to be relatively safe, and unified standards should be used in construction.
And some residents’ requests—for example, that the public comment period be extended to March 5; that the full environmental impact assessment report and relevant human safety test data be made available; that a hearing be held in accordance with the law and the media invited to attend—are also entirely reasonable.
Fortunately, the Shanghai Planning Bureau and Environmental Protection Bureau have also said that what has been made public this time is only a draft, and further adjustments are not ruled out in the future. Therefore, there is reason to expect that Shanghai’s maglev project can, like Xiamen’s PX project, achieve a result satisfactory to all sides.
(Zhang Tiankan, Beijing, scholar)
[楼 主] | Posted: 2008-01-17 21:52
RustSpear InferiorHorseLeanKnight
What if I don’t believe in science? Why should scientific evidence be used to persuade me?
[1 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-18 09:21
GuChi
Electromagnetic waves are invisible and intangible; if you don’t believe in science, on what grounds do you claim that maglev trains produce something called electromagnetic radiation? And on what grounds do you claim that electromagnetic radiation is harmful to the human body? Didn’t the “historical evidence” from the pre-scientific age tell us that something so far away cannot have any effect?
Of course, one can still imagine pre-scientific modes of argument, such as feng shui. The public might worry that the train will destroy feng shui, while the construction department would need to argue that the train will not destroy feng shui. But that is not what the public is worried about now.
What one uses to persuade you depends on what you believe in: if you believe in feng shui, then feng shui can be used to talk to you; if you believe in science, then science should be used to talk to you; if you believe in nothing at all, then there is nothing to be done.
[2 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-18 11:19
NewStudioOldJiang
I agree with little Gu’s “what one uses to persuade you depends on what you believe in.” I think one of the principles of science communication should be “speak to humans in human language; speak to ghosts in ghost language.”
What Teacher Zhang means is that the authorities should not simply blame the public for opposing maglev, nor should they accuse the public of lacking scientific literacy. If you want to defend maglev, you should first produce scientific grounds, and then talk.
I agree with Teacher Zhang’s view.
Of course, after these scientific grounds are produced, the public as the parties directly affected can still refuse to accept them, and can still rely on feng shui to raise objections, demand compensation, and so on. (However, in the age of science, other kinds of claims besides science often are not easily recognized by the law.) But that is for later; right now, the authorities have not even properly produced scientific evidence, and yet they have already begun to invoke the authority of science to reject the public’s objections.
Little Gu, please keep helping anti-scientific cultural people improve themselves. Good!
[3 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-18 12:47
GuChi
“Other claims outside science in the scientific age are often not easy to have recognized by law” — this is also quite normal. Even if it were not the scientific age, non-mainstream so-called “wildly unorthodox doctrines” would not easily be recognized by law either. Because law, after all, exists to maintain social order, and order means that people must live together; to some extent, they must always make compromises or submit to the greater good.
From the standpoint of freedom of thought, I can use whatever basis I like to oppose a certain project, but in legal terms, it is certainly not the case that anything goes. For example, I could come up with a whole set of absurd doctrines, claiming that any ground-breaking within a hundred li of my house would harm my health; then, so long as you don’t convince me otherwise, does that mean that nothing can really be done within a hundred li of me? If everyone cooked up such a set of absurd doctrines, then nobody would be able to do anything at all. That is obviously not workable. Therefore we can only say that, in terms of thought, everyone is completely free, but on questions of rights and obligations, one inevitably has to compromise with the social environment. And science is the mainstream of modern society, while feng shui is not; thus no matter how pluralistic things may be in the intellectual sense, in legal practice they can never be treated as equal.
There is another issue worth emphasizing: no matter what one uses to persuade others, “making one’s case coherent” is always the first priority. Whether scientific or anti-scientific, arguments that cannot make themselves coherent are always hard to find convincing. Here, in the public’s objections to maglev, the first two points target a standard inconsistency in the most ordinary sense — why is the standard 50 meters for this stretch of the same track, yet 22.5 meters for that stretch? Why, when the same science and technology are being used, do China’s standards differ so much from international standards?
— We might reply that there is no single, absolute, all-transcending standard; standards have their limits, standards are only valid “for the moment,” and both their validity and the scope of their applicability are uncertain. So if you ask me why China’s standard differs from Germany’s, or why the standard for that stretch of road differs from this stretch, I can tell you that you have found one boundary of such a standard……
Can this kind of reply be persuasive? Of course not. Because we have not made clear exactly what the conditions are that caused the standard to be lowered from 500 meters to 50 meters, and from 50 meters to 22.5 meters. Since we cannot say what difference there is between the original track and the extension that actually produced the reduction in the standard, then we should not arbitrarily change the standard. Whether one is using scientific arguments or some other kind of argument, this sort of arbitrariness that cannot make itself coherent is not convincing.
[4 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-18 18:09
Xiuchao Liema Shouqi Shi
If I am simply ignorant, if I simply do not understand science, nor feng shui, and cannot make my case coherent, if I am simply irrationally panicked, do I then have no right to speak at all? Am I then just supposed to sit there obediently and let others have their way with me?
The maglev issue is not a scientific issue, but a question of citizens’ rights.
[5 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 19:26
Gu Chi
Freedom of speech is one thing; irrational panic is also not a problem. But even someone in the grip of irrational panic has no right to make trouble for others.
Are we really saying that if you cannot persuade an irrationalist, you should just let him single-handedly mess up the whole society?
Indeed, this is a question of citizens’ rights rather than a scientific question, so in the realm of thought and theory, diversity should be pursued, and you can think and say whatever you like. But once it comes to the question of citizens’ rights, things cannot be arbitrary.
In the maglev issue here, citizens have the right to health, the right to life, as well as the right to information, and so on, so the relevant authorities need to give an account. But on what grounds do we say that citizens’ right to health may be harmed by maglev trains? We should note that maglev trains are not being built in those residents’ homes, nor are they being built on those residents’ private land; they are being built as a public facility. Generally speaking, such construction does not infringe citizens’ property rights. So if citizens want to assert their own rights — that their right to health has been violated — there should also be some basis for it. Of course, it is impossible to require citizens to produce airtight arguments, but when citizens raise objections, they still have to be based on a certain background, on a certain context, and this background must be understandable to the public — for example, here we first accept that electromagnetic waves exist, and that electromagnetic waves may affect health — that is the background of our discussion. On the basis of such shared understandings, the public raises objections, and the relevant authorities need to respond. If there is no common ground, no background, no shared context at all, then no debate at all can take place. And “science” is one element in the background of the related debates here concerning the citizens’ rights involved in maglev (the right to health).
Of course, debates over such issues do not necessarily have to involve science. For instance, residents might raise a different issue: the completion of maglev caused property prices in this area to plummet, and the residents suffered huge losses; or it caused inconvenience in daily life, traffic congestion, and so on. Then the relevant authorities should respond in other ways, for example by providing certain economic subsidies, and so forth. In short, how one responds depends on how the question is asked — if the main context of the question is an economic issue, then one should naturally respond more from an economic angle; and if the background of the question is a scientific issue, then one should naturally respond from science.
So what about those irrational panickers who are simply ignorant and do not understand science? That has to be looked at case by case. One case is that this sort of irrational panic is not individual but forms a cluster living together; then one should, as far as possible, accommodate their way of life and allow them a certain degree of autonomy. But another case is that such irrational panic appears only in isolated individuals, who are out of step with the other members of the environment in which they live. Then, of course, we should also try as far as possible not to interfere with that individual’s way of life. However, he cannot be cut off from the world, after all; his personal life is inevitably also a shared life with the people around him. So in such shared life, if he uses this irrational panic to make trouble for others and interfere with other people’s lives, then society has reason to restrain him.
It is precisely because this is a “question of citizens’ rights” rather than a scientific question that we cannot simply let a tiny number of people talk at random and as they please.
[6 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 19:59
Xiuchao Liema Shouqi Shi
But who is to distinguish who those people are who are merely a tiny number of individuals, and who are the ones who are just talking at random and as they please,
and moreover, why should we not “let” a “tiny number of individuals” “talk at random and as they please”?
[7 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 20:06
Gu Chi
所谓“civil rights,” aren’t they also historical, socially constructed? Is there some absolute right, transcending everything?
Even if the West has the doctrine of natural rights, on the one hand that doctrine itself is historical; on the other hand, how to interpret and apply natural rights is still historical, still social.
Now Thin Knight seems to be advocating some kind of absolute “right” that can detach itself from the actual background of common life. I think such a “right” does not exist. Any “right” only has meaning when placed in real common life. It is impossible to stand apart from society and history and then invoke some absolute right.
If you think that “rights” are bestowed by society and the times, then right now is the age of science; if you think that “rights” belong to you as your own property, then at the very least you yourself must believe in something, otherwise on what basis do you speak of rights? A completely irrational panic-stricken person who understands nothing and believes in nothing certainly cannot assert any “right” on his own; his rights are bestowed on him by society. Otherwise, where do you say “rights” come from? Are they something that objectively and eternally just sits there, and that everyone absolutely shares a little bit of?
[8 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 20:25
GuChi
QUOTE:
Quoted from floor7 by Rusty Spear, Inferior Horse, Thin Knight on2008-01-19 20:06:
But who is to determine which people are just a few individuals, which are merely talking to themselves,
and besides, why can’t we simply “let” a “very few individuals” “talk to themselves”?
I mentioned earlier: “For example, I could drum up a set of sophistries and pernicious doctrines, saying that any ground-breaking within a hundred li of my house would harm my health, so that as long as you don’t persuade me, then within a hundred li of my place nothing at all can really be done?”—Would that do? On matters of pure thought, or in purely “scientific questions,” we can allow anyone to “talk to themselves.” But if his “talking to himself” does not remain confined to thought and instead interferes with other people’s lives, then it cannot be allowed at will.
If a public facility is to be built and a very few individuals voice opposition, then of course we should allow dissenting opinions to exist, and try to communicate and engage with them. But does it follow that as long as there is even a little opposition, nothing at all can be done? These are two different levels of issue.
[9 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 20:36
XinZhaiLaoJiang
So communication is very important. If feng shui were communicated very successfully, then the accusation that a neighboring house’s construction or renovation style has seriously infringed upon my house’s feng shui might possibly be accepted by the court.
I wonder how places such as Hong Kong, where belief in feng shui is widespread, handle such disputes in legal terms?
Would some well-informed friend please explain?
[10 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 21:37
GuChi
I’m not sure about Hong Kong, but the legal system on the mainland is not entirely about science either. I used to watch legal-education programs and saw quite a few cases that were decided with respect for popular customs as the guiding principle. I haven’t seen a case involving feng shui, but there are many such cases concerning weddings and funerals—for example, certain acts are regarded in folk custom as “bringing bad luck,” which, from the standpoint of modern science, are of course nonsense, but the law will still restrict such acts; if such conduct causes serious harm to the party concerned, it may also be punished.
The purpose of establishing a legal system lies in maintaining order, not in science or anything else. Science is only one of the tools of adjudication, but not the supreme criterion. Legal judgments have always taken doing one’s utmost to maintain social stability and unity as their highest principle.
[11 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 21:52
XinZhaiLaoJiang
【Certain acts are regarded in folk custom as “bringing bad luck,” which, from the standpoint of modern science, are of course nonsense, but the law will still restrict such acts; if such conduct causes serious harm to the party concerned, it may also be punished.】
I think that, although this has no “scientific basis,” it is also not contrary to science.
Because from the scientific standpoint, although this statement is indeed without “basis,” science probably also cannot prove that this statement is wrong.
[12 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 22:49
XinZhaiLaoJiang
If we look at it from the angle of the effects it has in society, the so-called “successful propagation of feng shui” does not really need to prove how “scientific” feng shui is; it is enough that everyone, for whatever reason (even Pascal-style probabilistic brainwashing), accepts some of the taboos of “feng shui studies,” and it has already become a certain kind of “knowledge” that has legal force in practice.
So Song-ge’s literary-youth style of “brainwashing” is useful: even if it has logical problems, heheh……
[13 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-19 22:54
古雴
To successfully “brainwash” feng shui studies, one still has to pursue “making it self-consistent.” If, according to the same feng shui system, I can just as well conclude that “a bridge should be built here” as “a bridge should not be built here,” and if, when you want to build a bridge, I can say building a bridge is good, while if you do not want to build a bridge, I can say building a bridge is bad, then how many people would believe such feng shui? The method of brainwashing may not need logic and may only need to be stimulating (like advertising), but in the end the theory that is put forward still has to make itself self-consistent; otherwise it can neither persuade people nor be of any use.
[14 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 00:07
新斋老蒋
Whether something is “self-consistent” is, to a certain extent, also a social convention; different groups may interpret it in vastly different ways.
For example, Azande divination is judged by the modern Western “scientific” mind to be utterly absurd and self-contradictory, but the Azande themselves do not think so.
A statement that looks contradictory, so long as it is patched up well enough, will appear very “profound”……
Of course, “brainwashing” that makes everyone feel it cannot “make itself self-consistent” is obviously not very successful “brainwashing”; the technique is not proficient enough, or perhaps the “argument” is simply not solid enough.
[15 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 09:57
古雴
The two points that Teacher Jiang mentions here are precisely what I have been trying to emphasize all along:
“For example, Azande divination is judged by the modern Western ‘scientific’ mind to be utterly absurd and self-contradictory, but the Azande themselves do not think so.” — the key point is “they ‘themselves’ … think …”
“A statement that looks contradictory, so long as it is patched up well enough, will appear very ‘profound’” — the key point is that it needs to be “patched up.”
What I emphasize by “making it self-consistent” is, before letting others evaluate it, one must first be responsible to oneself, and make oneself responsible to oneself. That is what “making it self-consistent” means. For statements that seem contradictory, one cannot just leave them alone and say anything goes; one still has to patch them up oneself. Whether others recognize that you have made it self-consistent is one thing, but first you yourself have to pursue self-consistency. If even you have abandoned this requirement, how can discussion possibly get underway?
Of course, one could say that taking “making it self-consistent” as a basic requirement for argument is itself historical and social. But I really cannot imagine what a culture would look like in which self-consistency is not valued, in which every sentence can be arbitrary and unconnected. If such irrational primitive tribes existed, then they would have no “discursive authority”; they could not assert anything to other people, because the “claims” they uttered could be abandoned by themselves in the very next instant. We would have no way of understanding what exactly they were claiming, and even they themselves would not know what exactly they were claiming. We could only grant them the “right to speak,” the “right to make sounds with their throats,” but “discursive authority” would be meaningless to them.
[16 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 12:45
新斋老蒋
The issue then returns to: “Who can determine whether it is self-consistent?”
If little classmate Gu thinks that feng shui supporters themselves are the judges, then that is quite lenient (I agree), but many “rationalists” would think that in this case the standard of “self-consistency” is too loose, to the point of being far too lacking in constraint.
[17 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 22:10
古雴
确实，在我看来，一个论证有多么成功的最终判定者，就是论者自己。
Why is that? If the purpose of argumentation is to persuade an audience, or to make the audience understand oneself, then shouldn’t the right to judge success or failure rest with the audience?
However, there are still two problems here:
First, in any case, I myself am always the first “listener” of what I say; in fact, “thinking” itself is precisely some kind of talking to oneself. If it is to be judged by the audience, then the audience who comes first, and who bears the responsibility of judgment, is the speaker himself.
Second, I am offering you an argument. You say: “I am convinced.” Does that mean success? For example, I try to persuade you: “Do not drink milk.” After I finish, you admit, “I am convinced; I’ll listen to you,” but then you turn around and insist on drinking milk every day. Can my persuasion be called successful? Of course not; it is a complete failure. Here, you may have understood the very thing I was trying to argue for in reverse: I was saying not to drink milk, while you understood it as meaning that one should drink milk every day. Then my argument certainly could not possibly count as successful—even if, as a listener, you think you have “accepted” my argument and admit that it succeeded, in fact it is all a misunderstanding. What then?
Therefore, the final judge is still oneself—did the other party really understand my argument or not? Did my argument really achieve its intended purpose? This question still has to be handed back to the arguer himself to judge.
I believe that my previous remarks have already made this clear: what I am emphasizing here is by no means the arbitrariness of argumentation. On the contrary, what I want to stress is that argumentation must strive for self-discipline and take responsibility for itself.
[ 此贴被古雴在2008-01-20 22:51重新编辑 ]
[18 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 22:45
RustySpearInferiorHorseThinRider
If you do not want to accept something, you can always find a reason not to accept it.
There is no absolute interpretation, and no absolute persuasion.
As for those who cannot be persuaded, one can only refrain from trying to persuade them.
But if they were not persuaded by me, I would not advocate depriving them of their rights, or weakening their rights. Their rights were not conferred by me in the first place.
They are innate.
[19 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 23:20
GuChi
May I understand your meaning as follows: “There is no absolute interpretation, and no absolute persuasion. But there are absolute rights.”?
What is a right? What does it mean to deprive or weaken rights? Are the understanding and use of these concepts also innate?
Any understanding and use of concepts is historical and socially constructed, and “rights” are no exception. What rights a person actually has, and whether he has in fact been endowed with rights or deprived of them, all of this makes sense only when placed in a social environment and under people’s common life together. Of course, one person alone cannot confer another person’s rights, but they are indeed conferred by the age and by society.
Of course, these are only my personal views; they have already been sufficiently expressed in the previous discussion, so I will not say more. I am only puzzled: why is Teacher Tian so resolutely opposed to absolutism when discussing “science,” “knowledge,” and even “freedom,” yet remains so insistent when it comes to “rights”? “Rights,” like “freedom,” are concepts that only became popular in modern Western society; in traditional society, these things were simply not valued. And in the Western tradition, “innate human rights” and “man is born free” belong to the same line of thought. Teacher Tian does not seem to accept the latter very much, yet he insists so strongly on “innate rights.” How is such a position even possible?
I am merely raising questions; I am not asking Teacher Tian to provide a perfect explanation. The discussion in this thread has already gone on long enough.
[20 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 23:37
XinZhaiOldJiang
What Little Gu said in post 18 really speaks to me.
Also, I think the concept of “rights” is too limited, too “atomistic,” too abstract, too “scientific.” Of course it has its uses, and when necessary it should also be deconstructed.
[21 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 23:49
GuChi
One final point: I have never advocated “depriving” those who cannot be persuaded of their “rights.” My question is: do they in fact have corresponding “rights” at all? Have their rights actually been harmed?
In the matter of the maglev train, before discussing whether certain people’s “rights” can be “deprived,” one must first say that they do indeed have such rights, and that a certain action may indeed harm those rights. For example, here the issue is the “right to health”; our question is whether the construction of the train has in fact harmed their right to health. In discussing this issue, according to the background and context in which the issue was raised, the relevant department needs to produce scientific evidence to persuade the relevant public. The aim of the relevant department is to argue that your right to health “has not been deprived.” Rather than to argue that depriving you of your right to health is reasonable and lawful.
[22 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-20 23:49
RustySpearInferiorHorseThinRider
This matter is very complicated, and there is no perfectly satisfactory explanation.
Speaking literally, the concept of “human rights endowed by Heaven” comes from the West; however, this view is by no means exclusive to the West. Chinese tradition also has resources for it. For example, sayings like “If the prince breaks the law, he is to be punished the same as the common people,” and so on—I do not want to distinguish the differences here, because I cannot quite make them out myself either. Nor do I want to list, one by one, the expressions in the tradition that can be read in this way; that is not my strong suit.
I am simply indignant: why should a person lose the right to speak just because he does not understand much science and cannot speak in scientific language? Why can his wishes be ignored, and even stripped away?
This has nothing to do with science. That was exactly my original reply: if I do not understand science and therefore cannot believe in science, why should science be used to persuade me?
[23 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-21 00:21
古雴
I too am indignant. Why is it that after I have spoken at length, Teacher Tian’s response still seems as if I had never said anything, without further addressing the views I had already put forward? So I cannot help repeating a few final words.
How one answers depends on how one asks. Understanding science is not an absolute requirement. In fact, in many more cases the background of citizens’ questions is economic or otherwise; how one presents one’s claims is how one ought to be answered. The prerequisite for discourse is that you can at least “speak” and communicate with others under a certain shared consensus. If you understand nothing at all and cannot find common language with others, how could others possibly understand your “wishes”? For example, if you say, “I want to drink a cup of milk,” such a simple wish is not merely an isolated sentence; it is also an entire system of things—what “milk” is, what “drink” means, and so on. Only under consensus about these basic concepts can this sentence be expressed and understood as a wish. Without any consensus, or if your expression of desire is self-contradictory or baffling—say, “I want to drink an inch of wooden iron,” which is utterly nonsensical—how could anyone possibly “take your wishes seriously”? How could they possibly accept them?
The expression of wishes must be based on consensus. Generally speaking, people communicate in everyday language that can be understood by society at large. Such language is of course not wholly scientific language, but it contains scientific arrangements within it. If you have your own unique linguistic system, then if you still want others to understand you, communication is necessary. If the users of this unique linguistic system are a community, then one can do one’s best to let them maintain regional autonomy; but if it is only a very small number of individuals, then one cannot expect society as a whole to master his bizarre and incomprehensible way of speaking. If he still wishes to assert his position, then it is his responsibility to take the initiative to communicate with others, to take the initiative to express himself and clarify his thoughts, and of course to make his case coherent; he must also work hard at “translation.” Only then can it count as “discourse power.” Of course, if such a person lacks the ability to carry out this kind of self-promotion, that does not mean all his rights may be arbitrarily stripped away. The rest of us can all act as spokespeople for his rights and assert them on his behalf; we can also grant him corresponding rights according to our own way of life. But these acts of overstepping on his behalf may perhaps not accord with his own wishes—yet what else is to be done? Are we supposed to satisfy his own bizarre demands instead? Leaving aside the fact that among these demands there may be some improper things that intrude on other people’s lives, the key problem is: how could we possibly understand his demands? If he cannot make his case coherent. “I want to drink an inch of wooden iron”—how could one satisfy a wish that is fundamentally incomprehensible?
——————————————————
The extent to which a wish can be fulfilled depends on the extent to which the expression of it can be understood by others.
Teacher Tian put it well: the people have the right to be ignorant. I have the right not to accept science, not to understand science, not to believe in science. I should not be forced to understand the concepts and linguistic forms of science. I have the right not to accept this scientific way of talking; I have the right not to understand scientific discourse; I have the right to passive resistance against scientific discourse. Likewise, equally and fairly, others also have the right not to accept your way of doing things; others also have the right not to understand your discourse; others have the right to ignore your discourse. If you do not actively translate your own language into something others can understand, yet demand that others must understand your bizarre train of thought, then, just like scientism, that is overbearing.
[ 此贴被古雴在2008-01-21 01:29重新编辑 ]
[24 楼] | Posted: 2008-01-21 01:08
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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