分类：Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom

In Praise of “Rumors”

Culture & Public Commentary2012.04.15
In Praise of “Rumors”
Recently the word “rumor” has once again become a hot topic, and a full-scale “war” against “rumors” is plainly about to break out. At a time like this, it is all the more necessary to reflect on what “rumor” really means. On Weibo, I saw Sun Haifeng repost Deng Wenchu’s “Nine Theses on Rumor,” written several years ago, and applauded it enthusiastically (you can find it among some of the earliest posts on his blog, though it seems a few of the theses have been harmonized?). Later I read Kapferer’s Rumor: The World’s Oldest Media, and found it quite rewarding as well. So let me offer a few casual remarks…
China book reading tradition politics
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2012年4月15日
Democracy Against the People-as-the-Basis: A Debate on Weibo

Culture & Public Commentary2012.03.21
Democracy Against the People-as-the-Basis: A Debate on Weibo
Some days ago, I had a rather spirited debate on Weibo with a left-leaning junior fellow. I’m not very fond of slapping labels like “right-wing” and “left-wing” on people, but this argument was indeed representative in a certain sense, so I need to note this junior fellow’s left-wing background. As for me, who sparked the argument, I was not aiming my dissatisfaction specifically at him; rather, I took the opportunity to express my long-standing opposition to the rhetoric of the so-called Mao left. I once stated my personal position in the essay “Liberty vs. Equality—I Am a Right-Wing Socialist,” but that was mainly constructive rather than refutational. Still, I’m willing…
China culture freedom tradition
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2012年3月21日
Freedom vs. Equality — I Am a Right-Wing Socialist

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2012.01.17
Freedom vs. Equality — I Am a Right-Wing Socialist
Last month I posted an article talking about my impressions of the two Wu teachers’ gathering, and as a result a commenter who was criticizing Professor Wu Tong showed up and we exchanged several rounds in the thread below. It’s not that I absolutely had to defend Professor Wu Tong; after all, my dealings with him have mostly been public and not much private, and I wouldn’t dare pound my chest and guarantee that he himself is beyond reproach. But taking the matter strictly on its merits, and judging only from the circumstances presented by the accuser, I still couldn’t help wanting to defend him: not only Professor Wu Tong,…
freedom politics autobiography value
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2012年1月17日
Arendt Reading Notes

Culture & Public Commentary2011.09.28
Arendt Reading Notes
Finally finished reading Arendt’s The Human Condition, and feel immensely relieved… Let me make some notes.. Wang Yinli’s Chinese translation of The Human Condition is basically pretty good. Though I didn’t compare it line by line with the English original, on the whole I could make sense of it, and there probably won’t be any major misunderstandings. The problem, however, is that her translation is still rather awkward. In the translator’s afterword, she also writes that she follows the principle of “literal translation,” saying that “literal translation has already become a consensus in the translation of academic works,” and so she tries not to change the original word order. I…
book reading freedom notes Aristotle
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2011年9月28日
Some Thoughts on the People’s Congress System

Culture & Public Commentary2011.06.10
Some Thoughts on the People’s Congress System
Recently I’ve started paying attention again to the matter of deputies to the People’s Congress, and the immediate trigger was reading a news interview with a “person in charge of the Legal Work Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress” on “independent candidates” having no legal basis. Although I had previously heard that so-and-so was going to run for deputy to the People’s Congress, I hadn’t paid much attention. But when I saw this authoritative explanation from the person in charge of “legal” work, I was startled, and so I looked into the matter. The explanation given by this person in charge is astonishing. I am not…
China culture politics democracy
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2011年6月10日
What Is Democracy? Livelihood? Equality? Democracy Is Article 35 of the Constitution

Culture & Public Commentary2011.03.02
What Is Democracy? Livelihood? Equality? Democracy Is Article 35 of the Constitution
This article had been planned before winter vacation, but in a moment of inattention it has dragged on until now. Let me finish a section first: I previously posted a status update, and although it seemed to get stuck on follow5 for quite a while, it finally synced successfully: “In my view, democracy is neither universal suffrage nor some kind of equality. Democracy is Article 35 of the Constitution. Freedom of speech and freedom of association. That is the core of democracy. Electoral systems and distributive systems are separate issues. Democracy is a matter of power, not of rights.” There were a few replies on the school intranet, but…
culture freedom democracy trust
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2011年3月2日
The Debate between Science and Metaphysics in Educational Modernization: The Case of Zhang Junmai

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2009.12.30
The Debate between Science and Metaphysics in Educational Modernization: The Case of Zhang Junmai
【Abstract】To define the “Science-CXuan debate” in China’s modernization process as either a dispute between the ancient and the modern, or between East and West, misses the point. The Science-CXuan debate reflects a certain tension internal to the process of modernization itself. What the Xuanxue faction, represented by Zhang Junmai, was proposing was precisely the demand of modernization, or “enlightenment.” At the core of enlightenment lies the education of national character, the cultivation of a free will. What Zhang Junmai was concerned with was not whether science could explain a worldview, but how to cultivate and establish a new worldview. And the establishment of a new worldview, or a new culture,…
China education paper human nature
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2009年12月30日
The Responsibility of the Communicator

Culture & Public Commentary2009.05.22
The Responsibility of the Communicator
Today, while riding my bike in the rain on the 21st, as usual my thoughts drifted about, and I connected up a few threads I had recently run into, and so I wrote this essay. As for my attitude toward plagiarism and literary theft, I already made it clear in my undergraduate post “Why Suixuan Is Not Afraid of Plagiarism and Theft.” Now that I compare my own writing to excrement, that too signals my attitude that I am not afraid of plagiarism. And yet, of course, I have always held a deep contempt for paper plagiarism. In a certain sense, plagiarism or theft in academic papers is, in my…
culture freedom media value
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2009年5月22日
Violent Sanctions Are a Helpless Compensation for the Limits of Reason

Culture & Public Commentary2008.09.09
Violent Sanctions Are a Helpless Compensation for the Limits of Reason
I once said, “Violent revolution is unreasonable”—because “violence” is always non-rational, and revolution is always illegal. Yet this gives rise to a still more severe problem: if violence may be lawful, then how is the rationality of law possible? We know that laws are made by the government (whether that so-called government represents God, the emperor, or all citizens), and the implementation of law often has to appeal to violence. It is hard to imagine a rule-of-law society maintained without violent institutions such as police and prisons. Even if a social order established without bodily violent sanctions is at least conceivable in theory, once a public “law” is instituted, it…
culture politics public sphere reason
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2008年9月9日
Reading and Freedom (I)

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2008.06.03
Reading and Freedom (I)
In the essay “Reading as a Way of Thinking,” I said roughly this: if one merely sits there alone thinking desperately and turning things over and over, the effect is often counterproductive; one’s distress only sinks deeper and deeper, while the problem does not necessarily become any clearer. With the aid of reading, by contrast, one can both turn thinking into a pleasure and, with the help of books, carry out broader, clearer, and deeper reflection. However, not only is it not always a good thing to sit there daydreaming in silence, but burying one’s head in books is not always effective either. In particular, when someone reads with too…
philosophy scholarship freedom history
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2008年6月3日