cheers

Happy New Year Bloggers!

Most people I’ve personally known living in Mainland China, if we’ve had this conversation, are of one mind on issues like what happened in Tiananmen Square or what life was like during the Cultural Revolution. Whether through study abroad or reading online, or in some cases because they had a personal experience close to this history, they know the party’s version of events is false.

For younger adults, some of them old enough now to be professors, they have had to unlearn what they were taught all their lives in Chinese schools. It is usually heartbreaking and difficult to accept that the patriotic versions they had learned were lies. I wonder whether ZH Wikipedia, even if it were perfectly accurate in its accounting of the facts, whether it would be enough to shake the beliefs of common Chinese who don’t yet know their nation and their schools have lied to them. They love their country at least as much as anyone else loves their own. Bearers of facts struggle to overcome beliefs, whatever their veracity.

I’m not in contact with a representative swath of the people, obviously enough. My experience is anecdotal and biased in favor of academics and business-types in big cities, who have had much more exposure to the rest of the world than an average Chinese citizen. When I say that most of the people I’ve spoken with on the Mainland know better than what they were taught in school, I still don’t know how true that is for most Chinese. I have reason to suspect that the large majority of regular Chinese people do not know the facts of the uglier parts of their own history. (As a qualification of this, I suppose the same is true to a lesser degree in nations with greater freedom of speech, too.)

I’ve been surprised many times over by Chinese students who are in the U.S. for the first time. At Cornell University over the years, I met dozens of students and scholars from the Mainland who honestly believed the party versions of their history. It was galling to see celebrated scholars insisting that the Cultural Revolution essentially didn’t happen, or that to whatever extent it did, academics et al. deserved to be sent down, etc. I’ve listened to otherwise brilliant grad students maintain that freedoms of speech and protest should and will eventually be banned globally. These ideas are deep-sunken and insidious; multiplied by more than a billion minds, I fear they do legitimately threaten our global intellectual future.

Now to what extent you support freedom of speech may in itself be a great debate with valid, varied opinions. In Germany, much of what would otherwise be free speech is illegal when it’s Nazi. The same hateful speech in the U.S. would be legal and protected by our Constitution. Are either or both of us “right” considering our different circumstances? Is it possible to forge a global standard for justice with respect to free speech, or do local circumstances warrant variation, and by how much?

About the facts of history however, there should be no debate. It is not my “opinion” that millions died due to Mao’s policies, which he maintained for his personal benefit even as he was informed of their impact. It isn’t a matter of opinion at all: that’s what happened.

I suggest therein is the penumbra of justice with respect to free speech. Speech should be as free as it needs to be that common people can know common facts. Let me restate even more briefly: Speech must not be so limited that truth is misplaced.

Then, apply that standard to China. Because I can tell you that otherwise brilliant grad students from Mainland China honestly believe what is not true about their nation’s history, I would say freedom of speech has been too limited in China, whatever anyone’s opinion about where exactly lines should be drawn.

That Wikipedia has in place great controls, moderators, and l’esprit of truth and facts prevailing, may not be enough. ZH Wikipedia could be overwhelmed with thousands or even millions of users who know primarily what the party taught them. If it is left open to the people, this global, public record of Chinese knowledge could stand as an historic test of truth and human manipulation. BG