ordained social death

This year's "Rebirth of Liberalism and Political Virtue" contains thirty-three of my academic articles, most of which were written between 2015 and 2019. There are ten academic articles written in 2018 and seven in 2019, but I also wrote a lot of essays last year, so I wrote about twenty articles throughout the year. It can be said that 2020 is my least productive year in the past five years. From the beginning of the year to the present, there are only two long articles.

It would be an understatement to say that August 2019 turned my life around. Later I wrote two articles about what happened in the two months after that incident, and there was a smell of knocked teeth and swallowed blood. Probably because I have heard too many tragedies, the wheel battles of three or four departments, and the visits once or twice a week are not considered "iron fists" in my opinion. Over the past year, every time my friends met or called me, they asked me about my safety immediately. Especially during the period when Mr. Xu was "prostitution", they were afraid of "finally going to attack the intellectuals".

I also often comforted them that the attitude of the people who came to visit was not ferocious, and there was no real threat. It took me a long time to realize that, in fact, the "iron fist" doesn't always hit you in the face, and it beats you in a bad way and complains a lot. This fist is very flexible. It is like the palm of the Tathagata Buddha. It stretches out under your feet unconsciously. No matter where you go, you cannot escape from its palm. At the end of October, I wanted to go to Macau, but I was suddenly stuck when I passed through the pass. The customs officer stared at me suspiciously, and then invited me to a small room beside me. I knew then that it was impossible for me to come and go freely.

I try to defuse this cage-like feeling with academic spirit and a sense of humor. Sometimes I calmly observe, recall, organize, and combine some studies and cases I have seen, hoping to penetrate the mechanism. Sometimes in the people I come in contact with, I try to distinguish between the imprint of the system and the evidence of human nature. I will share these "results" with my trusted friends to ease their worries about me and the pervasive political depression.

My livelihood hasn't been devastated, but I know some people around me have been warned, I don't know if they've been asked to spy on me, but I still deal with them casually. Fortunately, Yousi did not harass our family excessively, and my family did not "righteously kill relatives". Although I have deeply reflected on the negative influences and obstacles brought by my family, it is undeniable that the Chaoshan people still put "family" in the first place at the critical moment. They didn't even accuse me too much, but silently evaluated the matter. severity.

After coming back from Macau, I haven't written anything for months. On the one hand, my accounts on the social platforms in the wall were basically blown up, and the re-registered WeChat account and Douban could not publish almost a single article, even if I replaced the sensitive words that I could find (you can send on matter, but most of my readers are not on matter). On the other hand, I felt a severe "mental hypoxia", which was brought about by the invisible restrictions I received: I used to be able to go to Hong Kong to buy books and go to Taiwan for conferences. Gone are the days. I feel like I've lost one hand when it comes to writing.

After dealing with Yusi Da for a while, I already knew very well their position towards me.

"You can only be a human being with your tail tucked in for the rest of your life."

I published a book in 2016, and I am not very satisfied, but I have no chance here anymore, and there is no way that a publisher would dare to help me publish a book again. I can't accept any honor from the people, nor can I have any media interviews, I can't give lectures, and I can't participate in any influential reading clubs. These things, which are commonplace for an intellectual, are taboo for me, unless I have the heart to cause trouble for those who invite me. This probably explains why in March of this year my book was about to be published in New York, and a certain agency came to me in a hurry, and for the first time threateningly asked me to withdraw my will to publish: any means that can prolong my public life, they Find a way to kill it, even if it's outside the country.

I call this "ordained social death."

The scary thing about this "social death" is that you never know how much it can affect your life, even for a loner like me. On the day that a certain agency staff and I exchanged views on the publication of a new book, there happened to be an appointment that night. They asked me to truthfully explain my next whereabouts. But when meeting girls, I found it painfully that "Iron Fist" still penetrated into my private life: I couldn't help looking around, worried that they would be watching not far away, and worried that the kind girl in front of me would be with me Received a phone call after the separation. A few days later, I took the initiative to cut off contact with her, so as not to harm the innocent.

This kind of feeling hurt by politics is not an isolated case: once, a girl's sister, after knowing my real name, sent the content of Baidu to her sister, and told her to stay away from "dangerous" like me figure". Another time, a girl suddenly said during a date, the more I look at you, the more familiar your face is. Then she stopped and opened something on her phone, looked down for a while, then looked at my face again, and suddenly realized that you are the teacher of Hong Kong independence, I can't afford to offend someone like you.

This stacking up is enough to create a post-traumatic stress disorder. Now in the workplace, or on the road, I hear someone call my name, and I have a subconscious sense of withdrawal. It suddenly occurred to me that those theories that the administrative costs of Tekken will continue to rise and drag it down are completely untenable: any individual in society may take the initiative to become an agent of Tekken, and they will not only isolate you , may also report you. A lot of my friends have used pen names, I don't. I often say that I recognize everything I've written and done, and at that time I was willing to take it all in spite of my mixed reputation. But when the name is targeted by the system and tied to something unwarranted, it becomes part of a lingering nightmare.

Even if I wash my hands with gold and live inside the wall uncontested, the "toxicity" in the air is getting stronger and stronger, making me feel suffocated. After me, several teachers and friends were also reported. Once the little pinks target a person, they will mobilize to search for evidence of their "hate the country" inside and outside the wall. As group after group fell, the standard of evidence was getting lower and lower. In the beginning, it may be sympathetic to the anti-extradition movement in Hong Kong. Later, criticizing China's system, saying that Japan or the United States have done well in some aspects, and expressing a view of history that is inconsistent with the mainland history textbooks are all "hate the country." Recently I heard that CCTV's "The Most Beautiful Retrograde" also handed knives to foreign forces at Xiaopink (this film was given a very low score on Zhihu because it offended women who contributed to the fight against the epidemic). There is a friend who previously had an influential public account with more than 100,000 fans at station B. His comments on the wall have always been mild and cautious, but because Xiaopin picked up some of his more liberalized comments published in foreign media. Speech, all platforms within his wall were reported, and soon they were completely banned.

After the epidemic, I feel that there are fewer and fewer issues on which I can express my views. On the one hand, since March, Western countries’ anti-epidemic performance has been very unsatisfactory, and even indirectly damaged the reputation of “democracy”. The “Floyd incident” has further exposed the deep-seated racial problems in American society. Reversing the signs of these crises. For these issues, friends who are in the United States, or who have integrated themselves into American society, have a better say. On the Chinese side, the most discussed topic now is "decoupling between China and the United States". I can imagine that after decoupling, the "minority" (this is a label put forward by Zhang Jieping, I think it is better than "dissident") and even ordinary people. How much damage, but the situation is not yet clear, and I don't want to pretend to be amazing. All in all, the general environment that affects many issues is being reshuffled, and scholars should be cautious at this time.

On the other hand, divisions and difficulties have never been greater among the actors I have followed. Since February, due to the "labor disputes" between Jianjiao and Wang Xiaohai, the alliance established by the pan-left and feminists in the past few years has loosened, and finally evolved into a large-scale "stand-up"; in July, the North American feminist circle also Because the allegations of sexual harassment between the two girls were divided between generations, after the fermentation of Weibo, it became an online violence against certain individuals; with the deepening of #MeToo and the participation of a large number of "Weibo feminists", sexual assaults The case has become a "traffic responsibility" in a public topic. In the face of some highly controversial cases, some actors also choose to retreat bravely among the complicated parties, confusing details and loud accusations. Faced with these, I have a sense of powerlessness.

"Liberalism is being abandoned by the times." I couldn't help but sigh in my heart. For my sigh, some friends who are also liberals will object. They believe that the direction of the development of the times is still freedom and democracy, but there may be some twists and turns in the middle, and even a cold winter. If this is a long-term trend in the world, I don't necessarily disagree. What I worry about is that there is less and less soil suitable for liberalism in China. When I wrote "The Generation of Public Culture from the Three Waves of Criticism of #MeToo" two years ago, I found that the language of the "minority" debate was still biased towards liberalism. (Only more controversial). The proportion of young people I have come into contact with who are interested in ideas and current affairs and who are academically ambitious also label themselves as “Marxists” than as “liberals”. On the other hand, among those who supported the authorities, the moderate voice gradually faded away, and was covered up by the roar of "loyalty is not absolute, it is absolute disloyalty". Among ordinary people, as the relationship between China and the outside world becomes tense, their "consciousness of enemy and self" is also strengthened. Those familiar with history know that this kind of awareness often induces humanitarian tragedies in their own countries. It's getting harder and harder for liberalism to win supporters who want to make a difference.

For those who are skeptical of liberalism, the decline of liberalism is self-inflicted, or rather, by China's liberals. Nationalists say that liberalism has not linked itself to the great rejuvenation of the country, cannot give a liberal plan for the prosperity of the country, and cannot attract ordinary Chinese people. Leftists say that, in the final analysis, liberalism represents the interests of China's capitalists and middle class, and turns a blind eye to the suffering of the vast majority of workers at the bottom. Christians say that Chinese liberals fail to understand that the true essence of Western civilization lies in Christianity.

There may be some truth to these claims, but aside from the fact that these criticisms conflict with each other, even if liberalism does, it won't necessarily turn things around. As I've said elsewhere, ideas also have "currents", and even more so with political ideas. Liberalism was wiped out by power in China in the 1950s, why can't such a thing happen again? Our generation of liberals is destined to bear the full impact of the ebb of their own beliefs.

During the week that Mr. Xu Zhangrun was taken away, my mentality underwent complex changes. His "Six Chapters of Hundred Years" is a collection of articles he has written fiercely criticizing the government in recent years, and this book and "Rebirth of Liberalism and Political Virtue" happen to be a series of a publisher, and his experience is very difficult. It's hard to make me feel "dead lips and teeth cold". On Twitter and various telegram groups, everyone ran around and called out, concerned about Mr. Xu's news. But some people suddenly speculated: Did Teacher Xu really go to "buy spring" and get caught? They further said that for elite men who "buy sex", even if they are anti-authoritarian, they don't deserve much sympathy, because they already enjoy too much privilege. When I first saw it, I was very angry, and then I gradually came to understand this mentality. This may be an attempt to relieve my inner powerlessness: since he has enjoyed privileges and has bad conduct, we have no obligation to support him with all our strength. . In the final analysis, this is not a moral cleanliness, but more likely a moral cowardice.

After two days of fear, anger and struggle, I finally have a sense of enlightenment: the mission of our generation may not be to strive for "one victory after another", but, like Mr. Xu, in the regime In the face of the humiliation and the coldness of the world, he guarded his "honesty" and waited for the visitors. Nor do we want to live like martyrs and ascetic people, to block the long-winded mouths of the vindicators, but to continue to live our lives in a liberal manner. We continue to read books, make money, fall in love, do sports, maintain physical and mental health, and be full of laughter. This is the biggest failure of Tekken.

As long as liberalism does not detach itself from the best values of human beings, there is nothing to fear in a temporary ebb.