The Possibility of Different Angles in Hong Kong's Public Discussion - Begins with the Appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong

[Note: This short article was originally written for a letter from readers of the South China Morning Post about the appointment of two new Vice-Chancellors at the University of Hong Kong. The original manuscript is in English. However, because "Nanzao" requires detailed address and phone number, and the maximum number of words is 400 words, I decided to translate it myself and post it here. After studying at the University of Hong Kong for four years, whether it is the university or the Hong Kong society, I have some understanding and opinions. Last year, I started to "aphasia". Although it seems that many people are talking and there are fierce camps, I still feel that the public discussion is getting more and more. Single boring. I have been silent for too long, and some words have never been said by others, so I will talk about them, so I will talk about the angle that few people talk about. All errors and opinions are my responsibility. 】

It's bizarre, and it doesn't seem to be surprising, but the reason is not so straightforward: almost every debate in Hong Kong's public discussions over the past few years has ended up being a pro-Beijing vs. pro-democracy confrontation. In this binary opposition, the establishment has always prevailed. Facts have proven time and again that as long as it is not the voice of the government or people who "love the country and love Hong Kong", then these voices, no matter how loud, are insignificant.

And that reality is manifesting again today. Since almost all the debate revolves around Shen Zuojun's reported party membership and mainland China, any doubts and reservations about the candidates for the two new vice-presidents of HKU have been described, labelled, and dismissed as vicious slander and over-imaginative sensationalism— — although this is not always unfounded.

But to be clear, party membership (whether true or not) and nationality are not and should not be portrayed as real issues, whether based on factual considerations or strategies based on public discourse. The most immediate consequence of that argument is that it invites accusations that are not entirely unreasonable, and then leads all discussion to the aforementioned confrontation. As long as you have a little understanding of China's political reality, becoming a member of the Communist Party (at least in the age of Shenjian's entry into the party) is not so much a political loyalty or a statement, but a choice for social status and career development. The belief that Shen is a party member, therefore has the CCP's mission, and is an agent of the CCP, has no plausible factual basis, but is just chasing the wind, from an imagination based on "our" "free world" vs "their" authoritarian regime; There is almost no such imagination that is not simplified and flattened. And this imagination is very popular in Hong Kong, whether it is localists, pan-democrats, or the establishment, it is quite acceptable - in fact, the logic of the establishment's response shows that they are enthusiastically embracing this imagination. Perhaps it is true that the two newly appointed vice-principals were approached by Yousi, but we don’t know the inside story after all, so conspiracy-theoretic speculation is meaningless; besides, as many people have said, it’s not that mainlanders do not naturally support non-establishment, Rather, many are pushed into the establishment alike by nativist hostility and stereotypes tied to "romantic" imaginings of authoritarianism. Even if Shin is a party member, it's hard to say how loyal he really is; instead, the establishment royalists who are not party members are more loyal than many genuine party members - although this "loyalty" is rarely speculative.

But as said at the beginning, that's not the point. I say this just to deconstruct the crux of the core issue that many see. What I want to talk about is two very rarely talked about perspectives against this appointment. Although the topic is huge, it looks like I have to deal with all the public discussions in Hong Kong and come up with some general guidelines, but that's not what I want to do. On the contrary, the yardstick of this angle is exactly what I cannot do; I can only propose a different angle in this topic to show that our public discussion may not actually be the current model. The two perspectives I want to mention are very simple: diversity and academic development – these are the two points that HKU President Zhang Xiang and other people who support appointments are more willing to talk about; the latter is also a large part of mainland students. The politicized politically inclined people like to invoke.

As Professor Chen Zuwei (Professor Chen is one of the "few people") said on Facebook after the school committee passed the appointment resolution, the appointment decision means that the entire vice-president team of HKU will start next year. male. In academic buzzwords, it is "manel". This is disastrous for gender diversity and equality. HKU was the first university in the world to respond to HeForShe's call, and the school has always been so proud in its public relations campaign. This result fully shows that HKU, at least the governance team, has completely deviate from the promise of gender equality. Apparently neither the selection committee nor the school board realized there was anything wrong with this; nor did we have evidence that the selection committee had proposed any women or other gender candidates in the final selection round or even in the first round - naturally , according to the "morality" and "law" that President Zhang Xiang said in the second school official mail after the decision was announced, we should not actually know who else is except the finalized candidate. So what we can conclude at the moment is that apparently, in the eyes of the majority of these two committees (someone will say "grandpa" at this point, but let's not resort to "higher power" so quickly) only men There are no qualified women or other gender candidates in Hong Kong, the whole country, the Chinese-speaking circle or the world, even though the school supervisor is a woman - maybe one is enough. It was very speechless and staggering. The facts make it hard for me to believe that this team can make the faculty of HKU more diverse as Zhang Xiang said in the official post.

Another aspect of diversity is the diversity of academic (disciplinary) backgrounds, but this has more to do with the second point I want to talk about, which is academic development. Serious people who go to the website of the Office of the President of the University of Hong Kong and browse around will find that the academic background of the team of the vice-chancellor and vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong is generally business or application, and it is oriented to the business, administrative and industry sectors; in short, it is for usefulness. The two newly appointed Vice-Chancellors are responsible for research and academic development respectively, both of which are oriented towards the application of information technology; the high achievement of scholars in their fields does not mean that they can have a forward-looking grasp of the overall academic development of the university; The research does not mean that the research of the basic disciplines is certain. As an academic institution that claims to be a comprehensive, research university, these are odd (but not really odd if one considers the neoliberalisation of the world's higher education). It is hard to imagine what academic advances such a team can really bring to the humanities, social sciences, and basic natural sciences; these are the cornerstones of comprehensive universities and research-oriented academic institutions, and the prerequisites for any application. In fact, application orientation runs counter to scholarship itself—academic itself is not meant to be useful; first understanding, then knowledge. Just like our daily experience in the classroom: "What's the use of learning this", the consideration of usefulness will interfere with or even hinder understanding and knowledge. Conversely, because application is based on understanding and knowledge, application orientation itself is detrimental to application. The unofficial motto of Fudan University, which is highly respected by the public, is "free and useless soul". Far. If academics cannot be exempted from the necessity of being useful, then academics and ideas cannot be truly free—and this academic freedom is simply more than the "academic freedom" of the University of Hong Kong that dies at least ten times a year.

[The above is translated and modified from the original English submission]

So far, I have discussed two aspects of the Newport University vice-campus that I think are important but rarely talked about: gender diversity and academic development. At the same time, I also discuss my views on the "task" of academics, pointing out what I see as a more fundamental aspect of academic freedom than its political implications - freedom from useful and whole-hearted pursuits of understanding and knowledge. I also try to dispel the inevitability/necessity that discussions of identity and political attitudes and connections take center stage in public discourse in Hong Kong. (Some people will say that I am "off the ground", but academics and universities themselves are the topic of "off the ground" - according to the common understanding of "off the ground" in the Hong Kong context.) I think the two perspectives I mainly deal with are The incident of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong is more powerful and meaningful for discussion - in the face of these issues, the government and the establishment should not have much ability to bring the discussion into the "sewer" of the dual opposition between unity and independence. This kind of binary opposition doesn't make any sense, it only blocks discussion and consumes energy - obviously the government and establishment as strongmen and trolls have this energy, but we ordinary people with our own lives, careers and studies do not. .

What I want to express is that public discussion can have various angles without being bound by the words and perspectives that have become clichés or deadlocks; sometimes some people just want the discussion to stay in that range and spin around, thereby consuming and discrediting . Sometimes these angles take us a moment to get out of the way to discover, and other times they are things we think are "not important right now".

Nor do I write about the "debating skills" of the "debating" contest - I fully believe what I say, and while I'm not sure I'm right, these are my current and defended views. As mentioned earlier, the two "new" perspectives introduced in this article are not universally applicable, but specific to this issue; and the reason why I choose these two perspectives is because I have thought about these two issues, Rather than come out of nowhere and make up the numbers.

Hope to hear more different voices and see different perspectives in the public discussion. The more a single public field discourse is, the easier it is to be manipulated, silenced, and stifled.