Tuesday, June 2, 2009

在中国,《以为真实,而非事实》压倒真理? In China, 'truthiness' trumps truth?

安娜·多诺休是个工作了几乎30年的得奖的新闻工作者。2008年的春季学期,她在北京人民大学担任富布莱特学者,鼓吹新闻自由的价值。
5月12日,《基督教科学箴言报》发表了她的一篇文章,题为“在中国,《以为真实,而非事实》压倒真理”。以下引用她的一些言论,看看一些西方学者是如何地无知、傲慢与好为人师。她应该知道,中国学生完全有权利不赞同她的看法。真希望她能洗耳恭听,接受别人的意见。
‘我承认,我是天真。在中国政府残忍地镇压了天安门广场的学生民主运动的二十年后,我以为这个运动的一些痕迹还可以在中国找到。1989年学生的亲民主运动中很多是北京学生。可是,在北京的人民大学教了六个月的新闻学后,我发现很少年轻人有兴趣继续高举自由女神的火炬。
那些二十年前举世瞩目的学生大多已被遗忘。他们的民主、投票权与新闻自由的信息已经为现代中国的经济动力所埋没……
与其像大多数西方人一样对镇压感到惊恐,他们反而对1989年那些学生如果成功而造成混乱与社会剧变感到烦恼。安定与保证经济至上,其他公民自由权力之类能在遥远的未来一天达成就不错了。
更令人困扰的是缺乏批判性思维,有时还盲目认为中国正在正轨上,最好不要动摇它。中国人的自豪与自信,正危险地步向民族主义。健康的批判被认为是不爱国。
在怪异的角色交换下,这些年轻的学生反而提醒我这个年长的教师应该要有耐心。他们重复地告诉我,中国是一个发展中的国家,经济的发展总有一天会导致我所鼓励的改革。可是当我提醒他们,很多发展中的国家,如印度,民主与经济同时发展,他们并不为所动。
我在失望中离开中国。我要我的中国学生拥有的是美国学生认为理所当然的一个畅所欲言的机会,投票的机会,在不受政府管制的新闻界工作的机会。可是当我问我的学生,如果在一个理想的世界里,他们想不想政府不干涉他们的生活。他们一致的反应是‘不’。他们喜欢政府告诉他们的东西…….
正如一个美国外交官一再提醒我的那番话,他们不知道他们所不知道的事……’
注:Truthiness是美国电视讽刺明星史蒂芬·科尔伯特于2005首次应用的含有讽刺意味的新词,形容一个人自认凭自觉就了解事物,而不需有证据、逻辑、验明与事实。含有‘以为真实,而非事实’的意味。
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Anne Donohue has been an award winning journalist for almost thirty years. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Renmin University in Beijing during the spring semester 2008 where she preached the virtues of a free press.
On 12 May 2009, The Christian Science Monitor published her article “In China, 'truthiness' trumps truth”, and I quote some of her views to show how some Westerners can be ignorant,arrogant and, as the Chinese saying goes, like to lecture people. She should know that the Chinese students have every right to disagree with her views and if only she is willing to listen and accept their views.
‘I'll admit it, I was naive. Twenty years after the Chinese government brutally put down a student democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, I thought some vestige of that movement might still be found in China. But after spending six months in Beijing teaching journalism students at Renmin University, where several of the 1989 pro-democracy activists were once students, I found very few young people interested in carrying the torch of Lady Liberty.
The students who transfixed the world 20 years ago are largely forgotten. Their message of democracy, the right to vote, and freedom of the press has been buried by the economic juggernaut of modern China……
Rather than feeling horror about the crackdown, as most Westerners do, they were more troubled by the chaos and social upheaval those 1989 students might have unleashed had they been successful. Stability and economic security reign supreme; other civil liberties might be nice someday far into the future…….
More disconcerting is the lack of critical thinking, and at times, blind faith that China is on a roll, so don't rock the boat. Chinese pride and boosterism veer dangerously close to nationalism. Healthy criticism is seen as unpatriotic.
In a weird role reversal, the young students were the ones reminding me, the older teacher, to be patient. Repeatedly, they told me that China is a developing country, and that economic development might one day lead to some of the reforms I was encouraging. But when I reminded them that many developing countries – India, for example – have democracy and economic development, they were unconvinced.
I left China discouraged. I wanted for my Chinese students what my American students take for granted: a chance to speak freely, to vote, to work in the field of journalism unfettered by the government. But when I asked my students, if in an ideal world, would they want the government to get out of their lives, the unanimous response was no. They liked what the government was telling them…….
As one American diplomat repeatedly reminded me, they don't know what they don't know….’
Note: Truthiness is a term first used in its recent satirical sense by an American television comedian Stephen Colbertin 2005, to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

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