MCLC: Yan Lianke on amnesia (1,2)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Ian Johnson <iandjohnson at gmail.com>
Subject: Yan Lianke on amnesia (1)
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Mr. Bate must realize that an op-ed cannot provide all the information
that he requests. (Indeed, his response is about as long as the original
piece!) He must also realize that an op-ed is a work of opinion and is
clearly marked as such in the print and online editions of the newspaper.
Such essays are not meant to be a balanced news article; if Yan Lianke
decides to focus on the problems of historical suppression in China and
not its positive side, that is completely consistent with the premise of
an op-ed. Asking him to consider all sides of the equation is somewhat
disingenuous; if this is not how he sees it, why should he?  Finally, why
should we assume that this article was published in China? It probably
wasn't, for the very reasons that Mr. Yan outlines in his argument.

Ian

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From: A. E. Clark <aec at raggedbanner.com>
Subject: Yan Lianke on amnesia (2)

Professor Bate says that Mr. Yan's computer metaphors for the deletion of
memory are "an insult to human dignity." Mr. Yan chose those metaphors to
depict what he considers to be his government's attitude toward the minds
of its citizenry (Aristotle's "human tool" comes to mind), an attitude
which Mr. Yan does not share.  That Mr. Yan thinks the program largely
successful shows his sense of human frailty, for sure, but the indignation
with which he describes it bespeaks a respect for human dignity.

Professor Bate writes, "Yan Lianke references kindergarten as if it were a
Chinese invention," and observes that it was a German invention. But when
Yan writes, "The state prefers the intelligence of its people to remain at
the level of children in a kindergarten" he is not finding fault with
kindergarten, but with what he sees as the stultifying maintenance of
kindergarten norms in the political life of adults: a regimen which is
indeed characteristic of modern China, and Michael Anti has made precisely
this point using very similar language.

Professor Bate's sentence "These comments are not to deny that information
controls existed in China in the past and continue to exist; but certainly
it would be only fair to acknowledge the positive progress that has been
made steadily in the country over the past decades" inspires a few
questions. Has the progress been made "steadily"?  Has the progress
occurred because of the state, or in spite of it? Has the "progress" been
on the same order of magnitude as the repression, or has it consisted of
minor concessions resulting from (a) the changing technology of
communication and (b) the fact that, as a result of economic development,
a narrower set of data is now embarrassing to the Party? If I were to tell
you that the police recently broke into a man's room somewhere and punched
him hard enough to make his brain bleed because he had gathered the names
of victims of an earthquake -- and that despite an international outcry
those police officers were never disciplined, and no apology was ever
offered -- would your first thought be to celebrate the "positive
progress" that this country had made with respect to freedom of
information? Would that even be your second thought, or your third?

Professor Bate argues that youths before college have little political
awareness, so there is nothing for them to forget. But -- with respect to
personal memories -- Mr. Yan locates the erasure elsewhere: "the brains of
people who have memories must be reformatted, voices of people who are
good with words must be silenced, so that the memory of younger
generations won’t be contaminated." Yan's thought might have been clearer
if he had written "so that the awareness [or consciousness] of younger
generations won't be contaminated." It is hard to avoid conceptual
confusion when speaking at the same time about the collective memory of a
society and about the personal memories of its members. Perhaps the
original essay, from which the NYT column was abridged, made the
distinction more clearly.

Finally, Professor Bate asks speculatively: "Where was [Yan's essay]
originally published, then? Could it be that it was published right under
the noses of those state administrators with their fingers on the “Delete”
button?"  Thanks to a prompt and gracious reply from Jane Weizhen Pan, I
can answer this question. Mr. Yan's essay was not previously published
anywhere, and the original is not available online.

A. E. Clark