MCLC: Why Haven't You Been Banned Yet (1)

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Why Haven’t You Been Banned Yet (1)
I admire Professor Wasserstrom's desire to resist groupthink, discard shibboleths, and promote free discussion in the public sphere.  If one may judge by recent events on American college campuses, he has his work cut out for him.
As for the selective denial of visas, may I offer the opinion that to have been banned is an indicator of something that, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is a credit to the person banned.  Not to have been banned, however, is not an indicator.  It doesn't say anything, good or bad, about the person who travels freely to China.  Professor Wasserstrom's explanation of what he worries about and doesn't worry about, and the circumspection he practices when speaking in China at the invitation of local friends, is both reasonable and honorable, and maybe it will help the general reader form a more realistic idea of the conditions under which scholars like himself are working.
There are two distinctions he might have profitably made when he compared the atmosphere in the U.S. after 9/11 to the atmosphere of Chinese political campaigns.
The first is between social pressure and political, state-sanctioned pressure. The authors whom he telephoned, who apparently received criticism and hostility after writing their articles in America, were not taken in for questioning at midnight or dragged into court on fraud charges.
The second has to do with the nature of patriotism.  I cannot see why he objected to the lesson in which his daughter's class was asked to draw American flags.  I would like to see the children of every country, including China, harbor a love for their own country, its land, and its flag. But I would also hope they will be taught to distinguish between those things and particular leaders, parties, and policies.  Ai guo is good.  Ai dang, not so much.
A. E. Clark <aec at raggedbanner.com>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on December 18, 2015
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