4 replies on “Censorship of Philosophy in Hong Kong”

  1. Thank you for this post John. It is unfortunate that there is something like this happening again but the first thing I think about is funding…

    At least from the Wikipedia page (yeah I know, not the best place… but it was the first bit of info I had found) it does look like Cambridge has gotten some pretty nice donations from Chinese sources. I don’t know THAT much about the funding situation in the UK but from what I do know (and this is the general trend in the USA too) that it is fairly poor. If there is a financial connection and if someone knew, I would very much like to hear about this. I assume that if we wished to keep our journals more “free”, we would have to make sure our funding is reliable (could be wrong).

    The next thing I think about is that SOAS (still named “School of ORIENTAL and African Studies”) was basically founded to help train British people to rule over their colonies… Those same colonies that supposedly the British “never did anything bad and only ever built roads and schools and helped the locals”… That same narrative that is still defended by British academia? SOAS, the same place that wont teach “non-white philosophers”? The SOAS students were upset about this a while back and I bet they still are. I highly doubt you would get funding in the UK if your research was on all of the cruel realities of colonialism (much less get funding from the Rhodes Scholarship, huh?). Again, if that Wikipedia page was reliable (…) it looks like this journal was initially supported and funded by the CIA.

    Okay, I will stop my rant. Not trying to defend the censorship but… SOAS and British Academia are also pretty guilty of their own wrongs. Wish it were not the case.

  2. Analects 15.15 tells us:

    躬自厚而薄責於人,則遠怨矣。
    The Master said, “He who requires much from himself and little from others, will keep himself from being the object of resentment.”

    Instead of always getting hairy over other people’s perceived faults, let’s sort ourselves out first. Because there’s plenty to sort out at “home” before we claim any kind of moral authority in front of other people.

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