Quandaries of Existence

When all is said and done, control over thought amounts to control over the expression of a person's thought. Therefore, the struggle for freedom of thought is in actuality a struggle for the freedom of expression in thought.

A few years ago, a Chinese novelist went on a trip overseas. When someone abroad asked him if Chinese writers enjoy the freedom of expression, he tersely responded that they do. This reply immediately led to reproaches from a few of his literary peers back home. The novelist later explained in his defense: “What I said is that Chinese writers enjoy the freedom of expression; I didn't say that we have the freedom to publish what we have written.” While this sort of self-justification is shrewd, it is a conceptual muddle, since what we call the freedom of expression refers to nothing other than the freedom to publish what we have written.

To struggle for the freedom of expression in thought under the communist system is an extremely arduous endeavor. The most distressing aspect is that the more you struggle for the freedom of expression in thought under such a system and thus likely incur suppression by the regime, the more likely it is that you would eventually lose whatever limited freedom of expression in thought you enjoyed at the outset. Conversely, if you have never directly and publicly struggled for the freedom of expression in thought, you are likely to have preserved opportunities that you had at the outset for expressing your thought; you would thus be able to express your thought more than various other persons would.

Just take a look at China nowadays: many people who have striven to advocate in favor of the freedom of expression and daringly voiced their political dissent have been imprisoned, exiled, or else forbidden to make an appearance at public forums, thereby appearing to have already lost their own voice and ability to appeal to the broad masses in China. At the same time, those people who have never (or hardly ever) participated in the struggle for the freedom of thought have all along maintained opportunities to address the Chinese public, thereby bringing their continuous and broad-ranging influence to bear on the scene. This phenomenon serves to create the impression that the latter type of people appear to have made considerably more important or effective contributions than the former type of people to the promotion of dynamic thought among the Chinese people.