Wang Hui's big contribution to English, so far
...judging from my browsing of the internet, I do not want to see web lynching or a media circus. There is something truly weird about many of the attacks.Is Zarrow seeing "web lynching" on the internet? What does that look like? Or is he afraid that he will see it soon, judging from his browsing? What does he mean by "weird"? (In my experience, Chinese prose on the internet is almost always "weird," and if not, that's also "weird.")
As a member of a China-studies email list I am on said in the opening reply to Zarrow, it might have been better for Zarrow not to participate at all in this affair, or else if he had wanted to be useful he could have signed onto an open letter to CASS requesting "an open, transparent and impartial investigation" into the affair. I note this because it's a nice example of the kind of intercultural pitfall one faces as an American scholar who wishes to hold a conversation between two extremely complex institutions and traditions. It's no wonder that so often our replies to problems are -- silence. I don't want to encourage silence, but rather sticking to a harsh, cold realism. Just the facts ma'am. Zarrow did make a mistake by acting in a case when he didn't have all the facts, only a sense that something in it was "weird."
I actually joined the Chinese internet ‘attack’ and ‘lynching’ AFTER that petition was publicised, coz I wasn’t expecting it to become an internationalised scandal. If we assume that Zarrow genuinely wants an investigation by Qinghua and CASS, then he failed to realise that in China, to start the investigation of big dogs such as Wang Hui, pressure from the public is more than essential. If he thought what we wanted was an internet verdict, then he completely missed the point. We want an investigation. And for ppl taking a rather neutral political stance, an investigation is the best way to either confirm his plagiarism or refute it. Without an investigation, I’ll never consider Wang to be innocent — he’ll always be a suspect.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I read Zarrow’s blog post as one full of pride and prejudice. He’s kind of saying: hey, he might have done that plagiarism thing, but you guys, you modern Chinese scholars, all of you, you are no better! And we don’t need preaching on how our scholarly tradition worked. Western tradition the same if we go back long enough — just go and ask your Classicists. Also, he seems to be saying: we have all these impartial investigations to solve this kind of problems; you guys don’t! Screw you! Then can’t he see that the ppl he attacks are exactly those who want the establishment of this system?
In my opinion, Peter Zarrow has made a big mistake by signing the letter. From his China Beat article, we can see that he strongly believes in the investigations conducted by the American Historical Association in case that anyone in the profession has been accused of plagiarism. However, the letter/petition he signed is now being used to block the establishment of such an investigation in China in the case of Wang Hui's alleged plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteSigning a letter or petition is a statement that you are in agreement with the ideas and opinions expressed in that letter. Claiming that the "letter does not, technically, state that its signers are sure Wang did not commit plagiarism" is a very poor excuse. The letter claims that the charges have been "contested and discredited", meaning that according to "Zhong Biao, Shu Wei, Wei Xing and others", Wang is innocent of plagiarism. By submitting his own name in support of the letter, Zarrow is endorsing this claim.
There are some blatant contradictions in his article. He supports the creation of an investigation yet he signs a letter that prevents it from happening. When asked, “How would you know if Wang did plagiarize or not?” his answer is: "it is not the main issue". Then, a few paragraphs later, he admits that "Plagiarism charges are serious". Do these contradictions come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the letter he has signed, or confusion of the academic proceedures in China, or, possibly, from a budding sense of regret at signing the letter?