Senators Against Cixin Liu
Following the announcement of a Netflix series based on Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, five Republican senators sent a letter objecting to the plans. The senators (Martha McSally of Arizona, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina), are troubled by comments Liu made in a New Yorker interview in 2019 that seemed to defend Chinese treatment of the oppressed Uighurs. The senators want “Netflix to seriously reconsider the implications of providing a platform to Mr. Liu in producing this project” asking, “Does Netflix agree that the Chinese Communist Party’s interment of 1.8 to 3 million Uyghurs in internment or labor camps based on their ethnicity is unacceptable?” For more, and to read the letter: <www.mcsally.senate.gov/news/press-releases/mcsally-senators-raise-concerns-about-netflixs-choice-to-adapt-and-promote-film-by-proponent-of-uyghur-internment>.
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Yes, the mass internment of the Uighurs is not acceptable, but no, we must not penalize Netflix and Cixin Liu over it. Are those same senators troubled as well by the mass internment of US immigrants? They should be, and equally. Cancel Culture won’t serve human justice.
I want to see this anger at all the manufacturing companies that use Uighur labour, but I doubt you will see this kind of reaction
Are you really so short sighted dear senators and members of public. Do you think people in China are free to say their opinion about those bloody Communists? If he criticised them, they would probably send him to the same indictment camp as those Uyghurs.
How do those same Senators feel about the mass internment of African American men in the USA?
The senators are distressingly narrow and short-sighted. Are you surprised that a visionary writer, one whose work has captured the imaginations of people around the world, voices his opinions in a manner consistent with the limited knowledge permissible in his culture, his society?
Cixin Liu is one of the seminal storytellers, myth-makers, visionary literary-science thinkers of the world. He is a Chinese citizen, a science fiction writer in a country where the lack of freedom of expression has expressed itself, among many ways, in the fact that Chinese science fiction is a pretty novel thing. And yet his work has captured, by awe-inspiring and poetic storm, the imaginations of a diverse range of readers around the world, and will likely do so far into the future.
If Liu were an actual bigot, or propagandist, a mouthpiece for an oppressive regime, it would still be a very viable point that his artistic work should be available so that we exponents of a more-free society can enjoy it and judge it on its own merits – especially since he is not writing seditious Anti-American material. As would be the case for a bigot or criminal in America who happened to do fine work. Yes, we would argue the point. And, given the nature of cancel-culture, that childish paranoid syndrome which keeps finding its way into episodes of American history, of the baffling tendency in our “free society” to stifle and demonize those who espouse unpopular points of view, we SHOULD argue the point, since it is this very argument which protects against those enemies of the betters angels of our nature.
He is not a mouthpiece for an oppressive regime. He is one of its victims – a man who, like millions before him, believes what it is customary and even required for him to believe, in that culture, with its brutality and its systematic control of what people are free to know and say. At least, he is a Chinese citizen who believes what he believes based on the restricted and contrived details available to a Chinese citizen. Are you smart American senators insisting that American filmmakers can only turn this Chinese author’s seminal and visionary work into a film if he espouses what an American citizen should know to be true?
Would a re-education program suffice to elevate Liu’s understanding such that his story can be turned into a movie? Nevermind that Liu’s work is full of more vision, hard truth, and compassion than anything most citizens of any nation will achieve in their life’s work.
He is, at worst, misinformed about a matter of his national policy – in a nation which does not share even that compromised version of transparency enjoyed by Americans. He believes things to be true which his culture insists are to be believed true. And still, this is no reason at all to prevent him from having his story told in cinematic form. Or in any form.
The irony in the senators’ efforts is epic; perhaps they should have read the book. Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that the story in question is about the challenges humanity faces in preparation for destruction by alien forces who have decided that the human race cannot be trusted to evolve into good neighbors in the galactic community… because of our instinct to oppress, to exploit, and how our language, culture, and government reflect that it is in our nature to do so. The Trisolarans bear us no ill will; they are simply committed to cleansing the neighborhood of thieves, liars, and predators, and they are polite enough to let us know how much time we have to prepare for what, in the consensus view of the races populating the Dark Forest, is good safety practice. In this, Liu is a commentator, in the form of nuanced and exciting storytelling, on the very base and even paranoid mindset which has made a federal case out of attempts to turn this once-in-a-century tale of how an existential threat forces humanity to put aside its demons in favor of the better angels which might one day preserve us.
When you get around to reading the books, Senators, see if you see, as most of us do, that your objections, and your return to the are both illogical and painfully ironic, not to mention un-American. And, most of all, that they stand to deprive us, good American citizens all, of the right to view a rich interpretation of an epic story about human nature in the face of the consequences of its worst impulses, and its persistent self-righteousness. Back off, folks. You don’t get the story, you’ve misrepresented the problem, and you have no business policing what stories can be told, what stories we can watch, and who gets to decide.
Cixin Liu is an international treasure. I’m sure he would be open to checking out what is really happening to the Uighurs in China. But regardless, please try to reign in your own censorious power-impulses. You’re not only wrong and misinformed – you’re behaving in an un-American manner, and do not speak for most of us.
THIS IS A CORRECTED VERSION OF MY ORIGINAL POST:
The senators are distressingly narrow and short-sighted. Are they surprised that a visionary writer, one whose work has captured the imaginations of people around the world, voices his opinions in a manner consistent with the limited knowledge permissible in his culture, his society?
Cixin Liu is one of the seminal storytellers, myth-makers, visionary literary-science thinkers of the world. He is a Chinese citizen, a science fiction writer in a country where the lack of freedom of expression has expressed itself, among many ways, in the fact that Chinese science fiction is a pretty novel thing. And yet his work has captured, by awe-inspiring and poetic storm, the imaginations of a diverse range of readers around the world, and will likely do so far into the future.
If Liu were an actual bigot, or propagandist, a mouthpiece for an oppressive regime, it would still be a very viable point that his artistic work should be available so that we exponents of a more-free society can enjoy it and judge it on its own merits.
He is not a mouthpiece for an oppressive regime. He is one of its victims – a man who, like millions before him, believes what it is customary and even required for him to believe, in that culture, with its brutality and its systematic control of what people are free to know and say. At least, he is a Chinese citizen who believes what he believes based on the restricted and contrived details available to a Chinese citizen. Are you smart American senators insisting that American filmmakers can only turn this Chinese author’s seminal and visionary work into a film if he espouses what an American citizen should know to be true? Are you mistaking being misinformed about one’s government’s policies for being complicit in those policies? If so, you have some house-cleaning to do closer to home.
Would a re-education program suffice to elevate Liu’s understanding such that his story can be turned into a movie? Never mind that Liu’s work is full of more vision, hard truth, and compassion than anything most citizens of any nation will achieve in their life’s work.
He is, at worst, misinformed about a matter of his national policy – in a nation which does not share even that compromised version of transparency enjoyed by Americans. He believes things to be true which his culture insists are to be believed true. And still, this is no reason at all to prevent him from having his story told in cinematic form. Or in any form.
The irony in the senators’ efforts is epic; perhaps they should have read the book. Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that the story in question is about the challenges humanity faces in preparation for destruction by alien forces who have decided that the human race cannot be trusted to evolve into good neighbors in the galactic community… because of our instinct to oppress, to exploit, and how our language, culture, and government reflect that it is in our nature to do so. The Trisolarans bear us no ill will; they are simply committed to cleansing the neighborhood of thieves, liars, and predators, and they are polite enough to let us know how much time we have to prepare for what, in the consensus view of the races populating the Dark Forest, is good safety practice. In this, Liu is a commentator, in the form of nuanced and exciting storytelling, on the very base and even paranoid mindset which has, in a life-imitating art scenario, made a federal case out of this once-in-a-century tale of how an existential threat forces humanity to put aside its demons in favor of the better angels which might one day preserve us.
What will your net gain be once you’ve succeeded in censoring the cinematic interpretation of an opus which has people thinking and speaking in new ways, around the world? Will you feel you’ve sufficiently punished this author, this decent man, who is a product of the same censorious culture which has imprisoned the Uighurs and presented it to the people as though it were an act of kindness? A man who would be punished himself were it not for his prominence on the world stage as a visionary artist. Is it Liu’s crime to be misinformed in a culture of misinformation?
When you get around to reading the books, Senators, see if you see, as most of us do, that your objections, and your choice to resort to “cancelling” a man who has harmed no one, but who is (shocking!) gullible about his government’s treatment of ethnic minorities are both illogical and painfully ironic, not to mention un-American. And, most of all, that they stand to deprive us, good American citizens all, of the right to view a rich interpretation of an epic story about human nature in the face of the consequences of its worst impulses, and its persistent self-righteousness. Back off, folks. You don’t get the story, you’ve misrepresented the problem, and you have no business policing what stories can be told, what stories we can watch, and who gets to decide.
Cixin Liu is an international treasure. I’m sure he would be open to checking out what is really happening to the Uighurs in China. But regardless, please try to reign in your own censorious power-impulses. You’re not only wrong and misinformed – you’re behaving in an un-American manner, and do not speak for most of us.