Some of us will leave

Dear K,

It’s very considerate of you. I’m doing well, and will be happy to read the recent thoughts you’ve just sent along. Every day I read and write and keep a close eye on Hong Kong’s social and political development. My thesis writing, which has little to do with Hong Kong’s current situation, has reached a stage where I should no longer deflect some of the strongest challenges to the theory I’ve been trying to defend. This is not a small problem to me, as I’m running out of time. But I don’t want to finesse those challenges (in my view, political philosophy and ethics shouldn’t be an art of making controversial assumptions and bracketing challenges, at least we should never feel too comfortable in doing so). I also know that my supervisor will raise many of those challenges against me, in his usually forceful way. So I need a few more months than expected to work on the thesis before seeing him at Oxford. 

I’ve been running a reading group for more than a year. L has just helped me to add you to the group (and I’ve passed your hello to her!). Our group so far has studied several important works. I’m happy about that! It’s great to see my friends of the group regularly.

Thanks for reminding me about the risks of revealing my identity to the public. You’re right -- I ought to be more careful. I never expected what you advised me just two years ago (at that time I didn’t understand why you were so worried) has become an ordinary topic to many Hong Kong people; they (we) are considering leaving this place. 

Indeed we still have a long way to go. The recent political development seems to suggest that self-sacrifice is not worth making, however honourable and courageous you think it is. I am extremely reluctant to believe this, but it seems to me true, at least not totally wrong. For the obnoxious truth is that the Communist party continues to exist, and that “our” government and the whole class of tycoons, both of which are tied to many local people’s vested interest, are parasitic on the great party. In many ways, they have been providing a very special form of civic education to Hong Kong citizens, which encourages them to become conciliatory, passive, timid, and, above all, ignorant. And to advance these authoritarian ideals, they are propagandising social harmony, collectivistic nationalism, and, above all, a sense of helplessness. Hong Kong people (alas, I hope) should hate them. So I'm sure that some of us will leave. 

Best,
F

Who Cares What

From my experience, there are two things exceptionally important for any scholar or writer who wants to be serious about his career. They are toughness of mind and purity of heart to pursue intellectual depth. What distinguishes a good scholar or writer from mediocre ones should not be the number of publications or popularity, whether market popularity or a less artificial kind of popularity among sincere non-experts. And we know that no mortal can be entirely tough or pure (which is not regrettable for mortals qua mortals). What seems regrettable, however, is that most people who consider themselves serious about knowledge and art fall in love with their self-images rather easily. They care too much about them (“Oh I look so smart in front of these young people!”). Not just being impure, one’s heart can sink. 

Thomas Nagel on Philosophical Ability

“[S]heer brains—I.Q., logical speed, raw mental muscle—play a powerful role, even though they are not the same thing as philosophical ability. Philosophy is like basketball: being preternaturally tall doesn’t ensure that you’ll be a good basketball player, but it helps an awful lot, and in philosophy it helps to be supersmart. Such people can simply travel farther and faster than the rest of us, and I wish philosophy attracted more of them. But the effects of this sort of intelligence are complex: sometimes, if all that power is put to the service of harebrained intuitions, it yields logically dazzling but implausible results. Even when it goes off the rails, though, brilliance generates structures of thought that command attention and have a life of their own, and their impact on the field doesn’t depend on whether anyone thinks they’re right. This can be a nuisance, but I suppose the devaluation of plausibility is unavoidable in a field so dominated by argument.”
 
--- Thomas Nagel, Other Minds: Critical Essays 1969-1994